Cheryl Schatz

Okay, back to answering Mark from #56,

Again it is not helpful to criticise pastors or churches who attempt to give some instruction on this issue. We must not import our 21st century society back into the Bible and demand answers as we wish. It is not a flaw in the comp position, in as much as it is not a flaw in the egal pos. Neither can offer direct biblical teaching on the issue.

I think that it is valid to criticize pastors and churches who create rules that are not based in the Bible. When single women are instructed to find a church leader to take the position of “head” while she is single, this is going beyond the Scripture.

The issue again is whether a woman needs a man to be in authority over her? If she needs this, then a single woman would have to be looking for someone to take authority over her and to make her decisions when there is disagreement. But the Scripture never assigns a head/body relationship for a single woman. She is never told that she needs to find a “head”. She is never instructed to be under the authority of a man or that she has a need of an authority. Rather it is said that she has freedom to serve the Lord as she is. When complementarians go beyond the Scripture to carry on the myth that women need an authority, they actually harm women who can become convinced that they are not to seek for maturity, but to seek for a man as authority.

as to your 3 examples in your thread, be careful not to confuse submit with service. Again here are the two definitions.

Serve- “perform duties or services for”

Submit-“accept or yield to a superior force or stronger person”>

First of all the definition I was giving for submit was to submit to the other person’s need. While service is a way to submit to the other person’s need, it goes beyond service. They are not the exact same thing.

Now you give the meaning of submit as yielding to a superior force or stronger person, but while submit can mean this it doesn’t always imply force or strength of the other person.

In the English this come through by meaning #7 from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/submit

7. to defer to another’s judgment, opinion, decision, etc

To defer to someone’s opinion doesn’t mean that they are a stronger person or have a superior force. It implies willing submission to another’s opinion. When you leave out the full range of definitions you are trying to stack the deck on your side. That doesn’t come across as very fair to hide meanings that are even in the English but which are not consistent with your own view. I think it is far better to consider the full evidence and not be afraid to see things outside of our own viewpoint.

So when a husband goes and buys milk, is he serving or submitting?

He is submitting to his wife’s need. In the process of submitting to her need, he is serving her. Service is a vital part of submission but service does not deny submission.

This is the fundamental difference, and egalitarians should stop confusing the two (or combining the two).

Under the definition of service:

the serving of god by obedience, piety, etc.: voluntary service.

Here we can see that voluntary submission can also be called voluntary service. While submission goes beyond service, it certainly is the same as service in many areas thus our submission to God can be called our voluntary service. When the comps ignore the connection of the two, they appear to deny that a man is also to give service to his wife when clearly service is attached to submission.

Okay I have to run now and will be back as I am able.