Repost Authority Vs Submission A Biblical View Of Ephesians 522
My original 2010 post crashed because there were too many comments for my blog to handle, so I am putting up this post again so that people can read the article which is no longer available because of the crash. Thanks to one of my readers who asked me to repost
Date: 2011-06-14
URL: https://mmoutreach.org/wim/2011/06/14/repost-authority-vs-submission-a-biblical-view-of-ephesians-522/
My original 2010 post crashed because there were too many comments for my blog to handle, so I am putting up this post again so that people can read the article which is no longer available because of the crash. Thanks to one of my readers who asked me to repost.
Yesterday I received two polar opposite views of Ephesians 5:22 by email. One was from “NN” who has responded here in the past. He is a complementarian who has commented on authority in marriage, one of a handful of complementarians who have been willing to give their views on women on this blog in a respectful manner. In NN’s email he sent me a link to his view on submission in marriage which he says is not to be mutual. In the other email my son Ryan gave me his conclusions after a time of researching on his own the issue of authority and submission in marriage in order to present a biblical answer to his pastor. I am going to refer to both views in this article for us to consider.
NN suggested that my blog readers might be interested in his views that he has recently posted on his blog. NN wrote to me about the time period since he last corresponded on my blog back in December 2009:
Since then I have meant to write up a brief logical clearly addressing the question of hierarchy in the instructions of the apostles on the marital relationship. Unfortunately it took until now for me to actually find the time. Nonetheless – I thought you might be interested (and possibly even your readership given the torrent of comments in that last discussion).
NN’s premise is that submission in marriage is not mutual but my son’s conclusion is the polar opposite. First of all here is Ryan’s finding. His article starts with the thought that the understanding of “source” for the Greek word for head (kephale) in 1 Corinthians 11 can also fit in with Ephesians 5:22-25 when you consider the context. Ryan’s main concern in his research is whether submission is mutual or relegated to wives alone.
Ryan’s research:
I think source fits well with the description in Eph 5:22-25 also. As I was studying this, I noticed that the NASB showed “submit” as in “Wives, submit…” in italics, which means it wasn’t in the original. I looked at the NET (New English Translation) notes and they highlighted that 3 MSS (manuscripts) don’t have “submit” after wives in v22. These MSS are earlier than the others and are significant manuscripts, so this is likely the original reading. Knowing that Paul tends to write run-on sentences (not to mention there were no ‘periods’ in the Greek), I wondered if the sentence might have been intended as an extension to v21. Check this out:
“…(v21) and be subject to one another in awe of Christ, (v22) wives to your own husbands as to the Lord, (v23) for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself the Saviour of the body.”
Doesn’t that make more sense? Look how Paul is describing mutual submission to one another and then continuing to elaborate on how that should look in the marital relationship as a corrective to the cultural norms of the day. We need to remember that the Epistles are often correcting specific things that are happening which sometimes we can only understand from the historical context — and this can make interpreting passages like this that much more involved.
We know that the culture was already quite pre-disposed to subduing the wife in marital relationships. Women were meant to propagate the husbands name and were treated more like property than equals. What is the likely outcome of such subjection of the wife is a slave-master-like obedience. Paul seems to actually be saying here that instead of obeying like a slave, the wife should submit to her husband in a more biblical manner, thus calling her out of her ‘pit’ so to speak. The most revolutionary part of Paul’s words would be the fact that he says all are to submit to one another, and that most definitely includes husbands submitting to their wives!
And again, as we saw in 1 Cor 11, Paul elaborates the basis for the marital relationship, this time for the Ephesians as well: “for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself the saviour of the body.” In other words, because the husband is the source of the wife (just like Christ is the source of the church) and therefore she his equal, they should be mutually submitting to one another in love. (The church is also treated as the equal of Christ in the sense that the new person will have a new body and will no longer sin). This description is a refutation of the idea that the wife is a lower-class partner to the husband, or that there are more important people in the body than others (ie. jewish believers vs. gentile believers). It is a proclamation of the equality of all! The source relationship is a powerful foundation for equality, not hierarchy!
Continuing… “[For] as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives [ought to be] to their husbands in everything” (v24). The NASB has “But”, though this reads as a continuation of substantiation for Paul’s earlier statements. Interestingly, the NASB adds “ought to be” (italics) which actually makes it sound like Paul is commanding the wives to submit and is not in line with how what he says is actually freeing them from cultural slave-master relationship. In other words, in everything the wives should be willingly submissive out of love and not as a slave to a master! Why would Paul be supporting what was already culturally in vogue?
And finally, v25: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her…” Does this mean that women don’t need to be sacrificial in their love for their husbands? Of course not! In fact, they are the ones sacrificing everything in first century culture. Even in our culture, the women usually have to manage the home as well as work and make meals, etc. This is a corrective for the men who don’t participate in loving submission to their wives and families!
The conclusion is most certainly an equality in loving submission one to another in the whole body, and especially in marital relationships. It is a corrective to the master-slave marital relationships which were typical in the first century. The ‘new man’ should be one who treats his wife as his own flesh, as his equal, not as his inferior.
~End of article submitted by Ryan Schatz
NN’s views are opposite of Ryan’s in that NN believes that the submission of wives is the same as the master-slave relationship. NN writes on his blog:
The Egalitarian argument runs along the lines of: “Eph 5:21 tells christians to ‘and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.’ But this is the same word used when it tells wives to “be subject” to their husbands. Since “be subject to one another” means that the husband is also “subject” to the wife, Paul’s later instruction specifically to the wives cannot indicate any sort of hierarchy in the marital relationship.” However, as discussed previously, the instruction here given is the same as that given to servants toward their masters and citizens toward the ruling authorities – it is quite clear that this instruction does imply submission to authority.
There are several problems with NN’s view. The first is that he fails to document that the earliest manuscripts do not have the verb “submit” in verse 22. Instead the submission for wives must refer back to verse 21 which lists Christian submission as mutual. In fact that grammar in verse 21 (one another) is reciprocal.
reciprocal — A pronoun that denotes reciprocity; that is, it indicates an interchange between two or more groups. (Glossary of Morpho-Syntactic Database Terminology)
The next thing that NN misses is that Paul’s reference to submission is at the end of a list of things that are the practical outworking of being filled with the Spirit which is the topic from Ephesians 5:18 and on. Submission then is a work of the Spirit in our lives and the application is to one another. NN continues:
But now we move on to the instruction which Paul gives to wives and husbands and note that the apostle makes a distinction in the command given. Specifically Paul tells the wife to “be subject to the husband” but does not tell the husband to “be subject to the wife.”
