Better Man 5: Marriage Roles That Image God
Better Men: Marriage Roles That Image God
Genesis 1:27–28; 2:15–25; 3:6–17; Ephesians 5:18–33; 1 Corinthians 11:2–12; 1 Timothy 2:8–15; 3:4–5; Titus 2:3–5 | Daniel Simmons | Light House Church | 10/18/26
Introduction
The thesis of this series is that the redemption God wants in this world is uniquely led by better men who have healthy hearts, building healthy households that form healthy churches, shining the healing light of Jesus into this sick and dying world.
This morning we build on the foundation of a healthy heart and put up the walls of a healthy household. We’ve said that without a heart submitted to Jesus’s lordship, daily syncing our lives to his will and walking as sons by the Spirit, nothing lasting can be built. That applies here. The household is where the fruit of our lives becomes tangible: our marriages, our parenting, and all that we produce. So, men, the way we lead our marriages and manage our households is a reflection of the health of our hearts (1 Tim. 3:4–5).
Why start with the household rather than the church?
First, because the Bible does. God didn’t begin with a crowd of individuals forming a community. The first thing he called “not good” was the man’s aloneness (Gen. 2:18). So he formed a family through a marriage covenant, and from it all life and production would come. We believe this is still God’s good design. Contrary to our culture’s beliefs and practice, marriage between one man and one woman is still the foundation of the household, and the household is still the foundation of a healthy society. Even the church grew from house to house (Acts 16:15, 31–34; 1 Cor. 1:16), and is itself called “the household of God” (1 Tim. 3:15).
Second, because the household is ground zero for everything we do and produce. Our hyper-individualism has separated our work, even our ministry, from the household. But God created that work as an extension of the family. Just as everything we say and do flows from the heart, everything we produce flows from the household. That’s the idea behind our name, Light House: we want to radiate light in and through the household to the world. And together we form the household of God, modeled on the family, to equip and support one another in that work. So how we spend or give money, what we produce or consume, how we serve or make disciples, all of it comes back not only to an individual but to the household name, and especially to the head of the household.
That is why this teaching matters so much for men. God calls you to lead as the head of your household, so we need to start with his design for men and women, in the home and outward. If we don’t get the marriage roles right, the bad fruit ripples for generations. It’s part of why we see society crumbling and why we heard such terrible statistics in week one.
The household images God
But this goes beyond a successful life or a healthy society. It comes back to God. He places the household at the center of his design because of what it images: his own nature and character, and the redemption he secured in Christ. So the stakes are high. A healthy household shows the watching world who God is and how he loves us.
God’s authority in his word
One last introductory point. After addressing a controversial matter about women in the gathering, Paul wrote this to the Corinthians:
1 Corinthians 14:36–37 “Or was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.”
When we approach topics that are culturally controversial or personally difficult, we need to remember that this didn’t originate with us. We are aligning our minds and hearts with God’s. So wherever the Scriptures give clarity, as they do here, we must not explain them away. We must fight to embrace them with delight and obey them with joy.
Here is the big idea: God designed marriage to show the world Christ and the church. Husbands lead like Jesus, and wives help like the church.
To do this, I want to do three things:
Show you God’s design for men and women from the Scriptures
Show you how sin twisted that design and how Christ restores it
Give you practical paths for walking faithfully in it
Let’s pray. Father, help us gain clarity from your word, delight in what you have designed, and obey you in everyday life. We want to be like you, Father, so mold us by your Spirit for the sake of Jesus our Lord. Amen.
1. Design: Created Equal, Ordered, and One
On this origin story hangs everything we believe about manhood and womanhood, and about most things!
Genesis 1:27–28 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion…’”
God created mankind in his image, and that image is male and female. We are not made in God’s image apart from our gender, but including it. Men and women share their image-bearing in many ways, but our gender is one important difference that reflects God. Though God reveals himself as Father and uses masculine language for himself, male and female together reflect him more fully.
