Mark

Cheryl,

First i want to agree with something you said. I agree that for a person to submit it is a voluntary action. This is why Eph 5 is so crucial. I as a husband do not ‘demand’ my wife to submit. In her walk with Jesus she believes she is told to submit to me her husband. It is something God requires of her not me. So i agree that submission is a voluntary act.
However, why do you assume therefore that authority cannot exist? Why is it, that you actually contradict the meaning of this verb? Just saying it is a voluntary action is nothing spectacularly enilightening. You have jumped from voluntary to therefore not under authority, which is a complete reversal of it’s use in the Bible.

do you believe Church leaders have authority over you? Do they force you to obey and punish you as you describe?

The problem again seems to be that authority equals ‘demands’ or ‘forcing’ something in your view. You are using words that overstate both what comp teaches and what submission means. You need to show me how submitting voluntarily therefore means that authority is irrelevant since this seems to be the crux of your argument. Please stay away from words (all egals) like tyranny, force, demands, abuse, etc etc. It’s simply evidence to me that you are trying to criminalise the comp position to say stuff it isn’t. Ironic how egalitarians do the same things they accuse many comps of doing. I guess that’s the nature of debates though, right?

I’ve run outta time…