Cheryl Schatz

Craig,
What I like about your comments is that you are trying hard to work this out so that you are not one who just accepts what others say, but you need to understand for yourself so that you are convinced by the text and the inspired grammar rather than just accept someone else’s opinion. This is truly a sign of one who is a Biblical Berean.

Hi guys,
Sorry that I have been out of it for a long period of time. Our renovation project has totally sucked my energy dry leaving no time for my blog.

Craig,
You said:

If “the woman” of v 14 is not Eve, does Paul’s argument of v13,14 seem to be missing its ending?

Paul ties in “the woman” to Eve in such a way that what is currently happening to “the woman” (at the time of Paul’s writing) is seen as another Eve situation. While Paul is talking about a specific woman in verse 14 his reference so relates to the original deception of the first woman that Timothy has to understand the seriousness of the situation. There are two deceived women who have husbands who are doing nothing about their wives deception. In verse 14 Paul’s words hint at Eve since Adam is mentioned, but the grammar cannot refer to Eve since it is an on-going consequence of the deception that brings a question in verse 15 about her salvation.

There were several things that I was not able to put into the DVD series because it was already long and I had to cut a bunch of stuff about Adam and Eve and Genesis in order to meet the time restrictions for each session. Also it was pointed out to me after the DVDs came out that the grammar of verse 14 prohibits “the woman” from referring to Eve just as the grammar of verse 15 prohibits Eve from being “she”. I had caught the grammar in verse 15 but missed it in verse 14. What is interesting to me is that it was first pointed out to me by a complementarian and was expanded on by an egalitarian right here on this blog. So while some comps have said to me that if Paul had meant “a woman” to be a specific woman he would have called her “the woman”, verse 14 answers that challenge. Paul calls her “woman” in verse 11 and 12 but qualifies her as “the woman” in verse 14.

What Paul is doing is drawing a conclusion about the specific Ephesian woman by painting a picture of her predecessor and then finishing with the issue at hand with the “second” Eve and her on-going transgression that is currently a matter of discussion has happened to her through the process of deception. Bear in mind that this passage has been an acknowledged difficult passage that up until now, most commentators on the Scriptures have acknowledged that Paul’s use of seldom used words, switching from singular to plural and perfect tense grammar which indicates a present state has made the passage very difficult to understand.

I am going to paste a copy of the grammar of the perfect tense from verse 14 showing the present state:

…and also the future tense of verse 15 of the third person singular “she”.

Holly,
Welcome to my blog! I am grateful that you have received a lot of help here and when the DVDs arrive, I am sure that they will be a great source of encouragement to you.

Gengwall, thanks for stepping up to the plate. We are completely removing part of our house right now to get ready to construct a new video studio and office space. I am needed to help my husband every day this week until the deconstruction is complete. It is back breaking work and by the end of the day when I usually make the time for my blog, I am so exhausted, all that is left of me is to have a shower and go to bed. The long hours of physical labor are very tiring. Hopefully next week I will have time for my blog.

Okay, enough of a break, I am back outside to help my husband in tearing down the rafters and removing all the nails.

Craig, you are right in picking that up. I see Paul use “head” in three different ways in 1 Cor. 11. That is part of what makes it so hard to follow, but it really makes sense to me. The key meaning of “head” in the passage is source as that is what Paul starts with and he later goes on to make it unmistakable by saying that the woman came through the man (her physical source) but that all men now come through a woman (the man’s physical source).

Into the mix Paul introduces cultural and spiritual shame. It was a cultural shame for a woman to be bareheaded, yet it was a spiritual shame for a man to wear on his head the symbol of the shame of his sin. After all coming to God in apparent humility (needing a covering) dishonors our spiritual covering. Because Paul goes back and forth between the real physical head to a metaphorical head and back and forth between cultural shame and spiritual shame, the passage has been notorious for its difficulty in following Paul’s thought. One thing that can help is to look for the connection. What “connects” man to Christ, what connects the woman to man and what connects Christ to God? The thing that connects them all in a similar way is called a “head”.

Then think how a man is so connected to his metaphorical “head” that the connection can cause shame by what he does (i.e. he wears a symbol of sin when his sin has been taken care of by his “head”). Think about how a woman is so connected to her “head” that what she does can shame him (by choosing to honor Christ by removing her symbol of shame, she can dishonor her other “head” with her bare head which is a cultural symbol of an adulterous woman).

