Deep Creek Anglican Church Blog

Chapter Fifteen: Ephesians 5:21-33 and Colossians 3:18-19: Husband-Wife Relationships”

We return to Philip Payne’s very significant book Man and Woman, One in Christ.

Philip begins this chapter highlighting that Paul’s ‘household rules’ are vastly different to those in the 1st C secular world.  ”Paul goal is the actualisation of the “New humanity” where all members are filled with the Spirit and nurtured in Christ (Eph 5:18).”

Our author contends that Paul’s statements do not endorse a hierarchical structure, so prevalent in that 1st C world.  For example, Paul effectively undermines slavery – the image of God in humankind and the family of believers who are one in Christ is fundamentally incompatible with slavery (see also 1 Tim 1:10).

Before our author gets into the detail of Eph 5:21ff with its instructions on husbands and wives, he highlights the importance of mutuality and love in the Letter to the Ephesians.  Payne comments,

“True love for one’s wife is not compatible with a husband completely controlling her life, just as true love is not compatible with a master completely controlling his slave’s life or for a parent controlling his mature child’s life.”

Paul writes in Eph 5:21 (NIV): ^“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”  Payne notes that:

• the reciprocal pronoun (“one another”) shows that Paul is not in the following verses endorsing hierarchical social structures [Payne gives an extended discussion on v21 and refutes Wayne Grudem's approach in pp 277-283]
• v22 (“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord”) is in fact embedded in one long sentence in the original that goes from 5:18-24.  Additionally, ‘submit’ is not in v22, which depends on the verb ‘submit’ in v21 – ie. husbands need to submit to their wives as well.
• Additionally, it is not only husbands who are to love their wives – the reverse applies (see Eph 5:2; Tit 2:4).
• So how do we make sense of vv22, 25 with their calls for women to ‘submit’ and men to ‘love’?  Payne’s answer is important:

“Paul highlights for women and men what each tends to need to hear most.” (277)

The second critical issue that Payne wrestles with is the meaning of “head” in v23.  This is an analogous relationship put forward by Paul between husband/wife and Christ/church.  So the starting point is to understand what is meant by: “Christ is the head of the church“.  Our author makes the following points:

• By placing “saviour” in apposition [ie. the placing of a word or expression beside another so that the second explains and has the same grammatical construction as the first] to “head”, we are to understand “head” as equivalent in meaning to “saviour.”  And Paul’s following descriptions of Christ’s relationship to the church do not stress authority but rather His actions as saviour, the source of life and nourishment of the Body.
• The parallel use of “head” in Col 1:18 confirms that Paul intended this image to convey “source.”
• By using the metaphor of ‘head’ Paul encourages readers to consider how a head is s source for the body. ie. the husband is the person on whom the wife depends just as the church depends on Christ – and therefore submission is appropriate.
• When a husband is the “head” of the wife in the sense of self-giving, his wife has good reason to submit to his loving nourishment and “submission” becomes a joyous response.  [Clearly 'submission' does not entail doing anything wrong]

I found Payne’s analysis very helpful.  My understanding of this passage starts with the command of Eph 5:18 on being filled with the Spirit.  What follows, all the way down to Eph 6:9, are descriptions of what this looks like in the church and in everyday life.  And clearly Eph 5:21 is an overarching verse on the conduct of our relationships.  Payne’s examination of v21 and its link with v22, and the analysis of the ‘head’ metaphor has put much more meat on my understanding of this passage.

Chapter Eight: 1 Corinthians 11:4: The Disgrace of a Man “Having Down  from the Head”

Chapter Nine: 1 Corinthians 11:5-6: the Disgrace of a Woman’s Head “Uncovered”

We’re picking up some highlights of Philip Payne’s very significant book Man and Woman, One in Christ (for Australian purchase check out availability here or international delivery from here (under ‘Products’) or here).

We come to verses 4 to 6 of Paul’s important passage, 1 Cor 11:2-16:

⁴Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. ⁵And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is just as though her head were shaved. ⁶If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head.

Many commentators understand Paul to be referring to a form of head garment (veil etc).  But even a ‘surface reading’ of vv15-16 indicates that this approach is problematical.  Philip Payne devotes two chapters to unpacking the meaning of vv4-6, and in so doing examines the historical context, critical to understanding the situation that Paul was addressing within the Corinthian church.

