Cheryl Schatz

Back to your paper, Mark.

2. ‘kephale- as I’m sure we are all aware we disagree on this word. If we take this to mean ‘source’ we naturally have to read the passage as man-woman relationships, not husband and wife? After all the husband is not the source of his wife.

If you didn’t pick this one up, the source of the woman is one man, her husband. The source issue in verse 8 is about the origin of man and woman (Adam and Eve).

To understand this as ‘source’ one must only be able to then understand it in relation to Christ’s incarnation; otherwise we fall into the heretical trap of seeing Jesus as a created being.

But “Christ” is only “Christ” from His incarnation. “Christ” is the term for the time that He took on flesh. “Christ” as the fleshly man had a beginning but the Word who became flesh did not have a beginning. So the source of Christ (who had a beginning in the flesh) is God.

And since there is nothing else in this text dealing with Christ’s incarnation it seems unlikely.

It is not unlikely at all since “Christ” is the man. The eternal God in the person of the LORD of hosts was never called “Christ” except in prophesy. Because Paul says that the “head” of Christ is God and not the “head” of The Word is God, we can be sure that this is talking about the incarnation.

But I do not think this supports the ‘source’ hypothesis over hierarchy, rather it gives ‘source’ as the basis for the authoritative teaching.

There is nothing in this passage that divides up teaching as “authoritative” and “non authoritative”. We are all given authority to speak in God’s name by the gifts that He has given us (1 Peter 4:11). I find it quite amazing that you add in things that are completely missing in the passage and we want us to accept that your additions are authoritative. Is this kind of like the “narrators” in the Old Testament that you say added things into the OT?

Before Paul addresses the present pastoral problem in Corinth

Apparently another “narrator” addition. Paul didn’t say there was a “pastoral” problem.

He is using this hierarchy to bolster his pastoral problem, namely the issue between the husbands/wives.

Paul doesn’t say that the issue is a “pastoral” problem. Rather he wants to give them the understanding of the Christian traditions that he has established. While Paul has forbidden men from wearing a head covering while praying and prophesying, Paul is now giving the reason for the prohibition. They followed his traditions, but now Paul says, he wants them to understand why.

But none the less what does Paul mean by “God (the Father) is the head of Christ”. This language is consistent with the Father and Son language used by Jesus and the rest of the New Testament.

Nowhere else is God said to be the “head” of Christ so we cannot know what Paul means until we understand the connection between the three sets of “heads”. The connection is origins and that is clear in verse 8.

These words imply what early theologians called the ‘eternal generation’ of the Son. The Son is and always will be equal in ‘homoousios’ (same substance). Yet he was and always will be under the headship of the Father (John 17, 1 Cor 15:24-28).

This simply is not true. If “head” means authority over, then what authority does the Father exercise over the Son when the Father turns everything over to the Son and the Son not only has “all” authority, but only the Son judges?

Yet later, in love, as a conquering Son, Jesus turns everything over to the Father. But this final submission of the human Son is not so that He can be eternally in a submission relationship, but so that God will be all in all. Before that the Son was acting as the Supreme and after the Son gives everything over to the Father, the divisions that we so readily see are no longer seen. God will be seen only eternally as One. All in all. Jesus never loses His kingdom or His rule. His rule becomes One with the entire Trinity.