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[...] boys to be men and girls to be women.  That question stemmed from his assertion in an earlier post that (I am paraphrasing and summarizing the post and his comments): there is an essential [...]

Hey all,

Obviously I have been unable to keep up on comments for the last few days. I am much more discerning when I am involved.

I don’t really want to close this but I have received some emails about quite a deal of uncharity going on, especially among certian complementarians (and this came from one of the complementarians!).

Therefore, because of the heat that is involved here, I am going to go ahead and shut it down.

Thanks for all who were involved.

jugulum

I’m still not sure this follows. You argue that 5:23 specifies that the submission in 5:22 is inherent in the marriage relationship because Paul compares the husband-wife relationship to the Christ-Church relationship. Couldn’t it just as easily be argued that Paul is doing the same thing in 6:5 and following when he tells the slaves to obey “as to Christ” and “as slaves to Christ” and “as to the Lord?” Isn’t it possible that the only reason Paul is not more explicit as (it could be argued) he was in 5:23 is that the master-slave relationship doesn’t fit the theme that he has been developing within Ephesians and not because he doesn’t believe that Christ is the master of the Church and that Christians are His slaves? Also, isn’t it clear that Paul is saying in 5:28 that the wife is the body of the man just as the Church is the body of Christ even though he does not say it as explicitly as he does the converse in 5:23?

If it is the case that he’s doing the same thing in 6:5 and following that he did in 5:23 (and in 5:28) but merely being less explicit, then the two instances (5:23 and 6:5) are parallel and one would have to argue that the slavery is as equally valid and commanded as patriarchy, no?

All this is indeed aside from the issue of whether the submission in 5:22 is hierarchical or merely the universal attitude of submission that is called for in the Christian life. I would argue the latter. Many, many scriptures could be cited as examples of this kind of submissive attitude. Philippians 2:5-7 comes to mind. “Have this attitude in yourselves that was in Christ Jesus…”

“Someone asked you about that statement regarding parent/child relationships. I don’t recall that you answered.”

“I assume you don’t think that parents have no authority over their children, do you?”

Jugulum,
Actually, I don’t find one Scripture telling me to take authority over my children – my children are adults with children of their own. But, I didn’t find one telling me to do that when they were young either. I also don’t see any Scriptures telling parents to force their children to do obey. (?) Jesus doesn’t force us to follow Him – He leads by example. “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”
Out of love for my children I sought to teach them by example. They were intrusted to the care of my husband and myself – we didn’t see that as having authority over. We saw it as a blessing and a challenge to walk out our faith.

Hodge: “As for me, I’m done rebuking the non-reproachable.”

I hear a loud sigh of relief from Sue and EricW (louder than the other egalitarians anyways).

“The Church does not command the Church.”

Somebody ought to inform the apostles since they had the habit of delivering over all of those commands.

Jug,

“Another difficulty of translation is that sometimes, the English word we use adds an implication that wasn’t there, or drops an implication that was there.”

Hence, I said there are issues with glosses. My point is that there is nothing that doesn’t transfer over in this debate. Both sides have understood definitions for the words being described. The difference is in what they mean, not that their conceptualizations can’t be transferred over to English. So I disagree. It is dishonest to pretend that the poor layman just doesn’t know how duped they are about this issue because the original language doesn’t always transfer in one-to-one correspondence to a word in the receptor language.

Eric,

You brought up irrelevant information to trump someone in a false and deceptive manner. If you can’t admit that then I’ll assume that that’s the way you are. Anyone can see what was done. As for me, I’m done rebuking the non-reproachable.