Theology in the Raw - Are Husbands the "Head" of Their Wives? The Meaning of Kephale, part 2: Preston Sprinkle

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

In this second episode on Kephale, I begin by looking at how Paul uses Kephale in Ephesians 1:22 and then 4:15, before jumping into its use in 5:23. I think go into great detail about the genre of "household codes" in the ancient world and how Paul is participating in this kind of conversation. I finally look at Eph 5:21-33 in light of the household code genre and examine several features in this passage that will help us understand the meaning and function of "head" (Kephale) in 5:23. I end up following a similar reading that Michelle Lee-Barnewall offers in her outstanding article: "Turning Kephale on Its Head." This episode follows my SIXTH, SEVENTH, and EIGHTH blog post on the topic. Get 25% off Yearly Access to Dwell! dwellbible.com/TITR Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is myself. This is going to be part two of my, I guess, very lengthy series on the meaning of kephale, the Greek word kephale, which is often translated head in Paul's letters. In particular, I am ultimately going to get to the meaning of head in Ephesians 5.23 at the end of this episode. Please don't skip ahead because all of this background information is going to be really important. Also, if you did not listen to the previous episode, it would be helpful if you did. I mean, I spent a lot of time, one might argue too much time, in all of the background material regarding the use of kephale in ancient Greek

literature. We looked at the use of kephale in the Septuagint, in extra-biblical Greek literature, and the early church fathers. And I would encourage you to not just believe what I say, but look at the evidence I gave for my tentative conclusion that kephale often conveys some sense of authority as it's used throughout various, throughout Greek literature. Again, Septuagint, early church fathers, and extra biblical Greek literature. So that's a debated conclusion. And that's why I spent so much time, you know, looking at text after text after text, trying to consider the context as fairly as I can. And I came to the tentative conclusion that while kephale can mean source, and sometimes does mean source, it more often means some, it conveys some sense of authority. often means some, it conveys some sense of authority. So I would invite you to go check out that episode. And also, again, these two episodes are following a lengthy blog series that I wrote on this topic. So if you're more of a reader than a listener, you can go to

theologynara.com, click on the link for blog. And if you go back in November, you will see part one of an eight-part series on the meaning of kephale in Paul's letters. So again, as I said in the previous episode, I'm going to be drawing from those blog posts. For this episode, I'm going to be looking at post number six, seven, and eight. Now, the previous episode did look at posts one through four. So you may wonder where did post five go? How come I'm not talking about that post? Post five was a guest post by Dr. Kevin Grasso, who dug deep into sort of the linguistics behind how we should even consider things like metaphor and simile and the literal use of words. I'm not going to summarize that

in this episode, but I would commend you to go look at that post. This is something that I'm growing in my understanding of and I don't claim to be an expert at all. So I keep talking to my, I've got a few friends that are experts in linguistics, including Kevin or experts in rhetorical theory. And sometimes people who are experts in linguistics versus rhetorical theory don't always see who are experts in linguistics versus rhetorical

theory don't always see eye to eye on how language is used. So I'm trying to draw on other experts in that field so that I can be as precise as I can when I'm looking at the meaning of these words. So without further ado, let's jump in to this episode. Okay. So this, uh, the blog post that I'm going to be drawing on, uh, to begin this episode is, um, was published on February 14th on Valentine's day of 2024. So if you go to thealtonrod.com, uh, look, go down to post a part number six of this blog series. You can follow along if you want to look at kind of the sources and resources and references I'm going to be referring to. So in this first section, I want to look at the use of kephale in Ephesians 1.22 and Ephesians 4.15. So the main passage I want to get to is 5.23, because that's where it says

the husband is the kephale of his wife. And there's some translational particularities that we'll get into there when we get there. So that's where we want to get. But Kefla is used twice in Letter of Ephesians in a metaphorical sense before 523. So I think it's important to get the flow of the letter and how Kefla has been used prior to its instance in 523. If you're following along in the blog post, you will see that I did make some corrections to my previous blog posts. And again, I can't emphasize enough that these blog posts are not definitive. These are not etched in stone. These are my exploratory thoughts. Basically, the way I write is I just do a ton of research and thinking and taking notes and my own kind of writing and rough draft and second draft and third draft and do more research. And once I get about 70% to 80%, like here's what I think is going on, then I start blogging about it.

And this could be – people think my blog is like my 100% here is where I've landed, no going back, then that's just not the way I blog. I try to make that clear periodically throughout the post, but I'll just make it clear here. Once I'm about 80% or 70%, 80% confident in a potential conclusion, then I start blogging about it because I want to invite feedback. I want to air out my thoughts. I don't want to just simply come to conclusions in isolation. I want as much critical feedback as I possibly can get. That's how I've always written. And I think most biblical scholars do that. I mean, that's what, when you do a PhD, that's kind of what you do. Every draft is just rip to shreds by your advisor. And then you present papers in conferences and people just rip you to shreds there. And you do that on purpose. That's what

you want. Because you want to get closer to the truth, not just prove your quote unquote correct point. So that's the nature of these blogs. So again, I've received some really, really helpful feedback in the comments, some of which I found to be like, oh, I might need to correct my understanding in light of this comment. Others, I'm like, yeah, I'm just not persuaded by your pushback here. And that's fine too, just because somebody critiques you doesn't mean that they're right and you're wrong. So I do want to acknowledge, in light of Kevin Grasso's fifth blog post, he wrote the guest post for the fifth post, I did need to refine some of my thinking specifically on linguistics. How do metaphors work? How does language work? What are the questions we should even be asking? Like there is, you know, people

that are linguists, you know, that's a whole specific field of study. So people like me who don't have a professional linguistic background, we kind of wander into an area when we talk about this word means this and this metaphor and stuff. And we just need to be really cautious, I think, in speaking beyond our knowledge when it comes to understanding how language works. So I am in the process of just drawing on people who know more about that than I do. So you'll see in the blog post that I do acknowledge I need to do a better job when something is distinguishing between when something is a metaphor, when it's a simile, and when it's a literal use of a word or something else. And so I'm still in the process of refining my thinking on that. I also, as I think I said in the last episode, that Philip Payne is one of the most, if not the

most prolific scholar on the meaning of kephale in the New Testament, in Paul's letters in particular. And he's left lengthy comments, I think now on every single post that I wrote. And sometimes his comments are longer than the actual post. So I really want to thank Phil for taking such extensive time in interacting with and for the most part critiquing everything I'm saying. The final post, he agreed with a lot of things and still critiques some things.

I've interacted with Phil in person. I've had him speak at my conference. We have had several email exchanges. And so I'm very thankful for his... I mean, thorough would be an understatement. Thorough with a capital T-H-O-U. I forgot how to spell thorough. His thorough scholarship.

Whether you agree or not, he has devoted literally the last 40 years of his life to understanding the New Testament in terms of women in church leadership, and has done extensive research within that on the meaning of kephale. So I'm thankful for his comments. I do find myself, however, coming to an agree to disagree spot with Phil on a number of his comments. Some of his disagreements with me in the comments, I feel like I would be kind of repeating the same thing that I said in the blog post in response to his comments. So I haven't really responded to all of his comments because I'm like, I would just simply have to be cutting and pasting what I already said in response to your comments. I'm just not convinced by several of his pushbacks. Other pushbacks, I think he raises some good points.

Let me give you an example of a good pushback, but one that I think it's going to have to be, I guess, an agree to disagree. quote, I quote, do not adequately distinguish between literal, including similes, and metaphorical uses of head in many texts that I cite in my third post. Actually, he brings that up in several comments, I believe, in his pushback that he wants to draw upon metaphorical uses of kephale, not literal uses or similes. And similes are basically kind of a literal use, right? And I think he's right here in the sense that I don't always distinguish between simile metaphor and literal uses of kephale. However, I don't, I guess, I don't think it matters as much as Phil thinks it does. And again, he's going to come right out and I think disagree saying, no, you need to look at, if you're understanding the metaphor, how Keflae is used as

a metaphor in Paul, you need to look at how it's used as a metaphor outside of Paul, not other kinds of uses. I mean, if I'm wronged and I'm sure Phil will reach out to me, but Phil seems to think that if Keflae is used in a simile to convey authority, that this is irrelevant for understanding what Kephale means as a metaphor. For instance, we looked at a passage last time, yeah, in the last episode where Josephus says, quote, the royal city of, the royal city Jerusalem was the supreme and rules Archaea over all the neighboring county, country as the kephale, does over the body. So, Phil writes, in this case, head is literal and is used in a simile. This is not a metaphor or a non-literal use of head.

Okay, I agree with that. I guess I don't think that this passage therefore is irrelevant for understanding how an ancient person would have popped in their mind when they would have seen or read or heard the word kephale. So again, going back to Josephus, you know, the royal city was supreme and it rules Jerusalem, rules over the neighboring country as the head rules over the body. Head, kephale, ruling over the body. He's like, well, that's a literal use. Head, kephale, ruling over the body. He's like, well, that's a literal use. Well, I'm like, yes, but Josephus saw some relevance in the literal use of the head ruling over the body

to convey a point about Jerusalem ruling, literally, arche, ruling over all the neighboring country. So to me, it's not such a stretch that when kephalae is used as a metaphor, the ancients could naturally connect the concept of head with a ruling function. And I'm not sure there's a huge difference between simile and metaphor. And this is where linguists will will will maybe debate um i i came across an interesting quote by aristotle and i got and i got this from uh michelle barnwall's um uh essay uh turning kephale on its head where aristotle says quote a simile is also a metaphor for there is

little difference similes should be brought in like metaphors, for they are metaphors differing in the form of expressions. So, and I talked to a friend of mine who's an expert in rhetorical theory, and he basically said the same thing. Like, yeah, I mean, technically they're a different use, but to sort of segment, like to separate them so harshly is, I think, not justified. And I also do think that the literal meaning of a word does help us inform how the same word might be used in a metaphor or similes. For instance, if it was believed, and it was in the ancient world, that the literal head exercises some kind of ruling function over the literal body, then this can help inform how head might be understood in a head-body metaphor. So, according to Josephus,

you know, the literal kephale rules over the body, and he felt like this was an apt parallel to Jerusalem's ruling over the neighboring country. Now, again, Phil Payne seems to think that the use of kephala is irrelevant since it's used in a literal sense and a simile and not as a metaphor. And this is where I just think we have to agree to, uh, disagree, but I, I want to agree with Phil's pushback that I, I do need to be more precise with my term. If it is a simile, I need to say it's a simile. If it's a metaphor, metaphor, if it's literal use and literal use. And I did make that mistake. And, and some of my blog posts earlier, when I referred to a literal use. And I did make that mistake in some of my blog posts earlier

when I referred to a literal use or a simile as a metaphorical use of kephalas. So I do need to be more precise in identifying the specific linguistic category that I'm dealing with. Okay, let's go to Ephesians 1.22. It'd help if you have your Bible, but I will read the broader context.

I don't want to read the whole passage, but begin at the tail end of verse 19. It says that that power is the same, the power of God is the same power as the mighty strength, that I'll kind of give an expanded translation, you know, that God the Father exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly realms,

far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is evoked, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. And God subjected Hupotoxin, or we get the word Hupotasso to submit. This is, you know, the active sense here to subjugate, to subject all things. God subjected all things under Christ's feet and appointed him to be head over Kephalen Huper, over everything for or to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. in every way. Now, most scholars and commentators agree, rightly to my mind, that Kefale here conveys some sense of ruling authority. I mean, if I could cite Clinton Arnold, Frank Tillman, Andrew Lincoln, and it really doesn't matter whether they end up being complementarian or egalitarian. I like looking at the work of scholars who aren't really interested in the

egalitarian complementarian debate. They're not clouded by that conversation. They're just trying to understand the text on its own terms without even reading in, does this support this or support that or whatever. And I mean, I searched long and hard to find a scholar who says, no, this does not convey any kind of ruling authority. And the few places I found were in scholars who were very, very passionate about defending an egalitarian point of view. And so that, again, that's fine. I just, the overwhelming majority of exegetes say, yes, it's ruling authority here. So, and here's why. I mean, the larger context is loaded with terms and images that highlight Christ's exalted position as ruler. For instance, the phrase seated him at his right hand. This is a royal image that

highlights Christ's ruling authority. The image, you know, obviously was a common one in the ancient world. As Andrew Lincoln, one of the more prestigious Ephesians scholars, wrote a really robust commentary on Ephesians several years ago. He says that occupying a place on the God's right hand meant that the ruler exercised power on behalf of the God and held a position of supreme honor. So that Christ's rule is far above all rule and authority, power and dominion does not just refer to Christ's vertical distance above these demonic forces, but his ruling authority over them. Also, that God has subjected all things under his feet. This alludes to Psalm 8.6, where it says that you have given him dominion or rule over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet. And Psalm 8.6 alludes to Genesis 1.26, where humanity is commanded to rule over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet. And Psalm 8, 6 alludes to Genesis 1, 26,

where humanity is commanded to rule over creation. So the allusion to Psalm 8, 6, together with the use of subjected, highlights Christ's ruling authority over all things. And all of this provides the context for Paul's statement that this exalted and royal Christ has been appointed to behead over everything for the church or to the church. It's in the date of there, so it could be for or to the church.

