"You're Not Arguing With Us But With God"

A fellow member of Equality Central Forum (a forum for Christians who believe in full male-female equality in society, church and home) recently shared the answer she (her first name is Helen) received from a well-known ministry in response to a letter she wrote them.  Helen has given me permission to reprint and comment here on part of the letter she received.

This ministry (I'll give it a generic name: "Bible Preaching") promotes, among other things, the authority and leadership of males in all aspects of Christian life.   I quote here a few paragraphs of their response to Helen's letter:  

God’s Word and His law is the reason why women should not be in positions of authority over the man. You do not have a complaint against [Bible Preaching] as to this point, you have a complaint against God. For the Bible clearly states that wives are to be subject unto their own husbands, Colossians 3:18, (as opposed to any other man). If she is to be subject under his authority, how than can she rule over others? In Exodus 18:21 we see that it is MEN who fear God, that should be set over the people to rule. . .

You claim that you are a Christian and that you believe in the Bible as much as we do, and yet you have asked us to “focus on John 3:16 and not 1 Timothy 2:12.” Do you despise the command of 1 Timothy 2:12? It is a verse in the Bible which you claim to believe in, and yet you encourage us to disregard a part of it. This is wrong of you to do. You cannot choose which principles and commands that you are going to follow. . .  Please, I ask you, to repent of this mindset, to subject yourself unto God, and to desist from disregarding the verses in Scripture which do not correlate with your chosen lifestyle. Ultimately, as I have said, you are not angry with us for our beliefs and practices, you are angry at God. And from this, you must repent. (Emphasis in original.)

Notice what is being said here.  Helen is accused of "disregarding" 1 Timothy 2:12 simply because she says it should not be focused on in the same way John 3:16 is.  John 3:16 is one of the key verses in which Christ describes the nature of salvation:  "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believed in Him should not perish but have eternal life."  1 Timothy 2:12, on the other hand, is not about salvation, but is where Paul talks about his own policy with regards to a certain aspect of male-female relations, stating (in the ESV version that Bible Preaching prefers) "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet." 

According to Bible Preaching, simply by stating that 1 Timothy 2:12 should not be as much of a focus as John 3:16, Helen is going so far as to "despise" 1 Timothy 2:12.  Are these really the same?  I hardly think so.  What I think is that the "privileging one's position" silencing technique is being used here:  in essence, "you-can't-disagree-because-GOD!" 

In other words, the Bible Preaching writer equates Bible Preaching's position with God's own position, using God's authority to render that position unassailable.  "You're not angry with us, but with God."  But what assumptions are implicit in such a statement?  Three at least: 

1.  "We are not interpreting the Bible, but just telling you exactly what it means."  

The problem with this is that the nature of reading anything not written by ourselves is interpretation.  Anyone who conveys a message to anyone else must encode the message in language and then speak or write it to the listener or reader, who, finally, decodes the message in his or her own mind.  Since pure-thought communication is impossible, the encoding/decoding process of language is the best way we have to convey thoughts to one another, but it is not perfect.   "I didn't mean that the way you took it!' can happen even between two close friends chatting over coffee.  How much more can it happen when the original message must be translated out of its original ancient language and conveyed into an entirely different modern language?

David A. deSilva, in his book Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity, puts it this way:

The readers of the New Testament shared certain values. . . and ways of ordering the world. . . Modern readers, too, are fully enculturated into a set of values, ways of relating and so forth.  Without taking some care to recover the culture of the first-century Greco-Roman writers and addressees, we will simply read the texts from the perspective of our cultural norms and codes. . . This task is essential as a check against our imposition of our own cultural, theological and social contexts onto the text. (p. 18, emphasis added.)

It's a mistake to think that we ourselves have no social/cultural perspective through which we decode the messages of the New Testament.  As theologian and minister N. T. Wright says in his essay How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?"  :

"There is, indeed, an evangelical assumption, common in some circles, that evangelicals do not have any tradition. We simply open the scripture, read what it says, and take it as applying to ourselves: there the matter ends, and we do not have any ‘tradition’. This is rather like the frequent Anglican assumption (being an Anglican myself I rather cherish this) that Anglicans have no doctrine peculiar to themselves: it is merely that if something is true the Church of England believes it. This, though not itself a refutation of the claim not to have any ‘tradition’, is for the moment sufficient indication of the inherent unlikeliness of the claim’s truth, and I am confident that most people, facing the question explicitly, will not wish that the claim be pressed. But I still find two things to be the case, both of which give me some cause for concern. First, there is an implied, and quite unwarranted, positivism: we imagine that we are ‘reading the text, straight’, and that if somebody disagrees with us it must be because they, unlike we ourselves, are secretly using ‘presuppositions’ of this or that sort. This is simply naïve, and actually astonishingly arrogant and dangerous. It fuels the second point, which is that evangelicals often use the phrase ‘authority of scripture’ when they mean the authority of evangelical, or Protestant, theology, since the assumption is made that we (evangelicals, or Protestants) are the ones who know and believe what the Bible is saying. And, though there is more than a grain of truth in such claims, they are by no means the whole truth, and to imagine that they are is to move from theology to ideology. If we are not careful, the phrase ‘authority of scripture’ can, by such routes, come to mean simply ‘the authority of evangelical tradition, as opposed to Catholic or rationalist ones.’" (Emphasis added.)

To decide that we are not interpreting the Bible, but just "reading it straight," as Wright puts it, is to close our eyes to the nature of our own humanity.  It is to assume for ourselves an objectivity that we are actually incapable of holding or sustaining.  In fact, it is a kind of blindness, a "log" in our own eye that we have no way of seeing past in order to remove the "speck" from the eye of another (Matthew 7:5).

Bible Preaching's letter writer thinks he (or she) sees a speck in Helen's eye.  But in asserting that he or she is not interpreting the text being used to find the speck, the letter writer is unaware of the log that must be removed from his own eye before the presence of any actual speck in Helen's eye can be verified. 

2.  "Disagreeing with us is sin against God."

Notice how much shaming is going on in Bible Preaching's statements above.  Helen is accused of not subjecting herself to God, of disregarding God's commands, and of being angry with God.  And she is told-- twice! -- that she needs to repent. 

The writer of the Bible Preaching letter has taken it upon him- or herself to determine Helen's spiritual state, and then has set himself up as her spiritual authority by telling her she "must" repent.  This, in fact, is spiritually abusive behavior:

When religion, God or the Bible are used to uphold a person or movement's real or perceived authority in ways that control or coerce, bringing shame, harm or misery to those perceived to be under that authority, this is spiritual abuse.

The Bible Preaching writer answering Helen's letter actually has no authority over Helen of any kind.  But the letter assumes authority* and then uses it in an attempt to shame and silence.  And this leads us to the third and most damaging assumption of all:

3.  "We are God's spokesman; we know God's mind and speak with God's voice."

Perhaps Bible Preaching's writer didn't intend this implication.  But to say "You are not arguing with us but with God, and you need to repent," does in fact imply that Bible Preaching is God's spokesman on earth.  It implies, "We could not possibly be wrong about what we believe God is saying in this text.  We know what God meant, and we have the right to take it upon ourselves to enforce that meaning."  The Old Testament prophets spoke for God, but Hebrews 1:1-2 says:

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.

There are no Old-Testament-style prophets in the New-Covenant kingdom which Jesus came to bring.  Instead, Jesus said, "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth." (John 16:13, emphasis added.)   All believers have the Holy Spirit.  Bible Preaching is not the final arbiter of God's truth or God's message in the Scriptures.   Jesus's life, words and actions are God's ultimate message to us-- and the Holy Spirit is our ultimate Teacher of that message.

