gengwall

Most unbearable is his treatment of Genesis 2 and 3 – it is borderline misogynistic. The following, especially, is not only unsupportable but quite intollerable:

Eve, Paul implies, was not kept safe at the Fall; she was deceived. Why? Because she left her proper domain under her husband’s care. What happened as a result? She became an easy prey for Satan. How can women under Timothy’s charge (and in churches everywhere) avoid repeating the same mistake? By “childbearing,” that is, by adhering to their God-ordained calling, including a focus on marriage, family, and the home. 1 Timothy 2:15 thus turns out to be Paul’s prescription for women as a lesson learned from the scenario of the Fall described in the preceding verse.

This made me have to get up and pace a little to cool down I was so upset at the implications. “A lesson learned from the scenario of the fall”! How outrageous! And where is the lesson for us Adam’s (since we also are certainly represented in Neo’s interpretation)? Is it that if we simply keep our mouth’s shut and let our woman screw up, we get off scot free? That certainly was not God’s view of the whole affair. If Adam was the teacher and Eve was so easily deceived, where is the quality of Adam’s teaching? How does he even qualify to teach if he so woefully blew his first assignment? Oh, that’s right. That naughty little Eve “left her proper domain”. Adam is portrayed as the all wise dispenser of knowledge while Eve is the petulant, obstinate, rebellious 6 year old who would have been just fine if she had stayed in the classroom instead of running off school grounds at recess. How can anyone believe such hogwash!?! It is as if Neo has never read Genesis 3 or Romans 5. But certainly he has, which only makes his prideful power play more pernicious. Ugghh! I need a Dew before I blow.

Maybe Neo should take his antecedent back one more so that he can connect “they” to all men thus “Any woman will be saved through (the Messiah) if all men continue in the faith…”

Of course, this is one of the most flagrant errors in his analysis. If the passage is a continuous flow as he maintains, it must begin in vs. 8 because the hosautos (“likewise”, “in like manner”) starting verse 9 inexorably joins vss. 8 and 9 together. But appending vs. 8 to his “chiastic” completely blows it up.

Moreover, Neo claims there can not be an abrupt shift in Chapter 2 – that the whole thing “flows”. But his very chiastic is such an abrupt shift. Whether the issue ending in vs. 15 begins in vs. 9 as he claims or vs. 11 as Cheryl claims, the resulting passage is detached from the rest of the chapter. He claims an abrupt shift from the “flow” of the chapter is inadmissible and then he suggest the very same shift, only beginning 2 verses earlier!

A (9-10) Christian “women” (plural)
B (11-12) “a woman” (singular indefinite noun) –it means any Christian woman.
C (13) “Eve” (generic / representative woman)
C’ (14) “the woman” (generic / representative woman)
B’ (15a) “she” has the antecedent “a woman”
A’ (15b) “they” has the antecedent “women,” Christian women in context

So in Neo’s analysis, you have to wait until verse 15, (and really, verse 15b) to figure out the grammer and know what is going on. Hmmmm. Isn’t he committing the same error that he accused you of?

First, we normally read a pericope from start to finish so that contextual resources are provided to us as we move from one verse to the next. With Schatz’s approach, the reader must wait until he reaches verse 15 to decrypt what Paul meant by “a woman” in verses 11 and 12 because Schatz has made verse 15 the interpretive key for 11 and 12.

If neo is married I sure hope he doesn’t show his post to his deceived wife until he can round up all women through all time and ensure they are continuing in faith, etc. so his wife can understand her and her sister’s depraved state.

I agree Cheryl. And I would go a step further. I would argue that for many, many men, regardless of their inherent nature, the “ruler” role just doesn’t feel right. That is why I believe so many couples who are under comp theology never-the-less live fairly egal lives. I believe this is the working of the Spirit in both men’s and women’s lives and the revealing of the TRUTH of scripture. More and more, people understand that “he will rule over you” is not a command for men but a description of a moral failure of our flesh. Then, when we run into a scripture like Ephesians 5 that may appear to say, or we are told says, “you have authority over your wife”, we recoil from that because it appears very much to reflect Genesis 3 and we know that is wrong. Some couples don’t go any further than that. They simply ignore the wonderful teaching of Ephesians 5 for marriages thinking “that was just for another time”. That is not all bad, since rulership is not exercised. But others think “there must be something more to this.” They start to dig because they know what they are hearing from humans regarding the passage can’t be right. That is when the Spirit really opens their eyes and they see that, behold, Ephesians 5 is actually a blatant refutation of the Genesis 3 paradigm. Ephesians 5 actually shows couples the way to return to a Genesis 2 kind of marriage.

