The Message of God's Kingdom: Foundational Equality

Luke 3:4-6 tells of how the ministry of Jesus began with the appearance of John the Baptist, preaching a message from Isaiah 40:4:

A voice of one calling in the desert,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all mankind will see God’s salvation.'

This passage speaks in terms of land, roads and paths as a metaphor for God's salvation. God will fill up the low places and bring down the high places, straighten the crooked and smooth the rough. It envisions the coming God's salvation (the coming of the Messiah which John was proclaiming) in terms of a great leveling. Applying the metaphor to humanity, then:  the message is that human differences in status, one higher and one lower, will no longer matter. Paul speaks of the same sort of thing in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29: "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him."

And this isn't just about everyone being the same in what we call "spiritual salvation" -- being saved by grace through faith. Joel prophesied this in Joel 2:28-29 (which Peter then preached in Acts 2:16-21 as having been fulfilled):

I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

Not just in salvation, but in the pouring out of the Spirit, God promises to bless all His people.  "There is no favoritism with God," says Ephesians 6:9 (which, as Retha over at Biblical Personhood so beautifully points out, is the concluding sentence of Paul's household codes in Ephesians, showing us that Paul was teaching his readers how to work within a human system of favoritism, not God's).

In the Old Covenant, God set aside one people, then one family out of one tribe of those people for priesthood, and another family out of another tribe of those people for kingship.  But now we are in the New Covenant.  Members of every tribe and language and people and nation are made into "a kingdom and priests to serve our God."  Revelation 5:9-10.  Peter said in Acts 10:34, after God had poured out His Spirit on Gentiles, "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts those from every nation who fear him and do what is right."

Paul states this as a foundational truth of the Kingdom of God in 2 Corinthians 5:16-17: "So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view [other translations say, "according to the flesh"].  Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.  The old is gone, the new is here!"  Paul tells the Galatians that he "opposed [Peter] to his face. . . for before certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles.  But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles. . . ." (Galatians 2:11-12).  Peter was regarding both the Gentiles and himself from a worldly point of view, or according to the flesh.

But Paul explains later in the same letter, "So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. . . there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. . . . [W]hen the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship."  Galatians 3:28-4:5  A footnote in my Bible adds, "The Greek word for adoption to sonship is a legal term referring to the full legal standing of an adopted male heir in Roman culture."  Paul is saying that all who are in Christ Jesus-- Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female-- have received the same promise of the adoption to sonship.  No one who has faith in Christ has any lesser legal standing, powers or privileges than anyone else. 

This is why Paul counsels the believers in Philippians 2:3, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves." Jesus had taught in Matthew 18:2-4, Mark 10:15 and Luke 18:7 that everyone who wants to enter the Kingdom of God must do it as a little child.  Little children had no status, powers or privileges in that day, so Jesus' words amounted to a statement that we all must lay down our earthly status, powers and privileges in order to enter the new creation Kingdom.

The essence of the Kingdom message is this:  "Stop looking at yourself in terms of status, or lack thereof.  Stop regarding others in terms of their power or position.  Stop expecting to be treated with respect based on your status in the world, and learn to treat all others with respect-- regardless of their status in the world." Paul made it especially clear that he understood this when he refused to have followers who said, "I am of Paul," stating that those who insisted on distinguishing leaders or having jealousy of place or position were "mere infants" and "still worldly."  This idea is so pervasive throughout the entire New Testament that it must be regarded as one of its foundational teachings.

But many Christians believe that God, universally and timelessly, has chosen men to have leadership authority in the church and home, and women to be followers under that authority.   Some even consider it an essential tenet of Christianity that men are meant to lead and women are meant to follow-- so much so that they question whether those who disagree are truly committed to biblical Christianity.  They base this doctrine on a few short texts: 1 Timothy 2:12-15, 1 Corinthians 11:3, 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, Ephesians 5:22-23, Colossians 3:18, Titus 2:4-5 and 1 Peter 3:1-6.  They believe these seven texts create an exception to the Kingdom message of no favoritism: that in this one area, we are to view certain believers according to the flesh.   They say that Galatians 3:28 refers only to spiritual salvation.  They say that Joel 2:28-29 and Acts 2:16-21 restrict the outpouring of the Spirit to only what is mentioned in those verses: prophecy, visions and dreams.  They say that God does not and will not pour out any spiritual leadership gifts upon women, except so that they may lead other women.

