A couple of months ago, we put two life-size models of human brains on our dining room table. We took fishing line and connected them to each other, and then, for the sake of the rest of the family who would be joining us for a birthday party, we also strung lines to each place setting. For the final touch, we hung several lines from the chandelier overhead and tied in cardboard flames to signify the Spirit of God. To put it mildly, at the party there were lots of questions that made for good conversation. 

Our little demonstration illustrates three truths found in God’s word. One is that we now understand that no one has a “mind” of their own. Minds are shaped through interaction with other “brains.” Our minds, strange though it may seem, are located “between” brains, represented by all those fishing lines connecting not only the two brain models but everyone seated at the table. We are told to “renew our minds” (Romans 12:2) in how we regard and treat one another in the body of Christ (Romans 12:3-5). 

A second truth appears in today’s verse from Ephesians 5. Notice that the husband is called to “love” his wife, and the wife to “respect” her husband. Neuroscience shows that men’s and women’s brains are not the same. When they are in tune with each other, they complement one another. The husband’s self-giving love, rooted in dependence on Christ’s love, inspires his wife to affirm and respect him. They depend on one another as the head needs the body and the body needs the head. 

The third truth is the most important and powerful. It is that anyone who receives what Jesus came to give us—man and woman, husband and wife, married or single—shares the “mind of Christ.” By the grace of God, through listening and prayer, our marriages, families, and our worshiping community are being made new. 

So, let’s receive this prayer from the apostle Paul on our behalf (Ephesians 3:14-19): “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Amen.