Kruse Kronicle

"Household of God" Series Index

INDEX:

Introduction

• Household of God
• Recovering the Biblical Image

Background to the Greco-Roman Household and Culture

• Architecture (Part 1)
• Architecture (Part 2)
• What is a Family?
• Patronage and the Dance of Grace
• The Status Game
• Honor and Shame
• The Household of Caesar (Part 1)
• The Household of Caesar (Part 2)
• Voluntary Associations
• Isis, Christians, and Social Change in the Empire
• The Greco-Roman Household in Review

Household in Ancient Israel

• Family and Household in Ancient Israel
• Household and the Israelite Monarchy
• Household and Diaspora

Jesus' use of Fictive Family and Household

• The Rabbi from Galilee
• Jesus' Mission Statement
• The "Household Code"
• Jesus' Household Code (Part 1)
• Jesus' Household Code (Part 2)
• Jesus and Fictive Family (Part 1)
• Jesus and Fictive Family (Part 2)
• Jesus and Fictive Family (Part 3)
• Jesus and Fictive Family (Part 4)
• Introducing the Evangelium in Evangelio
• Psalm 23
• Jeremiah 23:1-8
• Ezekiel 34
• Lost Sheep, Luke 15:4-7 (Part 1)
• Lost Sheep, Luke 15:4-7 (Part 2)
• Lost Coin, Luke 15:8-10
• Comparing the Shepherd Metaphors
• The Prodigal Son, Luke 15:11-24 (Part 1)
• The Prodigal Son, Luke 15:11-24 (Part 2)
• The Older Son, Luke 15:25-32
• Theological Implications of the Parable of the Compassionate Father (Part 1)
• Theological Implications of the Parable of the Compassionate Father (Part 2)
• Theological Implications of the Parable of the Compassionate Father (Part 3)
• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (Part 1)
• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (Part 2)

New Testament Books' use of Fictive Family and Household

• Context for the Post-Resurrection Household of God
• The Pervasiveness of the Family Metaphor in the New Testament
• Children of Abraham
• The Royal Household
• Change in Status
• Paul as Father?
• Household: Paul's Use of Family in 1 Corinthians (Part 1)
• Household: Paul's Use of Family in 1 Corinthians (Part 2)
• Household: Paul's Use of Family in Romans
• The Other New Testament Writers and Fictive Family
• Fictive Family in 1 John
• Fictive Family in Hebrews
• Fictive Family in Ephesians
• Fictive Family in 1 Peter
• Reviewing the Big Picture (Part 1)
• Reviewing the Big Picture (Part 2)

New Testament Household Codes

• New Testament Household Codes
• Inverted Status Seeking and the End of Domination
• Household Code in 1 Peter (Part 1)
• Household Code in 1 Peter (Part 2)
• Household Code in 1 Peter (Part 3)
• Household Code in Titus
• Household Code Lost in Translation: Kephale
• "Head" as "Origin" or "Source"
• "Head" as "Symbol of the Whole" and "Preeminence in Status"
• The Fictive "rosh to kephale" Exceptions in the Septuagint (Part 1)
• The Fictive "rosh to kephale" Exceptions in the Septuagint (Part 2)
• “Head” as Function, Representation, and Elevation, and the Centrality of Status
• "Head" in 1 Peter 2:6-8 (Three Stones)
• "Head" in Colossians
• "Head" in Ephesians
• "Head" in 1 Corinthians 11:3 (Part 1)
• "Head" in 1 Corinthians 11:3 (Part 2)
• Synopsis of the "Head" Metaphor in the New Testament
• Household Code in Ephesians (Part 1)
• Household Code in Ephesians (Part 2)
• Household Code in Ephesians (Part 3)
• Household Code in Ephesians (Part 4)
• Household Code in Colossians
• Excursus on 1 Timothy (Part 1)
• Excursus on 1 Timothy (Part 2)
• Excursus on 1 Timothy (Part 3)
• Excursus on 1 Timothy (Part 4)
• Excursus on 1 Corinthians 7
• Household Code in Review

Concluding Thoughts

• Review of the Role of the Fictive Family Metaphor
• Recovering the Family Business
• Deconstructing the Laity
• Plausibility Structures

Household: Plausibility Structures

One of my favorite sociologists from college and in grad school days was Peter Berger. I believe it was Berger who first coined the phrase “plausibility structure.” What is a plausibility structure and what does it have to with the Household of God?

Sociologists have long talked about the importance of the “looking glass self.” As each of us goes through life, we look at others for clues about how we are being received. Each person becomes a mirror that reflects back an image. Those we are most closely in community with tend to become our primary reference points for assessing ourselves. We look to them for affirmation or rejection of our values, behaviors, experiences, and perceptions. We have shared narratives that interpret events around us. It is our interaction with these “mirrors” that sustains our ability to perceive the world the way we do. We reflect feedback to others as well. This collection of mutually shared perspectives and narratives are plausibility structures because they keep our perspective on the world plausible.

The Household of God and the notion of fictive family were metaphors used by Jesus and the apostles to form alternative plausibility structures for the people of God. These images redefined identities and the nature of interaction with others. The metaphors created a sense of unity, solidarity, and belonging. They focused the mission of the group and gave their work eschatological meaning. It also generated a support network as each pursued their own walk with God. As people were in community with each other, the reality of the coming Kingdom took on a tangible quality.

It seems to me that we have lost our plausibility structures. We offer no compelling narrative that can reshape individual narratives in our present context. Our identities are left largely untouched, we do not experience unity, we are clueless about the mission of God in the world, and we wonder if anything we do has eternal significance. Through it all, we frequently feel alone and without adequate support.

In this closing post, I will not be offering any simple solution to the need to recover plausibility structures. We see how crucial Jesus, Paul, and New Testament writers thought they were. The entire mission of the church is rooted in the idea of people living in plausibility structures as they give witness to the coming reign of Christ. We have seen how false images of “church as cocooning family” or “church as a corporation” are destructive plausibility structures. We have seen how ecclesiastical structures have created a destructive narrative that casts followers of Jesus as clients of a class of super Christians called clergy rather than seeing each person as a minister called and sent by God into their corner of creation.

The challenge before us is to discover what it means to be the Household of God in our present context. We need plausibility structures empowered by the Holy Spirit as missional agents of transformation. It seems to me that going back and seeing how Jesus and the early church used fictive family and the Household of God is a good place to start.

Series Index

Household: Deconstructing the Laity

The Household of God metaphor envisions God as the paterfamilias of the household with each of us as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. Some siblings are more mature than others in their faith are. Some are newly adopted. But we are all siblings.

I’ve had the opportunity to talk about the concept of the Household of God to some church groups. What I have found revealing is the answer I get in response to a question I ask at the end of my presentation: Who is the paterfamilias of the congregation? Every time the response has been, “the pastor!” This understanding is foreign to scripture and is inseparably tied to the myth of laity. The idea of laity, and our corresponding conception of clergy, is foreign to scripture. Where did we get the clergy/laity dichotomy?

The word “clergy” comes from the Greek word kleros, which means “lot” or “inheritance.” When used figuratively, as in, “we are God’s inheritance,” or “we share in the inheritance of Christ,” it refers without exception to the whole people of God. It never refers to a specially called elite subgroup of people. “Clergy” and “the people of God” (laos tou theou) are one in the same group!

The term “laity” is not a direct translation from the noun laos (“people”) as is often purported. It came indirectly from laos through the adjective laikos, meaning “of the common people.” Laikos is not in the New Testament and it is not in the ancient Greek version of the Old Testament called the Septuagint.

The first known mentions of laikos come from about 300 BCE. It was an adjective used in papyri to describe the profane things of the rural people in Egypt. The earliest known use of the word in Christian literature is in a letter by Clement of Rome to the Corinthian church, written circa 96 CE. In exhorting the church to preserve godly order, he alludes to the order of the Old Testament era. He discusses the responsibilities of those who were neither priests nor Levites, and calls them laymen (laikos anthropos.) (1 Clement 40:5) (1)

Laikos was used sparingly by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion in their Greek translations of the Old Testament during the second and third centuries. It was used as a synonym for bebelos, which means “profane” or “unholy.” Laikos was also a synonym in Greek literature for idiotes, which meant “nonprofessional.” (It is the word from which we get “idiot.”) Laikos did not begin to enter the common Christian vocabulary until the third and fourth centuries. Over time and across languages, the adjective evolved into the noun “laity” to represent the unprofessional, common, and profane people contrasted with the educated, holy, and sacred people known as “clergy.” (2)

The Reformers saw this as a problem but they also struggled with church order. The outcome of their struggle to reconcile the issues was retention of the clergy/laity distinction while trying to elevate the laity. (3) Did they succeed? Ask yourself if you prefer ministry by a lay-Christian, any more than you do surgery from a lay-surgeon, or legal advice from a lay-lawyer?

Real ministry, we are lead to believe, is what is done by a caste of Christians called “clergy,” those with special training and an extra endowment of spirituality. Laity exists to assist clergy in real ministry. We say we believe in the priesthood of believers but look at our language and structures. Clergy do “full-time” Christian ministry. We send people to seminaries to prepare for the ministry. We install them in our congregations as the minister. Prayer is deferred to the clergy because they have special status with God. The sick have not been cared for until visited by clergy.

Ask anyone for a definition of laity and it nearly always is given in terms of the negative:

• Function – they do not administer the sacraments.
• Status – they don’t have reverend in front of their name.
• Location – they don’t serve primarily in the church.
• Education – they don’t have a degree from seminary.
• Remuneration – they are not paid for church work.
• Lifestyle – they are occupied with the “secular” instead of the “sacred.” (4)

When “laypeople” are referred to positively, they are said to be “the people of God” (laos tou theou.) True enough, but the “people of God” in contrast to whom? The clergy? Scripture only uses clergy (kleros) in reference to the whole people of God. Laos tou theou are the clergy!

The primary locus for ministry is the congregation in dispersion throughout the community during the week. We have moved the locus to the gathered congregation. Why? Because non-pastor Christians are “idiots!” :) (laity = laikos = idiotes = idiots.) They can be helpful assistants to clergy but they cannot be fully trusted with the things of God. Only professional Christians can do real ministry, and since they cannot be everywhere, it is the job of the “laity” to bring unbelievers to the professionals for real ministry. Consequently, the saints are thoroughly under-equipped for ministry in dispersion, and they are demeaned and trivialized for ministry among the gathered. Am I exaggerating? Do people in the pews have any sense of call? Look at the best-selling book list in recent years. What continues to be at the top? The Purpose-Driven Life. You may love the book or hate it, but it is being read by millions of people who have received no discernment of call and ministry from the Church.

The clergy/laity distinction has undermined the missional nature of the church. Dualism has been a persistent problem pitting sacred versus secular. Instead of equipping people for ministry in the world, we have made them clients of "the clergy." Somewhat ironically, the place where we find some of the most insightful thinking about "the laity" in recent years comes from the Roman Catholic tradition. Because of the sacramental role of the priest (which Protestants reject) they believe there <em>is</em> a need for a set apart group that presides over the sacraments. Yet in recent years, there has been teaching to the effect that the work of the laity is out in the world and not inside the four walls of the church. Needlessly involving laity in the work of the clergy (and the clergy in the work of the laity) is destructive to the mission of the church. How much more so should this be true with regard to the descendants of the Protestant Reformation but it is far from being the case.

This is not to say we can function without leadership. The question is what kind of leadership. The vision in the New Testament appears to resemble the idea of a player-coach training a team for action. Maybe the image of a household manager training and coaching other household members in household management fits even better; it is a master and apprentice relationship. Instead, we have created a "professional-minister to client" relationship, where "the minister" does ministry on behalf of others rather than equipping others for ministry. If we are to truly become the Household of God we must deconstruct the myth of laity and recover the biblical vision of the whole people of God as "the clergy."

1  Weber, Hans-Ruedi. “On Being Christian in the World: Reflections on the ecumenical discussion about the laity.” Document at World Council of Churches website: www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/education/ weber.html. 1999. Accessed May 1, 2005
2  Ibid.
3  Gillespie, Thomas W. “Ministerial Orders in the Reformed Tradition: A Study in Origins.” A paper presented to the delegations to the Consultation on Church Union from the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. and the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. circa 1979?
4  Stevens, R. Paul, The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work, and Ministry in Biblical Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), 24-25.

Series Index

Household: Recovering the Family Business

Among church board members, two complaints stand above all others? The first is that the church is not being run enough like a business. The second is that the church is being run too much like a business. Maybe there has always been this dichotomy in the church but I believe it has become pronounced due to changes in Western society.

A Family Affair

When I have done visioning work with congregations over the years, I have asked them how they would characterize themselves. Every dying congregation I’ve ever worked with gives me the same response: “We are a warm friendly family.” The Bible uses the fictive family metaphor throughout scripture so should not we applaud a congregation that envisions itself as a warm friendly family? That depends. Are we talking about a Greco-Roman family or a modern Western family?

The Greco-Roman household was a domicile and a business inseparably wrapped up in one. The members of the household were workers in the household business and the paterfamilias was in charge of the business. The idealized household was the Roman villa with slaves and servants working vast amounts of land. Households were missional enterprises where everyone was devoted to the business of the paterfamilias.

The integration of household, business, and family, all rolled up into one, has been the norm in most civilizations throughout time until the past couple of centuries. Industrialization moved work out of the household and created a division between where we work and where we live. As recently as 1885 in the United States, it is estimated that on average of 80% of everything a households consumed was produced by the household (this would include food, clothing, energy sources, building materials, tools etc.) By 1915, just thirty years later, 80% of everything consumed was purchased from outside the household. The percentage has gone far higher than that since.

The impact has been that household and family are no longer missional. Work is the place where wealth is generated and the home is where things are consumed. Home is our protection from the threats and challenges of the outside world. It is our cocoon of safety where we draw the blinds and lock the doors to keep the world out. It is a place where we expect to receive nurture and emotional support. In other words, home and household has become about “me and mine,” not a missional unit that engages the world.

As we moved into the late twentieth century, the family has become more destabilized. More people are looking for a surrogate family. For many, church has become the place where we go to “get fed” and have our needs met. It is a place of emotional support and belonging. The pastor is often seen as a parental figure nurturing the children. In other words, church has become an extension of our early twenty-first century cocoon style family. These “warm friendly families” generally do a terrible job of bringing new people into their family.

Down to Business

However, not everyone has bought into this cocoon mentality. There are churches that see themselves as being about mission. They are in the mission business. They have detailed strategic plans, large physical plants, highly trained staff, and market segmented programs. Consumers show up and order from the religiosity menu as the church does its best to meet the consumer’s needs. Yet most folks involved here feel about as much like siblings in Christ with fellow members as do people attending a major concert do with each other. They feel about as close to the staff in these churches as they do to the sales attendants at the department store. The pastor is frequently seen as the CEO. There is much going on but where is the strong sense of identity and unity with brothers and sisters? Where is the affection and support of a band of brothers and sisters? Church has simply become an extension of our early twenty-first century style of business.

The Family Business

It strikes me that we need to recover the New Testament vision of the household. It is a household that is a family business. Or maybe another way to describe it would be a “missional family.” We need to recover the idea of God as the paterfamilias and the CEO, not the pastor. The pastor and other leaders are older brothers and sisters coaching younger brothers and sisters as they learn the ropes of the family trade; the family trade being the exemplification and restoration of shalom with God, with each other, within ourselves, and with creation. Community, or koinonia, would not be an end in itself but a by-product of participating with each other in mission. It would also be a family that is ever in search of knew siblings to be adopted into the family and its work.

The issue is not that we need to run things more like a business or more like a family. We need to run it like a family business. I fear we will endlessly be spinning off into unhealthy ways of being the church until we are able to recombine family with mission.

Series Index

Household: Review of the Role of the Fictive Family Metaphor

We are now finished with our review of fictive family and the Household of God. In these concluding posts, I want to reflect on what significance fictive family and the Household of God has for us today. Let's refresh our memories concerning the interpretative role that fictive family and the Household of God played in the life of God’s people.

Concerning God’s mission in the world I wrote:

Upon completion of creation there is perfect shalom between the triune God, humanity, and creation. Humankind rebels. Shalom is deeply marred. Human beings are separated from God and from each other. They find themselves in a life and death struggle with nature. Human beings are alienated from themselves.

The early chapters of Genesis present us with a picture of humanity where power and domination have become the modus operandi. Through religion, myth, custom, and political power, humanity forms cultures that create their own versions of the “eternal present” (ala Brueggemann) where “what is” is cast as that which always has been and always will be. Competing cultures battle it out on the pages of human history to make their eternal present prevail and to keep back the chaos that threatens to destroy their systems of meaning and survival.

God’s mission in the world is to reunite humanity and all creation in him. His strategy is atonement, or as some would have it, “at-one-ment;” nothing less than the restoration of shalom. The strategy begins when God sets apart a people for himself, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Through this people, God will redeem the world. Christopher Wright captures this simply but powerfully in a diagram.

(Source: Christopher Wright, “Mission of God,” IVP. 2006. 395.)

The small triangle represents Israel and the Promised land. I it is within the broader context of all humanity and of all the earth. The mission of God is to expand the smaller triangle until “Israel” expands to encompass “humanity” and “the land” becomes equivalent to the “the earth.” (Household: Reviewing the Big Picture (Part 1)

Then I went on to identify five themes I found in the way the fictive family metaphor was employed.

Identity – The family was the source of identity for the Greco-Roman and the Near East worlds. Honor was due one’s parents and ancestors. Protecting the family honor was paramount. By extension, this allegiance went out to tribe and race. The way a son most honored his father was to sire sons to perpetuate the family. A woman’s worth was tied up with the sons she bore for her husband.

Jesus demanded we make stark choices between earthly family and the fictive family of the new creation. It was not a call to abandon earthly families but rather to place family in its proper context with regard to the new creation that God was ushering in. Jesus demanded that we find our identity in God. Similarly, Paul gives instructions in 1 Corinthians 7 that suggest that singleness may actually be a preferred option for some in service of God’s work. Just as family members of an earthly household would find their identity in the paterfamilias, we are instructed to give our allegiance to God as our paterfamilias, and not be preoccupied with perpetuating earthly family identity.

Unity – Siblings were the most intimate of human relationships within Greco-Roman and Near Eastern society. They were the one place were patronage and status competition were supposed to be absent. Siblings were equal in status and bound by love for each other. It is significant that the first murder in the Bible is between two brothers (Cain and Able) and the myth of Rome’s founding involves a struggle between two brothers (Romulus and Remus). Brothers at odds was disturbing imagery.

Jesus’ parable of the Compassionate Father in Luke 15, which became known by the Church as “the gospel within the gospel,” features a father reconciling a law-breaking son and a law-keeping son to himself through acts of costly grace. But the story is also about an attempt by the father to reconcile the two brothers to each other and to unite a household. As we saw in Romans 4 and in Galatians 3, Paul casts Jew and Gentile as children of Abraham, uniting them as siblings of one family. In Galatians 3:25-4:7, Paul declares that “Jew or Greek …. slave or free …. male and female” are no longer relevant categories for determining our identity and status, as we’ve all been made children of God. Writing to the fractious church at Corinth, Paul employs the “concord” genre to bring unity. The Roman concord discourse implored people to honor the social order and the respective strata within it for the sake of the Republic or Empire. Yet Paul writes:

Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. (1 Cor. 1:10)

The unity is based on the affection of siblings harmoniously working together, having the same heart and mind as they engage in the business of the paterfamilias. It is not a submission to hierarchies and status structures for the good of society. Paul also writes in Ephesians 2 of the demolition of the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile, the two being united in the “household of God.”

Fictive family is a key basis for unity and it metaphorically teaches the type of respect, care, and love that disciples are to have for one another: brotherly and sisterly love.

Mission – One of the issues we visited early in this series is that the archetypal households referred to in Greco-Roman oratories were also businesses, usually large plantations. The children and members of the household were united in a common mission, the economic enterprise of the household. We do not see this concept explicitly articulated in connection with the household metaphors very often but it is never far from the surface. Explicit connection is not needed. Sons and daughters are in the business of the paterfamilias and go about the household business imitating the very heart and mind of the paterfamilias. While there certainly is companionship and caring, the household is a missional entity. Koinonia is what emerges as brothers and sisters work alongside each other in mission.

Inheritance – As children of God, and as brothers and sisters of Christ (Romans 8), we are heirs of the new creation that is to come. We have a share of ownership, an investment, in the coming new order. We are brothers and sisters but we are siblings in a royal and priestly household. We exercise royal and priestly duties (1 Peter 2:9), along with our elder brother Christ, in interceding for the world and one day we will be re-established as co-regents over creation under God in the new creation. Just as a son would expect to gain an inheritance within a household, so are we as sons and daughters guaranteed an inheritance in the new creation.

Affection – Paul and New Testament writers frequently used fictive family to express affection and fondness for fellow workers. Fictive family was also used to convey the affection and nearness of God. The Compassionate Father of Jesus’ Luke 15 parable certainly communicated this. Jesus repeatedly casts the Father as one who is intimately involved in our lives. Paul twice tells us (Rom. 8:15, Gal. 4:6) that God is one who we can cry out to saying “Abba! Father!” Hebrews 12 tells us that God cares so much for us that, like a father, he disciplines us so we may come to maturity. And, of course, the central character of the New Testament is a God who is a father who sacrifices his son to restore relationship with us. (John 3:16, among many other passages.) (Household: Reviewing the Big Picture (Part 2)

What does all this mean for us today? What obstacles stand in our way for being the Household of God?

Series Index

Save

Save

Save

Household: Household Code in Review

A month and a half ago I introduced this series on the household codes. I noted that there are five themes related to the use of the fictive family metaphor in the New Testament by Jesus, Paul, and others: identity, unity, mission, inheritance, and affection. Yet scattered throughout the New Testament we see instruction about how to live in actual households that seems to contradict this. Indeed, the presence of these instructions in some books of the New Testament is primary evidence to some of their late authorship by other than the identified authors.

I showed that Greco-Roman teachers frequently gave instruction on how the paterfamilias should rule his household for the benefit of the community. We saw how, in some ways, the biblical household codes were mimicking this kind of instruction. (1 Peter 2-3, Titus 2, Ephesians 5-6, and Colossians 3-4) Prior to our discussion of the household codes we saw how Jesus’ teachings in the fourth discourse in Matthew (Chapters 19-20) appear to be organized with a rudimentary household code in mind. Yet as we looked at each of these codes we found consistent differences between the biblical codes and the Greco-Roman codes. In the New Testament:

1. The codes were not based on a desire to protect the social order or gain conformity to some ordained order of the world.
2. Nowhere is the paterfamilias told to rule his household.
3. Members of the household, like women and slaves, were treated as free moral agents who had the ability to choose how to behave within the household.

Having now reviewed the codes, I think we can add an addendum to the third item: Household members were free moral agents but they were united by a common mission and that mission became the compass that directed there decisions.

In closing my second post introducing the household codes I wrote:

“I do not believe the New Testament household codes articulate a culturally transcendent ordering of the family and household. I do not think the household codes are a departure from earlier teaching by later authors. I also reject the idea that the objective of these codes was to equalize the decision-making authority between husbands and wives. Their objective was to exhibit the new creation ethos of the coming kingdom without creating needless obstacles to hearing the good news. These household codes gave instruction about appropriate relational attitudes among members of temporal households who were siblings in the Household of God, responding to God's mission in the world.”

I hope that this review of the household codes has brought my initial claim into focus and clarifies it. But this review brings up some additional questions about the missional strategy of the first century church.

At one level, it seems fair to say that Paul and New Testament authors were unconcerned about the social structures of their time. They did not endorse a separatist movement that sent people into the wilderness to be apart from the evil of the world. They did not organize a revolution. They did not organize a reform movement with street protests to “speak truth to power.” Instead, they entered the structures of the society and they observed the surface appearances of those structures. Yet they utterly redefined their identity in terms that were disconnected from these structures and they lived by values other-centered love.

Christians were simultaneously free from the world and free to the world. They were free from the world’s status domination system because their identity was now located in God as royal sons and daughters of God. Nothing in the world could change that. But it was this freedom that meant they could adapt to the world and tolerate all manner of injustice and abuse, even to the point of death. They were free to do mission in the world because nothing could touch their identity or immortality.

Indeed, Rodney Stark suggests that the big explosions in the growth of the church came in the wake of two outbreaks of the plague in the second and third centuries. Each plague took one quarter to one third of the population. Romans fled the cities in terror but the Christians stayed behind joyously caring for the sick and dying, some succumbing to the plague themselves. This utter fearlessness in the face of death and loss of family legacies was very compelling to the people of the empire. Their action demonstrated that their identity was not entangled with status markers found in this world.

Yet at least by the third century, moving into the fourth, there seems to be evidence of the Roman Empire influencing the church away from its complete identification with God and the coming Kingdom. Roman status and power structures seeped their way into the institutional life of the church. However, that phenomenon is beyond the scope of our current discussion. What is pertinent is to grasp the way the first century church understood their strategy with regard to the social structures of the time (though clearly to speak of “social structures” in this way is anachronistic.) It seems that the outcome during the plagues was precisely what the New Testament writers envisioned.

It is impossible to be certain about what exactly was in the mind of the New Testament authors as they implemented this strategy of conforming to societal structures with a radical new identity and mission. Some have claimed that New Testament writers were expecting an immediate return of Christ and were therefore uninterested in structural reform. I am doubtful about this. I suspect that they understood social structures to emanate from the people within them. Change the people and the structures will conform themselves to the people. I would be like yeast working its way through the dough and leavening the bread. (Matthew 13:33)

What I am sure could not be seen by New Testament writers was the freedom that would rise within democratic societies in recent centuries and the opportunities to collectively make decisions about social institutions. However, I suspect that they would have seen this opportunity as a wonderful adjunct to, not a replacement of, deep personal transformation in the lives individuals and small communities who become the yeast in the dough of social institutions. It is important that we work to create the best institutions we can. But it is also essential that we have people living in transformational and missional communities giving witness to the coming New Creation and to the Household of God.

Series Index

Household: Excursus on 1 Corinthians 7

Before we conclude the discussion of household codes, I want to take one more digression into Chapter 7 of 1 Corinthians. There are some startling things taught in this passage.

Kenneth Bailey sees 4:17-7:40 as the second of five discourses given in 1 Corinthians. (See earlier post.) It is arranged in the following chiasmus.

