Kristen

I answered #239 – finding fault with NN’s assertions that Paul’s teaching tells the husband and the wife different things, and these differences have to be either “purely prosaic” or “only cultural,” or “a universal part of the created order,” as follows:
“NN– the principles of the Scriptures are timeless. But there are cultural assumptions being made all the time by the writers and original readers of the text, who shared understandings that we lack. The question is not, “are the instructions only cultural?” but “how would these instructions have been understood in their original culture?” I maintain that these instructions, in their original culture, would have been seen as instructions to husbands to lower themselves from the elevated position their culture gave them, and to raise their wives up as full equals in Christ.”
The reason the apostle makes no reference to a particular culture is that the cultural norms were assumed by the apostle and his readers. If I tell a friend who lives across town that I’m coming over to her house, I don’t need to mention I’ll be driving my car. She and I both already assume this. Someone in a later century, who doesn’t understand our culture, might think that because I didn’t mention a car, it means I walked. But such an assumption would be erroneous, based on not understanding what my friend and I take for granted.
Male authority over the female was assumed by Paul and his readers– but should that assumption be considered part of the timeless, universal truth he was conveying? Or do we, as modern readers, need to take the assumption into account so that we’ll understand what Paul’s readers would have understood?
If male authority in the culture is taken as assumed, then the different things Paul told men and women make sense in that culture as changes to that state of affairs. Kenneth Bailey says in Jesus through Middle-Eastern Eyes, “An innovator in any age must deal with tradition. Some things are omitted. Some things are endorsed and left unchanged. Still others are revised through the introduction of new elements.” (p. 107) Paul’s writings do NOT show the endorsing of the traditional idea of marriage in that age by leaving it unchanged. Instead, he takes the traditional view of marriage and OMITS what would have been the expected, direct instruction regarding husbandly authority — speaking instead of the husband’s role as nurturer and provider for the wife. Then he REVISES the traditional view of marriage through the introduction of the concepts of mutual submission and husbandly emulation of Christ (not in taking authority over the church, but in laying down His high privilege and giving Himself up for her).
In other words, there is a fourth choice that NN overlooked– the idea that differences in Paul’s instructions are not to be disregarded as “only cultural,” but ARE to be read in terms of what they meant in that culture, before we try to apply them to our own.