Mike Winger Video 2.2 (Genesis 2)

1. My walk through Mike Winger's videos on women in ministry and leadership continues. He spends over an hour in his second video on Genesis 2. He goes through a lot of small arguments that various people make here and there. He seems especially to engage two resources.

First, I am glad that he has continued his dialog with Philip Payne. It seems to me he argues with him over small points. I went to those points in Payne's book and didn't get the same feel as you get from his video. I didn't disagree with Winger on most of his points in relation to these small points. There are so many arguments that have been made by so many people on both sides -- some are stronger than others.

The other source he engages significantly in this video is Two Views on Women in Ministry in the Zondervan Counterpoints series. It features Tom Schreiner and Craig Blomberg on the complementarian side and Linda Bellvue and Craig Keener (Asbury professor) on the egalitarian side.

You may be surprised to know that I agree with a great deal of what Winger says about the details of Genesis 2. In fact, he reminded me of some of the same reactions I had to various ideas in seminary. At Asbury, Don Joy was particularly fond of the suggestion that the initial 'adam of Genesis 2 might have been androgynous -- both male and female. I thought this was funny then. Joy had asked the Bible faculty at Asbury about the concept before he published his book Bonding. They told him they didn't see it, but he published it anyway.

I would say, though, that I don't think it's as outrageous as it might seem. I just don't think it's the right interpretation.

2. I do want to get to some key points of disagreement, though, before getting into minutia. Fairly early on in the video, he says that both complementarians and egalitarians both agree on the centrality of Genesis 2 for the debate. Let me say as an odd duck that I have never really felt this way. In my booklet, Why Wesleyans Favor Women in Ministry (2004), I didn't mention Genesis at all. I do mention it in my more recent, A Biblical Argument for Women in Ministry and Leadership because it is part of the debate, but it has never been the central part of the debate for me.

Why? Two reasons.

The first is something that I discussed in one of two posts I made in preparation for this one. We are in a phase of biblical studies and biblical theology that is characterized by what I have called "flatness." For most, it is a "pre-modern" or "pre-reflective" perspective. That is to say, it is based on a deficient understanding of how to read the books of the Bible in context.

I may actually be more annoyed at the prevalence of these "narrative" readings among post-liberals for whom it is a postmodern reading. These narrative readers deliberately minimize contextual readings in favor of reading the Bible as a single story. I am perfectly fine with this as long as you acknowledge that you are reading the Bible out of context to do so. 

The pre-modern reads the Bible as one book from God to us without awareness of context. But the post-liberal to a large extent ignores historical difference. For some, it's a matter of principle even. In my Who Decides What the Bible Means? I set out as legitimate 1) original meaning interpretations, 2) orthodox-consensus readings of Scripture, 3) church-community readings of Scripture, and 4) individual spiritual readings of Scripture -- the key being that the Holy Spirit is directing these readings.

3. But if we construct a biblical theology, it is clear that a Christian reading of Scripture must privilege New Testament conclusions on Old Testament issues over the original meaning of the Old Testament. [At this point, a number of evangelical Old Testament scholars break out in hives.]

For example, there is nothing in Leviticus to suggest that animal sacrifices (or the temple) will ever stop being offered. In this regard, Hebrews provides the authoritative perspective on those sacrifices. They were illustrations of the one effective sacrifice of Christ. Similarly, circumcision is the assumption of the Old Testament. But Paul tells the Galatians they will have fallen from grace if they get circumcised.

Finally, as I show in the previous post I mentioned, the New Testament has distinct interpretations of Old Testament passages that go well beyond what those passages meant originally. For example, we would not get the impression that Lot was greatly distressed about the sins of Sodom from Genesis, but 2 Peter 2:7-8 portray him as a righteous man vexed by the sins of the city. We can take 2 Peter to be making an inspired point through Lot without thereby changing our inductive interpretation of Genesis 19.

What are you getting at Ken? What I am getting at is that I am most concerned with what the New Testament has to say about men and women more than with what Genesis 2 by itself says. This is not because Genesis 2 isn't significant. It is because Christian theology prioritizes New Testament revelation as more complete and more precise. 

