teknomom

If Adam is any example, the man should be the last person to be given authority over anyone. 😉

As for the writings of Paul, why would there have been need to give even more authority to husbands when it was taken for granted in that society? It was during a time when the way of the world and even Israel was for husbands to lord over their wives. Yet he only used the word for authority when he spoke of both husbands and wives regarding each other’s body, and when he tackled the issue of women having authority/power over their own heads in regards to head covering traditions. So he gave wives more authority than they had ever had before.

Yet more importantly, neither Jesus nor Paul taught hierarchy among believers at all, and in fact taught against it explicitly. So rather than ask why husbands are not given authority over wives, we should ask why no believer is given authority over another believer in any capacity.

And of course the answer is that Christianity is never supposed to be about authority and hierarchy, but service and love among equals. For Paul to ignore Jesus’ overturning of worldly authority and his own statements about mutual submission by making an exception in marriage alone would be utter nonsense and self-contradictory.

What could possibly motivate people to want hierarchy in the church or the home– and even in the Trinity? Why do they always try to make a military or business model the assumed divine order, instead of friendship or family? How can it not be the sin of pride to want to lord over another believer?