Addressing Common Concerns (Part 1)
Notes
Transcript
Question:
Why is the issue of male and female roles so important?
We’re not just talking about what guys and girls do in terms of hobbies or general behavior differences,
but also about what it means to be a man or a woman.
It’s important to understand this from a biblical perspective
because confusion about gender can lead to a lot of problems, like:
(1) marriages that don’t reflect the relationship between Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:31–32);
(2) parents not teaching boys to be godly men and girls to be godly women;
(3) more people feeling confused about their sexual identity and trying to justify same-sex relationships;
and (4) women leading in ways that don’t match up with biblical teachings about gender.
Electric Bread-Knife Illustration
God created men and women to complement each other,
and that’s something really special (Genesis 2:23).
Sadly, this idea is often ignored and is disappearing,
kind of like rain forests that we need but don’t appreciate.
The Bible shows us that understanding human sexuality is essential for living the way God intended for us,
helping us stay holy, happy, and fulfilling our mission in the world.
Question:
Where does the Bible teach that only men should be pastors/elders in the church?
11 Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15 Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.
34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. 35 If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. 36 Or was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached?
1 Corinthians 11:2–16 (ESV)
2 Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. 3 But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. 4 Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head,
5 but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. 6 For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. 7 For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.
8 For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10 That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. 11 Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; 12 for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.
13 Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14 Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, 15 but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. 16 If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.
Question:
What does the Bible mean by “submission?”
Submission refers to a wife’s divine calling to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts. It is not an absolute surrender of her will.
Christ is her absolute authority, not the husband.
She submits “out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21).
The supreme authority of Christ qualifies the authority of her husband.
“She should never follow her husband into sin. Nevertheless, even when she may have to stand with Christ against the sinful will of her husband (e.g., 1 Peter 3:1, where she does not yield to her husband’s unbelief), she can still have a spiritof submission—a disposition to yield.”
“She can show by her attitude and behavior that she does not like resisting his will and that she longs for him to forsake sin and lead in righteousness so that her disposition to honor him as head can again produce harmony.”
Example: Husband and wife where the wife wanted to stay at our church but the husband wanted to leave.
Example: pastor friend AND myself who had a man leave his church because his wife/soon to be fiancee wouldn’t go there.
“Peace in the home.”
Question:
What does the Bible mean when it says the husband is the “head of the home?
In the home, biblical headship is the husband’s divine calling to take primary responsibility for Christlike leadership, protection, and provision.
21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.
Wives are to be:
5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
The pattern of male leadership in the home is not random, but because it was apart of God’s original design.
And yet today, feminism teaches that this is because of the evil patriarchy.
Feminism represents the relationship between men and women as one of conflict,
With men using their power to subjugate women and cruelly rule over them.
After the fall, God called Adam to account first (Genesis 3:9).
This was not because the woman bore no responsibility for sin,
but because the man bore primary responsibility for life in the garden—including sin.
Question:
Does headship mean that the husband is to make unilateral decisions?
No.
In a good marriage, leadership consists mainly in taking responsibility to establish a pattern of interaction that honors both husband and wife.
Headship bears the primary responsibility for the moral design and planning in the home, but the development of that design and plan will include the wife (who may be wiser and more intelligent).
Question:
But won’t all this talk of headship & submission simple enable abuse?
No.
No. First, because we stress Christlike, sacrificial headship that keeps the good of the wife in view and regards her as a joint heir of the grace of life (1 Peter 3:7) and we stress thoughtful submission that does not make the husband an absolute lord.
Secondly, we believe in church membership where all men must live in submission to their church’s pastors.
17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
So I know we’ve said this before,
But if a husband refuses to live in submission why on earth should he expect his wife to unto him?
And the church is her appeal.
Question:
But Paul says husbands and wives are to live in “mutual submission” to each other. Doesn’t that negate biblical complimentarianism?
No.
We live in submission to one other, but the way we do so looks differently.
For example, egalitarians never seem to argue that living in mutual submission means that 5 year old Johnny get’s just as much a say in what they are having for dinner that night, or what kind of car to buy.
But they try to do so with the relationship between husband and wife,
because of feminism.
Ephesians 5-6 addresses:
Husbands and wives
Masters and servants
Parents and children.
And the submission looks differently depending upon if you’re in the headship role,
or the submissive role.
Question:
Some scholars argue that “head” means “source” - doesn’t that completely undue the argument for male headship within the home?
No.
Not only is that a bad translation of the Greek,
But it completely ignores the picture that Paul had in his mind.
For example:
What is a head is connected to?
A body.
And as Genesis 2 and Ephesians 5 tells us,
A husband and wife become “one flesh” - or one body.
in which the husband is the head of.
Paul goes on to say in verses 28–30:
28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body.
“Paul carries through the image of Christ the Head and the church His body. Christ nourishes and cherishes the church because we are limbs of His body. So the husband is like a head to his wife, so that when he nourishes and cherishes her, he is really nourishing and cherishing himself, as the head who is “one flesh” with this body.”
