Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1111: Women in Ministry, 1 Corinthians 11, Ephesians 5, and the Meaning of "Head" (kephale): Andrew Bartlett

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

Andrew Bartlett is a lawyer, judge, and international arbitrator. He has a degree in theology from University of Gloucestershire. He has served in several churches as elder or churchwarden and is the author of book Men and Women in Christ: Fresh Light from the Biblical Texts, which forms the starting point for our conversation on what the New Testament says about women in church leadership. We focus on 1 Corinthians 11, the meaning of kephale (“head”) from 1 Corinthians 11:3 and Ephesians 5:22-24, and we also dabble briefly in 1 Timothy 2:12-14.

Exiles in Babylon 2024. That's right, folks. We're doing it again. Our third annual Exiles in Babylon conference will be held on April 18th through the 20th, 2024 here in Boise, Idaho. And this one is going to be an absolute barn burner, as we say here in Idaho. The topics we're going to discuss are deconstruction and the church. And we're going to actually hear from people who have deconstructed and others who maybe should have deconstructed but didn't. We're also going to discuss women, power, and abuse in the church, which is obviously a huge issue that we absolutely need to discuss. We're going to talk about faith and sexuality, specifically how can churches

become places where LGBTQ or same-sex attracted Christians can flourish within a traditional sexual ethic. Lastly, we're going to discuss, I can't believe we're doing this one. We're going to discuss politics. That's right. Politics and the church where we're going to have various speakers present. We're going to have a right-leaning Christian, a left-leaning Christian, and a, I don't know, what do you call them? A non-partisan or Anabaptist-ish Christian share their perspectives, I don't know, what do you call them? A nonpartisan or Anabaptist Christian share their perspectives, share their perspective. And we're going to put them all in conversation with each other. And of course, we're going to have Evan Wickham and Tanika Wyatt

leading us in worship throughout the weekend. I really, really, really want to mix it up this year. We're going to hear from leading thinkers in each of these areas. We're going to be having different viewpoints in conversation with each other. It's going to be honest, it's going to be raw, and you're not going to want to miss out. I really think this one's going to fill up quickly. So if you want to attend in person, Boise, Idaho, April 18th through the 20th, register very, very soon. Just go to theologyintheraw.com. That's theologyintheraw.com. I really hope to see you there. Hello, friends.

Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is Andrew Bartlett, who is a lawyer, a judge, an arbitrator, an international arbitrator, and he also has a degree in theology from the University of Gloucestershire in the UK. And Andrew wrote a book called Men and Women in Christ, Fresh Light from the Biblical Text. It is a very thorough look at the question of women in ministry or women in church leadership. And Andrew comes at this question from an interesting angle. He'll explain kind of where he's coming from and how he got into this conversation at the beginning of the podcast. But I've enjoyed interacting with Andrew offline for over a year now. He's been a delight to interact with

through email, and we've tried to connect with each other at various points, and it just hasn't worked out yet. So it was truly a delight and honor for me to be able to talk to him on this podcast. So you're going to enjoy this conversation. We do go deep into 1 Corinthians 11 and Ephesians 5. So if you want to crack open your Bibles, dust them off and keep them open, that'd be great. And we do talk more generally about the conversation as a whole. So without further ado, please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Andrew Bartlett. Andrew, thank you so much for finally coming on Theology in a Raw. This has been a long time in the making.

We've had many email exchanges, and I've really enjoyed your book, and have tried to connect on several occasions, but it hasn't worked out. So this is, in the meantime, it's great to have you on the show. Great to finally connect. Why don't you just describe to people, what is it that you do? out. So this is, in the meantime, it's great to have you on the show. Great to finally connect. Why don't you just describe to people, what is it that you do for a full-time job? And then I would also love to know, how did you get interested in the topic of women in ministry or leadership or whatever wording we want to use? Okay, that might take a little time to explain. In the day job, I'm a lawyer. in Ethiopia and you draw up specifications and you

ask for tenders from around the world and then suppose the winning tender is a Chinese contractor and you make a contract for the road to be built. What are you going to do if you get into a dispute about how much the road should cost or whether it was built properly or something like that? Well, you have to have a dispute clause in your contract. And of course, the Ethiopians don't want to go to the Chinese courts for their dispute because they don't trust them. The Chinese don't want to go to the Ethiopian courts for their dispute because they don't trust them.

And the only way they can talk to each other anyway is in English. So their dispute clause will say, it might say arbitration in London, or it might say arbitration in English language, and then might name some institution under whose auspices the arbitration will be carried on. And then there's the system for appointing arbitrators who are the judges appointed by the parties. And you deal with the case just as if you were a judge, but it's heard in private. And you've got the trust of both sides because they're both paying you money to be impartial. Do you have to understand? That seems overwhelming. Do you have to understand all the legal unique features to every individual country that you work with? I mean,

how does one person have the ability to understand all that? Well, the contract will say what law applies. Okay. So they might apply English law to the contract or New York law or some other law that we know. Or they might say it's local law that applies, in which case the parties have to teach us what we need to know if we're not familiar with it already. Okay. So it's quite fun, really. How many different countries have you worked with?

A lot. Yeah, a lot. Yeah, all over. All over. North America, Far East, Middle East, Europe, Africa. Yeah. So it's a fascinating cross-cultural thing, international arbitration, because when you're listening to the evidence, you've always got to remember these people might not have used English in exactly the way you would have used it if they wrote their contract in English. And also with their different culture, they will write things differently and think differently and then mean things differently

when they give their evidence. And you've got to take all that into account. So it's a fascinating exercise. So that's what I mainly do. You have this legal background, a very interesting legal background. How did you get interested in, I mean, you're a man of the church, you've been a lay leader for a number of years, correct? When did you start to become interested in the question of women in church leadership? I should probably go back to the beginning for that, just to give people an idea. I started following Jesus when I was a teenager. That was way back in the 1960s, not from a Christian family, a long time ago. But in those days, men were leaders, evangelists, ministers, pastors,

etc. And the issue just didn't come up to my consciousness at all at the beginning. And in fact, in our family, I had one brother, no sisters. I went to a boys' school for primary. I went to a boys' school for secondary. When I went to Oxford, it was a men's college. In those days, they didn't admit women to the college. So it was a very one-sided male upbringing. The first time I gave any serious thought to the question was about the early 1980s

when in our church in London, a woman was proposed as an elder for the first time ever. I think I was an elder at the time or possibly church secretary, I forget which. So we had to think what to do. Somebody's proposed a woman. Well, in the church constitution, it sort of assumed elders were men, but it didn't say they had to be and no one had ever proposed a woman before so we had to think what were we going to do and interestingly just at that time um i don't remember in the uk margaret thatcher was our prime minister and women's ability to do what had previously been regarded as men's jobs was no longer in controversy. So we felt, since there was no actual prohibition in the Constitution, and since it seemed obvious that women could do men's jobs in terms of their ability, and the fact the person being proposed was very suitable in terms of her character, we thought, well, we need a clear scriptural reason to say no. of her character, we thought, well, we need a clear scriptural reason to say no. So we read the best books we could find in the UK at the time, and it didn't seem very clear cut. The