At least, that is how it was for me. I have come to the point where I push back even against concepts like the husband is “spiritual leader” because of its implied hierarchy and authority. Equal is equal, and any terminology no matter how warm and fuzzy that tips the scales is Genesis 3 kind of talk. My wife and I are co-leaders of our family. The only type of “leading” that occurs between her and me is the “iron sharpens iron” kind. Our goal is to have a Proverbs 31 kind of marriage: where I have “full confidence” in my wife and “lack nothing” in our relationship; and she is “clothed with strength and dignity” and she “speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue”, so that “her works bring her praise at the city gate”.

I will say that there is one major decision in our family where there is a universal and unilateral exercise of authority by one party. That is the decision to procure cats, and my wife, through some mysterious and unrevealed loophole in the marriage covenant, has been granted full authority and lordship over that important area of our lives. I can not explain why, but I have no power in this area – my vociferous and voluminous veto pleas over the years have simply fallen on deaf ears. I suppose it could be God’s way of giving me a glimpse into the lives of strict comp wives, lest I be tempted to stray from he egalitarian way. Still, it seems unfair. One would think there would be a balancing decision where I could be lord. Then again, every time I have acted unilaterally we seem to lose large sums of money – so maybe I should just be happy it is only cats…

And a little Bill Cosby to lighten the day:

“I’m not the boss in my family. I don’t know how I lost it…I don’t know when I lost it. But I’ve seen the boss’s job……..and I don’t want it!”

Ha. My blathering seems so anti-climactic following your testimony Cheryl. So, I will just say that anything I’ve said can be ignored if one so chooses – my comment at this point is “what Cheryl said!”

As I mentioned above, hupakouo is used twice by Paul in the very next chapter of Ephesians. Certainly if he meant “obey” for wives, he would have said hupakouo. The fact that he didn’t, and even more significantly that hupotasso is passive while hupakouo is an active imperative, is a clear indication Paul had two very different ideas in mind. That applies to authority as well. Certainly Paul would teach that parents have authority over children because of the imperative for children to obey their parents, and in like manner masters have authority over their slaves[1]. The stark contrast in Ephesians 5 regarding the husband/wife relationship should at the very least cause someone pause if they think such an authority structure exists there as well. Not only does Paul not outline a marital authority structure in Ephesians 5, he directly rejects one by the very specific depiction of such structure in Ephesians 6. To assume authority over your wife you must not only believe that Ephesians 5:22, 6:1, and 6:5 are synonymous, a belief that is simply unsupportable, but you must also believe that a wife has no higher a station in relation to her husband than do children to their parents and slaves to their masters (which is exactly the position strict complimentarians take).

[1] Paul repeats this in Colossians 3:20,22, even including “in all things”. Clearly, the obedience in all things of children to their parents or slaves to their masters differs from the submission in all things asked of wives toward their husbands. The difference is clear. Our task is to mine out what that difference means, not try to make two obviously different things mean the same thing.

Cheryl – we really need a post doing a complete scriptural analysis of kephale. Maybe you have done one already. If not, I have one at my finger tips. I can add as a comment but it is rather long. Your call.

Bottom line – scripture never says or even implies that Christ as “head” has authority over the “body”. In fact, scripture directly says the opposite, that the body SHARES in and benefits from Christ’s headship authority over every “rule and authority and power and dominion and name” (Ephesians 1:21-2:6). Moreover, scripture never says or even implies that the husband has authority over his wife. Any belief in a hierarchical authority relationship based on the head/body metaphors in Paul’s epistles has to be read into the Word and is based on presumptive, culturally based definitions of “head” and “submit”.

I wrote a little about how frustrating a man Piper is in a couple of other posts. I agree that 95% of what he says sounds just fine. But it is the 5% that makes one’s head spin. Please see post 21 above for a perfect illustration. I agreed with everything he said in the paragraph I was commenting on, and even acknowledged that my wife and I operated in basically the same way. But the opening sentence of the paragraph tainted everything that followed, no matter how good it sounded.

Mark said “3. Whenever we have to change the meanings of words to fit our theology, that rings alarm bells for me.”

Your beef is with Paul, not me. He is the one who is radically changing the way submission and headship was culturally (even today) perceived.

“I dont think men are the bosses of women. Eph 5 doesn’t support that at all- indeed men are the head in my opinion.”