So yeah, most scholars, I think, Kephala is capturing some kind of ruling authority here. Now, could Kephala mean source here? Okay, let's look at that. I mean, other passages could convey the idea of Christ being the source of everything. These are passages that don't use the word kephale. I'm thinking of like 1 Corinthians 8, 6 or Hebrews 1, 2. But it's unlikely that that's what kehali conveys here since Paul uses the phrase head over, not head of everything, uh, Kephalin huper. Um, and plus all, all the images that I think clearly convey some kind of ruling function that surround the context, um, makes

the suggestion that, you know, Kephalfla means source here i think that that's a big stretch and again i've i think that i i remember maybe one or two commentator scholars that said no it means source here and it was in the context of arguing vehemently uh that kefla does not mean authority and therefore women can be in leadership positions. Like they were in the context of people arguing very passionately for an egalitarian position. Some say, no, kephalae just means prominence without conveying any sense of ruling authority. Phil Payne has a similar position. He says that kephalae means top, crown, or apex in both Ephesians 1.22 and Colossians 2.10, and that it cannot, quote, be conclusively demonstrated to me in authority over here. And this comes from a couple of his

books that I cite in the blog post. Maybe you're convinced by that, and that's fine. I mean, a lot of interpretation can be, it's kind of, there's an element of subjectivity and weighing which interpretation is more compelling to you. So if you're like, yeah, it makes perfect sense that there's no sense of ruling authority here. All I can do is point to contextual features and give reasons why I don't think that's a legit case,

but ultimately either be convinced or not be convinced of that. So again, I mean, Kefla occurs in a cluster of images that convey ruling authority, not simply some kind of non-ruling prominence. Christ isn't just more prominent than all things under his feet. Rather, the image is one of Christ subjugating all things and actively ruling over them. And likewise, the phrase head over conveys active ruling, not simply positional prominence. Now, some people say, well, this passage doesn't actually say that Christ is ruling over the church.

And I agree, sort of. So one scholar, one egalitarian scholar says, in this passage, there is no reference to headship as an assumption of authority over the church. I feel like this is a bit of a red herring because it does say he rules over everything to the church. God gave Christ as ruler over everything to the church. So he's given to the church.

He's not, in this passage, specifically ruling over the church, although he does rule over the church too, but that's not what is going on in this passage. And some say, well, he's not ruling over the church. He's given to the church. And I agree with that, but he is ruling over everything, including the demonic realm. So this scholar says, you know, that God appointed him to be head over everything for the church.

I agree. But that doesn't mean head doesn't mean authority here. Clinton Arnold, I think, represents the view of most scholars when he says, you know, Christ is given to the church. God has given Christ a great victory over the powers of darkness and now possesses full authority over them for the benefit of the church. On this basis, Christ can impart to the church all the empowering resource it needs

to resist the attacks of powers and to engage in the mission of filling the world that God has called it to. I think that's a good summary of what's going on here. So again, Christ, the headship of Christ still conveys ruling authority, even if the specific entity he's ruling over is all things and not, in this context, the church.

Okay, the next use of a kephale comes in Ephesians 5.15. And here it occurs in sort of an expanded head-body metaphor. And the context here is quite different than Ephesians 1.22. So here's what the passage says. It says, beginning in verse 15, instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect, the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ.

From him, the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. So here Paul goes into great detail about the head's relationship to the body, making this passage along with, there's a parallel passage in Colossians 2.19. This gives us an important window into Paul's understanding of the head, specifically the head-body metaphor. So it's an important passage. It is a little odd. The passage is kind of odd. I mean, as Colin Campbell in his commentary points out, he says, the image that the reader is caused to

visualize is somewhat absurd. A head with a body growing out of it, which simultaneously is growing into it. We're going into the head, we're going out of the head. The effect of the image, Campbell continues, is nonetheless understandable to spur a profound new thought about the body in which its goal for growth and conformity to Christ and its source for growth are underscored. Okay. So strange image, Paul's kind of doing some strange things here, but I think the point is understandable. Now, several scholars, I love background material. It's what I did my PhD dissertation in. Most books, academic books that I enjoy, they sort of open up the Jewish or Greco-Roman context of a passage or a word. And I just, I love, I love that when people can make connections to Paul's

actual historical context. I think that's how we should interpret the Bible. So as several scholars have pointed out, Paul's image here is similar to how ancient medical writers, you can think of Hippocrates, like the Hippocratic Oath and Galen and others, another writer, other philosophers, Plato, Philo, Rufus, they all discussed the literal head's relationship to the body. I did reference some of these in my third blog post, which I summarized in the last podcast episode. So specifically, these writers believe that the head was the source of the nerves, ligaments, veins, and other body parts. And that the head ruled over the rest of the body. So these medical writers and other philosophers, Plato, Philo, when they talk about the head's literal relationship with the body, they would sometimes talk about the head being

the source of the body, but also the head being ruling over the body. And in some contexts, they talk about, they merge those two images of the head being source of the body and ruling over the body. Other contexts, I might emphasize the source. Other contexts, just the ruling function. So Galen, Galen is a, I believe, second century, yeah, second century AD, AD second century medical writer. He says this, Necessary that because the brain, like the great king, dwells in the head, kephale, as in an acropolis. For that reason, the ruling part of the soul is in the brain. Or because the brain has the senses stationed around it, like bodyguards, or even if one should go so far as to say that as heaven is to the whole universe, so the head is to man.

say that as heaven is to the whole universe, so the head is to man and that therefore as the former is the home of the gods, so the brain is the home of the rational faculty. So this seems to be a very clear instance. People don't like the word clear. Like, well, it's clear to you. So yeah. Okay. It's clear to me in this instance, maybe not to you, that there's, well, there just factually are several images here that convey ruling function that are correlated with the head. Namely because the head houses the brain. And the ruling part of the soul is the brain. Like literally the ruling part of the soul is the brain, like literally the ruling part of this. So, um, so I do think that this is the literal head is believed by this medical writer to exercise some kind of ruling function over the body. Uh, Rufus, Rufus is a first century stoic philosopher. Oh, wait, is this

the, uh, I think that's, I don't have the rest of this. Uh, is this that Rufus, Musonius Rufus? I don't, I didn't indicate which Rufus this is. I think it's Musonius Rufus? I didn't indicate which Rufus this is. I think it's Musonius Rufus, who if it is, he's a stoic philosopher. He considers the head to be the source of the nerves and senses. He says this, the processes springing from the brain are the sensory and voluntary nerves through which feeling and voluntary movement, in fact, all the activities of the body are carried out. Springing from the brain, the senses and nerves, they kind of flow from the brain. So here, it's a little less clear, I think, to my mind, but it does, this seems to be kind of, you know,

emphasizing the fact that the head is the source of the, you know, here are the nerves and senses and so on. source of the, you know, here are the nerves and senses and so on. Plato says this, he says, God set the sinews at the bottom of the head around about the neck and glued them there symmetrically and the rest of the sinews he distributed amongst all the limbs, attaching joint to joint. That's a little, kind of a little vague to me, probably more of a sense of source here. According to Clint Arnold, Hippocrates believed that the head was, quote, the source of supply for the members of the body for, quote, from the head, the veins reach to every part of the body and give nourishment and provide what the body needs. So here is a bit more clear sense of the head being the source. Plato says that the head is, quote, the most divine part and reigning over all the parts within us.

It is to it the gods delivered over the whole body they had assembled to be its servant. This is a clear reference to the head being the ruling over the body. That quote by Plato sounds almost exactly like the point that Galen made in the first quote that I read earlier. So Clint Arnold, and by the way, he's got a great article. Let's see, can I mention it here? I think it's called Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, I don't have the full citation here. You could probably Google it.

Clinton Arnold, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's one of the better, if not, yeah, one of the better articles on Kefale. And he looks at several other, he looks at a lot of passages that other scholars looking at the meaning of Kefale don't really consider. And he's, Clint Arnold, I don't know if you know, he's a rockstar New Testament scholar, in my opinion, extremely, extremely humble, godly, gracious.

He's a man of the church. He's a brilliant scholar, done a ton of work on Ephesians and really well versed in the background material. And just, I just feel like he's a very front, in my opinion, a very honest scholar. It doesn't, I hate even having to give the caveat. It doesn't mean I agree with everything or you should, you know, whatever, but like, it just gets the sense that this guy's doing just good, honest scholarly work.

Um, and so I commend you that article, if you could find it, it's called the Lord Jesus Christ, something about, and then the subtitle has to do with head and Paul's letters or something like that. Anyway, he says, he concludes this in his study. One may safely conclude that for the medical writers and for philosophers like Plato, Philo, and others, the head not only exercised sovereignty over the physical body, but was also the source of its sensations and movement. In looking at the same texts and examine the same texts and looking, going back and forth to, you know, Ephesians 4 and also Colossians 2, I think that's a good assessment of how the literal head was understood in these medical writers and philosophers. So now, as I reflect

on the meaning of Cephali in Ephesians 4, 4.15, it does seem clear that its meaning is drawing from the ancient understanding that the head was the life source of the rest of the body. As the head is the main source of life for the body and all its parts, so also Christ is the spiritual life source for the church, the body of Christ. Kephale simply means a literal head here and is being used in a novel as opposed to a dead or conventional metaphor that is playing off of what the cultural thought of the function of the literal head during that time.

Just as the literal head, as it was understood, gives life to the body, so also Kephale is used to highlight the organic and life-giving unity of Christ with his body. So let me cut through the garbage here. Garbage cut through the clutter. I do think that kephale here conveys the idea of source in the sense of spiritual source. Okay. Now, does it also include some sense of authority? We saw in other texts,

medical writers, again, sometimes they refer only to the head as a source, only to the head as a ruling function. Sometimes they refer to both. So, you know, one could possibly make the argument that, you know, since the head-body metaphor in Paul here reflects the ancient understanding of the head-body as expressed in medical writers and other philosophers, then the ancient idea of that head being the source of the body included the understanding that as the source, the head also rules the body. Clint Arnold has a good quote here. What does he say?

Oh, yeah. So Arnold, that's what he concludes at Ephesians 4.15, that here again, the dual notion of leadership and provision is present in the head body imagery. This corresponds to the common notion of the function of the head in relation to the body and the contemporary physiological understandings, and especially as represented by Philo. So while this may be true, while it may be true that in the common medical writers and stuff, you can sometimes see both source and authority. I just, I'm trying to be as honest as I can with the text of Ephesians and Paul's specific concerns and the specific context. And so I just, I don't think Christ's rule over the body is a main point here in Ephesians 4, 15. Yes, Christ rules over the church. He rules over the universe. Yes,

Christ is ruler. No one doubts that. But is that Paul's concern here? And does he evoke the image of head to convey that point on any real level here? I'm not convinced that he does. Clearly, the head here is conveying some life source of the body sense. And clearly very well, he could be, he could also convey the sense of authority, but there's just nothing in the context that that's his concern here in this specific context of Ephesians 4, really 11 to 16. So I'm going to, those are my working thoughts here. I think, I don't think we can conclude that 415 where the Kefla does convey some sense of ruling authority. So, so that's where we're at right now.

We have, yeah, and I would, so Greg Coles, he's one of my friends who is an expert in rhetorical theory. He left a really helpful comment, really kind of a lengthy, helpful comment on this post. I would invite you to go check it out. It's under, yeah, this fourth, sorry, blog post number six. Okay. So in conclusion, kephale means ruling authority in Ephesians 1.22 and means source of spiritual life or something like that in Ephesians 4.15. So we kind of have a, you know, by the time we get to 5.23,

Paul has sort of used Kephle in terms of both authority and source. And that's not an, that's a fairly common, in my kind of recollection, a fairly common interpretive conclusion in people that look at Kephle in Ephesiansians that means ruling authority in chapter one, but does mean source in chapter four. Gregory Doss, who I think has done some of the best work on understanding the head body metaphor in Ephesians. He's a brilliant, brilliant scholar. Doss, D-A-W-E-S. I forgot the name of the book. Shoot. Do I have any footnotes here? I don't think i do um yeah gregory doss just google like head metaphor ephesians i'm sure i'll take you to his book you won't want to buy it because i think his book is it's like a published dissertation so

it's like a hundred dollars or something like that so oh yeah it's called the the body in question gregory doss um and so he concludes that yeah and and he's's coming at it with a bunch of knowledge. Like he is a linguist. He understands like how language works. So a lot of this dissertation is really looking at all the linguistic stuff. And it's literally a 250 page book on the use of Kephali in Ephesians. So, I mean, he doesn't leave any stones unturned. And he concludes that it means authority in chapter one and source

in chapter four. And we'll get to what he thinks Kefla means in chapter five. This episode is sponsored by Dwell, a creative and highly engaging Bible app that reads scripture in dramatic ways. So there's lots of different Bible apps out there and each one serves a certain purpose. What I love about Dwell is that you can listen to the Bible in over 20 different voices, male voices, female voices, American voices, British voices, East African voices, and many others. Some voices will read the Bible in a more dramatic fashion. Others are more calm and soothing. Some are formal and sincere. Others are more calm and soothing. Some are formal and sincere.