     A  Immorality and the Church, 4:17-6:8
          B   Theology of Sexuality: Kingdom Ethics 6:9-6:12
          B’ Theology of Sexuality: Joining the Body 6:13-20
     A’  Christian Sexuality 7:1-40

Remember that Greco-Roman culture was all about expanding and extending the status of the paterfamilias forward into the future. The status of women was tightly linked to their ability to produce sons that would carry the lineage forward into the future. Marriage was a contractual arrangement for furthering the male lineage. Marriage could develop into intimacy between husband and wife but this was not the primary purpose. With the Greco-Roman value system firmly in mind, read the following and note the contrast:

1 Corinthians 7:1-16

1 Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: "It is well for a man not to touch a woman." 2 But because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. 3 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 This I say by way of concession, not of command. 7 I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another a different kind.

8 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. 9 But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.

10 To the married I give this command -- not I but the Lord -- that the wife should not separate from her husband 11(but if she does separate, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife.

12 To the rest I say -- I and not the Lord -- that if any believer has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. 13 And if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. 15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. It is to peace that God has called you. 16 Wife, for all you know, you might save your husband. Husband, for all you know, you might save your wife.

Do you see the transformation from “identity through perpetuation of legacy” into “identity in Christ” and discernment in life decisions based on a missional view of life? Following on the heels of the chiasmus in Chapter 6 about “the two becoming one,” (see earlier post) Paul is making a profound egalitarian statement about the most intimate aspects of the husband and wife relationship in verses 3 and 4. Compare this to the standard Greco-Roman view of marriage. Status domination is obliterated and decisions about marriage are made in light of missional considerations.

Paul goes on to write:

1 Corinthians 7:17-24

17 However that may be, let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God called you. This is my rule in all the churches. 18 Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. 19 Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but obeying the commandments of God is everything. 20 Let each of you remain in the condition in which you were called.

21 Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. Even if you can gain your freedom, make use of your present condition now more than ever. 22 For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ. 23 You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters. 24 In whatever condition you were called, brothers and sisters, there remain with God.

Again, we have the clear leveling of status considerations. The structures of the Old Creation are virtually inconsequential. Since everyone is going to live without status seeking obsessions, what difference does your Old Creation status make? In the New Creation, we are sibling in Christ and of Christ. There are leadership gifts given by God to some people and there is affirmation of those gifts by the people of God but there are no status and power hierarchies based on human cultural distinctions.

A few verses later Paul writes:

1 Corinthians 7:32-35

32 I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; 33 but the married man is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please his wife, 34 and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin are anxious about the affairs of the Lord, so that they may be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please her husband. 35 I say this for your own benefit, not to put any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and unhindered devotion to the Lord.

Again, the issue of marriage is being evaluated not from the standpoint of legacy and immortality but on the basis of missional objective. Chapter 7 is Paul giving explicit implications of his fictive family metaphor, the metaphor that is so prevalent elsewhere in 1 Corinthians and throughout the New Testament. While not a household code in the formulaic sense, it certainly is one in the way it applies fictive family values to practical life decisions.

Series Index

Household: Excursus on 1 Timothy (Part 4)

We have looked at the controversial 1 Timothy 2:8-15 passage but we need to make a couple of more observations about this letter as it concerns fictive family. What I have to say here is frequently not well received by my Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican/Episcopalian friends nor by some of my more theologically conservative friends. So here goes.

I believe that one of most notable things about the New Testament is its silence on an important issue: Church structure. The Old Testament gives detailed instruction about the roles of the priests and Levites. There is detailed instruction about the construction of the Temple, the sacrifices to be offered, and how various ceremonies were to be conducted. But there is no such instruction manual anywhere in the New Testament. Membership, offices, or structures are not discussed. As a friend once said, “God’s instruction on church structure is so plainly spelled out in the Bible and that we have everyone from Roman Catholics to Baptists following the biblical manual.”

But we do have passages like the following one in 1 Timothy 3:

1 Timothy 3:1-13

1 The saying is sure: whoever aspires to the office of bishop desires a noble task. 2 Now a bishop (overseer) must be above reproach, married only once, temperate, sensible, respectable, hospitable, an apt teacher, 3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way -- 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of God's church? 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may be puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7 Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace and the snare of the devil.

8 Deacons likewise must be serious, not double-tongued, not indulging in much wine, not greedy for money; 9 they must hold fast to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. 10 And let them first be tested; then, if they prove themselves blameless, let them serve as deacons. 11 Women likewise must be serious, not slanderers, but temperate, faithful in all things. 12 Let deacons be married only once, and let them manage their children and their households well; 13 for those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and great boldness in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. (NRSV)

There is a similar passage in Titus:

Titus 1:5-9

5 I left you behind in Crete for this reason, so that you should put in order what remained to be done, and should appoint elders in every town, as I directed you: 6 someone who is blameless, married only once, whose children are believers, not accused of debauchery and not rebellious. 7 For a bishop, as God's steward, must be blameless; he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or addicted to wine or violent or greedy for gain; 8 but he must be hospitable, a lover of goodness, prudent, upright, devout, and self-controlled. 9 He must have a firm grasp of the word that is trustworthy in accordance with the teaching, so that he may be able both to preach with sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict it.

These passages are not job descriptions. They are character descriptions. When we see the terms “bishop” (or overseer), “elder,” and “deacon” used we are strongly tempted to do something we must resist. We tend to read 1,900 years of church history back into the content of these terms.

These fledgling Jesus communities needed mature people to give some leadership. The Jewish synagogue had elders as leaders and likely the term was borrowed from that context. Elders (presbuteros) are first and foremost exactly what the term suggests: people advanced in age. Age in ancient culture was connected with wisdom and experience.

Overseer or bishop (episkipos) simply meant “superintendent” and to my knowledge had no particular religious connotation until it later morphed into a position within the church hierarchy. Deacon (diakonos) referred to someone who ran errands or did menial duties.

Other passages like Ephesians 4:11 talk of apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers not as offices but gifts as given for functional assistance. Bishop/overseer is used seemingly interchangeably with elders in places and apparently, some elders were devoted to teaching while others were not.

1 Timothy 5:17

Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching; …

So is a pastor-teacher different from an elder? Is a teaching elder different from a bishop/overseer? Where does a prophet fit in? It is true that 1 Timothy  3:1 speaks of “office of bishop/overseer” but there is no evidence of an office in our modern sense of the term. If these bishops were part of hierarchy in a chain of command, carrying out orders from superiors, then why are none of Paul’s letters addressed to such leaders, giving them directives?

The determining criterion for someone carrying out a function with regard to the community appears to have been character and gifting. No one exercising mature character and gifting is explicitly excluded from any particular function.

Some point to limitation of “husband of one wife,” as it is interpreted in some versions, as evidence that this work was limited to men, but this isn’t a prescriptive instruction. Neither Paul nor Timothy was married. It is a proscriptive instruction, prohibiting those who were remarried or polygamous. There is no prescription of men for these positions nor prohibition of women (or slaves, or gentiles or other social categories.) It does appear that it was assumed in such passages that the overseers are men but there is no theological justification for why it must be men or not be women. Character and gifting are the only determining factors.

The reason for this lengthy four post excursus on 1 Timothy is to show that the fictive family metaphor of all believers as siblings of each other and of Christ, with God as the paterfamilias, isn’t contrary to the teaching we find in the letters to Timothy and to Titus. While there appears to be a presumption of male oversight (or at least predominantly male leadership) in keeping with cultural convention, there is no divinely ordered hierarchy or assignment of functions based on sex, ethnicity, or other human distinctions other than character and gifting. Indeed, we find women like Junia, Priscilla, Phoebe, and Nympha who were leading and teaching.

Series Index

Household: Excursus on 1 Timothy (Part 3)

Previously, I took a first pass at interpreting 1 Timothy 2:8-15. I want to reflect on a few more aspects of verses 11-15 in this passage.

A Woman

Verses 9-10 talk about “women.” Starting at verses 11-12, the passage begins to talk about “a woman” in the singular. Verse 13-14 talk about a single woman, Eve. Verse 15 reverts back to “women.” What is going on here?

I think Andrew Perriman has the key (Speaking of Women, 159). If we remove verse 12 as a parenthetical, the following chiasmus emerges:

1 Tim 2:11, 13-14

A  11 Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. ...
     B  13 For Adam was formed first,
          C  then Eve;
     B’  14 and Adam was not deceived,
A’  but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

A is the prescription for A’. B explains why B’ happened. Eve is the focal point of the analogy. Verse 12 is inserted to make explicit the occasion of this instruction. The shift to a singular woman in verse 11 is to make the grammatical comparison between a generic woman and the woman Eve in chiasmus.

I have also read that there may be significance to the verb plasso ("formed") in verse 13. If we are speaking purely of creation, kitzo would seem to be the likely expression for create.

1 Corithians  11:9

Neither was man created (kitzo) for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man.

One use of plasso is to describe what happens as a teacher works with his student and "forms" his thinking.

When we see this chiasmus it moves verses 11, 13, and 14 to the foreground of the passage and verse 12 becomes commentary. Verses 11-14 are about making sure women have proper instruction.

Verse 12 Alternatives

Ben Witherington points out that verse 12 does not begin by saying, “I do not permit a woman to….” It says “I permit no women to…” Constructed in this way, the sentence does not have the connotation of “I will never permit…” In other words, it could be a temporary injunction and Paul later will permit the behavior (say, after receiving sound instruction.) What Witherington does not explain is how this interpretation would be meaningful in understanding authentein, which he identifies as a negative action. (Paul would later allow women to usurp authority?) I'm not enough of a linguist to parse this in various ways that might work. Of course, if authentein does simply mean authority then there is no problem. He might later allow teaching and authority after instruction.

Gnostic or Gnot

Okay, it is time for me to confess here. I wrote two posts earlier:

“It is impossible to put all the pieces together with certainty but it appears that there were women (young wealthy widows?) spreading false teaching and Gnosticism (or proto-Gnosticism) was a very significant problem.”

But is the "appearance" correct? I’m here to tell you with absolute certainty that I don’t know.

Scholars who I greatly respect, like the late Stanley Grenz, Linda Bellville, and Catherine Kroeger, would say yes. Whether or not they would call it full blown Gnosticism or the early stages of Gnostic development, they certainly seem to think it was present and that the cults of Artemis and Isis were at work in the false teachings. Both the NIV Study Bible and the Harper Collins NRSV Study Bible speak of Gnostic or Gnostic-like tendencies at Ephesus. Craig Keener does not seem to make a case for Gnosticism but he does think verse 15 was to counter prayers women offered to Isis and Artemis for protection in childbirth. Ben Witherington, on the other hand, rejects that Gnosticism has anything to do with this letter unless we believe 1 Timothy was a second century document. All the teachings supposedly attributed to Gnostics could be attributed to various Hebrew heretical teachings. He is not alone.

The “Gnostic influence” theory, most significantly championed by Catherine Kroeger, posits that both Isis and Artemis worship had elements that emphasized a primal feminine origin. Through mystic practices, women could gain access to secret knowledge unavailable to men. Women were the authorities in some of these cultic practices. There were role reversals in Gnostic literature. The good guy is made the bad guy and the bad guy the good guy. But there was no uniform text to look at and say “here is what Gnostics taught.” Kroeger identifies texts showing multiple versions of Eve as prior to Adam, including instances where Adam is deceived into believing he was created first. There were rituals where woman pursued men and exercised influence over them (including through the use of sexuality). So what does this have to do with the passage?

The theory is that women in the church were formerly worshipers at the local temples. They presumed to be able to teach others and saw themselves as the ones with greater mystical and spiritual knowledge. They usurped the authority of the men in leadership based on their Gnostic understanding. Therefore, Paul tells them to sit and learn quietly. They are not to teach nor are they to authentein men. Wealthy women were especially attracted to these cults. So in addition to the presumption of status, they presumed to be spiritually superior as well. This is the false teaching Paul is reacting to.

Some raise linguistic objections to this interpretations because it matches a positive verb “teach” with a negative verb authentein. But as Belleville demonstrated earlier, these verbs function grammatically as nouns. Others make the case that since the context is false teaching (verse 8 linking this passage to "fighting the good fight" against false teaching) that teaching should be presumed to have a negative connotation. And on it goes. I’m not even going to try to sort that out here. Suffice it to say that the Gnostic influence theory finds hints of Gnosticism in the prohibition against authentein.

But verses 13 and 14 are the central passages. Here it is held that Paul is correcting false teaching with sound doctrine. Adam was created first and it was Eve who deceived. If you read the passage in linear thought progression pattern it does appear to have a corrective tone to it “This and not that; This and not that.” But I think Perriman (above) gives a much better explanation of this peculiar phraseology.

Finally, there are multiple interpretations as to what verse 15 might be getting at. Some suggest that there was Gnostic asceticism at work that frowned on bringing more material beings into the universe. Therefore, the Gnostic goddesses would need to be appeased when women had children. Other Gnostic expressions were connected with the fertility cults which no doubt resulted in pregnancies and verse 15 was assurance that God would see them through. I think Keener’s observation that verse 15 was a counter to the frequent prayers to the goddesses for safety in childbearing is the most likely explanation if verse 15 was indeed intended to counter concerns about worshiping other gods.

Richard and Catherine Kroeger’s I Suffer Not a Woman (1992) has to be the standard study from this perspective. Whether or not you agree with the thesis, there is some truly wonderful background on Ephesus and ancient religion in the book. One source I read (written in the late 1980s) remarked that no scholarly book or study had been written on Ephesus and its culture since 1908. We are still learning about these ancient cultures. Personally, I would find it remarkable that in a city so absorbed in Artemis worship (see Acts 19) the church would not be suffering from influences of the Artemis and Isis cults. I think some of the debate hinges on semantics in delineating precisely what constitutes Gnostic.

But we also know there were Jews in these congregations. There was the ascetic Essenes in Palestine who were known to have a sympathetic following among urban Jews. Asceticism had many expressions. Witherington and others may well be right.

Yet another wrinkle must be added to the mix. I have long suspected that verses 11-14 were directly connected to the wealthy women mentioned in verse 10. As we saw earlier in this series, the first century was a time of unprecedented freedom (by ancient standards) for women in parts of the Empire. Michael Bird posted a short review of The Letters of Timothy and Titus, by Philip Towner, in which he writes:

“…first, Towner is highly dependent on Bruce Winter’s study about the “new Roman women” who asserted their independence with great flare even to the point of making their sexual status ambiguous by their dress and apparel. Given that Christian worship in the atrium of a Graeco-Roman house in Ephesus was a “public” space, Paul does not want the well-to-do Christian women to bring Christians into disrepute by exhibiting this new liberated femininity in public worship. Second, Towner also maintains that the heresy circulating in Ephesus does influence Paul’s restriction here, but he carefully notes the study of S.M. Baugh that has debunked the often repeated scenario that the women were influenced by the hyper-feminist Artemis cult in Ephesus, and Towner adds that there is no definite evidence that the women were even teaching the heresy. Nonetheless, Towner thinks that Paul’s need to provide instructions about marriage (2 Tim 4:3), his statement about the value of childbearing (2 Tim 2:15), the misreading of OT stories (2 Tim 1:4; 2:13-15; 4:1-5), coupled with the attraction of some wealthy women and young widows to the “new women” paradigm does connect the women to the Ephesian heresy. Thus: “Paul prohibits a group of wealthy women from teaching men. The factors leading to his prohibition are: (1) public presentation – outer adornment and apparel and arrogant demeanour give their teaching a shameful and disrespectful coloration; (2) association with false teaching – they may actually have been conveying or supporting heretical teaching” (200). Third, Towner is convinced that elsewhere women did play a public role in Paul’s churches and he detects an equality principle within the Pauline gospel (e.g. Gal 3:28). …”

That is about the best characterization I think I've heard as to what was going on at Ephesus. Concerning, verse 15:

Fifth, concerning the “saved through child-birth” remark in v. 15, Towner thinks that Paul “urges these Christian wives to re-engage fully in the respectable role of the mother, in rejection of heretical and secular trends, through which she may ‘work out her salvation’

One the teachings we know was at work, whether Gnostic, ascetic, or “New Woman,” was that women should not marry (4:3). Leading normal lives as wives and mothers seems to once again take on a missional focus as we see in Paul’s instruction:

So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, and manage their households, so as to give the adversary no occasion to revile us. (5:14)

I think verse 2:15 is about safety through childbirth but I by know means exclude the possibility that the peculiar wording that seems to indicate women having “the child” relates to Mary giving birth to Christ. I think it is entirely possible that both may be true; that Paul is using a double entendre. He lifts up childbearing as a wholesome and desirable activity while at the same time making a link to the Eve analogy (and Mary's reversal of the curse brought by Eve) he has just presented.

Bottom Line

When we come down to essential things I see the following: A) This letter is about rampant false teaching and getting control over it. B) Verses 2:8-15 are directly linked as responses to the “fighting the good fight” against false teaching at the end of Chapter 1. C) The chiasmus of 2:11, 13-14 makes clear that some uninformed women were teaching falsehood and they needed to receive sound instruction in a receptive manner. (Much of the rest is varying degrees of speculation, although fascinating speculation to say the least.) D) The chiasmus, not verse 12, is focal point of this passage.

Finally, what all this shows is that 1 Timothy 2 actually has little to say about fictive family issues. It does not teach women’s subordination or that women cannot be pastors and leaders (and it does not teach that they can either.) It teaches that false teaching should be addressed and the best remedy is sound instruction. It affirms women as siblings with men in Christ who are to be instructed in the Word and be held accountable for their spiritual training and witness.

Series Index

Household: Excursus on 1 Timothy (Part 2)

The eight verses that make up 1 Timothy 2:8-15 are among some of the most controversial in the Bible.

1 Timothy 2:8-15

8 I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument; 9 also that the women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with their hair braided, or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes, 10 but with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God. 11 Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. 12 I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15 Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty. (NRSV)

I cannot address every nuance of this passage nor am I qualified to do so. Scholars have written entire books about this passage. Yet because this passage would seem, at least on the surface, to have implications for the fictive family metaphor, I want to offer my interpretation. I am going to present two interpretations of verses 12-15 without sorting through every objection that could be raised. I think both of my interpretations probably apply but you will see what I mean as this unfolds.

I believe this passage is addressing problems of false teaching. Chapter 1 ends (vs. 18-20) with Paul exhorting Timothy to “fight the good fight” against false teaching. Verse 1 in Chapter 2 begins with “I exhort, therefore…” (parakalo oun) and then gives the next seven verses. The grammar links the instruction in these verses with the good fight against false doctrine in Chapter 1:

1 First of all, then, I urge (parakalo oun) that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable (hesuchios) life in all godliness and dignity. 3 This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, 6 who gave himself a ransom for all -- this was attested at the right time. 7 For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. (1 Tim 2:1-7)

Verse 8 begins with “Therefore, I want …” (boulomai oun) or “I desire then…” in the NRSV. It too is grammatically linking back to the good fight against false teaching. (Discovering Biblical Equality, Teaching and Usurping Authority, 217) The problem is that a surface level reading would not suggest that this passage has anything at all to do with false teaching. Let us look closely.

First, Paul addresses the men. It is not clear to me what the source of division is among the men. Quarreling over teaching appears to have become a problem, based on what else we know about the two letters to Timothy. There are not enough clues to be certain. Whatever it is, it is distracting from an environment where sound teaching can take place.

Next after only one verse of instruction about the men, we get seven verses of instruction about women. As many have noted 1 Timothy spends more time talking about women than any other book. Women appear to be a focal point of the problems at Ephesus.

Verse 9 suggests that there were women of means and status present in the church because only women of wealth wore the adornment Paul describes. High status women could frequently disregard traditional customs like head coverings and their adornment would have been quite unseemly and licentious to conservative Jews and Greeks. Furthermore, unlike other women, and indeed unlike many other men, many high status women would have been exposed to public speaking and would likely have been tutored in public speaking. In status conscious Greco-Roman society, it is not hard to imagine how these women might have seen themselves in terms of others in the church community and in terms of young wet-behind-the-ears Timothy. They almost certainly would have presumed themselves to be in charge.

In verse 10, Paul says he wants them to act like women who have reverence for God and then in verse 11 he writes, “Let a woman learn in silence (hesuchia) and submission (hupotage).” If you will look above at 2:2, you will see the word translated “silence” in verse 11 was translated “peaceable.” Paul wants the women to be still, listen, and really take to heart (be in submission to) the teaching. The clear implication is that these women have been irreverent, disruptive, and unwilling to be instructed, exactly what we might expect from wealthy women in this culture: an arrogant presumptuousness.

Moving to verse 12, Linda Bellville notes that according to Greek grammar, “teach” and “authority” (authentein) are infinitives functioning as nouns not verbs. “‘Neither to teach nor authentein” modifies the noun a “woman,” which makes the authentein clause the second of two distinct objects.” (Bellville 207) A pairing in this context could indicate a “neither-nor” relationship, synonyms, antonyms, showing a progression from general to particular (e.g., “wisdom neither of this age nor of the rulers of this age,” 1 Corinthians 2:6), a natural progression of related ideas (e.g. “they neither sow nor reap nor store in barns,” Matthew 6:26) and to define a related purpose or goal (e.g. “where thieves neither break in nor steal” or “break in to steal” Matthew 6:20.) (218) So what do we have here?

One of the big challenges in this passage is interpreting the word authentein. It is the only place it is used in Bible. It raises the interesting question of why Paul selected this word. If the simple idea of “exercise authority over” (exousia) is the intended meaning, then why use the more obscure authentein? According to scholars I’ve read, authentein can have a variety of meanings including simple authority but it must be determined by context. A common use of the term prior to and during the New Testament era was “to domineer” or “to usurp authority,” or “to self-authorize.” Here is how major interpretations of the bible have translated it up to the 20th Century (all from Bellville):

• Old Latin (2nd-4th cent. A.D.): “I permit not a woman to teach, neither to dominate a man [neque dominari viro]. (209)
• Vulgate (4th-5th): “I permit not a woman to teach, neither to domineer over a man [neque dominari in virum].” (209)
• Geneva (1560 edition): “I permit not a woman to teache, nether vfurpe [usurp] authoritie ouer the man.” (210)
• King James Version (1611): “I suffer not a woman to teach, neither to usurpe authoritie over the man.” (210)

Some more recent translations have retained this connotation as well.

• New English Bible (1961): I do no permit a woman to be a teacher, nor must woman domineer over man. (210)
• New Translation (1990): “I do not permit a woman to teach or dominate men.” (210)

The change in the Twentieth Century has come from translators opposed to women in ordained ministry. If the passage is speaking to a particular abuse instead of authority in general, then this passage is no longer pertinent to the exclusion of women from church authority.

But getting back to the grammar question, I conclude that the most probable reading of verse 12 is:

12 I permit no woman to teach or to [seize] authority over a man; [instead] she is to keep silent (hesuchia).

The pairing of concepts is to define a related purpose or goal: “teach so as to seize authority over.” The contrast of “she is to keep silent” is the prescribed behavior in response to the prohibition of unruly behavior.

“For” (gar) in verse 13 merely indicates continuation of the discussion. Paul presents an analogy to buttress his argument in verses 13-14. According to Jewish tradition, Eve led the world into sin by being deceived. God formed Adam first and gave him instruction. But Eve coming later, had not been sufficiently taught so she was easily deceived by false teaching. The only other mention we find about Eve explicitly in the New Testament is in 2 Corinthians where Paul writes:

2 I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I promised you in marriage to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 3 But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by its cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you submit to it readily enough. 11:2-4

Eve is presented specifically as analogy of for deception by false teaching.

In short, these presumptuous high status women needed to take on some humility, be attentive, and learn before they presumed to teach. Without instruction, like Eve, they were going to lead people into error. But why specifically address seizing authority over men instead of just seizing authority? For one, it most likely was men who were teaching. It was one thing in this culture for men to vie for position but a woman vying for authority over a man was deeply troubling to many. Didymous the Blind (fourth century) writes:

The Apostle says in First Timothy: “I do not permit women to teach,” and again in First Corinthians: “Every woman who prays or prophesies with uncovered head dishonors head.” He means that he does not  permit a woman to write books impudently, on her own authority, nor to teach false doctrine, because by doing so, she does violence to her source, man: for “the head of woman is man, and the head [source] of man is Christ.” The reason for this silence imposed on woman is obvious: woman’s teaching in the beginning caused considerable havoc to the human race; for the Apostle writes: “It was not the man who was deceived, but the woman.” (On the Trinity 3.41.3 (Minge PG 39.988C-989A) in I Suffer not a Woman by Richard and Catherine Kroeger. 112-113)

Much like the women prophesying with their heads uncovered in 1 Corinthians 11, these women are bringing shame on men as their origin. (See earlier posts here and here.) Indeed, part of their misbehaving may have been in failing to cover their heads.

It is hard to tell from what Didymous wrote, if he thought women could be sufficiently trained to teach on their own accord. Paul implies that with proper instruction these women could one day teach. The issue is not specifically teaching but the presumptuous and uninformed behavior of these women.

Finally, in verse 15, we must look at the word sozo translated “saved.” Several scholars have suggested that this verse is suggesting that as Eve gave birth to fallen humanity, Mary gives birth to a new humanity in Christ. In essence, the curse of increased pain in childbirth came through Eve but is symbolically reversed in Mary who gives birth to Jesus, the firstborn of a new humanity. She is thus “saved” through the childbirth of Mary. I’m doubtful of this interpretation. Craig Keener and Kenneth Bailey both point out that in Greek literature sozo frequently means “carried safely through,” and in this case is likely “kept safe through” childbearing. Prayers were offered to Isis and Artemis that asked for just this care. The attempt is to assure women that despite having the pain in childbirth inherited through Eve, God, not Isis or Artemis, will see them through.

This concludes my first pass through this passage but I want to offer an additional (and more controversial) perspective on this passage.

Series Index

Household: Excursus on 1 Timothy (Part 1)

In the middle of the 1 Timothy, we find the following verses in Chapter 3:

14 I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these instructions to you so that, 15 if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth. (NRSV)

Many refer to 1 Timothy as a household code. Clearly it is not of the variety we see in Ephesians, Colossians, Titus, and 1 Peter. There isn’t a section that models the idea of giving instruction to the paterfamilias in relation to his wife, children, and slaves. Here the church is viewed as a fictive household and the epistle presents instruction on how to live as church community.