Then think about how man and woman is so connected together than one is honored as source in the beginning and the other is honored as source for all men now (think mother’s day).

Then think about how our connectedness that makes us as having an interdependence with each other leads us to look beyond each other to the one who we are connected to as our original source and through whom everything came into being and through whom all holds together.

I think that the idea of connectedness is very strong in the passage and our connectedness comes both through our origin with one humanity and not two humanities, our needing each other and needing the gifts that God brings through each gender, must bring us to the conclusion that we need each other so that neither gender is disregarded just as neither gender is to be elevated as “lord” and sole source. For our sole source is to be traced back not to the first man, but to the last Adam who is our God and creator of all.

So if you ponder on how each part and each verse shows the connection between two things that shows how honor and shame can be a byproduct of how we handle the connection, it might help.

I find Paul to be one who looks at a problem from every angle possible thus he uses each meaning for “head” in the passage and by looking at all angles his argument becomes bullet-proof and brilliant. Paul was indeed a “deep” thinker who used his skills in argument to trace everything back to God.

Alex #56,
I had to stay away from this topic for a bit as it took me back to a very painful time and I just needed space in order to breathe again.

You said:

Cheryl, I understand what you’re saying, and I would agree with you if you defined complimentaryism by that definition. However, I don’t.

My lifestyle was the classic way of life for all of us who lived the comp lifestyle the way it was taught us.

1) I do not believe that every wife should always submit to her husband in every circumstance. If what he thinks is best goes against what the Bible teaches, she should not follow him. If what he thinks is best is illegal, she should not follow him. These are huge areas that many of the examples you (and many other people on this forum) mention that I would agree with. Also, if a woman feels a strong desire to go a direction different from what the husband feels, it is extremely important for both of them to understand why.

The issue is not about whether a woman is able to help her husband understand why she disagrees. The issue is whether he has the right to override her will.

Now for the record in my own marriage, my husband never overrode my marriage in the “big” things. For example, he is a very giving man and he decided that he wanted to sell our house, giving everything to the church building program and live in an apartment with our three children. I said no. My husband believed that it was important to have agreement between the both of us in these “big” issues, so he would not override my will as we were not in agreement. But he did feel free to override my will in all the “small” areas. I was not allowed to keep purchases that I made if he decided that I didn’t need them. My will was overridden and I was made to take things back to the store as his power of decision making in all areas of my kitchen were his “right” as the man.

While I am very grateful that my husband did not override my will on the issues that were very big areas for both of us, when he overrode my will in the little areas, I lost my ability to be an individual in so many areas. It hurt me greatly and I did not come out of that bubble and start to grow as a person until we received help and my husband decided to go against the comp lifestyle that he had been taught.

2) If the husband and wife disagree about everything, then there are much bigger issues than complimentaryism. If the husband is always exerting his authority then he is ignoring his helper and (i would argue) is being both unbiblical and abusive.

While I agree with you that it is abusive and unbiblical, the men who do this do not believe that it is unbiblical or abusive. In fact so many of these men are good caring men who really feel like they have a responsibility to be the gatekeeper who keeps their wives from making “mistakes”. That was my husband. He is a wonderful man and the heavy burden that was placed on his shoulders with the comp lifestyle hurt him by making him bare a burden that he was not created to bear.

And I would say you have the definition of complementaryism wrong.

“complementarianism is the “right” and the “duty” of the man to be responsible before God to “lead” a woman and “grow” her because God has placed upon him the responsibility over her and for her as one who will give an account before God for her.”

Complementaryism is the calling of the man to be responsible before God to lead and grow his wife within the marriage. In the same way the wife is called to encourage and grow her husband. This doesn’t mean the husband makes all the decisions (as I mentioned above).

I didn’t say that the husband is to make all the decisions. What I do say is that he has a responsibility to make the final decisions on everything that they disagree on. And since women and men are different they may very well disagree on a lot. My husband overrode my will on what kind of cooking utensils that I should have. He overrode my decision because it was not only his “right” but his “responsibility”. This is true comp lifestyle where the husband has the responsibility to “grow” the wife.

As far as the wife “growing” the husband, this is not biblical either. This is the area where so many marriages falter as either one can feel like they need to change their partner. It is God’s responsibility to work with us to change us. It is not our responsibility to “grow” our husband.

