love their wives as Christ loves the church: sacrificially, tenderly, meekly, and with a servant’s heart. This is how husbands are to show submission to their wives. THE MEANING OF LOVE Authentic love is incompatible with a despotic or domineering approach to headship. When Paul commanded husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church, he was in effect forbidding them to exercise severe or abusive authority over their wives. If the model of this love is Christ, who “did not come to be served,
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