TL

“If we can’t agree on a starting point (and indeed it doesn’t seem like we even agree fully on the nature of our relationship as the Church to Christ) I don’t think we can say “you haven’t proven your argument.” At best we can say “I still disagree with you.”

Actually, we haven’t been discussing the nature of our relationship as the Church, or the Body of Christ, to Christ. But that would be a good discussion, and one in which we might more easily agree.

Every hypothesis must have a foundation under it to support the resulting conclusions or else it easily falls apart. This is our problem. You did not put forth a Biblical foundation for male only authority in marriage, in which a husband is the authority over his wife to which she must comply with his desires, wishes, etc. Authority cannot be assumed. You do that in a business and you’ll be thought of as psychotic. One must have authority conferred upon them at some specific point in order to rightly wield it and rightly expect compliance. You’ve not provided any Scriptures where God confers authority upon husbands to exercise over their wives. It’s much more than simply not agreeing. You’ve been flying in an airballoon with no basket — and want us to join you!! NOT a good idea.

Tiffany, 566

I’m sorry to see you go, but I do understand. It takes time and energy to sit and try to sort these things out. And even though there have been only a handful of individuals posting it does seem like there’s a lot of people because of the amount of dialogue. The good thing about this place is that the quality of discussion is very high and the quality of research is excellent as well. You’ve been dialoguing with well researched Christians.

The one thing that concerns me most is that neither yourself nor NN has tried to show where you believe Scriptures show husbands are given authority in the first place. This leaves us with the conclusion that you cannot do so. And, well that rather discounts your whole hypothesis.

Marg, 560

Welcome Marg. Please make yourself at home in Cheryl’s very hospitable Blog-livingroom. 🙂

Very good article. That was interesting that the words unruly and rebellious were translated from a word basically meaning un-underset. (anupotaktoi)

”If you are stuck on Webster, then I choose to do the egal thing and I select from the listing the definition “POWER”. Husbands have POWER”

Charis, 561

Having read your words over the years, I do understand better what you mean when you say that men (because of their superior physical strengths, because of their often superior social status, etc.) have a power to wound and hurt women who are more vulnerable. In fact, I don’t think anyone disagrees with you on that point. The problem is that you are trying to find somewhere in Scripture that states that explicitly and end up trying to read it into Scriptures that aren’t speaking or hinting of that because you cannot find it stated explicitly elsewhere. IMO the best and perhaps ONLY place where it might be accurately seen is in Gen. 3:16. The verb mashal means dominate, down lord, rule. That is the only place in Scripture where it is inferred that husbands will have or will exercise any kind of authority, power, dominion, rule. And it is not God authored. It is something God is warning Eve, that her husband will do. And we can take that as a warning that because of sin, many men will indeed do the same — seek to take dominion over their wives.

”Its amusing to me that scientific research has proven the differences between men and women but the drumbeat continues that they are the same.”

Well, it is not amusing to hear you claim that anyone in the whole body of Christ would say that men and women are the same. Being equal does not mean being ‘the same’. I’m sure you know that.

“If you agree that you will not accept comp theology without an explicit statement in Gen 1-3, then please explain how you reconcile the rest of the Bible. After all, not once, is there a statement “husbands submit to your wives”.”

This has likely been said numerous times before….

Everyone means every person. Ephe. 5:21 means that every person is to willfully of their own choosing arrange themselves under every other person in the body of Christ. And they are to do so in the fear, awe and respect of Christ who died so that we might have life and be considered part of His Body, His Bride. How we do this looks different for the differing relationships we have with people. But it is always arranging ourselves under (hupo- under/tasso- arrange/menoi – plural passive, meaning at ones own instigation not having to be responding to another’s direction). As mature humans, hopefully maturing into the likeness of the perfect Human, Christ Jesus, we must freely and happily choose to be of a submissive, supportive and humble attitude toward each other.

This is the opposite of seeking to exercise authority over one another. To take authority over, no matter how benevolent and gracious, is a separating factor. One is above, the other is below. The Lord wants us to learn how to become attached to one another (same level), to need one another and to be so toward others that they are better with you than without you.

”The fact that Adam names Eve, Eve was made from and for him, made as his help-meet obviously do not constitute enough ‘references’ for you.”

