In the previous two essays, I argued that Ephesians 5:21-23 should be understood as advocating “mutual submission” rather than an “ordered hierarchy.” What follows will respond to objections to this interpretation.

Objection 1

The meaning of “submission” must come from verse 21, not from verse 22. Since wives are told to “submit” to their husbands in verse 22, this submission of subordinates to superiors is what “submission” means.

In the previous essay, I pointed out that in his commentary on Ephesians, Peter O’Brien denies that the pronoun allēlois (“to one another”) is “reciprocal,” claiming rather that verse 21 is calling for a submission of subordinates to those in authority over them. O’Brien recognizes that there is no imperative “submit” in verse 22, and that any command to submit must be implied as carried over from the participial phrase in verse 21 – “submitting to one another.” Nonetheless, he claims that the “flow of the argument” in verse 21 is “a programmatic statement which introduces the topic of ‘submission,’ and thus is developed in the household table of 5:22-6:9.” Since there is no verb in verse 22, the idea of submission must be “unpacked”: “It is as though the apostle is saying: ‘Submit to one another, and what I mean is wives submit to your husbands, children to your parents, and slaves to your master.’” Any other reading would be [t]o interpret v. 21 by abstracting it from the context . . .”¹

In its “Response” to the essay “Women n Holy Orders,” written by myself and TSM NT Professor and ACNA Bishop Grant LeMarquand, the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word takes a similar approach. At first, the writers of the “Response” seem to disagree with O’Brien (as well as a review of my book Icons of Christ by Matthew Colvin) in acknowledging that the “submission” in verse 21 is indeed mutual: “It is true that the word’ translated ‘submit’ in Ephesians 5:22 is borrowed from the previous verse. . .” They also acknowledge that the word translated “submit” in verse 21 “should be carried over to 5:22. If Paul intended otherwise he would have needed to supply a verb for 5:22.” They continue to write: “It is also true that Ephesians 5:21 establishes a general principle: that all Christians must humble themselves, submit to, and serve one another” (Response, 55). So far, I would be in complete agreement.

They continue, however: “How does this principle play itself out in various contexts: husbands and wives, children and parents, slaves and masters? Paul does not answer that question by suggesting there are no more hierarchies. . . . Paul does not do away with the role distinctions or hierarchy in marriages, in family, in labor. Rather, the gospel transforms these hierarchies so that they are no longer exploitative. The leaders and those led are also brothers and sisters, equals before Christ. The one who takes the leadership role, therefore, must seek to give himself over for the good of those he leads, just as Christ came to serve rather than be served. And those who are in subordinates roles serve as if they are serving Christ himself” (“Response,” 55).

It is clear then that the “Response” understands the leader of the household to be playing the role of Christ as one who who rules over subordinates. This becomes even more clear on the next page, when the “Response” claims that the “typological witness” between marriage and Christ and the church “itself militates against Drs. LeMarquand and Witt’s egalitarin reading”: “Does Jesus submit to the Church? No. Does he serve and give himself up for her? Yes. Does the Church submit to Jesus? Yes. Is Jesus’ rule tyrannical. No. Is the Church’s submission coerced? By no means” (“Response,” 56).

Although not stated explicitly, the implications are clear: Does the husband submit to the wife? No. Does the wife submit to the husband? Yes. Is the husband’s rule tyrannical? No. Is the wife’s submission coerced? By no means. In a previous essay, I addressed the error of importing into the comparison between the metaphor of Christ as “head” and the male or husband as “head” aspects of Jesus Christ’s identity that are not actually mentioned in the context. Jesus Christ is both Lord and Savior of the church. However, the husband does not occupy that place in marriage. Rather, the example that Jesus provides for all the members of the household in Ephesians 5 and 6 is found in Ephesians 5:2: “Walk in love as Christ loved us, and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling offering.” Despite their earlier apparent acknowledgment that “all Christians submit to one another,” the “Response” makes clear that while husbands seek the good of their wives, they do not submit to them, and thus the submission is not actually mutual. Thus the model that Christ provides for husbands is not the model of self-sacrifice that Paul actually mentions in Ephesians 5, but the role of “authority over” that he does not. While the rule of the husband over the wife is not “tyrannical,” the husband does indeed rule the wife as Christ rules the church, and the wife submits to the husband. Never the reverse.