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Go to dwellbible.com forward slash T-I-T-R and receive your 25% off discount today. That's dwellbible.com forward slash T-I-T-R. Check it out. Okay, let's go to Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5.23, where Paul says that the husband is the head kephale of the wife. Ephesians 5.23. Does this mean that the husband occupies some kind of ruling authority over his wife? Or does it mean that he is the source of life for his wife since he provided all that was essential for her to live?

Sorry, that's a quote from Philip Payne. Philip Payne says that the husband is, quote, the source of life for his wife since he provided all that was essential for her to live, unquote. Now, this is what is interesting, I guess. I spend so much time looking at every use of kephale in the ancient world, did the best that I had time for, several months, to dig into the ancient context and yet to see how it's used. And yet I do think the meaning of kephale just can't be determined by word studies. Even if 90% of the time kephale meant authority, 10% of the time meant source, which that might be about where I land in terms of broad percentages of how kephale is used in the ancient literature,

according to my survey. Even then, we need to look at the specific context, as we saw in Ephesians. By looking at the context, we saw one used for its authority and one used for its source. So just as an exegetical principle, context is king. We cannot just look up words in a dictionary and say, well, it's used mostly like this so it must mean this here like the context does is very very significant so so yeah so when i come to the context of ephesians 5 i truly do want to give a lot of attention to the specific context before i just say well mostly means authority usually means authority so it probably means that here i don't think that's exegetically valid now it's going to take us a bit to get to my understanding of Ephesians 5.23

in particular, and you see Keflae okay? Because I want to understand the context. Now, one of the most important contextual features of this passage, and any scholar who has done work on Ephesians 5 and my pastor's drawing from the scholars will know that Paul is participating in a certain literary tapas or theme that is often referred to as a household code or in German, the Hausstaffel. Household code, sorry, Martin Luther popularized the term Hausstaffel. So now you'll see articles written like Paul's Hausstaffel. It just makes him look kind of smart when you quote German words or whatever. So Paul is mimicking a very popular kind of theme, even using the same kind of words and framework. And there's so many

similarities between Paul's household code here. And when I say household code, I'm saying Ephesians 5.22 all the way to chapter 6, verse 9. Okay, that's one literary unit. And I'm well aware that some people began at 5.21, but in terms of the household code, well, yeah. 521 to 6-9 if you want to do that. And it'll be apparent why that's an important distinction later on. So you simply cannot understand what Paul is meaning until you understand some of the context of the household codes that he is basically very aware of, very knowledgeable of, and interacting with. It's almost impossible to understand Ephesians 5 and 6 until you understand the similarities

that Paul makes, that the agreements he has with other themes and household codes, and the differences that he's making with these other household codes. Oh, okay. Here's an example. This literally just came to my head. Not metaphorically, literally came to my kephale. If I were to give a speech and I began by saying, I have a dream. And if I went on to speak for about 18 minutes, had several phrases in common with Martin Luther King's famous, I have a dream speech, and maybe some differences, maybe some differences.

And I'll let you tease out what some similarities and differences could look like. You know, this can go many different directions. said, you know, I have a dream that one day, whatever, you know, it would be difficult to understand the significance of that speech unless you first understand Martin Luther King's speech and the social political impact and significance of that speech in the 1960s. So that's kind of what's going on here. the 1960s. So that's kind of what's going on here. Paul is imitating, mimicking, mirroring, interacting with a very common genre in the ancient world. And so we need to first understand how Paul's readers would have understood the household codes in order to see what Paul's doing with his household code in Ephesians 5, 21 to 6, 9. Okay. So we're going to go into a bit

depth, some depth here in understanding household codes in the ancient world. And just to be clear too, there's several household codes in the New Testament. Colossians 3, 18 to 4, 1. 1 Peter 3, 1 to 7. Titus 2, 1 to 7, kind of, possibly 1 Timothy 2, 9 to 15. There's debates about whether Paul's kind of reflecting a household code there in that important passage. But what's interesting is Ephesians 5, 22 or 21 to 6, 9 is by far the longest in the New Testament, the longest household code.

So again, Paul was very aware of what he was doing here and he was therefore participating in a cultural conversation about how the household should be run. So understanding other household codes in the Greco-Roman world will help us hear the other side of that conversation and will shed interpretive light on what Paul is doing in Ephesians 5. Now, there has been extensive research done on the household codes over the last hundred years or so. One of the more significant works is a book by a scholar named David Balk. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. B-A-L-C-H. The book is titled

Let Wives Be Submissive. I forget what the subtitle is, but he focuses on the household code in 1 Peter 3. But as many scholars do in their scholarly books, they'll spend 75% of their book in kind of background material and then they apply it to the passage they're looking at. And so he has a lot of really helpful documentation with ancient household codes. So again, that's a book you're probably not going to buy. I think it's like 100 bucks or something. You might need to get it at the library. But it's a fundamental work. Anybody doing work in the household codes has to first interact with David Balk.

So, now, let's look at some ancient texts here. The most famous and significant comes in Aristotle in his Politics, Book 1, where he says this. This is kind of a lengthy quote. So hang in there. Household management falls into departments corresponding to the parts of which the household in its turn is composed and the household in its perfect form consists of slaves and freemen. The investigation of everything should begin with its smallest parts and the primary and smallest parts of the household are master and slave, husband and wife, father and children. Does that sound familiar?

I mean, that's exactly what Paul discusses. He doesn't go into this same order here. He does husband and wife, father, children, master and slave. But this is exactly what Paul does. He talks about these three pairs of relationships. We ought therefore to examine the proper constitution and character of each of these three relationships. I mean that of mastership, that of marriage, and thirdly, the progenitive relationship.

Just down below from this, he says, hence there are by nature various classes of rulers and ruled. For the free rules the slave, the male, the female, the female, the male rules the female, and the man rules the child in a different way. And all possess the various parts of the soul, but possesses them different in different ways. For the slave has not got the deliberative part at all. He's basically like an animal, according to Aristotle, no reasoning faculty. The female has it, but only without full authority, while the child has it, but it's an undeveloped form. So basically Aristotle's saying slaves don't really have a brain, females have

half a brain, and the child, an undeveloped brain. If it's a male child, it'll grow into a fully developed brain. If it's a female, it'll just kind of grow into a halfway brain is kind of a modern rendering of what Aristotle was thinking here. So importantly, though, he lists three pairs of relationships, husband, wife, father, children, master, slave. And these pairs are, you know, they're actually become fairly common in other household codes. And we see them in Ephesians 5 and in Colossians 3 to 4. For Aristotle, the management of the household is based on the ontological nature of those who rule and those who are ruled. Since the man has a superior nature, he is therefore the ruler of the house and everyone else. Wife, children,

slaves are the ruled. I do want to point out, this isn't as crucial, I think, for understanding Kephala in Ephesians 5.23, but Aristotle and other people who wrote on the household code, they would always connect the significance of the household to the success of the city, of the city, of the polis. Like the most basic set of relationships of the city, a well-run city, is the household. I mean, this is the, this is, um, this is the original, like focus on the family, if you will, like the importance of, you know, if the family goes and society goes like that, that, that didn't begin with,

you know, James Dobson, like that goes all the way back to Aristotle. Um, and actually, I'm not sure Paul would disagree with that, actually, that the, a well-run family is the basic set of necessary relationships for a healthy, well-run polis, or for Paul, he would connect it to a well-run church. I do think that that is significant for Paul and for Aristotle. So for Aristotle, the success of the polis, the city, depends on husbands properly ruling over their household as the superior member. And I have in my post, I have, yeah, this is a very heavily footnoted post. You will see lots of, I've got 39 footnotes. Some of these are pretty extensive with many other ancient references. So if you're interested in kind of the ancient references

or even other secondary scholarly sources I'm interacting with, I would commend you to check out that blog post. Okay, so Plato, okay, so Aristotle's mentor, he also talks about household code, not in as much specificity, but he also kind of talks about parents ruling over their offspring, the noble to rule over the ignoble, older people ruling

over the younger, slaves being ruled by their masters, and the stronger should rule the weaker. While Plato doesn't use this specific pairing of husband, wife, father, children, master, slave, He does emphasize that the husband is the ruler and everyone else is the ruled. Now, Aristotle's household code, it influenced many other writers in the Greco-Roman culture as a whole, especially during the era that the New Testament was written. David Balk says something interesting. He says that Aristotle, quote, had very little influence over two centuries after his death. It was that fourth century BC. His ideas were not

important in the Hellenistic age, although later in the time of the Romans, especially the late first century BC, his writings again became available. I didn't know that until I did some research on this. I did not know that there was sort of a gap in time when Aristotle was influential and then became influential shortly before the New Testament. So one significant source, writer, just prior to the birth of Christ, this is Arius Didymus. He died in 10 BC. Okay. So died just before the birth of Christ. He wrote an epitome. This is, I think a quote from Bach,

an epitome of Aristotle's ethical, political, and domestic philosophy that became widely influential in the first century. So this isn't just some random, so you can cherry pick different sources, or you can look at sources that have a wide influence. And Arius Didymus was widely influenced in the first century. And he draws on Aristotle to discuss the proper way to run a household. He says this,

Didymus says this, the man has the rule of his house by nature for the, and here he's just, I think quoting Aristotle, for the deliberative faculty in women is inferior in children. It does not yet exist. And it is completely foreign and slaves. Rational household management, which is the controlling of a house and of those things related to the house, is fitting for a man belonging to this rare fatherhood, the art of marriage, being a master. And there the Greek word comes from despotess, where we get despot from. The art of marriage, being a master, and money-making. Didymus also related the household to the city. Successful, he says, quote,

the house is like a small city, a well-run house. A city composed of a bunch of well-run houses will be a well-run city. Didymus happens to be a personal friend and philosophical mentor to Caesar Augustus, the first Roman emperor who casts a large shadow over the first century when the New Testament was written. Later became an imperial procurator in Sicily. And again, his household management became fairly standard in the first century. And there's other writers who reflect both the thought

of Aristotle and Didymus. You know, Philo says that, quote, wives must be in servitude to their husbands, a servitude not imposed by violent ill treatment, thank you, Philo, but promoting obedience in all things. Okay, so he doesn't say you should beat your wife or that they're, you know, he doesn't compare them to slaves, but he still says they should be obedient to their husband. Elsewhere, Josephus says the woman says the law is in all things inferior to the man. Let her therefore be submissive. That's super important to catch. That he grounds the wife's submissiveness, her duty to be submissive in the fact that she is ontologically inferior

to her husband. Greek historian Dionysius says that Romulus, the founder of Rome, passed a law that obligated, quote, the married women as having no further refuge to confirm themselves entirely to the temper of their husbands. And the husbands are to rule their wives as necessary and inseparable possessions. Accordingly, if a wife was virtuous and in all things obedient to her husband, she was a mistress of the house to the same degree as her husband was the master of it. So for her to earn kind of status within the house, to be able to rule, to manage the house, she needs to be obedient to her husband.

So there is still a clearly hierarchical relationship here. Now, not everybody in the first century world had such a ontological, hierarchical understanding of husband and wife. The Stoics are known for having a much more egalitarian or maybe less patriarchal way of approaching household relationships. So, Musonius Rufus, he was born AD 20 or 30. I mean, he's living right around the time of Paul. He says that, quote, in marriage, there must be above all perfect companionship and mutual love of husband and wife. And when this love for each other is perfect and the two share it completely,

each striving to outdo the other in devotion, then the marriage is ideal and worthy of envy for such a union is beautiful. That sounds pretty awesome, right? Pretty mutual. Elsewhere, he says that the husband and wife should regard all things in common between them and nothing peculiar or private to one another, not even their own bodies. This is the closest, as far as I can see, the closest we have outside the New Testament of any statement that comes close to what Paul says in Ephesians, sorry, 1 Corinthians 7, 4 to 5, where he says a husband has authority over his wife's body and the wife has authority over her husband's body, that mutual authority over each other's bodies.

This statement by Rufus comes really posted, I think. However, I mean, elsewhere, Musonius does refer to wives as the ruled, while the husbands are, quote, the stronger in judgment and the rulers. So I think he's trying really hard to, he's as close as we get rufus i think is in the stoics in general is are as close as we get to some a much more or let's just say less patriarchal understanding that the marriage relationship i still think he kind of falls short of what we would consider a fully like egalitarian uh view of marriage uh plutarch he also talks about marriage in a way that does emphasize a lot more mutuality but he's still if you read the full context of Plutarch, he does still maintain hierarchical relationships between husbands and wives.

He says this, so a quote, this is Plutarch, first century writer. So it is with women also, if they subordinate themselves to their husbands, they are commended. But if they want to have control, they cut a sorrier figure than the subjects of their control and control ought to be exercised by the man over the woman. Not as the owner has control of a piece of property, all right, it's good. But as the soul controls the body by entering into her feelings, being knit to her through goodwill, as therefore it is possible to exercise care of the body without being a slave to its pleasures and desires.

