Susanna Krizo

One more thought: did Adam and Eve argue in the garden, since Adam was given the authority of final say in case of an argument? If the man and woman lived in perfect harmony, what need was there for the man’s authority?

Another thought on the subject: if the man’s authority is based on creation and is only found in marriage, and if all Christians should submit to each other, why should women not teach men since men should also submit to women in the church? Where does the mandate that women should not teach men come from and what is it based on?

As far as Christ and his authority is concerned: Why does Christ have authority? Because he is God and he created us. Why does he have the authority: to restore the world to its original beauty.
He calls us his friends. When did a friend ever have authority over another – within a friendship?
Christ became our Lord when he died for us. Any man is welcomed to die for his wife if he wishes to become her lord. There is no other way.

Hi everyone,
I have just spent 3 months in the dense fog of sleep deprivation, and I don’t think Samuel is going to sleep for another 3, for he likes to eat every two hours around the clock.
That said, let’s get back to business:
If marital love (eros) is hierarchical, we have a problem with 1 Cor 7, which talks about eros love: husband does not have authority over the his wife’s body, and vica versa. I.e. there can be no hierarchy when both must yield preference to the other.

As far as governing authorities are concerned: they were given by God BECAUSE OF SIN (Rom 13) to punish evild-doers and give praise to the one’s who do good. There can be no comparison between an authority which is given at creation and one which is instituted because of sin, unless we of course agree with the early church and say that the man’s authority was given because the woman ruined it all by introducing sin, while the man was innocent.

As far as slavery is concerned: if Paul was arguing that a wife should submit to a husband as slaves submit to their masters, we have a problem with 1 Cor 7 again: Paul instructs the slaves to take advantage of manumission (being set free) if they can, but to the wife and husband he writes that divorce is not an option UNLESS THE UNBELIEVER WISHES TO DEPART. I.e. the authority of the master is not something that we should consider given by God, but the cause of greedy, selfish humans who wish to avoid the menial tasks while accumulating more wealth than they should. (I must add that divorce should be sought in case of abuse of any kind for God has called us to peace, not to be hurt by someone’s unrepentant heart).

As far as the comparison between wives, children and slaves is concerned: children grow up and need parental guidance only for their own safety and well being when immature children. Slaves, as already pointed out, can be manumitted, and Christian masters are told to treat them as their brothers/sisters; there is not hierarchy between siblings. The only reason Paul refers to slaves is because sinful humans will always enslave others and these instructions are needed for that specific reason (Paul has other instructions for the freeborn laborers: work, or don’t eat). These three are also lumped together because they all belong to the same familia. I.e these three groups interacted in Rome in a daily basis wherefore the instructions are found together. Note also that it is the wife and the husband who are above the children and slaves, the slaves had to obey the Domina as well, or rather, she was in charge of the slaves and their work. The children were instructed by a slave, the fathers were rarely involved in the upbringing of the children. Paul is not trying to create a hierarchy of worth, he is giving a Christian family instructions how to live with each other in an era when slavery was a fact of life.

As far as love is concerned: A Roman man considered love towards a woman slavery due to the passion which the man would not be able to control (hence Augustine writes in his book Confessions that God loves without passion). Love towards other men, especially male children, was considered to have a cooling effect on the male psyche and Roman men would often buy young boys as their “pets.” Now re-consider what Paul writes in Eph 5: husbands love your wives as yourselves. Quite radical in a time when a wife was considered an inferior, silly thing, whose existence was necessary only to create legitimate offspring.
The idea of “concordia” (mutual affection) shows up in Stoic philosophy late second, early third century and the church picked it up quickly as did Rome. Hence we find these ideas in all Roman literature and church literature from the third century on. But although the husband and wife were to have mutual affection towards each other, the relationship was that of inequality (thanks to Aristotle). And it is here that we find the root of modern complementarism, since these ideas are impeded in the writings of Tertullian and Augustine. As far as the Bible is concerned, these ideas are as foreign to it as the idea that a person should love someone else less than him/herself.