This is why Helen said that John 3:16 should be given greater focus than 1 Timothy 2:12.  She was doing nothing more than placing the emphasis of Scripture where Scripture itself places it.   This is not disregarding 1 Timothy 2:12, but seeking to put it in its proper place within the overarching message.  And that overarching message really doesn't have much to do with women being silent or not having authority.  Instead, it's about what Christ has done in and for His people, setting them all -- men and women alike-- free from bondage to become a "royal priesthood" (1 Peter 2:9).

God did not, to put it in schoolyard vernacular, "die and leave Bible Preaching in charge."  God sent His Son with this message:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."

If Christ did not come to condemn, who are we to communicate shame and condemnation to our brothers or sisters in Christ?  We Christians should bow in humility before the Son and His message, not turn ourselves into policemen to enforce what we think the message is about, on everyone else.

Particularly when the message is coming across as more about restricting women than about setting human beings free.

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*Assuming and then abusing authority is probably actually much closer to what Paul meant in 1 Timothy 2:12 when he used the Greek word "authentein" to describe what he didn't want a woman to do to a man.  When Paul said it shouldn't be done to a man, did he mean it was ok to do it to a woman?  Is Bible Preaching's insistence on the letter of 1 Timothy 2:12 actually a violation of its spirit?

Even the Dogs Eat the Crumbs: Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician Woman

Matthew 15:21-28 tells this story:


Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."  The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.  He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”  “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

For years I didn't know what to think of this story.  It looked like Jesus was first ignoring, and then insulting, a poor, desperate woman-- for no other reason than that she was a Gentile.  It looked like she obtained healing for her daughter only after submitting to humiliation by agreeing that she and her people were little more than "dogs."  If Jesus is really the compassionate Savior of all mankind, how could He be so racist and cruel?  

But one of my general principles of Bible interpretation is to read passages like this in light of passages that are easy to understand.  Jesus is consistently portrayed elsewhere in the Gospels as ready to help any sufferer who came to Him, including Roman soldiers, tax collectors, and lepers.  When something doesn't seem to fit, the key is to look deeper.

As I discussed in my earlier post Assumptions Make You-Know-Whats Out of You and Me, the reason some Bible passages seem jarring and out of place, is that we come from a different cultural context.  Things the original writers and readers took for granted and felt no need to explain are mysteries to us, which can make us completely misunderstand what is actually going on.

So, in looking deeper, I found three aspects of Ancient Near East (ANE) culture that shed significant light on what Jesus and the woman He encountered were actually doing.

1.  Community.

Kenneth Bailey's book Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes examines this story in Chapter 16.   He says:

"A critical component in both the parables of Jesus and the dramatic stories about him is the ever-present community.  In much current reflection on many of these texts, the community is ignored.  Contemporary Western society is highly individualistic.   Most of the societies in the majority world still function as tightly knit communities. . . That community gives identity and profoundly influences both attitude and lifestyle. In the stories about Jesus, the surrounding community (on- or offstage) is a critical component in all that takes place and its presence must be factored into any interpretive effort."

Bailey points out that this story is not simply about an interaction between Jesus and a foreign woman.  The disciples are the audience, and Jesus' words and actions must also be interpreted in light of whatever lesson He intended to impart to them.   (The listeners/readers of this story both as it was told and written down were also part of the tellers'/writers' intended audience.)   Bailey points out that both to the disciples and to the original hearers of the story, Jesus' interaction with this woman (who came out to him herself and was therefore probably a poor widow with no one to send in her place) would raise parallels with the story of Elijah and the starving widow of Sidon (1 Kings 7:7-16).  Jesus had spoken of this Elijah story in the synagogue when He announced Himself at the beginning of his ministry, in Luke 4:25-27: "And I can assure you that there were many widows in Israel during Elijah’s time, when it did not rain for three and a half years and there was a great food shortage in the land.Yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to a widow in the city of Zarephath in the region of Sidon."  Jesus intended that His ministry be compared with that of Elijah, and that is just what the disciples would have done.

The initial response of Jesus to this foreign woman-- not answering her a word-- was entirely in accordance with the norms of the day, and the disciples knew it, which was why they asked Jesus to do the expected thing and send her away.  But Bailey points out that in the presence of this woman's suffering, and with their understanding of Jesus as a prophet, "such ethnocentric views were inevitably uncomfortable."  By interacting with this woman first within the social norms, and then by stepping outside them, Jesus was teaching His followers a new way to respond to foreigners-- and to women.

2.  Socio-Economics. 

Jane E. Hick's online article in the Lutheran magazine Word and World, entitled Moral Agency at the Borders: Rereading the Story of the Syrophoenician Woman, points out:

"Tyre was a well-known commercial center with significant trade relations along the Mediterranean. . . Tyre would have owned surrounding territories and could have claimed agricultural proceeds from these, but it would also have used its considerable clout and wealth to acquire surplus from Jewish villages, sometimes leaving less than enough for those who actually worked the land. One can imagine that the exploitative situation was exacerbated during times of drought and famine; urban centers likely took their allotment of food first, leaving shortages of food in the countryside."

Even if she was poor, the Syro-Phoenician woman was a still a member of a Hellenized (Greek-cultured) group which was known for exploiting the nearby Jewish community.  Hicks goes on to say, "Given these underlying power dynamics, Jesus’ household metaphor in which the bread goes first to the children of Israel would be understood by early listeners as a reversal of the reigning order."

Hellenized cultures such as this woman's would be well-versed in the teachings of Aristotle, to whom all others were barbarians, socially on a par with slaves.  Though the Gospel of Matthew reflects Jewish contempt of the woman as a "Canaanite," a descendant of the peoples originally displaced by the Jews, the fact remains that the contempt between these two people-groups would have been mutual.  The Syro-Phoenicians would have viewed the Jews as "dogs," and here in Syro-Phoenician territory, Jesus might very well have been ironically turning the prevailing attitude on its head for the woman to see and acknowledge.  His lesson in racism would thus not have been just for the disciples, but for her.

3.  Honor and Shame.

David A. deSilva's book Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture states in Chapter 1, Honor & Shame:

"The culture of the first-century world was built on the foundational social values of honor and dishonor. . . Those living or reared in Asiatic, Latin American, Mediterranean or Islamic countries have considerable advantage in their reading of the New Testament in this regard, since many of those cultures place a prominent emphasis on honor and shame. Readers living in the United States or Western Europe may recognize immediately that we live at some distance from the honor culture of the first-century Greco-Roman world (including the Semitic peoples in the East). In our culture the bottom line for decision-making is not always (indeed, perhaps rarely) identifying the honorable thing to do. In the corporate world, for example, the “profitable” frequently acts as the central value. Considerations of right and wrong are also prominent, but these are based on internalized values or norms rather than values enforced by overt approval or disapproval by the larger society. Typically we do not talk about honor and shame much. . . ." pp. 23, 25-26.

In the cultures of both the Jews and the Syro-Phoenicians, males and females gained honor in different ways.  Males gained honor by deeds of courage or generosity in the community, while women gained honor by maintaining the integrity of their privacy within the home and family.  DeSilva states:

In the ancient world, as in many traditional cultures today, women and men have different arenas for the preservation and acquisition of honor, and different standards for honorable activity. Men occupy the public spaces, while women are generally directed toward the private spaces of home and hearth. When they leave the home, they are careful to avoid conversation with other men. The places they go are frequented mainly by women (the village well, the market for food) and so become something of an extension of “private” space. In the fifth century B.C., Thucydides wrote that the most honorable woman is the one least talked about by men (Hist. 2.45.2). Six hundred years later Plutarch will say much the same thing: a woman should be seen when she is with her husband, but stay hidden at home when he is away (“Advice on Marriage” 9). Both her body and her words should not be “public property” but instead guarded from strangers." p. 33

Kenneth Bailey points out in Jesus Through Middle-Eastern Eyes that, just as no self-respecting woman would speak to a strange man in public, no self-respecting rabbi would speak to a woman in public (p. 221).  Jesus quite frequently ignored this prohibition: discussing theology with the woman at the well in John 4:1-42; assuring the woman who washed His feet with her tears that her sins were forgiven in Luke 7:36-50.  Here He seems at first to obey the social barrier, and then breaks it.  Why?

