Why Women Cannot Be Head Pastors

TL,

Lisa is making exactly the same point as I have been trying to make. If the wife is to be subject to the husband “just as” the church is to the Christ, that can not mean a mutuality in submission to each other in the way you are saying that it does. Christ is not “mutually submissive to the Church”. He is Lord of the chuch.

Lisa,

In reading Scripture it is important to seek the intent of the author in the words. This is best seen by noting words used, word meanings, etc., and then back away to enfold the context so as to get a bigger picture.

Paul does indeed make a parallel to how we as believers trustingly yield our lives to the Lord in response to His great sacrifice. We are alive IN HIM only because of what He did. And yes, there is another parallel for the husbands that they are to love their wives with the same type of sacrificial love that Christ demonstrated toward us. But that is all that Paul is comparing. We are to look to Christ and our relationship with Christ in order to better relate with our spouses. Marriage is not representative of anything but an attempt to become as one flesh. Christ’s Love is like a husband’s love should be. He is our example. The joy and trust of believers is something that wives should emulate toward their husbands who are to be emulating Christ’s love toward them. That’s the sum of it.

We see this more fully as we back away a tad bit and note that a wife is to view her husband as her head (this is NOT telling husbands to act like anything), and a husband is to view his wife as his very own body. So we have a ‘head of’ and ‘body of’ metaphor here. This relates to two in marriage becoming as one flesh, one unit.

”If the wife is to be subject to the husband “just as” the church is to the Christ, that can not mean a mutuality in submission to each other in the way you are saying that it does. Christ is not “mutually submissive to the Church”. He is Lord of the chuch.”

However, we are not lords of each other. We all are brothers and sisters. And we can and indeed should be submissive to one another, which does imply mutuality. What is mutuality in this? How about mutual humility in how we relate with one another. How about considering others more important than self, considering other’s needs before our own.

Phil. 2: 1 Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. 3 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

TL,

How exactly do you “submit to someone as to the Lord” if that person does not do or have any authority, etc, that is to be submited to? If every decision, etc. is to be mutually made with no one having any final say, what in the world is there to submit to? There is absolutely no parallel with the way we submit to the Lord thre at all unless there is actually some real thing to submit to! We could love and respect yes–but submit to as to the Lord–no.

”How exactly do you “submit to someone as to the Lord” if that person does not do or have any authority, etc, that is to be submited to?”

You mean how does someone submit to another person in the same way they submit to Christ. That’s what I’ve been explaining. It doesn’t mean as if the person were their lord, but AS (in the same way) we submit to the Lord.

”If every decision, etc. is to be mutually made with no one having any final say, what in the world is there to submit to? “

It isn’t about making decisions. It’s about how we treat one another, how we think of one another.

”There is absolutely no parallel with the way we submit to the Lord thre at all “

On the contrary, we submit to the Lord as His Body, the ones He died to bring salvation to, to bring healing and deliverance to. As His Body, we are thankful, trusting, supportive, honoring, respectful and so forth. We submit to His person. And wives need to freely of their own volition submit to the person that their husbands are.

It is about two people, husband and wife, becoming as one flesh: personified in the metaphor of ‘head of’ and ‘body of’. One unit, attached to each other, supporting each other in various ways.

Ponder it.

The fact of the matter is that Paul elsewhere states plainly that both parties to the marriage are required to view each other as authority figures. He says plainly that it is the same type of authority. I am talking about I Corinthians 7:3-4:

3The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 4The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

I have used the NASB here because the NIV is *really* inaccurate.

The verb ‘exousiazo’ is properly translated as ‘to have authority over’. Any other ‘translation’ is no longer a translation, but an interpretation. The word ‘homoios’ means ‘likewise’, and it is similarly unambiguous.

After looking at this verse, I was struck by the implications for the interpretation of Genesis 2:24: ‘For this reason, a man (OT)/person (NT) shall leave father and mother…’ When we are young, our highest earthly authority is our parents. When we get married, this is no longer true – for either party. In both cases, the highest earthly authority becomes the spouse. And for both parties, that in principle means exactly the same thing.