Oh, one more thing Charis: the human heart is not in subjection to the brain (try to tell your heart to stop beating, you can’t). The heart regulates the circulatory system, the brain the nervous system. These two independent systems make a human life possible. If the heart stops, the brain will die within 10 minutes. If the brain stops working, the heart can still keep on beating for years (with life-support, since the lungs are dependent of the brain).

Hi Charis,
I am indeed busy right now, and yes, Cheryl, you were right, I am going to do a lot of baking! I must by necessity be brief, but I wanted to say that I read your comments (good questions, by the way) but I hope you do not mind waiting until after Christmas for us to resume the discussion.

I wanted to comment on one thing though:
That the devils and demons were subject to the apostles does not mean that hypotasso is involuntary when the relationship is voluntary. Demons are the enemy of the Light and in the Gospel they are said to be subjected to the apostles involuntarily as conquered enemies. We find this also in Eph 1.21-22, where the angelic beings (“powers and principalities”) are subjected to be placed under the feet of Christ (the Church is the feet of Christ and hence they cannot be under His feet, neither is the church His enemy, instead she is his beloved, whom He died for). If you look at Jas 4 you will find that the Christians had become enemies of God by choosing to be friends of the world. Only by resisting the Devil could they submit to God, i.e. draw near to Him and remain with Him.
A wife is not the enemy of the husband (although it may seem so sometimes in a marriage and theology has traditionally seen women as a woe rather than a blessing) hence the analogy does not hold. The same problem is evident in Gen 4.7 which is used to interpret Gen 3.16: Eve was not the enemy of Adam; sin was the enemy of Cain, hence an analogy between the two does not exist. Marriage is a voluntary association between a man and a woman in which the two become one by leaving their parents and cleaving to each other, by being literally glued to each other. But it is possible to leave this covenant (as it is called in the OT) and this is what Paul is trying to prevent. He admonishes wives to remain devoted to their husbands in all things instead of separating themselves from them either physically or emotionally, and husbands to love their wives as they love themselves (i.e. doing to her what he wishes her to do to him). He is not enlisting the couple into an army, neither is he trying to enforce a one-sided involuntary submission from the wife for it would be absurd for him to tell the wives to do something all Roman women were already doing. A good comparison is modern Saudi-Arabia: let’s say the Gospel was preached in S-A for the first time this coming year. What likelihood is there that the women would decide to throw of their veils, drive cars and demand equality if Christianity taught what Islam already does? I would say the change of it would be nil. But what if Christianity taught a radical equality which would cause women to suddenly consider themselves equal to men? There would be a need to address the dynamics of a relationship between two equals and this is what we find in Eph 5.

TL, you are right: it is all about the man in complementarism. The whole Bible is read as if written solely to men and women are seen as appendixes to men, not as person’s with rights of their own.

Both Grudem and Piper recognize that the concept of headship does not work in the real world, wherefore they conclude that “headship does not define the precise activity of husband and wife,” as long – naturally – as the man has the last word in all matters.
And of course submission must be “joyful.” It would not be quite as pleasant to live with a woman who is unhappy. The “joyful” submission removes any and all feelings of guilt the man might experience and makes the whole arrangement look legitimate. Kind of like the “happy Negro” from the era of segregation (which is why black men stopped smiling in public in the 60’s which re-defined their image from “happy” to the more realistic “oppressed”). Women tend to smile more than men, and often their smile is taken for approval, whereas it is often just part of their nature as co-operative beings (women tend to be more co-operative, especially during the childbearing years due to large amount of estrogen. This does not mean that men are less co-operative, but some studies have shown that testosterone makes men more hierarchical, and dominating in relationships)

How about this one: according to some women need more love than men (Eph 5), hence we could argue that women can override their husband’s authority and right to command by their need to be loved since we know from 1 Cor 13 that love does not seek its own (which means that the husband cannot command the wife to do something he wants her to do, since he does not need to command her to obey God, since as a Christian her relationship to God is her private matter, not something her husband needs to be concerned about, other than how it affects the entire family). I.e. the husband overrides the wife’s authority in all matters and the wife the husband’s in all matters and voila, we are back at Eph 5.21.

