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Originally posted by The Coot:
You know, if the reformed traditions accepted the ordained priesthood, they wouldn't need to get their knicks in a twist over Headship... because they could exclude women from positions of clerical authority by the 'imaging Christ' argument.

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unless the wearing of trousers or jeans signifies in that context a rebellion against the created order.
(Emph. mine)

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Genesis 2: [25] And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed

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Originally posted by Emma.:
My huge problem with it is that *in context* the passages would have been hugely liberating for women.

Household codes of the time usaully had "women must, children must, slaves must.." the main point paul was making is that he was revolutionary. He was suggesting those in authority actually had a responsibilty to those they are in authority over.

As in... not only children must.. BUT ALSO parents. not just slave, BUT ALSO owners..

So that would have been the real punch of the passage.

Similarly the husband head as christ is head.. read that bit that says "ahh but i am not talking about marriage, i am talking about the church". He is using a relevant daily metaphor for his purposes, like sheep and shepherds and all that.To argue backwards is bad logic. Like arguing that sheep should be like christians...

In total, it is those teaching that women should have lesser roles than men in todays society that have missed the point of the passages and arent taking them seriously. IMHO.

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Originally posted by Emma.:
I'm convinced men and women *are* different, personally. And any 2 people (male or female) will think differently and relate in different ways, so in a marriage obviously different roles will be taken. Surprisingly I personally would love the house"wife" role, and responsibility for kids.

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Originally posted by Laura:
I'd be really interested to hear from the people most involved in the thread back nearly 3 years ago -- how their thinking on this has gone on in the ensuing time.

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
duchess, I agree with the principle of Bible study you espouse. But, when you read Pauls letters "studying what really is meant, the context and everything around it" then the society (and the prejudices, expectations and understanding of that society) of the original recipients of those letters must be taken into account in just the way Louise and others have said. The result of such a study may well be to say that even if the letters in question are inerrant instructions to the churches they were sent that doesn't mean those same instructions are inerrant to us because our situation is so different. In this case that the husbands' headship & wifes' submission is not, in our society, the way marriage should be arranged.

That's not to say that the texts in question are meaningless today. I tend to the view that as the distinct gender roles assumed in the first century have been blurred and are almost non-existant today then so have the headship/submission roles in relationship. A husband and wife should, I think, share headship and submit to each other.

Of course, I'm single so I'm not talking from experience here at all.

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Originally posted by Gordon:
It's very hard to think of examples because most of the time, we wear clothes for fashion, comfort, vanity, perceived attractiveness, functionality and so on. It's unusual to wear clothing to make a deliberate ideological statement; something which may have been going on at Corinth judging by by Paul's reaction to it.

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Originally posted by HopPik:
In our own family - well things are unusual. Uniquely in our own circle, though it is happening more and more, we "swapped roles". I gave up paid work to look after the kids while my wife became the breadwinner. And, being at the domestic core, I found that in fact, if not entirely in control of things, I was seen as crucial... so that in the end, rather than challenge me, children, spouse, would back off. Perhaps this is as it ever was, the homekeeper finally calling the tune, in which case in a conventional family maybe male headship was always something of a fantasy. There's always been a strand in popular myth that women let men imagine they're in charge but really hold all the reins. I can believe that.

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• My mother is a smart, competent and level-headed woman, and while she is anything beaten down, and while they function as partners in a lot of ways, she has deferred throughout their marriage to my smart, competent but less level-headed and also unbelievably stubborn father. Because that's the way she was raised, and that's just how things are.
• My grandfather was a traveling salesman who cheated on my grandmother, and she knew it, and she just bore it, because that's the way she was raised, and that's just how things are.
• The man who is now my cousin's husband asked permission from her father before he asked her to marry him (in the mid-1980s, mind you), because in all of their minds a woman is under the authority of her father until she is under the authority of her husband.
• A few years ago I briefly dated someone whose explanation of why his non-denominational church would never have a female pastor all came down to male headship. (This was the last date I had with this guy, needless to say!)