reasoning didn't seem to be quite convincing on either side. We couldn't really find a justification of fully excluding women from eldership. So we thought we couldn't prevent this person being proposed, at least if women remained a minority in the eldership, because then men would still be in charge because they were the majority and the minister was a man. You know, we came to a sort of pragmatic conclusion on that, but we continued to call men as ministers and we assumed men should be an overall charge. Now, I didn't think about it again for years, years and years and years. But then we moved house in 2005, and then I had my first experience of a woman as senior

minister. Because when we moved house, we went to the closest church, and it happened to be a woman minister. With my background, that felt very strange at first. But that feeling lasted about two weeks. And after about two weeks, it just seemed normal that we had a woman in charge and doing the stuff at the front. So I didn't really think about it very much more at that stage. But then around 2007, 2011, I did a theology degree, which I did in my spare time, insofar as I had any spare time, because I was practicing full time. But that meant I had to read widely on men and women and was exposed to a lot of different viewpoints. So that sort of churned up the ground for me a bit and made me realize there was a lot more I needed to know about it and a lot more I needed to read. Then finally, the last sort of series of steps was in

2015, I became a member with my wife of an independent evangelical church. And the statement of faith that members had to sign up to was silent on the men and women issue but the official line was only men can be pastors and elders and so anyone in leadership in that church had to sign up to the official line and so the pastor had to sign up to it the elders had to sign up to it um i was quite comfortable joining because i thought well i don't have to sign up to the official line. And so the pastor had to sign up to it, the elders had to sign up to it. I was quite comfortable joining because I thought, well, I don't have to sign up to it and I'm not sure what I think about this. But then because of joining that church, I started looking into it. And I found that the group that I joined had an official statement on women in ministry, which I read. And that said some things that struck me as distinctly odd, because they seem to be obviously incorrect. I mean, I could give a number of examples,

but I mean, just for one example, it said, what we see in the New Testament is, as we would expect, a reflection of patterns laid down in the Old Testament. And I thought, really? Hadn't they heard of the priesthood of all believers? Why would we expect male priesthood to continue from the Old Testament? It just didn't seem, and there were other things like that in the statement. I thought, this just doesn't make any sense. Made me think, I didn't really understand how serious Bible students could agree to and sign up to a statement worded like this, because there's too many mistakes in it, just obvious flaws. So I thought that was a bit strange. And then around about the

same time, somebody else in the church, a woman, approached me and said, do you know anything written on this issue about men and women in the church and what women can do and what they can't do? Because she was a very gifted woman. I think she was feeling a bit frustrated. So I sent her some things I'd been reading, one on each side, I think one by Grudem and one by Payne. And they were sort of short pieces, sort of 30-page sort of stuff. And she came back to me a week later and said, those are so partisan. Isn't there something a bit more balanced and less partisan? Those are so partisan. Isn't there something a bit more balanced and less partisan?

And that corresponded with the time when I'd been moving away from doing advocacy, you know, because for the first sort of 40 years of my legal career, or mostly, I'd be doing the advocacy for one side. But then as time went on, as I got older, I got more involved in judging. I did some judging in the public sector and also private sector as an arbitrator. And as you get older, it just gets harder to summon up the adrenaline to keep fighting day after day in a long trial. And, you know, so I'd been moving over to doing international arbitration around that time, in fact, for a number of years before that.

And so I thought, well, my day job is to try and look at both sides and weigh it up, see if the arguments stack up, see if the evidence supports the argument. Why don't I take a look at this? So I started looking into it more deeply and in a situation where, in a sense, I had nothing to lose because I wasn't signed up to anything. I wasn't in the leadership. If I decided complementarians were right, that's fine. That was the official line in the church I was in. A lot of my friends were complementarians. If I decided that complementarians were wrong, well, that's fine too,

because I'm not required to agree with it in the church I was in. So I sort of felt free to take a look at it and try and apply my legal skills to looking at the evidence and the reasoning. One thing I ought to say, being in law for many years in litigation or arbitration, where it's two sides fighting each other, you become very, very attuned to looking out for the defects in arguments and the gaps in evidence, both your own and the other side's. You're looking at the other side's gaps to find out where their case is going to fall down, and you're looking at your own as well to make sure it isn't going to fall down.

So you become very sensitive to that in a way that I think, if I'm honest, I didn't find when I was doing my theology degree in what I was reading biblical studies. Because if somebody writes a thing about a particular book or a particular chapter or a particular verse and publishes it, it could be years, the process of getting some feedback, and people criticizing it and saying, well, this argument isn't quite right, and you've overlooked that, you know, it can take five years, 10 years, before the argument goes anywhere, whereas in court, you get shot down within the day. So you become much more sensitive to the quality of arguments and the quality of the evidence. Does this really support what they're saying? Does this argument really follow?

And so I did find when I was doing my theology degree that there was a wide range in terms of quality. Some of it obviously absolutely excellent, but everything from absolutely excellent to very poor. You either sent me your book or your publisher did, but that was one thing that really drew me to it was just how you set the book up. Like you said, I very much resonated with this. I don't have a lot of, I don't have much in my socioeconomic ecclesial environment that's kind of nudging me to make sure I land

on one view or the other. And I feel very much the same way. And also just your desire to, and it's hard, it's hard. It's a hard thing to say because everybody's going to say, well, yeah, we're all trying to examine the arguments fairly, but there is just in some of the writings I've read, there just seems to be kind of right out of the gate, this passion for their conclusion, which I totally understand. But to me, I don't know, I all of a sudden get a little bit nervous about the manner in which, or their ability, if they're so passionate about one conclusion or the other, while I might resonate with that

passion and respect it and say, hey, I might be there too if I've done all the work and landed, you know, but it just makes me suspicious about whether they're going to fairly kind of represent the best side of each argument. And that's something I appreciate so much about your book, regardless of what people think about your conclusion, which we'll get to, the manner in which you went about studying the topic I thought was very, to me, it was very attractive. And it made me trust you, maybe not even agree with everything, but at least trust that you are honestly evaluating to the best of your ability each argument. Is that fair to say? I think so.