(Mind you -- I know I am creating challenges for myself hereby. Winger already mentions in this video that 1 Timothy 2:13 uses the order of Adam and Eve's creation to support 2:12. I will defer that discussion for later.) 

Let me illustrate this principle of NT privilege. Colossians 2:16 tells the Gentile Colossians to stand their ground about anyone who condemns them because they do not keep the Jewish Sabbath. Romans 14:5 similarly tells the Romans to decide as a matter of their own conscience whether they will consider one day above another -- a clear allusion to the Jewish Sabbath. In short, Paul did not consider the Jewish Sabbath to be binding on Gentile believers. For him, it was a matter of personal conviction for them.

Now this is a straightforward observation, in my opinion. But it causes all matter of hives for the Flatlanders. "But, but, but." One person said to me once, "But the Sabbath goes back to creation!" (Gen. 2:3). "I know," I responded. "Isn't it crazy? Paul doesn't care."

4. So what does Genesis 2 say? Here let me invoke two posts I did recently in my Science and Scripture series, one of which mentioned different approaches to Genesis 2-3 in that regard and the second of which did some preparatory work on questions of genre. I'll leave the New Testament use of Genesis 2-3 for later in Winger's series.

First, Genesis 2-3 in context was an expression of the messed up state of the world. That is its point. I argued in the second post just mentioned that a comparison of Genesis 1-2 suggests that these are not to be taken as rigid history but as more "archetypal" -- expressing fundamental things. The reason is because Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 present a different order of creation. This doesn't mean one is wrong. It means that we are wrong to expect them to be literal presentations. They are doing something more profound. They aren't exactly poetry, but what they are doing is as "poetic" as it is literal, in my opinion.

The later of the two creation presentations, Genesis 1, puts male and female together as co-regents of the earth with no fall mentioned.

The second presentation in Genesis 2-3 culminates in three expressions of the state of the world. Men work hard to get the soil to yield its fruit. Both men and women will die even though God had intended for them to eat from the Tree of Life and live forever. Women will have painful childbearing and they will find themselves dominated by their husbands. And of course there are consequences for snakes too.

This is the point of Genesis 2-3. These chapters express the fallen situation of humanity. They are "etiological." They answer the questions, "Why do men have to work so hard on the land?" "Why do people die?" "Why do women have such painful childbirth?" "Why are women dominated by men?" (And why don't people and snakes get along?) [1]

In the process, the point of Genesis 2 is to picture the world before it was this way. As I have argued, it is probably not a video tape. If it were meant as a videotape, it would contradict the order of Genesis 1. Rather, it expresses that 1) men did not have to work hard before the Fall, 2) women did not have a painful life before the Fall, with their husbands dominating them and, of much less importance, 3) snakes and humans weren't on such bad terms before the Fall. 

For this reason, if there is hierarchy in Genesis 2, it is not the point. Indeed, the point is the harmony of Adam and Eve before the Fall, their peaceful cooperation. Their co-regency. The point of the way it is presented is the oneness and unity of Adam and Eve before the Fall -- the one fleshness of them and the distinction of them from the animals -- not Adam's authority over Eve. That almost goes against the point.

Shocker -- I am willing to say that there could be a light assumption of Adam's primacy in the way Creation 2 is presented. What I am saying is that, not only is that not the point. I am saying that to emphasize it is to miss the point of the story, which is the harmony of the two prior to their act of disobedience. 

In such a thoroughly patriarchal world, how might you present a pre-Fall situation that did not have man and woman at each other's throats? That is what Genesis 2 is about. It is the structure of the ancient world without the conflict, struggle, and bitterness. It is God meeting them in their assumptions and moving them from there. It gave an idyllic picture that was the opposite of dominance.

But God wants to do more!

5. So the street warfare that Winger engages in is all fine and good. I agree with him on almost every minute point of interpretation. But, at the risk of playing into his hands, I believe that this is a spiritual struggle. There are women who know they are called. There are men who know women are called. Some of the interpretations of some can be a little "creative," shall we say. (And Winger fully acknowledges that there are some crazy complementarian interpretations out there too.) 