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Originally posted by The Undiscovered Country:
This article is a good summary of the biblical arguments for headship and for explaining what it is and what it isn't.

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Originally posted by Eutychus:

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Originally posted by The Undiscovered Country:
This article is a good summary of the biblical arguments for headship and for explaining what it is and what it isn't.

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How would you address the view, expressed several times earlier on in this thread, that the practical outworking of Grudem's position (the husband effectively has a 'casting vote' at times of serious decision-making) only makes sense in the light of huge historical developments granting rights to women, developments which have occured in the face of traditional interpretations of the role and status of man and woman based on the passages he quotes in support of his view?

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Originally posted by Custard.:
Thanks Josephine - that was helpful, especially given that SJC predates feminism by a very long way and that he seems to have a very healthy view of headship.

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And what may be the cause of his setting them under so great subjection? Because the woman is in some sort a weaker being and easily carried away and light minded. Here you see why he set over them their husbands as teachers, for the benefit of both. For so he both rendered the women orderly, and the husbands he made anxious, as having to deliver to their wives very exactly what they heard.

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Seest thou the wisdom of Paul, what kind of testimony he adduced, one that not only enjoins on them silence, but silence too with fear; and with as great fear as that wherewith a maid servant ought to keep herself quiet.

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• Try this exercise: take a Bible concordance, for any translation, and look up the word 'headship'. I guarantee you will not find it. A tiny handful of Bible verses which use the Greek word 'kephale' in relation to marriage, have been inflated into a total system for all relations between men and women.
• Now try this: find me the verse where it says that a man is head of his household. You won't find that one either - there isn't one.
• Thirdly, ask yourself this: in the relation between Christ and the church, to which Paul is comparing marriage, who is required to make the greater sacrifice - Christ or the church?
• Fourthly, what is the ratio between the sermons you have heard exhorting wives to submit, and the sermons you have heard exhorting husbands to lay down their lives? And have you ever heard a sermon on 'Submit to one another'? If not, why not?
• And finally: it seems fairly self-evident that many of Paul's directives regarding female behaviour were designed to stop the church appearing scandalous in his society. Now, which is the scandal in today's society - equality of marriage partners, or a hierarchy over male over female? Surely it is the hierarchy, which our society is scandalized by (and so it should be, when one sees what abuse has been perpetrated in the name of hierarchy). So, what would Paul be saying today, to avoid the church becoming a scandal?

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Originally posted by Weed:
Do you consider St John Chrysostom's views on women to be healthy?

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Originally posted by Esmeralda:
[*]Thirdly, ask yourself this: in the relation between Christ and the church, to which Paul is comparing marriage, who is required to make the greater sacrifice - Christ or the church?

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[*]Fourthly, what is the ratio between the sermons you have heard exhorting wives to submit, and the sermons you have heard exhorting husbands to lay down their lives? And have you ever heard a sermon on 'Submit to one another'? If not, why not?

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[*]And finally: it seems fairly self-evident that many of Paul's directives regarding female behaviour were designed to stop the church appearing scandalous in his society.

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Originally posted by The Coot:
Gordon, if you're willing to share more about the way you pursue your different roles, can you indicate in which spheres you exercise your husbandly authority?

What you've related seems no different to any other husband and wife. When does crunch time come?

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Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
It includes a responsibility that the husband himself, like Christ, submit to the will of the heavenly Father and demonstrate the work of the Spirit in his life—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

...

speaking of the things of God’s character, will and actions

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The only biblical example I can think of is 1 Corinthians 7:1-6; which raises the possibility of a scenario where either the husband or wife wants to have sex and the other doesn’t. Here, the advice Paul gives is quite clear that if the husband would like to abstain, and the wife wouldn’t, then the husband must give way and they must have sex.

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Originally posted by Josephine:
He goes on at very great length about how, whatever they do for their wives, however much they think they love their wives, it's not enough

...