It is important to note that verses 22-24 is for the wife, not the husband (and as such the husband should not learn leadership from these verses).

This is part of the problem with the comp way. Husbands feel like they are not to submit to their wives so they refuse to do so even though all are to submit to “one another” as the commandment in verse 21.

It is also important to look at the phrase “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.” To really understand what it means to love like Jesus loved, you must to a fairly indepth study to the scriptures finding out how Jesus loved the church. Then (and only then) can you truly understand what it means to love sacrificially.

Women are also to love their husbands as Jesus did because Jesus is the example for all of us, not just for husbands. Anyone’s sacrificial loving the other will always go back to Jesus. But we are also to submit to one another and we cannot ignore this because it is the foundation of what it means to love sacrificially.

P.S. – As a side note, I really appreciate this conversation. This has both helped me to understand egalitarianism better and to re-evaluate some areas of complementaryism that I hadn’t fully mapped out before. I greatly appreciate your input and perspective.

Thanks! It is always good to have respectful back and forth discussion. Listening to one another is part of submitting to one another. It is a wonderful thing that we can do to try to come to a mutual respect and love.

At this point we are more or less at an impasse. I will continue to read your blog posting from time to time and will read any responses to this posting (especially responses to that scripture). I thank you so much for your civility towards me and my differing opinions and I hope you feel the same way about my responses!

Well, I hope that you feel free to respond at any time and not just on this post. I LOVE having complementarians come here who will be respectful and honest. Whatever truth we may have should not be intimidated by what others reveal about what they believe. We can be like iron sharpening iron so that we can both understand each other and learn from each other.

This has been a painful issue for me as it has forced me to go back into a very painful time of my life. I lost the individuality that God had given me and having someone challenge me that my husband and I weren’t living the comp lifestyle in a faithful way from the basic and bottom line of the male responsibility, really hurts. I won’t let anyone condemn my husband as I know his heart. The problem was not my husband, but the foundational problems that give the husband the burden to arbitrarily make all the final decisions when a husband and wife disagree. The better way that we have found is to walk as a three-some with Jesus as our source. We feel strong when we work hard to come to an agreement and will leave things aside until we can come to agreement. It is an amazing thing to work for agreement and not to give up on each other. We believe that Jesus is glorified in this.

Much love,
Cheryl

For all you he-men types who need another way to see this issue of interdependence without the frills of a barbiblog caricature, here goes:

Craig,
You said:

It would be easier for me to follow if Paul was talking about “every wife (rather than just Eve) having a head (husband) in v3 to every wife who…….dishonors her head (husband) in v5.
Also, the way in which Adam was the origin of Eve, would seem quite different from the way every other husband is head.
Any thoughts to help my confusion? Thanks.

Paul’s passage is certainly confusing as “head” is used in several different ways from literal to a couple of metaphors so one needs to pay close attention and still Paul is so “deep” that it isn’t easy. In verse 5 we see Paul using “head” both physically and metaphorically:

1 Corinthians 11:5 (NAS)
5 But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved.

In what way is every husband “head” of his wife? I believe that Paul is referencing back the “source” of the first wife as coming from her husband and connecting this to a “one flesh” unity in the body. Since every husband is connected to his wife as a “one flesh” union, the metaphor of a united body in a unity of function and purpose would make sense to me. So every husband is “head” as part of the unity of the body for the reason that the first man was the source of his wife so that what was one physical flesh would be reunited to one emotionally attached flesh. If we are still one emotionally attached flesh as the body is bothy physically and emotionally attached, then what one does affects the other.

The attachment of the head and body in the area of head coverings was part of the shame based culture. A woman without a head covering in public would be seen as a direct way for her to shame her husband as she would be seen as one who is unfaithful. The wife is so connected to the husband’s honor as a body is intimately connected to the head, that what she does or does not do affects him too either giving him honor or bringing him shame. It is a connection for Paul that brings in both origin and interdependence.

In verse 8 we see Paul referencing back to verse 3 with the issue of origins.

1 Corinthians 11:8 (NAS)
8 For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man;

And then in verse 11 he switches to the interdependency of body to the head with neither independent of the other.