Dionysiac cult:

• influential in Corinth (prominent temple for worship of Dionysus)
• significant correspondence between Dionysiac practices and 1 Cor (eg. 5:9f; 6:9; 8:10; 10:8, 21; 11:21f)
• men desiring “homosexual liasons advertised their sexual availability through display of effeminate hair, particularly in the Dionysiac cult” (143)
• customary for women to “let down their hair to “prophesy” and engage in all sorts of sexual debauchery” (162).  Dionysus was considered by some women in the 1st C as the liberator
• disorder and too high an estimation of ecstatic experiences typified both the Dionysiac cult and issues in the Corinthian church.

Regarding men:

• v4: Literally, “hanging down from the head” of men leading in worship was disgraceful.  What was hanging down?  Answer in v15: long hair
• Long effeminate hair, worn by a man, was considered disgraceful in Greek, Roman and Jewish literature of the 1st C.  It was seen as presenting oneself as a woman
• Christ is then shamed because not accepting how He created the male.

Regarding women:

• context of this passage (also 10:16ff; 11:17ff) indicates a public church meeting in view
• Paul assumes that “every woman” [like "every man"] can pray and prophesy in public.  Payne comments, “Paul’s approval of women prophesying should not be interpreted as excluding related ministries of revelation, knowledge, and instruction” (150)
• “uncovered” in v5 refers to hair let down loosely around the shoulders
• in Jewish, Greek and Roman settings, respectable women had their hair done up (159).  The opposite was seen as “undisciplined sexuality”
• women wearing their hair done up as a modest covering makes sense of v15
• an accused adulteress had her hair let down, and shaving was the penalty for a convicted adulteress (cf. v5)
• why would women in the Corinthian church let their hair down?  Influence of Dionysiac cult and taking excessive liberties in the church (as seen throughout 1 Corinthians).

Our author interacts extensively with other commentators on this passage and Greek/Roman and Jewish sources. The issue that the apostle is addressing is hairstyles that repudiate marriage.

In the following Chapter Ten, our author looks at vv7-10 where the apostle gives theological reasons for the head-covering rules.

Chapter Five: 1 Corinthians 7: The Equal Rights of Man and Woman in Marriage
.

Beginning with chapter five, Philip Payne devotes ten chapters to the exegesis of Paul’s statements about women in 1 Corinthians.  The first of these chapters focuses on 1 Cor 7.  In this relatively short chapter, the author makes the following observations about Paul’s treatment of man and woman in marriage:
.

• in twelve distinct issues about marriage, Paul addresses men and women as equals, indeed using symmetrically balanced wording;
• such an egalitarian view of marriage is without parallel in the ancient world;
• indeed, instructions, such as 1 Cor 7:4, were revolutionary;
• male spiritual leadership of the home is challenged by vv14, 16 and a woman’s spiritual state is not dependent on marriage (vv34).  Indeed, v7 and 1 Cor 12:4-11 affirm that both men and women are gifted by God (NB. Payne contends that the Greek translated as ‘man’ in the NIV (contra. TNIV) should be ‘man and woman’ as per normal Greek convention.)

In the next chapter, the author begins his extended analysis of the interpretive-challenging passage, 1 Cor 11:2-16.

Chapter Three: Paul’s Theological Axioms Imply the Equality of Man and Woman

Having examined the influences on Paul’s view of women, and then having identified the women serving as ministry leaders in the NT, the writer turns in chapter three to the apostle’s theological axioms that provide the framework for understanding his teachings about men and women.

Payne identifies a dozen areas where Scripture affirms the equal standing of men and women, including: both created in God’s image; both received the creation mandate and blessing; the redeemed are all ‘in Christ’; oneness of the Body of Christ, the priesthood of all believers and liberty in Christ presupposes equality; gifts of the Spirit manifest equality.

The writer states that the nature of church leadership as service applies equally to male and female.  He notes that church leaders’ authority is not intrinsic to themselves or their office, but is derived.  It is the Holy Spirit who gives the necessary gifts for leadership and guides the leader (Acts 20:28).  Payne draws on the Scriptural data presented in chapter two to conclude that “the Spirit gifts and guides women as well as men for church leadership.”

Payne also notes that mutual submission in the church (Eph 5:21) presupposes equal standing, and then he draws the same conclusion about submission in marriage – a topic he returns to in some detail, later in the book (chapters five and fifteen).

Chapter Three concludes the introductory section of the book – the next eleven chapters comprise exegesis of Pauline statements about women in Galations and 1 Corinthians.