Origen Adam, I'm afraid that on 1 Timothy 2 your comments are way off the mark. Having spent the last three years doing quite a lot of research on this, I can assure you that Martin's comments are accurate.

There is no sense in which this text is 'clear', neither is there a sense in which this text functions as a prohibition on women speaking and teaching the church. The opponents of women bishops have propagated this (I'm afraid to say) rather ignorant and simplistic reading, and I think it is a measure of Steve's engagement in the debate that he swallows this misleading suggestion hook, line and sinker.

David, I quite understand your concern about the knee jerk reaction. But I think there are some important things to bear in mind.

Firstly, I don't know if you were aware that Steve Chalke's comments were not presented in isolation. When the edition of Christianity magazine comes out, you will see that it has been published as one of a number of different perspectives. The article that follows his is a systematic refutation of Steve's comments particularly about the biblical texts, but also more widely about both the debate, and the pastoral dynamics involved.

Secondly, I am really curious that you criticise Martin Kuhrt for recycling the same old arguments. This is exactly what Steve Chalke's article is doing on the other side! Many of us were disappointed that he couldn't say anything better or anything new.

Worse than that, his handling of the biblical texts is truly abysmal. To say that the bible clearly teaches women cannot teach is just extraordinary. He really needs to read my Grove booklet! (I'm surprised you yourself did not pick up on this.) And in returning to the same old arguments that the homosexuality in the Bible does not connect with the homosexuality we see around us is to ignore both major writings and major elements of the debate from the last 20 years.

You seem to suggest that the only reason Steve could have changed his mind was because of a serious engagement with the debate. I'm afraid that most people reading this will actually see that Steve has changed his mind because of a serious disengagement with the debate.

Phil, as I have said before, the length and density of your arguments make the conversation very difficult; I don't think Forum discussion is the appropriate medium for what you want to do.

I don't think I am really persuaded by the form of any of your argument, since you appear to work with a very mechanistic view of language and texts. For example, you comment 'How can Paul be subverting ‘head = authority’ in 1 Corinthians 11:11-12 when he states it in Ephesians 5?'. I could equally well ask 'How could Paul mean "head = authority" in Eph 5 when he so clearly subverts it in 1 Cor 11?'

But, as with all the arguments I have heard on this, there is a consistent assumption that, if you find any suggestion of male authority in any texts, this immediately trumps every other NT text. Most people do this with 1 Tim 2; you are doing it with Eph 5. And in both cases it is done without any awareness.

You have done exactly the same in relation to 1 Cor 7. You believe there is asymmetry elsewhere, therefore there MUST be asymmetry here, even though there is no evidence of this whatsoever, and in fact the text of 1 Cor 7 (and numerous other texts in Paul) really emphasise the symmetry.

These texts need to be taken on their own terms, and then put together.

Phil, a couple of things in response to your voluminous posts.

Firstly, your main argument against any offering of Christ or God to us appears to be that, in response to prayer, God will only give us what he was going to give us anyway, so what we say really make no difference. That is one extreme position in the debate about God's sovereignty v human responsibility, and I don't think it is one that, overall, Scripture supports.

Secondly, I don't buy your importing of 'head = authority' in Eph 5.23 into 1 Cor 11 at any point. I don't think you have yet really engaged in the powerful arguments that 'head' is not primarily about authority here, or how Paul subverts such ideas in the argument.

Thirdly, I am not persuaded by the widespread argument amongst [so-called] 'conservatives' that 1 Cor 11 and Eph 5 imply that the inner workings of the Trinity provide a model for human relations. For one thing, this ought to lead to there being three genders. For another, in 1 Cor 11 it would suggest that women should be like Christ (in submitting to the Father) but in Eph 5 men should be like Christ (in exercising auhtority over the church). This just does not add up.

Finally, as I have said before, the length and complexity of your posts really squashes the possibility of sensible debate. If you cannot state your case more briefly, are you getting lost in the detail?