1 Corinthians 11:11 (NAS)
11 However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.

It is quite a brilliant argument, but it is very deep. It means that neither the man or the woman can claim a “first place” status. Both are interdependent on each other with the origin of woman through the man, but the origin of all men since that time as through the woman. We are interdependent on each other as a body nourishes itself with no member claiming a special status as if they were independent of needing the rest of the body. For all of us are on the same level with interdependence and only the first cause or source of all is to have first place.

1 Corinthians 11:12 (NAS)
12 For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God.

Dave,
You answered Craig this way:

I am a new creation in Christ. I have been born again. I have died to myself in Christ and I have been made alive in Christ. Colossians and the “firstfruits” of creation also come to mind.

Good answer. Jesus is the one who gives life and as such he is our source. I also think about this verse concerning Jesus:

John 1:9 (NAS)
9 There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.

Hi guys,

I am back! I took a hiatus for a bit ’cause the marriage/submission issue was a bit too much for me and I needed to take some time to breath.

Breath in, breath out…yup, I think I am doing better. And I LOVE the comic relief here. Thanks Dave!

And I miss Mark too! We have had a great time discussing things especially when Mark would come over to poke us a few times. It kept things lively.

Sorry for being gone for so long. Glad y’all kept the fires burning without me.

Okay, I can’t resist this one:

gengwall,
We all loved the movie The Princess Bride. My oldest son and his best friend memorized most of the lines in that movie. It is quite an experience to watch two teenage boys become the characters in that movie at the drop of a hat. Gengwall, I suspect that you too could quote all of the dialog.

It is a bit of a comic relief for me. I am really busy these days but am also struggling with the wounds that have opened up with discussing authority and submission in marriage. On an older post that has become active again through the comments of a comp, I was told that my experiences through years of marriage as a comp were not the true comp lifestyle. Old wounds hurt and make me want to just stay away. I will have to deal with that. The problem with what this comp is saying is that the comp marriage model that is the true model is not the soft model that many experience today which is really 99% egalitarian in disguise. I experienced the true model and many others have also experienced that model of having one’s will overridden and it is painful to relive even though we dumped that model many years ago. The truth of the matter is that the comp marriage model encourages abuse when it is taught to men who really in their hearts want to do their best as husbands but are told that they have a responsibility to “lead” the marriage with a God-given “right” that the wife doesn’t have and a God-given “trump card” that assures them that their “leading” will be followed. When the wife balks at the leading, the fault, according to leading comp teachers, is the wife’s, not the comp marriage model. But it is interesting to note that almost all leading comp teachers who have been open about their marriages have expressed the need for counselling because the wife at some point became a non person and was experiencing distress because of it. For some wives the recognition of becoming a non person happens early in the marriage and for others it happens late in life when the children leave. A man really cannot know how his wife feels inside and often he does nothing about her pain until she falls apart. It is then that the hard comp model of marriage is softened because of necessity.

It seems to me that the comp model of marriage should come with a warning sticker. “Be careful and handle with care. Your wife’s soul and her very identity as a person is at stake.”

Grace,
Welcome to my blog!

As far as Mary goes, she indeed did have a sin nature, because she had a human father. And the sin nature would have been transferred to all her children that had a human father. But Jesus was different. Since the sin nature only comes through the man and not the woman, any human born that has no human father would not get his mother’s sin nature. This of course means that only one human was ever born without a sin nature after the fall. That one unique human being who is from Adam but without sin, we our Lord Jesus.

I do appreciate your encouragement!

SM,
You too have been a special joy to have on this blog. I like the way that you seem to be so calm as you discuss things that are clear to you but not to clear to others.

The issue of submission and authority in marriage has not been one that I wanted to discuss, but I truly have learned from all of the comments here. I was away celebrating our 38th wedding anniversary. It is by the grace of God that we survived the years as comps to live out our remaining years as two people who honor Christ’s command for mutual submission. Changing from the overweighted responsibility on my husband’s shoulders to mutual accountability has brought mutual respect and mutual joy.

gengwall @184

Craig – I really do like the way you are hanging in there. You are not afraid to hear the contradictions in the comp arguments and ponder them. It is usually at this point that most of our comp friends move the goal posts. So bravo.

I heartily agree! Craig has a lot of spunk and I see in him a real lover of truth. Many would leave this forum because they feel like they aren’t getting their points through to us, but Craig is one who wants to understand us first so that he knows what he is accepting or rejecting. His example of pushing for communication for mutual understanding is a fine example.