This is just symantical gymnastics. Bosses have and exercise authority. The “head” of a department or company is the boss of the people below him/her. Youbelieve the head of the marriage has authority over his wife. That makes him the boss. Conversely, if you believe that the man is not the boss of his wife, then he has no real authority over her. There is a simple way to solve this. If you give your wife an order, is she required to follow it (assuming it has no sin compnent to it). If so, you have authority over her and are essentially her boss. If not, then you have no authority over her and your headship is, at best, in title only.

Now, you will, I’m sure (and I hope), claim that you would never “boss” your wife around like that. I would hope you would say that would not be an expression of the Christ like love you are to have for her. I would agree. But then where is your authority as head? If the absense of the exercise of authority is what marks headship, then the head, acting properly, has no real authority. If the excersie of headship authority is antithetical to living out Christ-like headship, then authority itself can not coexist with the concept of “head” as Paul is using it.

“5.Although Christ did sacrifice himself for His bride etc, he is still Lord and has authority. Therefore i see the husband as acting like Chrsit and still having authority. Therefore an abuse of that authority is un-Christlike.”

As Cheryl has pointed out, Christ’s exercise of authority in the head/body passages is never directed at the church, but is for the benefit of the church. The object of Christ’s authority is always the powers, rulers, and principalities of the world, never the church. So I would take your premise as false – Christ does not, in the marriage context, have authority over his bride…unless, of course, you take a traditional view of submission. If submit always means “obey”, then yes, you could believe that Christ is the boss of His bride. But Ephesians 5:21 shows us that submit does not always mean obey. And that non-obedience type of submission is the type wives are to show husbands “in like manner” in verse 22. And Ephesians 6:1 and 6:5 show us that Paul certainly knew how to say “obey” if he had wnated to. But he didn’t. Wives are never, ever, called to obey their husbands in NT teaching. If that is the case, then what real authority do the husbands have? And if Christ and the church are a model for husbands and wives, then there is not authority in the Christ-head/Church-body marriage context.

And that is what egalitarian marriage is – a partnership where neither party has authority over the other. It is the true one-flesh relationship outlined in Genesis 2. In the egalitarian marriage, the “two heads are better than one” axiom holds true. Neither partner has universal or unilateral decision making (or task fulfilling) authority or responsibility. Instead. each acts in proportion to their giftedness to benefit the whole – just like the church body does. That doesn’t at all mean that each person does an equal share of each task and that each decision has to be unanimous. Egalitarian partners defer to their spouse in matters that their spouse is better equiped, gifted, or experienced to handle. But the deference goes both ways.

I know in your marriage that your wife “makes the call” on some things. She must because it would be impossible for you to decide everything from buying a house to which melon to buy at the grocery store. So I ask you – as head, is she submitting to you “in all things” if she makes some unilateral decisions? In fact, is she submitting to you “in all things”, “as onto the Lord”, if she expresses her opinion? After all, it would be presumptuous for us, the church, to offer an opinion to the Lord on how the universe should be run, right? Isn’t it presumtuous for her to even have an opinion about how the mini universe of your family runs if you are the “lord” of your house and she is to submit to you as the church does onto Christ? If any of this makes you uncomfortable (I sure hope that it would), then you must think to yourself: “maybe I am not understanding Paul precisely when he is talking about Christ and the Church”. After, all, even Paul says it’s a mystery in Ephesians 5:32 (and other places). Maybe, just maybe, Paul is defying convention (imagine that) and teaching us that submission and headship look and feel completely different in a Christ centered marriage than they do out in the unChrist-like world.

I’m having a “rush” flashback – “If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice”.

I would be oxymoronic if decision making was truly universal, but again, that is a practical impossibility. That is what I think is funny – the notion that a husband is equiped or even capable of making EVERY decision, or the opposite, that the “helper” God has provided him is too stupid or deceived to offer any help. (Well, the second one is not so much funny as it is absurd.)

Let me see if I can help with that truthseeker. If a husband and wife decide between the two of them that the husband is to make the final “call” on major decisions, not because he is the head, but because he is the better equipped of the two in that unique marriage to make such decisions, there is no harm in that. It would be no different if the wife, upon mutual consent, were to take that position of responsibility. You must be careful not to assume universal complimentarianism just because a situation looks like it or even if the parties involved invoke that label.

I give Mark and his wife the benefit of the doubt on this because her “being ok with it” to me means that, at least potentially, she believes he is the better decision maker (with her input to guide him, of course). That may or may not prove true over time (it sure didn;t in our marriage). But she is free to defer to him and they are free to set up decision making however they want.