We will turn to that instruction shortly but we must first place the instruction within a broader context. The motivation for the letter does not appear to be a desire to present a “household” operations manual. The two letters to Timothy at Ephesus (and to Titus) strongly suggest that false teaching has becomes a problem of crisis proportions. Substantial portions of these letters are devoted false teaching and the prescribed antidote of orthodox teaching in an orderly environment. We read at the opening of 1 Timothy 1:3-4:

3 I urge you, as I did when I was on my way to Macedonia, to remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain people not to teach any different doctrine, 4 and not to occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies that promote speculations rather than the divine training that is known by faith. 5 But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. 6 Some people have deviated from these and turned to meaningless talk, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions. (1 Timothy 1:3-7, NRSV)

So here we have the primary reason for writing the letter.

The NIV study bible notes concerning “myths and endless genealogies” verse 4:

“Probably mythical stories built on OT history (genealogies) that later developed into intricate Gnostic philosophical systems.”

Our knowledge about the emergence of Gnostic religion is imprecise, as is our ability to identify the precise date and the authorship of 1 Timothy. We do know that a common element of Gnostic cults was belief in a primal feminine source. This was certainly true of the Isis cult that was widespread by the mid-first century. Ephesus was home to the temple of Artemus who became closely connected with Isis worship. As we saw in our discussion of 1 Corinthians 11, origin was very important to identity. Therefore, tracing your genealogical linage back to the primal feminine source using myths based on Old Testament sources became a way for goddess worshipers to establish their “true” origin. (More about the influence of goddess worship and Gnosticism later.)

Gnostic-like worship does not appear to have been the only problem.

18 I am giving you these instructions, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies made earlier about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, 19 having faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have suffered shipwreck in the faith; 20 among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have turned over to Satan, so that they may learn not to blaspheme. (1 Timothy 1:18-20)

The Harper Collins NRSV Study Bible points out that “fight the good fight” was a traditional phrase in Hellenistic moral philosophy, given a slightly new connotation as an exhortation to prevail against false teachers. In this case, we learn from 2 Timothy that the nature of false teaching is related to Hymenaeus and Philetus' teaching about the resurrection.

2 Tim 2:16-18

16 Avoid profane chatter, for it will lead people into more and more impiety, 17 and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18 who have swerved from the truth by claiming that the resurrection has already taken place. They are upsetting the faith of some. (NRSV)

Later we read:

1 Tim 4:1-7

1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. 3 They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving; 5 for it is sanctified by God's word and by prayer.

6 If you put these instructions before the brothers and sisters, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound teaching that you have followed. 7 Have nothing to do with profane myths and old wives' tales. (NRSV)

Notice in verse 3 that we garner more information about the nature of the false teaching. Forbidding marriage and abstinence was a common expression of ascetic Gnosticism. These activities led to undo entanglement with the material world and potentially childbirth, which the goddesses frowned upon.

1 Timothy 5:13-15

13 Besides that, they [younger widows] learn to be idle, gadding about from house to house; and they are not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not say. 14 So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, and manage their households, so as to give the adversary no occasion to revile us. 15 For some have already turned away to follow Satan.

Notice here we have instruction to these young widows to do those things counter to ascetic Gnosticism we saw in 4:3. We also see clear indication in 2:9 that there were wealthy women in the church and wealthy women were among the most enthusiastic participants in the Isis cults and goddess worship. It is impossible to put all the pieces together with certainty but it appears that there was a very significant problem with women (young wealthy widows?) spreading false teaching and Gnosticism (or proto-Gnosticism).

Then as the book closes:

1 Tim 6:20-21

20 Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Avoid the profane chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge; 21 by professing it some have missed the mark as regards the faith.

Grace be with you.

Of course, the most controversial passage in 1 Timothy is 2:8-15. What should we make of its controversial instruction and how does it fit within the idea of fictive family?

Series Index

Household: Household Code in Colossians

As we saw earlier, Colossians was written to correct false teaching that Christ was insufficient for the Colossians needs, that supplemental help was needed from the “elemental spirits” of the universe. There is clear evidence that some were practicing Gnostic asceticism in pursuit of mystical knowledge.

Paul opens his letter with his wonderful hymn about the supremacy of Christ in 1:15-20, which we examined in the discussion about the “head” metaphor. Paul then explains his concern for the Colossians and makes his case for the sufficiency of Christ as fully God. He challenges ascetic practices. It appears that one impact of the false teaching was rivalries and divisions among folks. Thus, Paul is intent on correcting the teaching and restoring unity.

The passage from 3:1-4:6 is Paul’s instruction on new life in Christ. (He closes out the letter after this instruction.) The household code portion is actually 3:18-4:1, but I think it is critical to see the code within the context of Paul’s whole teaching on new life in Christ. We begin at 3:1:

1 So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, 3 for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

5 Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. 7 These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. 8 But now you must get rid of all such things -- anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices 10 and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. 11 In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

Verse 11 needs some comment.  It is often noted that Gal 3:28 says, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” What happened to the “male and female” component in this verse 11 list?

Andrew Perriman makes an astute observation here. (193) The Galatians context addresses status within the community. The Colossians context addresses unity. There is no removal of hierarchical structures in Galatians. The verse says, “no longer slave and free,” not “no longer slave and master.” As we saw earlier, Galatians removes status distinctions by creating fictive siblings but it does not concern itself with societal hierarchies. As we see in verses 8-9, Colossae had a fractious group of folks. Verses 9-10 talk of putting on the new self as a unified body, not carved up into the competing factions identified in verse 11. Apparently, men versus women was not one of the fissures that needed healing. Paul continues with his exhortation toward unity and holiness:

12 As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Paul’s strongest encouragement toward unity is in verses 12-15. Then in 16-17, just prior to launching into the household code, we have a statement that echoes what is written just prior to the household code in Ephesians:

Ephesians 5:18-20

…but be filled with the Spirit, 19 as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, 20 giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Worship and thanksgiving seems to set the stage for the household code that follows in both passages:

Wives and Husbands

18 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.

Children and Parents

20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is your acceptable duty in the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart.

Slaves and Masters

22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, 24 since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ. 25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong has been done, and there is no partiality. 4:1 Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, for you know that you also have a Master in heaven.

Once again we see the following:

1. The code is not based on a desire to protect the social order or gain conformity to some ordained order of the world.
2. Nowhere is the paterfamilias told to rule his household.
3. Members of the household, like women and slaves, are treated as free moral agents who have the ability to choose how to behave within the household.

The submission of each lower status member is transformed from being an act in obedience to the earthly paterfamilias to being a missional response to God as paterfamilias of the fictive family. The paterfamilias , far from being told to rule the household, is told to act justly and finds himself in status reversal, being likened to a slave in verse 4:1.

2 Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving. 3 At the same time pray for us as well that God will open to us a door for the word, that we may declare the mystery of Christ, for which I am in prison, 4 so that I may reveal it clearly, as I should.

5 Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. 6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.

Verses 2-4 seem to sandwich the household code with instructions of prayer and thanksgiving. Then, as we have seen with 1 Peter and Titus, the instruction is explicitly linked to the impact it has on outsiders in verses 6-7.

Once again we see that the household codes are status flattening missional expressions in the Greco-Roman world that, while leaving societal structures intact, moved allegiance in all action to the paterfamilias of the Household of God instead of to the paterfamilias of earthly households.

Series Index

Household: Household Code in Ephesians (Part 4)

Greco-Roman household codes were instructions to the paterfamilias on how to rule over his household for the sake of the social order. They typically included instruction about wives, slaves, and sometimes children. The biblical writers tended to follow this pattern as well as we have seen in 1 Peter and in Titus. Ephesians does the same. We have just examined the rather complex instruction (to our minds anyway) that Paul gives concerning wives and husbands. What we need to pay close intention to in the next section is the justification given for instructions to children and slaves. So continuing with the code at 6:1:

Children

1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 "Honor your father and mother" -- this is the first commandment with a promise: 3 "so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth."

4 And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (NRSV)

Verse 1 says “for this is right” but 2 and 3 go on to link it to a promise. The premise for obedience is subtly shifted away from accepting domination and toward obedience as an act of service to the Lord. Furthermore, it is an act of service that will be rewarded.

Verse 4 says nothing about bringing up sons as good Roman citizen who will carry on the family business and perpetuate the family name, or daughters who will be worthy of marriages that create important family alliances. Instead, children are to be brought up “…in the discipline and instruction of the Lord,” the paterfamilias of the household of God. Children are to be raised to assume their roles as adult children of God in his household and not used as instruments for developing the legacy of the earthly paterfamilias.

Slaves

5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; 6 not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. 7 Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, 8 knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free.

9 And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.  (NRSV)

Here, unlike in 1 Peter or Titus, we have instruction to obey (hupakouo) meaning “to conform to authority” instead of to submit (hupotasso) meaning “to place one’s self under another.” The term “obey” has a more obligatory element than the more volitional idea of “submit.” Still, the act of obedience is transformed from being an act of service to the earthly paterfamilias into an act of service to God, the paterfamilias of the Household of God.

Verse 9 rather imprecisely says “masters, do the same to them.” The presumed “same” seems to be the action of doing to the other as a response to the Lord. Albert Harrill points out that slaves were presumed to be dishonest and untrustworthy. They had to be periodically beaten into submission. Archeologists have even uncovered a business in one Roman city that was devoted to torturing slaves on an outsourcing basis. This is not a part of Paul’s household vision. Yet, if Paul wanted to dissolve status differences, he could have employed his fictive family metaphor of siblings here. Interestingly, he chooses to demote the paterfamilias to slave and says “you are both slaves in God’s household.” Yet another example of Paul messing with their minds concerning status issues.

Now as we take this instruction altogether we must again acknowledge it as a radical departure from Greco-Roman instruction. Instruction in Greco-Roman codes was given to the paterfamilias alone. There was no need to instruct wives, slaves, or children. They obeyed. Period! The structure of the code makes unmistakable that each member of the household is missional partner, contributing of their own volition to the larger mission of God as the paterfamilias of the Household of God.

I made these following contrasts with Greco-Roman codes when I presented 1 Peter and Titus:

1. The code is not based on a desire to protect the social order or gain conformity to some ordained order of the world.
2. Nowhere is the paterfamilias told to rule his household.
3. Members of the household, like women and slaves, are treated as free moral agents who have the ability to choose how to behave within the household.

The third point is a little less obvious with regard to slave here but I think the general principle holds. 1 Peter and Titus tend to be a little more specific about the missional impact of their codes. But clearly the Ephesians code is tied to the broader them of unity and the demonstration of unity as a witness to the world of Jesus Christ is the letter’s missional theme. The household codes are not cultural compromises but calls to missional living.

Next up is the household code in Colossians, the last instruction that follows this particular format.

Series Index

Household: Household Code in Ephesians (Part 3)

I have made the case that the controlling metaphor for the husband and wife relationship in the Ephesians’ household code is the metaphor of head and body as visually identifiable parts of an organically indivisible unit. It is a masterful play on the idea that “the two become one flesh.” As we examine these passages, we see complementary ideas about husband and wife that must be matched correctly. The metaphor is frequently said to teach that the husband’s role is to “be the head” and the wife’s role is “to submit.” As Sarah Sumner (162) has pointed out, the matching pairs are as follows:

Husband and Wife

Head and Body
Sacrifice and Submit
Love and Respect

Head relates to body. Sacrifice relates to submit. Still, within the metaphor the husband is characterized as the “head” and the wife as the “body.” What is Paul conveying by this? Let us take a look at the instruction to wives first.

22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.

HUSBAND AS HEAD  23 For the husband is the head of the wife

PREEMINENCE OF HEAD  just as Christ is the head of the church,

HEAD/BODY UNITY  the body of which he is the Savior.

HONOR TO HEAD 24 Just as the church is subject to Christ,

HUSBAND AS HEAD so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.

The first line prior to the chiasmus says wives are to be subject to their husbands as they are to the Lord. We know that husbands are not like Christ in many ways but in some regard, they apparently are according to verses 23-24. How?

As we saw earlier in this letter (1:18-23), and in Colossians (1:15-20), Christ is higher and prior in status to all else that exists. He is behind all that exists and sustains it. But specifically, where Christ outshines all others is in sacrificial love. At the center of the chiasmus is “…the body of which he is the Savior.” It does not say “… the body of which he is the ruler.”

Christ had supreme power. He surrendered that power, even to the point of death, in order that he might do what was best for the church. Clearly, the husband is not his wife’s savior. However, in the Greco-Roman household, as with Christ over creation, the husband is the one with supreme power. The metaphor casts the husband as the one who is preeminent in surrendering power (he is the one who has power to surrender), even to the point death, that he might do what is best for his wife. This quality makes Christ and the husband preeminent in their relationship to their bodies. In the kingdom of God, the highest status goes to the one who puts himself last. That paradoxically makes them the head. It is this demonstration of sacrificial love that compels us to place the one who sacrificed for us ahead of ourselves. In other words, you end up being “subject to one another” as in verse 21. I believe this is the theological justification for wives to submit to their husbands.

There is another very pragmatic reason for this instruction. Roman authorities are already suspicious of this bizarre Jesus movement were people of different status, ethnicity, and condition of servitude, meet together for worship and call each other brother and sister. They worship some crucified nobody from the backwaters of Judea yet refuse to worship Roman gods along with their own god. The husband was the head of the household in that he was the member that represented the household to the world. The wife behaving in ways that were dishonorable to the husband would bring reproach not only to the wife but also to the husband and the entire household. It would fuel the suspicion of detractors and hamper the witness of the church. Therefore, a wife being subject to her husband was missional in that it rejected the status obsession of the Romans while avoiding giving needless offense to the culture.

The power of the metaphor is this: In submitting to her husband, she is submitting to herself as well. Remember that “the two have become one.” The head and body are fused as one and of course she wants the head of the fused body to receive honor. It is her head! The idea of a human body that purposely does things to make its head dishonorable is ludicrous at several levels.

So in case husbands did not get the sacrifice concept, Paul makes it unmistakably clear:

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, 27 so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind -- yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish.

Husbands love your wives to the point of death. This is the minimum standard. This is the polar extreme of “husbands rule your wives for the sake of preserving the social order.” Then Paul presents a chiasmus for husbands:

WIFE AS BODY  28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies.

LOVE BODY  He who loves his wife loves himself.

HEAD/BODY UNITY  29 For no one ever hates his own body,

SUSTAIN BODY  but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it,

WIFE AS BODY  just as Christ does for the church [his wife/bride], 30 because we are members of his body.

At the center of chiasmus is the absurd notion of a human being with a head who conceives of itself as separate from its body for whom it holds nothing but contempt. It is not organically possible, particularly when you keep in mind that according to Greek physiology the head does not control reason and action. You might as well say your foot has developed its own will and hates the rest of the body.

Instead, in the second and fourth line we have a husband who loves his wife by nourishing and tenderly caring for her. I am convinced that what we have here is another instance of “head” as life-giving source. Line five likens it to the idea of Christ as head of the church “…from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love” (4:16)  and “…from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.” (Colossians 2:19)

The paterfamilias has the power to put himself first or his wife first. She is dependent on him for food, shelter, legal protection, and status within the culture. He represents her to the world. But once again the metaphor transforms the equation. “The two have become one.” “He loves his wife as he loves himself,” because she is himself! The idea of body parts at odds with each other is silly.

Now let us revisit the closing:

31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." 32 This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.

Here Paul states his explicit intention. He has written of Christ as head and church as body elsewhere, including earlier in this letter. We have seen in both Ephesians and Colossians how connecting the body to Christ alters the body’s status and animates the body. In Genesis 2, we have Adam and Eve “becoming one” body. Paul declares that he is intentionally mixing his metaphors. He is innovatively applying the “head and body” metaphor to husband and wife. He is innovatively applying the “two become one” metaphor to Christ and the church (possibly informed by his composition of 1 Corinthians 6:15-19 I wrote about yesterday?). Each informs the other.

Paul concludes his instructions to husbands and wives with this summary:

33 Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.

Now we see Paul’s answer to the problem of how to work out the fictive family status-neutral relationship of siblings in Christ in the context of the husband wife relationship. Mutual submission captured in the metaphor of being an organic unit. The husband with power submits to his wife and makes sacrifice his mission, while the wife who was previously without status and now has it, places her status in service of her husband and the Kingdom of God.

In one sense, the surface behavior of the wife may not look very different. However, she is empowered. No longer does she submit as one of inferior rank, forced to obey. Now she chooses to submit as a full missional partner in the Kingdom of God. I think we can imagine what changes in attitude would accompany her actions.

It is the husband for whom we might expect to see some observable difference and he is the one who must actually part with something for this new perspective to work. He no longer gets to play the status card to get his way. But imagine what other men in this culture would think when they observed the loving respectful attitude this man’s wife showed him as he lived out sacrificial love toward her. And imagine what other women would think when they observed the love and care extended to this woman by her husband. This is missional stuff!

What we do not have here is a command to husbands to be the “head” (read “ruler” or “authority over”) their wives. We do not have a teaching on maintaining a divinely ordained family hierarchy. We have an injunction of mutual submission and then a metaphorical teaching on how that looks in a first century Greco-Roman household.

What we also do not have here is a teaching of egalitarian family decision-making. There is still a patriarch and there is a wife. But neither do we have a teaching of a divinely ordered patriarchy. That the “two become one” in marriage is a culturally transcendent reality. Paul is applying it to the Greco-Roman context of patriarchy. I’m not sure if Paul had a specific vision in mind of exactly how his teaching could change patriarchy into something else but I am thoroughly convinced he had a vision that patriarchy would radically change.

Series Index

Household: Household Code in Ephesians (Part 2)

The opening portion of the household code in Ephesians deals with husbands and wives (5:21-33). It contains rich and compelling imagery that teaches unity between husband and wife in keeping with the theme of the rest of Ephesians

Remember that in Greco-Roman households the paterfamilias ruled over his wife. The marriage arrangement was primarily a contractual agreement to produce offspring that would advance the paterfamilias’ lineage. The wife saw her primary allegiance lying with her family of birth, not her husband’s family. This is not to say that tender relationships did not develop between husband and wife but it was not the focal point of marriage. Greek philosophers instructed husbands to rule over their wives and households for the sake of the social order.

Notice how this household code begins. “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Just as in 1 Peter and in Titus, we see a much different ethic presented than what we see in the Greco-Roman household codes. It is an ethic consistent with the fictive family metaphor of siblings in Christ where striving for status is replaced by other-centered love and affection. This sets the agenda for what follows.

I have presented verses 21-33 according to an outline that I have developed on my own. Some folks with greater knowledge of Greek than I have will need to scrutinize my presentation but I think it helps to highlight the argument Paul is making. I will discuss it at length below but before reading this familiar passage I want to draw our attention to one thing. Paul uses a “head” metaphor beginning in verse 23 but please notice that nowhere does Paul tell the husband to be the head of the wife. Whatever “head” means here it is not an activity that the husband does in relationship to his wife. The husband is the head of the wife. Paul is reporting on a reality not prescribing a role.

ORGANIC UNITY IN MUTAL SUBMISSION

21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.

WIVES

22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.

HUSBAND AS HEAD  23 For the husband is the head of the wife

PREEMINENCE OF HEAD  just as Christ is the head of the church,

HEAD/BODY UNITY  the body of which he is the Savior.

HONOR TO HEAD 24 Just as the church is subject to Christ,

HUSBAND AS HEAD so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.

HUSBANDS

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, 27 so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind -- yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish.

WIFE AS BODY  28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies.

LOVE BODY  He who loves his wife loves himself.

HEAD/BODY UNITY  29 For no one ever hates his own body,

SUSTAIN BODY  but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it,

WIFE AS BODY  just as Christ does for the church [his wife/bride], 30 because we are members of his body.   

ORGANIC UNITY IN MUTUAL SUBMISSION

31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." 32 This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. 33 Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.

I have written about three different ways of perceiving a physical head as it relates to metaphors:

Function – According to the Greeks, the anatomical function of the head was to provide life-giving sustenance and nurture to the rest of the body. It is the origination point from which the rest of the body springs up.

Representation – The head is the most visible and physically distinguishing part of the body. The face and head are the primary means by which we identify a whole person. The head represents the whole body to the world.

Elevation – The head is at the top, the highest point, of the body. In Greek, high elevation signifies prominence, preeminence, and importance.

What we have here is something quite unique according to Gordon Fee. Nowhere in Greco-Roman literature do we have a person described as the “head” and another individual as the “body.” This metaphor is an innovation by Paul. Some of the elements of function, representation, and elevation are at work here but the primary thrust of the metaphor is this: Two visibly different entities melded into an organic and inseparable whole. Technically, this is not so much a “head” metaphor is it is a “holistic organism” metaphor symbolizing unity.

The key to unlocking this passage is in verse 31, which is a quotation for Genesis 2:24. The “two becoming one flesh” was an expression of a spiritual and physical reality. The terminology clearly refers to a spiritual and emotional oneness, but the Hebrew mind did not have the Greek duality of spiritual and physical. The physical manifestation of the two becoming one was sexual intercourse; the male and female sex organs merging in complementary ways that correspond to what happens mystically. Because of the minimization of the significance of sexual behavior in a relationship in contemporary life I think we need to examine what Paul writes about this topic in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. Here is Kenneth Bailey's presentation of this passage (See Women in the New Testament, Lecture 6:

12 “All things are lawful for me.”
But all things are not helpful.
“All things are lawful for me.”
But I will not be enslaved by anything.

13 Food is meant for the stomach
and the stomach for food
and God will destroy one
and the other.

The Body is not for prostitution but for the Lord
and Lord for the Body
14 and God raised the Lord
and will raise us up by His power.

Paul is apparently quoting rationalizations he has had the Corinthians are giving for eating food sacrificed to idols and for having sexual relations with temple prostitutes. Paul observes in 13a that food is of no consequence because both the food and the stomach that consumes it pass away. But the body is different according to 13b-14. The body will be raised on the last day. It is of eternal significance. Then in verses 15-19, Bailey offers this seven stanza chiasmus:

A  15 Do you not know
that our bodies
are members of Christ?

      B  So taking the members of Christ
      shall I make them members of a prostitute?
      May it never be!!!

           C  16 Do you not know that the on joining a prostitute
           Becomes one body with her?

                D  For it is written.
                “The two shall become one.”

          C’  17 But the one joining to the Lord
          becomes one Spirit with him.

     B’  18 Flee from prostitution!!!
     Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body
     But the immoral man sins against his own body.

A’  19 Do you not know
that your body
is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?
which you have from God

In D we find the focal point, “The two become one.”  In C and C’ we see that having  sexual intercourse with a (female) prostitute unites the man to the prostitute in ways that will not allow for some Gnostic split between physical debauchery and spiritual purity. By joining complementary anatomy, the two become one in more ways than one. In A, B, B’, and A’, we see that we are members or appendages of the body of Christ and in joining our bodies to prostitutes we physically and mystically unite Christ to prostitutes. Then Paul writes:

You are not your own
20 You were brought with a price
So glorify God in your body.

“Two becoming one” is not simply any two individuals having emotional fondness and erotic connection. From the ancient Jewish perspective, physical union between two sexually complementary beings (a man and woman) is the material manifestation of a far deeper mystical reality.

Paul is making the combination of "head and a body” parallel to the “two becoming one.” There are two visually distinguishable entities united into an inseparable whole where the nature of the functioning is so thoroughly melded you cannot isolate distinct functioning.

So now let us consider how this metaphor plays out with respect to the instructions to husbands and wives.

Series Index

Household: Household Code in Ephesians (Part 1)

Paul makes extensive use of fictive family and household metaphors throughout his letters. The central focus of his fictive family metaphors is other-centered love as siblings, the most intimate and least status conscious of relationships in the Greco-Roman world. God is the paterfamilias. Yet the church lived in the midst of an extremely status conscious society where the powerful were already skittish about subversive movements detracting from worship of traditional gods and undermining status hierarchies that preserved the social order. Paul and New Testament teachers had a dilemma.

Become flippant about Roman customs and the church risked alienating and provoking the people they intended to reach. Continue living as they always had and they would negate the core message of the gospel. The folks with less status would likely want to act on their newly elevated status in Christ, thus making the community suspect with outsiders. Those folks with status would likely not surrender status and thus negate the gospel.

We have already seen the motivating factors for household codes found in 1 Peter (here, here, and here) and in Titus (here). Whereas the household code in Greek literature was addressed to the paterfamilias, encouraging him to rule his household for the sake of preserving the social order, 1 Peter and Titus have instructions for each member of the community. The motivation for adhering to social structures is faithfulness in mission: don’t needlessly give offense to the surrounding culture as you practice other-centered love.

Ephesians, unlike 1 Peter, Titus, and Colossians (which we will get to shortly) appears to have been written as circular to a number of churches in Asia Minor. As I noted earlier, Gordon Fee believes that Colossians was written to address a specific outbreak of false teaching, Philemon was written to address specific relational problem, and Ephesians emerged out of these interactions as lengthier general discourse.

Like Colossians, Ephesians begins with some of the most powerful and eloquent descriptions of Christ’s supremacy and glory. There is a prayer for the readers to come to full appreciation of what this means. But then Ephesians turns to a discourse about God’s purposes in the world in chapters 2 and 3. There is salvation through grace by which Jew and Gentile are brought into one household and made one in Christ. Unity in Christ as a witness to the world about God seems to be the central theme. Chapter 4 presents the marvelous passage about gifts given to the church for its building it up. Then the audience is reminded of the old ways which are compared with the new ways in Christ.

Chapter 5 is an exhortation to put off pagan ways of thinking and behaving. We might expect that having put off the pagan way of thinking and behaving that the author would next introduce an alternative. It is here that we encounter the household code. Many interpret the household code as instruction to follow the old patriarchal standards of Greco-Roman society. Others suggest it is teaching husbands to lead but with a softer and gentler patriarchy grounded in something often called servant-leadership - sort of a Greco-Roman lite. Others, in contrast, see the total abolition of patriarchy and hierarchy.

I think part of the problem is that many of us are coming to the passage looking for an answer to a question the author is not asking or addressing. I would invite us to remember that Paul and other New Testament writers seemed far more concerned about relational attitudes than social-structural configurations. We have to try to listen to the author on his own terms before asking how a passage applies to any questions we may have. So let us take a look at the first part of the household code.