I am so struck with the extent to which God expects the same things from all of us – loving others as Christ loved us (laying down our lives for them) and submitting to one another out of respect for Christ and viewing our spouse as our highest earthly authority, regardless of gender – as well as by the equality that existed between the man and the woman at the beginning, that when I look at any passages which appear to teach some sort of difference, I do not see any room for that to come from *God’s* expectations. The general cases – of which there are many, as I have detailed above – have to govern the interpretation of the specific. Scripture must interpret Scripture.

to be continued

So it has to, by process of elimination, have something to do with temporal authority. And as others have noted, this was a very real issue in all of the places inhabited by the recipients of Paul’s letters. And I would note that these passages which appear to teach some kind of one-way authority structure are then, in view of this fact, no more prescriptive of such a one-way authority relationship between husbands and wives than passages that appear to teach a one-way authority structure between masters and slaves are prescriptive of slavery as an institution. What is being prescribed is merely what to do with found temporal reality. Nothing more than that.

On Eph 5:21 Paul does a new thing with hupotasso, that is why I call it an example of the Bible refining the meaning of a word, which it can do, of course.

Previously, hupotasso was always used for the place of an inferior to a superior in a hierarchy, the inferior submits to the superior. This was changed slightly in the Greek army when it was used as the command for everyone to get into line of battle, as in submit to being in the place you were assigned, in Athens as a free man, you were submitting to the whole unit to make it a cohesive whole for battle.

Paul carefully crafts it, he makes it into middle voice and qualifies it with “one another” this is something that every believer is to demonstrate, it is one of the signs of a believer, of course, love is the most important of these signs, but submission is another.

And Jesus DOES submit to the church, he washed the disciples feet and futhermore told Peter that if Peter did not let him do it, then Peter had no part in him. In cultural context, washing the feet was something for the lowest slave in the household to do, this was before sewers and indoor plumbing, so feet got dirty as if playing in a barnyard. Jesus also died on the cross for me and for you, this was the ultimate act of submission, he did something for me I could not do for myself.

Don,

This is very interesting! So what was the grammar for the ‘old’ usage of hupotasso? What voice was it in? In other words, is the actual grammar different, or is it just the usage?

1) 4:1-16 therefore walk worthy
2) 4:17-32 therefore walk not in vanity
3) 5:1-6 therefore walk in love
4) 5:7-14 therefore walk as children of light
5) 5:15-6:9 therefore walk very carefully
6) 6:10-20 therefore stand against the devil

is a listing of the pericopes in Eph 4-6, we see that there are 5 cases of walking and one of standing. This list is by Bruce Fleming and I recommend his book. Some translations translate walk as “live” of similar, which is true about what it means, but can mask the repeated pattern that Paul is deliberately using.

But speaking the truth in love, we may grow into
him in all respects who is the head, Christ, of
whom all the body being brought together
by every supporting ligament, grows and builds
itself up in love, as each part does its work.
(Eph. 4:15-16)

Here we see a further use of the head metaphor for Christ, as one of aiding growth in the body. One problem is that today “head of” almost always means “boss of” when discussing relations between people. So we naturally teleport our 21st century meaning of head back into the 1st century text and may never think anything may be amiss. But we need to see what the text actually says a head does. Since we may not think there is any other choice about what head might mean, we just pick the one meaning of boss that we know about and that we think is obvious and go with it.

Here is how Belizekian talks about the new idea in Eph 5:21

“Being subject to one another” is a very different
relationship from “being subject to the other.” …

Being subject to one another is only possible among
equals. … the reciprocity of such relationships
renders hierarchical distinctions irrelevant within the
Christian communities of church and family.

Here is how Fleming talks about the new idea in Eph 5:21

the kind of Christian submitting described in
verse 21 is the action of two (or more) persons who are
each submitting themselves to the other, at the same
time other person is simultaneously submitting to them!
This was not only difficult to say in Greek, it is hard to say
in English as well. Perhaps it can best be called
“reciprocating submission.”