Now, in reality, most couples delegate decision making in a way that neither party is the universal decision maker (a practical impossibility) AND neither party can make unilateral decisions (a recipe for disaster). I believe that is what Mark is describing in his marriage. Even though it has a complimentarian “look and feel”, and even though he labels it as such, I would argue that it is in fact egalitarian.

Oh my – talk about starting on the wrong foot! The first sentence in the previous post should read “Of course the comp position DOESN’T encourage abuse”

Mark – of course the comp position does encourage abuse. What I believe Cheryl is trying to stress with her comments about benevolence, etc. is that the comp position inherently fosters abuse. It is not an active act of teaching abuse, but anytime one human exercises power, rule, or authority over another the situation is ripe for abuse. Your observations about human nature, therefore, are spot on. The problem with the comp position is that it allows way too much human nature into relationships.

I’m not following your Ephesians reference but I believe you are speaking of Ephesians 5. You claim there is an authority structure there but the text doesn’t support it, unless one believes “head” inherently and universally means “boss”. But scripture does not support such a conclusion. As Cheryl has rightly said, nowhere in the marriage passages, or even in the Christ/Bride passages of scripture, is an authoritarian structure outlined. You will have to do better than throwing out an English word and our narrow ideas about that word if you want to convince us that Ephesians 5 dictates that the husband is the boss of his wife.

You have rightly said that Christ like love involves service and sacrifice. But isn’t Christ like love the expression of “headship”? Again, there is no “rule” or authority inherent in Christ like love. Jesus, himself, expressed this a number of times in both word and dead.
“I did not come to be served but to serve”.
“The rulers of this world lord it over the people but not so with you”.
“Christ…humbled himself and became a servant”.
“And whoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant”.
“If any person desires to be first, they shall be last, and servant of all”.

Never once does Christ, in the husband/wife relationship with his church, ever take authority. He does only three things ever, serve, sacrifice, and intercede. Those are the characteristics of the “head” as Paul speaks of it.

Remember that Paul loves to take words that have a conventional worldly meaning and turn them into something completely different, often opposite, when speaking of life under Christ. Ephesians 5 has two such word contradictions in it. The first is Paul’s use of hupotasso – to “submit”. Rather than use it in its military context, where there is always a “boss” or authority to submit to, Paul calls for mutual submission – a situation which abolishes any authority. There can be no masters if all act as servants. Authority can not coexist with mutual submission. Paul has turned hupotasso on its head (pardon the pun). He then turns to kephale – “head”. Again, he completely defies the normal connotation of head as “ruler” or “authority” by putting up Christ as the example. It as if Paul is echoing Christ’s command regarding worldly rule: “not so with you”. Headship looks completely unworldly when Christ is the model. Headship under Christ is the exact opposite of headship in the world. It is exemplified by service, sacrifice, and intercession, not rule. The Christ like “head” does not live “to be served, but to serve”. He “considers himself less than” those being served. Again, in Paul’s context, authority can not coexist with Christ like, servant headship, just like it can not coexist with mutual submission. Ephesians 5, contrary to your assertion, has nothing at all to do with authority. It is, in fact, the antithesis of authority. But to see that, you have to look beyond our narrow cultural ideas about “submit” and “head”.

Hi Mark,

I hear the description of decision making in your marriage and I agree with Cheryl’s generalization – that it is predominantly egalitarian. That you and your wife have agreed that you will make the final call is your perogative. Good for you. Even though that is the “comp” way, it is mutually agreed upon by the two of you and so it is an egalitarianesque approach. BUT, and this is a big “but”, the fact that your wife has input on the decisions, and I sense it is significant input which you weigh carefully, gives your marriage a significant egalitarian bent. And the fact that you apparently allow your wife to make minor decisions on her own bolsters that conclusion. Strict comp teaching of Ephesians 5 states that she is to submit to you in all things – major and minor. Moreover, strict comp teaching says that she is inherently either deceitful or easily deceived (depending on the particular comp “sect”) and therefore can not contribute anything positive to decision making. Egalitarian teaching, on the other hand, states that both parties in the marriage have significant and unique experiences and perspectives which, combined, offer much better criteria upon which to make family decisions.

Now, if your church teaches the same as you have outlined, they are probably comp light. They stick to strict comp-ness regarding church leadership but let married couples figure out what works for them. That is how our church is. (Actually, ours is only about 51/49 comp. They have male elders but women can teach and have leadership positions in ministry.) That is Cheryl’s point, I think. You may believe you have a comp marriage because you follow the comp line in major decision making but in reality it is much more egalitarian than you think. That is a good thing!