Ephesians 5:18b-22

18 …but be filled with the Spirit, 19 as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, 20 giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. (NRSV)

Now if you are familiar with the debate over the household code in Ephesians, then you know that there has been a debate over whether the household code begins with verse 21 as a preamble, or verse 21 concludes a previous deliberation with verse 22 beginning a new discussion. Actually, from what I read of language scholars (which I most assuredly am not) verses 18-22 are one long complicated sentence. (See Gordon Fee) Rodger Sellers has a diagram of the sentence at his website which a professor of his diagrammed once. (Warning folks! This is not for the faint hearted. Every time I look at this my palms grow sweaty and I break out in hives as I flashbacks to high school English classes.)

Gordon Fee emphasizes that the structure of this sentence is important for two reasons:

2. Some observations. Before turning our attention to some words about culture, I want to make a few further observations that are important for understanding this passage in the larger context of Ephesians.

Note first that verse 18 is the swing verse in a passage that begins in 5:1–2—key not only for walking as children of light (vv. 2–17), but also especially for everything that follows. ….

a. In Greek, the sentence has a single subject and verb, which comes in the form of an imperative: “You [the readers] be filled with the Spirit”; this is then followed by a string of modifying participles:

speaking to each other in psalms, hymns, and so on;

singing and hymning the Lord (Christ) from the heart;

thanking our God and Father always for all things through Jesus Christ;

submitting to one another in the fear of Christ, followed by words to the wives with respect to their husbands.

b. The significance of this is twofold: First, the words to wives and husbands are to be understood as totally dependent on their being filled with the Spirit. That is, all the words in 5:22–6:9 presuppose a household of believers who are continually being filled with the Spirit of God.

Second, and especially important for us: In Paul’s mind there is the closest kind of link between Christian worship and the Christian household. This is almost certainly because the former (worship) took place primarily in the latter (the household). The point is that most of the earliest churches met in households, and the various households themselves, therefore, served as the primary nuclei of the body of Christ (or God’s household) in any given location.

One more observation. The words “be subject to” are not present in Greek in verse 22. They have been added in English translations to make the passage clearer. Verses 21-22 at the end of this lengthy sentence from 18-22 would literally read something like:

…be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ, wives to your husbands as you are to the Lord.

The idea that “subject to” (hupotassomenoi) means something different in the two verses is untenable as the two verses are both drawing on the one use of the word in verse 21. The word means, “to choose to place yourself under in authority and/or status.”

As we now move into the meat of the household code, we need to keep the above context in mind. This household code is missional. This code is giving the alternative to pagan living that people “filled with the spirit” will live in order to exhibit the unity and mindset that Christ brings into the world.

Series Index

Household: Synopsis of the "Head" Metaphor in the New Testament

We are about ready to turn to the household code in Ephesians. But before I go there in the next post I want to summarize what we have learned about the "head" (kephale) metaphor over the past week and set the stage.

I wrote a week ago:

I believe there are actually three ways the metaphor is employed in the New Testament based on three different ways of perceiving a physical head. We can view the physical head in terms of function, representation, and elevation.

Function – According to the Greeks, the anatomical function of the head was to provide life-giving sustenance and nurture to the rest of the body. It is the origination point from which the rest of the body springs up.

Representation – The head is the most visible and physically distinguishing part of the body. The face and head are the primary means by which we identify a whole person. The head represents the whole body to the world.

Elevation – The head is at the top, the highest point, of the body. In Greek, high elevation signifies prominence, preeminence, and importance.

So lets briefly look again at all the “head” metaphors in the New Testament:

1 Peter 2:7 (Post)

To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,

"The stone that the builders rejected
has become the very head of the corner, ..."

“Head of the corner” is the highest and final stone laid in a building or an arch. Its elevated position signifies both prominence and completion.

1 Corinthians 11:3 (Post 1, Post 2)

But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband (or man) is the head of his wife (or woman), and God is the head of Christ.

“Head” signifies “origin.” Christ was the origin of man at creation, man was the origin woman in the creation account, and God was the origin of Christ, sending him into the world as the firstborn of a new creation.

Colossians 1:18  (Post)

He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

“Head” is coupled with a “body” metaphor. The joining of the two symbolizes organic unity. Christ is the head. Christ is head because A) he is the first (in sequence) with regard to new creation, B) he is elevated in status over all else and over all others in the universe. Because head and body are organically united, the body (the church) shares in the qualities of the head (Christ).

While not calling Christ head of creation, verses 15-17 describe him as prior to (head of) creation and declare that he is what sustains and holds all things together. The Greek view of head is clearly in mind.

Colossians 2:9-10 (Post)

9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.

“Head” applies to Christ here without a corresponding image of body. Christ is preeminent in rank and status compared to all rulers and authorities. From the context, “ruler and authority” appear to reference the celestial bodies and forces of nature that many believed governed human affairs.

Colossians 2:18-19 (Post)

18 Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, 19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.

“Head” is Christ and the church is the body. Head signifies fountain and source of life, sustaining and holding the body together.

The next two passages are from Ephesians, which contains a household code that employs the “head” metaphor. Therefore, it seems we should pay close attention to how the metaphor is used two other times in the letter to understand its possible use in the household code.

Ephesians 1:22-23 (Post)

22 And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

“Head” seems to me to be part of double entendre here. The head is Christ but he seems to be both A) elevated and supreme over all things, and B) organically attached to the church as his body. I think this is a restatement of the sentiment expressed in Colossians 1:15-20. Colossians describes him as “head” of creation without explicitly saying as much and then explicitly says that Christ’s body is the church. Here in Ephesians, Christ is explicitly identified as “head over” everything and then the church is identified as Christ’s body without directly linking the “head” and “body” metaphors.

The “all things under his feet clause” is a messianic reference that seems to imply Christ returning humanity to their place in the pre-fall created order. By becoming “head over” everything and then being organically linked to his body (the church), he extends his status to the body as its head. He brought all things under himself for the church to experience restoration to rightful status.

Ephesians 4:15-16 (Post)

15 But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.

Here we have the same connotation as Colossians 2:19 except that the benefit is stated in the affirmative rather than as that which is lost when there is severance from the head. “Head” is Christ and the church is the “body.” Head signifies fountain and source of life, sustaining and holding the body together.

Paul’s Challenge

Paul makes extensive use of fictive family and household metaphors throughout his letters. The central focus of his fictive family metaphors is other-centered love as siblings, the closest and least status conscious of relationships in the Greco-Roman world. God is the paterfamilias. Yet the church lived in the midst of an extremely status conscious society where the powerful were already skittish about subversive movements detracting from worship of traditional gods and undermining status hierarchies that preserved the social order. How would you instruct the good folks to behave in such circumstances?

Become flippant about Roman customs and you risk alienating and provoking the people you wish to reach. Continue living as you always have lived and you negate the core message of the gospel. Those folks with less status are likely to want to act on their newly elevated status in Christ, thus making the community suspect with outsiders. Those folks with status are likely not to surrender status and thus negate the gospel.

What common posture will you encourage among folks that creates a way past this dilemma? What metaphor might you use to help them visually keep your teaching before them? I believe Paul’s household code in Ephesians was his answer to this question.

Series Index

Household: "Head" in 1 Corinthians 11 (Part 2)

We pick up now with the rest of the passage following 1 Corinthians 3:

But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband (or man) is the head of his wife (woman), and God is the head of Christ.

I've said that “head” here functions as “origin.” The chiasmus in verses 4-16 will make this clear. Here is how Kenneth Bailey presents it using his own translation. An interpretation in verse 9 is critical to this passage and I have bolded the key words:

A  4 Any man who prays or prophesies
     with his head covered
     dishonors his head.
    5 Any woman who prays or prophesies
    with her head unveiled
    dishonors her head.

     B  6 for it is the same as if her head were shaved
          for if a woman (prophet) will not veil herself,
          then let her cut off her hair
          but if it is disgraceful for a woman to be shorn or shaved
          then let her wear a veil

          C  7 For a man ought not to cover the head
               Since he is the image and glory of God,
               and woman is the glory of man.

               D  8 For man is not from (ek) woman
                    but (alla) woman is from (ek) man.

                    E  9 For man was not created because of (dia) woman
                         but (alla) woman because of (dia) the man.

                         F  10 Because of (dia) this
                              the woman should have authority on her head,
                              because of (dia) the angels.

                    E’  11 Specifically (plen), woman is not independent of man
                         nor independent of woman in the Lord.

               D’ 12 For as the woman is from (ek) the man
                    So also the man is (born) through (dia) the woman.
                    And all things are from (ek) God.

          C’  13 Judge in yourselves:
                         is it proper for a woman to pray to God unveiled?

     B’  14 Does not nature itself teach you
          that for a man to wear long hair, it is a dishonor to him,
          15 but if a woman has long hair,
          it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering.

A ' 16 If anyone is disposed to be contentious
we recognize no other practice,
nor do the churches of God.

Here is how Bailey characterizes each stanza:

A  Church Practice (and its reason)
     B  Example – Women (shaved = dishonor/disgraces)
          C  Men – Not Cover Gen. 1:27
               D  Man – Not From Woman, Woman From Man
                    E  Dependence Gen 2:18
                         F  Authority
                    E’  Dependence
               D’  Woman From Man, Man Through Woman  Gen 1:27
          C’ Women – Veiled
     B’ Example – Men (long hair = dishonor) – Women (long hair = glory)
A’ Church Practice

Verses 4 and 5 tell us the presenting problem: Head covering for men and women. John Chrysostom (349 – c. 407) wrote in his Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians:

“The Corinthian women used to pray and to prophesy (for in those days women also prophesied) with their heads bare. Meanwhile, the men, who had spent a long time in philosophy, wore their hair long and covered their heads when praying, which was the Greek custom. Paul had already admonished them about these things. It seems that some had listened to him but that others disobeyed. Here praises the obedient before going on to correct others.” (26.2)

I present this to show that early in the life of the church at least some did not see this purely as an issue of women in disobedience.

Bailey points out that Corinth was a morally loose town even by Roman standards. Corinth was the center of worship for the goddess Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, love, and procreation. Like honey bees collecting pollen, 1,000 temple prostitutes would seek sexual relations with men, thus connecting the men with the goddess, and using the financial proceeds for the operation of the temple. Hair was considered especially sensuous, so these prostitutes exposed their hair and adorned it with ornaments. We also know that some Greco-Roman women of high status tended to disregard restrictions observed by other women. We know from elsewhere in the letter that there were some wealthy high status people who were part of the church. Bailey points out that similar prohibitions against uncovered heads for women existed in Jewish circles, sometimes with very stiff penalties.

Apparently, some of the women were participating in worship with their heads uncovered. This clearly would have been disturbing for more conservative Greeks and Jews. In their eyes, such women were dishonoring men, their husbands, and the church community. They were bringing shame on their “heads,” both in the sense of their personal dishonor and in the sense of dishonor to men including their husbands. They were violating the traditional expression that gave honor to the divinely established distinction between the sexes. Based on Chrysostom, it is also possible that some men were behaving dishonorably in their appearance as well. Paul is likely getting a bit sarcastic in telling the women to cut off their hair, similar to when he suggested some troublemakers should cut off other body parts in Galatians 5:12. 

Verse 7 indicates that both man and woman are in the image of God but that woman is the glory of man. Thus, when a man gets up to speak with his head uncovered, he reflects the glory of God but when a woman rises to speak with her head uncovered she reflects the glory of man. She detracts from the glory to be given to God. Therefore, she should cover her glory so that worshipers are not distracted by the glory of man she reflects. (This comes from Kenneth Bailey’s lectures Women in the New Testament:  A Middle Eastern Perspective.)

Verse 8 states what we know from Genesis about the creation order, but verse 9 is critical. Most English Bible versions translate the two occurrences of the Greek word dia as “for” in this passage, even though they twice translate it “because” in the very next verse. Thus, in versus 8, we have woman created “for” man and not “because” of man. Using “for” suggests that woman was created as an assistant of secondary status to suit the purposes of man. This fits with a tradition that interprets Eve created as a “helper” (ezer) to man to mean that she was created to be his servant and subordinate. Yet this is the same word used to describe God as our “helper” in times of need. If there is a status difference, then it is one of a person with superior resources coming to help a person with less. But the real purpose in the Genesis account is to highlight Eve’s completion of Adam as a corresponding match. There is nothing of hierarchy or subordination in the passage. The point is not that Adam needed a servant to help him. In this sense, Eve was not created for Adam. Adam was incomplete and needed his matching, but missing, partner. Therefore, because of Adam (in his incompleteness) Eve was created.

Verses 7-9 affirm the significance of woman as a corresponding partner to man but points out the differences in origin. Paul believes it is important to honor this distinction even though it may seem esoteric to us 2,000 years later, living in Western culture. Women have the authority to prophesy and participate in public worship. A woman shows that she has authority when she covers her head, bringing honor to herself and the community through her respectful and reverent behavior. “Because of this…” Paul writes in verse 10, “…the woman should have…” What? Submission on her head? No. “…authority on her head.” The head covering becomes a symbol that she is discerning, moral, and responsible.

Then we get to the peculiar end of verse 10 where it talks about doing this "because of the angles." Bailey points out that in scripture the angels are frequently approving and praising witnesses to acts of God and the church. For instance, some believed that angels were present at creation, singing God’s praises as he created the universe. Revelation speaks of churches having angels. It is possible that Paul is saying that rather than the angels having to watch despicable behavior, wear your head coverings and give them something to praise and celebrate. The precise meaning simply is not clear.

In case the point was not clear about corresponding mutuality of male and female, Paul drives the point home in verses 11 and 12. Then, he shames the Corinthians in verses 13-15 for not doing what should be obvious to them (though maybe not to us) from nature. Then, in verse 16, he gives them the Pauline equivalent of “Do it because I said so!”

What I hope this demonstrates is that 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is about a behavioral controversy that was culturally specific. Women, and maybe men, were behaving arrogantly and disrespectfully in worship. Paul intended to put a stop to it. As we saw yesterday, Paul moves on in chiasmus form to talk about arrogant abuse of the communion meal in 11:17-33. Then, he turns to a discussion of gifts given to all for building up the church in Chapter 12, using a human body metaphor. At the focal point of chiasmus is the powerful passage on other-centered love in Chapter 13. He moves back out from the focal point with instruction on using the gifts in 14:1-25. Then, paralleling the instruction against disorderly communion he instructs them to behave in an orderly manner in 14:26-33a. Finally, he comes to the passage about women who are apparently disrupting worship with questions and inappropriate conversation. He instructs them to be still and in submission to the proceedings and to stop being disruptive. (This is another controversial passage that we won’t go into here. However, based on the chiasmus analysis it doesn’t appear that it was a latter insertion as some have claimed.)

For our purposes, the central point is this: Verse 3 is an illustration by Paul to highlight the principle of honor given to origins in order to correct a culturally bound disruptive practice that was in play at Corinth. “Head” is used here in the sense of “origin.” What the succeeding verses illustrate is that verse 3 is only loosely the controlling passage for what follows. Mostly it functions as way to introduce the concept of heads and glory.

(For a brief article on this passage by Kenneth Bailey, see his article in the Jan-Feb 2000 issue of Theology Matters, Women in the New Testament: A Middle Eastern Cultural View and go to page 11. You will notice that Bailey does allow that "head" can mean authority over when he is looking at Greek passages. This is a point I qualify more narrowly than he does based on other works I've read. I maintain that "head" can indicate preeminence in authority, a statement of relative status compared to others, but it does not seem to relate to the quality of "ruling others." Otherwise, why use the Greek archon (ruler) to translate ros (head) from Hebrew instead of using the literal Greek equivalent kephale (head) when moving from Hebrew to Greek in the Septuagint?)

Series Index

Household: "Head" in 1 Corinthians 11 (Part 1)

Our final stop in our analysis of the head metaphor, before returning to the household codes, is 1 Corinthians 11:3. Before we dive headfirst into this passage, we need to step back and put this in a broader context.

I wrote earlier in this series about the circumstances at Corinth and I will not recapitulate that here. The main thing I want to remind us of is that Paul wrote in response to a letter from the church at Corinth but he says that in addressing questions from their letter he is also addressing the whole church (1:2). Corinth was one of the most cosmopolitan and diverse cities of the Empire and by addressing Corinth he was in a sense addressing the diverse Roman Empire.

A second characteristic of this letter that I want to remind us of is that this letter falls into the category of the "concord speech" where the orator calls upon everyone in the polis to live according to their station in life, respecting the hierarchies, thus bearing the fruit of harmony and concord. Corinth is in conflict but Paul, instead of appealing for respect to hierarchies, appeals to them to be brothers (unranked in status and showing mutual care) “…united in one mind and the same purpose.” (1:10)

That said, many scholars who have studied 1 Corinthians have found it disjointed. Unlike Romans, with its systematic linear construction of theological arguments, this letter seems to flitter from topic to topic, sometimes revisiting themes and issues it as already addressed. Kenneth Bailey, using a literary analysis shows that the letter seems disjointed to us because we are trying to read the letter like modern Westerners. Unlike Paul’s other letters, this letter is not written in a linear fashion. It is a chiasmus that contains many smaller chiasmi within it. Five discourses make up the larger chiasmus:

Introduction 1:1-9
A  Cross and Christian Unity 1:1-7:24
     B  Theology of Human Sexuality 7:25-39
          C  Christian and Pagan 8:1-11:1
     B’  Man and Women, and Order in Worship 11:2-14:40
A’  Resurrection 15:1-58
Personal Notes 16:1-24

Bailey also detects a general pattern within each of the five discourses that goes something like this (taken from his lectures 1 Corinthians: A Middle Eastern View):

A  Reference to tradition or a creed
     B  A problem stated negatively
          C  A theology that solves the problem
     B’  A return to the problem in a positive light
A’  Personal appeal to do as Paul says, to imitate him, or some such exhortation

It is the fourth discourse that concerns us here. It is about men and women, and orderly worship. It runs from 1 Corinthians 11:2-14:40, and is structured as a seven part chiasmus:

Men and women in worship 11:2-16
     Disorder in worship 11:17-34
          Spiritual Gifts 12:1-31
               Love 13:1-12
          Spiritual Gifts 14:1-25
     Disorder in Worship 14:26-33a
Men and women in worship 14:33b-40

Rather than building to a conclusion at the end, the focal point is the passage at the center of the inversion. Thus, 11:2-3 comes at the very start of this discourse that has as its central concern the other-centered love articulated in the often-quoted chapter 13. Paul begins his discourse:

2 I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions just as I handed them on to you. 3 But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband (or man) is the head of his wife (woman), and God is the head of Christ. (11:2-3, NRSV.)

(The Greek words for “husband/wife” can also mean “man/woman” depending on context. I suspect that “man/woman” is intended based on the following verses.)

Here is the appeal to tradition that begins the discourse. He commends them because they maintain the traditions but he is especially concerned here that they remember the tradition/creed he is offering in verse 3. Verse 3 was apparently part of a creed from the early church. But the critical issue for us here is what does the metaphor “head” mean in this passage? Unlike nearly all of the other passages, which use “head” as a metaphor in conjunction with the image of a body, the passage merely says that someone is the head of someone else. (Eph. 1:22-23, 4:15-16, 5:22-23, Col. 1:18, 2:18-19. The exceptions are 1 Peter 2:7, which is dealing with the “head” of a building, and Col. 2:10 where preeminence and highest status is the intended meaning.)

A frequently offered interpretation is that Paul is teaching about a chain of command.

God > Son > Man > Woman

However, if you look more closely at verse 3, you will see that the three “head” dyads are out of order for a hierarchical chain. (B-C-A) Either the third dyad needs to move to the front of the list so we can descend down the hierarchy (A-B-C), or the second dyad needs to move to the front so that we can ascend the hierarchy (C-B-A). Furthermore, as we have seen, “head” is used to symbolize Christ’s preeminence above other authorities and powers but not to symbolize the quality or action of “ruling someone.” It has the meaning of becoming organically connected to a body that then shares its status of being head over the authorities and powers. Life-giving source is a possibility here but how would "man" be the life-giving source to "woman?"

My Conclusion is that the best synonym for the “head” metaphor here 1 Corinthians is “origin.” Gordon Fee, analyzing Cyril of Alexandria’s commentary (d. c. 444) on 1 Corinthians 11:3, writes:

“The earliest extant consistent interpretation of the metaphor in this passage is to be found in a younger contemporary of Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444?), who explicitly interprets in terms of the Greek metaphor: “Thus we can say that ‘the head of every man is Christ.’ For he was made by [dia] him … as God; ‘but the head of the women is the man,’ because she was taken out of his flesh…. Likewise ‘the head of Christ is God,’ because he is of him [ex autou] by nature” (Ad Arcadiam et Marinam 5.6). That is, as with Chrysostom’s understanding of the two pairs (God-Christ, Christ-man), Cyril is ready to go this way with all three pairs because of what is said in verse 8: that the woman was created from the man. Not only was the idea that the head is the source of supply and support for all the body’s systems a natural metaphor in the Greek world, but in this case it also supported Cyril’s Christological concern (not to have Christ “under” God in a hierarchy), just as it did for Chrysostom.” (From “Praying and Prophesying in the Assemblies” in Discovering Biblical Equality. 151.)

A slightly different understanding would be that Christ was at creation and man originated from him. Man was created first and woman originated out of man. Christ is the new Adam or the new man. Being sent into the world by God, Christ originated in God.

What is interesting is that this creed largely disappears from the following conversation except as a general illustration for why it is important to honor heads. The third dyad “God is the head of Christ” is not mentioned again and verses 11-12 seemingly reverses everything in verse 3, making God the source of all. So what is the connection between verse 3 and what follows?

Kenneth Bailey explains it this way. You and I, living in the West, are prone to have identity crises. Few people in the ancient Middle East had an identity crisis. Why? Because they knew their origin. They knew what family they belonged to; They knew what clan their family belonged to; They knew what tribe their clan belonged to; And they knew what people group their tribe belonged to. Everyone else knew this about you and you knew this about others. In this honor and shame culture, whatever honor or shame you brought on yourself you brought on your family, clan, tribe, and people group. The “head” of your family, clan, tribe, and people group, - the one that gave it origin - was thus honored or shamed by your actions. Thus, honoring the “head” of these groupings was a way of showing solidarity and unity with the whole grouping. Dishonoring the “head” was a sign of contempt and disunity for the whole community.

We are now ready to turn to the rest of this passage which will enrich our understanding of verse 3.

Series Index

Household: "Head" in Ephesians

Our next stop is Ephesians. Three passages use the "head" metaphor in Ephesians. One is in the household code in Chapter 5. We will first examine the other two instances in this post and then return to the household code in a later  post.

Unlike Colossians, Ephesians does appear to be addressing any particular heresy. It seems to be written more as a general letter. Gordon Fee believes that in its original context Ephesians was a companion letter with Colossians and Philemon. Ephesus is not mentioned in the letter. The letter may have been a circular for wider circulation to the churches in Asia Minor that developed out the letter to the Colossians. Whatever the case, the parallels between themes and imagery in Colossians are unmistakable. If not written by Paul, then the two letters must surely be written by the same author.

The first passage that concerns us here is the use of the “head” metaphor in 1:22. It comes at the end of a prayer where Paul hopes that Christians may come to fully know God’s purposes and rely on God's power. The prayer mentions “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named.” This parallels what we saw in the previous post on Colossians about the widespread belief in the powers of “elemental spirits of the universe,” which included things like the fates and celestial bodies controlling events (astrology.) This catalog of powers unquestionably encompasses human institutions but it is much boarder in scope. So as we come to the end of the prayer, we need to have a clear image of what is being referenced.

Ephesians 1:15-23

15 I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. 17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. 20 God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. 22 And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (NRSV)

What does Paul what them to understand?

“…with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know … hope … his glorious inheritance among the saints … immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe.” (vs. 18-19)

In short, as with Colossians, Paul wants his readers to appreciate fully the source of glory and power to which they are connected in Christ. (vs. 20-21) Jesus has been seated in the most prominent place (“at his right hand” in verse 20, drawing on Psalm 110) and is far above (head of/over) all rulers, authorities, and powers, now and forever. Then we read in verse 22, “…he [God] has put all things under his [Jesus] feet…” This wording is straight from Psalm 8:6. I have included the entire Psalm below. As you read it, reflect on two things. First, compare verses 1-3 to the hymn given in Colossians 1:15-17 and in verses 20-21. Second, as you continue down to verse 6, pay careful attention to whose feet under which all things have been placed.

Psalm 8

1 O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth! (NRSV)

In the first three verses, we see the majesty and power of God, just as we have heard it articulated in Colossians and now here in Ephesians. Then in verses 4-8, we see a celebration of humanity’s creation as presented in the first two chapters of Genesis, with human beings exercising dominion over all creation. But now revisit Ephesians 1:22. It is Jesus’ feet under which all things are being placed. (See also 1 Corinthians 15:25 and Hebrews 2:8)

It appears that the early church took these words, clearly written about humanity, and found messianic and eschatological meaning in them. Humankind is dead in sin and has lost dominion over creation. As the church read the words “son of man” in verse 4 (translated "human beings" in the NRSV) they found a double meaning. The succeeding verses were taken to indicate events that would happen to the messiah, the “son of man.” He would come to have dominion over creation and all things would be placed under his (the messiah's) feet. By coming into inseparable union with the messiah, as a head is with a body, we are restored as regents over creation. I think this is the argument that the author of Hebrews in making in Chapter 2 of that book:

Hebrews 2:6-18

6 But someone has testified somewhere,

"What are human beings that you are mindful of them,
or mortals, that you care for them?
7 You have made them for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned them with glory and honor,
8 subjecting all things under their feet."

Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, 9 but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

10 It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11 For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters,12 saying,

"I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters,
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you."

13 And again,

"I will put my trust in him."

And again,

"Here am I and the children whom God has given me."

14 Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. 16 For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. 17 Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested. (NRSV)

Christ has made us "brothers" (male and female). In doing so, we are made to share in the same inheritance and his royal status. (A royal priesthood of believers. 1 Peter 2:9) We reign with him. Remember that “brothers” is the best imagery that existed in the Greco-Roman world for shared unranked status. Jesus uses fictive family to illustrate the atonement and restoration of humanity to co-regents over creation.

What we see in Ephesians 1:20-23 is the same theme with a different metaphor. Here, Christ is given full power and dominion but instead of a family metaphor we encounter a biological metaphor. It has two important meanings.