But is because they see the trajectory of Scripture. They see the whole council of God. One of the problems with fundamentalism, in my opinion, is that it can get so involved with the verse-by-verse street warfare that it misses the Spirit of Scripture. It misses the big point because it is arguing about some detail of the letter. This is what the Princeton Calvinists did with slavery in the mid-1800s.

This is not putting experience above the Bible. Interpreting and applying the Bible is a complicated thing -- look at how many thousands of interpretations and applications there are out there. A little guidance from the Holy Spirit seems in order. Indeed, Bible technicians, "letteralists," can be dangerous because they can miss the heart of Scripture while focusing on the details (cf. Matt. 23:23-24).  

[1] I have no problem seeing the snake as Satan, but this was not part of the original meaning of Genesis 3. Not only is Satan not mentioned, but the understanding of Satan does not seem to have come into play until after this time -- later in the post-exilic period. It is not until the first century BC that any surviving Jewish writing equates the snake with Satan.

Mike Winger Video 2.1: Genesis 1:26-27 and Co-Dominion

Recently, I started wading through Mike Winger's 13 hour series on women in ministry and complementarianism. In this post, I start with the first 20 minutes of his second video. His second video is over 2 hours long and discusses Genesis 1-3. I'll start with what he says about Genesis 1.
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1. Winger's analysis of Genesis 1:26-27 is correct. The Hebrew אָדָם ('adam) in these verses is generic and refers to humankind in general -- not to males in particular (a mistake Mark Driscoll once made). God creates humanity in his image, in his likeness. Male and female he creates them. He gives male and female dominion over the earth.

Winger seems quite keen to make sure his friends know that, even though he sounds egalitarian, he's not done yet. But he is emphatic that both men and women are equal in value and dignity. This is key to his presentation of complementarianism -- the roles may be different but the value is the same. 

I commend him on considering men and women of equal value. As Peter told the Gentiles, "God does not show favoritism" (Acts 10:34). The Holy Spirit fell equally on men and women on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:17). God doesn't love men more than women. Whatever Galatians 3:28 means, surely it at least implies that.

2. Winger wants to sharply distinguish complementarians from earlier "patriarchalism," where the man was considered superior in value to the woman. In straight patriarchalism, the woman is effectively inferior to the man in value. Complementarianism considers women "equal but different." Again, I want to commend the way complementarianism wants to consider men and women equal in value. 

From a sociological perspective, complementarianism is a fairly recent development -- younger than egalitarianism in fact. The idea of complementarianism in this form arose in the late 70s and 80s by individuals like Wayne Grudem and John Piper. I commend those with this view for recognizing that valuing men over women violates Scripture in places like Genesis 1.

I also agree with those who see it as a fall back position -- it conceeds as much as it must while preserving as much of the human status quo as it can. You might argue that it is simply a passible version of the earlier patriarchy. We know we can't love our wives and treat them as beneath us. So we say we love them just as much as we love men but insist that it's just the rules that keep them in a box.

In his first video, Winger implies that it is a slippery slope fallacy to assume complementarianism always devolves into abuse. I agree logically. However, this doesn't mean that complementarianism does not have a structure that practically is more conducive to abuse than egalitarianism. It raises the stakes on getting this question right.

3. Before we get to Genesis 2, I want to talk a little hermeneutics groundwork myself. In the circles where we debate these things, the Bible is usually interpreted in a very "flat" way. That is to say, the discussion is two dimensional -- it takes place in the "world within the text," within the literary context. Similarly, the whole Bible is treated more or less as a single text, not dozens of texts written over a 1000 year period. In other places, I call this an unreflective reading of the Bible. 

The third dimension of Scripture is the "world behind the text." This is not simply historical references -- most still think of those from inside the text. Reading the Bible in full context sees the books of the Bible themselves in history on a deep level. We can see Scripture as the story of God revealing himself to many different people in different places in different times, situations, and different cultures -- and thus in different ways.

Here's what I think. I'll leave out the 35 years of development for me to get here. Genesis 1 is an introduction to the Pentateuch. It is later than Genesis 2-3 by several hundred years. It is really even different in genre from Genesis 2-3. It's doing something different from Genesis 2-3.