To the contrary, there are three reasons why interpreting the meaning of verse 21 through verse 22 rather than the reverse is mistaken.

First, as Ben Witherington III acknowledges, O’Brien is correct when he states that the meaning of words is determined by their context. However, the context of the passage is that “one another” modifies “submit,” and does not suggest that anyone is exempt from submitting.² (As noted in the previous essay, Paul always uses the pronoun allēlōn in a reciprocal manner.)

Second, grammatically, the participial phrase “submitting to one another” receives its meaning from what comes before it. Again, Witherington states: “But most of all O’Brien fails to come to grips with the fact that this participle is dependent on ‘be filled.’ . . . . The submitting to one another is to be undertaken by all those who are filled with the Spirit, which is to say by all Christians in the audience” (317, n173).

Third, contrary to the “Response,” the meaning of “submitting to one another” in verse 21 is not explained by the following verses, but the reverse. Again, Witherington has it right: “Furthermore, it will not do to say that v. 21 is explained by vv. 22ff., because v. 22 has no verb. V. 21 sets the tone for what follows and defines who are the participants in the submission here” (Witherington 317, n173).

Because it provides the participle that must be provided in verse 22, verse 21 is “meant to qualify and indeed prevent a reading of the material in vv. 22ff. as if some sort of absolute unilateral submission were intended. Paul, by placing this verse here, is critiquing the normal understanding of household relationship where only certain members of the household are doing the submitting or serving” (Witheringotn, 318).

To the contrary of the claim of O’Brien and the “Response” that verses 21 ff. indicate how subordinates need to submit to those in charge, the opposite is the case. As Michael Gorman writes in his book Cruciformity, given that verse 22 is a grammatical continuation of verse 21, “It is as if the responsibility of wives to husbands is presented as the first example of the meaning of mutual submission within the believing community. . . . The wife’s marital responsibility may have particular manifestations, but it is essentially the same obligation that she has to all members of the community.”³

Objection 2

Paul’s exhortations to children and slaves show that submission is hierarchical, not mutual.

O’Brien, Colvin and the “Response” are in mutual agreement that Paul’s exhortations to children and slaves in Eph. 6:1-9 provide a key hermeneutical clue to how Paul understands the relationship between husbands and wives.

O’Brien writes: “Structurally, the opening admonitions addressed to ‘children’ (6:1) and ‘slaves’ (6:5) to ‘obey’, like the exhortation to wives voluntarily to ‘submit’ to their husbands (v. 22) are specific examples of the submission within divinely ordered relationships that is called for in the programmatic statement of v. 21.” “The opening admonition, addressed to ‘slaves’ to ‘obey’ (verse 5) is a further example of submission within the divinely ordered relationships that is called for in the programmatic statement . . . .” (O-Brien, 439, 448). Referring to slaves, O’Brien writes: “As in the earlier sections of the household table 5:22-6:4), which calls for submission by believers within divinely ordered relationships . . . (O’Brien, 455).

In his review of Icons of Christ, Matthew Colvin states: “Contextually, Ephesians 5:21 actually functions as a heading for the subsequent Haustafel that continues into chapter 6. That passage gives the lie to the reciprocal and mutual submission that Padgett and Witt claim: slaves are commanded to obey masters, and children to obey parents, but no reciprocal obedience or submission is enjoined upon masters and parents.”

As seen above, the writers of the “Response” claim that Ephesians 5:21 establishes a “general principle, that all Christians must humble themselves, submit to, and serve one another.” However, “Paul does not answer that question by stating that there are no more hierarchies. Obey your parents, he tells the children. Obey your masters, he tells slaves . . . . . Paul does not do away with role distinctions or hierarchy in marriage, in families, in labor (sic)” (“Response,” 55).