Paul doesn’t need to list the second half of mutual submission because verse 21 specifically and with reciprocity lists submission as a one another practice that follows the outworking of the Holy Spirit’s filling. Husbands are expected to see that as Spirit-filled Christians they are to live a life of submission to one another just as surely as any other member of the body of Christ must live out their faith. Husbands are never listed as exempted from the Spirit-filled life that is to be lived out through submission.
So why is it important for Paul to list women who are part of the culturally disadvantaged class included as a special note for submission? NN sees this as a clear sign that wives are under their husband’s authority. In his second recent article NN writes:
Paul gives instruction that wives are to “hupotassoe” their husbands in Eph 5:22, Col 3:18 & Titus 2:5. Just after this last passage, in Titus 3:1, Paul again instructs his audience to “hupatassoe” the governing authorities. Similarly, just before his instruction to wives, Peter uses this same term to describe the relationship of believers to “ordinances of men” and of servants toward their masters.
There is a huge problem with NN’s reasoning. While it can be documented that the cultural system of that day mandated autocratic and all-inclusive authority to the husband over every area of his wife’s life, there is no mandate ever given by God for the husband to exercise such an authority over his wife. Remember that in the beginning God made both the man and the woman as rulers of this world. He did not give either of them the right to take authority over and subdue each other. So while the worldly system has gone off on a tangent of lordship-authority as a male right, there is no God-given authority for the husband to subdue his wife nor is there a God-given extension of authority that has listed in the Scripture the husband’s extent of power, rights or lordship over the personhood of his wife. If such an authority is culturally mandated and not God-given then she too is a free man as a son of God, free indeed from the worldly system that dominates and subdues humans.
So what NN fails to list is that there is a turn-about regarding the worldly system when believers are transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. While the early Christians used to be bound under a system of authority that took away their freedom of choice as the earthly rulers subdued them, took dominion over them and subjected them underneath their authority, in Christ they had become true free men who were no longer bound by forced subjugation. This freedom extended to slaves and women who were by virtue of their position in Christ now equal as God’s sons and thus fully free. Paul refers to this when he writes to his fellow Christian Philemon who is a slave owner of a runaway slave named Onesimus. Paul pleads with Philemon to embrace Onesimus no longer as a slave, but as a brother in Christ.
Philemon 15–16 (NASB)
15 For perhaps he was for this reason separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever,
16 no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.
How were these former worldly slaves to act as Spirit-filled and empowered sons of God while their masters were not as yet brothers in Christ? While their position as sons of God gave them freedom, they were encouraged to be slaves of Christ and for His sake to willingly submit themselves to their masters. What was forced upon them before was removed in Christ, but living as free men in Christ empowered and enabled them to freely submit to what lawfully was no longer an authority over them. By this act, they would give a witness for Christ that would enable their unsaved masters to see Christ living in them.
NN writes:
The relevant definition of this English word “submit: to yield oneself to the power or authority of another.” This word appears throughout the New Testament and is common in other writings of the time. While several arguments are advanced in egalitarian thought as to how we should understand this word, we are discussing its specific use in the Epistles of Paul & Peter, and we can quite directly observe their use of this word in other circumstances which make immediately apparent what they mean in the use of this word.
This cannot be the meaning of submission in the Epistles since Paul specifically defined submission as reciprocal. If submission in Ephesians 5:21 were to mean to yield oneself to the power or authority of another then each one would have a power or authority over everyone else. The thought of you submitting to my authority and me submitting to your authority becomes nonsense in the passage.
Let’s look at Ephesians 5 one more time in context:
Ephesians 5:1–2 (NASB)
1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;
2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
Here we see that there is an injunction for all of us to be imitators of God. How are we to imitate Him? We are to walk in love for each other and sacrifice ourselves for the good of others. This applies to both men and women as Spirit-filled believers. The next part is especially important because of worldly “greed”.
Ephesians 5:3–8 (NASB)
3 But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints;
4 and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.
5 For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
7 Therefore do not be partakers with them;
8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light
In verse 3 the term “greed” means:
as bad behavior, a disposition to have more than one’s share greed, covetousness, avarice … as a matter of being compelled to, as what is grudgingly given
Vol. 4: Analytical lexicon of the Greek New Testament. Baker’s Greek New Testament library
The Louw Nida lexicon further expands on compulsion as a form of greed:
to take advantage of someone, usually as the result of a motivation of greed—‘to take advantage of, to exploit, exploitation.’
…in this matter, then, no one should do wrong to his brother or take advantage of him
Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Vol. 1: Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament : Based on semantic domains
Is a disposition to have more than one’s share of authority so that one creates for oneself a “role” of authority to take advantage of another’s disadvantaged position in order to exercise authority over a brother considered greed? Absolutely! The Bible lists the possibility that authority can be created by one’s own self instead of given by God.
Habakkuk 1:7 (NASB)…Their justice and authority originate with themselves.
Those who are greedy for authority will not let that authority go. By taking authority that does not belong to them, they are tempted to practice lording over others and this is forbidden for believers.
Matthew 20:25 (NASB) But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.
What is listed by Paul in Ephesians 5 that should identify those belonging to God’s family? Let’s take a look:
Ephesians 5:9–11 (NASB)
9 (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth),
10 trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.
11 Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;
Those in the family of God who are living by the Light should do what is pleasing to the Lord. So what is pleasing to the Lord? Here is where we find Paul’s list:
Ephesians 5:15–21 (NASB)
15 Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise,
16 making the most of your time, because the days are evil.
17 So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,
19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord;
20 always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;
21 and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.
Our walk that is pleasing to the Lord is one of subjection to one another. This is the will of the Lord and it has no bounds of social standing, race or gender.
Paul then brings us to an area where women may not see the benefit of God’s will to submit. What might cause a godly Christian woman to not want to be submissive to her husband? In that culture before she was “in Christ” she was without freedom and was compelled by her husband’s power that the culture vested in him, to be subject to force and his demands that she obey him. Now that she is free in Christ, she may not want to go back to what she may see as a bondage. Submission to her may be seen as a forced subjection. But Paul is telling wives that their submission is not to be forced. She is now free and her submission is not to be forced by having to obey this cultural authority over her. She is to submit in love in the fear of the Lord. Ephesians 5:1-2 is written for her:
Ephesians 5:1–2 (NASB)
1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;
2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
She is no longer compelled to obey, but rather out of love and for Christ’s sake she is to honor her husband as an offering to Christ Himself.
