This post is picking up my response to this article.
The next section of the author’s article raises the question of married women being ordained. Honestly, the argument he makes is muddled and confusing, so I will simply try to deal with the texts that he cites.
He begins with Ephesians 5, again quoting only a small portion of a greater argument. The over-arching theme of Ephesians is that the Gentile readers must stop living like the pagans and must begin to walk into a new and “more Jewish” kind of faith. The Gentiles, who were formerly considered as outsiders, we “brought near” and made insiders through Christ (ch. 2). Paul stands on their behalf to offer them acceptance into this new community of faith (ch. 3), but they must be diligent to preserve its unity (ch. 4). In their new lives, they must be sure to imitate God, to avoid their former ways and to practice submission in every respect. For Paul, this starts in the smallest unit, the family. In essence, Paul is demanding that this take place in every place in their lives, especially with those they spend the most time with. And Paul describes the family in the terms that all people of that culture would have been familiar with. But simply because Paul uses the normal family structure does not mean it is the only appropriate family structure. More than that, we ought to operate in our own family structures as they are in a way in which submission is lived out in every relationship. Too often this passage is quoted as a paradigm for familial normalcy, and neglected as instruction to submit to all people as a regular practice of Christian living.
The next example is from 1 Timothy 3. Again, one faces the difficulty of language and cultural understandings that were common to Paul, but are not authoritative simply on the basis of inference. The author of 1 Timothy describes a worthy leader as a “husband of one wife.” Rather than understanding that the elder ought to be someone faithful and responsible, the author of this article declares that it must necessarily be a man.
The problem with the article’s discussion of both of these passages is that it breezes by Paul’s actual instruction and dwells on the aspects of lesser importance. Rather than understanding the teaching to be driven at the heart of Christianity in a person’s humility and faithfulness, the gender is over-emphasized leaving the real meat of the letters undigested. The author takes the passages so literally that he actually misses the actual instruction!
The next section of the article covers the appropriate nature of women speaking in church gatherings. Here the article leaps clearly over the most obvious explanation, which it had discredited early on (for almost no good reason). In a society where women sat on a lower social rung of the social ladder and the unity of the church was to be diligently kept, of course women would not be allowed to instruct men. It would have defeated the purpose of maintaining unity. Men would have been offended and put off. What I wonder most is why the author of 1 Timothy, especially if it was Paul, needed to include this instruction. Timothy was very close to Paul, knowing his heart and his ministry. Shouldn’t Timothy have known the patriarchal structure that Paul always seemed to abide by? Or perhaps Paul’s message included in it some sort of teaching that seemed to make men and women equals, and thus the confusion about their role in the church emerged. It seems to me that the most obvious answer is that the author was dealing with a cultural issue that arose initially because of the equalizing power of the gospel.
In case you missed the first post, check it here:
The Role of Women, Part I
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6 comments:
I have a hard time seeing the Ephesians 5 passage as Paul simply affirming the culture of that day and age. NO Greek husbands would have been willing to die for their wives in sacrificial ways. Wives were worth about as much as the heirs they could produce. It seems to me that especially on this side of that equation that Paul is being counter-cultural and laying down rules for a "new humanity" (chap. 4:22-24). I think this is something the egalitarian position overlooks.
The logical consequences of trying to make this section as only culturally-limited is that you have to be consistent. It's not fair to say that husbands should still love their wives but that wives no longer need to respect their husbands. Imagine men using this as an excuse to beat their wives because loving them is "only a cultural pattern appropriate to the first century."
Go to chapter 6, now children are free to disobey their parents, because in Greek times children weren't important, but now we know that children have certain rights and our new structure allows children to have equal voice with their parents in family decision-making. I don't think any egalitarian actually would push for this, but I'm simply following the trajectory hermeneutic being employed here. I'm not sure what you mean by "familial normalcy", but a family of husband, wife, and children seems to be the design from the beginning. What other "normal families" are appropriate now?
The response I sense coming is that more general principles of "love one another" would prevent the husband from beating his wife under such "hermeneutics." If, however, the other roles no longer apply, how then are wives to treat their husbands? If Ephesian 5-6 is no longer an appropriate family grid, what do you replace it with?
I think it is a gross over-reaction to read my words and hear "Paul is only referring to the cultural family of that time everybody; it's okay. Throw all the instruction out the wisdom." By pointing out that Paul illustrates his point with the family as it normally operated in those days by no means implies that we ought to throw out love, respect and submission that are so intrinsic in Paul's gospel.