One more thing about hypotasso (submit): don’t you all think it is strange that we should read it as a military term when the true military term is ‘ezer (help) in Gen 2.18-24? And we are not talking about someone who is “under authority”. ‘Ezer refers always to an equal (if human) or superior (if God) who is sent, or comes to aid, when needed. The term cannot refer to a weaker, subordinated creature, for what good would it do to send such a person against an enemy which is too much for one to handle? The woman was not created to be subordinated to the man, but to be an equal strength. After all, puppies are adorable, but not really all that great when one feels alone and in need of company.

Gengwall, I noticed that you referred to my book on your blog! Do you think you could write a review and post it on Amazon.com and Christianbooks.com, or am I being too inopportune for asking? Since you are a man, (and do not let your male ego get the best of you, contrary to what you think!) it would be greatly valued. Yes, I know… it shouldn’t matter, but it does for some, so I thought I’d ask.

Hey Gengwall, I dislike stereotypes as much as you do; I was talking in general terms looking back to the sordid past of humanity in which men have used and abused women rather than seen them as their equals. Only a hundred years ago in the Western world a wife was a man’s possession, rather than a human being with positive rights of her own. I find it highly ironic that European women gained full personhood before the law in the sixteenth century due to the witchcraze: the old rule in which the husband was punished for the crimes of their wives, which was designed to ensure the husbands control in the home, did not seem so appealing when the punishment was being burnt on the stake. This of course gave the women only negative rights (being held accountable before the law for crimes), not positive rights (voting, right to keep their earnings etc.). So, yes, you are right: most modern men try very hard to keep their marriages intact, but if we look at the larger picture, it isn’t so pretty.

Kay, I believe that if men would really understand what they would gain from mutual love and devotion, they would embrace it. Unfortunately the allurement of power is such that most men are contended to have their personal lives shattered rather than seeing their wives, and women in general, as their equals.

I was just thinking: if greatness comes from serving and men should be “servant leaders,” what should women be? “Leading servants”?

The problem with NN’s view is that he see marriage as a hierarchy in which the wife can have a measure of authority (as she has over the children) as long as the husband has the ultimate authority. Hence he does not have a problem with 1 Cor 7 since he believes that the husband has the greater authority outside of the bedroom. Of course, to defend the hierarchy, they go from 1 Tim 2 to 1 Cor 11 to Gen 2 to Eph 5 and 1 Pet 3 to Gen 3 to 1 Tim 2. Authenteo is given the meaning “usurp authority”; kephale is given the meaning “authority over”; ezer is given the meaning “helper”; teshuwqah is given the meaning “desire”; kyrios is given the meaning “lord”; hypotasso is given the meaning “submit” and is understood as a synonym to obedience. These are all wrong! When these are corrected, the comps have nothing to defend their theology with and we are left with 1 Cor 7 and Eph 5.21: mutual devotion and love.

Amen Kay! It is impossible to split a one-flesh union upon leaving the bedroom! I find it incredible that the man should have authority over the wife’s mind but not her body and I think it really comes down to this: the whole concept of the man’s authority is about preferences. The man’s final say, his right to make decisions and to impose them on his wife are all about preferences. Of course this is presented as “responsibility” but when you talk to women, you always hear the same thing: “I wish he would take some responsibility at home instead of leaving it all to me.” So at the end, the man is only protecting his right to live his life as he wishes and to expect his wife to comply with anything and everything he might throw in her way.