Bailey reminds us that in calling out to Jesus using the title "Lord, Son of David," this woman is using a Messianic title for Jesus-- very unexpected in a Gentile.  In spite of being a Syro-Phoenician, then, this woman believes that Jesus is more than an itinerant Jewish preacher.  She also opens with the beggar's standard cry, "Have mercy on me!"  This woman is so desperate for help that she deliberately lets go of  her honor by following and calling out to a man in public, and by using a beggar's words.  Socially, she has no reason to expect this Jewish rabbi to answer her-- but she believes He is more than a rabbi.   So she perseveres in the face of His silence-- but she does not (as we tend to do) read His silence as insult or cruelty.  Like the woman who touched the hem of His garment (Luke 8:40-48), she knows there are barriers to overcome and sets herself boldly to overcome them.

When the disciples, upset that Jesus has not already sent this shameful woman away, ask Him to go ahead and do it, Jesus instead gives a response clearly intended for the woman to hear: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel."  This is not an answer to the disciples' request.  Instead it is a rhetorical statement of something the disciples and the woman both know,* but it functions as a challenge to the woman:  "Tell me why I should help you."  Instead of sending her away, Jesus engages Himself in the interaction.  She then is encouraged enough to come right up to him and kneel, switching from the beggar's standard plea to the simple words, "Lord, help me."

And here is what is truly astonishing.  DeSilva tells us that a challenge of the sort Jesus offers was a common social interaction in ANE honor-shame cultures-- but only for men.  He explains:

"[H]onor can be won and lost in what has been called the social game of challenge and riposte. It is this “game,” still observable in the modern Mediterranean, that has caused cultural anthropologists to label the culture as “agonistic,” from the Greek word for “contest”.  The challenge-riposte is essentially an attempt to gain honor at someone else’s expense by publicly posing a challenge that cannot be answered. When a challenge has been posed, the challenged must make some sort of response (and no response is also considered a response). It falls to the bystanders to decide whether or not the challenged person successfully defended his (and, indeed, usually “his”) own honor. The Gospels are full of these exchanges, mainly posed by Pharisees, Sadducees or other religious officials at Jesus, whom they regarded as an upstart threatening to steal their place in the esteem of the people." p. 29, emphasis added. 

The rest of the exchange between Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman is just this sort of challenge-riposte.  Jesus says, "It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."  He uses a diminutive word for "dogs," (Bailey, p. 224), which slightly softens the challenge.  But he flings up to her the attitude of her people towards the Jews, as well as their attitude towards her people.  She (perhaps wryly acknowledging that the tables are turned between them, a Hellenized woman in her own territory and a lowly Jew) answers with a pithy response-- which Jesus then acknowledges as having bested Him in the challenge!  

The challenge-riposte, if offered to a man, would be an attempt to gain honor at his expense.  But Jesus offers it to a woman who, according to every social convention of both their cultures, has already forfeited her honor in this situation.  In doing so He raises her to the status of an equal.  And in acknowledging her win, he restores her honor in the sight of the audience.

By understanding this story in terms of community, socio-economics, and honor/shame, we see that what is really going on is that Jesus has:

Echoed the mercy and miracle-working of Elijah;

Showed a foreign woman and His disciples their mutual prejudice;

Restored a woman's lost honor (at His own expense!);

Taught His followers what "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" really looks like; 

Answered a desperate mother's prayer for the healing of her child. 

And for us, of course, it illustrates again how we need to learn what things the original writers and readers took for granted and felt no need to explain, in order to keep from totally misunderstanding a Bible text. 

If Jesus had simply done as we in the modern West expect, and healed the woman's child, all the underlying dynamics would have gone unaddressed.   Instead, He used silence, followed by challenge-riposte, to deal with the full situation.  Seeing this, I have gone from embarrassment at this text and a wish to avoid it, to an even greater love and admiration for my Savior and a desire to tell this story on my blog as it it deserves to be told.

Jesus acted in concern for the whole person and the whole situation with which He was confronted.  He didn't apply bandaids, but spoke right to the heart of the matter.  And He healed more than just the child He was asked to heal.

So how do we apply this story to our own lives?

I think that for us today, this story is about how social and religious conventions can perpetuate racial and gender oppression.  Oppression hurts more than just those on the receiving end.  It hurts the perpetrators too-- and we as human beings often find ourselves in both positions.  If Jesus went against religious and social convention to set people free from attitudes that restrict and bind themselves and others, shouldn't His followers do the same?

______________

*Note:  Jesus' initial mission was to the house of Israel; it was to His followers, after the Resurrection, that the mission to the Gentiles would fall-- which renders a lesson to them like this one especially important.

Does the Bible Teach Male Headship? Conclusion

We have looked at the question of male headship in light of the Bible’s overarching Great Story, and we have examined Ephesians Chapter 5 in light of ancient cultural understandings and original word meanings. Now we turn to some of the other passages and the questions they raise.

For instance, 1 Peter 3 says that Sarah obeyed Abraham and called him lord, and that Christian women are to imitate her.  But what are they really being asked to imitate, and why? 

Let’s look more closely at this Scripture in light of its context in 1 Peter. The First Epistle of Peter was written to scattered believers living in pagan societies in northern Asia Minor. The main subject of the letter is how these Christians are to live in these societies, enduring persecution when necessary, but also doing their best to present themselves as good citizens in a surrounding culture which viewed them with suspicion. To this end, Peter tells them in Chapter 2, verse 12 to be “having your conversation [behavior] honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works which they shall behold, glorify God . . .” With this in mind, Peter goes on in verse 13 to tell them to “Submit yourselves to every ordinance [institution] of man for the Lord’s sake,: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors. . .” Immediately following this, Peter goes into his own household code. 

The difference to keep in mind between Peter’s household code and Paul’s code in Ephesians, is that while Paul’s code delineates how believers are to relate to one another “in Christ,” this code in Peter’s Epistle focuses primarily on how believers are to relate to non-Christians. Peter’s overarching premise is that Christians are to submit to every human institution of authority. He goes directly from talking about how to relate to kings and governors, to talking about how Christian slaves relate to masters (particularly non-Christian ones) and then to how Christian wives relate to husbands (particularly non-Christian ones), and so on. What Peter is actually implying, therefore, is that the authority of masters in slavery, and the authority of husbands (especially of the pater familias in the pagan household structure) are human institutions. Marriage, as marriage, was instituted by God in Genesis 2:23-24, but the patriarchal family structure in which men had authority over wives and slaves, was a human institution. Male government of the household, just like slavery, is not divinely ordained, but is human and therefore cultural and temporal. Peter was dealing with life as it had to be lived then and there. Neither he nor Paul spoke about the ancient household structures as if they were part of a divine, timeless order that was never to pass away. 

Sarah’s obedience to Abraham, then, must be viewed in light of this understanding. In 1 Pet. 3:1 Peter speaks to the wives in his intended audience with the word “hupotasso” (“submit,“ here translated “be in subjection”), which we examined in Part 2, and not “hupakouo“ (“obey”). He then speaks in verse 5 of how “in the old time” women of God would trust Him as they lived within the social constraints of their time. Sarah is held up an example of this in verse 6. Does it say, "and you are her children if you obey your husbands and call them lord"?  No.  It says, "And you are her children if you do what is right, without being frightened by any fear."  (Emphasis added.)