Genesis 2-3 are part of an epic story of Israel's founding. Genesis 1 grounds that story (and Israel's religious practices) in God's sovereignty over the earth. Given the world of that day, Genesis 1 is quite remarkable. God alone orders the chaos of the world -- there is no conflict between him and other gods. He says it, and it is done.

And men and women are both given dominion over the earth. They are both created in God's image. As Winger says, Genesis 1 does not distinguish their value or dignity. This is quite remarkable, and it grounds the entire Pentateuch, including Genesis 2-3.

We will return to this deeper hermeneutical discussion as we move into Genesis 2-3.

4. I am pleased that Winger at least sees Genesis 1 as giving women dominion over everything except men. This is his complementarianism. For him, there is an order of authority in the home but it does not limit women in any way in relation to anything else. Women have dominion over trees like men. Women have authority over fish. Women have dominion over animals like men. They can cook beef and pig. Whew. This is the level of discussion we are at in American Christianity. Let that sink in.

He does address Titus 2:5, which says that wives should be "working at home" and "submissive to their own husbands" in the ESV. I ironically heard a very conservative woman preacher once point out the word "at" here from the pulpit, arguing that God's ideal was for a woman to stay at home. This was a quite remarkable moment of inner conflict for her no doubt.

I knew enough Greek at the time to see that the word at is not actually in the Greek. "working at home" is a single word in Greek (oikourgos). Her whole point was a coincidence of English translation. I suppose there's one small argument for knowing how to access the original languages.

We will get to Titus and the household codes in Colossians/Ephesians/1 Peter soon enough. Suffice it to say, their basic structure is completely in line with the culture of Paul's day. Their structure aligns completely with Aristotle in his Politics. In short, there is nothing distinctively Christian about them in their form. It was when early Christianity pushed against the culture of its day that it was revealing core Christian principles and values.

Titus 2:5 was thus depicting what an honorable woman looked like in that day. It is not transforming culture. It is not moving culture toward heaven or the kingdom of God. It was saying, "What does a virtuous woman look like in the late first century?" It was accommodating culture. 

How deeply ironic is that! Applying the household codes literally tries to make a secular culture today -- which has been shaped by Judeo-Christian values -- to conform to the secular Greco-Roman culture of 2000 years ago.

Winger's interpretation of this verse in Titus is that it is about fulfilling the responsibilities of the home rather than staying at home. He shows that in Luke 8:2-3, women supported Jesus' traveling ministry -- which means they weren't staying at home. That's a good point on his part.

I hate that we're even having questions like these. How much time can a woman spend outside the house? This sort of crap sure helps our witness. Not. I get why some women are sick of the church. Some of us can't even recognize the Christian influence on our own culture and want to return to the weak and beggardly elements of fallen human culture.

Annual Women in Ministry post

About once every year, I make a post here supporting women in ministry and/or egalitarianism. Here is this year's post.

1. Adam and Eve were made with complete equality in the beginning.

• "Let us make humankind in our image. In the image of God he created humanity, male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:27).
• "Helper" (2:20) does not imply subordination (e.g., Ps. 54:4).

2. Subordination is a consequence of the fall in Genesis 3:16, not a consequence of the creation.

3. Nevertheless, God uses women in the Old Testament in the highest political and spiritual roles, even though it is less common.

• Deborah--the highest leader in all of Israel both spiritually and politically (Judg. 4:4, 8)
• Huldah--a higher spiritual authority with greater spiritual insight than the high priest of Israel (2 Kings 22:14-20)

4. Jesus elevated women in his ministry above their default level and role in the culture of that day.

• Matthew 1 elevates women in the genealogy of Jesus.
• Elizabeth and Mary are given atypical attention for that culture in the story of Jesus birth in Luke 1-2. Luke in general pays a lot of attention to the role women played in the gospel story--this would have been striking to an ancient reader.
• Luke mentions that wealthy women provided for Jesus and his male disciples as they traveled (8:3).
• The names of the twelve vary some. The choice of twelve men fits the patriarchal culture. His women disciples were there too in the mix (cf. Acts 1:14).
• But Jesus did not appear first to a man but to Mary Magdalene (John 21:11-18). And women were the first witnesses to the resurrection, in a sense making them the first apostles (Matt. 28:5-10).