Hi Mark,

I agree that there are times where many of the contributors here can get a little indignant toward complimentarian authors and theologians. But I have never seen the kind of ad hominen attacks here that are often carried out by opponents of egalitarianism. My observation is that most here keep it to the facts, although ignorance (feigned or real) of the facts from the other side can get quite frustrating. I hope you won’t feel put off. Please stick around, as there is great value for the discussion to get input from all along the comp-egal spectrum.

I have been in those shoes. My take on his reluctance to continue is that he indeed is having second thoughts about his position. A person convinced that they are right plows ahead undaunted; a person unsure of their convictions hesitates and evaluates. Reflection is always good, yes? I could not blame him or ridicule him one bit for stepping back and deciding how he personally must proceed in light of the arguments he has been presented with through this dialog.

I have laid off of this debate for the most part because I pretty much know how it’s going to go. Still, even a cursory reading of the posts seems to make one thing abundantly clear: Mike refuses to even consider let alone carefully explore the contextual and grammatical challenges in your questions. He is forever stuck in the “this is what I’ve been told/taught and it must therefore be true” paradigm. Pretty much what I expected.

…and the underlining didn’t work, but the significant words and phrases should be clear.

We have gone through this exercise before but it bears repeating. Even if we read a passage over and over we are influenced by the bias of the translation (assuming we are reading the same or only a few translations). So, just to get a flavor of how different this passage can read if we consider many sources, here is a paraphrase that matches, I think perfectly, with Cheryl’s analysis. Each verse, or portion of a verse, has been taken from a different translation. I have underlined words and phrases that are significant to the discussion.

11. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection (KJV, Douay-Rheims)
12. and a woman I do not suffer to teach, nor to rule over a husband, but to be in quietness (Young’s)
13. For it was Adam who was first created, then Eve (NASB)
14. And, Adam, was not deceived, whereas, the woman, having been wholly deceived, hath come to be, in transgression; (Rotherham)
    15a. But she shall be saved (ASV)
    15b. through the birth of the child (GodsWord)
    15c. if she and her husband continue to live in faith and love and growing holiness, with habitual self-restraint. (Weymouth NT)

Notice when it is rendered this way, it seems absolutely “clear” that a single husband and wife are in view. The beauty of this paraphrase, and the strength of Cheryl’s argument, is that it most closely matches the actual Greek grammer of the passage.

Steve,

I’m unclear about your meaning. What do you believe the clear meaning of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 is?

I was still a little put off by the word choices in the short post (the man should “take responsibility” for a daughter’s modesty), so I went to the full sermon. The paragraph this post is exerpted from twists me in knots. Parts of it I strongly agree with but, as often happens with Piper’s preaching, there is just enough priest/prophet/king theology to make you squirm. Here is a breakdown.

Set standards for your wife and children.

This is how he starts the paragraph off. Although I agree with setting standards for children (both husband and wife do this together), I hardly feel qualified to set them for my wife. Unless, of course, she is equally called, equiped, and empowered to set them for me. I think husbands and wives have a duty to engage in mutual accountability. But I doubt Piper sees setting standards as a two way street.

Work them through with your wife. Remember the path of leadership here is primary responsibility, not sole responsibility.

I thought he was redeeming himself here, but the second sentence makes it clear that the focus has narrowed on the standards set for children. So, he leaves wife standard setting as the man’s responsibility with no mutual husband standard setting visible.

Wives are eager to help here, but what frustrates them is when we don’t take any initiative and they are left to try to determine and enforce the standards alone. Take the initiative in thinking through what will be allowed on TV. What movies you and the children will go to. What music will be listened to. And how low your daughter’s necklines will be.

I believe this is fundimentally true, and encourages the parenting partnership. That is what is so frustrating about Piper. If he would have just focused soley on parental standard setting for children, this reads just fine. But for some inexplicable reason (other than he has an underlying agenda), he waves that huge red flag in the opening sentence. It distracts from anything good he has to say.

I am tempted to preach a whole message on the relationship between dads and the way their daughters dress. Yes, mom is the key player here in helping a young woman learn the meaning of modesty and beauty. But dad’s role for both of them is indispensable both in celebrating what they look like and telling them when the way they dress means what they don’t think it means. Dads, you know exactly what I mean. What you need here is courage. Don’t be afraid here. This is your daughter, and she must hear from you what she is saying to men with her clothes.

