Cheryl Schatz

Craig,
I value your questions and I think that others do as well. The difference between you and some others who come here is that you appear to be genuinely interested in seeing both sides and you ask questions to understand and not to condemn. Thank you for your patience with us all as we too work through these passages. Others come here to push us with questions that appear to many of us as “traps” meant to trip us up and gain the upper hand as if we are all so foolish to ever believe that men and women are spiritually equal and equal rulers of the world. When we carefully and respectfully answer questions and challenges many of the challengers will either move on or ignore the answers to mock us in other ways. Sometimes it gets tiring because we are doing our best to live as Christ wants us to live in love for the body no matter how they believe on these secondary matters, but the unloving responses and sometimes downright mockery that we get back sometime wears on us. I personally have been attacked and my name smeared because I would dare to produce DVDs on women in ministry when I should know that my place is to “be silent”. I consider it a honor to suffer for doing what I have been called to do, but honestly it stings and downright hurts when the mockery is coming from those who should be our brothers in Christ and who are also called to love those who do not believe as they do on this secondary issue. So if I or anyone else here gets a little testy at times (and I try really hard to lead out with a good example of grace under pressure but I too am human) it is because our patience is worn thin at times and we are waiting for our next infusion of grace ourselves so that we can continue to love those who disagree with us.

Now most here know that I have resisted dealing with the Scriptures on marriage because it is not a direct connection to women in ministry. However even though I resisted for a long period of time, I felt the gentle push of the Lord Jesus to go where I didn’t want to, hence the last few posts on my blog about women and submission and there will likely be a few more posts that will cover this issue. I think that if it is important to the Lord that we understand these passages and if He wants it done here as is apparent to me, then my resistance needs to go. Gengwall knows all about that resistance because he has tried to push me a number of times. So, Craig, know that I too am working through these issues myself.

My reason for thinking that “head” in “head over all things” (Eph 1:22) was not the anatomical head of the metaphor is because if “all things” means “all things of this world” I have never seen an anatomical head attached to that!

Count me in too! That’s how I see it. I understand that the body of Christ is also in the verse but “head over all things” doesn’t appear to apply to the “body” since what Christ is head over is not said to be the church in that instance and what is put under Christ is also put under our feet since we are His feet too as part of the body. I noticed that the Scripture didn’t say that “all things” were put under Christ’s head but put under His feet. I think that this makes a big difference. If all things were put under His “head”, then all things would be His body but that isn’t so. And if “head” were used as if it meant authority, then we should expect that all things would be placed under His head(ship). Instead we find that all things are placed under His feet. There is a big difference between our English meaning and the meaning in Greek when it comes to a metaphorical meaning of “head”.

I really appreciate Suzanne’s scholarship and her language skills that allows her to read and search through other the use in the term kephale in classical and Hellenistic Greek. Here is her latest blog post on kephale as authority http://powerscourt.blogspot.com/2010/06/not-slam-dunk.html Suzanne as usual does a great job in showing that the meaning of “authority” is not listed as “head” in the classical Greek lexicons.

More to come when I am awake enough. I am going back to bed. 🙂