Kristen

NN said:
“You are saying that Paul’s instructions in Ephesians to husbands and wives should actually be read as “wives submit to your husbands if they are a christian” – since you claim Paul is talking about only about christian-christian relationships.”
Honestly, NN, it’s getting frustrating that you tell me what I just said, and it isn’t what I said at all.
Paul is talking to Christian husbands and Christians wives. He tells them that within the assumed societal structure of male authority, there is mutual submission among Christians. Paul tells the wives to go ahead and submit to their (Christian) husbands. He tells the husbands what their “submission” (he just used that word to ALL CHRISTIANS) in v. 21) should look like– that as Christ was in the high position and came down low in submission to glorify his Bride, so should they. He is not saying “only submit to your husbands if they are Christians” because he is not addressing the issue of non-believers at all– Peter does that, but Paul is talking about what things should look like if you are “in Christ.” Obviously some women in Ephesus were married to unbelievers, and some husbands in Ephesus were married to unbelievers. Since the Epistles were circulated throughout the churches, the Christians in Ephesus would also at some point have heard Peter’s letter, which addresses the issue specifically. But a woman in Ephesus who was married to an unbeliever would still hear that she is to submit to her husband “as unto the Lord” — not meaning “as if he was your Lord” (that would be heresy and idolatry), but that she should consider her submission to him to be submission to the Lord. But her unbelieving husband, not being present at the reading of the letter, would not hear Paul’s instructions to lay down his privilege for his wife. Paul’s instruction could still carry her through, though, because the advice to wives in either case is the same– submit.
In both cases, wives are under cultural authority structures which include husbandly rule. But in Ephesians, Paul is focusing on the fact that “in Christ,” submission should be mutual. Husbands are told to emulate Christ in submission, not to emulate Christ in authority.
So– if both Peter and Paul assume social authority structures, and counsel Christians on how to live within those social structures rather than rebelling against them– does that mean that we, living now under social structures that look a lot more like what Paul said Kingdom living was all about (equality for servants who are no longer owned by their masters, government by rulers who no longer consider themselves divinely above those they lead, and equal empowerment for husbands and wives), should go back to first-century marital authority structures, as though Paul and Peter were commanding them instead of assuming them?