Explanation of Ephesians Chapter 5, Verses 21-29

Verse 21: Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
(You are true and loyal to each other before anyone or anything. Before parents, children, siblings. It primarily means that you take each others needs more seriously than anyone else, even more than the children. It also means that the husband should submit to the sensibilities of the women in all areas concerning the emotional wellbeing of the family and that the women should submit to the sensibilities of the man in all areas concerning the protection and nourishment of the family.)

Verse 22: Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 
(The husband is the head of the family with all it’s responsibilities to protect, provide, and nourish. It also means that the wife should allow him this role as long as she believes that he thinks, acts, and leads like an Honorable Man. Her celebrating him as the head of the family fulfills his most basic need for respect from the women he loves allowing him the safety to give to her fulfillment of her most basic need, love.)

Verse 23: For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. 
(The husband is charged with the protection of the family against all that would harm or diminish it physically and spiritually.)

Verse 24: Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
(The husband is the final decider but also that he should consult his wife in every decision that affects her or the family. The wife gives her husband, through her gift of respect, the most important thing that he needs to be a man for her. )

Verse 25: Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 
(He should give full and complete weight to her opinions concerning every aspect of the family. She is his full partner, not a lesser part. The man and women are not equal, but full parts of a complete whole. Where each has their area of responsibility and naturally occurring gifts for that responsibility.)

Verse 26: That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 
(The man should lead the family spiritually. He should lead by positive example. He needs to be the positive moral influence in the home. Always ready to say he’s sorry or made a mistake thereby freeing all family members to live in the positive of growing from their human frailties.)

Verse 27: That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 
(The man should live a life of good actions, not just good intentions. He needs to reassure her by word and deed that he is committed to being an honorable man and her man.)

Verse 28: So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loves his wife loves himself. 
(The man has to pay attention to the security and romance needs of his women like he pays attention to his own body. He must understand and believe that satisfying her needs for security and romance is the key to the satisfying of his own needs.)

Verse 29: For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourish and cherish it, even as the Lord the church:
(Constant vigilance of her need for growth, her need for love and romance, her need for security, has to be his number one goal before all other things.)