To wives, he says they should respect their husband. But if a woman's husband doesn't love her, that doesn't free her from her responsibility to her -- but it does diminish it. He tells her that she should not stubbornly contradict him. If she does that, she's done enough.

He never tells husbands that they have done enough.

...

So, in the Orthodox Church, that's what it means to be the husband, the head -- to do everything you can for your wife, and to know that it still isn't enough, and will never be enough.

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Originally posted by Paul Mason:
This all sounds very noble but the question remains as to whether one's ability to demonstrate the work of the Spirit in the ways described, and the insights necessary to speaking of God's character, will and actions - whether these are somehow more in the grasp of men than women purely because of their gender.

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But, as I'm sure you know, it's this exact logic, with the genders reversed, that's been so abused in the past with relation to rape within marriage. And although it's possible to state it as you did, it seems to me that because of certain physical considerations (not to be too crude) such a view is always more liable to be misused by the man than the woman - at least in such an extreme way.

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Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
Jesus never used physical force to coerce people to his ends

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Originally posted by Mousethief:

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Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
Jesus never used physical force to coerce people to his ends

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Hmm, I seem to remember a certain incident with some money-changers and a whip.....

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Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
The whip is only mentioned in John 2:15, and in the same verse the reason implied for its use is "the sheep and oxen".

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Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:

quote:

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Originally posted by Paul Mason:
This all sounds very noble but the question remains as to whether one's ability to demonstrate the work of the Spirit in the ways described, and the insights necessary to speaking of God's character, will and actions - whether these are somehow more in the grasp of men than women purely because of their gender.

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I make no such claim! It is a point about where ultimate responsibility lies, not who's better at it.

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The administrator of a hospital may take ultimate responsibility for the results of brain surgery in the hospital, even if his wife the brain surgeon is better at brain surgery than the administrator is.

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But, as I'm sure you know, it's this exact logic, with the genders reversed, that's been so abused in the past with relation to rape within marriage. And although it's possible to state it as you did, it seems to me that because of certain physical considerations (not to be too crude) such a view is always more liable to be misused by the man than the woman - at least in such an extreme way.

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Sure, and "abused" is spot on. Jesus never used physical force to coerce people to his ends, even though:

Matt. 26:53 Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?

Interpreting and applying 1 Corinthians 7:1-6 correctly is about paying attention to the New Testament context, not prooftexting it as grounds for physical abuse or rape within marriage.

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Originally posted by RuthW:
Not to say that this is how things are in your family, but in general it seems to me entirely possible that a man who is "homekeeper" might be taken more seriously than a woman in the same role.

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Originally posted by Weed:
Do you consider St John Chrysostom's views on women to be healthy?

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Originally posted by Eutychus:

quote:

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Originally posted by The Undiscovered Country:
This article is a good summary of the biblical arguments for headship and for explaining what it is and what it isn't.

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How would you address the view, expressed several times earlier on in this thread, that the practical outworking of Grudem's position (the husband effectively has a 'casting vote' at times of serious decision-making) only makes sense in the light of huge historical developments granting rights to women, developments which have occured in the face of traditional interpretations of the role and status of man and woman based on the passages he quotes in support of his view?

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Wives submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

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Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

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Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
Now in your earlier response you have quoted the immediate context to show that there is also a link to the natural order of things; and so there is. But the natural order of things is not just about hair-wearing! It’s about submission. So Paul supports the latter (submission), insists on the former (hair style) in a situation where all churches are following the same practice— and then leaves later readers to figure out application in their context.

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So the cutural studies stuff is helpful but not essential, and has its own pitfalls too

(for example: one pitfall is a greater temptation to assume that I've got the culture nailed down, now that I've done my archaeology degree; thus dignifying my cultural insights with too much weight in the interpretive process)

My point is that there is enough cultural information to be found in the text for us to be getting on with. Could you name one substantial piece of interpretation that hinges on extra-biblical knowledge of how shepherds operated in first century Galilee? Could you name one substantial piece of interpretation that requires knowledge of first century marriage practices? I mean, knowledge that is not already there in the bible.