5. The Day of Pentecost brings the Holy Spirit, the great equalizer.

• A sign of the new covenant and the new age is that sons and daughters will prophesy. Of course, because the Holy Spirit fills them both equally (Acts 2:17).
• "In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; there is not 'male and female.'" (Gal. 3:28). This is what we would expect as God reorients identity to the spiritual dimension, above the earthly and physical and tribal.
• Note the slightly different wording for male and female in Galatians 3. It may echo Genesis 1:27 where God creates them "male and female." Perhaps not any more in the new creation.
• We are thus not surprised to find women ministering in Acts. Lydia hosts the church at Philippi. I suspect this implies she was an elder in the church at Philippi.
• Priscilla is mentioned before her husband in the discipleship of Apollos in Acts 18:19, 26.

6. Paul's letters also witness to the ministry of women in his churches.

• The purpose of 1 Corinthians 11 is to continue the equality of the spirit for wives to prophesy in public worship without shaming their husbands culturally. The veil is the solution. Women will be able to prophesy to men and women in the Spirit if they will veil their heads so as not to culturally dishonor their husbands while being in unusual proximity to other men and their wives (in a house church).
• So the goal is to free up women to minister spiritually despite the husband-headship of the culture.
• Paul seems to call Junia an apostle in Romans 16:7, indicating that Jesus appeared to her and her husband in an apostolic resurrection appearance and commissioned them both to go as witnesses to the resurrection. Some later manuscripts tried to change her name to a male name likely because the idea of a female apostle made them uncomfortable.
• Phoebe (Rom. 16:1) is a deacon (diakonos) of the church at Cenchraea. In my opinion, these diakonoi were the closest parallel to what we call a minister in a local church today.
• Priscilla is again mentioned first in Romans 16:3 as Paul's co-worker and as host of a church in her house, probably implying that she is an elder of that church or collection of churches.
• Euodia and Syntyche were coworkers of Paul at Philippi alongside male coworkers like Clement (Phil. 4:2-3). Other female workers are mentioned (Mary in Rom. 16:6; Tryphena and Tryphosa in Rom. 16:12; he singles out Persis as a hard worker in the Lord in Rom. 16:12).
• Paul mentions a church at Colossae that met in the house of a women named Nympha (Col. 4:15), making her the host and likely an elder in relation to those churches.
• None of these passages make any point that these women only ministered to other women or that they were carefully subordinated to male lead pastors or that they only ministered under the direction of their husbands.

7. The curse is undone by the redemption of Christ.

• Theologically speaking, if the subordination of women was a consequence of the Fall, then the redemption of Christ implies the re-equification of women in relation to men and their husbands.
• Jesus points to such an equification of women in the kingdom when he says in Mark 12:25 that women will not "be given in marriage" in the kingdom. Since we live in a culture today that is open to such equality, contextualization suggests we should enact it now, even within marriage.
• The idea that someone has to make the final decision seems like an excuse, especially if mutual submission is going on (Eph. 5:21). (By the way, the word submit is not actually present in the Greek of 5:22).
• It is in Hebrews that the new covenant insight of the totality of Christ's atonement comes fully into view. That is to say, it is in Hebrews that we fully see the end of all need for further atonement in Christ. All sins--past, present, and future--are redeemed through Christ. This truth is not as clear in the rest of the New Testament (cf. Acts 21:24) and may have taken the destruction of the temple to be fully understood by the New Testament church
• This may have implications elsewhere in the New Testament. Are there places in the rest of the New Testament where the implications of Christ's full atonement are not yet fully appropriated because of the cultural context of that day? E.g., 1 Tim. 2:15 speaks of childbearing playing some saving role. This is an odd statement given the full atonement provided through Christ!
• As another example, the household codes with regard to slavery accommodate the societal structure of the day rather than enacting the firestorm that would have come from living out the kingdom trajectory of total abolition.
• There is nothing uniquely Christian about the household codes of the NT when they subordinate wives to men. Aristotle structures the household in exactly the same way (Politics 1.1259a-b). It is pretty much what everyone thought. It is thus when the biblical texts move toward the equality of women with men that they are being distinctively Christian.
• The trajectory of the kingdom is thus toward the non-subordination of women to men in any way. Since our culture is open to this position, it would be ironic for us to push for the earthly and cultural when God has opened up the way for the heavenly and eternal!
• 1 Corinthians 11 shows that in Paul's day husband-headship was a distinct cultural issue from women engaging in prophetic ministry. Paul is finding a pathway to honor both in his cultural context. Most men with wives in ministry are fully supportive of that ministry... so wouldn't it violate husband-headship if that wife defied her husband and didn't obey her call? :-) And since Christ is the head of the man, who trumps the situation--a disobedient husband or the Lord of all? It is better to obey God rather than man. 

