Kristen

Mark said,
“What everyone failed to mention (especially Kristen in her thread) was that wives are told to submit as the Church does to Christ. So does submit give any indication that auhtority exists. As far as i know, all lexicons say yes.”
In posts 35 and 36 of this thread, Sue referred you back to BDAG and said that in the case of Clement, “submit” meant “mutual” and therefore did not mean “to authority.”
The mere presence of the word “submit” does not imply authority– I have not seen an adequate refutation of Sue’s points, or evidence that BDAG does not say what she says it does in reference to Clement, or that Clement did not mean “submit to your [equal] neighbor” when that is what he said.
Also, Ephesians 5:21 still says “submit to one another,” and in the next thread Cheryl shows that “one another” always means mutuality.
If I leave out “wives submit to your husbands,” therefore, it’s because I don’t believe it means husbands hold God-ordained authority over wives. That Paul and his readers assumed cultural authority, I do not dispute. That mutual submission was intended by Paul as the way beyond mere cultural authority, to equality in Christ, seems quite clear to me.