In response to the above, it needs to be recognized that there are both similarities, but also crucial differences between Paul’s discussion of the relations between husbands and wives in Ephesians 5:22-33 and his discussion of the relation between fathers and children and masters and slaves in 6:1-9.

In terms of similarities, it is true that the exhortations to the male household owner and his dependents correspond to the exhortations found in ancient household codes. As noted in the first essay in this series, Aristotle spoke of husbands and wives, fathers and children, slaves and slave-owners. However, as I also pointed out in the first essay, there are significant differences, ways in which Paul challenges the traditional household codes.

In addition, Eph. 5:22-33 is a distinct exegetical unit, and must be treated distinctly. This is seen in the following ways.

1) Theologically, key to Paul’s discussion of the relationship between husbands and wives is the typological parallel between husbands and wives and Christ and the church, which Paul bases on the creation narratives of Genesis 1 and 2. In those passages, children are mentioned first in Gen. 1:28, where they are part of the “cultural mandate” to “be fruitful and multiply” addressed equally to men and women. The only other reference to children is Gen. 3:16, where the woman is told that as a result of the fall into sin, she will have pain in childbearing, and in 3:20, where Adam names his wife “Eve,” because she will be the mother of all living. There are no references to slaves at all in Genesis 1-3.

Significantly, neither children nor slaves enter into Paul’s marriage/Christ and the church typology because the analogy will not work if children and slaves are included. In the analogy between Christ as husband and the Church as spouse, who would play the role of children and slaves?

2) Exegetically, Eph. 5:21-33 draws on preceding material in Ephesians 5 to show how both husbands and wives resemble Christ. The call on wives to “submit” to their husbands receives its verb from the participle “submitting to one another,” addressed to the entire church in v. 21. The call to husbands to “love” their wives echoes Eph. 5:2, where all Christians are to “walk in love” as Christ loves us. The call to the wife to “respect” her husband echoes the reference to the “fear of Christ” in v. 21. The Christological parallel is echoed in that the husband is the “head” of his wife as Christ is “head” of the church, and the husband loves his wife as his own body in the same way that the church is the body of Christ.

None of these parallels are found in Eph. 6:1-9. Although Aristotle uniquely used the word “head” to refer to the household owner, for Aristotle, the household owner is equally “head” over wives, children, and slaves. Paul does not say that the male household owner is “head” of his children or the slaves of his household. Paul does not draw any comparison between the church as the body of Christ, and the household owner loving children and slaves as his own body.

Of equal significance, Paul explicitly commands both children and slaves to “obey,” but nowhere uses this word in reference to wives. Wives are asked to “submit,” and grammatically, this submission is an example of the mutual submission demanded of all Christians, “submitting to one another.” The husband is called to love his wife as his own body, but again, the call to love echoes the love of Christ which is expected of all Christians for one another.

3) There are other significant differences between the relation between the household owner and children and slaves and the relationship between husband and wife.

First, in both cases, in traditional Mediterranean culture, the duties of children and slaves would have been not only to the male household owner, but also to his wives. Children and slaves would have been expected to obey both.

Concerning children, the situation is unique not only because obedience is due to both parents, but also, because of their intellectual and emotional immaturity, children are necessarily in obedience to their parents until they reach an age of sufficient maturity to reach adult independence. To draw a straightforward parallel between the wife’s relation to her husband, and the child’s relation to his or her parents is literally to infantalize women – to treat them as incapable of acting as rational adults.

Complementarians such as the authors of the “Response” ignore this crucial difference between children and wives. They claim that positing an egalitarian relation between husband and wife would also necessarily demand an egalitarian relationship between parents and children – an abandonment of all hierarchies. This, or course, misses an obvious difference. Women are not children. They have an intellectual and moral competence and maturity lacking in infants, children, and even teenagers. When speaking of the relationship between husbands and wives, Paul uses the language of mutual submission that he does not use of the relationship between a father and his children. He tells children to “obey.” He tells fathers to “not exasperate” children, but also to “bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” This latter admonition in particular presumes that children need instruction and guidance because they are not competent adults.