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But I would counter that no-one can pay careful attention to Ephesians 5 and the way Christ treated his church, and come away thinking that it is automatically right to deny mortgages or employment to women—much less be violent towards wives— simply and only on the grounds that they are to submit! That in itself is a textual distortion.

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Note also how we have various indications that Christian discipleship means radically standing against prevailing cultural norms, no matter how bizarre this will appear. Eg.

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Luke 22:25 And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors.
Luke 22:26 But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves.
Luke 22:27 For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.

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If the husband is in any sense a leader in the marriage, then here is an example where the husband may not simply pick up prevailing social mores and apply them to the marriage, but must do the exact opposite.

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So, we must struggle with the principles stated by Paul and how to rework them into their contemporary application. We are not free to insist that Paul was simply endorsing a slightly more enlightened version of first-century culture, as a cultural model that must be ossified into the church for all time.

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I think I am still waiting for you to define what you mean by "inferiority". You have given examples; examples which I deny are what the bible had in mind when it teaches submission. But you still seem to be insisting that submission will and must equate to inferiority. True, or have I got that wrong?

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Originally posted by The Undiscovered Country:
Headship can only be properly understood in the wider context of the roles of men and women under God.

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There comes a point, and I thought I'd made it before, that all the words about women being the equal of men whilst at the same time being subject to them ring hollow.

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Originally posted by Weed:


To submit (= place under) means one is the boss and one is the underling. Good Christian people will deny that implies any value judgment or any inequality but that doesn't get over the fact that one can tell the other what to do and expect to be obeyed.

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Originally posted by Weed:
Gordon,

A reply to an earlier post I haven't been able to get around to before now. I drafted this before your description of your own marriage which I thank you for. As Coot says, it sounds lovely, but I don't quite see how it would be different without the view you take on headship. Sounds like a great Christian marriage between equals to me.

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Originally posted by Weed:
Of course there's always a danger in using your brain when reading but the important thing is to know when you are bringing things to the text and when the text itself supports it. Tell me, do you have a mental picture of the buildings and landscape of the bible? How much of that comes from seeing pictures and photographs?

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I keep seeing bitumen roads and motorbikes, and people dressed like they stepped off the set of Life of Brian

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an example of the extensive and crucial use of extra-biblical knowledge, and that's in translating the original text of the bible. We have dozens of translations, each one an attempt better to convey what was originally meant and to be closer to the spirit of the original. Isn't it odd if the translator is allowed to refer to other literature of the time to get at the meaning of the original but the reader of the translation isn't?

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Don't you know that for the best part of 2000 years the admonitions in the epistles have been used to justify such behaviour towards women?

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Originally posted by me:

So, we must struggle with the principles stated by Paul and how to rework them into their contemporary application. We are not free to insist that Paul was simply endorsing a slightly more enlightened version of first-century culture, as a cultural model that must be ossified into the church for all time.

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then riposted by you:
Thanks. That will do for my argument about the difference between conservative evangelical treatment of scriptural references to headship and homosexuality.

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originally posted by Weed:

Inferiority is a handy word in an argument, isn't it? It can mean both a plain statement of fact as to the relationship between boss and underling (one a superior and one an inferior), or when talking about an inanimate object that has more functions than another, and both those meanings are devoid of value judgements. It can also mean of lesser worth which is why, although we may still use the word superior at work (and supervisor and superintendent) we tend not to use the word inferior in case we are mistaken as to what we mean.

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Originally posted by Callan:
But that takes us back to the ascripted authority bit. Blair's authority doesn't rest on the fact that he is white, male, straight or middle class (although being realistic none of them hurt)but because he has a mandate from the British people and is first Minister of HM Queen Elizabeth II.

What Weed is objecting to is an institutionalised ascripted role for people based on their gender.

