Susanna Krizo

Dave, I merely wanted to see if you had an insight into an arrangement that I did not. I.e. it cannot be tyranny (one always making the decisions), therefore it must be democracy (making decisions together as a team).

Mark, you wrote: “To me, you must either reject that marriage is a reflection of the ‘true’ marriage, or reject that Christ has authority over his church to accept an egal system on Eph 5. I’m not willing to do either since i believe both options are unbiblical.”

I dare you to read Eph 5 without reading authority into the text. I dare you to read the whole entire Bible without reading authority into the text when it is not explicitly mentioned. Will you accept my dare, or will you go on thinking you got it right? Don’t forget that God does not share his “Godlikeness” with humans, i.e. what God has and is because he is God, is not for humans to take. Either you agree that God has attributes that only he can have, or you make the make the man also divine in that he, but not the woman, can have God-like attributes. But consider also this: does the church not have authority? Did Christ not share his authority with the church? Are we not called the co-workers of God? Are we not able to perform the same as did Christ on earth? Why do you only make the man to be like “Christ” when it was the mission of Christ to make all of us like himself? Paul wrote that all of us ought to imitate Christ. How does it differ when it comes to women? You see the relationship between Christ and the church only in terms of authority-obedience, which is based on the false translations of hypotasso and kephale.

As a last note let me leave you with this:
Two cannot have authority over each other at the same time, but they can both oppose each other.
Two cannot obey each other at the same time, but they can draw near to each other.
If the first mentioned does not fit Eph 5.21 because it is impossible, perhaps the latter does, since it is possible. Incidentally, I did a search through the early church writings today and I found that the latter was precisely what they wrote: We should not oppose each other, or God, but to draw near and remain near. This is the biblical definition of Eph 5.21.