Christian women in the situation of being married to non-believing husbands in a society where husbands have the power, are to imitate Sarah’s trust in God and quietness of spirit in not fearing for the future. For Sarah, that meant obeying Abraham and calling him lord, as was appropriate in her culture.  Peter is certainly not advocating that the women of his own day return to the cultural structures of Abraham’s time! But he knows they have to live within the culture structures that surround them.  He approaches all of this under the umbrella of Christian submission to temporal human institutions, with the understanding (1 Pet. 2:15-16) “that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: As free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.” Peter is telling his readers that the true divine order is freedom– in Christ they are free, but that it is important that they curtail their freedom as necessary to not give offense to the world in which they live. 

Another passage is 1 Corinthians 11.  It does say that the man is the "head of" the woman.  Many translations go on to say that she should wear “a sign of authority on her head” to indicate her husband's headship.  Again, we have to look at the original language and the context of these verses, within the historical setting and within the letter itself, to be sure we aren't misunderstanding them. 

 In The Bible and the Nature of Woman I spoke about how the context of this passage is how the church at Corinth was to deal with the human tradition of head-coverings, in an honor-shame culture where what each person did reflected positively or negatively on those the culture associated them with. Looking at the verses as they hold together contextually, then, we see that this opening: “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. . .” (1 Cor. 11:3) is followed by a discussion of how what men and women do with the physical heads on their bodies, affects the reputation (dishonor vs. glory) of the one Paul refers to as their “head” in verse 3. He then continues:

“For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for [the sake of] the woman, but the woman for [the sake of] the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.” (1 Cor. 11:8-12.) 

All of this discussion is in terms of where men and women come from; i.e., their source or origin. “The man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man” means “the man is not from the woman, but the woman from the man.” This is clearly a reference back to Genesis, in which the woman was brought forth from the man’s side. But Paul balances this is verses 11-12 by saying that neither man nor woman is independent of the other. Just as the woman came from the man (in creation), now the man comes from the woman (in childbirth). The pivotal statement is “But all things of God.” God is the ultimate Source of both man and woman. This context leads to understanding the word “head” (“kephale”) in verse 3 as carrying its metaphorical meaning “source or origin.” 

It is quite theologically sound, and logical in this context, for Paul to be saying, “The source/origin of every man is Christ [Paul’s theology, as expressed in Colossians 1:16-18, is that all things were made by Christ, who is “the head of the body, the church.”], and the source/origin of the woman is the man [Eve being taken out of Adam’s side], and the source/origin of Christ is God [Christ being the Messiah, sent by God, and also the “image of the invisible God” in Colossians 1:15].” 

The head covering, or lack thereof, of the man or the woman is seen as a reflection on his or her “source.” In Jewish culture a man wore a covering on his head while praying as a sign of humility. The head covering showed that because of sin, he needed a barrier between himself and the presence of God. But in the Greek city of Corinth, men did not wear head coverings in worship and probably viewed the Jewish custom as strange. Paul, therefore, needed to address this issue in the church at Corinth, which would have had both Jewish and Gentile members. (John Temple Bristow, What Paul Really Said About Women pp. 80-83.) 

Paul’s response was as follows. The purpose of the Jewish head covering was to show awareness of sin. But Christ has atoned for sin, and there is no need for any barrier between a man and God. Therefore (v. 4), for a man to wear a covering on his head while in public prayer or prophesying, was a dishonor to Christ, his “head.” But since bareheadedness was viewed as promiscuity in a woman, for a woman not to wear a covering was a dishonor to the man in her life (either her husband or her father) as representatives of “man” in general– woman’s “head” (v. 5). But Paul adds one additional statement here. The woman is the “glory” — the source of good reputation– for the man. She also is saved by Christ; she is no more subject to a barrier between herself and God than the man is. Further, it was for the man’s sake– because of his need– that she was created. Because of all this, Paul says, a woman “ought” to have “power on her head.” He also adds that this is “because of the angels.” 

Many translations add the words “a sign of,” here, translating the verse “The woman ought to have a sign of authority [meaning a man’s authority] on her head, because of the angels.” But the purpose of a head covering was to show modesty and thus preserve a woman’s husband or father’s honor. Paul is not saying that the head covering was also a sign of her husband or father’s authority, for it was not. The words “a sign of” are simply not present in the original text– and the King James Version rightly omits them. The word “power” there is the Greek word “exousia,” which (as was stated in The Bible and the Nature of Woman) means personal authority. Whenever it is used, it refers to the authority of the person being spoken of– not to some second person under whose authority he or she is. What the original Greek actually says is, “A woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels.” 

It is not completely certain what the reference to angels means here, but earlier in the same letter (1 Cor. 6:3) Paul does say, “Know ye not that we shall judge angels?” He is speaking of all believers, male and female, being given the right to judge the world one day. A female believer, just as much as a male, will one day be given judging authority even over angels. In light of this, should a woman not have authority over her own head? The word “exousia” — “authority”– included personal power and the right to do as one pleased. Women, as Paul set the situation up, were in a sort of dilemma. If they covered their heads, they could have been seen as indicating the necessity of a barrier because of sin, between themselves and God, thus dishonoring Christ. But if they didn’t cover their heads, they could be seen as dishonoring their husbands or fathers. In light of this, Paul says, a woman “ought to” be able to choose for herself. 

Paul then turns to the whole congregation in verse 13. “Judge for yourselves,” he says. “Is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered?” After speaking of what would seem “natural” in the culture in the area of long vs. short hair for men and women, he concludes, “But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.” Paul may be saying that the apostles, and the other churches, have no specific, universal custom regarding head coverings, so there is no point in being “contentious“ about it. Or he may be saying that the apostles and the other churches have no custom of women going uncovered, so since the Corinthian congregation is likely to view it as unseemly for a woman to pray uncovered, it would be best for her to cover– but with the understanding that ideally, she “ought” to have the power to decide for herself. 

In any event, this passage is not about male authority over females, but about how, in an honor-shame culture, head-coverings were a way to convey either honor or dishonor to those viewed as one’s origins. And Paul makes it clear that the most important origin is God, Who is the Source of men and women alike. 

In conclusion, what we see in the New Testament is a set of Jewish, Greek and Roman patriarchal cultures into which the Kingdom of God is dropped like a stone into a pond, causing ripples that would eventually reshape the pond entirely. The church has had a tendency to mistake the cultures for the Kingdom-- but the Kingdom is, as Jesus put it, “not of this world.” The social structure of the family of God is not like those of the world. It is characterized by mutuality rather than hierarchy, by service rather than by rule– and all of those who are redeemed to God out of every kindred, tongue and people and nation are “kings and priests.” (Rev. 4:9-10). The man of the house has no special priesthood, kingship or authority in God’s kingdom, but rather, if he wants to enter therein, he must become as a little child (Matthew 18:3-4). 

And as for being “head of the house”? "Kephale," the word for "head," was simply not a word used in conjunction with houses– but Jesus used the word “oikodespotes,” “master of the house,” to connote this idea in, for example, Matthew 10:35 and Luke 13:25. However, Paul uses it in verb form in 1 Timothy 5:14, as a command to women. Younger widows, he says, are to marry and “oikodespoteo,” or “rule the house.” Being head of the house, it seems, is not exclusively a man’s job-- and it certainly wasn't in those cultures, where, as I have indicated earlier, the home was considered the woman's special domain. 