Craig, I wish there were many more just like yourself. You are a true joy for me to have your participation as part of this on-line community! Way to go with showing a Christ-like spirit even if you don’t agree with everything that we say here. You are a true brother in Christ and I very much appreciate you.

TL@#45,
You said:

In a emergency whoever is involved may have to make the decision. In things that really only concern one spouse, the spouse most affected should have the highest priority and preferred decision. In major decisions such as moving, buying a car, etc. if the couple cannot agree, THEN NOTHING SHOULD BE DONE UNTIL THEY DO.

I completely agree. Mutuality is God’s way for marriage. Pulling out a trump card that gives one the “right” to force the other person’s will is the world’s way. God’s way alone will work in a person’s heart without planting a seed of bitterness for God alone can change our selfishness into mutual agreement.

Alex,
Welcome to my blog!

You said:

It is not that the husband makes all the decisions for the wife and the wife just has to follow suit. The husband is called to lead the wife, but that doesn’t mean he decides everything.

When a husband and wife disagree about everything, then the comp way is for the husband to make the final decisions. That is the way that it was in my marriage. You can’t say that my experience is not complementarianism. It was. It just was an example of where there is vast differences between what one partner believes is the right way and what the other partner believes is right. Therefore my husband made the decisions in the past because our disagreement gave him the “right” to “lead” by overriding my will. By the way, he did not take authority over me to make the decisions about the really big things. Those things were decided on by mutual consent. It was all the “little” things where his will and his decisions overrode mine that took away my personality. I do not believe that God gave husbands the “right” to override their wife’s will by unilaterally having the final say in these “little” disagreements.

I agree that not all comp men will follow the comp way. In fact the way that you described for mutuality is the way that egalitarians live out their marriages. The only difference is that the husband never overrides his wife’s will. We believe that the Bible does not give him permission to do that. It does give him permission to sacrifice for her and so it would be a godly thing for him to give up his will (sacrifice) for her rather than override her will. But mutuality is the ideal and my husband and I work towards that now.

The husband is only called to be the leader in the marriage. This does not mean he lords himself over his wife or that he makes all the decisions or that he is necessary in her continues growth.

I haven’t yet seen any scripture that says that the husband is “called” to be “the” leader in the marriage. Since man and woman were both made to be rulers of the earth, both should follow the Lord Jesus in maturity to be “leaders” of what is good. We don’t lead the other person, but we do “lead” in doing what is good.

As for what it means to be the leader in the relationship: The husband is called to grow and cultivate his wife.

The husband cannot “grow” the wife since this is the duty of the Lord, but sometimes what a husband does can be a catalyst for her growth. For example it is his sin that can push her to grow patience and longsuffering. But he himself is not “growing” patience in her. It is the Lord who lives inside her that will cause that growth.

The wife’s calling is first and foremost to support her husband, but his calling necessitates that he support her as well. He is called (as her leader) to encourage her to grow in her giftings and desires. These two ideas do not have to be in conflict.

I am sorry, but I do not agree again. I believe that the wife’s first calling is to serve God. Her husband does not come first. Just as there is only one Master for Christians, so there is only one Leader. I do agree that we can support and encourage one another, but I don’t agree that this support and encouragement is called something different when it comes from the wife than when it comes from the husband. When women look to their husbands as their leader, they can easily be led into idolatry and turning away from their true leader.

I honestly believe you have an wrongful view of what complimentaryism is, and as such you may in time come to hold more of its truth than you believe.

Ccomplementarianism is the “right” and the “duty” of the man to b e responsible before God to “lead” a woman and “grow” her because God has placed upon him the responsibility over her and for her as one who will give an account before God for her. The pressure of this unbiblical doctrine has caused many husbands to sincerely believe that their own decisions are endowed by God as authority that is both given and must be accounted for before God so that if his decisions are not followed, he is to blame. Not only does this bring an unhealthy level of responsibility over things that are out of his ability to control (although many men try really hard to control their wives in an attempt to fulfill this “responsibility”) but it also produces a tendency to selfishness because his own ideas are given precedence because of a command of God to “lead”. But once again, it is important to note that God never commands the husband to “lead” his wife, nor does He command the husband to override his wife’s will. Waiting on the Lord a little bit longer is far better than overriding of an adult person’s God-given will. Wait on the Lord and He will direct your way. When a man takes his “right” to override his wife’s will to make the final decision, he has left out “waiting” on the Lord for the Lord’s timing. Few decisions must be made without taking the time to wait for the Lord to bring them both to the peace of a mutual decision.

