gengwall

Leaving for the night. Going out to dinner and then dancing. Won’t be back until tomorrow. Hope all distractions have been eliminated by then. On the other hand, it would be nice to come back to 100 comments all of which I can completely ignore except to get a laugh. Carry on.

Of course, the proper “blue” (vs. pink) distraction would be Mel Gibson in Braveheart with the blue face paint.

Oh Noooooo! Cheryl, do you not understand men at all? You pick the cowardly lion! Sheez.

Have a picture of “hunter barbie”. That would accomplish cross gender distraction (or would it simply double the distraction for males?)

BTW – Mark has listed four points of contention which correspond very well to the four main thrusts of counter argument to his article. I hope we can stay focused (Shirley Temple, et al, distractions excepted)

…continuing on regarding Mark’s point two immediately above.

Yes Mark, I know that kephale can mean authority. That isn’t the point. The burden is to prove Paul means authority when he uses it. To do so, you need to show the “head” in some Pauline usage exercising authority (most importantly, over the body).

Sorry, not “anagram”. Whatever that thing is that makes a word out of the first letters of the words in a phrase. Acronym – is that it?

I’ll take this one:

2. Now in relation to ‘kephale’ I am a bit perplexed. I think once Cheryl posts my other paper which does show that kephale can mean authority it might help. But until then, since the issue at hand here is between ‘people’ and since anytime kephale is used between people it denotes authority it is easy to see it working here. I have shown how the passage is in fact dealing with the concept of authority between a husband and a wife, so why are people saying I have failed to show how this passage is dealing with authority. Maybe Cheryl or gengwell can be a bit more precise in their meanings or questions.

A. 1 Corinthians 12:21 (the very next chapter) uses the head and body metaphor specifically between people and the head is not in authority. Your declaration is demonstrably false.
B. You have not shown that the the passage is dealing with the concept of authority between husband and wife, you have just assumed it and declared it. Just because you say it is so, doesn’t mean it is so. There is nothing in this passage that deals with who is in charge, who is the leader, who “rules” in the marriage. Those are all presupositions from which you argue, not propositions your argument proves. Never does Paul say this passage deals with an authoritarian hierarchy in marriage. You ask me for specifics but that is what I’m specifically asking for from you. Show me where Paul either says or implies that this passage has to do with who is in charge in the marriage. From what I understand from your earlier posts, this passage has to do with “formal church”, not the chain of command in marriage. So show me.

Headless…(you do realize that your anagram is “HUG”, right),

I suspected something not quite “Christian” by your monicur and you don’t disappoint. I’m sure Cheryl will help you with your word choices. Having said that….

You make a good point. If I may summarize, “it goes both ways”.

I wonder. Have you ever studied the bible and the relevant passages to marriage (and dating for that matter) that are being debated here? If not, I think you may find them fascinating. Take a look at Proverbs 31 and the woman that is described there. Certainly not the type of “man eater” you have been unfortunate enough to encounter but also no doormat. Such women actually do exist (to a degree – no one is THAT perfect). I will pray one will cross your path (or that you will find a path with a more Proverbs 31 women travelling it).

yes, Lin, but only 39 1/2 are serious.

I fear again an overwhelming number of posts along multiple lines of that will lead to endless bunny trails. A humble suggestion if I can. I think we have given a good first response to the article and enough for Mark to ponder and rebut. Maybe we should pause and wait for that response before expanding the discussion further.

Generally, the concept of “headship” is easy. It is synonymous with “head”. “Headship” is the state of being the “head”. In that sense, it really isn’t all that scary a term even when it is applied to biblical interpretation.

The problem comes when we impose English ideas about “head” and “headship” (and even, to an extent, OT ideas) onto Pauline metaphorical uses. Complimentarians have a narrow view of head and headship, stated repeatedly by Mark. “Head” always means “authority over”; “headship” is always an authoritarian state. The challenge we pose here is for them to prove the universalism of their contention. More specifically, prove that Paul in his metaphorical usage of “head” means that the “headship” is an authoritarian state. Even more specifically, prove that he means that authority exists over the “body”. We are still waiting for that proof.

All of the arguments about possible meanings for “head” are red herrings. The only relevant meaning is Paul’s meaning. I am perfectly comfortable that in some contexts “head” means authority, just as I am comfortable that head also means “cornerstone” in other contexts and “source” in others and “origin” in others, etc., etc., ad nauseum. Which of these meanings does Paul apply? That is the fundimental question.

Now, we can no more assume source as complimentarians can assume authority. And Cheryl never does, thankfully. She has taken great pains and gone into great detail and provided great exegesis to demonstrate that Pauline usage of head equates to source. No more so than in her many posts, several of which are linked above, related to the passage in question in this post. Others here have gone to additional lengths to demonstrate that Pauline usage of head, whatever it may be, does not equate to authority. So, what has been the response?