Thus, this behavior is not only
1) a willing self-submission (the reflexive verb)
2) a mutual behavior (the reciprocal pronoun),
3) it is also a Christian action (the final phrase).
——
It is Christian mutual submission that is being discussed in the rest of the pericope starting with v. 21, after v. 21 there are 6 examples from the household on how this works out in practise in the 1st century. All the other clauses after are subordinate clauses to v.21 one can see this in Magill’s Transline NT, where he shows the implications of the Greek and Magill is not egal.

Caraboska,

The I Cor 7:3-4 verses in context are speaking of one area of marriage and one area only as far as I can tell. That whole section is about physical passion, immorality, and physical intimacy in marriage. I don’t think it probably works to make the command for mutual submission in that context carry over to mutual submssion in every context of marriage.

Don,

From /The Free Online Dictionary:

sub·mit (sb-mt)
v. sub·mit·ted, sub·mit·ting, sub·mits
v.tr.
1. To yield or surrender (oneself) to the will or authority of another.
2. To subject to a condition or process.
3. To commit (something) to the consideration or judgment of another. See Synonyms at propose.
4. To offer as a proposition or contention: I submit that the terms are entirely unreasonable.
v.intr.
1. To give in to the authority, power, or desires of another. See Synonyms at yield.
2. To allow oneself to be subjected to something.

And the definition of the word translated submit from Thayer’s again:

1) to arrange under, to subordinate
2) to subject, put in subjection
3) to subject one’s self, obey
4) to submit to one’s control
5) to yield to one’s admonition or advice
6) to obey, be subject

Jesus may have “submitted” to people in such actions as washing the disciples feet while on this earth. However, this is certainly not the way that Christ relates to the church today. This instruction was written to the church after Jesus resurrection and His ascencion into Heaven. When it was written He was (and still is) the glorified King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And He does not today or when these instructions were written “submit” to the church. But we are certainly to submit to Him and a wife is to submit to her husband.

cherylu,

It is quite true that those verses from I Corinthians 7 appear within a discussion about conducting one’s personal life in a sexually moral manner. But the question is *why* a husband ‘owes it to his wife’ or a wife ‘owes it to her husband’. There is a larger principle in operation here – the principle of authority – of which being available on demand except by mutual agreement is only one very small application. And when read with Genesis 2:24, we see that that authority arises out of the material of the marriage: ‘leaving, cleaving and weaving’.

In 1 Cor 7 there are seven (7!) symmetries in relationship between the husband and wife. It is a fun exercise to find them all now that you know they are there. I have them in a chart but it does not format well as a post.

Paul went out of his way, repeating himself again and again to stress the symmetry in a marriage in 1 Cor 7.

And the idea of a husband being THE leader in a marriage is DIRECTLY contradicted by 1 Cor 7:3-4, there it is mutual. It turns that Piper declines to discuss this verse in his recent book on marriage, when it is the one verse that uses the term authority in marriage clearly.

Jesus is constantly submitting to the church, he is always mediating with the Father for us and this is doing something that we cannot do for ourselves. Jesus is part of the process of my (and your) sanctification, he does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Returning to Eph 5, a husband is called to love his wife, do you think that this means a wife is not called to love her husband? Do you really think this is a one way command?

A wife is called to respect her husband, do you think this means that a husband does not need to respect his wife? Do you really think this is a one way command?

And similarly, a wife is called to submit to her husband, do you think this means that a husband does not need to submit to his wife? We KNOW this is not true from Eph 5:21.

What Paul is doing in Eph 5 is giving emphases (reminders) of things that a husband and wife might be tempted NOT to do for the other spouse in 1st century Ephesus, in the cultural context of the day. He is not delineating roles for each to play, you wife respect but do not worry about loving and you husband love and do not worry about respecting.

Don Johnson: “Jesus is constantly submitting to the church“.

Constantly? Jesus constantly submits to the Church?

Hmmm, can you explain what you mean here?

Don,

We have to be careful about bringing culture into it. The only reason I started doing so was that I simply found that there was nothing else, given how it was at the beginning (i.e. before the Fall) and what God’s expectations from all persons are, that could account for the apparent differences discussed in such passages as Ephesians 5:22ff.