And what about husbands who have been used to the benefits of unconditional power and control that they wielded over their wives? They are no longer to lord it over their wives but are to be imitators of God and to walk in love toward their wives. How do these men who yearned for power and authority, learn to give up this power over their wives? They are to become like Christ Himself who gave up his own power to come to earth as a sacrifice for us.
Ephesians 5:1–2 (NASB)
1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;
2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
What did Christ give up? He gave up His rights to all authority and all power so that He could live as a mortal man. Husbands are to be imitators of Christ who Himself existed as God with all power and authority but He gave it all up to live in humility.
The last of Paul’s instructions directly to husbands show a giving up of their cultural authority in order to love their wives as themselves.
Ephesians 5:28–31 (NASB)
28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;
29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church,
30 because we are members of His body.
31 FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.
Notice in verse 31 that the cultural male right is given up by the man for his wife. The culture said that the man had the right to have the woman leave everything to join his house. She came to him and she brought the dowry. The dowry is money or property brought by a woman to her husband at marriage. This worldly system of a woman bringing a dowry to the man and leaving all to join him is the exact opposite to what God’s will is for the marriage union. Ephesians 5:31 is a quote from Genesis 2:24 and it is the evidence of perfect submission of the man to the woman that God established in the beginning. The husband is the one who is to give up all to be joined to his wife. He leaves and cleaves and sacrifices for her. This is exactly what Jesus did for the church. Jesus submitted Himself to the church and gave up all for her and Paul calls this a great mystery.
Ephesians 5:32 (NASB) This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
What should be the wife’s response be to such a great sacrifice of her husband’s? She is in awe of him and gives him respect for his act of initiating a life of sacrifice for her.
Let’s sum up Ephesians 5:21, 22 on submission in marriage. As Christians, our aim is to please the Lord and one of the ways we please the Lord is through respectful submission in marriage. There is no lordship of one over the other because this is not pleasing to Christ and male lordship authority is a manifestation of the worldly system with its deeds of darkness (verse 7) that subjugates and controls and is a pattern of greed that ultimately takes advantage of the other in a covetousness lust for lordship. The husband as the “head” or source or starting point is to be the one who initiate a sacrificial giving up of himself so that by his act of submission to come to her and in giving up of his cultural male-rights he will model the initiating and sacrificial love of Christ for the church.
I predict that those who cannot give up their rights of male authority will never fully understand the will of God in marriage.
kbonikowsky
2011-06-14
Thanks for the re-post! I’ve been wondering what you wrote that generated so much conversation! 🙂
pinklight
2011-06-15
dogmadekate,
In other words a “you’re equal but your not” contradiction.
Oh, the things that don’t make sense. Can’t people do better than that!? For real…
Good point 🙂
pinklight
2011-06-17
Elaine,
It never ceases to amaze me how Christians managed to sanctify the complete opposite of what the Bible says. (ie. Eph.5:31)
It amazes me too. Hard to believe in some respects.
Waneta Dawn
2011-06-20
I recently had an insight on what Paul meant by telling wives to submit in everything, and spell it out on my Dec, 16, 2010 post http://submissiontyranny.blogspot.com/2010/12/peter-models-church-wife-submission.html. Because Paul knew he was going to tell husbands to love their wives and give themselves up for their wives, he knew that wives were likely to have the same response Peter did when Jesus knelt to wash his feet. (John 13) Paul was telling wives to submit to their high status husbands-become-servants, even as Peter submitted to Jesus washing his feet. Just as it was seen as terribly inappropriate for Jesus, the high-status master, to wash the feet of his lowly disciples, so also it would be seen as totally inappropriate for wives, who are normally of servant status, to accept the service of their high-status husbands. The “in everything” Paul was talking about wives submitting to, was the sacrificial servanthood of the husbands; wives were already submitting in everything else.
By this teaching, Paul was continuing Jesus’s own teaching of the great reversal: those of high degree shall be brought low, and those of low degree shall be lifted up. Mary speaks of it in Luke 1:52, “He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.” Jesus uses the great reversal when he uses his death to bring life and defeat Satan, and James speaks of this in James 1:9-10 “Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: But the rich in that he is made low.” These are only a few of the places where the great reversal is referred to.
Cheryl Schatz
2011-06-21
Ryan,
The problem with upgrading is that I will lose comment numbering. I would hate to lose that.
Cheryl Schatz
2011-06-21
Welcome to my blog kbonikowsky and dogmadekate!
Cheryl Schatz
2011-06-21
9 Waneta Dawn,
That is an interesting thought and certainly could be part of what Paul is saying.
Retha
2011-06-24
Waneta, perhaps you can read Charis ( http://hupotasso.wordpress.com/ ) on the topic of submitting in everything. She say the tenses are translated wrong from Greek, the message is: Wifes are subject to their husbands in everything.
That is not a command, say Charis, but more like being subject to gravity. It is a statement that your man have an influence on you, wether good or bad.
Charis
2011-06-24
Cheryl,
Bravo (Ryan?) for noticing this:
“[For] as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives [ought to be] to their husbands in everything” (v24). ..Interestingly, the NASB adds “ought to be” (italics) which actually makes it sound like Paul is commanding the wives to submit
Many Bible translations have added words which distort the teaching (link).
Ryan also says “Look how Paul is describing mutual submission to one another and then continuing to elaborate on how that should look” which is close to acknowledging that Ephesians 5:24 clarifies Ephesians 5:21 (which I think is overlooked by most egalitarians when they consider “mutual submission”). Ryan takes Eph 5:24 and proposes the meaning “in everything the wives should be willingly submissive out of love”.
IN EVERYTHING, IN EVERYTHING, IN EVERYTHING!
I won’t bother proposing scenarios about what “EVERYTHING” could include… My point is that it’s impossible if the wife’s submission is understood as cooperation, yielding, support, etc. And the fact is, despite the appeal of MUTUAL submission (sometimes she yields and sometimes he does), there is no corresponding “IN EVERYTHING” said of husbands.
Wives are subject to their husbands IN EVERYTHING! As Retha mentioned, I think the passive indicative grammar of the hupotasso verb in Eph 5:24 clarifies what Paul/God means by this.
I take Paul’s statement in Eph 5:24 as a repetition of “the facts of life” first reported in Genesis 3:16:
“wives are subject to their own husbands in everything” Eph 5:24 (Paul describing marriage to the Ephesians)
“your [the wife’s] desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you” Gen 3:16 (God describing to the first woman what marriage will be like for her)
Both are descriptive, not prescriptive. You are subject to your husband like you are subject to gravity. There is no volition involved. It’s a state of being.