1. “…has made him the head over all things...” Christ has been elevated above (head of/over; preeminence) all dominions, powers and authorities.
2. “… for the church, which is his body …”

By being the head of the church, he becomes organically one with it, emanating his sustaining life force into it, and whatever glory and honor belong to the head are be extension experienced by the body. Whether it is by metaphorically becoming brothers with Christ in God’s royal fictive family (Hebrews 2) or by metaphorically being joined as a body to a preeminent life-giving head, humankind is restored as co-regents over creation and as children of God! And because Christ is now the sustaining head of the body, he fills the body with his presence.

Once again, this has little to say about the activity of ruling but much to say about status and organic union.

The second Ephesians passage is a little more straight forward.

Ephesians 4:11-16

11 The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 14 We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. 15 But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love. (NRSV)

Here we have the idea of gifts as life-giving nourishment for “building up the body of Christ,” given to the body by its “head.” Verse 15 tells us “we must grow up every way into him,” in a way similar to the way Colossians 2:7 tells us we must become “rooted.” Both statements are made in the context of not being led astray by false teaching and being nourished by sound teaching. We saw in Colossians 2:19, that we must not become disconnected from our head because …

…the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.”

…so here in Ephesians 4:16 we learn that it is the head ….

…from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.

The head, in this instance, is the life-giving source to the body.

Before moving on to the Ephesians household code, we must visit one remaining use of the “head” metaphor in 1 Corinthians 11.

Series Index

Household: "Head" in Colossians

Colossians is our next stop in investigating the "head" (kephale) metaphor in the New Testament. False teaching appears to the impetus for writing Colossians. While the specific false teaching is not explicitly identified, it appears to have been some form of Gnostic heresy. Some of the elements refuted are ceremonialism, asceticism, angel worship, deprecation of Christ, secret knowledge, and reliance on human wisdom and tradition. The insufficiency of Christ for salvation, and thus the alleged need for supplemental means, seems to be a central concern.

After an introduction, the letter begins with a hymn about Christ’s supremacy and preeminence in all things. It is in the middle of this hymn that we find an instance of the “head” metaphor. We need to take a close look at the metaphor in context but first remember the three ways the head metaphor might apply:

Function – According to the Greeks, the anatomical function of the head was to provide life-giving sustenance and nurture to the rest of the body. It is the origination point from which the rest of the body springs out.

Representation – The head is the most visible and physically distinguishing part of the body. The face and head are the primary means by which we identify a whole person. The head represents the whole body to the world.

Elevation – The head is at the top, the highest point, of the body. In Greek, high elevation signifies prominence, preeminence, and importance.

What are qualities ascribed to Christ in this hymn?

Colossians 1:15-20

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers -- all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. (NRSV)

The passage implies that Christ is the "head" (origin and sustainer) of creation and explicitly states he is "head" of the church.

Creation

• “…firstborn of all creation;” – Christ is head of all creation in that he has the exalted and prominent status of firstborn son. He has the position of honor.
• “…all things have been created through him…” – Christ is head of creation in that he was the source/origin of all that came to be. This clearly includes the implication that Christ is higher in authority than all thrones, dominions, rulers, and powers, but “head” is not a synonym for these words. He is “head” in that he was the ultimate source. He is “head” in that he is of more elevated status. But he is not head because he “exercises authority over” or “rules over” even though he does this as well.
• “…is before all things….” – Christ is head in that he existed before all else, he is the point of origin.
• “…in him all things hold together…” – Christ is head in that he is the life-giving source that nurtures and sustains all that exists, just like a Greek head does for a body.

Church

• “…is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead…” – Christ is head of the church in that, like his relationship to creation, he is the beginning and the origin of the church. He has the exalted status (head above), relative to everyone and everything else, of the firstborn son. That makes him worthy of honor (which is different from authority).
• “…first place in everything…” – Christ is head in that he has the most elevated status in all qualities and arenas.

The expression “fullness of God” is intended to refute the heresy that Christ was not fully God and thus A) supplemental means were needed for a relationship with God, or B) other means could be just as effective in bringing us into relationship with God. The link between these to parts of the prayer is that Christ is the firstborn of creation and the firstborn of the new creation. He is before (origin) and above (prominence) all things.

Having established this, the letter turns to exhortations about holy living as new people in Christ and avoiding false teaching. We see the head metaphor again in a discussion about life in Christ, presented in chapter 2. I present fifteen verses here because the context is critical. I have italicized some key phrases that I believe have bearing on how we understand the meaning of “head.”

Colossians 2:6-19

6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; 12 when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, 14 erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.

16 Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. 17 These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, 19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God. (NRSV)

There is considerable richness in this passage but let us begin with “…continue to live your lives in him, rooted … in him …” (vs. 6-7) Here we have organic imagery of a plant that sinks its roots into the soil as its life-giving source. The Colossians are listening to false teaching and beginning to sink their roots into bad soil. They need to put down roots into, or connect with, Jesus as their head and life-giving source.

Verse 8 refers to “elemental spirits of the universe,” which is a reference to widely held Greco-Roman beliefs in celestial bodies that rule life. (See the Harper Collins Study Bible notes on this passage.) Countering this philosophy, verses 9 and 10 tell us that Christ was the fullness or completeness of God, and that we have the fullness of God in us. There is no need for supplements. Christ is superior to any other powers and he is in us. But we can’t stop here.

Clearly, the implication is that Christ is in authority over the powers but that is an insufficient characterization. If authority is all that is at issue, then it could simply have been written “…who is the ruler (archon) of every ruler (arches) and authority (exousias).” But the metaphor “head” is used. Why? Refer back to verses 1:15-17:

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers -- all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Christ is not just ruler over these celestial rulers and authorities. He is the one who originated them, who gave them existence, and without him, they cease to hold together. He is therefore their head; originating life-giving source.

In verse 2:15, we see the imagery of a conqueror who leads a procession with his vanquished enemies in tow through the city so the crowds may mock the vanquished. Jesus has rendered impotent this myth of celestial rulers and powers. He has humiliated these alleged rulers and powers, removing them from a place of honor so that all honor may be given to Jesus, the firstborn of all creation and the very image of God, to whom honor is rightly due as the head of all creation. The emphasis is on the supremacy of Christ who is above and before all else, and from whom all things flow, just as the Greek head is above the body and life originates from it.

Verse 18 once again shows false teaching must be rejected and then comes full circle to the metaphor that began this passage: being rooted in Christ. The roots of the human body are the head because that is where sustenance comes from. We read in verse 19 that becoming disconnected from the head is perilous. Why? Because it is “…the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.” Christ is that head.

Here again we see intertwined the ideas of head as "life-giving source" and as "preeminence," not as “one who rules or has authority over.” Christ has preeminence over all creation and over the church. But the critical issue is that Christ who is preeminent, yet lays down his life for us, is the life-giving source for all creation and for the church. Christ is Lord of the church but even more, he is head of the church as his body. Not only are we no longer subject to these elemental powers, but united to the preeminent Christ as organic members of Christ's body, we reign over these powers as well.

Series Index

Household: "Head" in 1 Peter 2:6-8 (Three Stones)

1 Peter 2:6-8

6 For it stands in scripture:

"See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone (akrogoniaios) chosen and precious;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame."

7 To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,

"The stone that the builders rejected
has become the very head of the corner (kephale gonias),"

8 and

"A stone that makes them stumble,
and a rock that makes them fall." (NRSV)

There are three stones used to signify Christ in the bible; cornerstone, capstone, and stumbling stone. The cornerstone was a large stone usually laid at the northeast corner of building to begin a foundation. The builder laid it perfectly level and aligned it in such a way that all other construction could be lined and plumbed accordingly. The capstone was a large stone placed at the top of the corner of two meeting walls. Its weight and design, resting atop the juncture, held the walls together. A capstone could also be the keystone at the apex of an arch. The capstone was the final stone laid. It symbolized completeness, prominence, and glory. A stumbling stone was stone that you … well … stumbled over. Stumbling stones were placed to trip large animals and trap them.

The problem is sorting out which stone is which with regard to cornerstones and capstones in biblical references. I have consulted several commentaries and biblical encyclopedias, and there is considerable disagreement. Here is my take on the difference.

It is my theory that following are equivalents in English, Hebrew, and Greek:

Cornerstone = eben pinnah (stone + angle/corner) = akrogoniaios [akron+gonias] (extreme/pinnacle + angle/corner)  or litho goniaios (stone corner)

Capstone/Keystone =  rosh pinnah  (head of the corner) = kephale gonias (head of the corner)

Three Old Testament passages unmistakably refer to a foundation cornerstone. (LXX means Septuagint.)

Job 38:4-7

4 "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
5 Who determined its measurements -- surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
6 On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone (eben pinat, LXX: litho goniaion)
7 when the morning stars sang together
and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?  (NRSV)

Isaiah 28:16-17

16 therefore thus says the Lord GOD,
See, I am laying in Zion a foundation stone,
a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone (eben pinat, LXX: akrogoniaion), a sure foundation:
"One who trusts will not panic."
17 And I will make justice the line,
and righteousness the plummet; (NRSV)

Eben means “stone” and pinnah means “angle” or “pinnacle.” Figuratively pinnah can mean "chieftain." (Judges 20:2; 1 Samuel 14:38). The context of these two passages make it clear they are talking about a foundation. 1 Peter 2:6 is a paraphrase of this passage. (Romans 9:33 seems to be a paraphrase that combines Isaiah 8:14-15, 28:16.)

Then there is this passage where Jeremiah prophecies against Babylon:

Jeremiah 51:26

No stone (eben) shall be taken from you for a corner (pinnah)
and no stone (eben) for a foundation,
but you shall be a perpetual waste,
says the LORD. (NRSV)

In other words, Babylon will contribute nothing to the foundation of the new order that is coming.

In Zechariah, we see the significance of the capstone or keystone. Zerubbabel lays the foundation for the new temple and this prophecy declares that no obstacle will prevent him from placing the capstone, thus signifying the temple's completion.

Zechariah 4:6-10

6 He said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the LORD of hosts. 7 What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain; and he shall bring out the top stone (roshah eben “head stone”) amid shouts of 'Grace, grace to it!'"

8 Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 9 "The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also complete it. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you. 10 For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel. (NRSV)

Then in Psalm 118:22-23 we read:

Psalm 118:20-23

20 This is the gate of the LORD;
the righteous shall enter through it.
21 I thank you that you have answered me
and have become my salvation.
22 The stone (eben) that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone (rosh pinnah, LXX kephale gonias)
23 This is the LORD's doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes. (NRSV)

As we have seen, rosh means “head.” The phrase is “head of the angle/corner.” That it is a stone (eben) head is picked up from “stone” as the subject of the sentence. The "head of the corner" is almost certainly indicating the keystone that holds an arch in place or a large stone spanning atop other stones; the most elevated part of the gate structure, its focal point, and crowning glory.

Now there is no question that Paul explicitly identifies Christ as the foundation of the church:

1 Corinthians 3:10-11

10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. (NRSV)

Ephesians 2:19-20

19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, 20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone (akrogoniaios). (NRSV)

At least one commentator on Ephesians suggests that the apostles are the foundation and Jesus is the capstone, signifying a completion from top to bottom. I question that interpretation. I think in this passage Jesus is the foundation cornerstone to which the apostles are added to create a foundation upon which the rest of the structure will be built. I do not think the capstone/keystone image is present here.

Where I think we do see the capstone image entering the New Testament picture is in multiple quotations from Psalm 118:22. We see it referenced here in 1 Peter 2:7 but it also is referred to by Peter in Acts 4:11. It closes out Jesus’ Parable of the Wicked Tenants in all three synoptic gospels. (Matt. 21:42, Mark 12:10-11, Luke 20:17-19) I find no clues to the cornerstone versus capstone/keystone question from these passages except that, like LXX in Psalm 118:22, the Greek for "cornerstone" is kephale gonias, “head of the corner.”

With all that background it seems most likely that 1 Peter 2 is giving three distinct images of Jesus the “living stone.” (v. 4)

Cornerstone (akrogoniaios) – Jesus is original stone laid in the foundation of the new living temple 1 Peter 2 is describing. Everything is built, plumbed, and aligned with him.

Capstone/Keystone (kephale gonias) – Jesus is the stone in the highest most prominent place. He is the completion of the temple. As he is exalted and put in place, like the people in Zechariah 4:7, the people shout out praises.

Stumbling Stone – For those who will not receive his word and obey, Jesus is a stone over which they keep stumbling. He frustrates their plans and is an obstacle to their agenda. This clearly alludes to Isaiah 8:14-15.

As we are about to see in a couple of posts, Jesus is both Lord and head of the church. I think we see those elements reflected in this stone imagery. I noted the pinnah in Hebrew means “angle” or “pinnacle,” but figuratively it can mean chieftain or ruler. Is there a double meaning here? I think possibly so. As the foundational cornerstone, certainly Christ is the rule or measure to which everything else must conform. In at least this sense, he is a “ruler.”

The capstone/keystone holds the structure together in a way somewhat similar to the way the Greeks perceived that the head keeps the body together. But more importantly, like the head, the capstone/keystone was the highest, most prominent, and glorious part of the structure. This is a quality that has everything to do with status and little to being "one who rules."

Series Index

Household: “Head” as Function, Representation, and Elevation, and the Centrality of Status

So what can we say about “head” as a metaphor in Greek? At least two things.

First, “head” is not used to signify “rule over” or “have authority over,” although it clearly is used on occasion with regard to people who rule and have authority. It sometimes is used to indicate a differential in these qualities. The one who is “head over/of” in authority has authority that is “higher,” preeminent, and of greater status or magnitude than others. The head metaphor is a statement about relative position (just as the head is relatively higher than the rest of the body) and could be used with any human quality that can be ranked. For example, Barry Bonds is head over/of all baseball players in hitting homeruns. Head indicates the magnitude of the quality is greater or higher but it is not the quality itself. The head is figuratively the summit, not a body part that controls or rules the body.

Second, I believe there are actually three ways the metaphor is employed in the New Testament based on three different ways of perceiving a physical head. We can view the physical head in terms of function, representation, and elevation.

Function – According to the Greeks, the anatomical function of the head was to provide life-giving sustenance and nurture to the rest of the body. It is the origination point from which the rest of the body springs up.

Representation – The head is the most visible and physically distinguishing part of the body. The face and head are the primary means by which we identify a whole person. The head represents the whole body to the world.

Elevation – The head is at the top, the highest point, of the body. In Greek, high elevation signifies prominence, preeminence, and importance.

I believe it is possible for any given instance of the head metaphor to have more than one of these connotations in play at the same time. We will see this as we visit the New Testament passages. Context is critical in each case. But before going to these passages, I want to refresh our memories concerning the idea of status in the Greco-Roman world.

We Westerners in the twenty-first century quickly identify political power and authority as signs of status. Wealth is the other great measure of status. For the Greco-Roman world, status was everything but status was not primarily measured in political power and wealth. It was measured in number of clients obtained through charis. Charis is a process where you did something for someone so significant he or she could not possibly repay you. You became the patron and the recipient of your gift became your client. You worked to expand your connections and influence so you could do things for your clients that they could not do for themselves. In response to your patronage, they would do your bidding whenever you needed something of them. Whatever clients your clients might develop became your clients as well by extension. How big a pyramid of clients you had established your status. Political power and wealth could be instrumental in developing status but they were means, not ends. (See Patronage and the Dance of Grace)

Charis is the word we interpret as “grace.” It is the word Paul used to describe what God has done for us in Christ. Through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, Christ has atoned for us; made us “at-one” with God and each other. It is an extravagant gift we cannot repay. God is our patron and we are his clients called to do his mission in the world. Because of what Jesus has done in laying down his very life for us, the most costly gift of all, he is elevated to the highest status. He is the firstborn son of a new creation. Yet paradoxically, what Jesus asks of us as his clients is to have his same disregard for status. The way to the right and left hand of God is by putting everyone else first. The way to high status is to treat everyone else as if his or her status is higher than your status.

The Emperor was considered to have the highest status in the Empire. Christians were worshiping a crucified non-Roman, the opposite end of the status spectrum. I believe this inversion of status plays prominently in some head metaphor passages in the New Testament.

Now, on to the New Testament passages.

Series Index

The Fictive "rosh to kephale" Exceptions in the Septuagint (Part 2)

We continue with a summary of Andrew Perriman's analysis of translations from the Hebrew rosh into the Greek kephale in the Spetuagint, presented in Speaking of Women: Interpreting Paul.

1 Kings 8:1 (3 Kings 8:1 in the LXX) (17)

1 Kings 8:1

Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads (rosh) of the tribes (mattah), the leaders of the ancestral houses of the Israelites, before King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of the city of David, which is Zion. (NRSV)

This passage has a Hebrew metaphor hidden within it. The Hebrew matteh is the typically translated literally as a “rod” or “staff,” and figuratively as “tribe.” When the word matteh is used literally to mean “rod” or “staff” it is always translated as rhabdos in the Septuagint. Rhabdos is never used for matteh when it figuratively signifies a tribe except here. The choice of the literal equivalent in translation for matteh (staff) would necessitate the literal translation of rosh (head) as well. We are talking literally about the “head of a staff,” as in that part of the staff which occupies the highest point. Since a “head of a staff” does not rule the rest of the staff but it is the most prominent feature at the end of the staff we are talking about prominence, not authority or rule.

Judges 10:18, 11:8-9 (15-16)

Judges  10:18

18 The commanders of the people of Gilead said to one another, "Who will begin the fight against the Ammonites? He shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead." (NRSV)

Judges 11:4-11

4 After a time the Ammonites made war against Israel. 5 And when the Ammonites made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the land of Tob. 6 They said to Jephthah, "Come and be our commander, so that we may fight with the Ammonites." 7 But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, "Are you not the very ones who rejected me and drove me out of my father's house? So why do you come to me now when you are in trouble?" 8 The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, "Nevertheless, we have now turned back to you, so that you may go with us and fight with the Ammonites, and become head over us, over all the inhabitants of Gilead." 9 Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, "If you bring me home again to fight with the Ammonites, and the LORD gives them over to me, I will be your head." 10 And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, "The LORD will be witness between us; we will surely do as you say." 11 So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them; and Jephthah spoke all his words before the LORD at Mizpah. (NRSV)

Of all the passages that Perriman considers, this one might seem to support the idea of “head” as “ruler.” Rather than trying to summarize Perriman, I will quote him at length.

In the Hebrew text of Judges 10:18; 11:8-9, the word rosh is used to describe the man (Jephthah) who would lead the Israelites to fight against the ‘sons of Ammon’: ‘He shall be head over all the people of Gilead.’

There are three main manuscripts of the Septuagint: Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus (both fourth century AD), and Codex Alexandrinus (fifth century AD). In the Alexandrian text of these verses, rosh is translated by kephale, whereas the Vatican text, in conformity with the general pattern, has archon (‘ruler’). From this it has been inferred, not unreasonably, that in the view of the translator of the Alexandrian version, kephale carried the same metaphorical meaning as rosh and was essentially synonymous with archon.

It would be wrong, however, to assume that the relationship between the two texts at this point is explicable only in terms of synonymy – particularly in view of what will emerge about the metaphorical sense of kephale from the study of other texts. So we might ask whether the use of kephale in the Alexandrian text of Judges 10:18; 11:8-9 and in both versions of 11:11 is not in fact meant to suggest prominence or precedence rather than the exercise of authority. What the people of Israel needed at the moment was not so much a ruler (someone to have authority over them) as someone to represent them before king Ammon (11:12) and if necessary to lead them into battle – someone to ‘begin to fight against the sons of Ammon’ (10:18; cf 11:8). As ‘head’, Jephthah would be the one to go first in the fight. If this explains the use of kephale in 10:18, it would also account for the use of the word in the later verses.

The force of this nuance may also be reflected in the fact that 10:18 and 11:8-9, kephale is followed by the dative (‘for all the inhabitants of Gilead’), not epi (‘over all the inhabitants of Gilead’). The preposition eis is found in 11:11 but in this case in both translations kephale is in direct apposition to a word meaning ‘ruler’ or ‘leader’: ‘the people placed him over them as head and ruler [eis kephalen kai eis archegon]’ (Vatican). This apposition, moreover is found in the Hebrew text, and in itself neither accounts for the unexpected use of kephale nor elicits from it the sense of ‘one who has authority over’.

As we examine the other passages, we may find that the apparent synonymy suggested by the two translations of the Hebrew tests is illusory, perhaps not more than a scribal idiosyncrasy. The fact remains that whereas the use of rosh in the Hebrew text here is perfectly consistent with its usage throughout the Old Testament, the appearance of kephale in the Alexandrian text at this point is exceptional. If kephale in these verses does not have the same sense of ‘one who goes first or most prominent’, then it should probably be regarded as a traditional anomaly.

This concludes the analysis of the handful of cases in the Septuagint where rosh was not directly translated as kephale. The evidence that kephale means "to rule over" is weak to nonexistent." These translation exceptions seem to cluster around the ideas of preeminence and prominence, metaphors for head that is shared by both Hebrew and Greek.

So in light of what we have reviewed, what can we say about what we might expect to find in New Testament instances of the head metaphor?

Series Index

The Fictive "rosh to kephale" Exceptions in the Septuagint (Part 1)

The Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek during the period from the third through first centuries B.C.E. This translation became known as the Septuagint (LXX). As we saw earlier, in the vast majority of cases where the Hebrew authors us the word rosh (head) metaphorically, it was not translated as kephale (head) in Greek. Rosh usually indicated “chief” or “ruler” when used metaphorically. The Greek translators usually chose to translate this metaphor into the non-metaphorical expression archon, which was the term used to indicate “leader” or “ruler.” But what about the handful of cases where Greek translators did translate metaphorical uses of rosh into kephale? Andrew Perriman in Speaking of Women: Interpreting Paul identifies eleven instances of this. What follows is an attempt to summarize his analysis of these passages though not necessarily in the order he considered them.

Deuteronomy 28:14, 44, Isaiah 9:14-15 (19-20)

Deteronomy 28:12-13

12 … You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow. 13 The LORD will make you the head, and not the tail; you shall be only at the top, and not at the bottom -- if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I am commanding you today, by diligently observing them, …

Deuteronomy 28:43-44

43 Aliens residing among you shall ascend above you higher and higher, while you shall descend lower and lower. 44 They shall lend to you but you shall not lend to them; they shall be the head and you shall be the tail. (NRSV)

Isaiah 9:14-16

14 So the LORD cut off from Israel head and tail,
palm branch and reed in one day -- 
15 elders and dignitaries are the head,
and prophets who teach lies are the tail;
16 for those who led this people led them astray,
and those who were led by them were left in confusion. (NRSV)

These passages are “head and tail” parings. The Deuteronomy passages appear to use head to signify honor and tail to indicate shame. To be able to lend would mean one was of high status but to borrow would be shameful. The contrast is about honor and shame, not ruler and subject.

The Isaiah passage uses the metaphor to indicate a totality, much as we would say “from start to finish” or from “head to toe.” Nothing is said here about ruling over others.

1 Kings 21:12 (3 Kings 20:12 in the LXX) (17-18)

1 Kings 21:11-12

11 The men of his city, the elders and the nobles who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had sent word to them. Just as it was written in the letters that she had sent to them, 12 they proclaimed a fast and seated Naboth at the head of the assembly. (NRSV)

This is referring to the prominent physical location given Naboth at the assembly, much as we would talk about someone being at the "head" of the table.

Isaiah 7:8-9 (17)

Isaiah 7:7-9

8 For the head of Aram is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is Rezin.
(Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered, no longer a people.)
9 The head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.
If you do not stand firm in faith,
you shall not stand at all. (NRSV)

The context is Isaiah reassuring King Ahaz of Judah that an alliance between Syria (Aram) and Ephraim (Israel) will not prevail against Judah. The capital of Syria was Damascus with Rezin as king, and the capital of Israel was Samaria with Rehaliah as king. According to Perriman, “…nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible is a man said to be ‘head’ of a city or a city ‘head’ of a country: rosh always refers to status of individuals with regard to groups of people – families, tribes, armies, priests, and so on.” (17) The idea that Damascus is the prominent representation of Aram in which Aram is summed up, and that the people of Syria and Damascus are symbolically summed up in Rezin seems to be the connotation intended. The same is true for the second triad.

Verse 8, with its declaration that Ephraim will “be shattered, no longer a people” may provide a clue to the rather cryptic phrasing. When the body is decapitated, it loses its head and therefore its identity. Not only will Israel be defeated but “lose their head” and thus their identity as a people. As we know, the Assyrians cart off the Israelites, leaving only a remnant, and they indeed vanish as people with an identity. The precise connotation of these passages is not clear but the idea of chief or ruler is not easily sustained.

Jeremiah 31:7 (Jeremiah 38:7 in the LXX) (18)

Jeremiah 31:7-9

7 For thus says the LORD:
Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,
and raise shouts for the chief of the nations;
proclaim, give praise, and say,
"Save, O LORD, your people,
the remnant of Israel."
8 See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north,
and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth,
among them the blind and the lame,
those with child and those in labor, together;
a great company, they shall return here.
9 With weeping they shall come,
and with consolations I will lead them back,
I will let them walk by brooks of water,
in a straight path in which they shall not stumble;
for I have become a father to Israel,
and Ephraim is my firstborn. (NRSV)

The New International Version says “foremost” in verse 7 while the Amplified Bible says “head.” The underlying Hebrew is rosh.

There is nothing said about Israel ruling the other nations. The connotation appears to be that Israel has become preeminent above all other nations. It ranks higher in the status. Perriman believes that verse 9 provides the clue when it says “…for I have become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.” The metaphorical image is of Israel as the first-born son and therefore preeminent among his “brother” nations in status.

More in the next post.

Series Index

Household: "Head" as "Symbol of the Whole" and "Preeminence in Status"

Agriculture is still a significant part of the culture in the American Midwest. You occasionally run into ranchers and when you do, the conversation eventually turns to how many “head” they own. We are not talking about cattle heads. We are talking about complete cattle. The head is the most visible and distinguishing feature for most mammals. We use the head to symbolize and identify the whole being. We use this language all the time about human beings. When a caterer prepares for an event, she wants to know what the “head” count will be. The word for “head” in Latin is caput. We often speak of “per capita,” literally meaning “per head,” by which we mean “per person.”

