Who’s the Boss? (Asking for a Friend)
The last part of Ephesians 5 and the beginning of chapter 6 present what’s often called the “household code”—a set of instructions for how people in various roles should relate to one another. Wives and husbands, children and parents, slaves and masters are all addressed. These sections can be uncomfortable to read today, especially when viewed through the lens of modern ideas about equality and autonomy.
Submission, Sacrifice, and Everything in Between
Ephesians 5:22 begins, “For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” That line has a long and complicated history. For centuries, it has shaped social expectations and even legal norms about the role of women in the home. But the next verse, addressed to husbands, offers a different emphasis: “For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her.” The tone shifts from authority to self-sacrifice. Taken together, these verses suggest a model of mutual care, even if the language of hierarchy remains.
Parenting, Power, and the Chain of Command
The same pattern appears in the following sections. Children are told to obey their parents, and fathers are told not to provoke their children to anger. Slaves are told to obey their masters with sincerity, and masters are reminded that they too “have the same Master in heaven.” The text reflects a social order that was assumed rather than questioned—one where hierarchy was seen as natural. Yet within those hierarchies, Paul seems to encourage restraint, fairness, and compassion.
It raises questions about how moral ideals develop within the frameworks of their time. If Paul were writing to a different audience in a different culture, would his examples have looked the same? Was he endorsing the structures themselves, or offering ethical guidance within them? It’s impossible to know for sure, but the questions highlight the tension between the world the letter addressed and the one we live in now.
Then vs. Now: A Mirror, Not a Manual
When read today, these passages challenge modern readers to think about how social norms evolve. Most people would reject the notion of one person being subordinate to another based solely on gender or status. Yet the idea of mutual responsibility—that power should be balanced by care, and authority by humility—still feels relevant. The text seems to move between two impulses: maintaining order and urging empathy within that order.
The household code may not describe the world we live in, but it reflects how early communities tried to build ethical relationships within the limits of their culture. In that sense, it serves as both a historical document and a mirror. It shows how people have always wrestled with the same question: how to live well together when power is unevenly distributed.