I do understand the passion. Yeah, me too. Since I wrote the book and reached conclusions, I've found the passion growing in me. So I'm aware of it. There's a very interesting transition that you have to make if you have been an advocate and you become an arbitrator or a judge. You've got to make the transition from not knowing the... Put it this way, if you're an advocate, only one result matters, winning your side. Obviously, within the rules, you stick to all the ethical requirements and do it honestly and all the rest of it. But

there's only one result that matters, you're trying to win. Whereas, and I have seen some judges who had been advocates who failed to make the transition. They came to a case, made a snap decision as to which side was right, and then tried to make their reasons fit. It's disastrous. Always ends up in the court of appeal getting put right. But when you, most judges successfully make the transition, even if they've been advocates before, which is, I don't mind what the result is. I just go with wherever the evidence and the arguments lead. It's so much easier that way. It doesn't matter what the

witness says. You just take what he says, and then you believe it or disbelieve it. You analyze it, see what it means. So you're not trying to get a result. It's so relaxing in comparison. You're going where the evidence and the arguments lead you. And it's a completely different mindset. Once you've got into that mindset and have learned how to do it, then it's possible to apply that to other things, provided you can keep a lid on the passion. It is a hard tension because we are talking about God's word. We are talking about half of the church, half of the human race. So this is not just arguing about the timing of Christ's

return or even age of the earth. And I know some people have the same passion there. The topic lends itself for passion. So I completely understand that. We do have to balance that with, I think sometimes passion can skew our ability to analyze arguments, or at least it can. Well, yeah, I guess just that. I'm not saying it makes it impossible. It just, it can be, doesn't have to be, but it can be a hindrance. With the book, you start with 1 Corinthians 7. And I, you know, you make the case that this is not the normal starting point. Or even a text that is often brought into the conversation. point, or even a text that is often brought into the conversation. And I remember you citing authors after authors after authors who, some of them don't even mention the passage, or it's kind of

in passing in a footnote. And yet 1 Corinthians 7 does talk a lot about male-female relationships, primarily within a marital context. But can you expand on that? Why did you start the book there? Or at least start, you know, you have an introduction that led you to there. But what is it about 1 Corinthians 7 that really kind of gave you an aha moment in your journey? Well, 1 Corinthians 7 is the longest passage in the New Testament about men and women. Testament about men and women. So it makes sense to start with it. And it's also the only passage which expressly talks about authority in the context of relations between men and women. Paul uses identical words for authority in relation to man and relation to the woman. It's the only passage which talks expressly about how to make decisions in marriage. It's, Paul says, by mutual consent.

And these are decisions on important matters, the physical relationship and praying together. That's the physical heart and spiritual heart of the relationship. Paul says decisions on those things should be made by mutual consent and uses the phrasing about how each has authority over the other. And I thought, well, authority over the other. And I thought, well, that's the obvious place to start. Why not start with the longest? And it's a very clear passage. And after talking about the specifics near the beginning of the chapter, Paul goes on to talk about a lot of other aspects about relations between men and women, some mainly related to marriage or whether you're going to be married, whether you're going to be single, what happens if you're a widow. But there are, I think, 12 statements in

that chapter about the relations between men and women, and all of them show equality. So I thought that was a fairly important starting point, because I was very aware that if you start in Genesis, you've got a big conflict between two very different ways of reading chapter 2. And if you start in Ephesians 5, you've got a very big conflict about two ways of reading what Paul says there. So why not start in 1 Corinthians 7? It's the longest passage, and it's very clear, and it expressly talks about decision-making in marriage.

And it expressly talks about decision-making in marriage, and it expressly talks about authority. And Paul is very clear that the man's authority and the woman's authority are the same, which is what you'd expect. He's just quoted the one-flesh text from the Old Testament. If they're one flesh, well, you've got authority over your own flesh, haven't you? Andrew, I'm going to try to make the conversation interesting, offer what the, maybe what a, well, not necessarily a pushback, but like, I'm going to try to say, yeah, but what about this? What about that? To see, to try to represent how maybe some of the audience would think through this. How would you respond to, I guess, the pushback that 1 Corinthians

7, like you said, it is talking about marriage, or even more specifically about maybe sexual relationships within marriage. Is it right to take that as kind of, and apply that directly to kind of the church structure, specifically leadership structures? Yeah, no, I don't think it would be right to apply that directly to church structures. But I do think that it tells us a lot about how Paul understood men and women and how he understood marriage. By the way, I'm very happy with pushback. Please don't hold back. Don't hold back.

It's the world you live in. Yeah, yeah. I'm used to it. So the standard pushback is the husband is head except in bed. That's the standard pushback is the husband is head except in bed. That's the standard pushback of 1 Corinthians 7. You know, in other words, these instructions in the first few verses of 1 Corinthians 7 are a rare exception where Paul is promoting equality rather than the husband being in charge. That just makes no sense at all.

Because, you know, the idea that in Paul's cultural context, where men were definitely in charge, the idea that you could take something as important as the physical aspect of the marriage and something as important as when are you two going to pray together and say those two things are exceptions to some general rule, which Paul nowhere states about the husband being in charge of everything. It just seems quite beyond credibility. Like if someone had the logic of, well, this is just talking about male-female sexual relationships within marriage. Just that idea of, oh, this is only, it's almost the opposite. I mean, what he says here about male-female relations within marriage is so countercultural to his environment that it would almost be less countercultural to say that women can lead in church. That would be an easier step to go, but what he does here is he begins with this really just in-your-face pushback to the cultural norms of the day.

I think it's a very, very strong pushback, and it's quite against the complementarian view of marriage, which is the husband has the final responsibility for all decisions. has the final responsibility for all decisions. That is absolutely incompatible with, Paul simply could not have written 1 Corinthians 7 if that's what he thought. Now, that does derive from the Kephale passages, right? The man is ahead of, in 1 Corinthians 11, 3, Ephesians 5. Is that correct? I mean, that's where that man is ahead of the household kind of thing, that's where it's derived.

I guess we can go there right now. How do you understand those passages? Well, the first thing I'd say is that if we understand them in a way that's in conflict with the plain words Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 7, then we would have Paul contradicting himself, which I don't think he does contradict himself. I think he's a very, very careful thinker and a very careful writer. And I think he's got himself really well sorted out. And of course, if you believe in the inspiration of Scripture, then by definition, you don't expect there to be any real contradictions. You expect apparent contradictions to be resolved when you have a better understanding of things.

So 1 Corinthians 11 is a very complex passage, and I spend, I think, a couple of chapters on it in the book. And I think what makes it so difficult is that I think translations tend to go, they take a wrong turning right near the beginning of the chapter. By assuming that Paul's concerns about men and women are two different things rather than being the same thing. The way I read it is that the men have long hair hanging down. So do the women. Paul doesn't want either. He wants the women's hair to be up, because then it shows they're respectable, and no one will think they're immoral women. And similarly, the men, he wants short hair, because that will show they're respectable, and no one will think

they're being immoral. And I think once you sort that out, the rest follows. But the critical thing is about the word head, kephale. Real quick, just so our audience can follow, if people haven't done research on 1 Corinthians 11, we often refer to it as the head covering passage, but people should know that within the scholarly literature, there's a big debate, um, about whether Paul's even talking about, um, head coverings or hair length or style of hair. Are those kind of the three major, this kind of the, the hair approach and then the head covering approach. And even within the hair approach, it's, is it the length? Is it the style? Is it kind of a both and, um, so you take, and I know Philip Payne has been, I think the strongest or at least most researched advocate

for the long hair approach that it's not talking about head coverings, it's length of hair. Would that be correct? That he's kind of the main, so people that follow that argument would largely be relying on kind of his work. And there's, I mean, there's several others that, that I think Jerome Murphy O'Connor, is he? He might be in that camp, I forget. I haven't done, I've just started my research on 1 Corinthians 11, so all this is kind of like, it's amazing when you start researching how many complexities are there that you didn't realize

when you've just been reading your English translation over and over. But is that a fair summary of kind of how to set up the, some of the issues in the chapter? Yeah. I think it's mainly that the interpretations are mainly either to do all to do with hair or else it's head coverings. And then there's a little bit at the end about hair.

