Head Coverings (1 Corinthians 11:3)
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.
Wives and Husbands (Ephesians 5:22–33)
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.
Rules for Christian Households (Colossians 3:18–19)
18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.
Kephale (Greek word) that is translated into English as head.
It can mean depending on the context
1. authority
2. source
Hupotasso (Greek word) that is translated into English as submit
It is clear from the Biblical record exactly how the roles of men and women are to be adjudicated in the Church as well as the Home. It is not remotely ambiguous, nor is it in the slightest unclear. It is unpopular to be clear, but no fair-minded person can genuinely claim it is muddied. My angst is not the rejection of the secular society due to their radical and eager embrace of egalitarianism (belief there are no distinction between the roles of men & women) but with the Evangelical capitulation to the radical feminism agenda being foisted upon the Body of Christ.
This is a straight inside job. This is not to be the case of the thief breaking in and subduing the strong man. This is the strong man naively inviting the thief into his home and embracing the thief as an honored guest. The “honored guest” becomes so entrenched into the family dynamics that he eventually begins to dominate the home and eventually comes to set the agenda. The thief becomes the de facto home of the household.
It is astonishing how many Evangelical men are leading the exodus of Evangelicals embracing Women Preachers and Pastors. It is even being discussed among many prominent Evangelicals that Beth Moore be strongly considered as the next President of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The moment that were ever to happen then one of two things will immediately take place. Either my church will immediately, publicly and decisively withdraws from the SBC or I will immediately, publicly and decisively withdraw my membership.
I personally know of far too many compromised leaders who have embraced and endorsed the ordination of Women. This is gross affront to the clear teaching of Holy Scriptures. This is why I am so keen to postulate that Doctrine does Matter & Ideas do have Consequences. The Church is governed far too much on emotive feeling and sentimentality while the Bible teaches the Evangelicals are supposed to derive their worldview from what thus sayeth the Word of God. We begin and end with “what does God say.” What God says binds the conscience and is to be found exclusively and solely in the Word of God, not in vain human philosophy. Hence, Evangelicals embrace without hesitation or reservation the principle of Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone)!
It is appalling the reasoning behind the clear rejection of the Household passages contained in the Holy Writ. You should note whenever the Bible speaks to the ordering of the Home or the Church it always begins with the female. As I mentioned in the previous Blog Post this harkens back to Genesis 3:16:
To the woman he said,
“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary toyour husband, but he shall rule over you” [emphasis mine].
Regardless of how you interpret the B clause of the Genesis 3:16 passage there is a clear conflict that would arise between man and woman that was not part of the original interaction with Adam and Eve. Though apparently short-lived, Adam and Eve lived in absolute tranquility of the Sexes immediately after Creation but before Fall. Yet, after the Fall a Divine Curse was placed within the relationship. I take the dominant Reformed view that Genesis 3:16 teaches that women would attempt to subvert male headship. Thus, the purpose of the Redemption from the Curse of the Fall was Women are now liberated to forego their sin-incited quest for equality as leaders but to willingly and eagerly embrace their God assigned role of Biblical submission. The key word being, of course, willingly.
Here is where the ravaging effects of feminism reeks its havoc, both in the Church and in the Home. Feminism is the abhorrent, pagan worldview which beguiles it adherents to believe Women are capable of doing anything a Man can do which is logically irrational and practically insane. Let me explain:
Hilary Rodman Clinton, while campaigning for the Presidency of the United States in 2016, was attempting to rally the troops and mobilize her Female base. She actually said the following at one of her rallies, “Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat.” You see, when you adopt pagan, secular based reasoning you can become the candidate of a major political party and comeperilously close to assuming the top office in the land yet spout pure nonsense. You are able to be counted amongst the Elite of Society and espouse rubberish like this.
I trust you are quickly able to identify the fallacy of Clinton’s logic. The person who is the primary victim of combat loss would be the men who actually lost their life, would it not? Yet, when people are allowed to deny basic reasoning then what is up can be determined to be down, what is left can be called right. Consequently, we can decide our own way, instead of allowing the Word of God to inform and control our thinking.