“Now, if head means “source,” what is the husband the source of? What does the body get from the head? It gets nourishment (that’s mentioned in verse 29). And we can understand that, because the mouth is in the head, and nourishment comes through the mouth to the body. But that’s not all the body gets from the head. It gets guidance, because the eyes are in the head. And it gets alertness and protection, because the ears are in the head.”
“In other words if the husband as head is one flesh with his wife—his body—and if he is therefore a source of guidance, food, and alertness, then the natural conclusion is that the head—the husband—has a primary responsibility for leadership, provision, and protection. So even if you give head the meaning “source,” the most natural interpretation of these verses is that husbands are called by God to take primary responsibility for Christlike servant-leadership, protection, and provision in the home, and wives are called to honor and affirm their husbands’ leadership and help carry it through according to their gifts.”
Question:
If the husband is to treat his wife as Christ does the church, does that mean he should govern all the details of her life and that she should clear all her actions with him?
No - don’t overstretch Paul’s analogy.
Unlike Christ, husbands sin and are not perfect in their wisdom.
A husband is a very tiny version of what Christ is for the church.
“He does not merely act asChrist, he also acts for Christ. At this point he must not be Christ to his wife, lest he be a traitor to Christ. He must lead in such a way that his wife is encouraged to depend on Christ and not on him. Practically, that rules out belittling supervision and demanding oversight.”
Question:
Aren’t the biblical passages merely examples of temporary compromise with the patriarchal status quo?
OK, on one hand, the Scripture does regulate bad situations from become BADDER.
8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
And Paul regulated how Christians should handle lawsuits against one another - even though the best thing is for that to never happen.
Same with masters and slaves.
16 no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.
So it is possible that what the Bible teaches about husbands as the head is just that sort of thing?
No.
Here’s why:
God instituted the the different roles at creation before any problems in society messed things up.
The Bible’s message about redemption doesn’t aim to get rid of leadership and submission;
it’s meant to transform these roles back to their original purpose as God intended.
The Bible doesn’t criticize loving leadership or encourage people to abandon it.
So, it’s not right to say the Bible is mostly about equality, with just a few old texts about patriarchy.
The idea that the Bible opposes headship only appears when people misinterpret its message of redemption as a reason to undermine these roles.
And the reality is, if it’s not wrong for Christ to submit to the Father, then that show us that there is such a thing as godly submission.
Question
But what about the liberating way Jesus treated women? Doesn’t He explode our hierarchical traditions and open the way for women to be given access to all ministry roles?
On one hand,
Jesus’ ministry changes how we should treat one another, especially since we all sin.
Everything Jesus did challenged the pride that causes people to look down on each other.
He called for humility and love,
which should remove selfishness from leadership and the idea of being a doormat from submission.
He put man’s lustful look in the category of adultery and threatened it with hell (Matthew 5:28–29).
He condemned how casually some treated divorce (Matthew 19:8) and reminded us that we will be held accountable for every careless word we say (Matthew 12:36).
He taught us to treat others the way we want to be treated (Matthew 7:12).
He even told the proud religious leaders that sinners would enter God’s kingdom before them (Matthew 21:31).
Jesus interacted with women,
taught them,
and they were the first to witness His resurrection.
He challenged social customs that belittle or harm anyone, saying, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3).
But, where does Jesus say or do anything that criticizes the order of creation in which men bear a primary responsibility to lead, protect, and sustain?
Nothing He did calls this good order into question.
It simply does not follow to say that since women ministered to Jesus and learned from Jesus and ran to tell the disciples that Jesus was risen,
this must mean that Jesus opposed the loving headship of husbands
or the limitation of eldership to spiritual men.
And another thing: Of the 12 disciples, how many were women?
Why would that be the case if Jesus came to undue male headship?
Instead, Jesus radically purged leadership of pride and fear and self-exaltation
and that He also radically honored women as persons worthy of the highest respect under God.
Question:
But Priscilla taught Apollos didn’t she (Acts 18:26)? And she is even mentioned before her husband Aquila.
Doesn’t that show that the practice of the early church did not exclude women from the teaching office of the church?
It is true that Priscilla definitely was as a key partner with Paul in spreading the message of Christ (Romans 16:3)
She and her husband had a big impact on the church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 16:19) and in Ephesus, too.
And there are many women in our churches today who remind us of Priscilla.
But, the Bible doesn’t say that a wife must stay quiet when she and her husband talk to someone who doesn’t believe (or is confused).
Also, when it comes to how men and women should interact in these situations isn’t just a simple list of rules about what they can and can’t say.
It’s about honoring Aquila’s role as the husband while still valuing Priscilla’s wisdom and perspective.
There’s nothing in the text that contradicts this understanding of their interactions.
We can’t claim to know exactly how Priscilla, Aquila, and Apollos related to one another,
but a feminist interpretation that says Priscilla should be able to hold an official teaching position based on this situation is an extremely weak argument.
Some will say that it puts her name first in the order because she was a leader - but that’s mere speculation.
Luke very well could have listed her name first to honor her (1 Peter 3:7)
or for another reason we don’t know.
Claiming that Priscilla represents women’s authority in teaching in the New Testament is a risky assumption that some evangelical feminists make,
but just because they do this doesn’t mean it’s a strong argument against traditional gender roles.