The question of authority really comes down to whether the man has authority in the first place. If the man does not have authority over his wife then there is no need to read anything into 1 Cor 7 which does not exist there. As already noted on the other threads, the idea that the man has authority over the woman as a created order comes from the 13th century; the early church used the fall account to justify the man’s rule over the woman. Modern comps do reversed theology compared to that of the patristic church in their rejection of Gen 3.16 as the beginning of the man’s rule and in their insistence on a creation-based female subjection. CBMW insists that their theology is an orthodox defense of the historic understanding of the church, but when you ask a comp to provide a quote from the first 13th centuries to that effect, they do not, for they cannot.
With the sole guilt of Eve and the belief that the woman was subjected to the man as a punishment for her sin, comes also the concept that the head rules over the body. This is of course Platonism, since the Bible portrays always the heart as the thinking and guiding element of the human being. A head which rules over the body within an individual, and by analogy the husband over the wife, is foreign to the Hebrew thought and absent from both the OT and the NT. In the OT marriage is a covenant, made by both spouses, and both are held equally responsible for not breaking the covenant of marriage. Moses permitted divorce to the man due to the hardness of their hearts, but when we go to 1 Cor 7, we find that the same is required from the man as from the woman: stay married, or separate and remain unmarried. In the Shepherd of Hermas we find that the early church saw the exhortation of remaining unmarried as a provision for the one who had committed adultery to repent and return to his/her spouse.
1 Cor 7 amplifies Gal 3.28: it is of no consequence whether you are a Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female; the same rules apply to all. The Jew has no greater privileges than the Gentile, the slave is the freeman of Christ and the freeborn is the slave of Christ, the man and the woman share all things in common, both in the bedroom and outside of it, wherefore it is better to remain unmarried if one wishes to serve God since the spouses will be occupied with pleasing each other.
A Jew could very well use the comp theology to argue that only Jews should be allowed to be in leadership: the Bible was written by Jews; Abraham was a Jew; the priests were Jews; all the Kings and Queens were Jews; Jesus was a Jew; all the apostles were Jews; the Gospel was first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles; Gentiles had a different “role” in the church (they did not have to follow the law, wherefore God held only the Jews responsible, not the Gentiles, Acts 15). Of course a Gentile would immediately point out that the death of Christ broke down the wall of enmity and that God had made one body of Jews and Gentiles, wherefore it did not matter whether one was a Jew or a Gentile, since they all share in the same Spirit (1 Cor 12.13).

I am sure that the New English Translation of the Septuagint is excellent, but as you well know, translations do not always follow the original meanings of the words. Hypotasso for instance is given the meaning “obey” in some English translations, although it does not have such a meaning.
I used a Greek dictionary (LSJ) and it gave hypeiko for “yield.” It is really not that important, but since the antonym of hypotasso is antitasso which means “to resist or to oppose” (an enemy), it would seem quite strange that hypotasso would have the meaning “yield” since the point is that the person who “hypotasso” is associating him/herself with the other person (as a friend and ally). Yielding is not necessarily involved. In Gal 2.5 for example the word “eiko” appears
“To whom we did not yield (eiko) submission (hypotasso) even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.”

Here is where the matter becomes even more complicated:

Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive (hypeiko), for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account (Heb 13:17).

Hypeiko does not have the meaning “submit” hence it seems that translators sometimes confuse these two, just as they do with hypotasso and hypakouo. But as I said earlier, I think this matter is quite unimportant. Interesting for certain, but not of absolute importance.

Ok, if you do not want to discuss the origins of the words and their usage in the NT, how about the concept of hierarchy in itself. Why do we need a hierarchy in human relationships?

Sue, the proper Greek word for “yield” is “hypieko.” Hence all who claim that hypotasso has the meaning “to yield” are misinformed.

NN, have you found yet an example of kephale having the meaning someone in a superior position in the Roman or Greek army?

Oh, I understand you perfectly well. I have heard the same arguments many times before.