The power a husband has over his wife emotionally is what Paul refers to when he explains that “wives are subject to their husbands in everything”. Paul proceeds to instruct husbands repeatedly on agape loving (using active and even imperative forms of agape). Every husband HAS “gravitational power”. Paul is teaching him to handle this in a way which lifts up rather than tears down.
Waneta Dawn
2011-06-24
Off topic, not sure where else to put it. Are you aware that Internet Monk passed away earlier this year? I ran across this info on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Mere-Churchianity-Finding-Jesus-Shaped-Spirituality/dp/0307459179/ref=pd_sim_b_17
Waneta Dawn
2011-06-24
Oops, that was last year–in April of 2010. I feel so out of the loop; I thought I saw his comments more recently than that!
NN
2011-07-12
Seeing this pop up and skimming back though the argument – It strikes me that I failed on a key point.
Not in proving my point proper (as an exhaustive student of logic & reasoning I can diagram why the proof is sound and where the objections to it fail) – but most minds are not wired like mine (and that’s a good thing). Rather I feel that I failed in providing a worthy vision of biblical complementarian ideas.
So let me drop a link to a description that presents not an argument so much as a vision for the scope of practical complementarian theology both as it applies to the relationship between the husband and the wife and how it applies to the relationship between God and the believer. – (from Hosea 2:16 & surrounding verses)
Cheryl Schatz
2011-07-12
NN, I would like the community here to read and interact on my blog. I would be happy for you to post your comments here. Please do so rather than a link. Thanks!
NN
2011-07-12
★
Cheryl,
My apologies – I simply felt that the length & formatting of the discussion made it potentially cumbersome to put here as a comment – but per your request here is the cut and paste.
A Pagan Relationship with the Christian God
It is a common meme within the christian church that we are to have “a personal relationship with God” – but too often the idea is left at that without exploring what type of ‘personal’ relationship that we are called into.
The book of Hosea offers a stunning insight into the relationship that God has in mind. In this book, God paints a tremendous picture of the relationship between God and His people as a marriage relationship. And particularly striking is Hosea 2:16.
Hosea 2:16 ~ “It will come about in that day,” declares the LORD, “That you will call Me *Ishi And will no longer call Me *Ba’ali.” [NASB]
The use of transliterated words directly will immediately clue us in that this passage is rather difficult to really translate well. But stick with me – I assure you it is worth the effort. It speaks volumes about our relationship to God, and about a common misunderstanding of that relationship and God’s intended metaphor reflected in human marriage.
To set the stage God is speaking to Israel who had gone after other gods, through the metaphor of Gomer who is the prophet Hosea’s unfaithful wife. She has prostituted herself and God declared punishment to correct her unfaithfulness and is now declaring to her that He will restore her to Himself.
Many translations express this verse as: “It will be in that day,” says the LORD, “That you will call me ‘my husband,’ {Ishi} And no longer call me ‘my master.’ {Ba’ali}” [HNV]
But this doesn’t really get across the full Hebraic idea of this passage. To start “Ba’al” is a word which has a primary meaning of “husband” as well as “owner,” master,” or “lord” and was commonly associated with many Cananitic deities. But “husband” is a secondary meaning associated with “Ish” which is most directly translated as “man” (male). So what is the intended meaning of statement?
To understand this we have to look at the person being directly addressed: Gomer. Gomer has “gone after other lovers” (just as Israel had gone after other gods). She had said (Hos 2:5) ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’ She had treated them as ersatz husbands, giving them power over her body in exchange for possessions. This is the key to understand this passage.
In effect she had said to these lovers ‘I will treat you as “Ba’al”… in exchange for certain wealth.’ This of course is the core of prostitution and this is the essential relationship concept of the ancient pagan religions. The Romans even codified it in their formula prayers with the phrase “do ut des” ~ “I give that you may give.” They acknowledged this and reminded their gods that nature of the religion was that “I sacrifice this thing so that you will bless me and perpetuate this cycle” This was the religious concept – one appeased the gods for the singular purpose of receiving blessing. The service to the deity was only a means to another end.
It is in this context that God addresses Gomer and through her Israel.
God says to her, in effect, “You pursued ‘husbands’ because you thought to gain possessions. You called them ‘my Ba’al’ so that they might give you flax and wool, wine and oil, silver and gold. But not only were they not your husband and not your master but you didn’t even know what that word means. What I mean by it.”
God does not simply tell her that the relationship would change but declares to her that her very understanding of this relationship would be fundamentally altered. He says to her – you will call me “Ishi.” For us non-Hebrew speakers we gain insight into this word by looking back to its first use in Genesis 2.
“… But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”{ish, ???}
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
[Gen 2:20b-24 ESV]
And the apostle Paul’s commentary on Genesis 2:
The woman was made for the man {ish}. [1 Cor 11:9]
God in effect tells her that she has looked at this relationship as a business exchange – Provision and possessions in exchange for physical mastery. But this was never the point. He says ‘Right religion, My religion, is not about duty-bound exchange. You were made for Me. Made to be with Me; you cannot be complete without Me. All this stuff that you have been chasing is not evil in itself but it has blinded you to what your real deepest core need is, it is was always Me.’ When God says “shall call me ‘Ishi,'” He says ‘I know that you have obeyed your own lusts and given service to other gods, other masters; but you were made for Me. All your self-centered desires lead only to death; but I shall restore you beyond your dreams, and you shall be Mine in a way you never could even have comprehended.’
Not to say that God would not provide as a Lord or that she would not obey Him as Master. Rather He makes it clear that when she really understands what the relationship is about, His provision will be beyond her wildest expectations. He tells her that she will experience a peace and prosperity she never imagined that there will be no war at all or cause for alarm and God’s covenant will extend even to the animals. [Hsa 2:18 & 22] And He tells her that she will obey Him in a way that she had never even dreamed. He tells her that she will be set apart unto Him in righteousness and faithfulness (“betrothed” comes from the same word-root as the Hebraic word for “holy”).
This tendency is one of the most pervasive follies of human religion and of the human spirit – often even within the walls of the congregations of the church herself. Religion often appeals through promises of blessing. But if we follow God only on the promise of blessings in our life then we have missed the core of our calling to Him. Not that those blessings are wrong: health, a good family life, financial security are blessings. But if these are our priority then we offer ourselves to God only as a prostitute – not as a betrothed, not as a lover. He is to be our Husband as our Lord, King and Master [Jer 3:14, Jer 31:32] – but these are corollaries of the central truth: that we are made for Him, that we are to be satisfied first and foremost in Him. All other blessings, though good and though He delights to give them to us are secondary to His own personal presence in our lives.