Right. To me, hair all the way through makes better sense. Okay. But, but there are two critical things about 1 Corinthians 11. The first one is about verse 3, because that's where Paul uses the word kephale. I want you to realize the head of every man is Christ, the head of the woman is man, the head of Christ is

God. That's NIV. Everybody agrees, as far as I can see, that that's a headline statement which sets out Paul's theological point, which he then uses as a buttress to the argument which he makes through to verse 16. So if everybody agrees that, then the way to test an interpretation is to say, does it use each of those three points in turn? problem with with the complementarian interpretation is it doesn't can you expand of christ is god never gets used the way they explain the passage with head meaning according to them authority over paul never never reverts to that never says anything about it

whereas if the people who think head is a metaphor for source, if those people are right, then when you go through the detail, you find each of those three points is used in the passage. That I think is the critical thing. There are lots of other points as well, but that's to me the most critical in terms of interpreting the passage. But for our present discussion about men and women, I mean, the really important thing is, if you like, forget the argument about head, forget the argument about whether it's hair or whether it's coverings. Does Paul say anything in this passage which restricts the scope of women's ministry? Okay. Well, he doesn't, on whatever interpretation you take.

So really, you don't need to spend so long on this unless you're really interested in this passage, because Paul talks about men praying, then you can maybe get to, um, some kind of male only leadership. But even then the rest of the passage isn't really, doesn't tease that argument out. Right. I mean, I don't think again, I haven't looked under every single rock and pebble in this passage, but I've often wondered. I mean, I think this passage does play a role and needs to be in any book that discusses this issue, but it doesn't seem to be nearly on par as, for instance, on the complementarian side, maybe 1 Timothy 2 or on the maybe egalitarian side, just kind of the role of women in Jesus' ministry or whatever. There's other passages that more directly are relevant to the question at hand. Would that be accurate to say? I think so. I think on any view, it's secondary. The reason it's part

of the argument is simply that one side, the complementarian side, brings this passage in in order to buttress their idea of headship, meaning men being in charge. Got it. Okay. Okay. So with the word, I have not, this is next on my list is to do a thorough word study on kephale, which I think I already know sometimes word studies can be overplayed. They're important, but it's fascinating that you have, I think, Wayne Grudem, who says Kefale never once means source. And then Philip Payne, who says it rarely, if ever, means authority. You have two scholars looking at hundreds of the same text coming to completely opposite conclusions. First of all, I have not read their specific word studies on this.

I've just kind of read the summaries of it. But first of all, is that kind of an accurate summary of those two positions? And how do they get there? What's going on there? Because that could be frustrating for people that haven't looked at all these ancient references with how kephale is used. It's not far off. It's not far off.

I looked at both Grudem and Payne and the other people who discussed this in detail. And that was one of the places where I had a big surprise, because I found that what Grudem said simply wasn't supported by the evidence that he cited. Whereas I found that nearly everything Payne said was supported by the evidence he cited. Nearly everything Paine said was supported by the evidence he cited. Not quite all of it, but nearly all. So I came to the conclusion that kephale in Greek was rarely used to mean authority, as at the time when Paul was writing. But it was a possibility.

It could be used in that sense. But the important thing, I think, is to realize it wasn't a fixed metaphor with a fixed meaning. Paul could make up a metaphor or adapt an existing one. He can do whatever he likes. The only way to know what Paul means by it is to read it in context. That's the only way you can be sure. When you look at how other people have used a particular metaphor, fine, it may give you some help, it may give you some ideas, but unless it's what they call a dead metaphor, because it's got just one fixed meaning, it doesn't really get you anywhere further than just raising some possibilities. You've got to decide from the context. You can't decide from word studies. Well, even within Paul, I mean, in my surface reading thus far, it seems that

in Ephesians, Ephesians 1, where he uses kephale, to me that seems like authority there. And yet, Ephesians 4, when he uses kephale, seems like a mean source there. And I know people will debate both of those. Well, exactly. And let me give you another example. If you read 1 Corinthians and see how Paul uses the temple metaphor, he uses it differently. He uses it once to mean the whole body of believers, and then he uses it at different time in a different way to mean one believer's body. But Paul isn't under any rule that says if he uses a metaphor once, he's always got to use it in precisely the same way.

He can use it a bit differently if he wants to. So this is where the word studies are somewhat relevant but can be overplayed, because as long as we have evidence that the word can mean source or can mean authority, then it really comes down to, well, okay, so both options are possible, even if the word is most often used one way or the other, it's almost irrelevant for determining what Paul means. We have to look at the context. I agree. And if you look, yeah, yeah, that's important. But also, if you go to Ephesians 5, there is no previous example of someone using a head-body metaphor to represent husband and wife. So if there isn't a previous example, the only way we can understand it is by reading very carefully in context what Paul says, in the context of what he says there, and in the context of what he says there and in context of

what he says elsewhere as well. Oh, so mapping the head-body metaphor onto marital relationships, that Paul's the first one to do that? Yeah. Interesting. Okay. This is a genuine question I have, and I think complementarians have raised it back in 1 Corinthians 11, 3, and maybe we can jump over to Ephesians 5 in a second. When it says man is the head of woman, if it is source, you do have that kind of teased out in, is it verse, woman for man? Where is it? It's verse 8. 8, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, where is it? It's verse, um, eight, eight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, woman came from man, meaning, you know, the Genesis account where the woman was literally taken from the side of man. So that in that sense, man is male is the source in that sense of woman. So here you have within the passage itself, uh, a piece of evidence that had would most likely mean source there. What, when it says God is the head of Christ, God, that always struck me as odd. And maybe I'm missing something. What does it mean that God would be the source of Christ? And how does that function in the passage? It means he sent him in the incarnation to be our savior.

So not the source of Christ's existence, well, Christ being the incarnate son. Okay. Because it felt almost like playing around with the Trinity in ways that I wasn't comfortable with, you know, God being the creator of, but it's not saying the first member of the Trinity

is the source of the second member of the Trinity. You're saying it's the father is the source of the incarnate son. Is that, I mean, again, I'm playing around with like, I can get burned at the stake if I use words wrongly here with the Trinity, which I don't plan on doing today. More or less.

Okay. And how does that function in the passage? Or does that function in the passage, God being the source of the incarnate Christ? Because everything comes from God in verse 12 so yeah okay let's pick it up at verse 11 nevertheless in the lord so now what's the situation in christ so now we're talking about christ what's true in christ and then the very next verse everything comes from god so how things are in christ comes from God. So that uses the third, it uses the third of the three couplets. Hey friends, Preston here. I just received the coolest message from a Theology in the Raw listener and I wanted to share it with you. Take a listen to this.