I would even phrase your comments about Ephesians more strongly. I don’t have a problem with women submitting to their husbands – even ‘in all things’ – or with men loving their wives even unto death. What I have a big problem with is the idea that men don’t have to submit to their wives – even in all things (authority is authority); or that women shouldn’t be sacrificially loving – and even providing for – their husbands.

Quite the contrary: I believe both are required to do both things. So speaking very bluntly, I would call that interpretation of Ephesians 5:22ff not just problematic, but a pernicious and dangerous half-truth.

1. Each is required to have only one spouse (v. 2).

2. Each is required to fulfill their duty to the other (v. 3).

3. Each has authority over the other’s body (v. 4).

4. Each is required to refrain from dissolving the relationship (vv. 10-13).

5. Each sanctifies their unbelieving spouse (v. 14).

6. Each is free if the unbelieving spouse leaves (v. 15).

7. Each is concerned with pleasing the spouse (vv. 32-34).

How did I do?

I think we have to really think about here what Christ considers the right way of submitting to another human being. If it is just about someone being the head over someone in a marital relationship then it is not a true emotional or spiritual union. Our submisssion is to Him first, male or female, and if we are in that kind of holy submission in our minds, then I don’t think we have a problem with the marriage part being a mutually humble one.

I do not believe that Christ or Paul meant to make marriage a boss-employee type thing. That could have just as well been done by any male of that day having a female servant, or concubines, which was the culture of that day. No, I think it was meant to be an example of the whole body working together, as Chrsit and His church should do optimally, by using the different roles and gifts that God had given them in complete harmony, not just in a physical sense, but in a spiritual sense which truly shows the oneship of Christ with His bride, the church.

I meant to add ministry as well as marriage to the first line of my second paragraph in #672.

I certainly don’t believe for a minute either that God intends for the man to “lord it over” his wife in a hurtful or negative way. I think that is totally contradicted by the instructions to the husband in this same chapter of Ephesians.

But I have to ask the egalitarians here one quick question. What happens in a marriage if there are two totally different ideas about how something should be done to be done correctly and get the needed results? Ideally, I would think, the husband and wife should be able to discuss the matter and come to a mutal decision. What if, however, that just isn’t happening? How do you come to the decision needed and be able to move ahead? Do you flip a coin, say, “I make the decision this time and you make it the next time we disagree,” or what? I’m sorry if that sounds a little bit flippant, but I am really trying to make a point here and don’t know how else to do it. Frankly, I don’t think I have ever known a married couple that are so much “one” that they don’t sometimes disagree on how things are to be done or what the proper way to do something is. Sooo…in this position what do you do? Stay in a stalemate, or do you need someone that can make the final decision if one has to be made before agreement can be reached? That I think is an example of where the wife needs to submit to her husband. If she freely does it at this point, the problem is solved. It seems to me that in most relationships, there needs to be some final authority to appeal to in order for things to move smoothly. If people think so much the same that they never need that option, great! But I am not sure that life realistically works that way.

cherylu,

The short answer is that there is always an authority to appeal to. His name is Jesus Christ (or Yeshua haMashiach if you prefer). The long answer is that in order to solve the problem any other way besides assigning the final voice to one of the two parties to the marriage, one thing is certain: every trace of control-based thinking must be gotten rid of. The only way it will work is if one assumes that if God has made the two one, then He will in fact lead them as one and bring agreement between them. And therefore, if agreement is not visible, the problem is much more serious than who should listen to whom. Indeed, it then becomes clear that some things are more important than a solution to all our problems: such things as preserving unity as far as possible (focusing on points of agreement, working on whatever can be worked on to improve that while waiting for a solution), and most importantly drawing near to God and being transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we may test and approve what His good, pleasing and perfect will is.

Cheryl,

You are right because life doesn’t always work in the biblical way even when we are personally in submission to what the Lord wants. Many of us know Christian marriages and ministry where that is carried so far that the husband and/or the pastor becomes a dictator instead of a Godly instrument. He raises himself above Christ and becomes the ultiimate authority for the woman. Do we the enable him or where do we draw the line?