Apparently the idea is that though we must become as little children to enter the Kingdom, the Kingdom itself then confers upon men, based on their maleness alone, new powers, privileges and status that women cannot have.

What we tend to forget is that we're in a completely different situation than the original readers of the New Testament.  We live in a society where men no longer are considered to have primacy and power, and where women are no longer relegated to the home and children.   It's easy, therefore, to read these verses as if they were against the mutuality of our culture: as if they were counter-cultural statements about God's divine plan for the Kingdom-- statements that place male authority firmly within the Kingdom, to be held against all modern cultural changes.

But how would these passages read if you had always lived in a society where women were required to be not just submissive, but obedient to their husbands?  Where freeborn little boys grew up knowing they would one day become masters of their homes, wives, children and slaves?  Where women were not only forbidden to teach (except in the temples of their goddesses), but viewed as less than fully virtuous if they spoke in public at all?

I think if we lived in those days, it would be much clearer that in light of the Kingdom principle that all believers have the same status before God, the New Testament writers were teaching believers to make necessary concessions for the sake of the church's reputation in the cultures they lived in, and yet without compromising new-creation mutuality.   If you were a new believer in the early 1st century, might you not be saying, "My husband/master has become a believer and has laid down his earthly status.  Does this mean I still have to follow the Emperor's law and obey him?"  Peter's words in 1 Peter 2:12-13 encapsulate the New Testament response: "Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds. . . Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human authority."  

As I look back upon history, it seems to me that the Kingdom principle of the equality of believers has had a profound effect, over time, on the notion of the equality of all human beings.  It is not that our modern culture, by insisting on the full, functional equality of women, has somehow corrupted the Kingdom message as it should be understood in the church.  On the contrary-- the church, ever since the passing of the first Apostles, has been finding ways to exclude women from Kingdom equality.  But our Western cultures today, having imbibed deeply of the Kingdom teaching of equality and applied it to all humanity, are now calling out the church on her hypocrisy.

Maybe it's time we listened.

Does the Bible Teach Male Headship? Part 1

This is is the first of a three-part series that was originally posted at the Take Heart Project.  

Many Christians say the Bible teaches that the man is the head of the woman and that the husband is the head of the house, the instrument of God for directing the family, and God's designated final authority for decision-making on behalf of the couple and their children.  I believe that these ideas come from a combination of tradition and proof-texting, which is a method of Bible interpretation that lifts certain verses out of their literal and historical context, reading them as if they were a memo from the Boss left on our desks yesterday rather than part of the Great Story of creation, fall and redemption-- which was meant to be read according to the original human writer's God-inspired, intended message, as it would have been understood by the original audience.

But if we look at male headship in the Bible according to these principles of interpretation, how well does it stand up?  In my last post on the nature of woman, we saw how the male and female humans were equal at Creation, and what the Fall did to their relationship.  What does the redemption that comes through Jesus Christ do to the relationship between males and females, husbands and wives?

Galatians 3:26-4:7 is one of Paul’s great statements about the nature of the New Covenant community brought about by Christ’s death and resurrection.

“For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Now I say: That the heir,, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all. . . Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. . . Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”

As I discussed in an earlier post on this passage, many Christians say Paul was only talking about spiritual salvation-- that he meant only that people of all races and both sexes can become part of God’s family, but that men still are to have the roles of authority in the church and home. But look again at the last part of this section of Scripture: “that ye might receive the adoption of sons. . . and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” That phrase, “adoption of sons,” was a special legal term in the original Greek, referring to the full legal standing of an adopted male heir.. Adopted male heirs had the same status as freeborn male sons, with all the privileges and benefits that sons enjoyed in that culture.