I'm Ashlyn and I'm a Theology in the Raw listener. I was listening to a podcast and heard Preston talk a little bit about when you're in ministry and you're teaching scripture, the importance of biblical languages. And I felt really compelled by that. I've always been interested in biblical languages and I tell my students all the time, like context is key. And so much of that lies within the biblical languages. And I was praying. I was like, okay, Lord, I want to learn the biblical languages for an affordable price in an environment that's conducive to my stage of life, where I'm at and what I need. And I kid you not, the next podcast I clicked on was advertising Kairos. And it was just a perfect opportunity. Checked all of my boxes of not homework heavy, very practical based on learning, not on passing tests, very much the way that I learn. And there was an opportunity to take a class on a Friday morning in my own home online. And it's just been so practical and so effective and so helpful. And it's been really cool just how fast you begin to pick up on it because it is so practical.

So if you have been wondering if you should learn the biblical languages, if that's something that you would benefit from, the answer is yes. You will always benefit from gathering more context into the scriptures that shape the entirety of our life and our belief system. And it's not as complicated as I think we can make it out to be or as daunting as we make it out to be. The way that the teachers teach and the way that the class is oriented, the way that the homework is, is it's very practical.

It's very digestible. And it's little by little. It's fun, you know, whenever you actually get to see progress so soon, the way that it's wired is you're not waiting months upon months upon months to grasp a language because this isn't something that you're learning to speak or write necessarily. You're reading and understanding and recognizing. It's a lot more practical than it may come across, and it's definitely worth it. You should definitely check it out. It's been a

really great decision for me. It's so awesome when we get to bring to you the Theology in the Raw Family resources that actually make a big impact in your life. And Kairos Classroom has quickly become one of those resources that I hope you'll check out by visiting www.kairosclassroom.com. And don't forget to use our special code TITR. That's kairosclassroom.com with the code TITR. This episode is sponsored by HelloFresh. Okay, so my family and I, we generally eat really healthy as a family. We make most of our meals at home and we try to do so from scratch. But I'm not going to lie to you, we still do keep some frozen taquitos and orange chicken in the freezer because sometimes in a pinch, you just need a quick and easy meal. But this is why I'm actually really excited about HelloFresh because

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with HelloFresh instead. Or if you're living on your own and don't want to eat out all the time, mix in HelloFresh to your daily meal routine. Check it out by going to HelloFresh.com forward slash 50 T-I-T-R. That's 5-0 T-I-T-R. Use the code 50 T-I-T-R for 50% off your first order plus free shipping. It's 50% off your first order plus free shipping by going to HelloFresh.com forward slash 50 T-I-T-R. Before we leave 1 Corinthians 11, I don't know if, I think her book came out alongside or maybe after yours, but Lucy Pepiat, how do you say it? Pepiat, yeah. Did you, I don't think you interact with her book in your book, maybe because it wasn't out yet, but have you looked at her argument?

What do you think about that? I'm still, I just read it recently and it kind of blew me away. At first I was like, this can't be right. Oh, sorry. Sorry. To summarize her argument, she says there's a lot more of Paul quoting the Corinthians in this passage than simply stating what he thinks is true. So some of these kind of like seemingly patriarchal sounding passages, like man is the image of God, but woman is man's glory. You know, it's like, whoa, did he just say that? Like, is Paul saying that women aren't created in God's image? Clearly he can't mean that. But what Lucy argues is that there's several places in 1 Corinthians 11 where Paul is not actually giving his own idea. He's actually quoting the Corinthians and then kind of refuting it.

Now, before people say, well, that's not, you know, that can't be right. Well, we have pretty clear evidence throughout the letter that Paul does that quite often, actually. Now, when he quotes the Corinthians, it's usually short snippets. It's a phrase, half a sentence, maybe, um, this would be the first time he quotes, you know, two or three sentences, like kind of a block quote from the Corinthians. Um, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. The hard thing is, is how do you know, like, how do you know, like, and I think the payoff, I think the best evidence really is if Lucy's correct, it actually makes, it actually solves a lot of these other kind of conundrums in the passage that just are so seemingly unsolvable, or at least, you know, there's just a lot of complexity here that gets

smoothed out if we follow her reading. Is that, first of all, I hope I did justice to her. I'm trying to summarize the whole book in a minute or so, but I would love your thoughts on her argument. I don't discuss her argument in the book because she was writing the same time I was writing. Okay, that's what I thought. In fact, she commented afterwards she wished IVP had put us in touch with each other. other. So I haven't studied in great detail since what she said about it, but my approach has been this, that if I can make sense of what Paul says as a connected train of thought all the way through the passage, then I don't need to consider whether he could be quoting opponents. Given there's no clear flags in 1 Corinthians 11

that he's quoting opponents, my approach would be, okay, well, let's first of all see whether there is a connected train of thought here, which goes right through from the beginning to the end and makes sense. And I concluded very much helped by what Paine had written that there was.

So, yeah. So it's an interesting argument, a definite possibility, but it's not necessarily needed if we can, you know, yeah, connect the dots, so to speak, without resorting to this. That's a hard one for me is some of the other slogans in Corinthians. Corinthians, they just, I don't know, like they feel like it makes, there's kind of signals in the text that kind of show that Paul is quoting the Corinthians here, where here it's just, it doesn't seem as clear, even though again, if her reading is correct, it's like, oh wow, that makes the passage, it does feel smoother to me. But yeah, I don't know. I just wish we had more concrete evidence for that kind of reading. But can we hop over? I hope you don't mind dancing around.

So Ephesians 5, since we're on the kephale, I'm sure most people will be familiar with this passage. It's the whole wives submitting to their husbands. Because again, the original question was, where did we get this idea of male headship in the home, men leading women, kind of the final decision and all that stuff. 522, well, it's 521, the tail end of what Paul's saying here, that we should be submitting to one another in the fear of Christ, wives, to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife. So here the wife's submission to the husband is rooted in the husband being the kephale, the head of the wife. I'm trying not to bias the reading here just yet. Here it does seem that the authority is at least a more likely reading than source here. That's a provocative statement,

and I know you're going to disagree, but I think when most people read this first-time English translation, if they don't have anything invested in this, it's like, oh, it seems like, yeah, the wife submits because the man is the head, and head means some kind of person that should be submitted to, for lack of better terms. So, Andy, what are your thoughts on this? But that's what head means in english and in latin and in german and in hebrew but not in greek okay in greek it was it was it could mean but doesn't have to mean right it could it could but it was rare you wouldn't it's not the first thing you'd think of if you if you meant that meaning you need to make it clear. But Paul's introduced his

head metaphor in chapter four, where he talks about Christ being the head, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every sporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. So as you mentioned before, in chapter four, verse 15-16, Paul uses this head metaphor in the sense of where the life comes from, the food, the nourishment to make the body grow. And that, of course, was perfectly a normal sort of thought in those days. It's not only that, obviously, all food comes in via your mouth and therefore the head is vital otherwise the body can't be nourished but in addition in in Hippocratic medicine there was this idea that the veins carried a sort of nourishing flow around the body from the head so it's there's a sort of conventional idea if you agreed with Hippocratic medicine you were

familiar with the idea at least that the body was nourished from the head. That was just the way people thought. So it was perfectly normal to think of head as what nourishes, where the provision of life comes from, what keeps you alive. And of course, in first century society, the husband would normally be the one with the income and be providing for his wife, you know, in the normal setup. Obviously, it's different for very rich people, different for widows. But with the normal setup, the husband is the person who has the economic power in the relationship and provides everything that the wife needs.