Remember the Nazis used that same type of submission to authority type thing to justify killing the Jews. The radical Islamists use it to keep their women in virtual slavery. And what about the non-Christian husband and Christian wife? If he asks us to disobey our Lord and Savior are we to submit to that?

Should we as Chiristians justify any kind of blind submission in the name of obedience to ‘authority’ when we can see that it isn’t anything but the desire to enslave and destroy the human spirit by sheer human power? I don’t think that’s what the Lord meant by submitting to one another in love.

If I did I couldn’t believe in a God of love.

On the question of disagreement, this is a good question and a fair one.
What do egals do?

Here are some answers from my own life.

1. If the decision is mundane, like going to the movies, we can alternate selecting. I am an official member of the “chick flick club for men” so I will go along in good cheer and not be a grumpus.

2. If the decision is trivial, like if one likes ketchup cold or at room temperature, get 2 ketchups. Let each have what they like.

3. In an emergency, one acts to preserve life. My guess is whomever said the first plan that made sense would be what the other followed. For example, we have 2 kids in the home right now, so it would make sense for 1 parent to get 1 and the other to get the other in a fire.

4. I am ABLE to make a decision and accept that I made it IF my wife says that she wants me to make it. And I might choose to ask her in the reverse.

5. Whomever is affected more by the decision might get to make it.

6. Whomever has more skill in the area might get to make it. For example, I am not much of a handyman, but my wife is a handywomen, at least more than I am a handyman. If she says we need to call a plumber, I tend to agree with her, she knows more about this than I do.

7. Perhaps there is a win-win solution. For example, my laptop is about 2 years old and getting some problems, hers is about 6 months but it does not have a feature she needs for some aspect of her job. We decide we can afford only 1 new laptop at this time, but we both have reasons why it should be our own. The solution we came to is SHE gets the one she needs and I get hers as a hand me down. The hand me down is newer and does not have the problems my has, so this works for me.

8. Perhaps if we do not agree and it is not an emergency type situation, we sit on it and pray about it more, seeking wisdom. In other words, if in doubt, don’t. We can use conversation techniques to ellicit more info from the other.

Mbaker,

No I don’t believe that extreme/abusive authority is what God wants here. That certainly is not the picture that He gives of what He wants the man to do in the marriage. But neither do I believe that we should “throw the baby out with the bath water” and say that there is no authority structure here at all because some men abuse it terribly. And I have seen that abuse first hand with a close family member. That is surely not what God has in mind! However, I believe that there is a healthy balance here that can be found if both parties to the marriage are really trying to honor God’s will and each other in their marriage.

I know people who claim to be Christian and subscribe to a model of absolute obedience of wives to husbands, and even forbid wives to instruct their husbands in any spiritual matter unless the husband asks for their view.

Obviously I don’t agree with that – even if these folks take the view that if a woman is really intent on honoring God, she will never actually have to sin to please her husband – either her husband will repent, or he will be removed from this earth entirely.

I don’t think the Scriptures give any direct instruction about where to draw the line, except this: that God always is to get pride of place. Any relating to other people that we do has to respect His position in ours and other people’s lives.

To put it another way, we can neither set others up as gods in our lives, nor set ourselves up as gods in theirs. And it is not sufficient to ‘refrain’. If we want to do God’s will in this matter, we must not only ‘refrain’, but also consciously and intentionally honor God above all else in everything we do, indeed putting nothing between ourselves and Him.

On 1 Cor 7, I had v. 16, while you have v. 15, so I think I need to add your example to get 8. Thanks for your thoughts!

Don,

Now that I think of it, I have a question on v. 16. I recall hearing somewhere in the antediluvian past that there is a sort of formula to the asking of questions in Greek, a rhetorical device which gives you an idea what answer is expected. Am I imagining things, or is the formula as follows: if the question is phrased in the positive, then you are expecting a negative answer, while if you pose the question in the negative, then you are expecting a positive answer?

The reason I ask is that this question is phrased in the positive, so that if the formula is correct, we would expect a negative answer. But until I am sure about the grammar, I can’t know for sure. So that I am kind of wracking my brain right now as to the exact nature of the symmetry you are proposing 🙂

Cheryl,

While I agree with most of what you say, I cannot agree that anyone but God having the final decision in a martial or a ministry decision is in line with scripture, except as an interpretation that puts someone other than Christ in charge of our lives. We are Christian first, no matter whether we are male or female. Remember, our husbands, or our pastors, no matter however beloved or right they might be, through their authority cannot save us because they are only human.