Therefore, let us not, in the name of being “biblical,” continue to perpetuate ancient authority structures that are not part of God’s Kingdom and are unbecoming to brothers and sisters in His family. Male authority was a human institution, and now that male authority has passed away as an institution in our modern society, Christians are under no further obligation to live under it. As Peter and Paul both said, in God’s family we are free.

Does The New Testament Teach that Women Should Be Housekeepers?

Here’s Titus 2:3-5 in the NIV (1984) translation:

Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be
slanderers or addicted to much wine,but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the
younger women to love their husbands and children,  to be self-controlled and pure, to
be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will
malign the word of God.

Here it is in the King James Version:

The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false
accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the
young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet,
chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God
be not blasphemed.

And in the New American Standard:

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips
nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good,  so that they may encourage the
young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible,
pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of
God will not be dishonored.

All three versions make it sound like what Paul asking Titus to do is make sure young
women learn to be homemakers, or housekeepers.  On the basis of this verse, many
Christians today say that a woman’s God-given special domain is the home-- that God’s
ideal is that women marry, stay home and keep house.   But the actual Greek word
there does not mean “busy at home” or “workers at home.  The KJV “keepers at home"
is much closer, but only if we understand that the word “keeper” in the age of King
James did not mean someone who stayed in a place and kept it clean.  

The actual word is “oikouros,” a combination of the word “oik,” meaning "house," and
the word “ouros,” meaning "guard."  The word for the "gardener" whom Mary Magdalene
thought she was speaking at the Resurrection (John 20:15) was that same word "ouros"
combined with the word for "garden."  Mary Magdalene asked the man if he had moved
the body.  Why?  Because he had the authority to do so!  Being the "ouros" of
something was a position of responsibility with accompanying authority.  The “keeper of
the garden” was not merely the man who pruned the shrubbery.   He had the power to
take bodies out of the tombs and put them back again.  He guarded and protected the
tombs and managed the interment of the bodies.  He was in charge of the garden.

“Oikouros" – “guard of the home” is not about being "domestic." The same word “guard”
in verb rather than noun construction, is part of "phroureo" in 1 Peter 1:5. "Phroureo"
combines "phr" ("before" or "above") with "oureo" ("to guard/watch") and means "to
watch over." 1 Pet 1:5 in the NIV translates, "shielded [phroureo] by God's power."  God
is our “Ouros.”  This is not a word that implies subordination.

The statement in Titus that women should "guard the home" was based on the
historical/cultural understanding shared between Paul and his readers (in this case,
Titus) that the home was considered the wife's special domain.  In the first-century
Greco-Roman culture, the pater familias (ruling father) was the chief authority in the
family—but when it came to the actual running of the domestic side of the household,
he deferred to his wife.  This understanding is also present when Paul says in 1 Timothy
5:14, “So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes
and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander.”  (NIV 1984-- The New American
Standard renders it “keep house.”)  But the word translated “manage their homes”  or
“keep house” is actually that same word “oik” for house combined with “despotes,”
which means “to rule”!  Paul was telling Timothy that younger widows should marry and
rule their houses, which was the cultural expectation.

This cultural expectation is reflected in the repetition of the thought in both 1 Timothy
5:14 and Titus 2:5 that the purpose for Paul’s teaching  is “so that no one will malign the
word of God” or “to give the enemy no opportunity for slander.”  Paul expresses in both
verses this same basic idea, in light of which he counsels in Titus 2:5 that women
should be “subject to their husbands” (the word does not mean “be obedient,” as the
KJV translates it, but is the same word used in Ephesians 5:21-22 meaning “voluntarily
yield.”)  Paul, Timothy and Titus all understood that the surrounding culture expected
wives to be obedient to their husbands (although, as I said, the husband deferred to his
wife in the running of the house).  Paul was counseling that wives instead voluntarily yield to their husbands as a Christian act, for the sake of the good name of the Christian
community.

This is clearly seen when looking at Titus 2:3-5 in its immediate context. Paul goes on in
Titus 2 to talk about two more groups: young men and slaves. At the end of each
section he repeats, in slightly different words, the same concept: In verse 8 he says that
if the young men will be self-controlled, then "those who oppose you will be ashamed
because they have nothing bad to say about us." Then in verse 10 he says that if slaves
will please their masters and not steal, then "in every way they will make the teaching
about God our Savior attractive."

Paul was interested in how the gospel message appeared to the surrounding culture.
That's what he was telling Titus: to make sure everyone behaved themselves according to
the bounds of propriety. Otherwise, the young church in Crete might fail.

Some Christians, misreading the KJV where it says "so that the word be not
blasphemed," think the verse is saying that wives not being submissive is somehow
directly "blaspheming" the word of God. But the context shows that this is not what Paul
was talking about.  He meant that if wives were not submissive to their husbands, the
surrounding culture would think there was something wrong with Christianity.

In order to give no offense to the non-Christians surrounding the young churches, Paul
asked both Timothy and Titus to make sure that women were doing their culturally
mandated jobs.  This included authority to rule, protect and guard their homes.   He was
not saying that the cultural structure of pater familias and subordinate wife was God’s
own mandate for all time.   And he certainly was not saying that God’s divine plan and
design for all women in all ages was that they be housekeepers.


Update: August 2012:


I must correct one point in the above.  It seems that many manuscripts do have “oikourgos,” “working at home.” According to Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, “oikourgos” is a combination of “oikos, (house) and a root of ergon (work).” Vines’ then goes on to say, “Some mss. have oikouros, watching or keeping the home (oikos and ouros, a keeper).” There is a slight textual variation, therefore, that can go either way.  But even if what Paul originally wrote was “working at home” (which is not certain), this does not erase the historical context and the immediate literary context of the passage. Nor does it fundamentally alter the meaning. Paul was telling Titus to advise people in different walks of life to do their culturally-perceived duty. For wives, this included both working in (or guarding/keeping) the home and being submissive to their husbands. As I went on to say, the immediate context proves this is the case, as Paul gives Titus the same advice in different words to give young men and to slaves– do your duty as society expects you to, and it will give the gospel and its followers a good name.

What Paul is certainly not doing is telling women that God designed them as cooks and house cleaners, and that’s what they should always do. If that’s what he had meant, he never would have sent Phoebe as his spokesperson to bear his letter to the Romans (Romans 16:1-2), or commended so many other women for working hard for the gospel. Nor do I believe he was advocating husband-rule as a divine mandate, any more than he was advocating slavery as a divine mandate.

Gender Roles and Responsibility – Part 2

In Part 1 I said, “Ultimately, we are all responsible for ourselves and our own actions.”  This means we cannot be ultimately responsible for anyone but ourselves.  Even with our children, our goal is to teach them self-responsibility so that they can become full adults.  Responsibility for ourselves is foundational to maturity and emotional health—but feeling a burden of responsibility for things we ultimately cannot be responsible for, is foundational to dysfunction.  And that includes responsibility for other people.    

Galatians 6:2 (NASB) says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ.” The context is helping one another with our individual needs, temptations and stumbling blocks.  Then Galatians 6:5 goes on to say, “For each one shall bear his own load.”  This is in the context of our life work in the kingdom.  The word “burdens” in verse 2 is the Greek word “baros,” which means difficulties, troubles.  This word is usually used in the Bible to refer to daily, temporary sorts of loads, such as problems we face.  But the word in verse 5 translated “load” is the Greek word “phortion,” which usually referred to the freight load of a ship or other large job-related load.  Christ used this word when He said, “My yoke is easy and My burden (phortion) is light.”  Matt. 11:30.  I believe the juxtaposition of the two sentences, just three verses apart in Galatians 6: “Bear one another’s burdens. . . Each one shall bear his own load,” is saying that while we can help one another with our daily troubles, we are, at the end of the day, each responsible only for our own life and our own life’s work-- and no one else’s.   

