gengwall

Mark said “3. Whenever we have to change the meanings of words to fit our theology, that rings alarm bells for me.”

Your beef is with Paul, not me. He is the one who is radically changing the way submission and headship was culturally (even today) perceived.

“I dont think men are the bosses of women. Eph 5 doesn’t support that at all- indeed men are the head in my opinion.”

This is just symantical gymnastics. Bosses have and exercise authority. The “head” of a department or company is the boss of the people below him/her. Youbelieve the head of the marriage has authority over his wife. That makes him the boss. Conversely, if you believe that the man is not the boss of his wife, then he has no real authority over her. There is a simple way to solve this. If you give your wife an order, is she required to follow it (assuming it has no sin compnent to it). If so, you have authority over her and are essentially her boss. If not, then you have no authority over her and your headship is, at best, in title only.

Now, you will, I’m sure (and I hope), claim that you would never “boss” your wife around like that. I would hope you would say that would not be an expression of the Christ like love you are to have for her. I would agree. But then where is your authority as head? If the absense of the exercise of authority is what marks headship, then the head, acting properly, has no real authority. If the excersie of headship authority is antithetical to living out Christ-like headship, then authority itself can not coexist with the concept of “head” as Paul is using it.

“5.Although Christ did sacrifice himself for His bride etc, he is still Lord and has authority. Therefore i see the husband as acting like Chrsit and still having authority. Therefore an abuse of that authority is un-Christlike.”

As Cheryl has pointed out, Christ’s exercise of authority in the head/body passages is never directed at the church, but is for the benefit of the church. The object of Christ’s authority is always the powers, rulers, and principalities of the world, never the church. So I would take your premise as false – Christ does not, in the marriage context, have authority over his bride…unless, of course, you take a traditional view of submission. If submit always means “obey”, then yes, you could believe that Christ is the boss of His bride. But Ephesians 5:21 shows us that submit does not always mean obey. And that non-obedience type of submission is the type wives are to show husbands “in like manner” in verse 22. And Ephesians 6:1 and 6:5 show us that Paul certainly knew how to say “obey” if he had wnated to. But he didn’t. Wives are never, ever, called to obey their husbands in NT teaching. If that is the case, then what real authority do the husbands have? And if Christ and the church are a model for husbands and wives, then there is not authority in the Christ-head/Church-body marriage context.

And that is what egalitarian marriage is – a partnership where neither party has authority over the other. It is the true one-flesh relationship outlined in Genesis 2. In the egalitarian marriage, the “two heads are better than one” axiom holds true. Neither partner has universal or unilateral decision making (or task fulfilling) authority or responsibility. Instead. each acts in proportion to their giftedness to benefit the whole – just like the church body does. That doesn’t at all mean that each person does an equal share of each task and that each decision has to be unanimous. Egalitarian partners defer to their spouse in matters that their spouse is better equiped, gifted, or experienced to handle. But the deference goes both ways.

I know in your marriage that your wife “makes the call” on some things. She must because it would be impossible for you to decide everything from buying a house to which melon to buy at the grocery store. So I ask you – as head, is she submitting to you “in all things” if she makes some unilateral decisions? In fact, is she submitting to you “in all things”, “as onto the Lord”, if she expresses her opinion? After all, it would be presumptuous for us, the church, to offer an opinion to the Lord on how the universe should be run, right? Isn’t it presumtuous for her to even have an opinion about how the mini universe of your family runs if you are the “lord” of your house and she is to submit to you as the church does onto Christ? If any of this makes you uncomfortable (I sure hope that it would), then you must think to yourself: “maybe I am not understanding Paul precisely when he is talking about Christ and the Church”. After, all, even Paul says it’s a mystery in Ephesians 5:32 (and other places). Maybe, just maybe, Paul is defying convention (imagine that) and teaching us that submission and headship look and feel completely different in a Christ centered marriage than they do out in the unChrist-like world.