Although Mark makes a strong and impassioned effort here to prove that Paul’s use of head here does not mean source, he still offers no proof that it does mean authority. In fact, he offers no proof that it means anything. Instead, he expects the reader to blindly accept his presumption that it means authority without providing any support. I am fairly comfortable accepting that I don’t know what a passage means and weighing the several possibilities based on rational arguments for each. (As such, neither “head” nor “headship” intimidate me or cause me to go bonkers). I am far less comfortable being told a passage means something without any supporting evidence. And I am down right defiant if someone tells me I have to believe their opinion about what a passage means.

Bottom line – show me your argument. Mark’s argument only prompts me to evaluate whether or not head means source in this passage. I have Cheryl’s argument as a counter to that and I weigh them both. I find Cheryl’s more pursuasive, but that doesn’t mean I don’t entertain and meditate on on Mark’s. I can always be wrong; I can always learn more.

What Mark’s argument does not do (so far) is challenge my own investigation on what else head does not mean in Pauline metaphor. I have studied the term extensively from this perspective and come to the conclusion that Paul never means authority when he uses head metaphorically. Not only does Mark not provide a counter argument that it does mean authority, but he insists I blindly accept his conclusion that it does mean authority. That simply isn;t good enough for me. So we wait….

It all sounds like the good ship lollypop to me.

“the creation order of male headship”

To me, this is a nonsensical statement. It assumes one thing, “male headship”, naturally flows from the other, “creation order” without a shred of scriptural teaching for support. “Headship”, male or otherwise, is not even an implied topic in the creation account despite the rather mundane fact that there is an order that things were created in. Nowhere in the creation narrative does God ever equate the creation order with any kind of authoritarian hierarchy. Humans are not in authority over the rest of creation because we were created last. We are in authority because God bestowed such authority upon us. The order we were created in is completely irrelevant to the authority we are granted. All of that is true for male and female as well, except that no authority was ever bestowed by God on one gender over the other. So, not only is created order not even remotely relevant to headship (authority over another), but headship does not exist unless granted by God.

Javier

First of all, many of your questions are being discussed in the most recent couple of posts by Cheryl. You may want to review those posts as well as you could “kill two birds with one stone” by joining the conversation there.

Now to your questions

“So, was it just a matter of who got to the fruit first?”
Was what just a matter of who got to the fruit first? I don’t understand what you are getting at.

“Why did the serpert approach the woman and not the man? There has to be a misssing link in our whole understanding or the passage…Was the serpent evaluating Adam and the woman to see where the weakness was?”
A couple things. First, the serpent approached both of them. The text is clear that the man was with the woman as she had her conversation with the serpent. Now, why he engaged the woman in the conversation and not the man is not clear. But what we do know is that the woman was deceived by the serpent, while the man was not. It may be simply a case, as you suggest, of the serpent attacking the one who he was most likely to deceive. That does seem sensible, but we may never know for sure until we get to heaven and can ask.

“Was it a tug of war between Adam and the woman?”
That is what many assume but that also presumes a hierarchy in the relationship. Neither a pre-fall hierarchy or a tug of war between Adam and Eve are supported in the bible anywhere.

BTW – I’m not sure what any of this line of questioning has to do with women wanting to be worshipped. But I’ll plow ahead.

“Our whole understanding of romatic human relationship has gone haywire because of this whole incident.”
Actually, I would say that the reality of romantic human relationship has gone haywire because of this whole incident. I’m not sure our understanding of either pre-fall or post-fall marriage is altered because of the incident. But the marriage relationship as acted out in fleshly, fallen humans, definately changed from the cooperative partnership that existed in the garden.

“Why was Paul so much aganist women leading the congregation? Women must cover their head for fear of the Angels? What did he mean by that? Women have been the target of rebel angels. Did Angels mated with women (Before the flood) because there was something about them that appeals to the fallen spirits the same thing that lured the serpent to the woman (Eve)? I there a relation to the great obsession young and mature woman have for these new, seductive, evil, violent vampire novels?”
Again, this is being discussed in detail in the latest thread. I suggest you go there for your answers. (And it is presumptuous that women alone are attracted to the latest vampire craze).

“All this has to offer some relation to the whole incident in Eden. Why did Eve eat the fruit??? Why not Adam????”
Scripture is clear, she ate because she was deceived. I think the flaw in your perspective is that you believe Eve ate because of some fleshly desire that existed in her. She did not. She ate because the serpent tricked her into eating. Adam, on the other hand, ate knowing full well the implications and seeing thru the serpent’s lies. His was the more serious sin and that is whay all sin entered the world thru him even though he was the second one to eat.