In the parable of the talents (Matt 25:14-30) each servant was responsible only for the sum of money he himself was given by the master.  The master did not ever question a servant about money he had given to another servant.  1 Corinthians 3:12-15 also shows each person being responsible for what he or she builds on the foundation of Christ; no one else can build for her.   We have duties towards others that we need to fulfill (see 1 Timothy 5:8, noting the gender-inclusive context, especially of verses 4 & 16), but those duties are part of our own life’s work.  Taking another’s duties and responsibilities on ourselves as if they were our own, or making someone else’s life our own responsibility, can drive us to mental and physical exhaustion.  

So let’s look at the underlying messages within some male-hierarchical Christian teachings.  Do they work within this principle of self-responsibility, or not?

I’ll start with the men.  Men are taught that to be a man is to be born a leader.  They are given final power to make all the decisions for the marriage and the family.   Here’s one way this message works out in practice. The purpose of the recently released movie Courageous is, according to its own website, to encourage men to be “bold and intentional leaders of their homes, marriages and children.”   But part of the text of the "Resolution" male movie-goers are encouraged to sign after seeing the movie says, “I do solemnly resolve before God to take full responsibility for myself, my wife and my children.” 

“Full” responsibility for his wife and children.  This is more than simply being a “bold and intentional leader.”  A man who signs this Resolution will certainly want to teach his children to love God with all their hearts, minds and strength, as the text goes on to say—but what if he does teach them, but they choose otherwise?  Whose responsibility is it?  The responsibility of the man who has signed the Resolution.  Or what if it’s only that the way his children love God with ”all their minds” doesn’t look like what their father thinks it should look like?  Suppose, for instance, they decide to be theistic evolutionists instead of young-earth Creationists?  Whose responsibility is it to decide just how they should love God with “all their minds”?  You guessed it—their father’s.   The Resolution's text says he promises to train his children to “live responsibly.”  But it never asks him to promise to teach them to become responsible for themselves.  And what about his wife, who as an adult should already be fully responsible for herself?  The man takes full responsibility for her also.   This is a recipe for dysfunction.  The only way to be able to take full responsibility for someone else is to control them.   Men who follow this Resolution as it is worded,  must become micromanagers and authoritarians—to do otherwise would be to abdicate “full responsibility” for some of their family’s actions.

I want to emphasize that not all complementarian families fall into these kinds of dysfunctional responsibility issues.  I hope that many men who sign this Resolution will acknowledge the impossibility of fulfilling it, give themselves and their loved ones over to Christ, and let Him bring them peace and freedom.   But the text of the Resolution actually says one human being can and should take “full responsibility” for others.  This is the idea that is being spread as part of the gender-roles doctrines being taught in the movie Courageous.

Here’s another teaching I have heard:  that in a Christian marriage the man is to his wife as Christ is to the church.    Ephesians 5:26-27 says that Christ sanctifies the church, washing her with the water of the word, and presents her to Himself.  Therefore, according to this teaching, it is the husband’s job to sanctify the wife, washing her with the water of the word, to present her to Christ.  This is the idea behind the teaching that the husband is the “prophet, priest and king” of the home, even as Christ is the Prophet, Priest and King of the church.  Gone is the Protestant understanding of the priesthood of all believers.  The husband steps between the wife and Christ as intermediary.  Her spiritual cleansing and growth becomes her husband’s responsibility, rather than her own before Christ.  Fortunately, to the best of my knowledge no one has yet taken this passage to mean that the husband is his wife’s Savior, even though the passage directly says in verse 23 that Christ is the Savior of the church who is His body.  To apply this “man is to wife as Christ is to church” teaching consistently, would mean to make the husband savior of the wife!  But even though these teachings do not actually go that far, is a human man really capable even of being his wife’s sanctifier?  Is she not to trust Christ for this?  Can she not walk with her Lord as men do?  Is this not giving a finite human being responsibility to bear another’s load, contrary to Galatians 6:5?

Going on, then, to the woman.  Men are called to be husbands and fathers—but in addition to these callings, God also has individual callings for men.   Men relate to God with this understanding, knowing that they are valuable to God not just for their roles in other’s lives, but for the work they themselves are called to do.  But what happens to a human being, made in the image of God, when you tell her that her true purpose and calling is as a wife and mother?  What happens when you tell a woman that her true purpose in life is to support a man in his calling, raise her sons to their callings, and teach her daughters to support their own man in his calling someday?  What happens when she feels she has no right to seek God for an individual calling of her own?

I used to believe that as a woman, I was born to dedicate myself to the fulfillment of a man’s responsibility to his calling, to dedicate myself to his life’s work and his well-being in that life-work, and to give myself to my children.  Though I worked outside the home, I considered that job of no real importance other than to help with the family finances.  Though I aspired to write books, I considered that to be a sideline that I might get to follow someday, but of no great importance in the scheme of things.  In other words, contrary to 1 Corinthians 3:12-15, I did not build on my own foundation in Christ , but gave myself to building on my family’s foundations, even to the neglect of my own.  Contrary to Galatians 6:2-5, rather than just helping with family burdens, their life-loads were just as much mine to carry as theirs.  


Did this bless my husband?  No.  It drove him crazy!   If he ever felt less than completely happy and fulfilled, I felt that I had failed.  His emotions, his well-being, were my responsibility.  He was not free to have ups and downs, or to get upset at life's troubles.  If he did, I blamed myself. 

If a woman’s life is entirely subsumed in the life’s work of other people, she comes to feel herself responsible, not for herself, but for one or more others.  If her man is not uniformly strong and confident—guess who feels responsible?  She does.   If her children are not perfectly obedient, content and focused on God, guess who feels responsible?  She does.  Even if her man has taken the Resolution and pledged full responsibility for her and the kids—the only one whose well-being and happiness the wife does not feel responsible for, is her own.  In fact, she is often given the subtle message that to think about herself at all is selfishness and sin.

Check out this light-hearted story at No Longer Quivering about a wife whose marriage is now free from these expectations.  One morning recently, her husband poured himself a bowl of cereal, not realizing that in the Southern spring weather, sugar ants had invaded the cupboard:

Outraged my darling was, scowling and frowning, showing me the bowl and complaining he might have eaten a few ants. He was upset. I looked at the bowl, looked at him and laughed before telling him that it was okay, the ants would just add a little needed protein to his breakfast. Plus they are organic.


But back in my old submitting like crazy fundamentalist days I would have apologized, whipped that bowl from his hands, washed it, sterilized it, rushed to the store to get fresh cereal, apologized again for not being a proper enough wife to keep ants out of his cereal and served him a fresh bowl. And I would have done it meekly and humbly.

The wife and husband are now both able to relax and joke about the situation.  But think about what she’s saying about her “submitting like crazy fundamentalist days” – it is a perfect illustration of dysfunctional shifting of adult responsibility. The husband is the one who likes this cereal; he eats it; he opens and closes the box. Under the husband-authority paradigm, it is nevertheless the wife’s responsibility that the box gets closed properly so that the ants don’t get in. She has to constantly be checking up on him, following up on his actions as if he were a child. She has to be upset that he didn’t look at his cereal before pouring it (or even before taking a spoonful!), so that he didn’t notice the ants.

While being told that all responsibility in the home is the husband’s, the wife assumes responsibility for her husband so that he is absolved from being a functioning adult in the realm of eating breakfast.

Isn’t it wonderful and refreshing for a wife to be able to place the responsibility for eating ants squarely on the shoulders of the person who actually was careless enough to eat them?