Moreover, at least in modern culture, the state of dependence of children on parents is not permanent. Not even modern complementarian parents expect adult children to be in a state of permanent obedience to their parents. This was not, however, the case in the ancient world. Biblical scholars point out that in the ancient world, subordination of children to the male patriarch continued into adulthood.⁴ O’Brien acknowledges that in the ancient world, fathers “could maintain authority in the family even until death.” He claims on the basis of the reference to “learning and growing up,” that Paul is thinking only of younger children (O’Brien, 440-441), but Paul places no limits on the age of obedience in the text. Complementarians who would make a distinction between the duties of minor children to obey their parents and those of adult children are reading into the text a modern understanding of adult independence that did not exist in ancient Mediterranean culture.

However, the real parallel is not between Paul’s exhortations to husband wives and his exhortations to fathers and children, but between his exhortation to masters and slave-owners. Unlike children, both women and slaves are adults, and capable of making mature adult decisions. Paul’s exhortations concerning the relationship between masters and slaves create a problem inasmuch as we acknowledge in the modern world that slavery is inherently immoral, and Christians were in the forefront of the movement to abolish slavery. Evangelical Anglicans such as John Wesley, the hymn-writer John Newton, and the member of Parliament William Wilberforce were in the forefront of the abolition movement. Nonetheless, there were also Christians who defended the practice of slavery at the time, and many of them appealed to Paul’s exhortation in Ephesians 5:6 as warrant.

Paul’s exhortations concerning slaves are not only the final linchpin in the argument for the above writers, but also the most problematic. As noted above, O’Brien uses the language of “divinely ordered relationships” to describe not only the relationship between husbands and wives, but also fathers and children, and masters and slaves. This would necessarily imply, however, that slavery is a “divinely ordered relationship,” presumably rooted in creation. O’Brien addresses the problem of the morality of slave-holding obliquely, only mentioning that “the apostle is making no social comment on a prevailing custom,” and that “the issue was not that of the acceptance of an institution sanctioned by law and part of the fabric of Greco-Roman society,” but of the “tension between the freedom given in Christ . . . and the ‘slavery’ in which Christians slaves are to continue to serve their earthly masters” (O’Brien, 448).

Colvin does not address the moral issue of slavery at all, but simply states that the exhortations given to children and slaves “gives the lie” to any notion of mutual submission. The “Response” of the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word euphemistically states: “Paul does not do away with role distinctions or hierarchy in marriage, in families, or in labor” (p. 55), as if the eventual abolition of slavery involved something like the resolution of a dispute between company management and workers’ unions.

As I point out in Icons of Christ (following Craig S. Keener), those who argue for contemporary subordination of women to husbands based on the universally binding significance of submission of women to their husbands “as to Christ” miss that Paul equally tells slaves to obey their masters as they would Christ (Ep. 6:5). If one is universally binding, so is the other. As Keener writes, “Those who today will admit that slavery is wrong but still maintain that husbands must have authority over their wives are inconsistent.”⁵

Following the lead of Keener and others, I argue in Icons of Christ that although Paul did not explicitly call for the abolition of slavery, the full logic of what Paul writes eventually leads to the abolition of slavery. Colvin writes: “[S]laves are commanded to obey masters, and children to obey parents, but no reciprocal obedience or submission is enjoined upon masters and parents.” This is simply wrong. Certainly parents are not instructed to obey children, but Paul does point to a kind of mutual reciprocity in that he commands fathers not to exasperate their children.

Significantly, Paul balances what he says to slaves in verse 5 – ”[S]laves, obey your masters [kurioi] according to the flesh with fear and trembling . . . as unto Christ” – with the mutual admonition to the masters [kurioi] that they have a common Master [‘o kurios] in heaven. Even more important, after telling the slaves to obey their masters, Paul commands the masters “Do the same to them!” (ta auta poeiete pros autous). Far from Colvin’s claim that there is no mutual submission in this passage, Paul is literally telling masters to become slaves to their slaves – to obey them!⁶ Again, Paul does not explicitly tell masters to free their slaves, but his intention becomes clear in his Letter to Philemon concerning the escaped slave Onesimus, that Philemon should receive Onesimus “no longer as a slave, but more than a slave as a beloved brother . . . . Confidence of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say” (Phil. 1:16, 21).

