One In Jesus

(Eph 5:22 ESV) 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 

As Paul explains in Ephesians 5, the wife’s obligation to her husband does not mean the husband has no reciprocal obligation.

Rather, while Paul finds the role of wives in their prototype, Eve, he finds the role of husbands in their prototype Jesus as the husband of the church (and from the Old Testament, the Lord as husband of Israel). Continue reading →

So, finally, we get to 1 Corinthians 11 — but hopefully with a rich, full understanding of Jesus and our relationship to him in mind.

(1Co 11:3 ESV)  3 But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

There’s a good case from context that “head” or kephalē means source, but Greek is devoid of any prior use of kephalē in that sense. Rather, the more common uses are as the most prominent part, the end point, the beginning, and as chief, leader, or ruler.

But metaphors are always defined by context, and we cannot ignore the context in deciding what Paul has in mind. Moreover, we cannot assume that Paul abandons his understanding of Christ or of men and women.

Notice that the ESV translates anēr as “husband” and gunē as “wife,” contrary to the NIV. This is for a couple of reasons. First, as pointed out earlier, the subject of the passage is veils, and only wives were expected to wear a veil. Continue reading →

I know I’ve wandered far from 1 Corinthians 11, but it’s necessary. You see, we have a tendency to revert to our childhood understanding when we take a text out of context — the context of all of scripture.

And so it’s easy to imagine that “head” requires a hierarchical relationship of power and dominance, even though the rest of scripture points us in the opposite direction.

We have to remember the big lessons before we start inserting our preconceptions into the text.

And we have to cover one more essential truth before we return to “head.” What is the image of God? What does God really look like? If we were to be restored to his image, what would that be like? Continue reading →

Kings

While the idea of being on the throne with Jesus seems utterly foreign to modern Christians, it was an important theme for First Century Jews — who knew their scriptures better than we often do.

Paul had already introduced the idea in 1 Corinthians —

(1Co 6:2-3 ESV) 2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?  3 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!

Remember that in the ancient world the king was also a judge. That’s why we read of the greatness of Solomon in terms of his wise rulings as judge. Continue reading →

Kephalē

The meaning of “head” in 1 Corinthians 11 is controversial. After all, the entire passage is replete with difficulties.

In First Century Greek, “head” can refer to the highest or most prominent part of something, to the beginning, to the extremities or ends of something, or to life.

And, of course, Paul was free to coin his own metaphors, discernible from context. Continue reading →

Prophecy and prayer

Plainly, the wives in the Corinthian church were speaking in the assembly. They were praying and prophesying. While we can easily imagine a silent prayer, silent prophecy is quite impossible.

To avoid this result, some Church of Christ commentators argue that this was not the worship assembly but some other event. And yet this passage is immediately followed by a discussion of the Lord’s Supper, grammatically linked to the passage on women: Continue reading →