I don’t believe it is God’s plan that the responsibility for a man’s happiness rests not on himself but on his wife, while the responsibility for a woman’s walk with God rests not on her but on her husband.  And as for the children—what sometimes happens is that their parents come to feel personally responsible to the extent that it is up to the parents that the children come to Christ.  Rather than showing them the love of Christ and trusting them to Him, the parents fear that any tiny slip-up in discipline, or any input into their children’s lives from a non-believer, or any deviation from devotions and churchgoing, will result in their children’s path straight to hell.  It's fear-based parenting.


Fear like this is often based on feeling responsibility we know in our hearts we are incapable of handling.  Only Christ can save.  Only Christ can sanctify.  Only Christ can bring fulfillment and well-being.  To try to take responsibilities that we cannot fulfill, is to tie ourselves into knots inside.  And that can make us very unpleasant people on the outside. 

Again, I’m not saying that all non-egalitarian marriages fall into these traps.  But I am saying that the potential is there, whenever we give too much power to one human being and relegate all others to a lesser status.  Romans 12:3 says, "Do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought, but think of yourselves with sober judgment."    We need to recognize the extent and the limits of human responsibility, and of human power.  Not to do so hurts everyone-- men, women and children alike. 

Are Women Seeking Ministry "Demanding Rights"?

Here's an example of another comment I encounter a lot. In discussions of women in Christian ministry, someone almost invariably says something along these lines:

"The call for women in ministry turns me off because it's all about women demanding their rights. That isn't what Jesus taught, about humility and seeking to give rather than receive. Whether or not women should be church leaders, they're wrong to seek it. It all comes from today's 'entitlement' culture, not from the heart of God, that women are seeking power in the church. It's not supposed to be about power."

True-- Christian ministry shouldn't be about power. But it is about power, and it is not women who have made it that way. Church leaders throughout church history have made their positions into positions of power and authority, when they should have been positions of service, lifting up their brothers and sisters in Christ to find their own callings. Until 50 years ago, many church leaders didn't want to share their power with men of other races. And many still don't want to share their power with women. But if they'd realize that it isn't about power, and would lay down their power, maybe it wouldn't bother them so much that some women feel called to minister, not just in the kitchen or nursery or in women's Bible studies, but to the whole congregation.

But the question has to be asked: is seeking church leadership, by its very nature, sinful ambition and wrongful power-grabbing? Because if it is, men shouldn't seek church leadership either.

Do men who feel called into church leadership, seek church leadership? Well, yes-- they do. They talk to their own church leaders, they ask for prayer over their calling; they attend seminaries and request mentoring. And they may be told they're not ready, that they should pray more, serve more, seek God more. But one thing they will not be told is that it is impossible for them ever to be called, and that even thinking that they might be called is stepping out of their place and sinfully seeking a position they are never meant to have. No man has ever, purely on the basis of his maleness, been told, "We have a leadership position open, but you should not apply." And no one, to my knowledge, has ever objected to a man seeking church leadership as if he were out of line just for seeking it. If seeking church leadership, in and of itself, were wrongfully ambitious power-seeking, then no one should do it.

It's easy, really, if you're born into a position where you never have to shout to be heard, to fault those who do have to shout to be heard. But this argument that women who want full-time church ministry are wrongly demanding their rights, is really based on an expectation that everyone should keep their place in an established hierarchy. It used to be considered wrongful power-seeking for members of the servant class to want to own their own homes, or for merchants to want to become part of the gentry. It's the same attitude that used to consider people of color "uppity" if they walked down the street with their heads high and dared to meet a white person's eyes. The gentry were never faulted for seeking the high seats at the table, for those seats were considered theirs by right.

This is what Jesus said about those high places at the table:

When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Luke 14:7-11.

The word there translated "distinguished" is the Greek word "entemos," which means "dear, precious, highly prized, held in honor."  It is used in Luke 7:2 about the servant of a Roman centurian whom he prized highly  It is used of Jesus as the "precious" cornerstone, highly prized in God's eyes.  It is not a word that refers to someone having a high place in a hierarchy, but is more a relational word.  Jesus is not saying, "Someone who outranks you may come to the wedding banquet, and claim your place by right."  He's saying, "Your wedding host may have invited someone more dear to him than you are (such as a closer family member)."  Since this teaching is identified as a parable, Jesus is not speaking of literal guests at a literal wedding banquet, but is counseling His listeners not to be seeking positions of honor for themselves.  This is probably the verse that people have in mind when they say women should not be "demanding rights" in seeking ministry-- but what would Jesus say to the guests at the banquet who are already sitting in the highest seats when the other guests enter, who cling to their chairs with both hands and refuse to surrender them to the "upstarts" who are arriving?   What would He say to the one who, when the host says, "I want my friend to sit there; please give up your seat," replies, "But you can't possibly want that person to sit here!  It's not her place!"

True, it would be wrong of a person who feels called into ministry to exalt themselves and demand to be given a high place. But are women who want ministry really doing this? I have never heard of anyone, woman or man, demanding of a church hiring committee, "This is my position! Give it to me!" Women in reality are not doing anything that men do not do as a matter of course, to seek ministry.

To me, the real questions are these: Are we going to let God call women? Or are we going to tell God He can’t? And are we going to let women whom He calls obey? Or are we going to tell them they have to be wrong, that God can't possibly be calling them?

Remember how sure Peter was that he should have nothing to do with Gentiles, because they were unclean? God gave him a vision to show him he was wrong. Acts 10:11-15. Peter knew the Scriptures. And yet he had to let God step outside the parameters of what he had always thought God's will was all about.  Peter was misunderstanding the Scriptures about Gentiles.  What if many of those who think they know their Bibles today, are misunderstanding the Scriptures about women?

In China many women are serving as leaders of underground churches-- and it's not because God can't find any men!  Here in the US, women are feeling God's call to church leadership, and they live their lives in frustration because their churches have forbidden them to answer that call.  Fundamentally, this isn’t about “rights.”* It’s about obedience to God, and openness to His ability to call anyone He wants, be it male or female.

So it comes down to this.  I myself am not called to church leadership.  I am asking nothing for myself.  But if my sisters feel the call of God and want to obey it, I’m going to stand up to those who forbid them, just as Paul stood up to Peter when he refused to eat with Gentiles.  Gal. 2:11-14.

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is not part of the "entitlement culture."  Neither is "Here am I, Lord, send me."  And that's all we're saying-- my sisters and I.

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*Not that there's anything wrong with standing up for your rights when necessary.  Paul did it in Acts 22:25.

"I'm in Charge Here: Don't Disrespect Me with the Facts"

I’d like to continue looking into this issue of authority and hierarchy in Christianity. Roger E. Olson wrote a blog post last month on “Truth, Authority and Roles.” In it he raised the very valid point that the problem with human hierarchical authority structures is that they are so prone to misuse of power—because deference to power becomes an end in itself, regardless of the rightness or wrongness of the issue at hand. As he puts it:

Hierarchy. . . emphasizes roles and “authority over” and “submission to” based on them. In other words, to put it bluntly, hierarchy is the manner of organization of a social unit (especially the family) so that assigned (or assumed) roles matter more than truth. When I was growing up. . . [p]eople who dared to criticize or question those “in authority” were labeled “negative” and ostracized. It wasn’t just a matter of how one did it; simply doing it was considered unspiritual. This mentality led to all kinds of abuses in our church and denomination and movement.

Olson uses Galileo and Luther as examples in church history. The issue the church leaders had with both was not so much about whether or not they were right, but whether or not they were in sin by not submitting to the ecclesiastical authorities. The rightness or wrongness of the actual issues at stake (the fact that the earth actually revolved around the sun, or the sale of “indulgences” so that forgiveness of sins was based on who could pay) took a back seat to whether or not Luther or Galileo had the right to confront their superiors. This was the moral problem in the eyes of the authorities: speaking in contradiction to an authority was rebellion, and rebellion was sin. Whether or not the underling was speaking the truth ultimately didn’t matter.