God blessed “them” together. Both are called to be fruitful, multiply, and rule the earth. Without both male and female, there would be no way to fulfill what they were commissioned to do. Men and women are equal in dignity and equal in calling, though distinct in role.
This is what Genesis 2 zooms in on.
Genesis 2:7, 15–18 “Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature… The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man… Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’”
God formed the man first, from the dust, and called him to work the ground he came from and keep the garden.
Those two verbs, work (abad) and keep (shamar), are the same pair used later for the priests who serve and guard the tabernacle (Num. 3:7–8). Adam’s first job was priestly: to cultivate what God made and to guard it from anything that would defile it. That is the root of a husband’s call to provide and protect.
God gave the man the command concerning the trees before Eve was created, so she most likely heard God’s word through Adam. From the beginning, the man was responsible to keep the garden and his household in order and to carry God’s word to them.
The word helper, ezer kenegdo (עֵזֶר כְּנֶגְדּוֹ), means a helper corresponding to him. Not someone to do the dirty work, but one who in every way would complement him and enable him to fulfill his God-given duties. The same word, ezer, is used of God himself as Israel’s helper (Ps. 121:1–2). This is not a lesser role.
The second word, kenegdo, literally means “according to what is in front of him,” like a mirror image: like him, yet opposite him. She is neither above him nor beneath him. She corresponds to him and, in a very real sense, completes him. God calls the man’s aloneness “not good,” the first thing in creation he calls not good. Before sin, before any problem, a man alone is incomplete.
Genesis 2:20–24 “The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh…’ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
Woman was made out of the same stuff as man, even from his side rather than his head or feet, showing equality and dignity, not inferiority.
The order matters, and it shows God’s design for headship. Paul builds on this very order when he explains male headship: “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God… For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man” (1 Cor. 11:3, 8–9).
Order and design also shows the direction or nature of their work.The man was formed by God from the dust and called to work the ground he came from. He is also called to keep or guard the garden, which corresponds to the call to manage his household well in 1 Timothy 3:4-5. The woman was formed by God from the man and called to help the man she came from. Their domain of work is dependent on God’s design. Men to the dirt and women to the husband. Titus 2:3-5 makes this more explicit: “Older women… are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands...”
Symbols of headship show off God’s order. Men don’t wear head coverings because Christ is their head, no one else. But women do wear symbols of authority, which I take to be cultural expressions displaying that you are married and under another’s headship (perhaps a ring or something else), because their authority is not only Christ but also their husbands.
God instituted the marriage covenant between one man and one woman who form one flesh. Leaving and cleaving forms a new household, the beginning of multiplication and of fulfilling the creation mandate. Marriage images God and redemption: we were made by God, from God, and for God, and though we were separated from him, Christ joins us to him as one (Eph. 5:31–32).
Adam names her: “she shall be called Woman (ishah), because she was taken out of Man (ish).” The wordplay shows how alike they are, and the naming shows his responsibility for her. He will name her again in 3:20, calling her Eve, “the mother of all living,” pointing to her calling as a mother.
So here is God’s design: men and women are equal in dignity but distinct in role, and united as one. Order and equality are not enemies; together they image God.
Here is a role summary:
Husbands: As head, they are called to lead their families to fulfill God’s commission, to provide, and protect their wives and home, spiritually, emotionally, and physically.
Wives: Called to help your husband fulfill the call to be fruitful and multiply and rule, extending the household’s mission as a co-laborer. This help would come through submission/obedience in everyday life, by bearing and nurturing children, working primarily from the home while he works the field (Ephesians 5:22; 1 Peter 3:1-2; Titus 2:4-5)
2. Distortion: Sin Twisted the Roles
The curses correspond tightly to these unique roles, and they expose how sin twists them.
Genesis 3:9, 16–17 “But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’… To the woman he said, ‘I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.’ And to Adam he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, “You shall not eat of it,” cursed is the ground because of you…’”
As head of his household, Adam is held responsible. He first received the command, and when God comes into the garden, he calls the man first: “Where are you?” (3:9). Not because Eve was blameless, but because God holds the head accountable. Through Adam, sin entered the world, and death through sin to all mankind (Rom. 5:12).