Kyrios when referring to God gives God absolute authority as it did the slave onwer, but when kyrios was used a courteous term, it means simply “sir.” You fail to see the difference and because of it you understand kyrios in 1 Pet 3 as ‘lord’ but it would make the man an absolute lord of the woman, which you deny.

NN, you wrote: “Authenteo” as a Koine term meant “to have absolute authority – even over life and death.”

Since Paul was writing Koine Greek, he must have meant that the woman was not allowed to have absolute authority over the man, contrasted to equality in 1 Tim 2.

We get the word “submit” from Latin, not from Greek. During the Millennium of the Vulgate the Bible was read only in Latin, and hence our ecclesiastical language reflects the Latin meaning of the words found in the Bible. “Subicio” has the meaning “to arrange under” and especially under someone’s authority. But to give the same meaning to hypotasso is to fail to see that the nuances of the words are different. Hypotasso is never used with exousia when a marriage is referred to, hence comps must give kephale the meaning “authority over.” The word does not have such a meaning.
Yes, we obey laws, but how do you “arrange yourself under” a law? And if you understand that a citizen “submits” to a law by placing the law above one’s own inclinations, are you saying that a wife should do so in regard to her husband? I.e. should she consider his will more important than her own? And whose will does the husband consider more important than his own? God’s? In other words, this hierarchy places the man in between God and the woman.
In Jas 4 there is absolutely nothing said of God’s authority or the Christians need to arrange under God’s authority. You read this into the text – it is not there. The text says plainly “draw near to God and He will draw near to you,” and the comparison is friendship with the world versus that with God. Is there hierarchy within friendship? Does your best friend command you around?
You have said many times that a Christian must obey God absolutely for He is Lord. The word “Lord” must therefore mean “an absolute Lord,” and this was how the Greek understood it, for the owner of a slave was called a “lord.”

Sorry, the text should read, “Considering that the majority of the early Christians were illiterate and/or slaves…”

Yes, Paul was well educated in the Greek society, but were his readers? Considering that the majority of the early Christians were illiterate slaves, it is a stretch to say that the readers would have been familiar with the Greek of Plato, Plutarch and Philo as Grudem would have it. I have been to Ephesus. It was quite remarkable city by all standards and bore all evidence of Rome in it with the baths and marble walkways. Certainly it had been influenced by Alexandria the Greek as well, but by the time Paul visited the city, it was under Roman rule. The soldiers present in the city were not Greek, they were Roman. Therefore if Paul was writing to the Ephesians about the army, he would have written to them about the Roman army, not the Greek. You have not yet provided any evidence of kephale being a military term. It is imperative since you argue that women are “junior officers” and should “form ranks under their husbands” and follow their commandments. I cannot find a text in which a husband is called a Centurion. (Or maybe we should call him a Uniurion, since he commands only one private).

Ah, and you confuse the issue about Roman government. About 60-75 % of the population in Rome was made up of slaves, leaving a very small freeborn male population. The great majority of these were politically active, unless they were part of the military. The military could choose an emperor or depose of one for Rome depended on the military to keep their borders intact. In other words, the government worked very closely with the people out of necessity. You may speak of authority and submission, and certainly the Romans were obsessed with the concept of power and glory, but at the end the emperor knew very well that his existence was dependent of the people and to irate the people could cost him his head. Can a wife get rid of her husband when he drives her crazy? Can a husband do the same to his wife? At the end, you do not seem to realize that you are reading the Roman society into the Bible. Certainly this became true in the fourth century when the church married Rome, and already before it when Tertullian transformed the church into a Roman institution by changing the previous ministries into legal offices, barring both women and slaves form leadership (and laity for that matter).