So the idea of provision fits with the idea of husband and wife perfectly simply and then and then there's a thing that often is ignored in verse 23 paul gives his meaning because he knows head could have more than one meaning as a metaphor for the husband is head of the wife as christ head of of the church, his body, the saviour. Well, Christ is the one who gives the body life. He doesn't say of which he is the Lord. So he's explaining how he's applying this to the husband in the marriage. He's saying as Christ is head of the church, of which he's the saviour, not as of which he's the Lord. So he's actually signaling this is this is his metaphor in the sense he's used it in chapter 4 verse 15 and 16 and then when you read on you find that's

abundantly clear because he talks about how the husband should care for the wife and nourish her that there's nothing in the rest of the passage about husbands being in charge of their wives or exercising authority over them. There's not a single word in this passage that says, husbands, you ought to exercise authority over your wives. It's husbands, you ought to nourish and care for your wives, which is exactly in line with how he's used head in verse 23. used head in verse 23. So you want to at least say that it's important to notice that he uses Savior and not something like Lord. Because I think some people would kind of see those as almost like synonyms, that we

worship Jesus as our Savior, our Lord, our God, all these things. But you're saying that that is actually an important distinction? Absolutely. And I was astonished when I read certain books on the complementarian side that would, for example, kept citing this verse, verse 23 of Ephesians 5, and always omitting the phrase of which is the Savior. As if it wasn't there, as if it didn't matter. as if it wasn't there, as if it didn't matter. And then when I finally found some commentaries that did deal with it, which were written from a complementarian viewpoint, they said, oh, that's a digression.

It's got nothing to do with Paul's argument. It's just a sort of a side comment that's got nothing to do with his argument. Well, they have to say that to make head mean lord. But there's no indication it's a digression. It's actually an explanation. It's Paul's own explanation of his metaphor. Now, wouldn't – again, I'm just trying to think of counter-arguments. Wouldn't being the savior imply some kind of authority? Like if somebody saves somebody else, usually they have some kind of strength, some kind of power, some kind of uniqueness to be able to do the

saving? Think about what metaphors are and how they're used. Usually, the point of a metaphor is to make a single point of comparison. If I've got a friend who I say eats like a pig, he's a pig when he eats. It may mean he's greedy and messy. It doesn't mean that he eats from a trough, or that he has curly pink hair all over his body, or that he has trotters instead of hands. It's always the case that you could push a metaphor further than it is meant. Why don't we just listen to the point that Paul makes expressly, which is head is in the sense of savior. And you're saying that is, we need to understand that within the first century economic structure of where in that context, the man would have been, for the most part, the financial stability or provider for the women? Is that?

Yeah. And also, could I carry on? Because that's really important here because I think there's often a misunderstanding of the word submit. Submit doesn't mean obey. That's not the point of the word submit. Submit means treat the other person as more important than yourself. Put yourself in the lower position. That's what the word means, the Greek word that we're trying to translate. Put yourself in the lower position. So wives, treat your husbands as more important than yourselves. And then husbands, what have they got to do? Love your wives, give yourselves up for them. And the example of Christ is used, who treated us as more important than his own life when he went to the cross. And the example of Christ is used, who treated us as more important than his own life when he went to the cross. So the idea of submission is treat the other person as more

important. It doesn't have anything to do with whether they are actually more important or not. They might be more important, they might not. But submit says treat them as more important. And then looking at that in the first century context, the instructions to husbands, this is how you treat your wife as more important than yourself. You climb down off that high pedestal where law and society have put you. You climb down to the lowliest slave's position, washing of water. In other words, like the wife's lowliest bath attendant. The lowliest person in the household is the female slave. Be like that. Be the lowliest person in the household. The husband is performing those servant-like duties. Yeah, exactly. So make

yourself lower than your wife. Treat her as more important than yourself. And it's said very emphatically and with very many words. And there's said very emphatically and over very many, with very many words. And there's nothing at all about leading your wife in the sense of giving her instructions or grounding her or anything like that. The only kind of leadership we've got here is you go first in giving up yourself. That's your job. in giving up yourself that's your job what about so i you know you could say regardless of what kefale means it is yeah verses 22 to 24 it is the grounds for why the wife is to submit to her husband so whether it means source or authority or whatever it's still the grounds for submission would you agree with because i've seen some complementarians point

that. I think it was, was it Tom Schultz? I don't want to name names because I can't remember who said what, but they were, complementarians are kind of saying it's a bit of a smokescreen or a red herring to say, you know, well, it's source and not authority because it still is the ground for submission. So whatever you want to say, it's like functional authority, if you want to put it like that. No, but the difference is, is it one-way submission or is it mutual? That's the issue. And the grounds for submission is, first of all, Christ's example. You need to start chapter five at the beginning of the chapter. In fact, you need to start even before that. And then it's very clear that Paul is teaching about how to live a life that's truly Christ-like. That's what he's on about. And he's putting the example of Christ

in front of us that needs to be followed and talking about how Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. So it's Christ's example is the reason for submission. In other words, he treated us as more important than himself. Therefore, we must treat each other as more important. That's how we serve one another. He says in another place, Galatians, serve as slaves of one another. This is a very common theme in Paul. So then the English versions are so unhelpful in making a break at the end of verse 20, or in some cases at the end of verse 21, because Paul's sentence goes all the way through. He's describing what it's like to be filled with the Spirit.

That's where it starts, verse 18. Being filled with the Spirit, and then he describes it. Speaking with psalms, hymns, and songs. Singing and making music. Always giving thanks to God the Father. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, wives to husbands as to the Lord. Wives to husbands is an example of mutual submission, read in the Greek. And then he goes on to say how husbands should submit by treating their wives as more important

than themselves. But he doesn't use the word submit, right, to the husbands. You find that that's almost irrelevant. So here, what about, and this is going to sound offensive, but I'm just trying to understand the logic of Paul. Yes, there is mutual, submission is a Christian virtue. We should all be submitting to one another on a general level. But that doesn't necessarily exclude that there are certain kinds of social relationships where it is one directional. For instance, he goes on to talk about, you know, parents and kids. Like there's nothing in the,

I don't see anything there where it would say, where Paul would say, parents, make sure you submit to your kids. Or even to use a very touchy example, but this is just what Paul says, you know, slaves and masters. He reorients that relationship in a way that would be very counter-cultural. He tells masters to treat their slaves fairly and does all kinds of things that kind of gut slavery from the inside out, but he still doesn't say, masters, make sure you submit to your slaves. In the same way with these kind of three relationships, wives, husbands, children's parents, masters, slaves, again, the complementarian argument is, yes a general level there's mutual submission but there still are certain social relationships where it is one directional how would you okay well first of all that he deals with three different relationships husband wife parents

children master slave and he gives different instructions for each okay if he since he gives different instructions for each we shouldn he gives different instructions for each, we shouldn't assume that he means to give the same instructions for each. His instructions are tailored to fit the particular social situation. And in the children and parents one, he doesn't say anything about submitting to children. Although if you're thoughtful, you would think, well, of course, parents constantly treat their children as more important than themselves in appropriate ways. They give up a lot for their children and do everything they can to support them and nurture them. So they treat them as more important, but they don't take orders from their children.