“Head” can symbolically stand for the whole body. Therefore, metaphorically, whatever status we give to the head is symbolically true of the whole body. A body attached to a head with high status means the body also has high status. If the head’s status is diminished, then the body’s status is diminished as well. But it is also true that because the head is attached to the body, that if the body does something to affect status, then that change of status will be applied to the head also. A person is an inseparable unity of parts but because the head is the most prominent and distinctive part of the body, it best symbolizes the whole person’s distinctiveness. Thus, to speak metaphorically in Greek culture of a person being the “head” of others can refer to that person’s emblematic quality with regard to the rest of the people.

There are at least two continuums we can use to measure someone’s prominence, or the degree to which someone “sticks out” above others: power and status. They often parallel each other in our culture but they are not the same. We say that Bill Gates is the “head” of Microsoft Corporation. We mean that A) Gates is the CEO/authority that “rules” Microsoft and that B) Gates is the most visible person at Microsoft and symbolizes the company. Therefore, we might ask, “I wonder what new operating system Bill Gates will develop next?” We know that Bill Gates will not literally develop the new system. The corporation will. Gates is emblematic of the corporation. Bill Gates “rules” Microsoft and he is the “head” of Microsoft because he symbolically represents and distinguishes the entire corporate entity to the world in a way no one else does.

Bill Gates is emblematic because he “sticks out above” others on the dimensions of power and status. Power and status are so tightly wedded for us that we find it hard to distinguish between the two. That creates a cross-cultural difficulty for us because in an honor and shame culture like the Greco-Roman world the two concepts are more distinct. (see earlier post on status). The top household slave of a Roman senator’s villa had considerable power. He would “stick out” above others with whom he came into contact. The free Roman citizen artisan with little power would have had a higher status than the powerful slave. Deference would have been given to the slave because of his master’s status but the slave himself was of low status. Therefore, the slave might wield considerable power without status. The artisan would have little power but have higher status.

The Greeks appear to have used different language when they talked about prominence in terms of power and status. Prominence in power/authority was indicated by the word arche. The word connoted the starting point, the point of origination, or point of commencement. It signifies the first item in an ordinal, chronological, or ranking sequence. Though anachronistic to say so, it seems it has a mechanistic quality.

Prominence in status was indicated by the metaphor kephale (head). Kephale has a more organic, positional, and functional quality. The head is the visible and distinguishing part of the body that stands for the rest of the body but it is also atop the body, and therefore highest in elevation with regard to the rest of the body; it is preeminent. But the head also is the source of life (according to Greek physiology) that sustains the body and from which the rest of the body emanates. It is origin in an organic sustaining sense, not so much a mechanistic "command and control" sense.

The terms arche and kephale do overlap. Catherine Kroeger points out a line from Orphic poetry repeated by seven different Greek authors spanning a period of 1,600 years from 6oo B.C.E. to 1000 C.E. On four occasions it reads:

Zeus was born first, Zeus last, god of the bright bolt;
Zeus is the head [kephale], Zeus the middle, from Zeus all things are made.

On three occasions it reads:

Zeus is the beginning [arche], Zeus the middle, from Zeus all things are made.

Zeus is both first in a sequence and he is the source of life. Therefore, both arche and kephale are descriptive of him. Yet when the Greeks wished to talk narrowly about first in rank with authority and power, they seem predisposed to use words from the root arche. It seems when they wanted to indicate preeminence in status, first/highest in position of status, that which sticks out above the rest, and/or that from which qualities emanate as part of a functional organic whole, they used kephale.

I wrote earlier that there are at least 180 instances of the Hebrew word rosh (head) used metaphorically and frequently for “leader” or “chief” in the Hebrew Bible. There are only a handful of references where the Hebrew was used metaphorically and translated as its literal equivalent kephale in the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew bible. Let us take a look at those exceptions in light of what we have just said about arche and kephale.

Series Index

Houeshold: "Head" as "Origin" or "Source"

I wrote in my previous post that the head was not the bodily organ responsible for intellect and control in Greek physiology. What, then, is the function of the head with regard to the body? The head was the life-giving source that animated the rest of the body. The body grew out of the head. If you think about the fact that food and water enter the mouth, air enters the nose, sight enters the eyes, and sound enters the ears, then this actually makes a lot of sense.

To give some historical examples of this notion of head I will quote at length an article by Katherine Kroeger published last year, Toward an Understanding of Ancient Conceptions of “Head” (Priscilla Papers, Vol. 20, no. 3, Summer 2006). Leading up to this passage she has pointed out that head can refer to the beginning point of something like the "headwaters" of a river.

Not only with respect to flowing water was the head considered the place of beginning. [headwaters] Aristotle himself declared that the head was the source of beginning of life, with human sperm being created in the head, traveling down the spinal cord, flowing into the genitals, and so procreating the human race. Thus, the ancient writers sometimes referred to sexual intercourse as “diminishing one’s head.” Artemidorus of Ephesus maintained that the head was the source of light and life for the whole body, so a father was the source of life for his son. “The head [kephale] is like one’s parents because it is the source or cause of one’s having life.” Shortly after the New Testament period, Plutarch told of those who thought the brain “to be the source of generation.” Philo, a Jewish contemporary of Jesus and Paul wrote, “As though he were the head of a living being. Esau is the progenitor of all those members who have been mentioned.”

Among other values, the head as the source of paternity was understood by the early Christian fathers. Irenaeus equates “head” with “source” when he writes of the head “head and source of his own being.” Hippolytus emphasized the productivity of this bodily member when he designated the head as the characteristic substance from which all people were made. He noted, “In the head is said to be the brain, formulating the being from which all fatherhood is produced.” Cosmas Indicopleustes (sixth century A.D.) called Adam the “head” of all people in this world because he was their source and father.

Photius, a ninth century Byzantine scholar, was renowned for his vast knowledge of classical authors and his preservation of numerous quotations from works that are now lost to us. He drew upon earlier scholars passionately committed to preserving classical Greek and promoting a continued knowledge of its words and forms. These works Photius edited and incorporated into a formidable lexicon intended as a reference book to aid later writers in understanding the vocabulary of classical and sacred authors. He quite specifically stated that “head” (kephale) was considered to be a synonym for procreator or progenitor. (p. 5)

Kroeger also presents this interesting quote from Augustine’s commentary on Galatians 5:22-23:

The Apostle Paul, when he wishes to commend the fruit of the spirit against the works of the flesh, puts them at the head: “The fruit of the spirit is love,” he said; and then the rest, as springing up from the head, are twined together. There are joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, perseverance, self-control and charity. (Translated from the Latin text in Ralph McInerny, Let’s Read Latin: Introduction to the Language of the Church (South Bend, Ind.: Dumb Ox Books), 99.)

She also writes:

The myth of Athena springing from the head of Zeus is known in story form, mosaics, frescoes, and vase paintings. Ancient Orphic burials sometimes contained figurines of the soul reemerging into the world after remaining nine years under the bosom of Persephone, Queen of the dead. From the head of the goddess sprout up new little heads, some surrounded by leaf buds as they grow to full reincarnation status. The theme of the head as the starting point for growth is unmistakable. (5)

Two of the eleven New Testament instances of fictive head appear to be exemplifying this metaphor for head.

Eph 4:15-16

15 But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body,  joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.

Col 2:18-19

18 Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, 19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.

It seems likely that the Ephesians passage has this idea of head in mind. The idea of "growing up into the head" is very similar to our notion of "sinking our roots down." The Colossians passage seems to be a very close match. So at least in some cases, New Testament fictive references to head appear to be related to the Greek anthropology of head as "life-giving source." But this metaphor does not seem to apply in other New Testament passages. We need to dig a little deeper.

(Also see Heads, you Win by Suzanne McCarthy and Heart and Soul by J. K. Gayle.)

Series Index

Household: Household Code Lost in Translation: Kephale

We have now examined the household codes in 1 Peter and in Titus. It is now time to turn to the household codes presented in Ephesians and Colossians. These codes present a major challenge because of a one-word metaphor: kephale, meaning “head.” The word is used several times in the New Testament and the majority of instances are referring to an actual physical head. But there are eleven instances where head is used metaphorically and two are in the Ephesians’ household code (Ephesians 5:23).

A whole theology of “headship” has built up around this metaphor. Husbands are told to be in authority because Ephesians says they are to be the “head” of the house and women are to submit to their husband's “headship.” In other words, head is synonymous with “rule” or “authority.” Now many who hold to this understanding insist on what is called “soft patriarchy.” There is to be leadership by the husband but it is of servant-leadership variety, not domination.

This is not an unreasonable reading of the passage if we rely upon our Western English metaphors for the word “head.” The human head is where the brain resides and it directs the functioning of the body. The “head” of a corporation or government is the one with the power to "call the shots" just like a physical head controls the body. Therefore, when we read Ephesians 5:23 and see, “For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior,” the teaching is clear. The husband is to be in authority over his wife as Christ is in authority over the church. But please note the “if” in the first sentence of this paragraph: …if we rely upon our Western English metaphors for the word “head.”

This raises a critical question: Would Greek speaking people have had the same understanding of “head” metaphors that we do? While there is overlap the answer is no.

Let us start with physical anthropology. We routinely contrast “head” and “heart” as “rational” and “emotional” respectively. But in the Greek world, rational thought, emotions and will metaphorically came from the heart. In fact, borrowing from Hebrew anthropology, Jesus suggests that he will metaphorically investigate another bodily organ to learn our innermost character:

And all the churches will know that I am the one who searches minds (nephros) and hearts (kardias), … Rev 2:23

Nephros is literally “kidneys” and figuratively “innermost thoughts.”

Search all you want to in the New Testament, you will not find one instance of “head” as a metaphor for reason or bodily control. Search for “heart/hearts” and you will find it used metaphorically for actions we view as coming from heart and head. Luke 2:19 says “But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her …” Head? No. “…heart.” Scot McKnight, in his book about Mary, points out that “pondered in the heart” is precisely the language that would be used to describe the work of Rabbis and teachers as they reflected on events and tried to make coherent sense of them. This was not Mary sentimentally emoting about what had happened to her.

Greek anthropology does not match ours. “Head” was not the controlling organ of the body. But could head still have meant "one who exercises authority or rules?" Yes. In fact, we know that it had this metaphorical connotation in both Hebrew and Latin, just as it does in English. Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English seem to have some metaphorical similarities. Head can mean the beginning point: “The headwaters of a river.” It can mean preeminence: “The valedictorian was at the head of her class.” It can mean first in position: “He raced to the ticket window so he could be at the head of the line.” It can mean prominence: “The theater attendant took a head count.” (“Head” symbolically representing the whole person but being the most visible and distinguishing characteristic of a person.) So what about “ruler” or “authority?”

Gordon Fee writes:

The clearest evidence for the real differences between the Jewish and Greek metaphorical uses is to be found in the Septuagint (LXX). In the hundreds of places where the Hebrew rosh is used for the literal head on a body, the translators invariably used the only word in Greek that means the same thing, kephale. But in the approximately 180 times it appears as a metaphor for the leader or chieftain, they almost always [six exceptions] eliminate the metaphor altogether and translate it arche (“leader”), which is evidence that they were uncomfortable with (unfamiliar with?) the Jewish metaphor and simply translated it out. (“Praying and Prophesying in the Assemblies” in Discovering Biblical Equality. 150, fn 28)

In a similar analysis, Andrew Perriman finds eleven cases where a metaphorical use of rosh was translated kephale in the Septuagint but none of the examples carry the connotation of authority or ruler. More on that later. Further evidence comes from the language surrounding the “ruler of the synagogue” in first century Judaism. The Hebrew title is rosh ha-keneset or "head" (rosh) "of the assembly" (ha-keneset). If kephale carried the same metaphorical meaning in Greek, then we would expect to find a title that combined  kephale and synagoge (the gathering). But instead we find archisynagogos, or "leader/ruler" (arche) of "the assembly" (synagogos).

Therefore, if we are to truly understand the household code in Ephesians 5 and 6, we must wrestle a bit with the “head” metaphor. A look at the use of the “head” metaphor in Greek outside the New Testament will help us better understand the biblical metaphor. There are two predominate views among those who reject the head=ruler metaphor. One sees “head” used to symbolize "origin" and "source." The other believes it is "preeminence" and "prominence." Either or both of these interpretations is at work in biblical metaphors but I suspect that the preeminence and prominence metaphor is the primary image. I will unfold this in coming posts but first I have cataloged the fictive head references in the New Testament. Ten are used by Paul and one by Peter (assuming traditional authorship.)

1 Cor 11:3

But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ.

Eph 1:22-23

22 And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Eph 4:15-16

15 But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body,  joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.

Eph 5:22-23

22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior.

Col 1:18

He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

Col 2:9-10

9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.

Col 2:18-19

18 Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, 19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.

1 Peter 2:6-7

6 For it stands in scripture:

"See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame."

7 To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,

"The stone that the builders rejected
has become the very head of the corner, ..."

Series Index

Household: Household Code in Titus

Another household code passage is Titus Chapter 2. Titus 1:1-4 says the letter is written by Paul to Titus who is working in Crete. (I am aware that many scholars believe this letter was from the late first century and pseudographical but for the sake of simplicity I will simply refer to the author as Paul.) The people of Crete were known for their licentious unruly behavior. The central focus of the letter is errant doctrine taught by some Jewish teachers. The letter is to instruct Titus on how to lead the community with sound instruction into holy living that is beyond reproach. The second chapter is where we find the household code:

1 But as for you, teach what is consistent with sound doctrine. 2 Tell the older men to be temperate, serious, prudent, and sound in faith, in love, and in endurance.

3 Likewise, tell the older women to be reverent in behavior, not to be slanderers or slaves to drink; they are to teach what is good, 4 so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be self-controlled, chaste, good managers of the household, kind, being submissive to their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited.

6 Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. 7 Show yourself in all respects a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, gravity, 8 and sound speech that cannot be censured; then any opponent will be put to shame, having nothing evil to say of us.

9 Tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to talk back, 10 not to pilfer, but to show complete and perfect fidelity, so that in everything they may be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Savior.

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all,  12 training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 14 He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

15 Declare these things; exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one look down on you. (NRSV)

Because we are not of this culture, must of us overlook a very important cultural issue at play. Titus is the teacher. He has four groups of (free) people he must teach. They are listed in this order: older men, older women, younger women, younger men. It was socially taboo for a man to teach young women, especially unmarried women. Titus would have been seen as a womanizer. (According to Kenneth Bailey, it is still true throughout much of the Middle East today.) Therefore, instruction for younger women fell upon elder women. There is no prohibition of women teaching men implied in this passage. The implied prohibition is on men teaching young women and thus bringing scandal upon the church. The passage is about four teacher-to-student relationships:

Teacher: Titus
Student: older men (v. 2)

Teacher: Titus
Student: older women (v.3)

Teacher: older women
Student: younger women (vs. 4-5)

Teacher: Titus
Student: younger men (v. 6)

The desire to avoid scandal and licentious behavior is apparent in the instruction on what the older women should teach the younger women:

… 4 so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be self-controlled, chaste, good managers of the household, kind, being submissive to their husbands, ….

Why? Because Eve was created second and to be Adam’s helper? Because women are more easily deceived and need to be under the authority of a man? No!

… so that the word of God may not be discredited.

Paul is similarly concerned about that the young men behave well because:

…then any opponent will be put to shame, having nothing evil to say of us.

There is a strong missional component to these instructions. We see the same emphasis with the instruction to the slaves.

Tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to talk back, not to pilfer, but to show complete and perfect fidelity, …

Why?

….so that in everything they may be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Savior.

In other words, their behavior will ornament and give validity to sound teaching and the new creation.

It is interesting that the word hupotassesthai (be submissive) is used here, as well as in verse 5. (Forms of huppotasso are used in 1 Peter to reflect the attitude toward government (2:13), of slaves toward masters (2:18) and of wives toward husbands (3:1, 5)) This word indicates a person who chooses of their own volition to place himself lower in rank to someone else. According to Greco-Roman household codes, women and slaves did not choose to be lower in rank. They were lower in rank. Thus, it was not necessary to address women and salves, but it was necessary in Christian community where all are siblings in Christ and of the same status.

This household code in Titus differs from others in the Bible in that it is instruction to an instructor on how to teach the household code. Still, the same three contrasts we made between 1 Peter’s code and the Greco-Roman code apply here:

1. The code is not based on a desire to protect the social order or gain conformity to some ordained order of the world.
2. Nowhere is the paterfamilias told to rule his household.
3. Members of the household, like women and slaves, are treated as free moral agents who have the ability to choose how to behave within the household.

The call is to abandon the host culture’s obsession with status seeking and embrace other-centered missional love, so that “the word of God may not be discredited,” “any opponent will be put to shame, having nothing evil to say of us,” and “in everything they may be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Savior.” The household code is missional.

Series Index

Household: Household Code in 1 Peter (Part 3)

We move now to Chapter 3 and Peter’s instruction to wives and husbands, the more controversial portions of the passage.

1 Peter 3:1-7

1 Wives, in the same way, accept the authority of your husbands, so that, even if some of them do not obey the word, they may be won over without a word by their wives' conduct, 2 when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. 3 Do not adorn yourselves outwardly by braiding your hair, and by wearing gold ornaments or fine clothing; 4 rather, let your adornment be the inner self with the lasting beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in God's sight. 5 It was in this way long ago that the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by accepting the authority of their husbands. 6 Thus Sarah obeyed Abraham and called him lord. You have become her daughters as long as you do what is good and never let fears alarm you.

7 Husbands, in the same way, show consideration for your wives in your life together, paying honor to the woman as the weaker sex, since they too are also heirs of the gracious gift of life -- so that nothing may hinder your prayers. (NRSV)

The Jesus Movement was appealing to influential Greek women (Acts 17:4, 12). The comments about braiding hair, wearing gold, and wearing fine clothing suggest that these women were of fairly high status. It appears that some of the women in this faith community had come to faith without their husbands. Keep in mind the context. The conversion of household members to non-traditional religions that challenge Roman hierarchy and status systems was threatening to influential men in the Empire.

Paul instructs the women to “accept the authority” of their husbands. Why? Because of creation order? Because of a divinely ordained hierarchy? No. “…so that, even if some of them do not obey the word, they may be won over without a word by their wives' conduct, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.” The submission of wives is not conformity to a divinely prescribed order but rather missional response. Like the slaves, the women limit their freedom to give evidence of the new creation. They limit their freedom to win over their husbands. (vs. 1-2) They limit their freedom with regard to adornment so as not to draw undo attention to themselves. (vs 3-4) Paul instructs these women to exhibit other-centered care.

Peter’s following comments in verses 5-6 require some reflection. Peter alludes to Sarah who “obeyed Abraham and called him lord.” There is just one problem with this statement. Search the Old Testament and you will find one instance where Sarah called Abraham Lord. 

After I have grown old, and my husband (adonai) is old, shall I have pleasure? (Genesis 18:12)

This passage has nothing to do with obedience and there is nothing remarkable about her use of adonai. To what is Peter referring? It is hard to say with certainty. Two possibilities come to mind. One is that Peter is referencing Sarah’s faithful partnership with Abraham through thick and thin even when he behaved less than honorable himself. Peter infers a relationship between Abraham and Sarah and exhorts the women to follow it. Second, I think Dr. Peter Davids may have part of the answer. Davids points out that at the time Peter was writing there was a popular extracanonical Jewish work circulating called The Testament of Abraham. Davids notes that, “Here Sarah is depicted in terms of an ideal Hellenisitc wife, an illustration that serves Peter’s purpose.” (Discovering Biblical Equality, 234) By following Sarah’s inferred or fictional example of submission, women could win over their unbelieving husbands. This mission took precedence over the exercise of her personal freedom.

Before we move on too quickly past verse 6, note the imagery, “You have become her daughters…” By behaving appropriately, these women become fictive daughters, not of Abraham, but Sarah! As we have seen throughout this series, fictive family was not a widely used metaphor outside the church. The idea of matriarchal descent is highly peculiar. Yet Peter elevates the status of women and their missional contribution when he establishes a fictive female lineage from Sarah.

Verse 7 instructs husbands to show consideration and honor to their wives. Any instruction about husbands ruling over their wives (or slaves for that matter) is absent. The woman is described as the weaker sex (or vessel) and rightly so. She is at a serious disadvantage in the Greco-Roman cultural world and vulnerable to abuse. Peter writes that women “too are also heirs of the gracious gift of life.” Let us remember how so. Whether Romans 4:1-18, 8:12-30, Galatians 3:6-4:7, we learn that Jew, gentile, free, slave, man and woman have all been made fictive brothers in the new creation (and women have the status of brothers as well.) As brothers we have been made brothers of Christ and joint heirs with him. Peter is drawing on a fictive family metaphor to undermine any inclinations toward domination of wives through status. At the end of the verse he goes so far as to suggest that if a husband will not abide by this fictive family attitude toward his wife, God will not hear his prayer.

Peter closes out this passage with exhortation to persevere through suffering. Listen once again to his vision of drawing others to God by giving no offense to the culture and enduring suffering with grace.

1 Peter 3:13-16

13 Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? 14 But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, 15 but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; 16 yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.

Verses 18-22 focus largely on assuring the readers that God will see them through their trials but in the above passage we once again see a missional focus to Peter’s instruction: Be an other-centered priestly community. Do not needlessly give offense to the culture, even as you endure persecution, in the hope that you might be a transforming influence for God.

In the final two chapters of 1 Peter we see more exhortations toward holy living and the proper posture to take towards one another:

4:8 Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Be hospitable to one another without complaining.

5:3 [Elders] Do not lord it over those in your charge, but be examples to the flock. 4 And when the chief shepherd appears, you will win the crown of glory that never fades away. 5 In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders. And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." 6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.

At end Peter, reminds them once again that they are members of a larger family:

5:9 Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.

Peter’s household code departs in very significant ways from the traditional Greco-Roman culture:

1. The code is not based on a desire to protect the social order or gain conformity to some ordained order of the world.
2. Nowhere is the paterfamilias told to rule his household.
3. Members of the household, like women and slaves, are treated as free moral agents who have the ability to choose how to behave within the household.

Peter’s concern was not preservation of an unalterable divinely established order nor was it to establish egalitarian authority structures. The entire letter is about living an orderly life based on other-centered love instead of status and domination, even in the face of persecution. Living this way, as a missional community, they would draw others into their community.

And here is the ironic part. Peter was missionally concerned not to use freedom in a way that needlessly offended the host culture. Ironically, those today who insist on the subordination of women from this passage may be violating Peter’s teaching. Insisting that women be in subordination to men in a culture that does not practice subordination, may be giving offense to the host culture and preventing people from hearing the Good News.

Series Index

Household: Household Code in 1 Peter (Part 2)

The passage beginning at 1 Peter 2:18 and continuing through 3:7 is what many refer to as the household code. However, the household codes of the Greco-Roman world frequently included instruction about how to relate to civil authorities for the sake of social order. Verses 2:11-17 seem to parallel such instructions. Therefore, I include them as part of the household code. I also include 3:8-22 because Peter seems to intend this passage as an elaboration on what he has just written in 2:11-3:7. Yesterday we left off at 2:17. Now we pick up with Peter’s instruction concerning slaves.

1 Peter 2:18-25

18 Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. 19 For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. 20 If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God's approval. 21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.

22 "He committed no sin,
and no deceit was found in his mouth."

23 When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls. (NRSV)

The Greco-Roman philosophers’ household codes were not addressed to women and slaves. They were addressed to the paterfamilias. Whether by harsh means or gentle, he was the one responsible for ruling over his household and keeping order. The philosophers could not care less what women and slaves thought, partly because women and slaves had inferior minds and partly because it was the duty of women and slaves to do what they are told. Period!

Notice Peter does not address his instructions to a paterfamilias but to slaves and, later in verse 3:1, to women! Slaves and women were people with minds and volition to choose to hupotassomenoi, “accept the authority of” as the NRSV has it, of masters and husbands respectively. As we will see, this is characteristic of the Christian household codes and a marked departure from the Greco-Roman household codes.

The Greco-Roman household codes repeatedly had the preservation of the social order, and the status hierarchy it legitimized, as their base concern. Look at this passage and ask, what is the rationale Peter gives for “accepting the authority of masters?" It is to bring honor to, and identification with, Christ. Christ suffering was redemptive (vs 21-25). By not laying claim to the freedom they had in Christ as Children of God (v. 16) and submitting to the social arrangements of this alien world without being conformed to the status seeking obsessions of the culture, they could give witness of the new creation that is to come and identify with the suffering of Christ. There is no justification of slavery or commentary on its merits. It is a human institution that Christ through his body the church must incarnate. Submitting to masters was their missional call that would advance the mission of God.

Series Index

Household: Household Code in 1 Peter (Part 1)

We begin our review of the household codes with 1 Peter. There is debate about who wrote 1 Peter. Some scholars think the Greek is a little too good to be written by a Palestinian fisherman. However, the author writes in 5:12 “With the help of Silas, whom I regard as a faithful brother, I have written to you briefly, …” (NIV) It is possible that Silas was a scribe for Peter when he wrote this letter. Furthermore, the less elegant Greek used in 2 Peter could be explained by Peter writing the letter without assistance. I’m not aware of any facts mentioned in the letter, other than the mention of Rome as “Babylon” in 1 Peter 5:13, that would suggest that this letter was written after Peter’s death in the late 60s C.E. “Babylon” as a metaphor for Rome appears in other writings only after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C. E. However, the fact that it has not been found elsewhere seems to me to be weak evidence that it was not used earlier. Persecution under Nero certainly would have provoked images of a dominating evil empire. If you think Peter wrote the letter, then it was almost certainly written in the mid-60s during Nero’s persecution. If by someone else, then it was likely written in the 80s. I’m inclined to think that Peter wrote the two letters that bear his name but I’m not expert on such matters. I will refer to the author as Peter.

Where there is agreement is in regard to the purpose of the letter: It was written to exhort holy living in the midst of considerable tension with the Roman world. This is clear throughout the letter. The letter is one long series of exhortations beginning at 1:13 and extending through 5:13. Peter begins his exhortations with:

13 Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed. 14 Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. 15 Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; 16 for it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." (1 Peter 1:13-16, NRSV)

Peter was calling upon his readers to abandon previous beliefs and practices, and to take on the heart and mind of God.

Beginning in Chapter 2, Peter exhorts the readers to “Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.” (2:1) Then he launches into the metaphor rich passage I referenced last week about each person being “living stones” made into a holy temple where God lives. (2:1-10) But we need to pay attention to a concept Peter alludes to here:

…to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5)

…and…

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)

Peter draws upon the image of Israel as a priestly nation presented in Exodus 19:

“…5 Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, 6 but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites."