Mark, 557

1. God named the first humans adham, which means human. That was their name (Gen. 5:1). It is the same way that Adam named all the creatures as dog, cat, cow, hippopatamus, etc. Adam didn’t give them personal names. Now after the fall, Adam affectionately and possibly repentantly renamed his wife Eve, mother of living. Whether or not Adam felt he was taking authority over her, we don’t know and Scripture doesn’t say. From then on Eve names all the children. And in most cases following, mothers name their children not the fathers.
2. Eve was made from Adam indicating they were of the same substance. The first recorded words out of Adam’s mouth were an exultant observation that she was like him, bone and flesh of him. Eve was made to allay Adam’s aloneness. Adam had all the creatures of creation at his disposal that he had a guardianship authority over. Eve was his equal, his ezer kenegdo (strong help — facing, countering).

It is a sad state to be in to be looking for reasons to exercise dominion over another person. We are to bless, respect, honor, support, assist, bring healing, and so forth to one another as fellow Christians and fellow human beings. It is disappointing to see so much of the world’s desire to control, take, hoard, have power, etc. running through the body of Christ and whitewashed as godly behavior. IMO if we cannot better the lives of others, then we don’t have much life in ourselves.

Tiffany,

I’m not understanding how your definition of authority as “to nourish, to cherish, and to self-sacrifice” fits in with the concept that all of this authority belongs to the husband in your 100/0 equation.

“Carrying the one physical aspect of male-female bodies out into all other realms, is not something I can agree with or find any scriptural backing for.”

I was going to say something similar. Thanks for being quicker to the draw. 🙂

“And I think when NN and Tiffany are saying that biblical authority is different than worldy authority, they are saying something that Jesus said:

But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. 26 Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. 27 And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.””

Charis 518,

It seems to be even different than that. Jesus is not noting between types of authority. Jesus is saying NOT TO SEEK AUTHORITY. Instead, if one wishes to be great let him/her think about serving/ministering (diakonos). And if one want to be the greatest or first let him/her be a a freely committed life indentured slave (duolos). We are not to be thinking of being served as in one who commands others but rather our lives should be centered on presenting our bodies as living sacrifices doing the works of God for God’s purposes.

“A husband has “authority to” nourish, cherish, etc. “

Problem is that no one needs to be given the “authority” TO do those things. We all have the “authority/power/ability” TO DO the things God gives us to do.

NN,
have we forgotten that Jesus is God in the flesh. As God, He is ALL THINGS, for He created everything that is.

The subject at hand is not about husbands being all things to their wives and their wives being representative of fallen humanity….. both impossibilities. Rather it is about two naturally sinful human beings redeemed by the gracious gift of God in Christ Jesus, trying to so live as husband and wife so as to become as one flesh in their unity, while still behaving as brethren in the Body of Christ. We are all brethren, standing on the same level ground at the foot of the cross.

“I guess in summary my confusion is, that if this isn’t normative for egalitarian marriages, then why should I consider your doctrine? And if it is normative, why the surprise and the suggestion that many husbands wouldn’t have done this and need to learn the lesson?”

Tiffany, #498
Aaaawww. I nominate this for a great potshot award. 🙂 Such a bad ending to a great comment.

We all hope it is normative for all Christian husbands who love their wives no matter what their preferred theological lables might be. And no matter who it is and how often they do such it will always be praise worthy and hopefully never taken for granted.

Kristen, #492

Yes, there was a typo and I was hurrying which isn’t a good combination. You went for further clarity and I bow in esteem to your excellent explanation. 🙂

”Both NN and I have repeatedly said that Biblical authority is loving, self- sacrifice, nourishing, cherishing, my-life-for yours. However we have been repeatedly told that this definition isn’t authority. “

Tiffany,
It isn’t. You could say that one exercises his/her authority in that manner yet it will still be authority they are exercising however kindly. Your definition is not a definition of authority of any kind. And redefining a word so that you can keep using the word doesn’t really work. Everyone else is going to be using the normal definition of the word and thinking to exercise it according to it’s definition.
Authority noun,plural-ties.
1.the power to determine, adjudicate, or otherwise settle issues or disputes; jurisdiction; the right to control, command, or determine.
2.a power or right delegated or given; authorization: Who has the authority to grant permission?
3.a person or body of persons in whom authority is vested, as a governmental agency.
4.Usually, authorities. persons having the legal power to make and enforce the law; government: They finally persuaded the authorities that they were not involved in espionage.