Notice Genesis 3:6: she “also gave some to her husband who was with her.” Adam was there. He didn’t lead, he didn’t protect, he didn’t speak. He followed his wife, and when he was found out, he blamed her and the Lord: “The woman whom you gave to be with me” (3:12). And the first fruit of sin? They hid (3:8–10).
You too are held responsible men. God will come to you if your house is out of line and we will give an account for everything. It’s not just about our intentions but the actual results in our home.
Childbearing pain and marriage strife. Eve is called “the mother of all living” (3:20). Her calling to be fruitful with the man would now come with pain. And her relationship with her husband would be strained and contentious, as her expectations of him and her position as helper would be misapplied, even as he would misapply his by ruling in a domineering way.
The word desire (teshuqah) shows up again just one chapter later, when God warns Cain: “sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it” (4:7). Same two words, desire and rule. Many read 3:16 the same way: the wife will desire to master her husband. The curse is not God’s design. It is his design twisted into a power struggle.
The ground he worked is cursed. The dust he came from and worked for his sustenance will now fight against him and eventually receive him back in death, leading him to a temptation to laziness and avoidance.
[pause]
The moment sin entered the world, the roles of men and women were strained and confused (Gen. 3:16–19). Both would be tempted to abandon their own calling and take the place of the other. Bearing children and helping a husband would now come with pain, and so would a man’s work of providing, through thorns and sweat. Women would be tempted to grasp for control or to withhold their help. Men would drift toward one of two ditches: domination or passivity. We see these patterns in our homes and in our own hearts.
If human flourishing is tied to men and women being faithful in their callings, then human suffering follows when they fail. History shows it, and so does today. Women have suffered terribly at the hands of men who either dominate them or abandon their duties. Men have suffered when they are belittled and run over instead of respected and helped.
At the extreme, a child becomes a burden to end rather than a gift to receive. Often a man pushes for it or walks away. Men sleep around rather than commit to a covenant. Men and women trade places, each rejecting what God made them to be. In subtler ways, women grow discontent, look for an escape, and live for themselves rather than their families. Men do the same: they either steamroll their families or escape the work of leading, providing, and protecting.
Kate and I are no exception. I’ve struggled most with passivity. Early in our marriage, I avoided taking responsibility and left far too much on Kate’s shoulders. I told myself I was being peaceable and a good teammate. But over time, Kate longed for my leadership and I longed for her help not critique. That tension sent us back to the Scriptures, and to our community for counsel and help to get it right. Parenting has been no exception. We have both struggled in our roles with our kids as well, needing constant repentance and revision.
But the curse is not the final word. Christ, the second Adam and head of a new humanity, breaks the power of sin and leads us by his Spirit to restore our homes, which is exactly what we see in Ephesians 5.
3. Redemption: Christ Restores the Roles
There Paul builds on Genesis and makes explicit how marriage images Christ’s relationship to us. And notice where this passage begins. Verse 18 says, “be filled with the Spirit,” and Paul unpacks the Spirit-filled life in a chain: addressing one another in psalms and songs, giving thanks, and “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (5:19–21). Marriage roles are not a new topic from last week. They are what walking by the Spirit looks like at home, as we align all of life to his will.
Ephesians 5:22–24 “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.”
Wives are called to submit to their husbands in everything. “As to the Lord” and “as the church submits to Christ” amplify this call. These phrases started Kate’s and my journey toward walking out these roles more faithfully. We had been in Genesis as a church, wrestling through God’s design, and a conversation with Dale about his and his wife’s own journey sparked more study and conversation between Kate and me.
The word submit (hupotassō) means to arrange yourself under. It is something a wife chooses to give, not something a husband takes. Paul never tells husbands to make their wives submit. Instead, he calls wives to submit “as to the Lord.” Her submission to her husband is first an act of trust in Christ.