Therefore, my first obedience and allegiance is to Christ, no matter what.

Because, as you put it, for Christians of whatever persuasion, the ‘buck’ stops with Him.

mbaker,

Maybe I need to clarify what I am saying here. When I speak of someone making the final decision, I was not speaking of things where one person wants to do something that is right Scripturally and one person wants to do something that is sinful. I am speaking of a situation that is more on the lines of, “where is the best place to invest this money,” or some other thing which is morally neutral. I am not saying that a wife is supposed to submit to her husband if she if being told to do something that is obviously sinful. Does that help or is that not what you are referring to?

Don—

Your construct of grammar and resulting interpretation of Ephesians 5 is, I’m sorry – not a delicate way to put it here – very much way off.

There is an old phrase used in courtrooms: “to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

I say this because regardless of how you feel on this issue and what passages say or mean exactly what in Scripture, the irony is that I really think a lot of what you are saying is true….but it’s not the whole truth, and therefore not THE truth….

Inevitably, this happens on both sides. For example – Do I believe men are called to be the head of the marriage, just as Christ is the head of the Church? Yes, I do. Do I believe that this means my wife has to obey me in every single thing? No, I don’t. I believe that she is called in Ephesians 5 to submit to me as the husband, meaning that she, through her unique, God-given talents and gifts, ought to help me be the most Godly husband I can be as we, together, navigate the waters of life. I think it can be done in such a way that exalts her, not tears her down, and still allow me as the man to be the leader within the marriage. That’s it. In theory, it’s that simple (obviously, if it only were that simple).

It is semi-amusing to me that there are a million ways to try and take what something clearly says and interpret it to mean the exact opposite because of this reason or that reason….in the end, though, it’s not more compelling when you do that. To me, it’s not even close…

I’ve enjoyed this blog; people are going to disagree….fine…all are entitled to. But be careful steering others with a half-truth. We are required to fight for the whole truth, mysterious and as difficult as it may be.

All best — to all –
Pete

I’m jumping in a bit late, but I found I really wanted to address this.

Cherylu said:

“Jesus may have “submitted” to people in such actions as washing the disciples feet while on this earth. However, this is certainly not the way that Christ relates to the church today. This instruction was written to the church after Jesus resurrection and His ascencion into Heaven. When it was written He was (and still is) the glorified King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And He does not today or when these instructions were written “submit” to the church. But we are certainly to submit to Him and a wife is to submit to her husband.”

But if we look at what Ephesians 5 actually says, husbands are being asked to imitate a particular action of Christ’s. What is it?

v. 25 – “Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it.” Notice the past tense there. Husbands are not being asked to emulate the present action of Christ towards the church, but a particular action in the past. And what was it? Was it giving commands? No. It was when He “gave Himself.”

When did He give Himself? It was when He gave Himself to be sacrificed for her sin. What did that look like? Was it an act of showy heroism that everyone could admire and say, “Now there was a great leader”? No– “Like a sheep before the shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth.” Does the sheep show authority over the shearers? No, the sheep is submissive to the shearers.

Even so, kind of love which the husband is being asked to show towards his wife is compared to Christ’s act of complete submission to people who wanted to kill Him. Some of those who shouted “Crucify!” were no doubt among those who at Pentecost 43 days later, cried to Peter, “What shall we do?” and repented and were baptised. It was to His church He submitted, that she might become His church.

Mutual submission– Christ as our example. That’s what the passage is about.

Why has a discussion on whether or not women can be “head pastors” (a term not used in the NT except kind of with respect to Jesus in Hebrews 13:20) turned into a discussion of how wives are to relate to their husbands? I.e., why has the topic of church leadership segued into a discussion of home leadership and ignored the church leadership point of the thread?