So it is possible to govern arcane, to rule a wife and at the same time, delight and gratify her. Okay. So again, here's a push towards mutuality, but still there's still this hierarchical one is ruling over the other. Even his initial phrase here that wives are to subordinate, submit themselves to their

husband, that puts agency into the wife, which is similar to what we will see in Ephesians 5 and other New Testament passages. So he doesn't, well, he does say husbands govern your wives and stuff, but yeah, usually it's husbands subjugate your wives, not wives freely submit to your husbands. Actually, usually the language is obedience. It's actually pretty rare in the ancient world that they would use language of submission to refer to the wife. Usually it's just flat out, you know, wives obey your husbands or husbands ensure that your wife is obedient, putting more agency in the rule of the husband. So while Plutarch, Sonius Rufus, and other Stoics might not reflect as strong of a hierarchical or patriarchal

relationship in the home as many other Greco-Roman writers, they still are working within that framework. So I'm going to assume you are somewhat familiar with Ephesians 5, 22 to 6, 9, 21 to 6, 9. I don't want to sit here and read the passage. If you need to hit pause, read the passage just so you're familiar. So I'm going to assume you have some kind of basic understanding of that New Testament passage. And so I want to, I want to give kind of, kind of a comparison here, summary and comparison. What are some similarities we see in Paul's household code and what are some differences? Okay. And I will say that, you know, some, some scholars will see that Paul is basically saying the same thing as Aristotle and others. Wives are to submit to their husbands, children are to obey their parents, slaves are to obey

their masters. And so some people say, yeah, he's basically agreeing with other household codes. And then the question would have to be why? And this is something I haven't blogged on yet. And I'm not, you know, even after writing over about 40,000 words of blogs on Kefale, yeah, I'm obviously not afraid to be thorough. I just didn't know if it would be just be a little too much to write yet another blog exploring kind of the possible motivation for Paul even reflecting, like why even reflect

this Greco-Roman genre? So some scholars see Paul as largely reflecting the same kind of values we see in other household codes, perhaps in an attempt to defend the Christian community against the suspicion among pagans that this new Christian movement was a seditious movement that sought to overturn the social hierarchies of the Roman household. And such subversion would be viewed as an act of political treason, since as we've seen, the household codes, households were considered a fundamental building block of society. So some say that Paul basically mimics the same kind of codes we see in the Greco-Roman world in order to stave off attacks from society that the Christian

family was subverting Roman values. And I know some people are going to say, well, no, Paul just loved to subvert Roman values. And in many cases he did, but the New Testament writers, and this was the main point of David Balk's book on 1 Peter 3, they were concerned about going a bit too far. I mean, we see like going a bit too far in subverting Roman values and rocking the boat too much and drawing too much social backlash for overly subverting the Roman values. Because if you start, I mean, the Roman empire would just kind of crush the Christian movement if they saw this as being a sadistic, sadistic, sadistic, sadistic,

the Christian movement, if they saw this as being a sadistic, sadistic, sadistic, treasonous movement. And we see examples of other like mystery, other, um, kind of mystery religions and cults that were started in, they were around the first century that, um, in fact, there were some, I believe in Egypt, I think, do I even, um, I might have a footnote on this. Like, um, the culture that formed in Egypt was known to be a lot more humanizing towards women. And there were some religions that had kind of some, a lot of equality between men and women in, in the religious practices. And Rome was, was came down really hard on them because they, they felt like once you disrupt the order of man ruling over the wife and ruling over his household, like disrupting that order too much,

uh, was gonna cause ultimately cause, you know, the, the policy, the city to be not a well-run machine and it could invite the wrath of the gods. So there is an argument to be made that, you know, Paul was concerned about that. He obviously was not totally mimicking Greco-Roman values. Well, that's obvious to me and probably most of you. But could it be that he just didn't want to go too far in overturning Greco-Roman values? We do see, Titus has a couple examples in Titus 2 where Paul does seem to be concerned about outside perception of the Christian household. In Titus 2.5, the context is older women teach younger women to be,

and he lists all these kind of things, and one of them is to be self-controlled, pure, homemakers. This is what translation is this? Christian Standard Bible, CSB. Homemakers, kind, and in submission to their husbands so that the word, so that God's word will not be slandered. And this, I think we misunderstand this passage. We think, well, I think what was going on here is Paul is like, you have outside people

slandering the Christian community and they might, if wives are not being submissive, then that can invite slander from the outside community. He said, I mean, a few verses later, he says this even more explicitly, I think. He says, your message is to be sound beyond reproach so that any opponent will be ashamed because he does not have anything bad to say about us. Like he's clearly concerned about the outside reputation. You see very similar statements all throughout the pastoral epistles, 1 Timothy, Titus. You see statements throughout 1 Peter along these lines so that you will silence the foolishness of men. What does he say? Like be obedient so that you will silence the foolishness of men. What does he say? Be obedient so that you will silence the accusations of foolish men.

Again, in scholarship, it's not really disputed. This is the first time you're hearing this or you're not sure we're reading these passages correctly. It's pretty well known that at least in some cases in these New Testament letters, they did have some concern of how outsiders were perceiving the Christian movement. Well, you see this in 1 Corinthians 14 as well, where Paul says, you know, what if an unbeliever walks in and he sees that you guys are all mad, you know, like he's concerned about how people might perceive what's going on in the Christian gatherings. Anyway, that's kind of a tangent, you know, kind of the why would Paul even tap

into this household code? Okay, so the one similarity, so as we're saying similarities and differences between Paul's code and other Greek Roman codes, the main similarity is that Paul discusses these three pairs, like the very form of his household code is almost exactly what we find in Aristotle, Didymus, and others, husbands, wives, fathers, children, masters, slaves. Paul also does use, in some cases, similar language, wives being submissive to their husbands. That does reflect, now for you egalitarians, hang in there. I promise, hang in there, okay? I've just said the language Paul uses, hupotasso, applied to wives toward their husbands. Yes, we'll get to, you know, mutual submission 521. Yes, we'll get to the missing verb in 522 and other things. So, but wives are called to submit to their husbands in 522 and 524. Husband, you know, masters,

sorry, slaves are called to obey their masters. Kids are called to obey their parents. So you do have those elements that are similar to other Greco-Roman household codes. Okay, so those are the similarities. I do think the differences between Paul and other codes far outweigh their similarities. While Paul adopts the rhetorical husk of other codes, he fills it with new, I would say indeed subversive content. codes he fills it with new i would say indeed subversive content so let's talk about some of these differences between paul's code and the other greco-roman codes again well if you're lost right now and like what are we talking about um i would go back to that analogy of if if somebody gave a speech and started with i have a dream and said some things that were similar to mlk's i have

dreams to speech then we would say, oh, that's interesting. But then if there's differences introduced, you would have to, like, those differences, like if I give that speech and I pointed out some things that in my speech I'm disagreeing with Martin Luther King, I'm drawing a spotlight to that. Like, that's intentional. Like, I am deliberately using that speech as a foil

from which I'm constructing a new, perhaps an even subversive or polemical speech, kind of whispering some polemics against maybe MLK's speech. So that would be similar to why it's important to notice these differences that Paul conveys in his household code. Okay. First difference, number one, Paul's treatment of the master-slave relationship is unparalleled. Okay. This comes in what? It's chapter six, verse five to nine. The fact that he directly addresses slaves even before he addresses masters is in the first place startling. By directly addressing slaves, Paul credits them with equal agency as their masters since he said, Paul says, he who is both their master and yours is in heaven and there is no favoritism with God.

The Christian God does not favor masters over slaves, that would have been utterly remarkable and revolutionary in the first century. I mean, some ancient writers did advocate for a more humane treatment of slaves. And I have a footnote here documenting some of those ancient references. Paul's treatment appears to be much more radical. He goes as far as to tell masters to, quote, much more radical. He goes as far as to tell masters to quote, treat your slaves in the same way as he has just instructed the slaves to treat their masters. That again, I know, look, New Testament slavery and Bible and slavery, it's a really tough and touchy topic. But if you read, especially the New Testament on slavery in light of how slavery is understood in the ancient world, there are some radical departures. I mean, Ephesians 6, 9 is unparalleled in the ancient world.

Treat masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Paul, I mean, he literally is saying like, do the same thing, do the same things to them that I've just told slaves to do to you. While Paul does not seek to dismantle the system of slavery, he does challenge the social hierarchy inherent in the system itself. Okay. So that's one radical departure. Second, Paul avoids the common terms found in other codes that are used to describe the husband. And again, this is something you can only see if you look at the other codes. The husband in other household codes is often called ruler, archon, master, despotess, and lord, kurios, in the Greco-Roman household codes. But this language is absent in Paul's description. Paul does use the term head to describe the husband.

And that's obviously why we're here, to understand what he means by that. But even if he conveys some sense of authority, he avoids the typical terminology of ruler, master, and lord. And so Paul is, even if head totally means authority, he's still distancing the nature of the husband's authority from its secular understanding. And let me just look ahead here, a little sneak peek into what we're going to talk about in a few minutes, hopefully not a few hours, but a few minutes. The head is connected to the body. Like the head metaphor, even if it conveys authority, also can and does, in Ephesians 5, the latter part, convey unity and mutuality. In fact, that's exactly where Paul is going to get to in his rhetorical movement in 5.22-33. So just stick that in your back pocket. Instead of referring to the husband

as the ruler and the wife as the rule, Paul's use of the head-body metaphor to describe the husband and wife is really significant. I mean, he's already just used the head-body metaphor in chapter 4 to describe the unity of the church. And as we'll see, I already kind of said this, you know, the head-body metaphor will end up becoming used to emphasize the mutual interdependence of husband and wife. So even if we interpret hephalate to mean authority and conclude that only only wives are dismissed to their husbands and not husbands to their wives, even if we see some role distinctions in this passage where the husband alone has authority, as complementarians argue, these distinctions are stripped of their typical hierarchical framework and embedded in a rhetorical framework that bleeds with mutuality. Okay, so in short, the head-body metaphor as understood by Paul challenges a typical social hierarchy between husband and wife as we see in other household codes. Okay, third, Paul uses the term hupotasso, submit, to describe the wife's posture toward her husband. After, and this is a significant departure. Again, we do see in some cases wives submitting to their husbands.

Usually it's wives obey or just simply husbands rule over your wife. But here where the wife is given agency and the verb submit not obedience is given, that is a departure from these typical household codes. Carl Armstrong has a really interesting study on this, which I cite in my blog post. After surveying the use of hupotasso in the New Testament, he concludes, in general, the way hupotasso is employed in the New Testament within the context of a household relationship, it suggests a voluntary act, that is, yielding oneself to another, as indicated by the collocation of alelois, one another in 521, tois androsin, your own husbands, 524, and tois idios androsin, to your own husbands in 1 Peter 3, 1 and 5. So even the way the verb submission is used in the New Testament, how it's situated, the

context it's used and how it's correlated with other terms does suggest much more mutuality than we see how submission is used outside the New Testament. The voluntary nature of submission is especially apparent when it occurs in the middle voice in the Greek. There's active, passive, and middle voice in the Greek, as it does in Ephesians 5.21 and 5.24. So Armstrong concludes, quote, the mutuality and voluntary nature intensifies

when we consider the author's selection of kephale instead of archon, despotis, or kurios, since these authoritative and patriarchal words prevail with contemporary Greco-Roman household codes, unquote. And so speaking of submission, I can't emphasize this enough. We need to make sure we maintain a Christian rather than secular or Greco-Roman understanding of this concept. While submission conveys notions of inferiority and other literature, in Christianity, submission has been radically transformed through the behavior of Christ. John 13, the foot-washing incident, Philippians 2, 5-11, Jesus coming down, taking the form of a man, even the form of a servant, becoming obedient at the point of death on the cross. Therefore,

God highly exalted him. Ephesians, or sorry, 1 Corinthians 15, 28 as well. What was seen as a sign of weakness and social inferiority has been turned into a fundamental virtue that all Christians are called to exhibit. Ephesians 5.21. Indeed, submission is the means by which Christ conquered the authorities and became king of the cosmos. Philippians 2. Whatever Paul is conveying when he calls on wives to submit, we must resist reading secular notions, ancient or modern, into the term.