This recognition of the implicit logic of Paul’s position led eventually to the abolition of slavery. In the same way, the implicit logic of what Paul writes about “mutual submission” between husbands and wives in Ephesians 5 has clear implications for mutuality and equality in marriage. The writers of the “Response” have a footnote that echoes the standard complementarian position: “In the case of slavery,” the “transformation” of hierarchies “ultimately overturned this institution.” However, they write, “Marriage and the family, as opposed to slavery, are divinely instituted relationships and therefore cannot be overturned. The question is, does hierarchy remain within those divinely instituted and renewed relationships? Paul’s answer is yes. Children must obey their parents and wives must still submit to their husbands” (55, n110). This begs the question, however. As I wrote in Icons, “The issue is not whether marriage itself is God-ordained, but whether a wife’s submission to her husband is a permanently God-ordained part of marriage” (Icons, 116). To claim on the basis of the reading of what Paul writes about marriage and slavery in the same biblical passage that in the one case, slavery is a culturally conditioned social institution that should be overturned, while in the other, hierarchy in marriage is divinely ordained institution, is incoherent.

Objection 3

What about other passages? Paul commands women to submit to their husbands elsewhere in Scripture, and there is no mutuality in those passages.

The authors of the “Response” point out (correctly) that Ephesians 5 is not the only place where Paul discusses submission in marriage. In particular, they point to Col. 3:8-19, and to 1 Peter 3:1-2. (They could also have mentioned Titus 2:4). They conclude: “In sum, to interpret Ephesians 5:22-23 as an egalitarian text necessarily makes Ephesians 5 repugnant to Colossians 3:18-19 and 1 Peter 3:1-2” (“Response,” 56-57). Is this correct?

There are several exegetical and hermeneutical principles that need to be applied to the interpretation of any biblical passage. First, passages must be interpreted within their immediate context. Second, passages must be interpreted within their own historical and social context. Third, shorter passages must be interpreted in the light of lengthier passages. Fourth, any theological implication must be drawn from broader theological interpretations that provide clues as to what might be going on in any given passage. Fifth, when making the move from a passage’s original historical context to a contemporary hermeneutical application, fundamental distinctions need to be made between merely historical observations, “positive laws” that might have particular relevance in a particular historical and social context, and contemporary application in our own social and cultural setting.

The writers of the “Response” point out correctly that Ephesians and Colossians were written “at the same time,” that Paul also addresses household codes and marriage in Colossians, and that Paul writes” Wives, submit to your husbands.” They claim that the command is in the “imperative,” and that the husband is not told to submit to his wife: “This explicit command in Colossians 3, written at the same time as the Epistle to the Ephesians makes it very difficult if not impossible to sustain the argument that Paul intended to do away with marital hierarchy and establish an egalitarian relationship in Ephesians 5:22” (“Response,” 56-57).

The writers of the “Response” fail to acknowledge not only similarities, but also significant differences between Paul’s discussion in Colossians 3 and his discussions in Ephesians 5. First, while the discussion in Ephesians 5 occurs in the middle of a passage that begins in Ephesians 5:1-2, commanding Christians to “walk in love as Christ loves us,” and includes the discussion of marriage at the end of a series of participles directed to all Christians as examples of being filled with the Spirit – “speaking” in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, “singing” and “psalming” to the Lord, “giving thanks” always, “submitting to one another,” including wives to husbands, the passage in Colossians is part of a short distinct unit addressing husbands and wives, children and fathers, slaves and slave-holders. For “good reasons” (as Ben Witherington II notes), some scholars have understood this to be a pre-existing passage inserted into the present context. It may well be (as Witherington suggests), a “rheotical regression.” Nonetheless, it is a “self-contained unit,” which could be left out with no interruption to Paul’s argument (Witherington, 181-182).

