Mark

Dave,

Concede what point? Surely you don’t want to say that what a wife is told to submit to is ‘fortune’, or ‘condition or process’. Which one of these definition makes any sense of the context of Eph 5, since what we are actually dealing with in Ephesians is relationships not conditions or fortunes.

You have stated that you believe that authority existed in that culture, so why the big fight against me. Do we not agree on this point, that a wife is told to submit to her husband’s authority. Where we differ is whether the authority is God-given and temporal.

So be as it may you either must conceed on one point. You cannot say that authority is in view, but then say that it is reciprocal. Either Paul is rejecting that authority is in view, or what egalitarians define as reciprocal is not true.

This is why i get so confused. You say husbands had authority over their wives in that culture, yet you then proceed to convince me that Paul’s command to submit is non-authoritative and mutual. So is Paul calling the wives to submit to their husbands authority in that culture, but it doesn’t apply to us, or is Paul re-inventing what the verb submit means?

P.S My Oxford does not say what yours’ does, so either mine is older or newer than yours

P.P.S Is mutual submission in view in 1 Peter 3, when the husband is a non-believer?