For Christians, the virtue of submission should be put on par with other virtues like courage, strength, holiness, and honor. The call to submit is a call to embody the peculiar power of King Jesus. Honestly, guys and girls, when I hear in the debate of women in church leadership or just other contexts, in most cases, anecdotally, when Christians talk about submission with some kind of disdain or just as a negative thing, I feel like they are reflecting the Greco-Roman view of submission, not the Christian one. Or even the modern, you know, in our modern culture, you know, submission is seen as a

bad thing. Weak people submit. Strong people don't submit. Strong people receive submission. Weak people submit. That's just a secular understanding of submission. So, however we understand these debated passages, we cannot bring a secular notion of submission to the text if we're going to properly exegete this Christian literature. This is one reason why I don't like interchanging. This happens a lot

in both egalitarian and complementarian literature. I don't like interchanging. This happens a lot in both egalitarian and complementarian literature. I don't like interchanging submission with subjugation. I don't think that's helpful. The two are not synonyms. Wives are commanded to submit to your husbands in 522 and described as submitting to their husbands in 524. Titus 2.5 and other passages say something very similar. Titus 2.5 and other passages say something very similar. And we can debate what this means, whether it's mutual submission, one directional,

whether it only reflects the first century social situation and not modern times. Okay. Again, I'm hanging there, egalitarians. I promise you, I'm not, you know, this just, however we understand the nature, I think it's still debated what submission, what's going on here is submission. One thing is clear. Husbands are never commanded to subjugate their wives. That's not a biblical idea. No Christian is called to subjugate anyone. Submission is a voluntary act done by the person submitting. It's their agency that's being recognized and addressed. But

subjugation only recognizes the agency of the one doing the subjugating, and it implies a kind of coercion and hierarchy that's not inherent in the Christian meaning of submission. Okay. Fourth difference between Paul and other Greco-Roman codes, there is no hint of any kind of ontological inferiority among women, children, or even slaves in Paul's code. Even if we take submission to be one directional wife to the husband, not vice versa, and see the husband alone as possessing authority over the household. These, quote, role distinctions, that's kind of a modern term, role distinctions. I don't love it, but just for the sake of clarity here. These role distinctions are stripped of any notion of ontological inferiority that we see in other codes.

Aristotle, Josephus, remember Josephus, you know, wives are inferior to their husbands. Therefore, they should submit or be obedient in all things or whatever his precise wording was. There is no hint of ontological inferiority here. Most complementarians say, thank you. Yes. We've never said there's ontological inferiority. And so here I do want to encourage those who aren't complementarian or maybe hate complementarian. Let's just make sure we're steel manning their position, make sure we're understanding what they're actually saying and

arguing for before we try to refute it. We need to understand before we refute. And I just, I'd see so much straw manning going on in this debate. I, I, I have not read. I have not read, well, most responsible complementarian scholars that I read make it really clear they are not talking about ontological inferiority or women submitting because men are ontologically superior to women. Now, I know a lot of you are screaming right now saying, nope, I have been in many a complementarian churches that do believe women are ontologically inferior. I have quotes. I have the receipts.

I don't disagree with you. So I'm not as concerned about complementarian situations that are an aberration of a responsible complementarian interpretation of scripture. I'm more concerned about the scholars, the exegetes who are reading scripture correctly. And even if they say land on a complementarian view, that body of scholarship, I rarely see anything that would even give the impression of ontological inferiority. Okay, fifth significant difference between Paul and other household codes. Paul's commands to the husbands in the code are extraordinary and counter-cultural. I'm thinking of, you know, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. What did, how did

Christ love the church? Well, he gave himself up for the church. He washed her in the water of the word. He nourished her. He basically played the role of a domestic slave in serving the church. Okay. So these were, this is what would have stood out like a sore thumb in this passage. It wasn't, as we saw, it wasn't unheard of for mutual love to exist between husband and wife, especially in the Stoics, among the Stoics. This love was still part of a relationship where husbands ruled over the wives, but I'm aware of no ancient writer who describes the kind of love that a husband is mandated to have for his wife in such drastic terms where the husband is called to give

up himself for the sake of his wife and to love her as he does his own body. 525 and 528. Paul's one directional command that husbands are to give themselves up for their wives challenges, if not demolishes, the typical social hierarchy inherent in other household codes. It is interesting too that the description in 526 to 527 of how Christ loved the church, where he cleanses his bride, he washes her with the water, he presents her without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, you know, bathing and washing and doing the laundry. These were domestic duties that were considered woman's work or the work

of a slave, not the work of the husband. Now, most scholars see 5, 26, 27 as kind of like a Christological aside. This is only describing the action of Christ. It's not telling husbands what to do. That might be, I think, I do think that's probably true. Like, I don't think husbands are recalled to wash your wife in the water of the word here and what that means. But the general association between Christ's love for the church and the husband's love for his wife. I think there's a general kind of association here so that the domestic duties that Christ performs here would have kind of been generally applied to kind of the kind of love that husband gives to his wife. And then again, that would have been very counter-cultural in the ancient world. So all that to say, given these five points of difference, I think Paul's audience would have been most struck

by the startling differences rather than the similarities between Paul's code and the typically family values embedded in other codes. So what does all this have to do with Kephalet? I do think that the meaning of Kephalet is intertwined with the subversive nature of Paul's household code. It seems clear that the social hierarchy embedded in other codes are flipped upside down in Ephesians 5, and yet some characteristics of other codes remain. You know, wives submitting to their husbands, the structure of husband, wife, parent, child, master, slave. So where does Paul's understanding of Kephali fall? Does Kephali represent Paul's agreement with the larger societal assumption that the husband is the authority over his wife

and therefore she should submit to him? Or does Paul simply acknowledge that the husband is the source of life and provision for his wife and therefore does not agree with the Greco-Roman assumption that he is her authority, source or authority? Or is there something else going on?

Well, I think there's something else going on, which I'm going to address here in a second. I'm going to take a quick break and come back and we will dive directly into Ephesians 5.23. Hey friends, I wanted to let you know about an awesome ministry doing incredible work in Africa. It's called Cherish Uganda. doing incredible work in Africa. It's called Cherish Uganda. Cherish Uganda's mission is to spiritually transform its community

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family that could care for them with the right intervention and training. No matter how hard they tried to give the best care for a child, they learned that an organization can never replace the value God created when he created families. Now, rather than short-term-based home care, Cherish continues to focus its care for children and families with HIV through education programs, a health center, and family strengthening programming. All children are now resettled. All children. So all the children that were in the orphanage, they're now settled with a family member or have been reintegrated into the community with extended relatives or foster families.

Cherish now empowers the community to care for its own, fostering self-reliance and sustainability. And just several months ago on World AIDS Day, December 1st, 2023, Cherish opened its birthing center. Now Cherish walks alongside mothers in their prenatal birthing and postpartum process, investing in them spiritually and equipping them with training and resources to be the best moms that they can be. This truly, you guys, this is an amazing ministry doing effective, holistic work in Uganda. So you can join Cherish Uganda in their transformational work by following at Cherish Uganda on Instagram and X or Twitter. And I would highly encourage you, if you check out this ministry and God so leads you,

please consider making a donation at cherishuganda.org to support their awesome work that they're doing. What we're going to do in the rest of this episode is we are going to look specifically at the meaning of Kefale. Let me shut my phone off here. The meaning of Kefale in 523. Finally, Ephesians 523. If you have made it this far, congratulations. You win a prize. I should have came up with a prize to give you ahead of time because that's a lot to listen to.

And hats off to you, seriously, because I'm not actually a big audio kind of absorber. I learn stuff by reading. I know some people do more, learn better through audio. So it would be very hard for me to get through like several hours of, of material before you even get to the one verse that we've been trying to get to. So let's dive in. Um, I'll start reading from 521. Ephesians 521 says submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. So this is, well, shoot.

See already we need, well, yeah. I mean, this reaches back to, you know, do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. And then he teases out what that looks like. And at the tail end of that thought, part of what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Then 522, wives, another out of reverence for Christ. Then 522, wives, literally wives to your own husbands, as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head, kephale, of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body. But as the church submits, of the body. But as the church submits hupotasite to Christ, so also wives to their husbands in everything. Yeah, we'll come back to this, but just to point out, as most people know, in 522, when it says most translations will say, wives, submit to your own husbands. The word submit isn't in that text.

It's implied from the previous reference to submission when it says submitting, like everybody's submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, your husbands. Now, people draw different implications from that. People say wives are never commanded to submit, but here clearly the verb is being implied, but why not? Does that mean anything that Paul draws, Paul implies wives submit to your husbands, but that implication is rooted in the mutual submission of 521. So that's something we should tease out. There is another reference to submission in 524, but even here it says explicitly church submits to Christ as this church submits to Christ. So also wives to their own husbands. So even here, again, it's implied that, you know, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should do that to their husbands.

But even there, it's not really, it's not in the imperative command. It's not like he's commanded wives to submit. He's saying as the church does submit to Christ, so also wives do submit to their husbands. So there's some interesting things going on here with the concept and words surrounding submission. There are some manuscripts that do contain the verb submit in 522. I'm not going to get into that. I do have, I think, a long footnote on that. Do I have a long footnote? Yeah, somewhere.

Peter Gurry has done some work on this in some peer-reviewed articles, or at least one peer-reviewed article, where he argues that 522 does contain the word, uh, submit here. Um, so I'll just point you to my footnotes where you can check out that article. Okay. So is Paul saying in 523 that the husband is the, is in some kind of authority over his wife, or is he saying that he is a source of his wife, the source of his wife's livelihood, that she can't survive without him because he's in the first century, the sort of breadwinner, if you will.

Another important question that I don't really deal with in this blog post, by the way, I'm drawing on post number eight, which was published on March 1st of 2024. I kind of set up this question, but I don't get into it in this post. But there is another important question about how much of the first century culture

and context carries over into modern application. If Paul is introducing some radically reorienting Christian household principles into a context that is deeply patriarchal, almost like as a modern missionary would do, like if he's in a cross-cultural context where women are viewed as unequal to men and marriages exist to serve their husband's needs,

you know, how might a cross-cultural missionary interact with that situation? Well, he might meet them where they're at and move them slowly along to where they should ultimately be. You know, he's not going to necessarily abandon all species of patriarchy all at once

if you're a good missionary. So some people would view this passage that way. It's kind of like, I don once if you're a good missionary so this so some people would view this passage that way it's kind of like i don't want to say a median position but they would look at more like at the through look at it through a hermeneutical lens of yes there are some elements of patriarchy that are or high i love the term page elements of hierarchy left in light of the cultural context but but if Paul was to instruct us today in the Western world on what a healthy household code looks like, he probably would have gone about it differently. He wouldn't have used Aristotle's household codes because nobody knows about that

today. So that's a whole nother hermeneutical conversation that I don't actually, I'm not going to get into in this episode, but something to at least consider. So let me summarize if you're just kind of tuning in right now or you glazed over, you missed some of the previous stuff. Let me just give one, two, three, four, five bullet point summaries of where we've been, which I'm going to carry with me into this, into understanding Ephesians 5. So in at least a couple dozen, maybe three dozen cases in extra biblical Greek, kephale does convey some sense of authority or rule, especially when it's used in relationship between a person and other people. Most significantly, we see several instances in the

Septuagint, 10 to 13, roughly, where this is true. Second bullet point, kephale rarely conveys some sense of source in extra biblical Greek and never in the Septuagint. We do have some cases though. There are some cases where this is true. A few cases in the early church fathers, some cases in extra biblical Greek, mostly it's cases that have to do with like talking about the head of a river or some other non-personal entity. We do have a few rare cases of personal entities being referred to as source. But again, in my estimation, and again, scholars will violently, well, maybe vehemently disagree with me on this. But again, this is why I took so much time

in the previous episode to look at all those passages so that you can kind of make up your mind. But yeah, I think the most cases, Kefale does convey some sense of authority. Third kind of bullet point to consider is there is extensive evidence from medical writers think the most cases kephale does convey some sense some sense of authority uh third thing third kind of bullet point to consider is uh there is extensive evidence from medical writers and some ancient philosophers that the literal head was believed to be the control center and thus exercising some kind of rulership over the body and we also have some evidence that the head was

believed to be the body's life source uh this idea is often correlated with the head's rulership over the body another bullet point in ephesians kefle seems to convey authority in 122 really clearly and also seems to convey life source in 415 so as we come to 4 chapter 5 we we kind of have a in a sense a toss-up in terms of how kefle has been used so far and lastly what we just looked at you know of course the household code appears to be subverting several social values assumed in other household codes. In particular, Paul challenged the notion that wives were inferior to their husbands and that husbands should rule over or subjugate their wives. Like Paul's description of the husband's self-giving love for the wife is

unparalleled in ancient literature and appears to be particularly highlighted in this passage. So all of these observations now come into play as I seek to understand what Paul meant and what he was doing with that meaning, the meaning of kephale in Ephesians 5. I want to begin by summarizing what I think is one of, if not the most compelling articles written on this passage. It's an article by a scholar named Dr. Michelle Lee Barnwall. I've had Michelle on the podcast before, I think last year. She wrote a really good book called Neither Complementarian Nor Egalitarian, which is really good. But the article I'm referring to here, which she does kind of refer to it,

she kind of sums it up in her book. But the article is a peer reviewed journal article called, um, turning Kefale on its head, the rhetoric of reversal and Ephesians 5, 21 to, uh, 33. Okay. So let me just summarize her arguments. I honestly find little that I disagree with in her article. And I've read extensively on Ephesians 5. There's, there's a lot of good, there's good stuff, there's mediocre stuff, there's bad stuff. So by highlighting her article, I'm not saying there's no other good articles. I'm just saying hers in particular, I just found myself highlighting more sentences than not highlighting. Not that I found her in a green with me, but in my search in what I even believe, as I got my arms around this wide cultural

context, the historical context, linguistic context, I just found her article to really make the most sense. So, Michelle argues that, quote, while kephale does have definite connotations of authority, the primary significance of its use is in the way in which Paul reverses the cultural expectations of the head according to the radical new values of the Christian community. Amen. End of story. We can close out in prayer right now. But you probably might say, ah, can you tease that out a little bit? So let's spend another hour teasing this out. Instead of looking only at what the individual word kephale means then, so,

you know, we can do our own word studies and those play a role, maybe an important role. Michelle, if I can call her Michelle. Yeah, I think you can call her colleagues, sort of. Michelle focuses more on what Paul does with the word, not just the lexical meaning, but what's he doing with that lexical meaning? So, paying close attention to Paul's rhetorical strategy helps us understand, quote, not only the meaning of words, but the way in which those words were used in arguments, unquote. My quotes for the next several minutes are just going to be from Michelle's article. So I do think paying attention to Paul's rhetoric here will yield more interpretive fruit than simply becoming fixated on just the meaning of Paul's individual words.