Paul is saying that “in Christ” Jews and Gentiles, slaves and freemen, males and females, all have full and equal status as adopted freeborn “sons” in the family of God. It was not Paul’s intention that a freeborn Jew, after reading this passage, would feel able to tell a Gentile or a slave, “There, you get to be saved just like us; now be content with that, because positions of leadership in God’s family belong only to freeborn Jews.” Such flesh-based distinctions are part of the “elements of the world,” (Gal. 4:3), and these “elements” are not part of God’s covenant community in Christ. And according to the same passage, this applies to “male and female” distinctions too.

Now there is no doubt that in the cultures and times in which the New Testament was written, the man was certainly the head of his household and in authority over his wife, children and slaves. The Romans had a special term for that, “pater familias,” which referred to the patriarchal powers of a free, adult male over his household. The question that has to be asked is whether that “pater familias” household structure was God’s plan and will for all Christian households for all time, or whether it was simply a product of those ancient cultures. Remember that the apostles, in their writing of the Epistles, did not consider it the mission of the infant church to try to change the established authority structures of those times and cultures. Instead, the young church was to work within those structures to spread a spiritual message that changed believers from within, resulting in their being “in the world, but not of it.” (John 17:15-16.) Therefore, it is a mistake to read a passage that advises Christians to live within certain social structures, as a divine endorsement of those structures–unless the Scriptures clearly and explicitly refer to a particular social structure as part of God’s divine plan.

In analyzing any passage in the Bible, the important thing to keep in mind is this. Every passage fits somewhere into the Great Story. The passage we just looked at, Galatians 3:26-4:7, fits in as a statement of the fundamental nature of the covenant community which was born through Christ’s redemption. The passages we will examine next, fit into the Story as instructions or advice for practical living for that community.

Statements about the practical living of a group of people must be read in light of statements about the fundamental nature of that people– not the other way around. If the fundamental nature of the church is that there is no Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male or female, for we are all adopted sons in God’s family, then we must look at the practical-living passages through the lenses of that understanding. Biblical instructions for practical Christian living, if read in ways that deny or contradict what it means to be God’s redeemed community in Christ, are probably misunderstandings of what the New Testament writers intended to say.

Unfortunately, in the case of male-female relations, these misunderstandings are so long-standing that they have come to considered the normative way to read these passages, with other readings automatically suspect. “We must not capitulate to feminist modern culture and re-interpret Scripture against 2000 years of church history!” is the cry. But what if the traditional understanding of biblical texts regarding male-female relations is in fact a long-standing “capitulation” to ancient cultures that became mixed into Christian understandings of the New Testament writings?

In other words, do the Scriptures say that it’s God’s divine plan for men to have authority over women, or husbands over wives– or did the original audience share the assumption with the writer that males were over females, and husbands over wives, as part of the culture? And did that cultural understanding then somehow become mistaken for God’s will for all time?

In light of Galatians 3:26-4:7, it certainly looks as if God’s plan for His kingdom was not about hierarchy and male rule, but about all believers having equal status in one great spiritual family in which God alone has the power of the “pater familias.” In fact, Jesus Himself spoke in these terms when He was told His earthly mother and brothers wanted to speak to him, and He said, “Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

The Book of Romans also sets forth the principle that we are all siblings in one big spiritual family: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. . . ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, ’Abba, Father.’” (Romans 8:14-15). In fact, this kind of terminology appears everywhere throughout the New Testament, and “brethren” (which is a gender-inclusive word in the original Greek meaning “brothers and sisters”) is the most common way the authors of the Epistles addressed the churches.  

[Note: my earlier series, "The Bible and Human Authority," which begins here, addresses these issues in more detail].

In light of the New Creation Kingdom and our equality within it as brothers and sisters, then-- the upcoming Parts 2 and 3 will examine some of the passages that refer to what is commonly called “male headship.”