This is also what often happens when a woman in a hierarchical church tries to get help with her oppressive marriage. Her legitimate concerns are often left by the wayside, while the church focuses on whether she is being properly submissive. It’s not that they don’t care about her—if asked, the church would strongly deny that they didn’t care about the woman. It’s not so much that “is she making a legitimate point?” is intentionally ignored—but it’s subordinated to “who’s in charge?” Because the issue of proper submission is nearly always the first issue raised, it trumps the lesser point of “who’s in the right?” And the underling is effectively silenced.

So when husbands are given unilateral authority over wives, this is the situation. If the man is gentle and humble, as Christ commanded– then he’ll listen to his wife and concede when he perceives truth. If he doesn’t perceive truth, though– even if she’s still in the right, her voice is often hard to for him to truly hear. He is aware, deep down, that his opinion is the one that ultimately matters.

And if he’s not humble and gentle-- not inclined to listen to his wife— eventually she will get weary and discouraged from not being heard, from having her personhood overridden by his in the name of “submission,” from the injustice of having her truth not seriously considered as to whether or not it may be truth, and she may leave him. And then, of course, she will be the one who gets blamed.

Similarly, when a person or a couple with low status in a church hierarchy leave a church, they may have a legitimate complaint which ought to be listened to by the church authorities. The authorities ought to be able to say, “Hey, they’re right and we’re wrong. We need to make some changes.” But often the very existence of the hierarchy renders this impossible. They can’t hear, “Your leadership practices, or the policies you’ve implemented, are hurting the congregation.” All they can see is a church member “in rebellion.” So when the member leaves, who gets blamed? The member— who may even be disfellowshipped for causing strife. Even if he or she was actually in the right.

I saw it too many times when I was in the hierarchical church I attended in college. How much better it would have been if the church authorities could have practiced the wisdom set forth in James 3:17: “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering and without hypocrisy.” (Emphasis added.) But instead their leadership was full of “jealousy and selfish ambition,”(verse 16) as they held onto power and insisted on deference as their God-given right.

None of these are intended results of hierarchy. But when you have a system that is inequitable by its very nature, and then you set it up as the divine plan of God– this is what can happen. And no one stops to ask, “are we sure this inequitable system was really being endorsed by God in the Bible, or is it just that the Spirit was helping people already living under an inequitable system in the first-century Roman Empire, to work around it?”

So having said all that, I’ll say this. Many churches today blame "worldly feminist culture" for the increase of divorces in evangelical marriages. But here’s what I think is really going on in many cases. Women once believed they really were inferior to men. When their legitimate concerns were ignored or silenced, they accepted it. What else could they do? They had no power, and it was their lot in life. But the evangelical church as a whole is putting forth a new doctrine, even while claiming it is what Christianity as a whole has taught through the ages. The traditional doctrine, taught by Jerome, Origen, Augustine, Luther, Calvin and many others, said point-blank that women were by nature inferior. Today the evangelical church generally teaches that men and women are equal in nature, but have different “roles,” with women meant for the subordinate roles and men meant for the roles of authority.

Today, then, an evangelical woman may say to herself, if she is in an oppressive marriage, "I have chosen to be submissive, but I’m not inferior. I deserve to be listened to and heard. And if I am speaking the truth, it is not less true because I am the one who has it. If my husband’s perceived ‘truth' is weightier and more important than mine, that isn’t right."

This feeling of injustice, of not being heard, will eventually affect her feelings about the marriage, and if things get bad enough, she may in self-preservation seek divorce. But is this truly “worldly feminism”? Or is it a correct understanding of her worth and value to God, and her responsibility of self-stewardship as a temple of the Holy Spirit?

So what is the answer? Go back to the easier time when women knew they were inferior, and so did not expect to be heard and listened to? When it didn't bother them as much when they were overridden by their husbands, because they accepted it as a matter of course? But in that case what do we do with the truth the church has now embraced, because it is, manifestly, the truth, spoken by God in Gen. 1:26-28 and proven by the blood, sweat and tears of women over the last hundred years-- that women really are equal?

If we want to lessen the divorce rate in evangelicalism, we need to address the problem of deference towards authority trumping legitimate truth. And the best way to do that is to finally implement the policy Jesus set forth: “not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.” Matt. 20:26-27.

The purpose of human hierarchy ends up being to uphold human hierarchy. In the kingdom of God, it is of no ultimate help to those it purports to serve.

Does Someone Have to "Be In Charge" of Your Marriage?

Christian complementarianism often makes this argument, as explained in the book Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs:

“What your husband wants is your acknowledgement that he is the leader, the one in authority. This is not to grind you under or treat you as inferior. It is only to say that because God has made your husband responsible (review Eph. 5:22-33), he needs the authority to carry out that responsibility. No smoothly running organization can have two heads. To set up a marriage with two equals at the head is to set it up for failure. That is one of the big reasons that people are divorcing today.” page 221

My main issue with that is this: Why must some Christians insist that marriage is "an organization" or should work like one? Marriage is an organic unit, a synthesis, a joining of two into one body. It is, or should be, the best kind of best-friend relationship you could ever have.

Best friends do not need one of them to be the leader. In that case they wouldn't be best friends, they'd be hero and sidekick. One thing best friends never are, is boss and subordinate as in an employment model. As soon as you set up that model, the friendship has been compromised. That's why bosses are advised to never become close friends with their employees, but to always maintain a certain distance.

The Bible teaches that two people who are married become “one flesh,” not “one organization.” Christians through the ages have celebrated married love as a thing of divine (and mutual) oneness. A selection from Richard Cranshaw’s Poem “Epithalamium” from the 1600’s, is a good illustration:

May each maintain a well-fledged nest
Of winged loves in either’s breast;
Be each of them a mutual sacrifice
Of either’s eyes.

Oneness is never about who’s in charge. It’s about selfless giving, about mutual understanding and concern. It’s about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.

Some may here be saying, “All right, marriage is not an organization. But surely running a home and family is? Does not the running of a home require an organization, and thus someone to be in charge?”

To this I would reply that not even in the business world are all organizational models founded on someone being in charge. Partnerships are a very viable business model; one that works well in a very small business with a small membership (any family with less than 15 children would surely fit this definition). When two partners have contributed equally to a venture, and both have equal risk, then neither one is in charge. Because of this, each has great incentive to work for consensus. In a marriage run on these principles, each partner would have a vested interest in listening to and finding ways to compromise with the other partner, so that the partnership would not fail. If a business partnership can work in this way, then a marriage can work as an organization for home management without losing its organic, best-friend structure of mutual love.

Does the Bible ever say, "in any human relationship, someone must be in charge"? If it does, I'd like to see the chapter and verse. I have never read anything that indicated that David and Jonathan, or Paul and Barnabus, considered one of them to be in charge of the other. This blog has already explored how Ephesians 5:21-33 actually reflects the intention of the Holy Spirit to lead Christian marriages out of the husband-rule paradigm of the culture in which it was written, and into mutuality.

If anyone is in doubt, let me ask this: Do you know of anyone who has proposed to his future wife in this manner?

“Honey, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Therefore, I am offering you entry into an organizational structure in which I am the boss and you the subordinate, and I will always have final say. You may have input, and I will listen to you if I think it’s in our best interests for me to do so, but remember, I am the one who will always decide what is in our best interests, and I will expect you to do your duty and go along with that, whether you like it or not. So-- with that understood, here’s the ring. Will you marry me?”

Do I hear wedding bells?