Zwagmeister

Cheryl

great stuff. clear and well presented. thanks.

the way ‘head’ is traditionally connected with authority and men over (all) women simply cannot (as you have demonstrated) be proven from scripture.

i found Sarah Sumner’s comments (Men and Women in the Church, p 159-164) on Ephesians 5:21-33 to be helpful in getting my hmind round some of these issues. This is the other passage where the husband is also described as head of the wife and this relationship is likened to Christ and his church (also described in other places as Christ, the groom and his Bride)… clearly a ‘marriage’ analogy. not ‘all’ men in authority over ‘all’ women. Sumner highlights that there are 3 distinct couplets presented in the passage, but all too often these have been mixed up and the true message twisted.

Although the ‘pairs’ match up as below in the text:

Wife: Husband:

To be subject to husband To sacrifice himself
for his wife

Is the body of her husband The head of his wife

To see that she respects To love his wife as her husband himself

Often the ‘submission’ of the wife is falsely ‘connected’ to the headship of the husband. This is not what the passage teaches. the subjection or submission of the wife is ‘paralleled’ to the husbands selfless sacrificing for his wife! we must be very careful not to twist things and make them say what they do not!

There is nothing about authority in Eph 5, just as there is nothing about authority (other than a woman’s own authority over her own physcial head) in 1 cor 11:2-16. Rather, the ONENESS and perfect unity (which i believe is how we are to mirror the unity of the trinity through the bond of marriage) is the point of the passage – Eph 5:31. i believe that 1 Cor 11 passage also stresses the importance of unity b/w men and women (husbands and wives)stressing that everything comes from GOD and even as the first woman came from the first man, so after that, all men have come from women! (1 Cor 11:12) It amazes me that people use verses 3-10 to somehow claim that men have a special leadership calling over women, but seem to ‘ignore’ verses 11-12 which turn such a claim on its head!

God please help us to understand and implement practically the beautiful God-intended unity and balance in our male-female relationships designed at the point of humanity’s creation but lost at the Fall! After all, we are the ‘Redeemed’, right, so our relationships must be redeemed too!

(-:
kerryn