In the Septuagint the word “shama” (to listen) is translated with “akouo” (to listen) in Gen 18.10. “Hypoakouo” intensifies the word “akouo” and hence the listening is done attentively. Incidentally the word “obey” in Hebrew is “shama” (to listen), and has always the idea of listening to someone and acting accordingly. In Gen 18.10-15 Sarah is simply listening. She does not act according to the words she hears, for there was nothing for her to do. She hears that she will become a mother and after the initial unbelief, she embraces God’s promise (as seen also in Heb 11). Hence Peter could not have written that Sarah obeyed Abraham, for he used the text found in Gen 18.

Chrysostom wrote that both the marriage of Abraham and Sarah was such that they both obeyed each other. Chrysostom was well versed in Classical Greek, and in both secular and Christian literature. Should we assume that he made a mistake in his assessment? Grudem tries to get around the fact that Abraham listen to Sarah by claiming that by doing so, they both ended up disobeying God. Of course he does not mention that by listening to men, many women have ended up disobeying God. Hence his argument proves only that he cannot give an example of Sarah obeying Abraham, for it does not exist.

I am well aware that the NT uses the word hypotasso of our relationship to God’s law etc. I was looking for the usage in the personal relationship between the Christian and God which is alluded to in Eph 5. The only instance I find is Jas 4 and in the context hypotasso has the meaning “to associate with” and there is absolutely no hint of a hierarchy.
If hypotasso should be understood exclusively as a military term, here’s the problem: how does one arrange oneself under an impersonal object such as the law? I found this flaw in the thinking of the author of “Love and Respect,” Dr. Emerson Eggenrichs. He argues that hypotasso means “to rank or place under” but then he argues also that the husband submits to the wife’s need to be loved despite of a conflict due to Eph 5.21. How does one place oneself under a need? And how can the husband be “over” and “under” his wife at the same time in the same hierarchy? His entire research was based on the excellent book “Why Marriages Fail and Succeed” by Dr. Gottman (the best marriage book out there) but he failed to see Dr. Gottman’s point: both men and women need love and respect equally; when a husband treats his wife as a servant, he shows the kind of disrespect which will lead to a divorce. Dr. Eggenrichs ignored this fundamental point and argued that men need respect and women love and he based this conclusion on a hierarchy which he believes should exist in a marriage (not surprisingly, and he used to be in the army). No wonder Christian marriages are not thriving!

You have the same problem with the word hypakouo: how do you obey such an abstract thing as faith? (Acts 6.7 etc) And how do you obey a knock on the door? (Acts 12.13)? If you assign one meaning based on your need to have a word mean a particular thing, you end up creating problems elsewhere.

Kyrios in the NT, when referring to a human, invariably means “sir,” a courteous way of addressing a man; when referring to God, Kyrios invariably means Lord, for God is the Lord of all, a man is not. If you give kyrios the meaning ‘lord’ you make the man the absolute lord of the woman and you contradict what you just wrote in your previous post for a ‘lord’ had full authority over his slave.

Greek scholars read the writings they have at their disposal, not everything that was written by the Greeks. Hence they assume that because the word appears first as a military term, it was such originally. Any lingustic will challenge that assumption by pointing out how quickly languages evolve. I grew up bilingual (Finnish and Swedish) and I am still fluent in both languages. But when I go home and listen to the Finnish or Swedish youth, I cannot understand them half of the time for they have changed the meanings of the words. It really only takes a generation or less to change a word and its meaning. That a play writer used the word with another meaning shows clearly that the word had a civilian meaning as well since the other writers were writing about the army, weren’t they? I.e. when used of the army, the word has a military connotation; when used of civilians, the word has another meaning entirely. Ultimately it really does not matter whether the word was used primarily by the military for Paul was not enlisting his readers in the army! If you wish to argue that hypotasso is a military term in Eph 5 you must also argue that kephale is a military term for it would make absolutely no sense to use a military term with a civilian term. Also, you seem to forget that Ephesus was an Asian city under Roman rule. The nuances of Greek words would be foreign to them for they knew only Koine Greek, not the classical Greek from the era of Greek philosophy. Hence, you must also argue that every person who spoke Koine Greek would have understood hypotasso as a military term and nothing else. You must also argue that the Romans in the city of Rome understood their relationship to to government in military terms since Paul uses the word in Rom 13. Unfortunately for your argument they didn’t. The freeborn Roman males saw themselves as equal to their rulers wherefore Augustus was careful to call himself “first among equals.”
(To be continued)