Second, the passage concerning husbands and wives is very brief, consisting of only two sentences: “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.” The writers of the “Response” are correct that “submit” is not borrowed from the previous sentence, but Paul also includes almost nothing else that is found in the Ephesians passage. There is no comparison between the husband and wife and Christ and the church. Unlike Ephesians, Paul makes no reference to the foundation of marriage in Gen. 2:24.

Third, the majority of (all?) scholars acknowledge that the passage in Ephesians depends on and expands the passage from Colossians. Given its greater length and the provision of theological rationale in Ephesians that is lacking in the Colossians passage, the latter must be understood in light of the former rather than vice versa. The writers of the “Response” have the hermeneutical process backward. The writers are correct that Paul does not say that husbands should submit to wives in Col. 3:18, but neither does he say that wives should love their husbands in Col. 3:19. It is in the light of Paul’s more expansive discussion in Ephesians 5:2-33 that we discover that the submission of husbands to wives is mutual, that wives love their husbands as husbands also love their wives.

The writers of the “Response” also fail to acknowledge the complete context of the household codes in Col. 3:18-4:1. Paul’s lengthiest discussion in the passage concerns not husbands and wives, nor fathers and children, but masters and slaves. The “Response” acknowledges that Christian principles eventually overturned slavery (n. 55). But a defender of slavery in the nineteenth-century American South could have responded to them that Paul here commands slaves to “obey” their masters,” and that unlike Ephesians 6:9, there is no command for masters to “do the same” to their slaves.

As Witherington points out, it is both context and trajectory that cast light on both interpretation and hermeneutical appropriation of Colossians 3:18-41. In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he is likely addressing a group of Christians who are not his own converts, and to whom he had not previously addressed a letter: “There are levels of moral discourse possible depending on the audience one is addressing.” This is Paul’s “opening gambit” with the Colossians, and “it is understanadable that he does not fire all of his guns with regard to slavery or patirarchy” (Witherington, 185).

In terms of immediate context, while Paul does not attempt to overturn the Mediterranean patriarchal household, even in the short passage in Colossians he takes steps to challenge and modify traditional household codes in light of the gospel. When compared to other Greco-Roman codes, “one is profoundly struck by not just Christian elements but also by the social engineeering that is being undertaken here to limit the abuse of power by the head of the household” (Witheringon, 184). In contrast, pagan codes do not command husbands to love their wives, to not break the spirit of their children, to treat their slaves with equality.

Finally, there is trajectory, as seen especially in Paul’s discussion of the relationship between masters and slaves. Paul does not attempt to overthrow either the traditional Roman household structure or slavery, but he attempts to “embed the Christian faith and its ethical values in the social structures that already exist.” Paul is “regulating an existing condition, not endorsing the institution of slavery” (Witherington, 184, 185). In Ephesians 6:5-9, Paul goes beyond what he writes here in Colossians about masters and slaves by telling masters to serve their slaves! In Paul’s letter to Philemon, without making an explicit demand, he asks for the freedom of Onesimus. Although Paul mentions nothing about what he will write to Philemon, Paul mentions the same Onesimus in Col. 4:9, whom he describes as “our faithful and dear brother,” and “one of you.”

In terms of the relationship between husbands and wives, and fathers and children, we can discern the same pattern. Paul’s advice to all in the family has a modified Christological structure. Paul does not tell wives to “obey” their husbands, but to “submit, as is fitting in the Lord” (Col. 5:18). The word hypotassō is in the present tense, middle voice (Witherington, 199). (See my discussions about the “middle voice” in the previous essay). The action requested is voluntary, and it is patterned on Christ’s own cruciform servanthood (Phil. 2:5-11). Paul does not tell husbands to cause their wives to submit. Paul’s commands for husbands to love their wives and for fathers to not embitter their children stands in contrast, for example, with parallel advice in the deuterocanonical book of Sirach, which always takes the husband’s and father’s side, and encourages them to reinforce an authoritarian patriarchal structure (Sirach 25-26; 30:1-13; 42:9-14).