Having raised two daughters, I can’t agree enough with this last section. This is precisely the approach my wife and I took in our parenting with, at least in my biased opinion, very favorable results. But again, I can’t get past that opening statement. The man drives me nuts. The majority of what he says sounds very good but it is almost always tainted by a comment or two that show his true hierarchical colors.

It seems to me that one of the weakest areas of complementarianism is in the issue of an abusive husband. They seem to want to dance around the issues because after all the husband is the priest-king of the home according to their doctrine. That makes trying to “discipline” the husband a very touchy subject. How are they going to do that anyway? It is no wonder that most complementarian pastors will focus their advice with the wife and tell her to be more submissive. The subject of the king appears to be easier to counsel than the king himself. This is where the unbalanced nature of the comp argument shows up as weak and ineffective. This kinds of counsel make me very sad as it reminds me how a person’s doctrine can affect every area of their life.

I wanted to comment more on this as well. Many have noted above how any “intervention” by the church almost always focuses on the wife’s submissiveness. This is the sad but true hypocracy in the complimentarian approach to abusive husbands. Although they recognize that the husband should be loving and sacrificial, they make the exercise of that love and sacrifice conditional on the wife’s submissiveness. This is in direct opposition to Paul’s instruction, which calls for the completely unconditional love and sacrifice that Christ exhibited. While acknowledging Paul’s words they simultaneously deny them! The truth of Ephesians 5 is that the husband is to love and sacrifice for his wife, putting her above himself, regardless of how she behaves. In fact, he is really supposed to ignore any and all bad behavior. By “ignore”, I mean he is to have an attitude like God’s in relation to our forgiven sin. She is to be seen as “washed clean” in his eyes. He is to consider a wife’s bad behavior as having never happened. He is to regard her as he does himself, reflecting the golden rule. The unconditional nature of the husband’s love, sacrifice, and regard for his wife permeates every verse of Ephesians 5:25-32. For complimentarians to place conditions on the wife of an abusive husband to receive the love and sacrifice that Paul demands be unconditional is the epitome of “adding insult to injury”. No wonder wives avoid such church “leadership” like the plague in these situations.

Hi Hannah – sorry for the mix up. After I posted that I went over to your blog and started reading some of your stuff and I have to giggle myself because I was thinking to myself – “she doesn’t seem to support the ‘role’ thing here in her blog”. I, like Cheryl and Rain above, have been skimming some of the entries and I got a little mixed up. Never the less, it provided an opportunity to get a bunch of stuff off my chest.

Rain – living in the Twin Cities, where Piper’s ministry is based, I have had a lot of exposure to him and his teaching. Simply put, he is a big deal here. I have also found much of what he says over the years to be thought provoking, inspiring, and instructive. In particular, I remember a rebuttal he wrote to an article in Christianity Today, which promoted an open attitude toward divorce, to be especially well received. But, like with any other human, we must evaluate each and every utterance from him against scripture. I’m afraid his views on marriage don’t stand up well at all when placed under that microscope. Unfortunately, as Cheryl points out, a large part of his broader theology, encompassing everything from gender relations to parenting to church operation, has this flawed view of marriage as the base. As such, even when he says something which on the surface you may agree with, you need to carefully consider what lies just beneath the surface of his commentary.

I agree Kaye – which is why I don’t believe that the bible actually dictates “roles”. In other words, I believe the term “biblical role” as applied to either husbands or wives is erroneous. At least there is no description of such roles in scripture.

Let’s take the example you are highlighting – the “role” of “provider/protector”. Nowhere does the bible dictate that the husband should be the sole provider or protector for the family. In fact, the bible describes several instances of provider/protector women. The proverbs 31 woman – the literal model for a godly wife – is a co-provider and protector of her family along with her husband and engages in a number of activities that “role” enthusiasts like to restrict to the husband. Such role promoters are in direct opposition to the teaching of scripture!

On the flip side, there are several OT proverbs and NT admonitions which encourage and even demand nurturing behavior out of husbands. Any suggestion that the “role” of the wife is to be the sole nurturer is equally offensive.

There is simply no instance in biblical teaching where any of the “traditional” gender based “roles” are described. None. Not one. Such roles, and even their labels (e.g. “provider/protector”, “nurturer”, “spiritual leader”, etc.) are completely man made and have no biblical support.

Now, I should add at this point that I recognize that males and females have gender specific physiologies and I believe those differences make them better suited to some specific tasks. For example, I think men are biologically better suited to physical protection and women are biologically better suited to nurturing. I also believe that men have an inner yurning to be a provider and women have an inner yurning to develop relationships. But that by no means suggests that there is such a thing as a gender specific “role” of provider, protector, or nurturer.