Alex, I do appreciate you posting here. You are one who seems not to have had a husband hurt by a heavy load of responsibility that should not fall on his shoulders. Many of us have experienced much more than you have. I have seen a lot in my 38 years of marriage, and I would not go back to that heavy responsibility on my husband’s back when the joy of mutual waiting on the Lord for a softening of our heart or of our spouses heart that brings great fruit. It is true togetherness in love with full mutual responsibility and the joy knowing that God works through us together and not one over the other.

Blessings to you as a sister in Christ!

Excellent, Kristen, thanks!

Amaranth,
Welcome to my blog! I am very glad that you found us and I hope that the respectful discussions will give you reason to hope again and deal with the issues that made you leave Christianity. I hope you feel welcome as there are a lot of precious people who visit this blog who really love God and see His love and freedom for women as shining through the Scriptures.

Craig,
It would be quite considerate if Mark would give his definitions of the differences between authority and leadership. If any other comp is willing to give a try, I think that would be helpful.

Another way to look at the issue of authority and leadership is that women are told that they cannot have authority over men. Is there things on the leadership list that would be forbidden? Would it be unbiblical for a woman to use her gifts for:
guiding, directing, pointing, protecting, assisting, giving encouragement and example to follow what is taught?

I would think that most soft comps would not be offended by a woman doing these things, but they would be offended if a woman practiced the things listed in the authority list. But perhaps we should be saying that it is offensive for any Christian to practice what is on the authority list other than perhaps rewarding what is right (which could be considered encouragement). The church has been far too focused on who is in authority, thus taking on a view of the church as a corporation rather than a body. We have allowed the world to influence us in this way and we have ignored Jesus’ warning about striving to be in the position of prominence.

Craig,

I still have many more questions though on how it all fits together.

Questions are good. This is one place that I am happy to say that questions and challenges are welcomed and embraced. And we welcome all respectful blokes too!

Craig @4,
I am so happy that you understand the message!

TL,
Perhaps, the church needs an extensive study on how the Lord Jesus Christ as both Messiah and Husband treats His Body/Bride and raises her to sit beside Him.

Amen!

Kay,

And the irony of all that is that God, let me repeat, God condescended to die like a common criminal for us! What more does it take for humans to “get” it?

I don’t know. God experienced frustration too when He asked what more could He have done?

Isaiah 5:1–4 (NAS)
Parable of the Vineyard
1 Let me sing now for my well-beloved
A song of my beloved concerning His vineyard.
My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill.
2 He dug it all around, removed its stones,
And planted it with the choicest vine.
And He built a tower in the middle of it
And also hewed out a wine vat in it;
Then He expected it to produce good grapes,
But it produced only worthless ones.
3 “And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,
Judge between Me and My vineyard.
4 “What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it?
Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones?

Indeed what more could God have done?

gengwall,

The obsession with authority and hierarchy that permeates not just our culture but our very nature makes the “humble God” paradigm seem to be an irreconcilable paradox.

I agree that many will not be able to reconcile what they believe God is in His Sovereignty with His humble nature and His giving attitude. But their inability to accept all of God’s nature may have its roots in their own nature that loves the exhilaration of importance and the pride of life that produces many perks for them, rather than a real inability to study and understand Christ’s revelation of God. For when we truly understand this part of God’s nature, we are to be moved to be like Him. The man who says that he will not submit to anyone who is not in authority over him, and especially not to his own wife, is not revealing the character of God. We need to root out all sources of pride within us that hinder us from having a truly humble walk with God.

TL,

Where did you get this information?

I got the information from A critical and exegetical commentary on the Gospel According to Luke:

The (sandals) were marks of a freeman, for slaves went barefoot. None of the three things ordered are necessaries. The father is not merely supplying the wants of his son, who has returned in miserable and scanty clothing. He is doing him honour.
Plummer, A. (1896). A critical and exegetical commentary on the Gospel According to S. Luke (376).