Witherington points out that John Chrysostom recognized that this passage points to a mutuality between husbands and wives: “Observe again that Paul has exhorted husbands and wives to reciprocity . . . . From being loved, the wife becomes loving; and from her being submissive, the husband learns to yield” (tenth homily on Colossians) (Witheringon, 192). Witherington concludes that the passage is a “deliberate modification of the existing patriarchal household structure” (193). As the implications of this modification are evident in regard to the practice of slavery, so what Paul says about the relationship between husbands and wives in Colossians will become more evident in what he writes in Ephesians 5. Paul is “regulating an existing condition, not endorsing the institution of slavery. Limiting rather than licensing the situation is the ethical move Paul is trying to make here. The same applies to his comments about the patriarchal family structure” (Witherington, 185).

In addressing the exhortations in 1 Peter 3:1-2 the “Response” inadvertently notices the parallel between the master/slave relationship and the husband/wife relationship without recognizing its implications: “The ‘likewise’ refers to Peter’s discussion of the master/slave relationship in the previous chapter where [Peter] urged slaves to submit to their masters, even when treated unjustly, just as Christ endured injustice for our sake. Here Peter lays down a similar principle, ‘be subject to your husbands.’ The command is applicable to all wives but he adds incentive for those wives with unbelieving husbands” (Response, 57).

Oblivious to what should be the obvious significance of the parallel between slaves submitting to their masters, and wives being subject to husbands, the last comment about incentives misses a significant difference between what Paul writes in Colossians and Ephesians and what we find in 1 Peter 3 as well as the parallel material in Titus 2:4. I address this in Icons of Christ (116-117), and will only summarize quickly what I wrote there.

There is a significant difference between what Paul writes in Ephesians 5 and the parallel passages in 1 Peter 3:1, which reads, “Likewise, wives be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some of them do not obey the word, they may be won over without a word by the conduct of their wives” and Titus 2:4-5, which suggests that “young women” are to be kind and submissive to their husbands, that the word of God might not be reviled.” In both 1 Peter and Titus, the commands are one-sided and not reciprocal. Wives (and slaves) are told to be subject to husbands and masters, but there are no corresponding commands to husbands and slave-owners.

There seem to be two significant differences between Ephesians 5 and these passages. First, 1 Peter was written to a persecuted church, undergoing suffering, and is largely concerned with how the church comes across to outsiders. The concern about outsiders is also present in the Pastoral Epistles.

Second, context indicates that the husbands and masters referred to in these passages are not primarily Christian husbands and masters. So the masters who cause slaves to “suffer unjustly” in 1 Peter 2:18-19 are presumably not Christian masters. The husbands, to whom wives are commanded to “be subject . . . so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won over without a word” (3:1) are presumably not Christian husbands. While Colossians and Ephesians are “in-house” documents, addressed to fellow Christians, 1 Peter and the Pastorals are concerned with how Christians wives and slaves, through their submission to non-Christian husbands and masters, might win them over.

Similarly, the Pastoral epistles are largely concerned with how the church comes across to outsiders. Slaves are to honor their masters “so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled” (1 Tim. 6:1). Women should be submissive to their husbands “so that the word of God may not be reviled” (Titus 2:5). Young men should be self-controlled “so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us” (Titus 2:6-8). Slaves are to be submissive “so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” (v. 10).

It is this different social setting (response to persecution and concern for outsiders’ impressions) that explains the clear difference between the mutuality of Ephesians 5 and (even Colossians 3) on the one hand, and 1 Peter and the Pastoral epistles on the other. This difference is an example of what I have called in Icons of Christ “Christological subversion,” taking on the role of a servant in regard to others, but the context of persecution and concern for how the church comes across to outsiders makes a considerable difference.