God designed marriage to be a one flesh covenant where the activities of daily living, the management of the household, the raising of children, and all the other parameters of married life would be shared between the two participants. Please note: that doesn’t mean they each do an equal share of each task. Nor does it mean that there are never tasks exclusively carried out by one spouse (for example, my wife pays all the bills, I do all the barbequeing). The point is that each marriage needs to figure out who is best at what and divide the labor along those lines. That includes even something as general as “decision making”. I don’t make all the decisions in our family as many hierarchists say I should. Most decisions my wife and I make together. There are a few decision areas where either she or I am the unilateral decision maker. Those areas are not defined by our gender, but by our giftedness and experience.

God’s design never, ever, designates either spouse to unilaterally carry out any task. God, in His perfect wisdom, created a covenantal institution where two people function as “one”. God’s design for marriage benefits from the unique design of each individual while combining the power of those unique designs into an institution, a whole, that is greater than the sum of its two individual parts. Because of this design, godly marriage can stand the test of time AND the winds of cultural changes and still thrive. Any designs that promote the idea that cultural paradigms or traditional arrangements constitute the ONLY valid “way” for a married couple to live are completely unbiblical. That includes any suggestion of unilateral gendered “roles”.

Since I do a lot of community theater work, I have a particular concept of what a “role” is. I find it very difficult to translate that concept into marriage, especially in light of scriptural teaching on the marriage relationship. That isn’t to say that scripture never defines roles. “Priest” is a role in the Jewish religious system, “Judge” is a role in the ancient Israelite governmental structure, even “Parent” is a role in the family structure. The bible has plenty to say about those roles and the behaviors, activities, and responsibilities that define them. I don’t see the same type of division of labor and responsibility when it comes to marriage. The only “role” in Genesis 1 and 2 is for all humans – to subdue the earth. When that role is exercised by married people – they do it as a couple. In other words, it is not the husband’s or wife’s unilateral or universal role to subdue the earth, they do it as a pair of humans that are have now become “one flesh”. Indeed, the one flesh relationship unique to marriage entirely eliminates, in my mind, the possibility of unique “roles”.

The other directive (some would say, blessing) outlined in the creation account is “to be fruitful and multiply”. Again, this is directed at the married couple – as we all know, it takes two to….well, you get the point. Inherent in that directive, I believe, is the “role” of parent. But neither that “role” nor the activities related to it are gender specific (other than breast feeding, I suppose). “Parenting” and everything encompassed in it is gender neutral.

Now, to be sure, different people go about fulfilling these couple based roles in different ways. I would argue that there are even some gender specific, physiologically based, differences in how males and females fulfill these joint “roles”. I may even argue that one gender or the other is better suited for specific tasks related to a “role”. But neither gender is unilaterally charged with any tasks or, maybe more importantly, relieved from any tasks. None of that changes the fact that the “role” itself is couple based and therefore gender neutral.

Now, the argument related to marriage that is usually presented is that “head” is a role. (Incidentally, that would naturally make “body” a role as well???) But my response to such a claim is “well, what does that mean for me as a husband?” In other words, what does the “head” do? Where is the job description? How do I know I am being a good head? How do I know I am being a head at all?

The typical reply brings us to Ephesians 5. “Just do what Christ did”. That is all well and good, and I would not disagree that agapeo type love is certainly Christlike, but is that type of love and service unilaterally the husband’s responsibility? Is the wife not also to love? Is the wife not also to serve? Is the wife released from (or restricted from) any responsibility to mirror Christ in her relationship to her husband? I should certainly hope not! But if Christlike love and service define the “role”, then the wife, in engaging in those activities, is also fulfilling the “role”, and it ceases to be a gender based role at all. So, “head” simply can not logically be a gender specific “role” because it does not unlilaterally pertain to the behaviors, activities, or responsibilities of a single gender. (Incidentally, the same is true for submission. Paul is clear that submission is not a female specific responsibility. That is ignored by complimentarians, but it doesn’t change the reality. The submission issue is well discussed here so I will say no more).

So what in the world is Paul doing by bringing up Christ/Head/Husband and Church/Body/Wife? That, I’m sure, will be a major sub topic in any future discussion of Ephesians 5. What I am absolutely convinced of is that he is not defining gender specific “roles” within the marriage. I suggest he is using Christ and His body as models for instructive purposes because of gender specific problems. That does not relieve either gender of their mutual responsibility to love, serve, and submit to one another.