So Lee Barnwell, Barnwell, Michelle, she points out that the head body metaphors were common in the ancient world. We're always, you know, and we're using a variety of ways. Oftentimes the head in the head body metaphor referred to a person of

prominence and authority. Okay. We've seen that. The emperor Nero, for instance, was called the head and authority. Okay, we've seen that. The Emperor Nero, for instance, was called the head and Rome was called his body. Galba, another emperor, is called the head over a vigorous body, meaning the Gaelic provinces, over which he was invited to, quote, assume imperial power, unquote. We've listed many of these in my third blog post and in my previous podcast episode.

Head is often associated with authority and the people under this authority are sometimes described as a body. So this is the kind of cultural or linguistic context that Michelle says that Paul is working with. And I think she's right here. She goes on to point out that people were eager to sacrifice themselves for the safety of the head. So the body should sacrifice itself for the head because the head is the most important

thing. The primary concern was to protect the head at all costs. After all, the safety of the whole body depends on the head's well-being. So Seneca, for instance, he says, not without reason do cities and peoples show this according in giving such protection and love of their kings and in flinging themselves and all they have into the breach whenever the safety of their ruler craves it plutarch also compares the general to a head the general like a head then is taking undue risk of being overbold. Well, I guess, let me just read this.

Why, yeah, I read this in the last episode, but yeah, just briefly. So the general, like the head then, he is taking undue risks and being overbold would seem to neglect not himself, but all in as much as their safety dependent on him and their destruction too. So in other words, you know, if the head is at risk, then the whole body is at risk. So we need to protect the head is the basic idea here. So Bichelle says that the common perception would be that the head as the ruler

was not called to be the one who loves, but rather the one deserving of being loved. Aristotle even says it is the part of the ruler to be loved, not to love or else to love in any other way. Seneca, as we just saw, you know, talks about the people's love for the head, who is Nero. Michelle writes, the difference in roles was a reflection of the asymmetrical relationship between the head and the body and the body of the good of the whole. As leaders, unquote, as leaders, heads are to be preserved and to receive love from the body of the good of the whole. As leaders, unquote, as leaders, heads are to be preserved and to receive love from the body. Members of the body give love and ensure the safety of the head, even if it costs them their lives. So I do mention this in the blog. I take a little,

I make a little an aside here to kind of point out that, you know, Seneca's writing in Latin, not Greek. Not all these references are parallels to the Greek word kephale being used in a metaphorical sense. I don't, and some people say, well, these are illegitimate. Like because Seneca is writing in Latin, even though he's writing the same time as Paul,

even though his thought world parallels Paul in so many ways, that's been proven over and over again. In fact, some people thought that Seneca was like a sneeze away from being a Christian. And it was almost like, yeah, like a Christian ethic apart from just Jesus at the center.

So despite the fact that there's a lot of just cultural similarities here, some people say that, well, he's writing, he's writing Latin. So the, yeah, the Latin word kaput means authority,

but that has nothing to do with the Greek word kephala meaning authority. I'm like, I just, I don't, I think that's, I, yeah, I just, this, this would go down to the kind of just methodological differences while yes, it's important to look at the metaphorical use of kephale. Um, I don't think that looking at the wider world and how heads were understood in different languages that clearly filled the atmosphere Paul was breathing. I don't think that's insignificant either. So I

just kind of point that out because that was one pushback, a pushback that I keep getting in some of the comments. So when we get to Ephesians 5, you can probably see where Michelle is going with this. Michelle says, consequently, it is the head's responsibility to ensure its own safety and the body's responsibility to sacrifice itself for the sake of the head. We would expect Paul to instruct the wife, the body, to be willing to sacrifice for the sake of the husband, the head. But Paul does the exact opposite. In 5.25-33, he turns kephale on its head. Michelle writes,

head. Michelle writes, quote, when Paul asks husbands, not wives, to love and sacrifice, this reversal would be shocking in light of the traditional status conventions because he tells the most honored part of the head to perform the duties of the less honored member, namely the wife. This corresponds with such a dominant New Testament theme. Do we even need to talk about it? I mean, the last will be first, the humble, exalted leaders will be slaves. God chose the foolish in the world, the shamed and wise, what is weak in the world, the shamed and strong,

what is low and despised, to reduce to nothing things that are, I mean, just over and over and over. You know, Paul refers to himself as a slave, 1 Corinthians 9, 19, urges believers to be themselves as slaves, Galatians 5.13. So this is just a major threat in the New Testament, turning this sort of hierarchy on its head.

You're a leader, great, go grab a cloth and go wash some feet. So Michelle writes, seeing both how Cephali functions as a metaphor connoting authority and leadership, as understood in the ancient Mediterranean culture, and how Paul radically reorients it through his application of Christian values. It is the unexpectedness of this reversal that ultimately gives the metaphor its power in this passage. I fully agree. Okay, so the interpretive significance of the head body metaphor, I just think can't be derived from the meaning of the words alone or even the narrow context of 522 to 24. But I think Paul's rhetorical movement in 521 to 33 as a whole is necessary. We didn't understand what Paul's doing rhetorically to really understand what he means by husband is the head of the wife. So I do think Kephala in 523 conveys some sense of authority. I don't think we translate it authority.

I think we translate it head. Kephala means head. But I think what Paul means by that is he is saying, husbands, yes, you are in authority. Hang in there, all you Alitarians. I promise you. you are in authority. Hang in there, all you Alitarians, I promise you. And I do think, so there, I do think he's, he does something though. Okay. So here's, here's where it gets fun. The, even the context of 522 to 24, it kind of sort of alerts us to Paul's redefinition of authority. So already in 520 to 523, Paul subtly defines Christ's headship in terms of sacrificial love.

Okay, so pay attention to what he does here. He says, for the husband is the head, kephale, of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. So already he's going to narrow the definition of headship in terms of Christ being head of the church. But then he narrows what kind of headship Christ over the church, what Christ's headship over the church means by saying, he himself being the savior of the body. And most exegetes say that that phrase, being the savior of the body, is in opposition to the previous phrase, meaning it's kind of saying the same thing.

Christ is head over the church in that he is Savior of the body. And this phrase, and this is again, this is not really that disputed, I don't think. I mean, most exegetes would say this, that this mention of Savior of the body in 523 is anticipating Paul's subsequent description of Christ's self-giving love for his bride and the husband's self-giving love for his bride, 525 to 529. So here's the most important point of this episode and the previous episode in my understanding of Kephali and Ephesians 5, is that the specific kind of authority Paul intends to convey by the head metaphor is narrowly defined as self-giving love. The rest of my

episode will kind of tease that out, add some back into that. Okay. This is just how metaphors work. Metaphors typically convey a specific meaning based on the context. Okay. So for instance, let me just use an example here. If I said, he's such a pig. Okay. That can mean various things depending on the context and how it's used. If I'm looking at a dude shoving tons of food down his mouth, he's such a pig, it means something like he's eating very sloppily, or it could mean he's eating way too much, or it could mean both. He's eating too much and he's eating sloppily. I could look at a guy in a nice restaurant, suit and tie, with a bib on. I don't know.

He's eating something that's not very messy. What's not messy? Maybe French fries. He's just pounding French fries, just shoving them down his gullet. But he's not getting anything else. He's not messy. He's actually really clean. He's in a suit and tie. He's dressed really nice. He's just shoving this stuff down his face. So when I say he's such a pig, it doesn't mean he's eating sloppily.

It certainly doesn't mean he's on all fours eating rotten vegetables from a feeding trough. It just means he's eating a lot. He's eating way too much. So not everything about pigness carries over into that metaphor. He's such a pig. There's one aspect of pigness that is being captured there. Or if I look at somebody else, say a toddler just shoving mushy peas all over his face, it's getting all over his high chair, his bib, his hands. And then I said, man, he's such a pig. Here, I probably just mean he's a messy eater. Not necessarily saying anything about the quantity of peas going down the kid's gullet. I mean, maybe he's only got a couple of peas down there. It doesn't really matter. He's such a pig. It's just like they're all over the

place. It's messy. Again, not everything about pigness transfers over in the use of the metaphor. Or we might encounter another situation where I might say, gosh, he's such a pig. And this could refer to how a guy is treating women. That guy is such a pig. He dates a different girl every week and everyone he's with, he treats like crap. And here, the pig metaphor has nothing to do with eating. It just has to do with how he's treating women. But we know that from the context. So I think something similar. So this is just, I think you linguists, you rhetorical theorists, correct me if I'm wrong. I already in the comments, there's some people who disagree with me here. So that's the thing when you write words publicly, people disagree. So I got to weigh

as much as I can, refine my thinking, make changes where I need to, and hold my ground where I think I have a better argument. So as far as I understand it, in talking to, again, friends who are more well-versed in this, metaphors have a specific meaning that is conveyed based on the context and what a metaphor might mean in this context might be different than in that context. We need to look at clues in the context to see is there a specific, what aspect of the metaphor is being utilized here? What aspect of being pigness, of he's such a pig is being conveyed in this situation versus that situation. So here we need to say what aspect of authority of headship is being conveyed here? Well, we have some pretty strong textual clues. Paul defines head with Savior of the body. He roots the husband's headship in Christ's headship, and then he clearly defines Christ's

headship as Savior of the body, and then expands on what Savior of the body means in terms of self-giving, love, and sacrifice. So, yeah, just on, so Savior of the body, Paul is not saying the husband must atone for the sins of the wife. That's not what he's saying there, right? Well, that's what it means to be Savior of the body. Well, yeah, but Paul's not saying everything about saving the body, being the Savior of the body is to be transferred over. He's not saying that people, husbands need to climb up on a cross, be nailed to a cross and physically die. Otherwise, we just have a world

of widows, like there'll be no alive husbands. He specifically means what aspect of this being savior of the body? Well, Christ's self-giving love, the giving up of oneself, the stooping down, laying aside your social status, laying aside, you know, in that current culture, especially husbands are viewed as higher than women. And so to play the role of a domestic slave and serving your wife in 526 and 527. Paul does not mean that the husband has categorical authority over his wife in every sense and in every way that Christ has authority over the church, nor does he mean that a husband, a savior atones with the sin of his wife through his sacrificial death. Paul tells us exactly what he means by head slash savior. He means self-giving love and service towards his wife. And again, there's other people who have said something very similar to what I'm saying

here. Gregory Doss has an excellent section on this passage. Now, Paul could have argued for some kind of comprehensive authority of his husband over his wife. I think if he called Christ Lord here instead of Savior, and then if he went on to describe Christ's cosmic rule over all things as he did in 121-122, I think if you map the context of 122 onto this passage, then yeah, that would probably refer to comprehensive authority because in light of the context, the whole point is Christ has comprehensive authority over all things in Ephesians 1-22. But here he, again, I think does communicate that kephale means authority, but he narrowly

defines authority in terms of self-giving love. Yeah, so I don't think kephale can mean some kind of comprehensive authority in Ephesians 5 because Paul specifically says what he means by authority when he narrowly defines authority in terms of Christ's sacrificial love for the church. He means giving up on oneself. So Paul, I don't think is reinforcing some kind of social hierarchy. He's subverting it. He meets his audience where they are at by using the language that they understand, but he doesn't let them define the concept of headship on their own terms. Now, some people will say, will agree with everything I'm saying, well, most of what

I'm saying here and say, yes, since Paul connects head with Savior, that it can't therefore mean authority. Head can't mean authority because Paul's description of self-giving love, quote, who am I quoting here? Probably Phil Payne. Yeah, I'm quoting Phil Payne here. Paul's description of Christ's self-giving love, quote, states nothing about Christ's authority, unquote. Rather, quote, these are his actions as Savior, the source of life and nourishment of his body, the church, unquote.