Then the master slave – They didn't back then. Maybe they do now. No, no. Right. Then the master slave – They didn't back then. Maybe they do now. No, no. I've seen many parents at grocery stores take orders from their children.

Well, there are cultural differences maybe in different parts of the world. But masters and slaves, he gets pretty close to mutual submission because after telling the slaves to serve wholeheartedly as if you were serving the Lord, he says, masters, do the same to your slaves. He tells masters to serve their slaves wholeheartedly. Isn't that treating them as more important than themselves? Wait, where does it say masters serve your slaves? Chapter 6, verse 7. Oh, serve. And then 9, masters, treat your slaves in the same way. oh serve with oh and then that then nine masters treat your

slaves in the same way oh in the same way that's often overlooked but coming back to the marriage coming back to the marriage issue um we know what paul means anyway from 1 corinthians 7 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 own body, but yields it to her husband in the same way. The husband does not have authority over his own body, but yields it to his wife. That's mutual submission. Yeah. No, I, yeah. I don't, I can't even, I don't, so many people don't deal with that passage in the context of this conversation that I, I, I'm at loss trying to represent the complementarian pushback, Andrew. So the first Corinthians 7. Um, I, yeah. So it's just first, you know, Ephesians five, first of all, I'm a big, big fan. I know you are too, um, of letting Paul be Paul. Uh, Paul is not a, uh, a postmodern Western, you know,

European. Um, he doesn't have, he's not swimming in the same kind of egalitarian values that our societies are. So I want to let Paul be a first century,. Now, so I'm okay if he says things that seem offensive to me. That's my problem, not Paul's problem. Now, when I read this passage against the backdrop of other household codes, which, you know, this is a well-known genre. Aristotle and many others did these kinds of household codes. Paul uses a similar structure, but man, the content is so radically different. So it's the same structure. He even uses some of the same language, the submission language. But like in Aristotle, if I remember correctly, it's, you know, wives submit to your husbands because basically, or no, it's not even, he wouldn't even give them the dignity

of speaking to the wives. It's men, husbands, keep your wives in subjugation to you kind of thing, you know. Here, Paul even dignifies women by speaking directly to them, gives them agency, leads with them. That alone is very contrary to how the other household codes operated. Paul keeps the language of submission, only uses the actual language of submission with reference to wives, but functionally, here's what I would say. When people say mutual submission, I want to say functionally, yes, because the way Paul describes the husband's actions are, there's very much a mutual self-giving of treating the other as more important, and the wife is to do that, and the husband is to do that, and you have this kind of mutuality.

But the actual language of submission is still directly only to the wives to their husbands but i think that so verse 21 yeah but he does re i mean when he gets to the specific wife husband relationship he does repeat the in in verse 24 right i mean the church submits to Christ, wives are to submit to their husbands and everything. He does specify wives to your husbands in the passage. But I'm saying, I'm okay acknowledging that as complementarians do, but also saying functionally, the way Paul describes the husband's actions becomes almost what I wouldn't say virtual submission or capturing the same kind of point without demanding that Paul is using the language of submission to both. Does that make sense? I don't know.

I'm kind of thinking out loud here. I think what people miss is that Paul's instructions to the men are extreme in a way that his instructions to the women are not. Yes, exactly. His instructions to the women are a reminder. In effect, even though you are all equals in Christ, you wives treat your husbands as more important because to do so is following the example of Christ. But then husbands, he gives some really extreme instructions because socially,

their position is higher than the wife. So they need stronger instructions to do the Christian thing, which is to recognize that they should live like Jesus Christ, which means giving themselves up in service to their wives, self-sacrificially treating their wives consistently as more important than themselves. It's a much bigger step for the husband to take. And Paul spends a much, much more of his letter addressing the husbands, trying to persuade them to do that. 100%. 100%. Yeah. I also, I do get nervous, Andrew.

And this might be more, I think it's both sides, but maybe more on the egalitarian side. Like courage is a virtue. Being honest is a virtue. Having integrity is a virtue. Holiness is a virtue. Submission in Christianity, not in the Greco-Roman world,

but submission has been turned inside out through the incarnation and passion of Christ has become a virtue. I do get nervous when people approach this passage and others, they come at it with, I think, a very secular understanding of submission. Yeah, I think that's important. And I, so I, you know, if we, I don't like it when we come at it as Christians with this, like, how do we get around the language of submission? Oh, this isn't almost like we're going back to almost like a very first century Roman kind of view of submission. If we put it on par with courage, we wouldn't have much of a problem with this passage. Because if we said, women,

be courageous towards your husbands. Women, be strong in the Lord. Women, be holy. No one would bat an eye, but all of a sudden when we say, if women submit to your husbands, I think then we just go back to kind of a secular understanding of submission, which I get. I mean, we're bathed in a culture where submission isn't seen as a virtue, both now and back then. I do want to maybe challenge people to think more like Christians when reading. But I completely agree with you that the acknowledging wives submit to your husbands, that would not have been, that's part of the scaffolding of this passage that nobody would have batted an eye at. And it's almost like he meets them there and they're like, okay, yeah, thanks for your reminder. And all of a sudden he starts talking about husbands washing, performing slave-like household

duties toward their wives. And people are like, you gotta be kidding me. So could I interject there that I was not convinced by standard egalitarian interpretations of this passage, because they try and say that the instructions to wife and husband are in effect the same. love and says elsewhere everyone must submit. But nevertheless, in this passage, they're not quite the same instructions because he's using a Christ and church metaphor, and that's not reversible. It's a one-way metaphor. So Paul's putting on the husband the first responsibility to step out in self-sacrifice. And that's, I think, really interesting when you think of it in the social and cultural background, but also when you look at it in the context of the Bible as a whole. Because in the context of the Bible as a whole, in Genesis 3, Genesis 3.16, he shall rule over you. Men are stronger. So in a fallen world, women have the short straw. So Paul puts an extra responsibility on the husband as part of reversing the effects of the fall. You've got to go first. You've got to be the one who's humble. You've got to be serving. You've got to give yourself up. It's almost like sort of, as it were, power in the social relationships, they're going to need to have the stronger kind of warning against abusing that power because in Christianity, power is weakness and service is leadership.

you did land on more of an egalitarian side of things. What would you say, if you could, I don't want to overly simplify it, but what would you say is the strongest argument for the complementarian position and then the strongest for the egalitarian position? And if we had more time, maybe I'd ask for your top five on each side or whatever. But what would be the one that still maybe keeps you late at night?