This commentary set came highly recommended as the “comprehensiveness and quality of scholarship (is) unmatched by any other series.” It is the commentary that I go to first when I am researching the background of a passage. It is a very expensive commentary set, but also extremely valuable in the high quality of details that it provides. I paid well over $1,000 for the entire 53 volume commentary set but the background information that it gives was well worth the price to me. http://www.logos.com/products/details/1906

It is also amazing to me that many of today’s high profile church leaders are looking for people to serve them and to be paid a high figure for their “service”. They do not act as servants but rather as lords and masters who command respect and loyalty and their time is seldom given to the lowly sheep but to important other “servants”. It is such a contrast to the example that God himself set in His humility.

You will also note from the example above, that when the husband takes out the trump card, it will always be a decision for his own way.

Think about how much better it would be for the husband to work with the wife for a mutual decision. God is the one who has chosen to give us free will in the first place. There are many places in the Bible where God pleads with the sinner to turn from his sin and to come back into fellowship with Himself. Yet God is the ultimate One who could take out the trump card and make the decision for the person. He could just bring them into fellowship with Him against their will. But a person’s will is something very precious and God chooses not to violate our will even if it causes Him great pain of separation from us. Think about this. If God Himself will not violate the will that He has given each one of us, would it be reasonable to think that He has given the husband a godlike trump card that gives him permission to violate his wife’s will? It doesn’t seem reasonable to think that a sinful human would be given the right to do something that God Himself has chosen not to do. Rather, the husband should do what God Himself does do. There are ways to work through to a mutual decision without treating the wife like her own will has been given into his hands to override and overrule. If no mutual decision can be reached and if she agrees that the husband can make the final decision, her will has not been outwardly overridden. But this also might be an easy way out for her. Taking the time to come to a mutual decision even if it means to make no decision for a period of time allows God to work in both person’s hearts and also it allows Him to provide a way where there was no way before. Those are godly things, I would think.

Craig,
I declare that you have the best questions that cause us all to think!

In your example above, the husband is desiring his own way which is an unselfish desire, but he has not yet taken out the trump card. He is only strongly advocating for his position. Let’s see what taking out the trump card might look like.

Mrs Smith: But if we go ahead with the operation right now, we will go into foreclosure because we cannot afford both the operation and our house. Let’s just take the time to pray about it and to see how God is wanting us to proceed. I do not want us to lose our home.

Mr Smith: No. I insist that we go ahead with the operation right now.

Mrs Smith: I don’t want that. I am in pain right now but I can handle the pain. But I can’t handle the thought of losing our home. Let’s just take the time to consider our options. If we wait until next year when our credit card bill should be paid off, we may just have enough money left over to take out a loan for the operation.

Mr. Smith: No. I think that we should just go ahead with the operation right now. It doesn’t matter to me if we lose our home. I am perfectly fine living in an apartment. I want to go ahead with the operation and see you free from this pain once and for all.

Mrs. Smith: No dear, I insist that we wait. I do not believe that God would have us lose our home. I have been given God’s grace to live with the pain this long, let’s wait for another year until we have some finances to go ahead. I cannot bear to lose our home. I would rather be in pain forever than to lose everything that we have worked so hard at attaining. This home means everything to me and I ask you to consider my feelings on this matter. I do not want to spend the money on the operation right now. I do not support going into an apartment just so that I can be pain free right now.

Mr. Smith: It is my place as the husband to make the final decision. God has given me that right. I choose my way. We are going to proceed with the operation right now.

In the above example the husband has completely overridden his wife’s will. While it may seem “unselfish”, making a unilateral decision by going against his wife’s will without her consent, no matter how “unselfish” it may seem, it is taking away something precious from her.

My new post is up http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2010/06/21/the-humble-god/ and it is on God’s view of submission and authority.

Kristen,
Yes, it is reciprocal in marriage and either can lift the other one up just as either one can lead in their gifts or lead in doing the right thing.

I have a thought and maybe others can give me some feedback. So do you think that the average comp husband if he knew how his exercising unilateral authority in the home was actually keeping his wife from reaching her potential in Christ, do you think that he would stop or do you think that the lure of power would keep most going in the same comp direction?

In our marriage, we were unaware for a long time about the damage that it was causing me. In fact I would have fought an egalitarian who would have tried to persuade me that what we were doing wasn’t Biblical. I remember a time many years ago after I had led a Bible study and support session for ex-JW’s that an ex-cult member approached me with a book about egalitarianism and she was telling me that she had learned that the husband was not the authority over the wife. I politely took the book but never read it. It seemed to me that what she was saying was tantamount to heresy.