So when, quote, Paul calls the husbands to imitate Christ's actions in relations with his wife, unquote, this means he does not, quote, assume authority over her. This comes from Phil Payne, his book, Man and Woman in Christ. So I'll deal with the possibility that Kefla can mean life source in a minute. For now, I guess I just want to point out that I think it's a false dichotomy to say that Christ and husband's self-giving love is at odds with authority in the Christian sense of the term authority. To argue that Savior of the body refers to self-giving love of Christ and husband and therefore not their authority, I think this assumes a secular notion of authority, not a Christian one. Of course, someone in authority in a secular world, both ancient and modern, would not give themselves up for the sake of somebody else,

especially somebody deemed lesser than them by the broader culture. A CEO doesn't wash the feet of janitors in the modern world any more than husbands would do the same for wives in the Greco-Roman world. But this secular sense of authority is precisely what Paul is redefining. Paul meets his audience where they're at by using language of authority and submission. That's the normal marital language they would understand. But then he redefines what these mean in the Christian household. So all that to say, I do find Michelle's understanding of Kephle to be very compelling. I think it matches the historical evidence that I've examined, and it matches the context of Ephesians 5, especially in light of the household codes. Now, I do want to add some more support to this understanding of kephale, that Paul's, in a sense, sort of deconstructing marital hierarchy,

where the husband is a superior ruler over the household, including his wife. as a superior ruler over the household, including his wife. I do think Paul is pushing in this passage towards some radical mutuality. Now, by mutuality, I don't mean sameness. I mean, mutuality doesn't necessarily mean there can't be role distinctions. So again, even here, both commentarians and egalitarians, you can still be with me here. Okay. I know you're trying to figure out like, where do you end up landing up i just don't this let's just let's just appreciate the beauty of the text and live in the text for a while before we just

need to see what camp we land in so you could you know clearly there's a push for mutuality that would have been very radical on in the ears of paul's first century readers um there still could be role distinctions man does this woman does that, and they shouldn't do what somebody else is doing. So by mutuality, I'd simply mean interdependence within a framework of ontological equality instead of social hierarchy. That would be the, okay. And again, I think even commentarians, and sometimes people assume they would disagree with the statement. Most of the ones that I read would agree with this, that there is a strong sense of mutuality, interdependence within a framework of ontological equality,

male and female, he created in the image of God, he created them, Genesis 127, Galatians 328. There's ontological equality instead of social hierarchy. Okay. So what are some other aspects in this passage that are sort of emphasizing this mutuality?

The first one, okay, is the one that we've already kind of mentioned is that 521 mentions mutual submission, which sets up the whole household code. Where all believers are submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. And the implied verb wives to your husbands is drawn from the participle for submission. Hupa somanoi. I'm not good at Greek pronunciations. I hope I got that right. Hupa somanoi. Anyway.

Yeah. So that's just, what do we do with that? Um, and so here, here's, I guess, two general approaches to this statement on mutual submission in 521. So some scholars see the mutual submission here as controlling the rest of the passage. Um, some would say the rest of the marriage passage and 522 to 50, 522 to 33, it's all about mutual submission. Or some people go all the way to the end of six, nine mutual submission between husband's

wives, kids, parents, or children, fathers, slaves, masters. So some people would see, um, you know, uh, wives are to submit to their husbands and husbands are to start to submit to their wives because you have the statement of mutual submission in 521. After all, as the argument goes, you know, the verb submit doesn't even occur in 522. The text literally says submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, wives to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. And so the implied command wives to your own husbands depends on mutual submission 521. implied command, wives to your own husbands, depends on mutual submission, 521. And so submission should be bidirectional, not asymmetrical. It applies to husbands, it applies to wives equally. Just as husbands are told to love their wives, all Christians are

commanded to love one another. And just as wives are told to submit to their husbands, all Christians are commanded to submit to one another. Mutual submission. All Christians are commanded to submit to one another. Mutual submission. Now, other scholars maintain that, yes, 521 is speaking about mutual submission in general, but that Paul's not making an absolute claim. In other words, submission is a general, is a virtue applied to every Christian, but this does not mean that every Christian submits to every other Christian in the exact same way in every single case. Well, yeah. So when Paul says submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, that would include children, right? They're humans. But that doesn't

mean that parents should submit to kids. There might be other relationships where it is one directional, one person is submitting to the other person. So for instance, there's other passages in the Bible where you see like one another's, you know, greet one another. That's bidirectional, is that right? Or symmetrical. It's both doing the exact same thing. You greet them, they greet you. So it happened at the same time. They're doing something to one another.

Two people are doing to each other, same thing at the same time. They're doing something to one another. Two people are doing to each other the same thing at the same time. But there's other statements where kind of one-anotherness is more asymmetrical. So in Revelation 6.4, it says that people would, quote, slaughter one another. This means some members of one group are slaughtering members of the other group. It has to be asymmetrical. I guess unless they just sorted each other at the exact same time. I don't think that's what is being said there. So there, the phrase one another does not necessarily mean both parties are doing the exact same thing to each other at the exact same

time. And so just because the implied wife's submission to her husband is rooted in mutual submission, this doesn't mean it necessarily means that husbands are also to equally submit to their wives. And scholars who take this latter kind of view on mutual submission would point out that in the context of husbands and wives, the New Testament always, it's always one to write. It's always wives to their husbands. Colossians 3.18, Titus 2.5, 1 Peter 3.7. And then even if, you know, here in Ephesians 5.22 and 24, it's at least implied

wives to your husbands. Dramatically, it's not husbands to your wives. So what do we do with this? Does 5.21 mean that husbands and wives are to submit to each other equally? Or is there still some kind of one directional submission, wives, your husbands within a context of mutual submission. I'm still wrestling with this. Let me make, um, I was maybe surprised that I would say the majority of evangelicals or of, yeah, evangelicals, sorry. The majority of egalitarian scholars, many of whom are also evangelical, didn't come right out and say, yes, mutual submission of 521 means husbands are to, that Paul was saying, husbands submit to your wives. Like they didn't come right on and say that.

I thought that would be a common way in which the commentaries would, you know, egalitarian commentators would render this, but they were a bit more nuanced than that. I did find a couple that did come right out and say, yes, this is just husbands, wives, wives, husbands. There's no difference here. Here's some of my observations. First of all, I mean, the whole concept of mutual submission of 521, this would have been startling. Let's just, I mean, just historically in the greco-roman world and even in the jewish world like submission implied hierarchy and submitting to one another kind of was a way to destroy hierarchy and that was just not typically done so just that alone wherever you land just 521

would have been like people have been blinking doing that kind of like remember that gif where the guy goes you know like just kind of blinks, like, what? Like, it would have turned some heads. So even if we take the second view where the husbands are not to submit to their wives, only wives to their husbands, 521 does kind of shape how we view 522 to 533. This doesn't mean the first view is correct, that mutual submission means that husbands submit to their wives. But submission was intrinsically asymmetrical based on social hierarchy in the ancient world. So even if it's only wives to their husbands, even if it is only wives to your husbands here, there's, I mean, Paul's at least tempering that.

He's at least playing with it. He's at least coloring it in a different sort of lens. I like, so Richard Hayes, phenomenal New Testament scholar, he says this, the hierarchical structure of the relations described is tempered by a comprehensive vision of the church as a people living in humility and mutual submission. He kind of leaves it vague there. I got to where, okay, so where do you end up landing? But I think that's kind of the point. I think Paul might be a little vague here. Okay, second, and this is something I just already said earlier in this episode,

that we cannot view submission through a secular lens. Let's just keep that in mind. We must put something like submission on par with virtues like courage, strength, power, holiness. Jesus turned submission from a vice virtues like courage, strength, power, holiness. Like these are Christian, Jesus turned submission from a vice into a virtue from a sign of weakness into a sign of power. Really? Third, uh, whatever shadow 521 casts over the household code, I do think it ends at 533. I don't think it carries over into six, one to nine,

where it talks about children and, uh about children and fathers and slaves and masters. I think Philip Payne is right here when he says that 5.21 is grammatically and verbally linked to 5.22, not to either of the sociological pairs in chapter 6 where Paul uses a different verb. He uses the verb obey, not submit in 6.1-9. different verb. He uses the verb obey, not submit in 6.1-9. Also, Ephesians 5.33, the last verse in chapter five, sums up Paul's instructions to the wife and husband, which essentially give closure to his argument from 5.21-32. So my observation here in terms of 5.21 is more of a question. Should we view the commands given to the husband toward his wife as a kind of submission? Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm reading my own words here and I misunderstood myself. My fourth observation about five, the significance of 521 is more of a question. Some people say,

okay, yes, the verb submit, the language of submission is only given wives towards your husbands, but the actions of the husband toward his wife is basically a kind of submission. It's servitude. Frank Tillman says that although the head of the household retains his position of authority, his use of that authority is tempered by an attitude of service to those over whom he has been placed. So basically 525 to 29 is basically the husband submitting to his wife. Even if the language of submission isn't used, the actions are akin to submission. Con Campbell, who I believe leans egalitarian, he pushes back on this. He's got a great commentary on Ephesians

that just came out, I think last year. It's in the Pillar New Testament commentary. Khan is a, he would be another very honest exegete. He just, he loves, I think, the biblical text more than positions and conclusions. And it comes out in his commentary. It's not a long commentary, which is nice. It's not just overwhelming, but it's very thorough at the same time.

It's concise, but thorough. He pushes back on this. He says this, quote, this view confuses submission with service. Of course, all believers are to serve one another in a symmetrical sense, but this does not mean that all are supposed to submit to one another. The two concepts are related but distinct. So, yeah, he's probably right. I mean, does Christ serve the church? Yeah, he serves the church by dying for the church. We just saw that in Ephesians 5.

Does that mean he submits to the church? I don't think he submits to the church. Like service and submission, I think it's different. But there's a strong overlap. So I don't know. Are we quibbling over semantics here? So what if it's this radical service husband on behalf of the wife? And what if the wife, Paul was saying, wives still submit to your husbands, not husbands to your wives?

If both are doing that, you end up with a robust, beautiful sense of mutuality, don't you? Even if it's just a precise terminology, like it isn't maybe applied equally to both. So here, let me just sum up my thoughts here. I'm not yet convinced that we should understand Paul to mean that husbands are to submit to their wives. And again, all I'm saying is what Paul's saying to his first century audience here. I'm not necessarily saying, like, please don't, I'm just trying to understand Paul on his own first century terms. What did Paul mean when he said this to the Ephesian church and how the Ephesian church in the first century understand what Paul's saying? So I'm not yet convinced that they would have understood Paul to mean that husbands are to submit to their wives and wives to their husbands in a complete

symmetrical sense. At least I don't think that Paul was saying this necessarily to the first century of Asian believers. Husbands are never described as submitting to the wives and wives are not called the head of their husband. That's never the case. Paul does retain, I would say some semblance of male authority in the home, as we would expect from any good missionary who's sensitive to the cultural

context. I think if Paul going back to what I said earlier about being sensitive to outside onlookers already suspicious of political and religious treason happening within this early Christian movement and how they were sort of overturning Roman values. And there were, and they got pushed back on that. But there was a concern, as we saw in some of Paul's letters and other letters, that we need to make sure we have a good reputation with outsiders. So could it be that Paul is still maintaining the language that they would have recognized in a way to stave off unnecessary outside critiques?

And yet Paul is still kind of subtly subverting a lot of the Greco-Roman values while maintaining the husk of those values. Paul is clearly pushing toward mutuality in the passage, which we'll get to in a second. He's deconstructing hierarchies in first century marriages. So it may even be that the behavior Paul prescribes for husbands toward their wives was in a way virtual submission, even if Paul purposely avoids the word hupotasso. Again, I'm literally thinking out loud here. So that's kind of where I'm at. That's kind of where I'm at so far, if that makes sense. Here's another important point about the mutuality in the passage. I want to look at 528 to 532, where Paul clearly emphasizes the unity of the head and the body. So head and body in 522 to 24 seems to be authority over. And that that's, I think that's kind of what it means,

but Paul's going to reverse the rhetoric and he's going to end up at a head and body being, well, literally being one flesh in the quote from Genesis in 531. Okay, here's what Paul says. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Remarkable interdependence and unity and oneness. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they fed and cared for their body, just as Christ does the church, for we are members of his body. Members of his body, that is a common Pauline metaphor for unity, not one member being over another member. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh, unity. This is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about Christ

and the church. However, each of you must also love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband. There's an interesting Greek. Let's see. It doesn't come out in some translations. Oh yeah. Literally it says each of you must love his. However, see each of you must love his, however, let's see. Each of you must love his wife as he does himself in order that the wife might fear or respect, forbeo can mean respect, the husband. In order that. That is interesting, y'all y'all is he saying i didn't tease this out in my blog post so i'm thinking on the fly here but i remember reading some commentaries on this how this is a little bit startling that you know husbands love your wives in order that

wise might fear you it seems like the wife's sorry wife's respect for her husband is contingent upon the prior love of the husband. Once again, putting primary agency and burden of roles or whatever on the husband loving his wife, which again would have been radical in that day and age. So in Ephesians, and this is where Gregory Doss has done some great, great work that, you know, in Ephesians and elsewhere in Paul's letters, we see sometimes the head being described as distinct from the body. The head is ruling over the body. The head is the source of the body. And other places where the head and body are at one. Like the head-body metaphor can be used. He calls it like a partitive use, where one part of the body

is distinguished from the other, the body is different from the head. And other more unitive uses of this metaphor were the point of the metaphor is to show unity. And so what's striking in Ephesians 5 is that he sort of begins with the more partitive, that head is different than the body, head is authority over the body, the head gives himself up for the body. The head is authority over the body. The head gives himself up for the body. But then in the same passage, he rhetorically moves, pushes towards the same head-body metaphor, but pushes towards unity by the time he gets to 528 to 532. The head no longer stands in authority of the body. The head is at one with the body. The two are, as Paul says, as he quotes from Genesis 2, you know, one flesh.