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Originally posted by The Coot:
I think the way you describe you and your wife's interaction sounds lovely (really); but this isn't the impression the Dr. Dobsons of the world give to the rest of us about how these verses are to be understood and practiced!

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Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
It is a marriage between equals. And I'm the head of the household.

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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:


Now we live in a society under rule of law that forbids violent imposition of will, women have been able to demonstrate that our physical differences do not infer necessary difference in capability in any other area of personhood. That sections of Christianity still cow-tow to the I guess understandable if indefensible reaction of some men to the loss of preferential access to power, devising these bizarre justifications that somehow this is part of God's plan, is an afront to the God-ness in humanity and the nature of our Creator. It's defending the indefensible.

Time to grow up and move on, I think.

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Yes. Indeed. I believe in headship because I find emancipated women immensely threatening.

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

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Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
It is a marriage between equals. And I'm the head of the household.

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If it's a marriage of equals, what room is there for a head? If there is a head, then one of you is unequal. Or do you use the word "head" in a different way to the bulk of the English speaking world?

Of course, in a marriage both partners are equal but different. There may well be, and probably is, a difference in ability such that if (for example) there needs to be some wiring done then it makes sense to let the person more capable of that get on with it. But I can't think of anything bar breast feeding babies where there is an inherent difference between husband and wife that would make it normal for one sex rather than the other to fill any particular role.

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
It is really evident that you are absolutely determined to see this pejoratively. You may, if you wish take the idea of submission to mean inequality, despite the adherents of that position assuring you it is not. All I can say is I consider Tony Blair my equal even though I must do what he says in a far more binding way than you would see in any church or family relationship. I could choose to see the fact that I submit to Tony as a sign that he is superior to me, but only if I was determined to see my own self worth defined on the basis of the power I wield.

I don't. So he isn't.

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Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:

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Originally posted by Weed:
A reply to an earlier post I haven't been able to get around to before now. I drafted this before your description of your own marriage which I thank you for. As Coot says, it sounds lovely, but I don't quite see how it would be different without the view you take on headship. Sounds like a great Christian marriage between equals to me.

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Well, this is something, at least. It is a marriage between equals. And I'm the head of the household. It seems to me that you acknowledge here that a conservative view of headship can work out in a way that doesn't demean the wife. Or is it your claim that I've misapplied the Bible?

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Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:

quote:

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Originally posted by Weed: an example of the extensive and crucial use of extra-biblical knowledge, and that's in translating the original text of the bible. We have dozens of translations, each one an attempt better to convey what was originally meant and to be closer to the spirit of the original. Isn't it odd if the translator is allowed to refer to other literature of the time to get at the meaning of the original but the reader of the translation isn't?

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Both translator and reader are free to range around doing their cultural studies thang, as I keep saying. It's just that their conclusions are necessarily tentative; liable to be over-ridden not just by new cultural findings but by careful re-reading of the text in the light of the rest of Scripture.

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Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
Don't you know that for the best part of 2000 years the admonitions in the epistles have been used to justify such behaviour towards women? A problem which I explain in terms of

*sin and/or

*an over-generalisation about what has been supposed to be done in the name of Christianity while ignoring examples where Christianity has stood against the culture and/or

* a judging of the last 2000 years of culture by the narrow standards of feminism in the late 20th century, which may themselves be open to question as to their rightness.

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Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:

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then riposted by you:
Thanks. That will do for my argument about the difference between conservative evangelical treatment of scriptural references to headship and homosexuality.

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Very naughty indeed Weed. You slid past the bit where I argued that the reason for this conclusion came from other parts of the Bible that addressed the subject of leadership; so making it appear as if I was appealing to a cultural reason for changing the interpretation of the text. Full marks for trying, though!

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originally posted by Weed:

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Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
Inferiority is a handy word in an argument, isn't it? It can mean both a plain statement of fact as to the relationship between boss and underling (one a superior and one an inferior), or when talking about an inanimate object that has more functions than another, and both those meanings are devoid of value judgements. It can also mean of lesser worth which is why, although we may still use the word superior at work (and supervisor and superintendent) we tend not to use the word inferior in case we are mistaken as to what we mean.