It wasn’t until years later when I was emotionally forced to set a boundary in order to stop my own personhood from being dissolved and destroyed, that we actually studied this issue and came to understand that what we had long accepted as Biblical was actually a veiled form of abuse and was well on its way to destroying me as a person. When we both came to understand that and saw from the Scripture how we were both given authority and we were equal heirs in Christ, my husband booted the comp model of marriage with my approval and we never looked back.

The freedom that I now have to be myself and not the image that he wants me to be or even a clone of him, yet I am still able to work with him in unity, was so refreshing that I saw the freedom of Christ in it and it became very precious to me to the point that I wanted to be a change agent to help others who were also stuck in a world model that they believed to be the Christian model. When the blinders of deception have been pulled back from our eyes, we could never go back into that restrictive lifestyle. What I didn’t realize for a long time is that my husband was as deeply harmed by the comp lifestyle as I was. He was forced by tradition into a mold that was also hurting him because it forced him to have responsibility for things that were not his responsibility.

Craig,
I am going to jump in here too, to give my thoughts on your questions. Regarding #1 about legitimate authority of one human over another (other than parents and children), the only answer that I can think of is the one that gengwall gave regarding the government.

By the way, I thought that your questions were EXCELLENT! Very well thought-out and they have caused us to reflect on what we believe.

2. Would anyone be able to define authority please?

Other than dealing with parent-child and government, I see Biblical authority as the right to act or to make a decision.

I believe that God has given all of us some type of authority to act. In 1 Cor. 11:10 Paul says that women have authority to make a decision about their own head (and whether she will wear a head covering or not).

1 Corinthians 11:10 (ISV)
10This is why a woman should have authority over her own head: because of the angels.

What I see from the Scriptures is an empowerment of authority to make our own mature decisions so it is an authority over ourselves. There is also an authority to use the gifts that God has given us:

1 Peter 4:10–11 (NAS)
10 As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
11 Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

The gift then that God gives us is the authority given by God to use it for the benefit of the body of Christ. In fact the only time that the gifts are ever restricted is when they would not be benefiting the body. For example speaking in tongues is held back if there is no interpretor since an unknown tongue would not benefit the body. But as a rule, the gift given has with it the right to use the gift freely for the good of the body. That is our authority and it is not an authority over someone else but an authority to take what has been given us and use it.

I also believe that we have an authority in our own private homes to restrict evil. For example I have the authority to deny people the freedom to abuse drugs in my home. It is a God-given authority as God has given both my husband and myself the freedom and responsibility to be the rulers of our home.

3. How does leadership differ from authority?

If God-given authority is an authority over one’s personal decisions and one’s personal space and one’s personal gifts, leadership is different in that it doesn’t involve an authority or right to make decisions over one’s own areas of personal responsibility. Leadership involves providing a living example of the things that you teach. The example is for others to see and understand the ways of God lived out in our lives. When our own life is a living sacrifice for others so that the body of Christ can see Jesus within us, our leadership is a encouragement to follow the way of the Master by seeing the Word of God come to life in us.

In this way, true Biblical leadership is an example set, not an authority taken. When Christian husbands live this kind of lifestyle of “leadership” how could any woman object? The self-sacrifice and Christ-like selfless example of a husband should never cause a Christian wife to reject him or his “leadership”. She too is to initiate a Christ-like example of self-sacrifice so that even if her husband were not a believer, by her godly example of living a gentle and respectful life, he will be influenced to follow her into Christianity.

I think it is so neat that we can give our own views and examples and yet we all seem to come up with the same kind of answers.

Unfortunately the foundation of complementarianism is set up as an “authority over” rather than an “example given”. Women bristle at a man taking authority over her as if she was meant to check her brain at the door, stay an immature Christian and let him make the decisions because of his “authority”. I believe that this kind of “leadership” is not true Biblical leadership but is veiled disguise of a the secular “lording it over” another human being. Rather than bringing out the best in us as women, a man who exercises his authority over us can unwittingly produce a dependent adult rather than a mature Christian who was meant to fulfill their place of joint heir and ruler of the world.

gengwall, TL, Kay, excellent input regarding Craig’s questions!