“She took the lead.”
No, the serpent took the lead. Your statement assumes a conscious decision on Eve’s part to usurp some Adamic authority. But the bible nowhere states that Adam was in authority over Eve. There was no leadership in the first couple for her to grasp. You also fail to consider that she was deceived. Unlike Adam, she did not commit an act of willful rebellion. You must factor in that she was deceived when trying to analyse this passage.

“Most women fight for control in the relationship but don’t really want it.”
That is a common presumption but anecdotal at best. I can tell you that most women in this blog will tell you anecdotally that they most certainly do not fight for control in the relationship.

“Was there a flaw in Adam that force the woman to take the lead? If there was then God failed in creating a perfect man and woman. Was there a flaw in the woman?”
Again, the woman did not take the lead, so the first question is based on a false presumption. Now, was Adam or Eve flawed? That’s touchy. Depends on what you mean by a “flaw”. What we do know is that Eve was deceived, so there may have been either a lack of knowledge or resistence to deception. Either could be called a “flaw”, I suppose. Considering Adam’s longer tenure with God and Adam’s observation of many of God’s creative acts and Adam’s almost certainly greater exposure to the serpent and his tricks, it seems likely that it was a lack of knowledge that left Eve vulnerable.

“What exactly did the serpent reveal to her in those hidden, vague, metaphoric words, “You will be like God”.”
I’m not sure. What I know is that she bought it and Adam knew it was a lie.

I agree Kay. As a man, I readily admit, I have an inner desire to be King.

First, a brief but adamant disagreement.

God created man and it was good- God was happy with his creation. Likewise when God created Eve and brought her to him, Adam was happy- she was his glory.

I assume when you say “man” above you men Adam, the male, since you immediately follow with Eve. My bible says it specifically was NOT good when the created male was alone, and that it didn’t become good until the creation of the female.

Now to more important matters. You say this in discussing vs. 11 and 12

Again the interdependence of husband and wife is closely knitted to the ‘one flesh’ union at creation. She is his glory and bears his authority, yet they are inseparabley one, and the man must never abuse his wife. Christ never does such things but instead lays down his life for his sheep. These verses imply the deep spiritual, emotional and sexual union shared by husband and wife- everything is from God. Also note that although the woman is under the authority of her husband, both are under the authority of God.

Previously in the article, you correctly point out how Paul introduces the concept of glory in the text. Yet Paul never introduces the concept of authority in the text. You introduce that concept, not Paul. I know that the woman is the “glory” of man because Paul says it. Nowhere from the text do I know that the husband is in authority over his wife. As you have persistently done, you assume that the authority exists because of the use of kephale but you have never shown anywhere that Paul means authority when he uses kephale. Your analysis still relies on a grand presumption about the meaning of a word. Show me where this authority is detailed, especially in Pauline metaphorical usage.

At the risk of being presumptuous, here is the link to the post where I did the analysis on kephale in the NT, especially Paul’s metaphorical usage:

Post 89 – “Do the genders have different functions?”

“Eggerich is assuming this passage is for all time and not cultural.”

So do I. Why don’t you?

I did a complete breakdown of the NT uses of kephale in comments 87 and 89 in the post Do the genders have different functions? and posed a series of questions and challenges to Mark which went unanswered (understandably so with the multi-topic whirlwind in these several posts that he has been responding to). In that breakdown, I demonstrated that kephale is never used to show authority of the head over the body in Pauline metaphore. Unless Mark can twist some new meaning from the context or raw text that is not obvious, the “case is closed” on what Paul means, (or more accurately, what he doesn’t mean), when he uses kephale, which is all that matters in this discussion. I will paraphrase Tom Sawyer again: “Mark, your sayin’ so doesn’t make it so”. I have proven that kephale does not mean authority of head over the body in Paul’s usage. You have only stated that it does mean authority. Time to prove it.

I think that is a wonderful and clear analysis Alison.

I should add…by co-leaders, I do not mean that my wife and I take turns exercising authority over each other. Neither of us ever has the right to exercise authority over the other. The only authority in our marriage is God. The co-leader arrangement pertains to who “makes the call” on decisions, and, to a certain extent, who takes the “lead” on certain activities of daily living. What this involves on an individual level is mutual submission, or deference, to the giftedness and experience of the other partner. Neither of us “lord” our giftedness and experience over the other, but instead, the less gifted or experienced partner “submits” to the other. Co-leadership in marriage coexists with, or maybe better put, is exemplified by, mutual submission.