Such radical, willing submission only makes sense because it supports God’s original design for male and female, and for marriage.
Then Paul turns to the husband, and the demand gets heavier.
Ephesians 5:25, 28–29 “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her… In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.”
Because a husband is given this kind of authority, he must use it the way God uses his: for our good. Our authority as husbands is self-sacrificial, loving authority. Everything we do as head should be done with the same heart Christ has toward the church, laying down his life to sanctify her, “having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word” (5:26).
Notice the balance of the passage. Paul spends three verses on wives and most of the rest of the chapter on husbands. The heavier weight falls on us, men.
Christ’s love has a goal: “that he might sanctify her… so that he might present the church to himself in splendor” (5:26–27). A husband’s headship is measured by where his wife is heading. Is she more like Jesus, more radiant, more free, because she is married to you?
Headship should lead to the spiritual, emotional, and physical flourishing of our wives, even as Christ’s service leads to ours.
Nourish and cherish are tender words. Nourish (ektrephō) is the same word Paul uses for fathers bringing up their children (6:4). Cherish (thalpō) means to keep warm; Paul uses it of a nursing mother caring for her children (1 Thess. 2:7). Headship is not cold authority. It is warm, protective care.
Peter gives a similar call: “Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Pet. 3:7).
The roles in practice
Paul doesn’t teach these roles only in Ephesians. Again and again he grounds them in creation, at home and in the church.
1 Timothy 2:11–14 “Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.”
Paul’s reason is creation, not culture. “Adam was formed first.” Women are no less able to teach or lead, but God’s order calls them to lean into their design as helper, not head. This doesn’t mean women never speak in a gathering. 1 Corinthians 11:5 assumes women praying and prophesying. It means they are not to hold an authoritative teaching role in the church.
The order matters beyond the church, but Paul’s focus is the church. Creation order should shape every area of life, and there are fitting and unfitting roles of leadership for women in the world. But Paul’s stated purpose is “that you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God” (1 Tim. 3:15).
1 Timothy 3:4–5 “He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?”
Titus 2:3–5 “Older women… are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”
Notice the pattern: the home is the training ground for the church. A man’s call is to work and keep, to manage his household well, and, if God wills and he is qualified, to oversee God’s household too. That is why the overseeing role belongs to men. A woman’s call is to help her husband in his calling: loving her husband and children, working at home, and passing that faith on to the next generation of women.
So, once more, here are the roles.
Husbands: Take responsibility to lead, provide, and protect your wife and home, spiritually, emotionally, and physically, laying down your life like Jesus. And, if God wills, lead and care for the household of God.
Wives: Like the church toward Christ, help your husband by respecting and submitting to his leadership, extending the household’s mission by bearing and nurturing children, working primarily at home, and adorning yourselves with good works, including discipling the next generation of women.
What if I’m unmarried?
Scripture places an unmarried person under the headship of their parents until marriage, when a man leaves and cleaves (Gen. 2:24; Eph. 5:21–6:4). But many today are adults living outside their father’s care, and Paul speaks to the unmarried directly, as accountable to God (1 Cor. 7:8). Christ is really your only head if you are out of the care and responsibility of your father. So your call is undivided devotion to the Lord (1 Cor. 7:32–35). Don’t let your freedom become an excuse for autonomy, isolation, or selfishness. Lean hard on your family where you can and on the household of God, and know that God sees and rewards faithful singleness.
And because marriage is still God’s good design, prepare for it now and work to get married. In fact, in that same chapter Paul charges most people to get married unless they have a unique gift from God to not desire marriage.
Unmarried men: Lead where you are, with your family, your roommates, and at work. Get your finances, work, and purity in order. And then pursue a wife clearly. Don’t keep her guessing.
Unmarried women: Delight now in your design as a woman and image-bearer, because what you believe about it will shape the path you choose. Look for a man who lives under Jesus’s lordship and walks by the Spirit.
Both: Learn from the healthy marriages around you. Watch them up close, on a Tuesday night and not just a Sunday morning.