That being said, I wish to re-emphasize that I don't want to throw out Paul's teaching here, but preserve it. Is he really spelling out how God wants the family to operate for the rest of human history? Or is Paul emphasizing the need for submission in every Christian relationship? Perhaps Paul is being "counter-cultural" and giving new instructions to husbands, or perhaps he is using the existing system even if there might be some "modifications" (this is what I mean by "familial norms). Is the over-arching message then of the passage that the family system must always look thus and so in this particular hierarchical order? Or rather that Christians ought to "be subject one to another in the fear of Christ"?
And I truly do wonder how much verse 32 affects our interpretation. What does Paul mean when he points out that he speaks in reference to the church and to Christ? Is this family illustrating Christ's love? Is Paul digressing into his Christology in the midst of his advice to husbands? Either way, what is it doing here, particularly as it is followed by disjunctive that seems to take him BACK to the topic of the family order?
Do I think that such a reading of the Ephesians passage necessarily means that Paul's model is obsolete? By no means. Do I have a system to replace Paul's with? Heavens no. In fact, it seems to me that many of these systems have already developed in our society. Women have been taught to claim equality. Men have not been reared in a society that demanded their leadership (or much else from them). The issue is not what the family should look like, but instead what it already looks like. I'm tired of hearing sermons that promote the agendas of men at the expense of women. You mention that a man might beat his wife if we ignore the teaching here. But what if we follow it to the extreme? He might beat her to "teach" her submission, to "express his love" (an idea that most abused women cling to as it is).
Men in our society are not necessarily always the best suited to lead. Why does the church read a text that is obviously culturally influenced (note I am NOT saying that is culturally specific and obsolete in any other context) and enforce it as a norm without considering the cost?
And I will restate my comment from the first post in this series: What if the family grid has already changed? What will affect God's rule the most? To adapt to a new world, holding tightly to the principles behind the writings of a man who could not even begin to fathom our world (much as we struggle to understand his), or to stubbornly shake our heads, stamp our feet and insist on the "way it was"?
So Paul was not simply affirming the culture of their day and age, but rather using it as an illustrative starting point. As such, it was culturally specific. After all, what other system did Paul know?
One aspect I think that needs to be pointed out, is that if we examine the Pastorals, it seems as if the women at Ephesus were especially susceptible to false teaching, especially the young widows. This may have bearing on Paul's note about Eve being the first to be deceived.
Also, in regards to Ephesians, the family structure of the day was much broader than our nuclear family understanding. It would have included perhaps grandparents and slaves/indentured workers. The household structure was analogous to the early house churches, that may be why Paul is so insistent in proper familiar relationships because they directly related to Christian community relationships.
I don't know if this helps or not, but these are some thoughts as I read through the post.
I think that's a very good point, Dr. Victor. And it goes along with what I was implying, which is Paul is not primarily teaching here about what the family should look like as much as how the Christian should live.
yea, i probably was overreacting...
you're right that Ephesians 5 is certainly not a battleground text for the discussion of women in ministry (regardless of where one will land on that topic). It is about the role of the Spirit working itself out in a new humanity.
I think my reaction was more about making sure that we don't strip away the application of God's Word from exegesis in an unhealthy manner. it is easy to say, "o that's their culture", but we also should be careful to then take the step of saying "how does that look like in our culture today then?" Your opponent obviously skipped the introductory cultural analysis of the Biblical text, but I wanted to make sure that we don't skip the point of saying, "How then shall we obey God's Word?"
therefore, I'm sorry if i sort of took a tangent off your original thing. i've been a bit on edge because of some misreadings of scripture going around in my church and i was probably just ready to argue.
it should be said, I do think that the family order finds its root in creation and in the very Trinity itself, and therefore much of what is said is meant to be trans-cultural. I think where culture comes in is saying "What does it look like for husbands to love (what are culturally appropriate ways of communicating his love, showing it, etc.)?" rather than "should he love". I think the same would go for the respect issue.
your point about paul's emphasis on the Christian life versus the family life is correct, but if Paul is saying that this is what Christians should look like in a family, then how exactly is that entirely different than saying "this is what a Christian family should look like"? Perhaps there is more overlap.
good thoughts. have fun. lots of love. (Sorry if I gave you a sermon that was probably meant for somebody else)
Dude, you've got the words. I DIDN'T KNOW YOU HAD A BLOG TILL TODAY. I'll e-mail you soon about my blog. Pease.
Adam
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