Cheryl, I agree with you. I find that complementarian theology fails to discern between the secular and spiritual usage of words. Just because Plato, Plutarch and Philo gave a word a specific meaning does not necessitate that biblical writers gave the word the same meaning considering their outlook on life was quite different. To use the worn out cliche: not every gay person is happy, nor is every gay person a homosexual. It is imperative that we discern the meaning the writer gives the word without assuming he or she is using the word in the similar fashion to other writers. This becomes acutely evident when we realize that kephale (head) was given the meaning “ruler” by Augustine because of his synthesis of neo-Platonism with his theology. Plato taught a soul-body dichotomy in which the sinful body was ruled by the soul. Augustine borrowed the concept in his interpretation of Eph 5: the head rules over the body. But note that he did not compromise his Christology in such manner, for he continued to argue with others that kephale in 1 Cor 11.3 meant “beginning” and he rejected every attempt to make the Son subject to the Father by assigning kephale the meaning “ruler” in 1 Cor 11.3.

Dear NN, I never said you said anything about the usage of hypotasso and epitasso together. I wanted to draw your attention to them since it is usually simply assumed that hypotasso is the antonym of epitasso – it is not. Wherefore the question is: if epitasso (command) is never joined with hypotasso, why would it include obedience to the one who commands? Greek lacks also the word “hypertasso” (set over), which should exist by necessity since in Greek that which is “hypo” (under) has always its counterpart in “hyper” (over). The Bible never says that man is “set over” the woman, hence the translation “set under” is quite peculiar. We do find hypotasso in the context of the Christians submission to God and it is found in Jas 4.6-9:
“But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists (antitasso) the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Therefore submit (hypotasso) to God. Resist (anthistemi) the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”
The antonym of hypotasso is “antitasso” (to resist) and “anthistemi “oppose, stand against” wherefore hypotasso in the above context has the meaning “not to resist and oppose as an enemy would” i.e. to stand close as a friend or an ally would. (We find the same in Rom 13 and 1 Pet 5) James is not portraying Christians as arranged in a hierarchical relationship with God in the top; he is admonishing them to draw near to God and to remove themselves from their friendship with the devil which had made them enemies of God (See also Rom 8.7).
An additional meaning of hypotasso is “to associate with,” hence I disagree that hypotasso was originally a military term which was converted into civilian use with the exclusive meaning to arrange persons in a hierarchical order. “Tasso” has the meaning “to set, arrange, to put in order” and Greek has tons of words which end with “tasso”: paratasso (“place or post side by side, draw up in battle order, stand side by side in battle”), diatasso (“to set in order”), epidiatassomai (“to add something that has been ordained”), protasso (“to arrange towards”), katatasso (“arrange, classify, enlist, rank”), entasso (“enroll, enlist, place among”), suntasso (“put in order together, put in the same class”), sunkatatasso (“arrange or draw up together, range oneself beside”), enkatatasso (“arrange or place in”), prosuntasso (“arrange beforehand”) metasuntasso (“alter the arrangement of a treatise”). I am sure the army used “hypotasso” but it does not mean that a civilian would have given the word the same meaning, just as the biblical ekklesia has nothing to do with the Athenian ekklesia. Paul certainly used military imagery in his writings (1 Cor 9.7; Phil 2.25; 2 Tim 2.3, 4; Philem 2). But consider this: who is the captain? Jesus is. All the apostles and co-workers were considered soldiers in the army of God, and they received their orders from God. The purpose of this army is to fight the army of darkness and anyone can become a soldier in the army of God by devoting one’s life to the task. Let’s for the sake of the argument assume that hypotasso is a military term in Eph 5, what is this army of two supposed to fight against? What is the purpose of the man’s commandments and the wife’s obedience? The enemy does not exist, unless of course we consider conflict an enemy in which case the man’s authority ends them very quickly. It is kind of ludicrous to consider a marriage in military terms, which is perhaps inevitable when only men do theology since men are generally more hierarchical in their thinking than women are and they often admire the army. But would a converted Pharisee see marriage in terms of military discipline? We do not find such a concept in Judaism, and when we take into consideration that the first three hundred years Christians refused to serve in the armed forces, it is highly unlikely that Paul would have seen marriage in such terms.
The literal meaning of hypakouo is “to listen attentively.” Obedience is the derived meaning of the word since to obey one must listen carefully. In 1 Pet 3 Peter recollects the story of Sarah in the tent listening to Abraham who stands by the doorway. The text in Gen 18 does not mention that Sarah obeyed Abraham; it mentions that she listened (shama) to Abraham, calling him sir (adown) in her thoughts, i.e. exhibiting an inner attitude of devotion despite their old age and childlessness.
“Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him. “There, in the tent,” he said. Then the LORD said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son. Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?” Then the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son.” Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.” But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.” (Gen 18:9-15)
‘Adown was a common word used to address men in the Old Testament era, much like our ‘sir’ is today. Only about hundred years ago women in the Anglo-Saxon world called their husbands ‘sir’ and husbands called their wives ‘madam.’ It sounds perhaps excessively polite to us who call our spouses “honey” and “sweetie,” but it was a culturally accepted way of speaking. In the NT we find that John calls the recipient of his letter “kyria” (lady) – a courteous way of opening a letter addressed to a woman in the Greek world. The people called ‘adown did not expect obedience from those who used the term.
I find your comment that there are several passages which use hypotasso with regard to our relationship to God highly puzzling since I found only two (Jas 4 and Eph 5). Considering I spent five years in research for a book on the subject, I would assume I would have found more – if there indeed are more. I would be grateful if you could provide them so that I could correct the chapter on hypotasso in the next edition.