However any Biblical authority is used, will not change the nature of the authority. Thus we are still left with determining who does or doesn’t have the power to determine actions, control, command, give permissions and to whom is that authority exercised over.

Such importance as having power over another person in any form is not something we randomly throw around to anyone. It must be specifically given by God. And what people have been saying on this thread is that there is no Scripture that ‘authoritatively’ authorizes husbands to exercise authority (control, determine actions, command, allow or disallow activities) over their wives. Those who seek to do so, do so by taking apart a metaphor and assigning a new inference from a piece of the metaphor forgetting the implications of the rest of the metaphor. (head of and body of)

The fact that Christ as 100% God and 100% Human, has authority over all humanity (including the church – members of His Body) means nothing in relationship to the marriage relationship unless God says it does , and God has not said that it does. So, when you speak of Christ having all the authority and we have none, it is not relevant to the marriage relationship because marriage isn’t about the authority of anyone. Marriage is about two becoming as one in a covenantal relationship of man and woman. AND when you talk about Christ having 100% of the authority and try to transfer that concept to husbands you bring in a warped picture of unity in marriage. You bring in a picture of the man having all privileges and the wife having none, solely dependent upon the man for everything. This is not maturity or unity.

”The discussion of the uniqueness of the wife’s submission and the husbands sacrifice and the nature of his relationship to the wife is more than just cultural commentary for it is representing something eternal, not jut dealing with changing cultural attitudes of the day.”

The wife’s submission is not unique, it is merely more personal than the submission we all have with one another. And the husbands sacrifical love is not unique either (only more personal) since it is the same sacrificial love that we all are admonished to show to one another (Ephe. 5:1-2).

I’m not sure what you mean by “the uniqueness of the wife’s submission …..for it is representing something eternal”.

“The only proper use of the husband’s authority (indeed of any human endeavor) can be to reflect God. And we are told that in marriage we are to reflect the relationship of Christ and the Church – that husband’s are to take their authority seriously; not to consider how they can be served but how they can serve. Parva sub ingenti, my life for theirs.”

This is a fairly reasonable statement. Even though I don’t believe God gave husbands authority over their wives, the world does believe so. We are all to do our best to reflect God and reflect His love. And if husbands were to take the attitude of “my life for theirs” as best they can, it would do a great deal for the body of Christ and relationships.

as for this statement…..
“we are told that in marriage we are to reflect the relationship of Christ and the Church”

There really isn’t any statement that says that. The piece of a sentence that is used actually says that Christ’s love for the church reflects the bonding (oneness) of human marriage. This is the opposite of what you say.

“For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. 30 For we are members of His body,[d] of His flesh and of His bones. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

This is not about the institution or marriage covenental relationship. It isn’t about marriage but about Christ’s attitude. Paul is saying that Christ nourishes and cherishes His Body, and desires to be joined to the church so as for us to become as one. This is the mystery concerning Christ and the church. And this is the attitude husbands are to reflect. It is not physical. It is spiritual intimacy; a communion of souls, which is the greatest intimacy of all.

Dave 472,

It must be tough for your wife being hearing impaired and having a new born. I imagine your daughter will take advantage of that as time goes on. I can just imagine the trouble she’ll try to get into. LOL 🙂

That was so gracious and kind of you to get up in sleepy walk to bring your little one to your lovely wife. Good husbands take an active role in their children’s lives. You’re a good husband. 🙂

I wrote: “desires that are not sin should not need to be given up in favor of another person’s desires.”

I should have added, except temporarily. Sometimes we choose to let the other have the choices of what both are to do. This balances it all out. But one way all encompassing giving up of one’s will for another is not a pretty picture nor does it help either to develop kingdom principles.

“…but I prefer to talk about the wives’ role) that by the time the decorating question has come up she will (most likely) already know his desire and seek to align her own with his.”

Stlll sounds like giving up one’s personality in favor of the other’s : borg absorption. IMO it works much better when each try to find a solution that allows the other to express themselves as well. If that means each take a room, or a combination, or something entirely different that they can both agree upon, that is better than trying to give up one’s personality in favor of the other person’s personality.