Paul appears to be using 'head' to mean 'source' or 'origin' in 1 Cor 11. Payne's argument is that v 3 only makes sense if read in this way: Christ is the creator of man, man was the origin of woman [in Gen 2], and God is the source of Christ in the sense of the godhead being the origin of Jesus' incarnation. [Alan Padgett then argues that Paul is here quoting the Corinthians, as he does in 7.1 as well as in ch 6 about food and the stomach. This idea is supported by the fact that Paul appears to *reverse* the idea that origin = superiority in vv 11 and 12.] If this were a chain of authority (God, Christ, man, woman) it is in completely the wrong order.

I think that it would be reasonable to read other text as supporting this idea too. In Eph 5, the husband gives himself up for his wife as Christ does for the church, a life-giving function rather than anything to do with authority, and the use of strength to create protective space could also be understood in this way in 1 Peter 3.7.

[Payne's wider argument is that kephale almost never meant 'head = in charge of', not least because 'rosh' in the Hebrew Bible is almost always translated 'leader' in LXX and NOT by 'kephale'. I have also reflected on what happens when you cut someone's head off: they do not go out of control, but they drop down lifeless. This kind of observation is the thing that underlies first century understandings of physiology.]

Phil, Grudem's conclusion that in Eph 5 'submit to one another' means 'some to others' and not 'everyone to everyone' is the most absurb piece of special pleading I have seen in a long time, and just demonstrates his poor exegesis and failure to understand this and similar texts such as Phil 2. You also fail to make a distinction between 'submit' and 'obey' which appears to be present in the 'haustafel.' Children and slaves are consistently urged to 'obey' but wives are urged to 'submit.'

I also think that posting such lengthy detailed comments really stifles meaningful conversation. It would help if you could summarise your position more succinctly.

Phil

I think your exegesis fails seriously at several points.

1. Does Paul believe that the husband-wife relationship is symmetical in Eph 5? Clearly, yes. In Eph 5 the 'submission' of the wife to the husband and the 'giving up' of the husband to the wife both clearly fall under the wider instruction to 'submit to one another.' In fact, there is a stronger and more explicit exhortation to the husband, perhaps suggesting that there is more work needed here! Witherington in his commentary sets all this out very clearly.

2. Does Paul suggest this symmetry in other places? Yes he does. In 1 Cor 7.4 (an oddly neglected text) he states that a wife does not have authority over her own body but the husband does, and IN THE SAME WAY a husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. The grammar is exactly symetrical. (Sadly, some translations obscure the use of 'exousia' here by translating the terms as 'rights'). 

3. Similarly, in 1 Cor 11 Paul talks of husband as 'head' of the wife, though as Philip Payne has persuasively argued, this is about being an animating source rather than a commander over. Possibly citing the Corinthians, Paul sets out the (temporal) priority of men over women in v 8, only to set out the exact opposite priority in v 12. The language in these verses is very strongly symmetrical--which Paul then uses to support the idea that (just as men do) women should be able to pray and prophesy in the assembly without any head covering, since 'her hair has been given to her in place of [anti] a covering' (v 15).

4. Does the NT support the idea that in some way the church-Christ relationship is symmetrical? I think it does. Of course, you only quote one half of the evidence in relation to our submission to Christ--but that is never going to prove anything. Alongside this you need to consider the language of us as Jesus 'brothers and sisters' (Matt 12.50), the language of 'friends not slaves' (John 15.15), the fact that the Father will do anything we ask in Jesus' name (the Father thus submitting to our will and the will of Jesus, John 14.14), the church as 'the rest of her offspring' (ie as siblings of the Male Child, Rev 12.5, 17), as well as the language of Christ giving himself up for us (Mark 10.45) and Paul's exclamation that he will therefore also 'freely give us all thing' (Rom 8.32).

Thanks for this John--your four final points are very challenging.

I often describe a place like St John's (Nottingham) as a 'worshipping, learning community' and point out that, though as a theological college we are not a church, this is a quite good description of a church. In fact, from the New Testament (both in vignettes like Acts 2.42 and in longer discourses like 1 Cor) it is difficult to think of a better definition of the ekklesia than a 'worshipping, learning community.'