8. Misunderstood Passages

• In the light of 1 Corinthians 11, the later verses in 14:34-35 cannot be talking about spiritual speech but about disruptive speech. Women are assumed in 1 Corinthians 11 to participate in the spiritual speech of the worship service. For this reason, these verses do not have any bearing on this question.
• I might mention that a number of scholars do not think these verses were in the original copy of 1 Corinthians for several reasons. Such faith-filled scholars include Gordon Fee, Richard Hays, and Kenneth Schenck.
• 1 Timothy 3 does seem to assume that elders and deacons will be men, and probably the majority were. But this chapter does not explicitly forbid women from being elders or deacons. This argument against women in ministry is thus an argument from the typical to the universal, an argument from silence.
• That leaves us with only one verse in the entire Bible that even sounds like it could prohibit a woman from being the teacher of a man. You should never build a theology on one verse. 
• Indeed this issue tends to reveal one's hermeneutic. Like those who used individual verses in the Bible to argue against abolition, those who argue against women and ministry argue from individual verses rather than the arch of Scripture as a whole. Did Christ redeem women from the sin of Eve or not?

9. 1 Timothy 2:12-15

• The words woman and man here, used in such proximity, with Adam and Eve mentioned, suggest to me that 1 Timothy has husbands and wives in view. The words used here usually mean husband and wife when used in proximity to each other.
• If so, then we have here another husband-wife passage and our discussion is at an end. Husband-wife relationships are a different discussion from women in ministry, as I have argued above.
• These verses are unique in Paul's corpus. Nowhere else does Paul say anything of this sort. The uniqueness of the statement leads us to wonder if something is going on in the context of Ephesus leading to such a stark statement. (Scholars actually debate whether Paul wrote 1 Timothy) 
• I've heard it suggested that the present tense of 1 Tim. 2:12 could be significant--"I am not (currently) allowing a wife to teach or be an autocrat over a husband."
• The context of the Artemiseum at Ephesus is often mentioned, where women played dominant roles. The unusual strength of the word "dominate" or "usurp" in 1 Tim. 2:12 is often mentioned. I. Howard Marshall once suggested that Paul does not tell men that they can dominate their wives either.
• The train of thought is difficult (never base a theology on an unclear and disputed passage). For example, although 2:13 mentions the creation order of Adam and Even, my friend David Ward has pointed out how limited such an argument is. After all, the plants and animals were made before Adam and he isn't subordinated to their authority!
• 2:14 sounds like it refers to the deceivability of Eve. Certainly women were less educated at the time of Paul, but that isn't true today at all. That argument may have fit Paul's world and Ephesus, but it is not a timeless argument.
• I've already mentioned how strange 2:15 is, given that Christ has saved all men and women from the shame of the fall. Wives are saved through the blood of Jesus Christ, not through childbearing!
• In short, we tend to fixate on this verse today because a certain segment of the Christian community uses it as a proof text. But these verses are atypical of Paul. They are atypical of the whole of Scripture. They are often used to point in a different direction than the overarching story and trajectory of Scripture as a whole. They are often used to point in a different direction than the trajectory of the kingdom.

10. Common Sense

• If those who have questions about women in ministry will allow this one idea, it will change everything...
• Would you at least allow that there are exceptional circumstances where God might call a woman to minister. Deborah would seem to say so.
• If so, then the question shifts to, "Is this specific woman called to a role in ministry?" 
• And if you will let this be the question, then you will find that in this age of the Spirit, God is calling lots of women into ministry.
• And let's be honest, if a plane is crashing, I want the best pilot to be in charge. That's the question that makes sense--is this person (male or female) the most gifted, graced, and called person to lead this church?