In reading some of your previous comments it sounds like you are linking things not applicable in Ephesians 5 to submission as to the Lord. One of them the inference seemed to be that because we are joyful worshippers (323 or 367 I think) of Christ, then the inference is that wives should be joyful worshippers of husbands. Am I reading you correctly.

We give up our desire’s to God because He is God and His desires are truth, love, justice and eternal issues that are better for us. But we are all just human. Desires that are not sin should not need to be given up in favor of another person’s desires.

“Rather I am thinking of a share holder analogy. Christ holds the full amount of the shares available. 100% of the shares, all the decision making clout, the one who determines the course of all things. thoughts?”

Tiffany, #451
I am not following your meaning here. Christ is God and knows all things, but does not make our decisions for us at all. He gives us wisdom and understanding as we ask and as we can handle. But God has given us the ability to choose many things. That is how we are able to sin. It’s a bad choice.

Are you suggesting that husbands have full authority, 100%, over their wives to choose her life for her?

”On this discussion I have seen complementarian thought described as “abusive” “trauma inducing” “something that all Christians should find abhorant” “unhealthy” and others.”

Tiffany,
Sometimes we can over generalize things. It was not complementarian thought that was being questioned, but the concept that erotic/romantic love constitutes the basis for hierarchy.

”TL jumped on me saying that I was attacking her relationship with Christ and it would be behoove me to explain myself”

Tiffany, you stated:”I think you and I have very different views about the lordship of Christ over the Church.”

I responded: Since you are now questioning my relationship with the Lord, I think it behooves you if you explain what you mean and quote what statements lead you to think such.

I did not say you were attacking my relationship, but you certainly did question it and it is reasonable that when a person makes that kind of statement to another Christian, that they be asked to explain what they mean and why they said it. Since you explained yourself, I don’t understand why you are bringing it up as if I was the initiator.

”I only jumped into the Eros topic to point out that we can (by Cheryl’s definition) use words to describe things we see in the Bible whether that word is used in the Bible or not.”

And several people have agreed with that principal. However, that does not work with the subject at hand. Eros or erotic and sensual love is not being described or discussed in Ephesians. However, it does fit with SOS.

It’s understandable that such a long discussion (even though clearly not long enough) gets confusing now and then.

“Ah, my dyslexia is getting worse with sleepdeprivation! Betrowed should be “betrothed”…”

We don’t care about misspellings. 🙂 and you misspelled more than that. LOL

“the presence of eros in marriage constitutes the basis for hierarchy.”

As has been stated by several people in several ways, erotic love, sexual desire and all it’s components must not be a one sided issue or in the control and direction of one person. 1 Cor. 7 repeats this. Husband and wife should be intent on fulfilling the other first and not only themselves and the intent should be in both their control, not just one person deciding and directing. It is when one person typically the male, has full control of sexual issues that selfishness and harm comes to the other.

sorry about confusing the two of you Tiffany. 🙂

“NN was attempting to find common ground with SM by showing that a concept can be Biblical and used to understand concepts in the Bible even if the word is never used. Eros is clearly in the Bible as a concept. “

This is quite true. The problem is that romantic love was not being described in Ephe. 5 by Paul. I would agree with you (both) if we were talking about Song of Solomon.

“The argument which I made simply demonstrated that this is false and gave the concept of the Trinity as an example: We believe in the concept of the Trinity though the word is not itself in the Bible.”

Tiffany, I think you took Cheryl’s statement out of context of what she was expressing. It isn’t the concept of eros that is not Biblical, but the concept that in Ephesians Paul was addressing eros in marriage or that Paul was addressing eros in marriage as an authority versus submission paradigm. Something like that. We have to be careful that in our desire to be concise in quoting that we eliminate the real intent of the author.

Actually, there is no real relationship to the lack of use of Trinity in Scripture to the lack of use of eros in Scripture, specifically in Ephesians 5. There is no parallel IMO.

Romantic love and sexuality are not actually equal to the covenant devoted communion of a man and woman committed in the oneness bond of marriage. Certainly they love each other, but romantic love and sexuality is actually at the low end of the relationship or should be even though it needs to be included. Romantic love should not be the driving factor of a godly marriage.

oops, I forgot to close the italic brackets in Charis’s quote. Can you fix that Cheryl?