What does this mean for you practically?
Do you delight in this design and seek to obey it wholeheartedly?
[direct]
Men, if God has entrusted you with a household: as the head of your home and your wife, you are responsible for its flourishing. The marriage, the culture, the parenting, it all comes back to you, and you will be held uniquely responsible by God. From a healthy heart, you are called to lead with godly vision, build a culture of worship and holiness, provide for every need, and call your family forward on mission for Jesus.
So what does that look like on an ordinary Tuesday?
Lead spiritually. Pray with your wife, two minutes, out loud, before bed. Lead your family in worship once a week, even if it’s short: read, sing, pray. And be first to repent. Say, “I was wrong. Will you forgive me?” even in front of the kids.
Lead in decisions. Headship means you own the decision, not that you make it alone. Ask her, “What do you think? What am I missing?” When you disagree, slow down, pray together, and decide. And if it goes badly, don’t blame her.
Protect her. Know her stress points this week and take one off her plate without being asked. Never criticize her in front of the kids or in public. Guard your eyes and your screens, starting with your own, and tell her how you’re doing it.
Provide. Work hard, and come home with something left. Provision includes your presence, not just your paycheck. Make sure she knows the plan for your money, and that she’s cared for if something happens to you.
Nourish and cherish (Eph. 5:29). Plan the date yourself, so she doesn’t have to. Notice what she does well and say it out loud. Ask how she’s really doing, then listen for ten minutes without trying to fix it.
Wash her with the word (Eph. 5:26). Pray Scripture over her by name. Share what God is showing you in your reading. Ask, “How can I pray for you this week?” and then follow up.
Wives, a word to you as well. If God has entrusted you with a husband and household, get behind your husband with all your heart. Respect his attempts to create godly vision and values, champion him, and support his leadership even when it goes against your own desires. You are uniquely called and equipped to bear and raise children and to work in the home for your family’s flourishing. This is not a small thing. Proverbs 31 shows how wide and important this calling is. Even the things that are typically scoffed at, like cooking and cleaning are difficult to do well and important for the families flourishing. And you are called alongside your husband to instruct your children in the way of the Lord.
Practically, respect sounds like speaking well of him to your friends and kids, telling him when he leads well, and bringing disagreement to him privately. Help means bringing your wisdom and gifts to his vision, but doing it with a gentle and quiet spirit. Some of you need to consider how to lean more into the gentle and quiet spirit. Others need to share when there are flaws or dangerous cultures created by your husband. But ultimately, you are called to give a willing yes that trusts God with the outcome as long as it does not include calling you to sin.
Men, this week we’re asking you to have a one-on-one conversation with your wife:
Discuss how you both view and value headship and submission.
Ask her how you are doing leading like Christ.
Thank her for specific ways she helps you, and ask how you can make that easier.
Share how you would like to be helped differently.
Then ask the hardest question: “What’s one thing I could do that would make you feel more loved and led?” And listen without defending yourself.
In the next several weeks we’ll look at vision, family culture and rhythms, parenting, and production and provision. All of it succeeds or fails based on how joyfully and fully we step into these roles together.
Imaging and commission
I want to finish with this reminder: our roles are God-given and beautifully ordered to image what he is like and what redemption is like.
Both men and women are given incredible dignity to image God to the world.
Both are heirs of the grace of life who will inherit the kingdom.
Both have incredible capacity to multiply, through procreation and through discipleship, as spiritual fathers and mothers to the younger in the faith.
[warmly] And where we have failed in these roles, and every one of us has, Christ, the true Husband, forgives and restores. He laid down his life for his bride, and he is not done with your marriage. If you’ve failed here, start tonight. Go home and say, “I haven’t led us like Jesus. I’m sorry. Will you pray with me?” That’s what a son does when he stumbles. He doesn’t hide.
Our roles are truly glorious, to be delighted in and obeyed wholeheartedly. As we walk this out, our homes become salty and bright lights to the world around us and bear great fruit.