Tim Keller eloquently captures this perversion of the christian church by saying “It is the difference between those people who pray the ‘Our Father’ and those who talk to their Father.”
And at the end of it all, let us not forget the metaphor which God has used to express this truth. Marriage. For as God’s metaphor our marriages are supposed to reflect this truth; to ourselves, to each other, and to those around us. If I, as husband, were to provide only as my wife honors me – then I would not reflect God but the petty pagan “Ba’alim” of the Caananites, and the wives likewise in their honor. For “man cannot shut up about the gospel.”
NN
2011-07-16
Retha,
Starting from the recognition that the Bible teaches us that our marriages ought to reflect the truths of the gospel – you as a very natural and worthwhile question which can be couched as:
How is a woman supposed to reflect the church if the man does not properly reflect Christ?
Before I really answer this question I’d like to start with a few side comments to ensure that some points are not misunderstood:
~ Most complementarians I know of would not advocate a woman staying in a context that endangers her health or see this as a Biblical mandate.
~ More generally, the woman ought not submit to any command of the husband which violates the instructions of God (for instance she ought not obey him if he tells her to rob a bank)
~ But this comes with a danger, it is a natural temptation to begin looking for the exceptions when we find a commandment uncomfortable or inconvenient. For instance, one is also called to “turn the other cheek.” Yet, most christians if they saw a someone hurting heir child would protect their child and use physical force to stop them and believe it right to do so. However, we must be careful lest “exceptions” become a way to simply disobey the command of God.
Those said – we can explore the general question – “But what happens if the other spouse does not act as they should?” Is the husband prevented from reflecting the Gospel if the wife does not reflect the Church well? If she were to be shrewish and unsubmissive ought the husband respond by not loving her and sacrificing himself for her? Of course not! The husband is called to reflect Christ to his wife and before the world regardless of the wife’s behaviour.
What then of the wife? Is she called to reflect the Church even if the husband is being a selfish jerk best described by a string of epithets not fit for typing here? Taking an extreme case – let us say that the husband is an unsaved jerk – not able or seeing any reason to want to reflect Christ:
Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. {1 Pet 3:1-2}
A sandwich will typically not violate the Word of God – even if the husband ought to have recognized how busy his wife was and not asked her. (<a href=”http://nuallan.livejournal.com/11628.html”)Indeed here are some thoughts to husbands on the proper enactment of headship) But in general disobedience is not what the wife is called to. Yes, absolutely she ought to seek to bear up and help him overcome his areas of sin – but Biblically she is called to do so from a role of submission – not through being shrewish or nagging (Proverbs has a fair bit to say about such behaviour). And just as much for the husbands – for he is told to take absolute initiative in finding ways to love and sacrifice himself for his wife whether she acts as she should or not.
NN
2011-07-16
Since the idea of marriage as a reflection of deeper christian truths seems to have garnered interest – here is a longer exposition of it:
(From Here)
Ephemeral Reflections of Eternal Truths
Eph 5:22-24 ~ “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, His body, and is Himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.” [ESV]
We human beings are made for marriage, made for ultimate intimacy. We all want it; we all need it. We are made for a relationship in which we are completely known, through our deepest faults and loved despite them. A love so deep and so cleansing that it removes them from us at the cost to our Beloved. This is the Christian idea of marriage.
Many feel disappointed in their marriage. It does not satisfy the need for intimacy, spoken or unspoken, which aches within us. The husband may be overbearing, the wife shrewish; and we long for a union of love and charity. But in fact never in human history has their been a marriage of a man and woman that completely satisfied this need. But that is the point, we must not forget the end of this passage!
“This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
Human marriage could never live up to our need for our need was made to be satisfied in God, for a Marriage eternal and unfading. But rather Paul teaches us that human marriage is a shadow of a deeper truth. And that is the key – to understand the distinction between image, shadow and reflection versus reality; and to understand the point and purpose of the reflections at all.
Now in the reflection there is a danger. It is the common practice of the human heart to make idols, and reflections of what we really seek often make the best idols of all. Sometimes because we become confused, often we are impatient. If we seek to fulfill our need for intimacy in marriage we are destined to be left empty, unsatisfied and consumed for a need which cannot be met as we have sought it. The shadow is not the reality. The aroma of the finest dish is not food itself and a picture of our beloved is not their presence.
But why then the reflection at all? The Law is another example of a shadow given to us by God. The Law spoke of righteousness, but it could never make us righteous. And in the Law the Pharisees substituted the shadow for the reality of Christ. And in Galatians we are given a clear answer as to the purpose of the shadows. They are meant to instruct us, to tutor us about about a reality which we do not yet fully experience. (Gal 3:21-25)
Just as an aroma gives us a foretaste of the dish (though it does not fulfill our hunger for it) and as a picture reminds us of the object of affections even as we miss their presence. The very world we live in passing away; yet we, the immortals, live in it and often times find it so distracting. But within this ephemeral life God has provided us shadows of His eternal realities. That we might recognize the important and learn.
In discussion of biblical ideas of gender roles, egalitarians will often denounce complimentarian thought as elevating men to a “god-like” position in relation to women, that the husband is substituted for Christ.
This misses the point entirely, of course the husband is not Christ. The reflection is not reality. But marriage is a God-given shadow of an eternal truth, it is to teach us about the reality yet to come. Remember your lessons in school; we learned in two ways: through observation and through practice. A teacher’s lecture or watching a Christ-honoring marriage can teach us a great deal. But most often, a great deal of our learning came through practice. Just as the endless arithmetic problems that most of us didn’t enjoy but that drilled those truths into our heads anyways; living in a marriage provides a practical instruction to us on the nature of an eternal truth. Now just as with the arithmetic problems we can do it wrong, but this fault is introduced by us, the student, not the shadow God has provided us.
Therefore let us recognize this truth, about these fleeting reflections we are given of the everlasting. But let us also recognize the dangers in reflections; the best husband in the world is not Christ. And to forget this, even in the tiniest is to elevate the shadow into an idolatry following an illusion which will only leave us empty. Let us not condemn them for not being the reality; and be edified by them as they were meant for us. When we recognize that human marriage is not the eternal marriage then it is liberated of our disappointment and elevated to our benefit and God’s glory.