Why is it seemingly assumed that the husband-wife relationship is what is to be transferred into the church in terms of the ways men and women in the church are to function therein? There are a lot of single men and single women in the church for whom a marriage relationship with and toward each other as the way they are to function in church is not suggested AFAIK.

Eric,

Agreed, but Christ did compare our relationship to the church as male and female. I think where this discussion is getting derailed is that we want to equate the submission aspect of marriage, i.e. the husband’s assumed headship over the wife as as a similar thing to women not being allowed to teach in the church. I agree they are two separate issues. My own posts were trying to show that it is mututal submission that makes the church work as Christ meant it to, not the the one sided gender related kind of bias that makes everyone in suborgation to the head pastor instead.

in my mind that is not the biblical model but merely a continuation of the cultural model of Christ’s time. I believve He was speaking of something much higher than continuing the mere gender related authority of that time which obviously was not working to win folks to God, but just giving more power to the human church leaders.

Eric W, and all —

Final post by me, but since I’m on here, I can’t help but chime in…

The reasons ought to be clear, whether you are for/against women being head pastors, why strong parallels exist between roles of men and women in marriage (or lack thereof) and duties in the church. This shouldn’t require a lot of explanation, but if it does, I would offer up to you two things:

1. A head pastor in a church is a distinct role. Fine, call him or her something different, maybe you have a huge church and there are tons of “pastors,” but the fact is that most churches (I recognize NOT all) have head pastors or the equivalent. They are not usually the exclusive head leaders of particular churches (depending on how the church is run i.e. elder-led, deacon-led, etc), but the fact is that head pastors are nonetheless one of the if not the HUMAN leader of the church. Yes, thanks to all who are pointing out that Christ is the head of the church….got it. There are human leaders too, and the head pastor is one of them. He/she is a prime custodian of “shepherding” God’s flock.

2. Have any of you ever been to Europe or the middle east? Ever seen or talked to a real-life shepherd? In all seriousness…amazing folks. For the most part are very poor, humble, simple people….they serve their flock in every way possible. They share hardships. They endure the elements. But they also lead. They spot danger and confront it. They move on to green fields. They serve the flock…but make no mistake….the shepherd leads the flock. If you think I’m wrong, buy a plane ticket for yourself, and go live in Europe or the mid-east for a year and become a shepherd. Tell me if you didn’t lead your flock lest it whither and become nothing.

(continued)

Marriage is not the same as the church, Eric W. Thanks for pointing that out. But honestly…my kids, for whom marriage is the farthest thing from their minds right now at the ages of 6 and 8, would understand that IF God gave implications that are clear for how men and women are to behave towards one another in marriage, then it stands to reason that the same God would not violate these implications for how men and women are to govern themselves within a Church setting.

The real questions are:
1. Are there any implications for how men and women are to act towards one another in marriage? (Some say yes, and others say no…)

2. If the answer to #1 is yes, what are the implications – and how do I draw parallels, based on what God has laid out here and in other places, to the church?

If you miss the fact that marriage and the church are closely related, you miss a good chunk of the point here…

Isn’t it funny we call them “head” pastors? Does any church have what is called a “body” pastor, if there isn’t an important difference between the two? If not, I’m thinking of asking my associate pastor to be the “body” pastor…

Colossians 3:18, Titus 2:5, and I Peter 3:1ff all tell the wife to be submissive to her husband. I can’t help but wonder why this command is repeated over and over to wives and not given specifically any place to the husband as it is given to the wife if it doesn’t have special application to her and is not just a part of mutual submission to each other?

And what about I Peter? I Peter 3:1 says, “In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives,…”

In chapter 2, Peter has told us that we are all to be subject to governing authorities (2:13-14) and how servants are to be submissive to their masters (2:18).

Then in chapter 3:1, Peter says “In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands…” It seems to me that if wives are to be subject to their husbands in the same way as servants are to masters and as we all are to government that it is probably not simply a matter of mutual submission that is being addressed here. To be subject to government and in a master/servant relationship surely requires obedience to the laws of that government and to the wishes and orders of the master, does it not? Therefore it seems to me that if a wife is to be subject to her husband in the same way, it is speaking of more then a mutual submission. Am I totally off in my thinking here?