Abby – “But what I understand Piper to be saying is that I am to allow the most precious man in my life, my best friend, lover, and the father of my children, to continue in a pattern that is harmful to his soul, his witness, as well as the Body of Christ WITH MY FULL KNOWLEDGE.”

Wow – that is so right. In fact, Piper’s call for “submission” is actually a call to be un-Christlike. Very good insight.

Mark – a very good take, IMO, on the “differences” in instruction in Ephesians 5 and how it ties back to mutual submission (and, I might add, mutual love). This part is of special note in the discussion:

“What Piper is doing is ignoring scripture when he focuses on a wife’s submission, and he puts it in a totally worldly context, one that focuses on an insititional power-sturcture, as if that was what God or Paul intended. It was not.”

Of course, we have seen such focus before in complimentarian arguments – focus on Eve’s part in the fall while ignoring Adam’s more blatant sin, focus on the twelve male apostles while ignoring all the female disciples of Jesus, focus on Paul’s supposed restrictions on women while ignoring all of Paul’s freeing words toward women and even all the women Paul used and commended in ministry, etc., etc. This one (the Ephesians 5 myopia) is especially troubling because the instructions for husbands are right there next to the instructions for wives. But even beyond the clear parallelism being employed, the section for husbands is much longer, more detailed, and more addamant, than the brief and fairly general section for wives in vs. 22-24. To ignore that, or worse, to assume that such love as described in vs. 25-32 is the default response of husbands, is blatant error. In light of such error, I find it hard to understand how Hannah is convinced “He has proved himself to me and many thousands of other believers as a faithful expositor of the Word of God.” To me, he has proved the exact opposite.

Hannah – I would love to understand your definition of “role” and how that relates to the activities of daily living that a husband and wife engage in. I see no evidence in scripture that either spouse has a unilateral “job” as it relates to the operation of the family. I therefore assume you are referring to roles on a more spiritual plane, although again, I can’t quite put my finger on any passage of scripture which outlines such a division of labor within the marriage. I am quite curious to know what my “role” is as a husband and, more importantly, what practical activities I need to unilaterally engage in to know I am fulfilling that “role”.

Cheryl – Ephesians 5 continues to be at the forefront in this conversation. I hope it will stir in you a great desire to write on that passage as we have talked about in the past.

Amos – I don’t know if I would go as far as saying the “whole” system is corrupt. After all, people such as Cheryl have effective, turth telling ministries. But, it certainly has major messed up pieces, and they have been messed up since pretty much the 2nd or 3rd century on.

Hi Pan.

The law allows for a certain level of “assault”, if you will, when it involves domestic parties. Parents can legally spank their children – to a degree – and a certain level of physical restraint and “correction” is allowed for older children as well. (Incidentally, the bible seems to indicate a similar acceptance.) I distinctly remember the sharp slap across the face I received from my mother as a 17 year old when I took the name of the Lord in vain in front of her. I can also remember an altercation between my wife and daughter which resulted in…well…let’s just say my wife is still the WWF champ in our family (mother and daughter get along fine, btw). Now, you may not be an advocate of such measures in the parent/child relationship, but the reality is that in some families, sometimes words alone can’t solve situations, especially when there is an authority/dependent dynamic. That reality, of course, is a result of our (both parent’s and children’s) sinful dispositions, as Cheryl points out. But there are many kinds of physical altercation that would not result in arrest.

This where complimentarians go wrong and why their perception of domestic violence gets so out of wack. In my experience, they believe two incorrect things. One, that the husband/wife relationship is such an authoritarian situation. As such, it is no different in their mind than a parent dealing with a child. That is almost exactly the argument Domestic Discipline advocates put forward to justify husbands spanking their wives. Two, that the nature of the physical “interaction” is as mild as spanking a child or slapping a teenager. As others have noted above, they really have no clue about the realities of domestic violence. They believe that husbands just give a little “smack” and all is well.

In general then, they seem blind to the dynamics of husband/wife relationships (compared to parent/child) and how very easy it is for them to spin out of control. In particular, they seem to be blissfully ignorant of the sin condition of husbands, at least when it comes to dealing with their wives. They buy the lie that “rule over” is a command from Genesis 3 and seem to feel that “Love your wife” from Ephesians 5 is a pronouncement of the default male condition rather than a command to rise out of the real depraved condition we husbands are actually in – one that causes us to “rule over”. In other words, they can’t imagine that any act of “ruling” is anything else but “loving”. They really have got it all completely backwards.