Kay – I would disagree in general about the book, but understand that there are certain passages in the book that raise some eyebrows. As I said in a previous discussion, I don’t agree with absolutely everything he says. But the general principals of love and respect that are the main theme in the book I believe are biblically sound and positively applicable to marriages.

I don’t have an answer for you personally but I can give you the standard response: “rule by committee doesn’t work”. What “soft” complimentarians will say is that somebody has to make the final “call” on issues. Since it has to be somebody, God has ordained it to be the husband.

I find a couple flaws in this. Kay points out the first. The bible never says this. The second is that there is no provision in our design that makes the male (or the female) qualified to make “the call” on every decision. We are all differently gifted and have different experiences which make us suited to be the expert on certain issues. In our house, my wife and I each defer to whoever is the most qualified to make a decision. And if the issue is contentious or there is no persuasive argument, we postpone making a decision until we can pray about the issue and gain more clarity (or better arguments).

A final argument in favor of male leadership is that “men are built to be leaders”. As if we have some leadership gene. Now, being a man, I can certainly agree that we males want to be in charge. But that doesn’t necessarily ever make us better leaders. Put any 5 males and 5 females in a room and, given the situation, there are multiple hierarchies that make sense, some with a man at the top and some with a woman. So, the “leader by design” argument not only is not very persuasive biblically, but it fails in practical application too.

Having said that, I do believe there are some inherent differences in males and females that make us better suited to certain tasks. But I don’t believe we are unilaterally gender differentiated. If for example, I believe that women generally make better nurturers because of their different brain structure and hormonal make up, that doesn’t mean that men can’t be good nurtureres and it certainly does not absolve men of the responsibility to nurture. It also doesn’t mean that there isn’t some overlap between genders on the nurturing spectrum, although I might argue that such overlaps have more to do with our own “nurturing” as opposed to our “nature”.

None of that isneither here nor there. I find nothing in our makeup or in our shared experience that would indicate to me that men are better leaders or designed to lead. Nor does the bible ever say that men are to lead there wives. My wife and I are co-leaders of our family, each “taking chrage” where we are better gifted or experienced.

Some time back on another post, there was objection by some to the “Love and Respect” ministry of Emerson Eggerichs. Seeing that this post is on submission, I found Eggerich’s most recent post on his blog both interesting and applicable.

We don’t hear too much about submission anymore. And if we do, it’s usually a command to the wife, to submit to her husband. Still, this is considered a bit archaic in today’s modern culture.

But what does the Bible say? Before the section on marriage in Ephesians 5, we read in verse 21, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Should a husband submit to his wife? Yes. He submits to his wife’s need to feel loved. I take this position by combining God’s command in Ephesians 5:21 to mutually submit, with God’s command in Ephesians 5:25-31 to a husband to love his wife.

Juxtaposition, a wife submits to her husband’s need to feel respected. I take this position by combining God’s command in Ephesians 5:22-24 to a wife submitting to her husband, with God’s command in Ephesians 5:33 to a wife to respect her husband.

and at the end of the post:

Peter tells us that God favors such husbands. Peter instructs, “be submissive” for “when you do what is right and suffer for it” and “you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God” (1 Peter 2:18-20). However, does this passage really apply to a husband? Does God really call a husband to submit to his wife?

Yes. In 1 Peter 2:13–3:7, Peter makes his main point about submission and then applies submission to citizens, slaves, wives and husbands. He says to citizens in 1 Peter 2:13, “submit yourselves.” He writes to slaves in 2:18, “be submissive.” He says in 3:1, “In the same way, you wives, be submissive.” Then, and this is the clincher, he writes in 3:7, “You husbands in the same way.” To what does he refer when writing “you husbands in the same way?” In the same way that citizens submit, slaves submit and wives submit, you husbands submit. Specifically, in this text a husband submits to his wife’s need to be understood and honored. When a husband submits this way, God answers the man’s prayers (3:7)!

Now, I don’t present this as a defense for Eggerichs so much as a demonstration that even those who some here would say are an enemy of egalitarianism undertand that submission in the marital context is to be mutual.

This is exhausting. I can’t keep up. Round and round we go….

“Fruit trees? With seeds?”

I’m tempted to say apple trees but that got me in trouble last week. No, no fruit trees. Just very leafy trees.

Lol – I have a 1/3 acre lot with 23 trees on it…and the snow won’t hold off forever. Sorry I shirked on my obligations here :O

*phew* That’s a lot of reading.

OK Mark, I know you have a lot of balls in the air right now. So, I will persist only briefly on my particular question. Do you mean to say that your wife does not ever teach you in an expository way in your home? Is she forbidden from doing so? In what format does she teach you?

I went out and raked leaves this weekend and am now hopelessly behind. *sigh*