This leads to the last hermeneutical principle, the need to recognize fundamental distinctions between “positive laws” and historical circumstances and contemporary application. In The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Richard Hooker make a distinction between (1) “natural law,” rooted in creation, (2) “doctrine,” founded on revelation, (3) “positive law,” which may have had an application for a particular time and circumstance in redemptive history, and (3) merely historical statements contained in Scripture. Concerning the latter, Hooker wrote: “When that which the word of God doth but deliver historically, we counter without any warrant as if it were legally meant and so urge it further than we can prove it was intended, do we not add to the laws of God, and make them a number seem more than they are?” (Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity 3.5.1.)

Paul’s exhortations in Colossians and Ephesians are just such examples of “historical” statements contained in Scripture. They are neither moral or doctrinal statements; nor are they examples of what Hooker calls moral, ritual, or even civil law. They are examples of Paul addressing a particular historical situation in a particular historical setting in particular historical circumstances. To turn such historical statements into permanent doctrinal and moral imperatives for the church is just such an example of “add[ing] to the laws of God,” making God’s laws “seem more than they are.” In Hooker’s words: “What is to add to the law of God is this be not?”

Objection 4

Mutual submission means there are no hierarchies. Without hierarchy, there are no fundamental differences between men and women.

One of the oddest readings of the argument for equality between men and women and egalitarian relationships in marriage is that such equality necessarily implies the rejection of all hierarchy whatsoever. The “Response” states that the “unstated assumption underlying [Witt’s and Lemarqand’s] argument is that ontological equality somehow precludes relational hierarchy” (Response, 27). “What is odd, however, is that for Dr. LeMarqiuand and Witt, as opposed to Paul who commands wives to submit to husbands just as the Church submits to Christ, such notions are antithetical to hierarchy and subordination” (65). “Paul does not . . . suggest that there are no more hierarchies. Obey your parents, he tells the children. Obey your masters, he tells slaves” (55).

Nothing in either the argument for women’s ordination or the argument for egalitarian relationships between husbands and wives in marriage implies that there are no hierarchies whatsoever. Because children are emotionally and intellectually incapable of self-management, they are, until they reach maturity, necessarily under the guidance of mature and responsible adults, either their parents or other guardians. In reference to ordination, ordination is an “office,” and those holding office necessarily exercise a kind of authority over others. For example, as a teacher, I have a certain kind of limited authority over my students. But this authority is indeed limited, is not permanent, and does not extend outside the classroom. If one of my students is a police officer, and that student were to issue me a citation for speeding, I could not dispense with the ticket on the grounds that, as a teacher, I have authority over that police officer.

Moreover, relational hierarchies are always grounded (or at least should be) in some inherent competence that makes the person exercising office capable of its exercise. Teachers have training that their students do not. Where intellectual and other equalities exist, permanent hierarchies between one group and another are rightly perceived to be unjust, leading for example, to the eventual elimination of slavery and of racial segregation during the American Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and the elimination of apartheid in South Africa. Again, the parallel between the abolition of slavery and its implications for male hierarchy in marriage are significant. Wives are the fitting companions of their husbands, “flesh of their flesh” and “bones of their bones.” Wives are not slaves.

Within the context of marriage, and relationships between men and women in general, the key issue is, given the recognition by all mainstream Christians since the mid-twentieth century that women are of full intellectual, moral, and spiritual equality with men, whether men should nonetheless exercise some kind of permanent hierarchical authority over women simply because they are men and women women, and, within the context of marriage, whether husbands should exercise hierarchical authority over their wives simply because the husbands are men and the wives are women.⁷

Witherington makes the point well in his discussion of Ephesians 5-6. First, the ordering of parent-child and master-slave relationships is hierarchical, but it is not gender-specific in that both parents have authority over children, and in Philemon Paul “deconstruct[s]” the notion of brothers and sisters being kept or treated as slaves.” Similarly, Paul “deconstructs traditional hierarchial understandings of submission and relationships.” Paul is not rejecting the notion of hierarchy in authority relationships. Paul, for example, exercised a relation of authority over his converts: “What [Paul] is rejecting is the notion of a gender-specific hierarchial order, such that one set of adult persons in the audience should do the submitting and others the ordering or leading” (Witherington, 317).