Women are being called by God into ministry. Woe to us if we put any stumbling block in front of them!

ET6. God calls us to respect our parents and spouses.

This is the sixth post on Christian ethics in my ongoing series, theology in bullet points. The first unit in this series had to do with God and Creation (book here), and the second unit was on Christology and Atonement.

We are now in the third and final unit: The Holy Spirit and the Church. The first set of posts in this final unit was on the Holy Spirit. The second set was on the Church. The third set was on sacraments. This final section is on Christian ethics.
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God calls us to respect our parents and spouses.

1. There is a good reason why, not only the Bible, but the vast majority of cultures in history have had obedience to parents and the respect of elders as a core value. When the world more or less stays the same from century to century, it is the older people who have the most knowledge and experience of the world. Similarly, the stability of life in such a world rests on keeping the traditions and norms of your people. [1]

So the commandment says, "Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you" (Exod. 20:12).

Places where the young do not respect the elder are often chaotic places. When the inherited values of a culture are rejected, it is a free for all. People simply do "what is right in their own eyes" (Judg. 17:6; 21:5). They live for themselves, their own selfish pleasures and desires, which causes a society to disintegrate.

2. So biblical instructions to obey parents (Eph. 6:1; Prov. 1:8) and to treat elders as fathers and mothers (1 Tim. 5:1-2) were not just a nice tradition. They had a purpose--the stability and survival of peoples. In the church, it also has the function of defending against false teaching, since the elders of the church are usually not only wiser but they have a tendency to preserve doctrine.

The leaders of the early congregations of the church were called "elders" and they probably were in fact older (e.g., Acts 14:33; 1 Tim. 5:17; Tit. 1:5). [2] In such a world, the older have to be reminded that young people can have insight as well (1 Tim. 5:12).

We thus might see biblical instructions to respect and submit to one's elders in a similar vein to instruction elsewhere to respect and submit to those in authority. Authority preserves order and hopefully embodies the wisdom of a group. People often rise to leadership because they have recognized gifts and are invested with power by the group. So elders usually embody the wisdom of a group.

3. In the ideal world, parents serve a similar function within the family. Of course families in biblical times were bigger than just husband and wife. The oldest male in an extended family was usually the highest authority for that clan or group.

But parents function both to protect and train their children within the smaller unit. "Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray" (Prov. 22:6). This is not an absolute guarantee--there are exceptions--but it captures well the basic principle. Parents train their children to become virtuous and responsible adults.

Parents are not always right, of course. In the case of adults, an adult can sometimes maneuver around a wicked or incompetent authority. Children face a much dangerous situation. They are most vulnerable to a wicked or incompetent parent. The church and society hopefully can help in such situations.

So there is purpose to the biblical instructions to submit to authority, to respect elders, and to obey parents. It is not just a rule that exists for its own sake. Children not only do not have knowledge of the world. Their brains are not fully developed in childhood, and they are prone to self-destructive thinking in their teens. The instruction for children to obey parents is, in most cases, for their own protection and so that they can thrive in life.

4. In most cultures in history, the man has been the dominant figure in relation to the wife. Genesis 3:16 captures the majority situation of history well: "Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."

In Genesis, Eve is given this consequence as a punishment for her sin. But 1 Timothy 2 suggests that the cultures of the ancient world thought of the subordination of wives to husbands as a protective move as well: "Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived" (2:14). So the wife was not thought to be as wise or informed as the husband, making the husband the better leader of the family unit.

To the extent to which the Bible speaks to this question, it assumes the culture norms of its world. "Submit to each other out of respect for Christ. For example, wives should submit to their husbands as if to the Lord. A husband is the head of his wife like Christ is head of the church, that is, the savior of the body... As for husbands, love your wives just like Christ loved the church and gave himself for her" (Eph. 5:21-23, 25, CEB). This default historical approach sees the husband as the protector of the wife and family, with wife and children submitting for their own benefit.