Cheryl Schatz
2011-07-16
NN,
I don’t think you directly answered pinklight’s question. Are you saying that the husband reflects God and the wife reflects the church? If you could answer that one directly first, that would be helpful. Yes or no.
Retha
2011-07-17
1, I looked up Baali, and it does not, as you claim, have a primary meaning of husband.
Strong’s Hebrew lexicon: my master; Baali, a symbolical name of Jehovah
Brown-Driver-Briggs’ Hebrew Definitions: “my lord” 1. a deity in the northern kingdom, variation of the name ‘Baal’
2, Your use of Peter 3: Substitution of terms invalidates your argument. You ask if she should submit to a selfish jerk. Then you use a verse that say she should submit to an unbeliever (we agree it refers to an unbeliever). Unbeliever does not equal selfish jerk.
The slightest knowledge of human nature would tell you the verse does not speak about obeying a selfish man. The verse speaks of someone motivated to change by submission. A selfish person does not change because his selfishness is rewarded.
(That is one clue that submission don’t mean obeying selfish whims. Here is another, that to submit you don’t have to obey every order, even when direct sin is not present: http://biblicalpersonhood.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/%e2%80%9cwives-submit-%e2%80%9d-how/ )
3, You claim “A sandwich will typically not violate the Word of God – even if the husband ought to have recognized how busy his wife was and not asked her.” :
The man does violate the word by the sandwich order: The word say that to love others as ourselves, to regard their interests as highly (at least) as our own. This, not submission to husbands, is one of the two great commandments. If you say he don’t violate the word, don’t you care about the simplest and first things of scripture? You see, some things in scripture is bigger than submission – Jesus himself call them bigger.
And the wife? The Bible say we should edify, exhort and admonish our fellow believers, and to fight against sin, not encourage it. If the wife is married to a fellow believer, why does this not apply to her? You chooce to put a higher premium on submit than on other things the Bible say, without even mentioning why these Bible texts are less important to you.
4, You think because God use marriage as metaphor, she should picture the gospel one-sidedly with her behavior:
The Bible never say she can or should show the gospel by submitting. 1 Peter 3:1 say she may win one unbeliever, but not that she picture the gospel. The supplying leader can present a big part of the gospel this way (Hosea was specifically told to do it) but we don’t hear in the Bible of female Hoseas playing the other role- probably because she cannot present a true gospel to the world this way.
When we read the Bible, we should follow it whole-heartedly, not add meanings (my points 1, 2 and 4) and remember only what we like (point 3)
NN
2011-07-17
To Retha (#39)
I will answer in two points:
1) “Baali” is a possessive variant of “Ba’al” a word which is translated master, husband, lord, commander, and used as an epithet of pagan Canaanite deities. (I looked up the Strong’s reference for Ba’al for you – here it is: http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H1167&t=KJV) So, yes the word does have a primary meaning of “husband” and as such it is commonly used in the OT (e.g. Deu 22:22).
2) On your assertion:
The slightest knowledge of human nature would tell you the verse does not speak about obeying a selfish man. The verse speaks of someone motivated to change by submission. A selfish person does not change because his selfishness is rewarded.
I appreciate your argument – it is the same fundamental argument leveled at Christianity as a whole since the beginning. “Salvation can’t be by grace alone – or people will simply say the words, get a free ticket into heaven and then act however they want to. It will simply be a free license to enable their own selfishness without negative consequences.” But of course the NT deals with this idea of true conversion (e.g. Rom 6:1), and by being an example to the world by turning the other cheek rather than fighting back repeatedly.
So, I appreciate your arguments, I recognize the weight of psychological journals you have on your side. But I for myself am going to have to go with the Scriptures as the revealed word of God on this one.
Cheryl Schatz
2011-07-17
NN,
When you say that marriage is to be like Christ and the church are you inferring from the term Christ that this means Deity or His humanity? Do you have a reference for the husband and wife being like GOD and the church?
Cheryl Schatz
2011-07-17
NN,
Let me ask you from your view stated above, is the Father the Christ?
Cheryl Schatz
2011-07-17
NN,
To be absolutely clear, is the Father the Christ? Yes or No?
Cheryl Schatz
2011-07-17
My question was not ambiguous. Here it is straightforward once again. Is the Father the Christ? Yes or no? Or should we assume that your answer is the necessary: No the Father is not the Christ?
pinklight
2011-07-17
NN,
If you have to answer yes and no then just state why for your yes and why for your no.
Retha
2011-07-17
NN
(Minor point, meaning of Baali: http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H1180&t=KJV Baali = “my lord”
1) a deity in the northern kingdom, variation of the name ‘Baal’)
You say: “So, I appreciate your arguments, I recognize the weight of psychological journals you have on your side. But I for myself am going to have to go with the Scriptures as the revealed word of God on this one.”
No, scripture is not on your side. Your interpretation is on your side. Scripture don’t say selfish in the text. And scripture clearly, in several ways, show the submission is not what you think it is, as I pointed out from scripture. What is more, I already showed that I love scripture about fighting sin and helping people out of it too, scripture you still choose not to discuss because it does not fit in with your one-sided ignore-the-rest-of-scripture argument. Your way of characterizing disagreement with your understanding as disagreement with scripture tells a lot about you, and it isn’t good…
NN
2011-07-17
To Cheryl,
I believe that it is vital to recognize that though Christ voluntarily adopted the form and even weaknesses of a man that in doing so He never gave up his divinity. And therefore to seek to divorce any of His actions from His unchangeable existence as Deity (including such experiences as hunger and death) will create irreconcilable contradictions in any theological idea.
Indeed this may clarify what I mean in more detail:
Human Existance of God Incarnate
I recently listened to a person assert that the deity of the Christ can be observed in the miraculous nature of his earthly life – that specific passages pointed to his omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence. I do not believe this to be the case.
Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that Jesus the Christ was and is Deity and possesses the attributes of Deity. However, these verses do not prove the Christ’s deific attributes and, I think, ultimately create a misunderstanding in the nature of his earthly life.
Let us take omniscience. The verses used to “demonstrate” the Christ’s omniscience include Mark 2:8, John 2:24-25, John 18:4 which point to the Christ possessing knowledge beyond the scope of typical human experience. But, we must of course understand these verses in the light of such verses as Matt 24:36 (Mark 13:32) ~ “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” and others. Similarly, though the Christ performs miracles these are not a specific demonstration of direct deific omnipotence – the prophets in the Tanakh performed miracles just as spectacular.
