Okay, so I'm going to go back a few posts and revisit three passages I touched on earlier, when I was discussing how the Egalitarian position can help a man be a more Biblical husband than the Complimentarian position. When discussing that, I deliberately left out any discussion of the following verses:
"Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord."
—Colossians 3:18, ESV
"Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening."
—1 Peter 3:1-6, ESV
"Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands."
—Ephesians 5:22-24, ESV
Just looking at these verses, it would seem that they spell doom for the Egalitarian position. Here, plain as day, the Bible is telling wives they need to obey their husbands. 1 Peter 3:6 even says wives should be calling their husband "lord!" At this point, the Complimentarians declare victory, insist on "love, cherish, and obey" as the bride's wedding vow, and prepare to walk off the scene. After all, demonstrating that wives must be totally submissive toward their husbands is only one step away from showing that women cannot have authority over any men at all, period.
But all is not as it seems from a simple first reading, and these verses do not exist in isolation. In understanding the Bible, context is critical. So what's the context of these three passages? Well, their immediate context is a set of commands to husbands and wives...and as we saw in a previous post, Complimentarianism isn't too good at taking the verses aimed at husbands seriously. In fact, they're mostly ignored in favor of telling men to be dominant leaders (from nowhere in the Bible) and citing these verses out of context to tell women to obey.
But the larger context of these verses is even more enlightening. These verses belong to three parallel passages in the Bible: Colossians 3:1-4:6, 1 Peter 2:11-3:8, and Ephesians 5:1-6:20. Each passage details how Christians are supposed to live in certain situations. The Colossians and Ephesians passages are nearly identical, speaking of, in order: general commandments, mutual submission among believers, wives, husbands, children, fathers, slaves, masters, and the importance of prayer. In fact, the Ephesians-passage could be called simply a fleshed-out version of the Colossians-passage outline. The passage in 1 Peter is a little different, coming from a different Biblical author, but still covers the same general topics: general commandments for all believers, commands for citizens obeying the government, commands for slaves, commands for wives, husbands, and ending with a call for overall unity. The main difference is that verses directed toward masters, fathers, and children are left out while verses about submission to government are included.
What does this mean for us? Well, it means that in their original context, the verses about wives being obedient to their husbands are part of a set of verses directed to Christians in various walks of life telling them how they should live in the roles within which they find themselves. Citizens should obey their governments, slaves should obey their masters, masters should treat slaves fairly, wives should obey their husbands, husbands should love their wives, children should obey their parents, fathers should treat their children well, etc. All three passages are also framed by general commandments to all Christians for how they should live their daily lives in all circumstances, and calls for mutual submission and unity. In other words, the passages are sets of instructions for how Christians living very different lives are to live out the unity, mutual submission, and love that they have in Christ.
This is an important point. Its easy to see these passages as endorsing these societal roles, but in fact the Bible does no such thing. All three passages advise slaves on how to live within their roles as Christian slaves without necessarily saying that slavery is good or right. In fact, in insisting that masters remember that their slaves are equals, these passages subtly lay the groundwork for future Biblical abolitionist movements, which see that these roles, while they can be lived in as a Christian, are fundamentally un-Christian in nature.
The problem for Complimentarians is, again, that their reading of the passages must switch partway through. The verses that talk about the absolute submission of wives to their husbands are held to be universal divine edicts, expressing the pure will of God for all Christians throughout all time, and most definitely endorsing a patriarchy at home. However, when, in the same context, the Bible talks about the absolute submission of slaves to their masters...somehow this is a not-so-eternal truth. It's more of a command to Christians finding themselves in a certain cultural and social construct (slavery) which the Bible, rather than endorsing, simply tells them how to endure in their role as Christians. The same goes for the verses commanding absolute and unquestioning obedience to an imperial government in 1 Peter. Just because the Bible says, "Honor the Emperor" or "Honor the king" (in some translations), does not mean that the Bible is establishing an imperial monarchy as the only Biblical and Christian form of government. So just because the Bible has commands for Christians under autocratic governments and slavery does not mean the Bible endorses these institutions...but somehow just a few verses later passages about how Christians are to behave in a patriarchal marriage absolutely is an endorsement of this institution.
This is a contradictory reading! We can't have it both ways! Either the Bible's commands to slaves, citizens, and wives are circumstancial and cultural, telling Christians how to live under certain institutions without endorsing the institutions themselves, or else all Christians everywhere are under a divine command to fight for a society marked by slavery, autocracy, and patriarchy. Again, as in the previous post, the Complimentarian position forces us to ignore context and treat the items of a list as having totally different meanings, and this is inconsistent. To me, it means that the Complimentarian reading is, in some way, deeply flawed, forced to distort the passage and take it out of context in order to maintain its own views imported from the outside.
Egalitarianism carries no such burden to the passage. It sees all three passages as commands given to Christians who find themselves in social and cultural roles which the Bible does not necessarily endorse. Rather than laying out what these roles should be, these passages simply tell Christians how to live out lives pleasing to Christ within the cultural and social roles in which they find themselves. Citizens are to obey and honor the autocracy under which they find themselves, even though it may not be the ideal form of government for Christian principles. Likewise slaves are to obey their masters even though under Christ both are equals. So also wives, finding themselves in patriarchal marriages where they were literally dependent on their husbands for everything, were to obey him, even though in Christ gender doesn't matter.
What does this mean for us today? Two things, really. First, it means that patriarchal marriages as described in these passages are not God's gold standard of relationships. They are not even, necessarily, something consistent with the rest of Christianity. Like slavery and autocracy, they are social and cultural roles, and, like slavery and autocracy, we have the freedom in Christ to seek a more perfect and more Christian union. Second, it means that the roles we take in marriage (whether submissive, dominant, or sharing), like the roles we take in government and economic life, are not nearly as important as how we live those roles, as Christians. If we, as Christians, find ourselves in a culture of egalitarian marriages which emphasize mutual decisions over male leadership, we do not have a divine mandate to revive the patriarchy. Nor do we, if we live under a patriarchy, necessarily need to abolish it. Whether we show the love of Christ and His new life in us in our roles within our culture and marriage (whatever those roles may be) is far more important to God.
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