NN, I have a requests:
1. Could you please give us the passage(s) in the NT in which hypotasso (submit) and epitasso (command) are joined together.
2. Could you give us the passage(s) in which the word hypotasso is used in the context of the Christians relationship to God.

I was a bit curios to the meaning of your comment that Jesus calls us friends only after we have called him Lord. If we consider that Peter denied Jesus right after Jesus had called him his friend, it seems somewhat peculiar that the rest of us are in a position in which we must yield perfect obedience which none of us our capable of before we can be called the friends of Jesus. I.e. it will never happen. In addition, when did Jesus become the Lord of all? After his ascension. Hence He called us his friends before He had become the Lord of all and thus your argument fails.

That hypotasso is used as a military in Eph 5 is a common misconception. The only place in the entire NT in which “tasso” is used of a military person is in Luke 7.8, “For I also am a man placed with authority (exousian tassomenos), having soldiers under (hypo) me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.””
The centurion was not saying that he was under authority as all translations would have it for “hypo” means also “with” and hence his argument was that he was vested with authority, having soldiers under him who did his bidding. He compared his own authority to that of Jesus’: he had to only say a word and the slave would be healed. Note that he does not use hypotasso of the soldiers under him; he uses the word hypo which is also found in Eph 1.22 where the fallen angels are pictured as conquered enemies under the feet of Christ. The church is not placed under the feet of Christ since the church is the feet of Christ and Christ Himself is the Head of His body – the church.

Hi Kay! You can go to http://www.whendogmasdie.com if you want a signed copy. Otherwise you can find it on Amazon.com and various other online bookstores. It will be available in regular bookstores in January 2010.