So Gregory Doss says, quote, what the author draws on here is not the distinction between the head and the body. But the term kephale does not occur in these verses, a lot of part of Ephesians 5. Rather, what the argument relies on is the unitive use of the term soma, body, expressing the idea that the wife and husband form one flesh. So he says, Das goes on to say, quote, we may speak of two distinct uses of the terms kephale and soma, soma, body, within Ephesians 5, 21 to 33. One use in which the head is spoken of as distinct from the body and which distinguishes wife from husband. That's 22 to 24.

And another in which the term body is used to emphasize their unity. So I think he's right. And I think the rhetorical movement that we see of soma, the use of body in this passage from partitive to unitive, this kind of corresponds to Paul's redefinition of kephale in terms of authority as self-sacrificial service that we saw earlier. So one could say that Paul meets his audience where they're at in 522 to 524 and then takes them on a journey toward mutuality and interdependence in 525 to 533, something already hinted at in 521 with the mutual submission verse. Could kephale mean source here? So several scholars do argue for source in Ephesians 5. Linda Belleville, for instance, she says that Paul,

quote, most certainly, unquote, uses kephale to mean source and quote, Paul's four references to Christ as kephale of his church without a doubt means source unquote. That's a little more confident than I would want to be without a doubt. I certainly have several doubts that mean source here. I mean, I probably have more doubts that it means authority and then she has doubts that it means source here. Belleville can run circles around me in her she has doubts that it means source here. Belleville can run circles around me in her scholarship. So I gotta be careful here.

Belleville points out, points out that in Ephesians 5, kephale as source goes back to the creation of male and female, where the woman was created out of man. And Paul's allusion to this creation story in Genesis 22, 21 and 24 in Ephesians 5, 32 is unmistakable. I'll come back to that in a second. Phil Payne also argues that kephalae means source in Ephesians 5.23, but he highlights the wife's social dependence upon the man in the first century context. So he says this,

the husband in that culture was the source of life for his wife since he provided all that was essential for her to live. Wives depended upon their husbands as the source of food, clothing, shelter, and the physical source of her children and her emotional source of love. And therefore, Christ is the source of life, love, and nourishment for the church as husbands should be for their wives. So I don't know. I've never seen anybody make this distinction, but as far as I can see, I think it's valid to make a distinction in two different understandings of source for Kefale here. One would be like ontological. That would be what Belleville emphasizes here that you have

the creation of the woman out of man. That's, you know, man is a source of woman. You see that in 1 Corinthians 11, clearly, verses 8 to 9 and 11 to 12. So Belleville argues that that's kind of what's going on here. So that would be more like ontological source where the other sense of source would be more social than the first century context, a husband is providing for his wife. I personally don't see much credibility

in the ontological view of source. Um, I think it's, I think it's a plausible understanding of Kefale in first Corinthians 11, three in light of the context, but it does. I just don't think it makes much sense of what Paul's doing here in Ephesians five.

Yes. Yes. He cites Genesis two 24, but this part of the creation story speaks of the marital unity between Adam and Eve, which is precisely Paul's point. It doesn't emphasize Eve's creation from the side of Adam. Like that part of the creation story

doesn't contribute anything to what Paul's doing in Ephesians 5. I mean, it almost makes Paul say, wives, submit to your husbands because Eve was created out of Adam's side. To me, that just doesn't make much sense. I think Paine's understanding of source in terms of social source is much more credible. The wife's social dependence on her husband, he is a source of livelihood, maybe even spiritual source of the wife.

maybe even spiritual source of the wife. In the end, though, I don't think interpreting kephalé to mean source is more credible than the interpretation of Michelle, Lee Barnwell, Barnwall, and many others who see kephalé to mean, to convey some sense of authority here in Ephesians 5. Here's several reasons. Well, so let me just quickly quickly what are the main arguments for seeing source here for kephale number one some people say it's this is the the established meaning of head in hellenistic greek way more than leader or authority i spent three hours showing why i disagree with that um and several blogs if we just appeal to the wider use of Kefale,

the wider understanding of what head means in the ancient world, I think there's much more evidence for authority. Second, some people say Christ's role as savior of the body, which is an apposition to the role as head. Remember Ephesians 5.23, as Christ is the head of the church, himself being the savior of the body, that Kefale is being defined by Christ's role as

savior, not Lord or leader, which contributes to the idea of Christ being the source of the body, not its authority. So my response to that line of reasoning, I've already kind of said what I think about that, that I think it's a false dichotomy to say that Christ's self-giving sacrifice is at odds with him being authority. It just seems like a leap, a logical leap to say Christ is Savior, Christ. And by Savior, he also created the church. Therefore, his head metaphor, him being referred to as head is therefore the source. You can connect those dots, but is that the role that Cephalia is playing in Paul's rhetorical argument?

I think that's more of a stretch. A third argument in favor of source is that, well, it means source in Ephesians 4.15. So it's likely he's doing that here. I just, that's true, I think. It might be the strongest argument in favor of source in my opinion, but I just think the contexts

are just quite different. Paul is just doing different things here in 5.23 versus 4.15. And I give more reasons surrounding that in my post. Here's probably the main reason why I think source is not a good interpretation of kephale here. I think it just blunts the teeth of Paul's argument. If kephale means source and not authority, then what is Paul turning on its head? I mean,

in as much as this kind of role reversal, rhetorical movement, turning things on its head, role reversal, rhetorical movement, turning things on its head, subverting common social values. If head means source, he's not really subverting anything. He's just kind of affirming those values. But if it means authority, then he is turning the nature of authority on its head. So interpreting Kephale as life source, husband is the life source of the wife. This has Paul basically agreeing with and reinforcing first century, one might even say patriarchal assumptions, where the wife was utterly dependent upon her husband for food, clothing, shelter, etc. To have Paul saying that wives should submit to their husbands since he's the life source of their wives.

This sounds more like Aristotle to me than Paul. And again, I think it just would blunt the teeth of Paul's rhetorical argument. So in short, I think interpreting kephale as conveying redefined authority not only makes more lexical sense, it keeps kephale meaning authority, which I think is lexically the most valid. But it also contains more explanatory power of Paul's rhetorical movement in the passage. You've waited through all these hours to find out am I egalitarian or commentarian? Okay, let me save you the trouble. I don't want to impose those categories on this passage. And I don't know where I end up landing.

So don't try to determine where I'm at before I even know where I'm at. I honestly think these lenses can fog up our exegetical lenses when it comes to the text. If we have these modern prepackaged categories that we think Paul is working within, I don't think he's working within these same, uh, categories.

So, but let me, okay. I think I sound he's working within these same categories. But let me, okay, I think I sound like a politician. So let me do offer some thoughts that might be directly applicable to these modern debates. In general, I do find myself agreeing slightly more with some of the exegesis of scholars who happen to be complementarian in their understanding of Kefale as authority rather than source or even prominence. Okay. And so far, I mean, much of what I said about the meaning of Kefale,

especially in the ancient literature is I think mostly in agreement with Wayne Grudem, who's pretty complementarian. I just, just in terms of his exegesis of this passage, I mean, I have disagreements with some of the sayings, but as I put him up against some of the other scholars who are looking at the same

text, more times than not, I think Wayne Grudem is getting it right. And yet when we appreciate Paul's rhetorical movement in Ephesians 5, especially in light of the other household codes, I think we end up with a mutual marriage relationship that does not reflect how many complementarians apply Ephesians 5. So for instance, I think it would be wrong to say that the husband's authority means that he has the tie-breaking vote when he and his wife disagree, that he's in charge of which house they will buy, which car they will drive, who will drive the car, namely him, and how they will spend their money, who's keeping the budget, where they should live, whose job they should move. It's always the husband's job that you should move toward. And if the wife has a job, you would never move

locations. How they should raise their kids, where they attend church, how they should disciple their kids, who reads the Bible at night to them, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. To make these kinds of applications, I think, misunderstands how metaphors work, just to keep it exegetical here. Paul had a specific kind of authority, namely self-giving, love, and view. Remember, he's such a pig analogy. This application cuts against the grain of applying some kind of comprehensive authority ahead of the household. He has a final decision on everything. of applying some kind of comprehensive authority, the head of the household, he has a final decision on everything.

I think that cuts against the grain of the very point Paul is making by redefining authority. The specific way that the husband is in authority over their wives is by giving up of themselves for their wives, by loving and caring for them. This is different from saying the husband is in authority over his wife in the

modern sense of the term when we talk about the head of the household. Now, maybe Paul believes that. Maybe if we look at the wider New Testament context and look at other household codes, maybe you can build an argument that the husband has a tie-breaking vote or whatever. I just don't think that's Paul's rhetorical purpose here, what he's trying to accomplish to his Ephesian audience in this household code in Ephesians. So I also want to challenge the notion that, well, okay, so some, I think, and this probably comes more from commentarians that, you know, husbands, you're an authority over your wives. You have comprehensive authority. And oh, by the way, you should also be loving and caring in how you rule.

Don't rule with a heavy hand, but you still rule. Make sure you're serving your wife, but you're still the head of the household and you have the ultimate rule over all the decisions of the house or whatever. So I don't think it's like, yes, comprehensive authority, but make sure you're kind of gentle and kind with that kind of authority. Make sure you love and serve your wife while you're ruling over the household. Some people interpreted my blog post to be arguing for that kind of view. And I thought I deliberately said that's not what I'm getting at.

Again, the husband is in authority over his wife in that he is to give himself up for her. That's what authority means. So maybe, I mean, I just think we're so hung up on the word authority that even though Paul's redefining it, I think anytime I say the word authority, you're probably already thinking like secular authority. So maybe just use a different word there. And maybe that could be the case. Kephile typically means authority.

Paul's probably assuming it means authority. But because he redefines it as authority, maybe head has a sense of service here. You say, so it doesn't mean authority? No. Yes, that is authority in the Christian world. Last will be first. The first will be last. Leaders should be servants, not

servant leaders, but servants are the leaders of the church. Foot washers have the highest honor and so on and so forth. So I think, at least I think this is where Paul's headed in Ephesians five, what Paul's trying to do. So while Paul still uses the language of head and submission after he gets done redefining these terms, we practically end up with the stunning notion of mutual authority Paul expresses elsewhere when he says, quote, 1 Corinthians 7.4, the wife does not have authority over her own body, but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his wife or over his own body, but yields it to his wife. That is one of the most profound radical statements about marriage in the ancient world. Speaking about something as intimate as sexual relations, that's a remarkable passage. I do think that that kind of mutual self-givingness towards each other is what Paul's driving toward in Ephesians 5.

So that's where I'm at. Would love to hear your thoughts. You can even drop a comment on my blog post or the YouTube. If you're not on YouTube, if you're just listening to the podcast, you can also go to the YouTube version of this podcast and you can, there's comments there. You can get into a big raging debate with all the YouTube commenters there about whether you agree with me, um, don't agree with me, hate me, love me, whatever. I don't typically read YouTube comments. Unfortunately, I just, I,

I have many other people I'm interacting with that I can't just, yeah, it would take me all day to spend time on YouTube interacting with everybody there. So, but if you want to drop a comment, interact with other people, feel free. I might, well, I didn't just said that. Every now and then I do kind of say, well, for this case, I do want to kind of see what people are saying. So maybe I'll do that for this one. I am currently waiting through 1 Corinthians 11. So just because this is where I'm at with Ephesians 5, 23, 1 Corinthians 11 is, I've wrestled with some really difficult passages in Paul.

Part of my dissertation was on Galatians 3, 10 to 14, which people say is one of the most difficult passages in Paul. I think every other time I turn around, somebody's saying, this is the most difficult passages in Paul. I think 1 Corinthians 11, 2 to 16 is the most, one of the most, if not the most difficult passages in all of Paul's writings. So it's going to take me a while to really figure out what I think Paul means when he says that man is the head of woman and Christ is the head of man and God is the head of Christ in Ephesians.

Sorry, 1 Corinthians 11, 3. So it might be a while until I post another episode on this topic, but I will be blogging my way through 1 Corinthians 11, so please tune in there. Please subscribe to my newsletter, TheologyNRaw.com. You can sign up there. And also, yeah, the newsletter will kind of keep you up to date whenever I release a blog. So thank you for listening. And until next time, we will see you later on Theology in the Raw. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.