Many in the Evangelical Church are guilty of the same malfeasance. We claim fidelity to the Word of God but in practicality far too many imbibe at the well of secular reasoning. We posit there is no difference between the Sexes, yet the Bible and sound reasoning negates that erroneous worldview perpetuated by the Adversary. Do you naively believe the Serpent just randomly chose Eve to tempt and not Adam? This is not misogynistic reasoning or from an overly patriarchal way of thinking. This is grounded in a proper Biblical Anthropology (Doctrine of Man). There is something profoundly different between men and women.
Men are never called to submit to women just as the God, the Father is never seen or to be understood as submitting to God, the Son. The head of the wife is the husband just as God, the Father is the Head of Christ and these are not elliptical constructs, meaning they possess no opposite correspondence. Due to the Father’s authority He is understood to send the Son, yet although both are equal in Essence the Son never sends the Father. The Father always assume the top posture when the Trinity discusses responsibility, called in theological terms as the Economical Trinity.
Thus, if there is ever to be tranquility in society (as much as one could expect tranquility in a fallen world) the first order of business will always be the submission of the Female. Please remember, God has instituted three and only three institutions for human flourishing: the family, the Church and Human Government. Please, also note, the Doctrine of Subsidiary advocates any enterprise will always be most successful at the smallest level, with in this case that unit being the Family.
You have strong families, you get strong communities, you have strong communities then that invariably mean you will have strong Churches. You have strong Churches, of any and all faiths; but, of course, especially of the Evangelical faith, then you would naturally and necessarily expect our Government to be one what one could every reasonably expect in a fallen world to ever aspire, absent the rule of Jesus Christ personally on the throne.
Male and female He created them (Genesis 5:2; Mark 10:6). Both Males and Females were given the mandate to rule and subdue the Earth. Yet, anything and I emphasize any friggin thing with two heads is a monster. The Father and the Son are not equals in function, thus the Male and the Female are not equals in function. Does that offend your sensibilities? Is your natural reaction to immediately and reflectively posit, “Yes, but” then you are part of the problem? Plain and simple!
Plain and simple because what I posit about the relationship between men and women is based on exactly what we see transpiring eternally within the Godhead. Don’t miss that. God, the Son has been eternally the Only Begotten Son, the Second Person of the Trinity. He has been eternally subordinate to God, the Father, and it has eternally been a most glorious union, beyond our human comprehension.
Yet, we allow radical feminists and weak-kneed men to convince us that the Apostle Paul wrote from a patriarchal-influenced bias (please note they rarely make this same charge against Jesus Christ, so they resort to attacking the Apostle Paul when the Apostle Paul said nothing inconsistent with the message of Jesus Christ). Some radical feminists actually accuse the Apostle Paul of being misogynistic and Evangelicals are either not brave enough or erudite enough to easily refute such rubberish.
Once we find the Aposle Paul word’s canonized in Holy Scriptures then although Paul wrote according to his own free agency his words actually become the words he was carried along by the Third Person of the Trinity to write. Hence Paul words are, in fact, the veritable words from God Himself. It is literally God speaking to usm so to attack Paul as he writes under the superintendent of God is to attack God Himself.
Every word I have written is in 100% fidelity to the Word of God. It is not a faulty reading of an out of use connection to principles from the Old Testament. The passages that began this article come straight from the New Testament, particularly the Epistles. It is from the Epistles that Evangelicals derive their explicit instructions how to live out their Evangelical faith. It is here Evangelicals receive our didactic (teaching) instruction for proper orthopraxy (proper actions). Orthopraxy always follows orthodoxy (right beliefs).
Yet, I know this will not be a sermon that can or will be preached in many households, tragically, even in many professing Evangelical households. There will not be many amens or yelps of affirmations. I am well acquainted with many of the vain attempts by radical feminists and compromised males to rebuff the clear Complementarian (Biblical position that espouse the roles and function for men and women are not the same) teachings of the Holy Writ. Here are a few:
(1 Timothy 2:12-14)
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.