Maybe you would say, well, this is a good commentarian argument that, not that you can't refute it, but just something that you would see as the strongest on that side. Do you mean on the women's ministry issues? I'm sorry. Yes. Yeah. I know what we're dealing.

Yeah. Yeah. Women in church leadership. There's a question I've been thinking about because I'm going to be doing a conversation at the Evangelical Theological Society this year, in which that's one of the questions. You're going to be out in Texas. Yeah, yeah.

I'm pretty sure I'll be there, so we have to connect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll be in conversation with Tom Schreiner, which should be fun. Oh, brilliant. Oh, I will be there front row with my popcorn. I'm really struggling with that question, and I'll tell you why. Because when I wrote the book, given what I'd sort of picked up reading evangelical books, by evangelical, I don't mean Trump-supporting, I mean theologically conservative books. I'd picked up a strong disagreement over the women's ministry issue with lots of arguments and lots of stuff written on both sides.

And I assumed and expected that when I got into it in detail, I would find it would be very hard to state a conclusion. find it would be very hard to state a conclusion. I thought any conclusion would only be tentative because there were going to be strong, reasonable arguments on both sides. That wasn't what I found. The more I looked into the conglomerate side, the more it just dissolved in front of my eyes. And so I really struggled with the question you just asked me, because time after time after time, I found that what they said was not supported by the context. It was proof texting, not taking into account what is Paul's train of thought here? How does it run through his letter? What's he really saying? What's he getting at?

What's the situation historically? What's he dealing with? And so in the end, it just sort of disappeared through my fingers. And I found that I had no difficulty with what the conclusion should be. I'm going to get some emails from my complementarian audience. I'll pass them on to you, Andrew. Can we go to first two? Maybe we need another session. Yeah, maybe we need another session to go through all those. I did.

So Bill, Bill Mounts is, um, wrote a magisterial commentary on the past orals. Um, and he's, he's commentarian. Um, I don't know how many years, I think he said he's 10 years of research in that, in that commentary. I had him on the podcast and he said, this is a quote from him. I, yeah, I mean, he said it. So I'll just say, he says, were it not for 1 Timothy 2.13, I would be, he said, I'd be egalitarian. Or maybe that, I don't know. He said something of that effect. Because there it's, you know, yeah, the instruction. And I know there's lots of debates about the meaning of words, what Paul's doing in 2.12, women should not teach nor authentain,

sometimes translated exercise authority, big debates about what that word means. But regardless, he says for, you know, Adam was created first and then Eve. Now, again, however confusing that is or how that doesn't seem like a logical connection, who cares about who's born first for teaching ability, you know, there's all kinds of, but regardless, Paul roots his? Because I would say that, again, I think there's some strong egalitarian counter arguments to that, especially when you start unpacking the background of what Paul's even doing in that letter. Wouldn't you acknowledge that of all the arguments, that's the strongest? The problem is, Bill doesn't tell us how he knows this is an appeal to a creation principle, rather than Paul doing what he often does with the Old Testament, using an Old Testament illustration that fits the circumstances he's talking about. The conumentarian argument is, I mean, that verse 13 and 14, that's one of the places where they have a real, real problem trying to explain

how they can support their take on it. Because the traditional view was based on reading verses 13 and 14 together correctly, because it starts ga, for, and then there's one reason, verses 13 and 14. And verse 14, which refers to Eve being deceived, was interpreted, well, everybody knows women are more gullible than men. You know, it's based on women's inferiority. Women are less intelligent. They're more prone to temptation.

Everybody knows that. That was the view traditionally. No end of commentators through the centuries have said that. Once that was rejected by everybody, Protestant, Evangelical, Catholic, Orthodox, everybody realized once they saw women doing stuff in just the same way men did in public life, they realized, oh, the Bible actually says men and women are made in God's image. And women are not inferior beings of a lesser nature. So we can't interpret verse 14 that way any longer. We need to find a different way of interpreting it, which people have struggled to do. I mean, one of the first books I read was by James Hurley back in the 1980s, who pointed out, if you look at what verse 14 says, it's a commentarian saying this, saying,

okay, so Eve was deceived, so Adam sinned deliberately. So is it better to be led by a deliberate rebel than by someone who's deceived? It's not much of a choice, is it? Deceived by the most powerful deceiver on the planet. You can put your strongest human against that person and they're probably going to lose. So yeah. Whereas Adam sinned deliberately, willfully. He knew exactly what he was doing he wasn't deceived so so you then you've got to look at 13 and 14 together and make sense of it together and i haven't found a complementary next position that makes sense of 13 and 14 together given the rejection of the traditional view that women were more gullible and inferior. And it seems to make perfect sense as an illustration.

Paul has excluded the male false teachers from the church, chapter one, Hymenaeus and Alexander. There now remain some women who are involved with this false teaching. Timothy's got to deal with them. Paul's had to rush off somewhere else to deal with some other crisis. These women are unreliable. They're wealthy, young, wealthy widows. They're on the lookout for a man. Paul says so in chapter 5. He doesn't want one of these young, wealthy widows targeting a man, leading him astray, just like Eve led Adam astray.

It's a perfect illustration for his situation. Have you read Sandra Glahn's recent book, Nobody's Mother? It's all in the Artemis. It's a brilliant, gosh. And she's not making a strong, I mean, she has an interesting view on women in ministry that her brethren kind of ecclesiology makes the question almost like a different, it's just different for her. But yeah, that book is really interesting. She's done a lot of original stuff with the background of Ephesians that would support the reading you're offering. It does seem that egalitarians pay closer attention to the background of the letter. And I know complementarians would say, well, yeah,

but they're doing that because they're trying to get around the clear meaning of the text is how my complementarian friends would put it. I'm really excited for your conversation with Tom Schreiner because, yeah, he's a thoughtful guy. Andrew. There's so much more that could be said. So much more, so much more, but your time is valuable and I do have to run, but it's been so good getting to know you through a screen at least. And yeah, I would love to, let's, let's connect in November if, if, if I can make it out to ETS. Um, but yeah, I really appreciate your book. Oh, I haven't even, well, I've mentioned it in the introduction, but to

mention it again, it's called, um, men and women in Christ fresh light from the biblical texts. Men and Women in Christ, Fresh Light from the Biblical Text. You do a great job summarizing some of the strongest points on both sides. So if somebody wants to know what's the argument on this side, what's the argument on that side, you very much put your lawyer hat on and say, here, okay, here's the various arguments, and then you work through those. So it's really, it's such a helpful book. So thank you for the work you've done on that. And thanks for coming on Theology in a Row, Andrew. I really appreciate it. It's been great talking to you,

and I appreciate the spirit in which you do it. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.