Priests mediate God to the people and offer sacrifices on behalf of the people. But if each Christian is a living stone in the temple and part of the priesthood offering up sacrifices, for whom are they intermediaries? They are mediating on behalf of the world, offering up sacrifices to God and proclaiming to the world the mighty acts of God who called them out of darkness into his marvelous light.

This sets the stage for the household code that Peter unfolds in 2:11-3:22. His opening words are critical in framing all that follows:

11 Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul. 12 Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge.

13 For the Lord's sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, 14 or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. 15 For it is God's will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish. 16 As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil. 17 Honor everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honor the emperor. (1 Peter 2:11-17)

Peter’s readers are citizens of another world that is yet to come. They are here on a mission. They are here to mediate God to the world. They are “free people” who chose to “accept the authority” of human institutions. No argument is given for conforming to a divinely prescribed order of things. Peter is writing about tactics to accomplish a mission. What would execution of this mission look like for the household? That is next.

Series Index

Household: Inverted Status Seeking and the End of Domination

Yesterday I wrote that the complementarian, higher critical, and egalitarian perspectives on the household codes do not quite get it right. It is my position that advocates of these views come to the text with a question: What is the power relationship between men and women in marriage? It is assumed that these codes were written to answer these questions. I do not think that was the case. Before we dive into the relevant passages in the Bible, we must ask why did the authors include these codes in their letters?

There are two terms frequently use as antonyms of each other in discussions about household relationships: Patriarchy and Egalitarianism. This is a false dichotomy. As Scott Bartchy has observed, “patriarchy” comes from the semantic world of kinship relations. “Egalitarian” comes from the semantic world of politics. Patriarchy deals with family relationships. It is possible to imagine patriarchal societies where power and domination are absent from societal relationships. However, in the Greco-Roman world, everything was about status and domination. It was not just about men dominating their wives, children, and slaves. It was also about dominating as many other men as possible. (I will not repeat all that I wrote earlier but you might want to review patronage and status.) While wealth is the marker of success in our day, status (measured by how many people you could dominate) was the measure of success in the Greco-Roman world. Thus, patriarchy was infused with this obsession for status and domination, but so were business, politics, and everything else.

The opposite of patriarchy, as Bartchy notes, is not egalitarian anarchy (or cooperation.) It is non-patriarchy, for which we are lacking an appropriate term. Furthermore, the antithesis of egalitarian is not patriarchy but rather monarchy, oligarchy, or despotism.

It is my position that the institution of patriarchy was not on the agenda of Jesus, Paul, or the other New Testament writers. They were neither advocating for patriarchy’s abolition nor making a defense for its perpetuation, any more than you make or I would make a case for the abolition of gravity or for its perpetuation. Patriarchy, like gravity, was a given. What Jesus and the New Testament authors were attacking was the obsession with status and domination. Their response to this obsession would have dramatic implications for patriarchy but their agenda was not patriarchy as an institution.

Jesus and the New Testament writers were very status conscious but they envisioned an inversion of status. Martin Luther King, Jr., once preached a sermon called “The Drum Major Instinct.” His text was Mark 10:35-45 where James and John asked to be seated on either side of Jesus (i.e., positions of power) when Jesus comes into glory. King points out something about Jesus’ response. Jesus does not rebuke them! He does not dissuade them from seeking high status. “You want to be out front leading the band? Go for it!” says Jesus. Here is how Jesus told them they could achieve their goal:

42 So Jesus called them and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,  44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Mark 10:42-45, NRSV)

The way to the top is by going to the bottom.

As we look at these household codes in context, they are actually quite missional. Keep in mind the state of the Roman Empire in the mid-first century. Pax Romona had been established but there was considerable unease among the ruling classes. The traditional Roman gods were losing adherents and Eastern religions like the Isis cult were popping up everywhere. Some of these religions had notions that leaned toward “unnatural” human equality and away from the status/patronage system so elemental to the Empire. Restrictions had to be placed on the frequency of slave manumission. Women were exercising more freedom. Movements and people that seemed to instigate these disturbing developments were viewed with great suspicion by traditionalists and the powerful.

It is in this context that the Jewish sect of Christianity appeared where people worshiped a shameful character from Palestine who had been crucified by the Empire. Yet these folks refused to worship any of the Roman gods. This sect consisted of men and women, free people and slaves, people of differing status, all worshiping together. Furthermore, these communities had people of different ethnic groups meeting together. It is hard to overstate how bizarre this was for many Romans. It just wasn’t natural. Christians were a threat to the Empire just by being who they were. Many in the Empire were deeply suspicious.

One can see the impact other-centered love would have had on dominating status arrangements. It would mean considerable freedom for those traditionally on the short end of the status stick. The natural inclination would be to live freely as one unconstrained by the dictates of the Greco-Roman world. But think how this would have been interpreted by Greco-Roman society in light of the realities I just described. It would discredit the Church as destructive of society and thwart the mission of giving witness to God’s work in the world. What we see in the household code passages is that freedom is not freedom for autonomy. Rather freedom is for us to be able to fully choose God’s mission of our own volition. If that mission means limiting personal freedom and power for the advancement of the mission of God, then so be it. Freedom is not self-limited for the sake of preserving society nor is it limited as a response to some notion of authority and submission in a divinely ordained hierarchy. It is a missional imperative.

I do not believe the New Testament household codes articulate a culturally transcendent ordering of the family and household. I do not think the household codes are a departure from earlier teaching by later authors. I also reject the idea that the objective of these codes was to equalize the decision-making authority between husbands and wives. Their objective was to exhibit the new creation ethos of the coming kingdom without creating needless obstacles to hearing the good news. These household codes gave instruction about appropriate relational attitudes among members of temporal households who were siblings in the Household of God, responding to God's mission in the world.

We will turn now to the New Testament household codes and look at them with this background.

Series Index

Household: New Testament Household Codes

The use of fictive family in the New Testament relates to five themes: identity, unity, mission, inheritance, and affection. If fully embraced by the community, these themes would have grounded  the community identity in God and unified them in mission as they demonstrated new creation values toward each other, anticipating the consummation of the new creation at Christ’s return. Earthly status, so paramount in the Greco-Roman world, would have receded into in background. Believers would all be siblings of each other in one household with God as the paterfamilias. Therefore, within the New Testament Church, we should see the abrupt end of patriarchy and slavery because these are no longer of consequence to the Christian life. Right? Wrong.

Several books of the New Testament contain what have been described as Christian household codes based on the Greco-Roman household codes (most notably Ephesians 5:18-6:9, Colossians 3:1-4:6, and 1 Peter 2:11-3:22.) What did the Greco-Roman household codes say? How do the Christian versions differ? I wrote a post about the Greco-Roman versions earlier in this series and I will repeat a portion of it here:

The ancient Greeks saw the household as the primary institution through which order was kept in society. To promote effective household management Greek sages would offer their advice to the paterfamilias on household management. These discourses came to be known as the “household codes” or “household tables” (and sometimes the German haustafel.) Aristotle’s household instructions (fourth century B.C.E.) in Book I of Politics are among the most commonly referenced of the household codes. Included in the codes are usually instructions about how the paterfamilias should manage his wife, his children, and his slaves. There is often wisdom given about how to manage wealth. Most codes articulate the importance of the paterfamilias dutifully fulfilling his role for the good of society. Some sages advocated an authoritarian approach and others a more benevolent demeanor but whatever their take was on style, they were unified in their conviction that the paterfamilias was obligated to rule his household for the good of society. As noted on an earlier post, the Stoic philosopher Arius Didymus drew up a summary of Aristotle’s household ethics for Augustus Caesar in the years just prior to Christ. He argued that “a man has the rule of this household by nature, for the deliberative faculty in a woman is inferior, in children it does not yet exist, and in the case of slaves, it was completely absent.” Arius Didymus spoke for considerable numbers of influential men in the Greco-Roman Empire of the first century C.E.

Scholars that study this era note that the household codes also found their way into the teaching of the Jewish Rabbis in the centuries prior to Christ. While Arius Didymous may have seen women as innately inferior to men, some rabbis began to find biblical warrant for this assessment. They viewed Eve as the prototype woman who was easily deceived or she was a seductress luring men to their doom. Concerning the noted second century B.C.E Jewish teacher Yeshua Ben Sira, John Collins writes:

Ben Sira has often been accused of misogyny in recent years, and the charge is difficult to refute. His more egregious statements include his reading of Genesis 2-3 (Sir. 25:24: “From woman sin had its beginning, and because of her we all die”) and the conclusion of his discourse on daughters (42:14: “Better the wickedness of a man than the goodness of a woman,” author’s translation). His gross generalization about the headstrong daughter in 26:12 – “she will sit in front of every tent peg and open her quiver to every arrow” – verges on pornography. In the earlier wisdom literature we find occasional negative remarks about women, but they are mild in comparison. Moreover, Ben Sira sometimes modifies traditional sayings to give them a negative application to women. Ben Sira is also decidedly more negative in his attitude toward women than are the wisdom texts from Qumran. The most extensive sectarian wisdom text, 4QSapiential Work A, shares Sirach’s emphasis on the authority of the husband over the wife but refrains from derogatory comments on women in general. The Qumran sage was mainly concerned that a man entering marriage “take care lest you be distracted from the mystery that is to come.”

It has been suggested that the negative representations of the female, and specifically the “misogynist expansions of the Eden story” that associate Eve with sin, death, and suffering, resulted from “the superimposition of Greco-Roman thought and cultural forms on the biblical world.” There is no precedent in Hebrew tradition for the view that woman is the source of all evil, but there is a clear Greek precedent in the story of Pandora’s box (Hesiod, Works and Days 42-105). A tradition of Greek philosophy beginning with Aristotle insisted on the subordination of women in the codes of household behavior. … (Marriage, Divorce, and Family in Second Temple Judaism in Families in Ancient Israel, 143-144)

Collins goes on to observe that this turn toward negative views of women cannot exclusively be attributed to Greek influences and notes that there were Greek works that were more affirming of women. Furthermore, there were differences among the leading rabbis. Nevertheless, other scholars I have read, including people like Kenneth Bailey, see a significant devaluation of women and an intrusion of Greek thought into rabbinic teaching during the Second Temple era.

So on one hand we have fictive family suggesting that such temporal arrangements are no longer consequential and yet we have multiple instances of New Testament writers seemingly instructing folks to live according to these temporal arrangements. What are we to make of this? Three responses have been typical.

Some conservative scholars find a transcendent order taught in these household codes. They see prescribed “roles” for each of the household members, especially husband and wife. While we can get some theological insight from the use of fictive family metaphors about various theological realities these should not be confused with the “plain teaching” about “roles” in these household codes. Most notably, husbands are in authority and rule over their wives, and wives submit and obey their husbands (Granted, most teach that the authority is of a servant leadership variety but it is most definitely a hierarchical status arrangement. Husbands are to be in authority over their wives and wives are to be in submission to husbands.) These folks frequently are called complementarians because they believe these divinely prescribed hierarchical “roles” complement each other in God’s order of the universe.

Then there are scholars who embrace higher criticism. They believe the letters that contain these household codes are pseudo-graphical letters written in the late first century as the Church was “wandering” from Jesus’ and Paul’s earlier and more radical teaching about family relationships. In fact, the presence of the codes in these letters appears to be taken as the clearest evidence that these books came later. They could not have been authored by Paul or Peter earlier in the life of the Church. In short, they see these as cultural accommodations to Greco-Roman life. Some folks in this group call themselves egalitarians but they arrive at their views by weighing different teachings against each other and choosing those which they believe are more authentic to Jesus.

Then there are those folks who call themselves egalitarian who do not share the conclusion higher critics do about the discord between the various letters. Rather they believe that when we carefully examine relevant passages in context without bringing our preconceived ideas about what was behind these texts, what we actually find is that the New Testament writers were teaching egalitarianism. Thus, the complementarians wrongly perceive a divinely prescribed patriarchy where there is none, while critical scholars needlessly pit various portions of the Bible against each other.

My conclusion is that none of these is entirely right. We need to back up. We need to lay down our agenda of determining power relationships between husbands and wives, or men and women. Then we need to load the idea of fictive family into our minds (among other metaphors), reflect on the missional objectives and contexts of the people to whom these letters were written, ask ourselves what agenda the authors had in mind, and then let their agenda teach us.

Series Index

Household: Reviewing the Big Picture (Part 2)

Jesus and the New Testament leaders needed ways to express metaphorically the ethos of God’s new community. Family and household became dominant metaphors. There were instances of the household image in the Old Testament but nothing like the rich imagery we see in the New Testament.

Yet the Jesus movement was not the only one employing household metaphors in the early first century. Caesar had transformed the Republic into an Empire late in the first century B.C.E., with him as the supreme ruler. Romans had long been proud of governance without a king. Attempting to avoid the king image, Caesar cast himself as the father of the fatherland; the paterfamilias of the Household of Rome. The imagery was intended to keep the hierarchical status and patronage traditions intact but to locate the top of the patronage pyramid in beneficent Caesar. Caesar used the idea of household to solidify his power over society and to direct all allegiance ultimately toward him.

The Essenes, as evidenced by the Qumran community, also employed the fictive family metaphor. They frequently used sibling terminology and pictured God as their intimate father. However, the use of the metaphor solidified internal commitments and excluded outsiders. It was a barrier against a hostile world beyond the boundaries of the community.

Jesus came as the Son of God the Father. This was a direct challenge to the idea of Caesar as the son of God but it also communicated much about who Jesus was. He carried the full authority of his father and was a living image of the character of his father, just as a Roman or Near Eastern son would have been for his earthly father.

So what themes can we identify from the fictive family and household metaphors in the New Testament? Here are a few I have identified. Maybe you see others.

Identity – The family was the source of identity for the Greco-Roman and the Near East worlds. Honor was due one’s parents and ancestors. Protecting the family honor was paramount. By extension, this allegiance went out to tribe and race. The way a son most honored his father was to sire sons to perpetuate the family. A woman’s worth was tied up with the sons she bore for her husband.

Jesus demanded we make stark choices between earthly family and the fictive family of the new creation. It was not a call to abandon earthly families but rather to place family in its proper context with regard to the new creation that God was ushering in. Jesus demanded that we find our identity in God. Similarly, Paul gives instructions in 1 Corinthians 7 that suggest that singleness may actually be a preferred option for some in service of God’s work. Just as family members of an earthly household would find their identity in the paterfamilias, we are instructed to give our allegiance to God as our paterfamilias, and not be preoccupied with perpetuating earthly family identity.

Unity – Siblings were the most intimate of human relationships within Greco-Roman and Near Eastern society. They were the one place were patronage and status competition were supposed to be absent. Siblings were equal in status and bound by love for each other. It is significant that the first murder in the Bible is between two brothers (Cain and Able) and the myth of Rome’s founding involves a struggle between two brothers (Romulus and Remus). Brothers at odds was disturbing imagery.

Jesus’ parable of the Compassionate Father in Luke 15, which became known by the Church as “the gospel within the gospel,” features a father reconciling a law-breaking son and a law-keeping son to himself through acts of costly grace. But the story is also about an attempt by the father to reconcile the two brothers to each other and to unite a household. As we saw in Romans 4 and in Galatians 3, Paul casts Jew and Gentile as children of Abraham, uniting them as siblings of one family. In Galatians 3:25-4:7, Paul declares that “Jew or Greek …. slave or free …. male and female” are no longer relevant categories for determining our identity and status, as we’ve all been made children of God. Writing to the fractious church at Corinth, Paul employs the “concord” genre to bring unity. The Roman concord discourse implored people to honor the social order and the respective strata within it for the sake of the Republic or Empire. Yet Paul writes:

Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. (1 Cor. 1:10)

The unity is based on the affection of siblings harmoniously working together, having the same heart and mind as they engage in the business of the paterfamilias. It is not a submission to hierarchies and status structures for the good of society. Paul also writes in Ephesians 2 of the demolition of the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile, the two being united in the “household of God.”

Fictive family is a key basis for unity and it metaphorically teaches the type of respect, care, and love that disciples are to have for one another: brotherly and sisterly love.

Mission – One of the issues we visited early in this series is that the archetypal households referred to in Greco-Roman oratories were also businesses, usually large plantations. The children and members of the household were united in a common mission, the economic enterprise of the household. We do not see this concept explicitly articulated in connection with the household metaphors very often but it is never far from the surface. Explicit connection is not needed. Sons and daughters are in the business of the paterfamilias and go about the household business imitating the very heart and mind of the paterfamilias. While there certainly is companionship and caring, the household is a missional entity. Koinonia is what emerges as brothers and sisters work alongside each other in mission.

Inheritance – As children of God, and as brothers and sisters of Christ (Romans 8), we are heirs of the new creation that is to come. We have a share of ownership, an investment, in the coming new order. We are brothers and sisters but we are siblings in a royal and priestly household. We exercise royal and priestly duties (1 Peter 2:9), along with our elder brother Christ, in interceding for the world and one day we will be re-established as co-regents over creation under God in the new creation. Just as a son would expect to gain an inheritance within a household, so are we as sons and daughters guaranteed an inheritance in the new creation.

Affection – Paul and New Testament writers frequently used fictive family to express affection and fondness for fellow workers. Fictive family was also used to convey the affection and nearness of God. The Compassionate Father of Jesus’ Luke 15 parable certainly communicated this. Jesus repeatedly casts the Father as one who is intimately involved in our lives. Paul twice tells us (Rom. 8:15, Gal. 4:6) that God is one who we can cry out to saying “Abba! Father!” Hebrews 12 tells us that God cares so much for us that, like a father, he disciplines us so we may come to maturity. And, of course, the central character of the New Testament is a God who is a father who sacrifices his son to restore relationship with us. (John 3:16, among many other passages.)

What I want to do next is look at the household codes found in multiple New Testament books. We have seen how the New Testament employed fictive family and household. What I want to do now is explore how this concept of fictive family and household connects with instructions given on actual family and household life in New Testament contexts.

Series Index

Household: Reviewing the Big Picture (Part 1)

We have now taken a whirlwind tour of fictive family and fictive household metaphors found in the Bible. This wide-ranging discussion can get us lost in the proverbial trees to the point we lose sight of the forest. So before we go any further, let us step back with a wide-angle lens and recapture the role the family metaphor plays in God’s mission for the world.

Genesis' creation narratives tell of a world created by God. Humanity is God’s crowning achievement. Upon completion of creation there is perfect shalom between the triune God, humanity, and creation. Humankind rebels. Shalom is deeply marred. Human beings are separated from God and from each other. They find themselves in a life and death struggle with nature. Human beings are alienated from themselves.

The early chapters of Genesis present us with a picture of humanity where power and domination have become the modus operandi. Through religion, myth, custom, and political power, humanity forms cultures that create their own versions of the “eternal present” (ala Brueggemann) where “what is” is cast as that which always has been and always will be. Competing cultures battle it out on the pages of human history to make their eternal present prevail and to keep back the chaos that threatens to destroy their systems of meaning and survival.

God’s mission in the world is to reunite humanity and all creation in him. His strategy is atonement, or as some would have it, “at-one-ment;” nothing less than the restoration of shalom. The strategy begins when God sets apart a people for himself, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Through this people, God will redeem the world. Christopher Wright captures this simply but powerfully in a diagram.

(Source: Christopher Wright, “Mission of God,” IVP. 2006. 395.)

The small triangle represents Israel and the Promised land. I it is within the broader context of all humanity and of all the earth. The mission of God is to expand the smaller triangle until “Israel” expands to encompass “humanity” and “the land” becomes equivalent to the “the earth.”

Israel was to be a beacon to the Gentiles, drawing them to God, thus expanding the triangle. But Israel rebelled and turned inward, even to the point that by Jesus’ day, the Jews had come to understand God’s mission to include destruction of the Gentiles. At this point in history, God took center stage in the person of Jesus Christ who through his birth, life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension expanded the called community to include Jew and Gentile alike. They were then sent into the world to give witness of the at-one-ment that has been achieved in Christ, imaging (ever so imperfectly) the coming shalom of God and inviting others into community.

The challenge for Jesus and the New Testament writers was to craft images and metaphors that would enable us to capture the essence of our relationship with God and to each other. These metaphors had to capture the eschatological relational realities that will exist in the coming age of shalom while also giving guidance to our existence in this time before the fullness of the new creation is realized. What I have labored to demonstrate is that the household and family metaphors were firmly established by Christ and became the metaphors of choice for New Testament writers (but far from the only choice), especially Paul. So let us summarize again what meaning these metaphors conveyed.

Series Index

Household: Fictive Family in 1 Peter

We saw reference to the church as God’s living temple in Ephesians 2:21. The first ten verses of 1 Peter elaborate a little more on this imagery.

1 Peter 2:1-10

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation -- 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

4 Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and 5 like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in scripture:

"See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame."

7 To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,

"The stone that the builders rejected
has become the very head of the corner,"

8 and

"A stone that makes them stumble,
and a rock that makes them fall."

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

10 Once you were not a people,
but now you are God's people;
once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy.  (NRSV)

In one sense, this passage is not directly about fictive family or the social institution of the household. Yet there is the idea of individual members of the household of God connected together as “living stones” forming a spiritual house. Central to this imagery is the idea of the people as priests making sacrifices and intercession for the world as members of God’s house. As we will see in coming posts, 1 Peter uses this passage as preface to his presentation of the household codes.

Series Index

Household: Fictive Family in Ephesians

The precise phrase “household of God” is used only once in the New Testament, in Ephesians 2:19 (oikeioi tou Theou). In 1 Timothy 3:15, we find oikoo Theou  rendered “household of God” in some translations but more accurately it is “house of God.” Paul also writes “household of faith” (oikeious tees pisteoos) in Galatians 6:10. Did Paul write these words? Some scholars believe one of Paul’s students wrote Ephesians late in the first century. I will have more to say about authorship in a couple of posts, but suffice to say that I’m not thoroughly persuaded. I suspect Paul was the author.

The key passage from Ephesians for our discussion (apart from the household code portion, which we will turn to shortly) is Ephesians 2:11-22:

11 So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called "the uncircumcision" by those who are called "the circumcision" -- a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands -- 12 remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 15 He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, 16 and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. 17 So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; 18 for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, 20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21 In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; 22 in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. NRSV

As with the undisputed letters of Paul, we once again see the fictive family metaphor used to signify the unification of Jews and Gentiles into one community. There are multiple metaphors at work and they are all woven together to make their point. Verse 14 says Christ had "broken down the dividing wall,” an allusion to the wall which separated the Gentiles from the Jews in the temple, God’s House. Verses 15 and 16 tell of the creation of a “new humanity.” Verse 19 speaks of Gentiles becoming citizens of the commonwealth of Israel and of becoming members of the “household of God." But then the description takes a different twist. The idea of a living building emerges with Jesus as the cornerstone. The foundation is made up of the apostles and prophets. The stones are the new people being added to the community, “joined” together in Christ. This “living building” is the structure where God lives.

So not only is the Church a fictive family but it is also a living temple where God dwells, with each member as one of the stones. The church is both the household of God and the house of God. This not the only place we see this imagery presented. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians:

1 Cor 3:16-17

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.

1 Cor 6:19

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?

Also, in 2 Corinthians 6:16

What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God …

So we see evidence of this thinking clearly exhibited in Paul’s writing. But it is not Paul who gives the most elaborate articulation of this idea. For that we must turn to 1 Peter.

Series Index

Household: Fictive Family in Hebrews

The author of Hebrews is not known. We know the book was in existence before about 95 C.E. because that was the approximate year 1 Clement was written and it makes use of Hebrews a number of times. It was likely written after 60 C.E., but it is not entirely clear who the target audience was.

The last half of Chapter 2 lays out a rich theology using family metaphors. God is presented as father of us all. We are described as siblings of each other and of Christ. But take note of first six verses in Chapter 3 and see how the author expands and transforms the idea of household to make a theological point.

Heb 2:10-3:6

10 It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11 For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, 12 saying,

"I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters,
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you."

13 And again,

"I will put my trust in him."

And again,

"Here am I and the children whom God has given me."

14 Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. 16 For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. 17 Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.

3:1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, holy partners in a heavenly calling, consider that Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, 2 was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses also "was faithful in all God's house." 3 Yet Jesus is worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. 4(For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) 5 Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that would be spoken later. 6 Christ, however, was faithful over God's house as a son, and we are his house if we hold firm the confidence and the pride that belong to hope. NRSV

Earlier in this series, I wrote about the vilicus in the household system:

This rural villa is what Jesus had in mind in passages where he talked of a master who leaves a servant in charge prior to leaving on journey with a plan to return at some distant date. Many of the villa owners did not live at the rural villas, or they did so for only a portion of the year. They spent most of their days living in the cities where they went about their business. They would leave a man called a vilicus in charge (who could be a free man or a trusted slave.)

Moses was the vilicus for the Household of God but now the son of the paterfamilias has arrived. Since a son has the heart and mind of his father, the vilicus’ supervisory services are no longer central. If we conform ourselves to the image of the paterfamilias’ son in his faithfulness to the father, then we are truly part of the household. We are members of the household, not as slaves, but as siblings of Christ who became one of us and can identify fully with our humanity.

Hebrews goes on to say:

Heb 12:3-13

3 Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children --

"My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
or lose heart when you are punished by him;
6 for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves,
and chastises every child whom he accepts."

7 Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline? 8 If you do not have that discipline in which all children share, then you are illegitimate and not his children. 9 Moreover, we had human parents to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not be even more willing to be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness. 11 Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

Here the author casts the experience of hardship and trial as fatherly love instead of abandonment. Once again, the Father is not an emotionally distant being but someone who loves us so much he disciplines us, shaping us into the mature people he intends for us to be.

Next, we turn to Ephesians 2:11-22.

Series Index

Household: Fictive Family in 1 John

Tradition suggests the Apostle John was the author of 1 John. There is considerable similarity in the language and thought patterns used in the Gospel of John and 1 John. There is now considerable doubt about authorship, although many scholars think it likely the same author wrote both works during a time of great trial and persecution, sometime around 100 C.E.

The author frequently refers to his audience endearingly as his “children” and uses the idea “brother” (adelphos = interpreted “brother and sister” in the NRSV) to emphasize the type of caring and love that should be extended to others in the worshiping community. In the Gospel of John we find:

Jesus said to them, "The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light." (John 12:35-36) NRSV

In 1 John 2:9-11 we read:

9 Whoever says, "I am in the light," while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. 10 Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness. NRSV

This idea of “children of light” is a concept common to both works.