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Yes, we are certainly beginning from different ends of the definition. You believe that someone becomes inferior/superior by virtue of occupying a particular role; or having or lacking certain abilities; or having a particular level of authority; essentially a functional definition which then reflects back onto the essence of the person. I begin from the point of view that all are essentially equal in the eyes of God, and that equality can't be compromised by the having of different abilities, roles, or levels of authority.

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Originally posted by Mousethief:
I find it interesting that nobody has brought out the fact that when Paul says the man is the "head" of the wife, the word he is using is not arche (leader, ruler) but kephale (physical head).

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

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Originally posted by Mousethief:
[qb] I find it interesting that nobody has brought out the fact that when Paul says the man is the "head" of the wife, the word he is using is not arche (leader, ruler) but kephale (physical head).

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Well, I never mentioned it because I didn't know that. It is useful bit of information.

I like the analogy with the "head" being the squaddie who takes the lead position, rather than (say) an officer. I still don't see any reason why that has to be the husband and not the wife.

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Originally posted by Mousethief:
I find it interesting that nobody has brought out the fact that when Paul says the man is the "head" of the wife, the word he is using is not arche (leader, ruler) but kephale (physical head).

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the point of contact as regards our image-hood means that we (humans) are fundamentally relational in nature, and that relationship is ultimate reality. That's about as far as I'd want to take it with confidence[/url]

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Gordon goes on to suggest that 1 Cor 11:3 might go beyond this, but so far the consensus seems to be that the Trinity is just too far beyond our understanding to form a reliable basis on which to extrapolate anything very meaningful in terms of husband/wife relationships.

In addition, don't we need to bear in mind that the Son and the Father are sinless, and we aren't? Submitting to someone perfect is a whole different deal to submitting to someone who's not – and surely that should suggest caution in using a trinity-based argument in favour of headship in marriage?

4) Submission and equality

The headshipmates insist that submission does not compromise equality. Given that appeals to the Trinity seem to have been put on the back burner, doesn't that run into trouble right here:

quote:

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Ephesians 5:24:
Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

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…man (…) is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.

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In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.

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Judge for yourselves

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If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice–nor do the churches of God.

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neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head.

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Egalitarians claim the word ‘head’ doesn’t mean authority but ‘source’ (ie Adam was the source of Eve). The Greek word is ‘kephale’. I got a list on computer of a wide sample of occurrences of the word kephale in the ancient world – 2,336 examples. In most it just means physical head, such as one soldier cutting off the head of another in battle. I found at least 50 examples of one person being the head of another and it’s always an authority relationship eg the General is the head of the army, the Emperor is the head of the empire. Never in all of Greek literature is there any place where person A is said to be the head of person B and is not in authority over that person.

I have a private letter that I have had permission to publish from Peter Greer from the Bodleian Library in Oxford where he has been working as a lexicographer for 52 years. He is the greatest living expert on ancient Greek words. I met him last week. He says in this letter the meaning for kephale as ‘source’ does not exist.

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Grudem is about as fussy and punctilious a scholar as they come on details like this. The source of the "kephale = source" misunderstanding was traced, possibly by him, to a single unsubstantiated footnote in the work of a leading evangelical scholar (I think I know his name but I won't take the risk of getting it wrong here), subsequently cited without checking by a large number of people since. That is, until Grudem did his thing with the 2336 examples of the word 'kephale' in ancient Greek literature. All I can imagine is that when Grudem and said scholar meet in heaven, said scholar will slap him upside of the head for being such an annoying little git for having chased this issue through

Also in that article that TUC linked, you will find the argument 1 Corinthians 11:3 used to linking the doctrine of the trinity to the question of headship and submission.

I will be away on conferences for a few days and need to do some prep too, so the flow of my responses on this thread will slow down a bit — apologies in advance. Eutychus, thank you for your helpful summation of the issues to this point.

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