Ephesians 5:31 · World English Bible
Ephesians 5:31 Meaning For This Cause a Man Will Leave
“For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will be joined to his wife. The two will become one flesh.”
What does Ephesians 5:31 mean?
Leaving one's father and mother means more than moving out. It is the slow work of breaking free from the inner images of the parents, the voices we carry that tell us who to be, so that a person can finally stand as themselves.
From the Psychoanalysis reading below.
Ephesians 5:31 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Psychoanalysis
PSYCHOANALYSIS
Psychoanalysis
Leaving one's father and mother means more than moving out. It is the slow work of breaking free from the inner images of the parents, the voices we carry that tell us who to be, so that a person can finally stand as themselves.
Only then can two truly join. The outer marriage of a man and a woman mirrors an inner one, the meeting of a man's own hidden feminine side with his waking self. When those two halves come together, a person stops being divided against themselves and becomes whole, which is what becoming one flesh really points to.
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Psychoanalysis lens
Live Ephesians 5:31 today
- When you hear your mother's or father's voice in your own head today, telling you what you should be, say it out loud and then answer it as yourself. That is how the voice becomes a voice instead of the law.
- Let the person closest to you be different from you in one thing you usually try to correct. Joining is not the same as making them agree.
- In a moment where you are performing the strong, competent version of yourself, let the softer part show for one sentence. Both halves of you are supposed to be in the room.
Whose voice are you still arranging your life around?
The same truth in other traditions
Zen
If you meet the teacher on the road, do not keep following them. Even the best inner voice has to be set down before you can walk on your own feet.
Taoism · Tao Te Ching
The two that seem opposed are one movement, and each needs the other to exist. Wholeness comes from their meeting, never from one pushing the other out.
Hinduism · Shiva and Shakti
Stillness and energy are pictured as two halves of a single being, powerless apart and complete together. What looks like a union of two is one life recognizing itself.
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