“I’m gonna be blunt. Such judgments are why I unsubscribed from the blog and don’t hang around here much anymore. Instead of feeling that my perspectives were heard and really considered and weighed, I felt unheard and judged.”

Charis, I’m glad you are being blunt. It is important to state important feelings. However, feelings are not always truthful or filled with truth. Sometimes, feelings are fueled by some true past injustices from long ago that deeply wounded our psyche and then we forward on the feeling and pain where it doesn’t belong. I’ve been there, done that. And I’ve seen you do the same.

Your perspectives have been heard and considered. Some of them were great, some not so great. Just like the rest of us. If someone doesn’t agree with you, it should not be taken as a personal discounting of your person. Do not require people to have to agree with you in order to feel respected. KNOW that you are respected by many EVEN though they don’t tell you so and EVEN though they may disagree with you on some things. Let me tell you plainly, you are respected by myself and many other fellow workers in the Lord. Consider my experience on this thread. Only a couple people have bothered 🙂 to respond to anything I’ve said. I could easily think the same thing you said. But I know and understand that I am respected and sometimes other’s just click in communication and in God’s economy, it isn’t my turn. Nothing more.

I personally, have observed you mature in the Lord, and I’m blessed by your desire to study and search the Scriptures for truth. You are a great example of how a woman can be a good wife and mother and also be her own person and also be a good student of God’s Word. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. And don’t let the pains of your past tell you otherwise either. You are loved on the online blogs and forums you post on much more than you realize, even on the places you’ve thought you weren’t welcome.

Cyber hugs….

“NN article and quoted here re Eph 5:22: “And we see that in the marital relationship – when there is “Eros” that this leads to the specific instruction of the wife to submit to the husband AND the husband to take responsibility over this to exercise a sacrificial love to care for his wife.”

NN,
It doesn’t matter if there is ‘eros’ or not. Every Christian is admonished to love others in the same type of sacrificial love in which Christ loved us and gave Himself for us. This means that in all types of relationships, everyone, whether married or not is to love others in this way. Being married does not exclude the importance of living this type of unselfishness toward the spouse. Paul felt it important to say it over and over reminding us because it is important.

Ephe. 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

”Applying the same reasoning we say that “wives should submit to their husbands in the same way that christians are to submit to human governance. But this is quite different than your proposed reading of Ephesians. And since two contradictory statements CANNOT both be true (again a fundamental axiom of logic) – we must find a hermeneutic which produces a consistent understanding for both passages.”
NN,
That shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s called reading what is written in context. Reading in context means reading before the subject verse and sometimes after in order to find and follow the flow of thought of the author. It DOES NOT MEAN reading what is written in another letter on a different subject.

Reading from Ephe. 5:1-21, but specifically from around vs. 17 will give us the context of what attitudes Paul wants the wives to carry into their marriage. It not about government and law, which is truly quite a different subject. It is that as Christians we are to carry holiness, godly sacrifical love, being filled and directed by the Holy Spirit, thankfulness in prayers and honoring one another before God, forward with us into marriage. Our Christian lives as married people should look the same in marriage or out of marriage, as children or as parents, as slaves or as masters. There are no boundaries where the godly spiritual behaviors of a spirit filled person don’t apply.

Kristen, your comment about principle approach hermeneutics was excellent. You laid it out very well. This is something I’ve been trying to relay to my Bible groups. I’ll be using the term “principle approach” from now on. I also appreciated McKnight’s approach in The Blue Parakeet.

“Where is one verse that tells husbands to submit directly to their wives?”

Ephesians 5:1-21 is addressed to all Christians in Ephesus, and indirectly to all Christians everywhere. It is not necessary to make a list of all ages, nations, and classes of people that “all” includes. All/Everyone includes husbands and wives. This goes for verses 1-2 as well as verse 21. So even though Paul does not tell wives specifically to love their husbands and does tell husbands specifically to love their wives, this does not mean that wives don’t have to love their husbands in the same way that Christ loved and loves us. And when Paul says that that we “Christians” are to arrange ourselves under one another in the fear of the Lord, that includes all ages and all classes of people. And it has nothing to do with authority.