Common Objection 1) 1 Timothy 2:12-14 is based on cultural customs and thus not timeless
Response: Complete Rubberish! The Apostle Paul grounds his reasoning on the Fall, clearly indicating it is a timeless principle and not based on a cultural context (see verse 13)
Common Objection 2) 1 Timothy 2:12-14 is grounded on the fact the women in Ephesus were poorly educated. Hence, once women are properly educated then women are not restricted in the same fashion
Response: See respond #1
(1 Corinthians 11:3)
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.
Comment Objection: the Greek word for head is kephale. Kephale can either mean source or authority. Egalitarians (there are no distinctions in the roles of men and women) posit it means source while Complementarians (there are distinctions in the roles of men and women) maintain the correct meaning is authority.
Response: Context is King! Context is always KING! If the correct rendering of kephale is source then the passage must be understood as “But I want you to understand that the head of everyman is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.”
Problem: If you adopt this exegetical approach then you have just postulated that Jesus Christ was created by God the Father. You have just turned Christianity upon its head! C’mon, Evangelicals, we have to be better than this. The Bible is not mines or yours to use as a waxed nose. It is not what passages we like, orwhat passages we dislike! It is what does the passage say and what does it mean by what it says.
Ephesians 5:20-21
20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ (emphasis mine).
Common Objection: This passage is proffered to refute the claim that husbands are never to submit to their wives. There are cases when it will be wholly appropriate for a husband to submit to his wife.
Response #1: Again, the command to submit is never elliptical. Which is to say, there are no corresponding opposites. The Father has never submitted and will never submit to the Son. The Son has eternally been submissive to the Father. The Spirit has been eternally submissive to the both the Father and to the Son.
Response #2: Prior to verse 22 most readers will note in their Bible a subscription of some sort. The ESV has Husband and Wives, the NASB has Marriage Like Christ and the Church, while the NKJV has Marriage—Christ and the Church. What the translators are attempting to do for the reader is indicate a change in the author’s treatise is being raised. They understand the writer to be changing the direction of his argument. That is exactly what the translators understand the Apostle Paul to be doing. In the preceding material the Apostle Paul was making reference to issues that pertain to the entire body but in verse 22 he shifts his attention to the Home, specifically the household codes he makes repeated references to in other letters he wrote, like in Colossians 3:18.
So, in a corporate sense, all believers are expected to submit to one another in a general context for the good of the Body but even that truth does not negate the authority of the Pastor/Elder/Bishop over the local Body. It is speaking to those very generalized times in Body Life where the entire Body is assembled, and everyone has an opportunity to provide input.
It is much like when a Father calls the entire family together to discuss a family matter and everyone is invited to weigh in, to include the children. This at no time infers the children are, properly speaking, equal in authority to the parents. They have a derived position of equality, never an inherent position of equality. The inherent positions are always held by the parents, led by the Father and supported by the Mother in her role as helpmeet.
It is tragic much of what I have posited is considered taboo or not to be discussed in polite circles. I have been in Bible sSudies where Men openly joke about not being comfortable voicing these beliefs to their wives. I remember vividly a past pastor indicating to me “I bet you won’t voice that to my wife.” I confess I lost a wee bit of respect for him, right then and there.
There are too many spineless men, purportedly leading their families with Biblical convictin and there are far too many females who naively embrace the tenets of feminism, assuming too much influence in the Evangelical Church today. Do you agree? If you disagree then share with me where you believe I have misapplied or misinterpreted the Scriptures I have referenced.
As always much more can be said but like all things this Blog Post must come to an end. I have a date with Miss Bronx. It is just she and I at home for the weekend and I promised her a nice walk through the neighborhood. Let me know what you think. Until then Keep your Hands to the Plow and Seek to Serve for an Audience of One!