Cheryl,

I think you are thinking more in terms of involuntary submission than voluntary submission, as if God is merely a boss rather than Lord over all. Mutual submission in Christ means both genders have respect for each other’s position in God first, because both sexes are equally holy to Him. Otherwise He would be a racist, and us women nothing more than second class citizens in His kingdom, and we know He says himself he plays no favorites. As wives and husbands, and churches, we therefore act out of that scenario. While we have no choice but to obey secular laws or be jailed, we have respect for the spiritual laws which govern us and choose to obey them out of a sense of moral culpability in Christ. While we obey to the extent we can do it without violating His precepts, when we accept Him as our Savior, that gives no one the right to be Lord over us but Him. For a husband or a wife, or a church to assume anything else is idolotry because then we are looking to a human being to be our highest authority instead.

PeterMC: “Don—

Your construct of grammar and resulting interpretation of Ephesians 5 is, I’m sorry – not a delicate way to put it here – very much way off.”

Apostle Peter: “our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.” (2 Peter 3:15-16)

(continuing)

“Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position.”

Carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position as biblically obedient complementarians.

I was going to continue posting here, but I find that last comment inexcusable. Talk about using the Bible as a club to beat your fellow brothers and sisters with! So– if we are egalitarians, we are ignorant and unstable, lawless and carried away by error? And to take your position is to be biblically obedient?

I thought the rules here were not to attack one another. But whenever someone acts as if there is no such thing as interpretation, but only their reading– and that disagreeing with them is going against God Himself– that’s when I am warned not to drink that Koolaid.

“The wisdom which is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” James 3:17-18.

“And to take your position is to be biblically obedient?”

Of course.

KR Wordgazer,

Please don’t leave. The rules here are to not attack one another. Sometimes the rules get broken however, or at least severely bent.

In other words, I thought that last comment was quite inappropriate too.

KR, I agree wholeheartedly.

I think it’s a waste of time discussing an issue with certain folks who at some point, “snap,” stop discussing, and start slandering.

The reason this discussion has gone into the issue of marriage in such detail is that the matter of roles in the church is clearly argued in the New Testament to be in some way based on sex roles as established at Creation (see, for example, I Corinthians 11). So that it has been necessary to talk about ‘how it was at the beginning’. And ‘the beginning’ was a marital relationship between the two and only two humans who existed at that time.

So we ultimately can’t talk about sex roles in the church without talking about marriage. On the other hand, probably many of us here would agree that once we have established the nature of roles in marriage, roles in the church more or less follow from that and fall into place quite naturally.

Notice also that the distinction in both Greek and Hebrew is much less clear. There is no separate word in Greek for ‘man’ and ‘husband’, no separate word for ‘woman’ and ‘wife’. Just ‘aner’ and ‘gyne’. And in Hebrew, the case is similar: the word ‘ish’ means both ‘man’ and ‘husband’, and the word ‘ishshah’ means both ‘woman’ and ‘wife’. In both cases, one in fact has to gather from the context whether it is the ‘general case’ man and woman, or the ‘specific case’ husband and wife.

So there is even a linguistic reason for this substantial coincidence of the general and specific role concepts in Biblical thought.

“So we ultimately can’t talk about sex roles in the church without talking about marriage. On the other hand, probably many of us here would agree that once we have established the nature of roles in marriage, roles in the church more or less follow from that and fall into place quite naturally.”

caraboska,
How do you think this would work in a Chinese House Church with only single adult members and a woman pastor. Should the first male member to get married automatically replace the present female pastor? What if he is a new immature Christian? Any thoughts?

“I am speaking of a situation that is more on the lines of, “where is the best place to invest this money,” or some other thing which is morally neutral.”

cherylu,
So, I take it you don’t see wifely submission as giving husbands full authority over wives , but basically as a tie-breaker license for husbands?

Caraboska,

In 1 Cor 7, there is an 8-fold symmetry between the genders in a marriage, this is NOT an accident, Paul is deliberate and this PATTERN is something we should notice, over and above the text. That is, the pattern is saying something about marriage along with the actual words.

I do not know the answer to your question about questions in Greek.