And I do not believe that this is a matter of great Scriptural mystery. Though Jesus was and is God, when He came to earth he voluntarily took on the limitations of a man; though by nature He had all power and all knowledge He chose to forgo them and not access them – Jesus taking on human nature was essentially an act of voluntarily limiting His deific nature not a hybridization of God with man (Phil 2:6&7).
And I believe that this point is of more than academic interest which has direct bearing on our lives as Christians. For if He chose to not access this power during His earthly life then that means that His knowledge and His miracles came not as a direct exercise of His power as God but rather came about through reliance on and obedience to the leading of Holy Spirit. And this is a vital point to recognize for this is the same Spirit with whom the Christian is indwelt. To chalk up these verses as aspects of Christ’s deity I think blinds us to the power of the Spirit in the life of the Christian; it can blind us to our own insensitivity and hardheadedness toward the Spirit of God and remove from us the Scriptural instruction into our lives in the example of the Christ’s life.
Cheryl Schatz
2011-07-18
★
NN,
Your main confusion appears to be in your insistence that Christ as a “being” without identifying that He has two natures.
1) Would you agree that the being called Jesus existed in eternity past?
No, Jesus the man did not exist in eternity past. His nature as God existed as YHWH of hosts but his nature as man did not exist until the incarnation. You are in serious error.
2) Would you agree that “the Christ” (as a title is synonymous) with the being called Jesus? [i.e. Would you agree that one could not use “the Christ” (capitalized singular reference) to properly mean anything other than the being called Jesus]
Jesus does not have just one nature as we do and his title as His identification as Christ is ONLY tied to His human nature. Therefore it is improper identification to name the Word of God as the Christ since He had no human nature until the incarnation.
3) Would you agree that Jesus was properly “the Chosen One” and “the Coming One” – both titles distinctively associated with the Messiah – even before He actually took on flesh?
Since Jesus did not exist prior to the incarnation of the Word, the identification of the Messiah is in prophecy alone. It is improper to identify the Word as the Messiah just as it would be improper to identify the Word of God as the offspring of David. It would be a category error just as Catholics practice by saying that Mary is the mother of God. They too believe that Jesus is one being i.e. He has one nature thus Mary has to be the mother of God. That reasoning is flawed and throughout the history of the church, the two natures of Christ have been taught and defended and the church did not talk about the one “being” of Jesus. This is where your error starts and your foundation crumbles.
However, I was “NN” even before I had the fruit tart. The details of my existence do not mean that I didn’t exist before those details were known.
Were you human before you ate the fruit tart? Of course because you only have one nature. Was the Word of God human before He became incarnated? No. He was not human nor was He the seed of Abraham before He took on flesh. You are fully confused about Jesus as one being as you cannot separate His two natures. This is why you are in such error about Christ and the Church. You see Christ as being the same thing as the term God but the two are not the same. The church has not given these terms the same meaning nor has the church defined Christ as one being. The church has defined Christ as having two natures and the church has emphasized these two natures. When you confuse them you enter into error such that you will find yourself deceived on many things. I would love to help you, but it seems like you are refusing my help as if a woman is incapable of correcting a man. Such would be the case if you are specially qualified because you are a man.
I cannot recommend strongly enough for you to get yourself out of the Physics mindset and into proper theology for you are confusing the categories to the point of serious error.
The Tanakh clearly taught us that “The Christ” was the one who would come as God in the flesh, teach us the way of salvation, perform signs proclaiming the power and plan of God and die to pay the ransom for our sins in our place. Does this mean that Jesus was not “the Christ” before He died, or before He performed signs, etc? Absolutely not, Jesus the Christ testifies that He is the Christ long before He was actually crucified (Matt 16:16-17)
Jesus was the Christ at his conception, but He was not legally declared Christ with the necessary proof until His resurrection. He was NOT declared Christ as the Word of God, nor was He called the Christ in eternity past. The term is always one of prophesy unfulfilled in the past and prophesy fulfilled in the man Jesus.
NN, you are a very smart man, but your Physics degree has clouded your mind to make you lift up the male as being some type of uber being declared as the only representatives of God. This kind of thinking will not allow you to accept basic Christian doctrine so you continue in your error because it appears to fit into your agenda. I don’t know how else to see it. That makes me feel very sad because you are obviously gifted and knowing the truth would allow you to be so helpful to others.
(Just for completeness & question answering:
As to your questions in #72 I do not see a Scripturally provable answer – I have my suspicions but I will rest no belief on them as I cannot prove it (and I recognize when I can’t prove something).
I am glad that you realize that you can’t prove something, but it is very, very sad to realize that you choose to believe something that you can’t prove from the Scriptures as truth.
However, they are ultimately immaterial to the case in point. Let us presume that I and Abraham etc. did not exist in “eternity past” – it is irrelevant to the pre-existence of the Bibles clear teaching that Jesus, who is the Christ, pre-existed as I have pointed out above.)
It is not immaterial at all. The Bible NEVER says that the Christ is in existence as a spirit. NEVER!! Show me the Scripture that speaks of Christ as existing in the past rather than a prophetic word about the man who will come at the incarnation. Your faith in the unprovable makes you highly questionable to be teaching anybody anything about Christ’s relationship with the husband. Seriously, I would recommend that you get help because you are a worth while person to receive correction.
I am going to put you on moderation now because I have to get back to my study. I am preparing for an interview that we will shoot that will be a part of our next DVD and I need to get my questions ready. If I let your comments go through right now I won’t get my work done and we leave early tomorrow. I am putting you on moderation not because I don’t like you. I do like you and I think you are a very intelligent brother in Christ. But your error cannot go unchallenged so I am giving myself the necessary breathing room. Fair enough? So go ahead and post what you want. I will let the posts go through when I am in a position to respond. Thanks!
pinklight
2011-07-18
I remember now that when I first learned of the complementarian view I had also learned of a hierarchal view of the Trinity from the same complementarian.
pinklight
2011-07-19
Lydia,
I really appreciate what you have said @79, 80 & 81. I completely agree.
pinklight
2011-07-22
It’s one thing to not live up to the commandment, but it’s another thing to teach people to break it.
pinklight
2011-07-25
Authority first, wives second. That’s hierarchy!
Cheryl Schatz
2011-08-05
Oh and Daniel 9:25 is another clear prophecy about the coming Messiah. But what about calling God in eternity “the Christ”? It never happened.
Waneta Dawn
2011-08-06
★
Pinklight (102),
“‘They also break the first of the 10 commandments: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Compism is men’s shrine to themselves, and they bow down to the god of husband authority…’
So that I understand what you are saying here on this point, could you elaborate?”