So the purpose of this construction was not to oppress the wife but to protect her. [3] Like the instruction to respect one's elders, there is little that it is uniquely Christian about this structure. Aristotle, writing in the 300s BC, wrote, "A husband and father rules over wife and children… Although there may be exceptions to the order of nature, the male is fitter for command than the female." [4]

5. However, there is another strand in the Bible, especially in the New Testament. First, there were always exceptions. Deborah in Judges is married, but she was still the supreme spiritual and political authority in Israel (Judg. 4:4-6). The high priest, who holds the highest spiritual office in Judah, still goes to the prophetess Huldah in 2 Kings 22:14 to validate the Law. That makes her the one who truly has the highest spiritual authority in the land.

The age of the Spirit signaled the end of the world as we know it, including the eventual end of male domination. In the kingdom, women are not given to men as wives (e.g., Mark 12:25). In the age of the Spirit, women prophesy just like men (Acts 2:17). They pray and prophesy in public worship, no less (1 Cor. 11:5). Christ has died for the sins of Eve as well as Adam, so the punishment of subordination is ultimately doomed.

We are not surprised to see women in ministry and leadership roles in the early church. Junia may have been an apostle (Rom. 16:7). Phoebe was a deacon (Rom. 16:1). Lydia probably hosted the church of Philippi in her home (Acts 16:15). Euodia and Syntyche worked alongside male co-workers in the church of Philippi too (Phil. 4:2-3).

One of the most striking women in the New Testament church was Priscilla. In four of the six times she is mentioned, she is mentioned before her husband. One of those instances is when she teaches Apollos the way of Christ more accurately (Acts 18:26). A woman teaches a man about Christ, and a very educated man at that.

6. Churches in the Wesleyan tradition, along with most of those in the Pentecostal tradition, have seen women in ministry as a key element of the age of the Spirit. In Christ there is not male and female (Gal. 3:28). Along with Jesus, especially in the Gospel of Luke, we have seen the empowerment and full inclusion of women as a key implication of the gospel.

In places and times where the culture continued to make this possibility more the exception than the rule, it is no surprise that the church has largely accommodated the situation. Even the New Testament accommodated its culture to some extent on this issue, especially as the initial, very charismatic phase of the church began to close and there was a shift toward institutionalization.

But in the kingdom of God there will be no subordination of women to men. There is no spiritual difference in the age of the Spirit. We know there is no intellectual difference. The educational situation is much different than it used to be. Women today are every bit as informed and educated as men.

In an age where the culture is already more like the kingdom (with women empowered) than in most of history, it is perverse and ironic in the extreme for the church to be one of the lone voices pushing for the earthly model, alongside the worst women-haters of the broader culture. It diminishes our witness and shows that we do not know how to read the Bible for its purposes and spirit, only for its letter (2 Cor. 3:6).

A much more Christian model for today is that of mutual submission: "Submit to each other out of respect for Christ" (Eph. 5:21). Both husband and wife should submit to the other. "Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor" (Rom. 12:10). "Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others" (Phil. 2:4).

7. God calls us to respect those in authority. It gives honor to those who are older and to parents. That does not mean that our elders are always right or that parents are always right. It does not mean they are always the wisest or most informed voices. But we are called to respect them.

In the ever-changing and strikingly different world of today, sometimes a younger person is invested with greater authority by a group. In our world, wives are often more competent to lead and minister than their husbands. In such cases, we remember that we are all equal in God's eyes.

No group has been invested with power simply because they are in that group. Those structures are meant to play out God's love for us and the fact that he wants the best for us. When that best follows a different order than it has at other times and places, we carefully carry out God's purpose rather than the mere form of tradition.

Next Sunday: ET7. Thou shalt not murder.

[1] The modern, Western world has presented significant challenges to this norm because of how quickly technology and industry change. Adaptability becomes a key skill, and area in which elders usually do not excel.

[2] Again, when churches were stationary entities that stayed the same for centuries or in America when they were largely small, unchanging entities, this model stayed the same. Today, in a quickly changing and mobile world, the church has followed the culture and come more to value spry, innovative, younger pastors.

[3] 1 Peter, written for a time of persecution, acknowledges that there will be unbelieving husbands (1 Peter 3:1). The letter in general is a defensive strategy, not written for a time when we are to fight for the right but when we are to willingly submit to oppressive powers. See Scot McKnight, 1 Peter (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996).

[4] Politics 1.12.