(sorry for the delay in answering. Life has been a zoo around here!) Actually, you answer the question quite well yourself! But it may be helpful to go into more detail for those who have not given this much thought.
Any person, place or thing that is more important to us than God, becomes a god to us–a god that we are placing ahead of the triune God Almighty. There are many scriptures that tell us what behaviors indicate a true love for God. As you mentioned, treating others as we would like to be treated is one, laying down our lives for others is another, love is not self-seeking, it is not proud and does not consider itself superior, it genuinely seeks the best FOR OTHERS instead of the best for ourselves. (in spite of the comp denial of husband superiority in their teaching, the dictionary meaning makes it clear that authority includes superiority, or “ascendency.” So the comps are claiming that husbands and wives are equal, but with different roles. The husband has the role of superiority, and the wife has the role of inferior second-fiddle. Their denial is all semanics.) When we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, there will be no room for other gods. Because God is love and His influence on us causes His love to infill us as well and also to flow out to others, we will love others and will not seek to be preeminent.
Both the husband authority teaching, and many of the husbands who practice husband authority insist on husband preeminence over their wives. Although some claim the “job” of final decision-maker is not one they want to do, those who beat the husband-authority drum DO want that final say-so. Furthermore, the teaching tells wives to only give their view once and at the most twice, and then to shut up. Wives are not just talked to, preached to, advised to, but they are also pressured to take the lesser, the second fiddle position, and even to push their husbands into the preeminent position. Yet, the Bible tells us only GOD is to have the preeminent position. Pushing husbands into the preeminent position, when it is against so many scriptures, puts husbands ahead of God. Comp husbands are insisting on taking God’s place in their wives’ lives, as well as in their own. Because enforcing their authority is more important to them, they don’t have to be kind, loving, gentle, peaceable, forgiving, good, or patient with their wives, but the wives MUST show all these evidences of the Fruit of the Spirit. By ignoring the scriptures they don’t want to obey, excusing or explaining away other passages–like claiming Ephesians 5:21 “Submitting one to another in the fear of God,” means some submitting more than others–they have indeed put themselves above God Almighty. They have imposed their own bias upon God’s Word, and made themselves and their own desires superior to God’s Word.
“Compism is men’s shrine to themselves, and they bow down to the god of husband authority…'”
In other words, they have put their own teaching above scripture, and the whole complementarian doctrine is aimed at keeping themselves in the king/god position, even while they deny this is so. Any scripture they can twist to bolster husband-authority, they teach with frequency and fervency. They’ve established an entire group, Christians for Biblical manhood and womanhood, to pressure others to elevate men and husbands. Any scripture that would show their husband-authority teaching to be false they ignore or explain away. They’ve even twisted their teaching on the trinity to resemble their husband-authority doctrine, in spite of the fact that the trinity involves a 3rd “member” and therefore is a poor symbol for a 2-person relationship, even if the Father did expect subjection from the Word who became His Son, which there is no indication that The Father did, except when the Word became flesh. Their misuse of the trinity would suggest a dominant husband with 2 second-fiddle wives.
Indeed, the discussion about Christ always being submissive to the Father is being used to argue for wives always being subject and secondary to their husbands. And that is why they are so adamant that Christ was always Christ and always secondary to the Father, even though the Bible says that The Word’s subjection has to do with the incarnation.
These male complementarian teachers are not ignorant, they are twisting scripture purposely. (That is a VERY difficult charge for me to make! Everything in me wants to believe this is not so, but the evidence says otherwise.) They are college educated, and have many resources at their disposal. Yet a very brief look at a concordance by someone with no divinity degree makes it clear they don’t have a leg to stand on. Most of the OT uses of the word “God” refers to a plural God, including Genesis 1:26 “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” So the plural God, the triune God, apparently in unison said “Let us make man in our image.” Genesis indicates the triune God was 100% submitted one to another! The Father was just as submitted to the Holy Spirit and to the Word as those 2 were submitted to the Father. Genesis 1:26 is not God the Father telling the rest of the trinity what to do, nor is it God the Son or God the Holy Spirit making a meek suggestion to the dominant Father.
Similar to how Nebuchadnezzar defended his statue, commanded everyone to bow down to the statue, and punished those who did not, the male complementarians are defending, commanding, and punishing in support of their god. Only in this case, their god is themselves. And they claim a large portion of society’s ills are the direct result of both men and women who refuse to bow down to the men’s shrine of husband-authority. If husbands just made sure that wives made themselves into their husbands’ personal whores, did everything their husbands want, effaced themselves and made sure the families revolve around the wishes of the husbands and made the husbands the centerpin, the top dog, the kingpin of the family, then families would stay intact, husbands would be loving, children would have their priorities straight, and generation after generation would be decent God-fearing people.
But how can we end up with a God-fearing people, when the heavy focus has been to teach wives and children to be man-husband-father fearing people? The depravity in our society comes from centuries of elevating males above God, and teaching, pressuring others to do the same. Yet God says we are to fear Him, not man.
Wow! I wasn’t expecting to end with that conclusion! But it’s as if more of the puzzle has snapped into place in my mind. 2 concepts that I thought were unrelated are actually very related, and our “fatherless,” man-fearing society is caused by doctrine that elevates males-husbands above God.
gengwall
2011-08-22
BTW – they closed comments in that article. Looks like A. Amos was making the salsa too hot to handle.
A. Amos Love
2011-08-23
Hi Kristen
How did you get on this blog? Didn’t we connected over at Baptist Women?
pinklight
2011-08-24
Amos
<3 #120 Nice post
pinklight
2011-08-24
@120
Listen…
KR is Kristen…
A. Amos Love
2011-09-05
Kristen
You might want to check out this site.
They wrote an interesting post on “The Salsa.”
*Salsa Dancing Our Way to Complementarianism*
http://thewartburgwatch.com/2011/09/01/salsa-dancing-our-way-to-complementarianism/
Kristen
2011-09-07
Amos, thanks for that link. A very good post!
pinklight
2012-01-04
“…but I believe that each appearance of Jesus in the…was there at Adam’s creation.”
I’MMM INTERESTED IN MORE!!! 😀
A. Amos Love
2012-01-05
Cheryl
Good stuff. 😉 😉
gengwall
2012-01-05
Hugh Ross discusses the extra-dimensional movements of God from a scientific perspective in his books “The Creator and the Cosmos” and “Beyond the Cosmos”.
pinklight
2012-01-05
Awesome. Thanks Cheryl 🙂
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