The author of 1 John is particularly playing on the Greco-Roman image that children are extensions of their father’s character. Children are of the same essence of their father and children will exhibit a character that is indicative of their origins. Look at how this imagery is used in the following passage to draw the distinction between “children of the light,” those “born of God,” and children of the devil. Then notice how sibling language is used to signify appropriate relationships toward other believers.

1 John 2:29-3:17

2:29 If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who does right has been born of him.

3:1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 3 And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

4 Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8 Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. 9 Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God's seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God. 10 The children of God and the children of the devil are revealed in this way: all who do not do what is right are not from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters. 

11 For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 We must not be like Cain who was from the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. 13 Do not be astonished, brothers and sisters, that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them. 16 We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us -- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17 How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? NRSV

God has taken us from the family of the devil and made children of God. What is the primary evidence that this has happened? We lovingly treat each other as “brothers,” laying down our lives for each other. The author reiterates this understanding in the next chapter.

1 John 4:20-5:3

20 Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21 The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. NRSV

Again, at the end of the book.

1 John 5:18-21

18 We know that those who are born of God do not sin, but the one who was born of God protects them, and the evil one does not touch them. 19 We know that we are God's children, and that the whole world lies under the power of the evil one. 20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

While we see this idea of children exhibiting the character of their father in other New Testament works, 1 John employees it as a central theme in helping the Church preserve their identity and faithfulness in a time of great trial.

Series Index

Household: The Other New Testament Writers and Fictive Family

So far, we have been looking at the fictive family metaphor in letters where Paul’s authorship is not disputed. (Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon.) Most fictive family metaphors in the books traditionally ascribed to Paul but likely not written by him (Ephesians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus), make little use of fictive family (with a notable exception in Ephesians, to which we will return.) When they talk about family and household, they tend to be referring to actual family relationships and households. Most fictive mentions are in salutations and as terms of affection for specific individuals.

James seems to have had a particular fondness for sibling language. Several times (15) he uses word like “brothers” or “dear brothers” to precede a rather stern command about righteous behavior. The author of 1 Peter writes:

Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. (1 Peter 5:9) NRSV

He makes explicit the concept of the all believers everywhere being sibling of each other. But neither author makes any particularly new contributions or develops a theological case from fictive family and household metaphors.

However, there are four books that do make use of the metaphors in more extended ways, adding some important twists of their own: 1 John, Hebrews, Ephesians, and 1 Peter.

I think it is important at this point to say something about authorship of several New Testament books. For the first two centuries of the church’s existence, authorship of the various books was not a central question. The critical issue was how widespread and widely attested the authority of a particular book was in the life of the early church community. The church did not so much give books their authority, but rather surrendered to the authority of the books, evidenced by their impact across the entire church community. Authorship questions did not really come into play until the third century after most of the canon was becoming solidified.

We know from the ancient world that students of a particular teacher or philosopher would sometimes write works as if the student were the teacher himself, placing a written work within a teachers’ historical context and attributing it to the teacher himself. This gave the letter greater authority and was a way for students to expand upon what a teacher had taught for emerging contexts. This seems deceptive and dishonest to us but that is simply us reading our cultural back into the Ancient Near East and Greco-Roman worlds. The main point is that the books are no less authoritative simply because we are uncertain of authorship. Authority exhibited by a particular book within the life of the community was the essential issue, not authorship. What does create a challenge in some cases is discerning what specific issues some books were addressing because we cannot be certain about the context or occasion for writing a book.

We turn next to 1 John.

Series Index

Household: Paul's Use of Family in Romans

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians contains more fictive family metaphors per word than any of his other letters. Paul was using the metaphor to unite a very diverse community of people who had become conflicted about many issues. Paul tended to emphasize the sibling metaphors to symbolize how they should all relate to each other.

Paul’s letter to the Romans is the runner up for fictive family references. Here again we have a divided church but the circumstances are a little different. Paul employs the family metaphor with a little different emphasis. Understanding the historical context explains why. Joseph Hellerman presents the following chronology for the Roman church in his book The Ancient Church as Family.

Early 30s-49 C.E.

The Jesus movement begins in Rome as a Judean movement attached to the synagogues.

49 C.E.

Edict of Claudius drives all Judeans (including Judean followers of Jesus) out of Rome, due to increasing discord that erupts between Judeans who understand Jesus to be their Messiah and the majority, who do not.

49-54 C.E.

The Jesus movement in Rome is exclusively in the hands of Gentiles, who now meet in homes instead of synagogues. The complexion and social structure of the church change accordingly.

54 C.E.

Claudius dies, and the Judeans and Judean Christians are free to return to Rome. The long-absent Judean Christians, now in the distinct minority, must relate to a church whose theology and social structure have changed substantially. Conflict inevitably erupts, and the Christians at Rome are fragmented into as many as eight house churches.

Mid to Late 50s C.E.

Paul writes Romans to address specific problems arising among the Roman Christians as a result of the above events. (116)

It appears that many of the Jewish Christians were disturbed by the substantial departure that had been made by Gentiles from Jewish custom. At the same time, it appears that many Gentiles were interpreting the rejection of Jesus as the messiah by large numbers of Jews as God’s abandonment of his covenant with the Jews. Paul addresses this division by emphasizing the idea of Jews and Gentiles having a common father. As we saw in Romans 4:1-18, Abraham is presented as the fictive father of Jew and Gentile. In Romans 8:12-30, God is presented as the common father of us all with Jew and Gentile participating in an eschatological inheritance. The fictive father image becomes a little more prominent.

Paul uses fictive strategies in 1 Thessalonians and Galatians. The metaphor seems to work on many levels. It speaks of the nature of our relationship to God. Because it makes siblings out of us, it minimizes power and status hierarchies, while creating obligations of service to each other and to our common father. It establishes a human structure in the form of a surrogate family that demands our highest allegiance. It makes us heirs with Christ in the New Creation that is to come. Thus, the fictive family has both the power to call us positively to a new form of existence as well as the power to negatively stand in critique of a sinful world order. It is also by far Paul’s most frequently employed metaphor for giving direction and correction to the church.

Series Index

Household: Paul's Use of Family in 1 Corinthians (Part 2)

The 1 Corinthians epistle is modeled on the Greco-Roman concord discourse. It was a form of oration and writing that implored divided factions to respect the natural hierarchal order of things. Only by submitting to the natural order of class and status could harmony be achieved.

Paul appeals to the Corinthians for order but his basis for doing is subversive.

Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. (1 Cor 1:10)

The basis of Paul’s appeal is their familial relationship as brothers and sisters, and is in opposition to the idea of keeping a hierarchy of class and status. Just as a Roman orator might implore his audience to be in harmony for the sake of Caesar, so does Paul appeal to their loyalty to Christ as a unifying commitment. Keep in mind who Christ is in Roman eyes: A crucified criminal. He is the one who “emptied himself of power.” (1:17) Instead of the all-powerful Caesar as the central figure, Paul inserts the lowly despised crucified criminal.

Paul goes on to make this reversal explicit:

18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. … 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Cor 1:18, 21-22)

Then, as Hellerman points out, Paul identifies his readers as examples of “God’s alternative cosmos.” (98):

26 Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God. 30 He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 in order that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord." (1 Cor 1:26-31)

The practical implications of living as brothers and sisters are spelled out later in the epistle. Possibly the most telling example is Paul’s instruction on marriage in Chapter 7. Hellerman reminds us that the Greeks and Romans were deeply concerned about the past and future of their kinship groups. (101) You honored your elders and ancestors, and you created new generations for the future. Paul writes:

3 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. (1 Cor 7:3-4)

This idea of reciprocal authority in the marriage relationship regarding sex is a remarkable departure from male domination into treating each other as people with equal status. Then Paul goes on to give this advice to widows:

8 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. 9 But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion. (1 Cor 7:8-9) 

He acts as though unmarried widows have the right of self-determination apart from input by their male kin over what is best for the kinship group! This same self-determination is assumed with regard to believers married to unbelievers (male and female.) Then later in the chapter, he actually extols the single life, which means no continuation of a biological line!

The various social roles are still in evidence in the Christian community but the allegiance to the Greco-Roman kinship model is severed. Preserving family honor and continuing the family linage takes a subordinate position to discerning where God is leading and following as siblings in Christ. The old roles are entered into with a new orientation of being siblings in Christ with God as the paterfamilias of the household. Paul uses this epistle to demonstrate that the basis of concord within the Christian community is fictive family and to undermine allegiances to a world order of status and domination that is passing away.

Series Index

Household: Paul's Use of Family in 1 Corinthians (Part 1)

We have seen that Paul used the family metaphor liberally throughout his writings, with at least a few instances in every book attributed to him. The fictive family is Paul’s primary metaphor for instilling unity among believers and uniting them in common mission. However, Paul’s use of the metaphor is uneven and varies some from book to book. Paul’s use of the metaphor seems to be most frequent in his letters to the Corinthians, then Romans, and then 1 Thessalonians. There are forty instances of fictive sibling references in 1 Corinthians alone, about one quarter of the instances in which Paul used the metaphor. Joseph Hellerman points out that there seems to be a direct correlation between the frequency at which Paul uses family metaphors and the degree of division among those to whom he is writing. Let us take a closer look at two of Paul’s letters and see his rhetorical strategy: 1 Corinthians and Romans.

Corinth

Corinth is situated about 48 miles west of Athens on the Isthmus of Corinth. The ancient city played a vital commercial and military role in the ancient Greece. Ships could be rolled on sledges across the isthmus, considerably reducing travel time of those navigating their way around Greece by bypassing the land mass of Peloponnese. The Romans destroyed the city in 146 B.C.E only to rebuild the city as a colony of freedmen in 44 B.C.E. The population was a hodge-podge of people from across the Empire representing many ethnic groups and cultures. Many who lived there were no doubt engaged in the ship transport business and related services. As a port city where seamen disembarked, Corinth had a reputation for loose morals and hard living with no unifying cultural heritage to give moral direction.

The Church at Corinth

We know from clues in Paul’s letters that the church at Corinth was to some degree representative of the city. There were some very wealthy high status people in the worshiping community as well as many lower class types. Idolatry and goddess worship were prevalent in the city and some appear to have been caught up in this. Believers including one man who apparently was having sexual relations with his stepmother were practicing various types of sexual immorality. The wealthy were turning the common meal into a gluttonous affair leaving little food for the poor among them. The evidence suggests that in the midst of this there was a minority of Jewish Christians as well.

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians appears to be in response to a letter sent to him by the Corinthians with many questions concerning how to deal with conflicts and divisions that had emerged. Paul writes 1 Corinthians in response but it is clear Paul has something more in mind. He opens the letter with:

1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, 2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Cor 1:1-3)

While addressing specific issues in Corinth Paul clearly intends this to be a general epistle to the church at large.

Paul's Subversive “Concord” Strategy

Joseph Hellerman points to the work of scholar Margaret Mitchell who has identified a Greco-Roman oratorical and epistolary genre called the “concord speech”:

The concord speech was designed to challenge a divided people, typically the polis, to set aside their differences and become united once again. Rhetoricians delivered concord speeches to cities and their leaders at times of crises. Historians also utilized the genre in their narratives. Others, like Paul, sought to diffuse factional behavior through epistolary appeal. Laurence Wellborn summarizes: “Their authors, generally philosophers or rhetoricians, seek to calm the outbreak of faction, within cities or between cities, by dissuading from strife (stasis) and exhorting to concord (homonoia).” (96)

Passages like 1 Cor 1:10, “Now I appeal to you, … that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose,” and 1 Corinthians 12:24-25 concerning “no dissension within the body,” use vocabulary consistent with concord discourses. But there is a shocking departure in how Paul uses the concord appeal. Here is an excerpt from the Pseudo-Aristotelian work called On the Cosmos.

It is as if men should wonder how a city survives, composed as it is of the most opposite classes (I mean rich and poor, young and old, weak and strong, bad and good). They do not recognize that the most wonderful thing of all about the harmonious working (homonoias) of city-community is this: that out of plurality and diversity it achieves a homogeneous unity capable of admitting every variation and degree. (On the Cosmos, 5.396b)

The important thing to note here, as scholar Del Martin points out, is that this reasoning is not opposing hierarchy. On the contrary. The opposites are necessary for the polis to exist and what creates harmony is when people recognize the value of hierarchy that holds all these statuses in place. The concord speech “… preserved the ‘natural’ relation of strength to weakness.”(97) Democracy was perceived as excessive freedom of the masses and enslavement of the upper class by lower classes, surely leading to chaos. While the concord speeches also warned against tyranny by those with power, it was firmly an affirmation of hierarchy and status.

What does Paul do in 1 Corinthians that is so subversive? More on that in the next post but if you are interested, read the first chapter of 1 Corinthians and see if you detect a divergence from the values of the Greco-Roman concord speech.

Series Index

Household: Paul as Father?

Paul followed in Jesus footsteps in his use of fictive family to convey theological truths but Paul also used fictive family metaphors to indicate his own sense of fond relationship for those he had nurtured in the faith:

1 Thessalonians 2:5-12

5 As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed; 6 nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others, 7 though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. 8 So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.

9 You remember our labor and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. 10 You are witnesses, and God also, how pure, upright, and blameless our conduct was toward you believers. 11 As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, 12 urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

The author of 1 John is another author who uses the family metaphor in this way. He repeatedly refers to his readers as “children” or “dear children.”

Then there are these two examples where Paul casts himself as a father or mother, caring for troubled churches:

1 Corinthians 4:14-21

I am not writing this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. 15 For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. 16 I appeal to you, then, be imitators of me. 17 For this reason I sent you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ Jesus, as I teach them everywhere in every church. 18 But some of you, thinking that I am not coming to you, have become arrogant. 19 But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. 20 For the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power. 21 What would you prefer? Am I to come to you with a stick, or with love in a spirit of gentleness? (Note: "Stick" in verse 21 could also be "rod," and would symbolize an instrument that a father would use to discipline a child.)

Galatians 4:19-20

19 My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, 20 I wish I were present with you now and could change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

But Paul also used a father to child metaphor to signify his fondness for particular individuals. In appealing to Philemon concerning Onesimus, Paul writes:

Philemon 8-11

8For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, 9 yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love -- and I, Paul, do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. 10 I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. 11 Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me.

With regard to Timothy, Paul writes:

Philippians 2:22

But Timothy's worth you know, how like a son with a father he has served with me in the work of the gospel.

In the two letters to Timothy, letters where Paul’s authorship is considered less likely, we see Timothy referred to as a son as well (1 Timothy 1:2, 1:18, 2 Timothy 1:2, 2:1). Titus is also referred to “my true son in our common faith."

At first, this might seem an interesting side note to Paul’s use of the fictive family metaphor. However, church leader as father, based particularly the 1 Corinthians 4 passage, began to take on a life of its own. There is no evidence of a single leader authority structure in the New Testament churches, much less one who could be called “father.” But as Joseph Hellerman points out in The Ancient Church as Family, the idea of an earthly human “father,” as paterfamilias of the congregation, began to appear in the early second century in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch. (144) This in spite of Jesus teaching in Matthew 23:8-12

Matt 23:8-12

8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students.  9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father -- the one in heaven.  10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah.  11 The greatest among you will be your servant.  12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

Caesar had used the household metaphor casting himself as the paterfamilias of the Empire. Jesus, Paul, and other New Testament writers envisioned a Church where all were brothers and sisters and God was the paterfamilias of the household, making all members siblings and equal to each other in status. Early church fathers, struggling to maintain order in congregations, innovated into a single leader model where they cast a singular leader of the congregation as the paterfamilias of the household. While Paul certainly used the “father and child” image to typify quality of his emotional relationship with churches and individuals, it seems highly doubtful that Paul envisioned the innovation that the early church fathers made of instituting a father authority figure. It thoroughly undercuts the specific teaching of Jesus in Matthew 23, and undercuts the general idea of undifferentiated status among believers, which is one of the essential reasons for the persistent “brother and sister” language. Furthermore, as the idea of a singular congregational leader became more thoroughly enmeshed with the idea of paterfamilias, it had to have had an impact on the likelihood of seeing women as fit for the role of congregational leader.

Series Index

Household: Change in Status

Gal 3:25-4:7

25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.

4:1 My point is this: heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all the property; 2 but they remain under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. 3 So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. 6 And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" 7 So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God. (NRSV)

This passage parallels the previous passage we looked at in Romans 8. There is the idea of the children of God, adoption, inheritance, and “Abba! Father!” But this passage seems to be particularly concerned with implications for our status with regard to each other here and now.

Many have tried to make Galatians 3:28 purely about soteriology or salvation. It is about much more as even the verse taken in isolation makes clear: “…for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” There is a reordering of the relationships between members of the community. This is about ecclesiology.

We saw earlier that Jesus demanded that the fictive family of the Kingdom of God receive allegiance above the biological family and all other worldly ties. Here Paul articulates this into some other human arenas as well. First, ethnic family heritage, “Jew and Gentile,” no longer have primary allegiance. Second, socio-economic status is erased. As we saw earlier in this series, slavery was not just an economic position but a status. The Roman slaves were believed to have a physical nature and demeanor that evidenced them as slaves. Third, there is the statement about “male and female,” instead of “male or female.” This surely is a reference back to the Genesis 1:27 where it is recorded:

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

We can see that “Jew and Gentile” was not a division that God intended nor was “free and slave.” But “male and female” are part of the created order God pronounced good. So why does God see a need to undo what he pronounced good?

Kenneth Bailey (Women in the New Testament: A Middle Eastern Cultural View) suggests that this had to do with the rabbinic teaching that had grown up around the creation stories. We saw how the rabbis had twisted Isaiah’s vision of uniting all people at the Great Banquet into a vision where the Gentiles show up only to be destroyed. Here Bailey suggests a whole theology had emerged about women’s inferiority. Women, like Eve, are susceptible to deception and are a threat to seduce men into error. Sin came into the world through Eve and women must therefore be subject to men. None of this is there in the text, any more than the destruction of the Gentiles was there in the text about the Great Banquet. “Male and Female” was a euphemism for this body of rabbinic teaching that had built up over the centuries. Paul was dismissing the status differential that had built up because of this false teaching.

Furthermore, we have evidence that Jewish men by Jesus' time had likely borrowed a formula from Greek philosophers where they expressed thanks they had not been created a barbarian, a fool (slave), or a woman and made it into a prayer where they thanked God he had not made them a Gentile, a slave, or a woman. It is also important to keep in mind that in the Temple only the men could enter to worship. Women were relegated to looking on from the balconies. The Gentiles were relegated to the outer courts.

It is important to note that Paul was not saying there will no longer be Jews, Gentiles, free people, slaves, men, and women. It was about the status between members of this diverse community. Status differentials were erased in a society where life was all about status. It was not only about escape from being slaves “to the elemental spirits of this world.” It was about entrance into the household of God as a child of God with all the obligations and benefits that entails, including behaving as sibling with other siblings.

Series Index

Household: The Royal Family

Rom 8:12-30

12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh -- 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ -- if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 

28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.  30 And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.  (NRSV)

This passage contains what is probably the most diverse collection of fictive family metaphors. Included are:

• brothers and sisters   v. 12
• children of God  vs. 14, 16, 17, 19, 21
• adoption   vs. 15, 23
• “Abba, Father”   v.15
• heirs   v. 17
• brothers and sisters of Christ   v. 29

In a very loose sense, there are images of the compassionate father with the prodigal son. The younger son is in bondage to his flesh and unable to see the love of the father. He comes back into the father’s presence and is shaken to the core by the demonstration of costly love the father shows toward him. He realizes he cannot repay the debt for the relationship he has broken. His heart is transformed and he enters the house as fully his father’s son. He is thoroughly in debt to his father but it is a debt of love not fear. One can easily imagine the son crying out “Abba! Father” to his father.

Here Paul cast us as those who were in bondage to the flesh but redeemed by God. We also come into his presence crying “Abba! Father.” But Paul adds an extended eschatological spin to this image as well. Christ will one day return reign over the Earth with justice and peace. It is his inheritance. God has made us Christ’s brothers and sisters and we share in that inheritance. Verses 18-25 give testimony to the coming reversal of the consequences of sin and the arrival of the new creation. Implied in this is the restoration of man and woman as the restored image of God in the world acting as co-regents of the new creation with Christ. The Holy Spirit in us is a down payment on the inheritance we will fully receive as royal siblings of the King of Kings.

Series Index

Household: Children of Abraham

Throughout the Old Testament, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are described as the fathers of Israel, and conversely Israel is portrayed as the descendants or children of Abraham. As Abraham’s children, the Jews believed they were to inherit the promise made to Abraham. This promise was passed down through Isaac to Jacob. Those not born of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were not of the promise. They were not of “the family.” Furthermore, over the centuries it had become ingrained in Jewish thought that observance of the Law was what kept Israel as “Israel.” It kept them from “going native” in the world. Losing the Law and the traditions would dissolve their distinctiveness and they would lose the inheritance promised them.

Yet the promise to Abraham was that “all peoples on earth” would be blessed through him. In our analysis of the parable of the Great Banquet we saw how the grand vision of God bringing all peoples of the earth into the household had morphed into a vision where Israel is saved and everyone else destroyed.

Jesus had taken the fictive family metaphor of his day and transformed it into a vision of a household with God as the <em>paterfamilias</em> actively seeking out and bringing in both law-breaking sinners and law-keeping sinners. The family metaphor was ready made to be a unifying metaphor for a Jewish audience but Paul was now in “the highways and hedges” of Jesus’ Great Banquet metaphor, bringing in Gentiles. Family is precisely the metaphor the Jews have relied on to exclude the Gentiles. Paul must metaphorically find a way for Jew and Gentile to be of the same family. How would he do it?

Romans 4:1-18

1 What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." 4 Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. 5 But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. 6 So also David speaks of the blessedness of those to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:

7 "Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered;
8 blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin."

9 Is this blessedness, then, pronounced only on the circumcised, or also on the uncircumcised? We say, "Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness." 10 How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. 11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, 12 and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but who also follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised.

13 For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

16 For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, 17 as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations") -- in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 18 Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become "the father of many nations," according to what was said, "So numerous shall your descendants be."

Galatians 3:6-9, 15-18

6 Just as Abraham "believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness," 7 so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham. 8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you." 9 For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed. …

… 15 Brothers and sisters, I give an example from daily life: once a person's will has been ratified, no one adds to it or annuls it. 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring; it does not say, "And to offsprings," as of many; but it says, "And to your offspring," that is, to one person, who is Christ. 17 My point is this: the law, which came four hundred thirty years later, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. 18 For if the inheritance comes from the law, it no longer comes from the promise; but God granted it to Abraham through the promise.

Paul leaves the idea of the Jewish family in place but casts a vision of the Jewish family as a unit of a larger family. Membership in this larger fictive family is no longer based on biology and preserving tradition. Membership is based on exercising faith as Abraham did, making Jews and Gentiles brothers and sisters of each other in the Household of God.

Series Index

Household: The Pervasiveness of the Family Metaphor in the New Testament

As we move from the gospels to into the rest of the New Testament, we see a substantial increase in the use of fictive/surrogate family metaphors. I decided to look up key terms used to signify fictive family in the New Testament. Below is an approximate number (very approximate) of the number of times each term was used in a fictive sense from Acts through Revelation.

• Brother, brothers, brothers and sisters = 161
• Father = 79
• Son, sons = 64
• Child, children = 50

Joseph Hellerman (The Ancient Church as Family) analyzed the content of books widely believed to have for Pauline authorship (i.e., Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon) for evidence of family terminology and got the following results (92):

• Sibling terminology = 118
• Father terminology = 40
• Inheritance terminology = 14

In all but a tiny handful of cases, these are referring to fictive family metaphors.

Furthermore, Hellerman points out that 1 Thessalonians is widely considered to be Paul’s earliest letter. There are nineteen sibling references contained in this early book, reinforced with God as Father metaphors. (92) So it appears that surrogate family was a part of Paul’s teaching pattern from the beginning.

We saw how Jesus used family imagery in his parables to convey truth about the nature of our relationship with God, and of Jesus' relationship to God. Paul used the family metaphor in a variety of ways as well. One was to indicate the relationship between Jesus and God but he also used it to explain theological truths about our relationship to God. He used it to talk about our relationship to each other, occasionally using it to shame some folks into appropriate behavior. On still other occasions, he used it as a means of showing affection.

While Paul made the most expansive use of the family metaphor, it was not restricted to him. 1 John uses the sibling language 14 times, James 12, and Hebrews 8. 1 John also uses "father" 12 times, "child" 17 times, and "son" 22 times. Hebrews also use "son" 12 times and "child" 3 times.

But as noted, the most in depth use of the metaphor was by Paul. To get an idea of Paul’s theological use of the family metaphor we can look at four passages where he makes fictive family his organizing principle. We will look at one passage in each of the next four posts. The passages are:

• Romans 4:1-18
• Romans 8:12-29
• Galatians 3:26-4:7
• 1 Thessalonians 2:7-12

Series Index

Household: Context for the Post-Resurrection Household of God

We are finished with Jesus’ use of fictive family. In coming posts, I will turn my attention to the post-Resurrection church. Before going there, I think it might be helpful to reset the stage.

We have looked at the nature of the Greco-Roman household. Patriarchy, patronage, honor, and status were driving influences in the culture. The Roman Empire and emerged from the Roman Republic in the generation prior to Jesus. Augustus Caesar, whose life overlapped with Jesus' life, was proclaimed as the son of god (Julius Caesar) who brought the good news of peace to the world through his domination and conquest of all foes. It is intriguing to note that the gospel of Mark, widely believed to be the earliest of the gospels begins with:

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Mark 1:1

Life in the Empire was in considerable flux in the first century. Manumission had to be regulated and freedom for women was growing. Worship of the traditional Roman gods was waning and worship of the mystical goddesses of the East was spreading widely, especially among women, slaves, and people of lower status. The Eastern religions tended to be less class and status conscious. These developments tended to provoke a reactionary response from the Roman elite who saw worship of the Roman gods and traditional household life as essential for the stability of the Empire. Those who went against these values were seen as threats to the social order.

To unify all allegiance to himself, Augustus had begun to talk about the Empire as the household of Caesar with Caesar as the paterfamilias. All lines of patronage and honor culminated in him. This was part of his effort to wean the society away from the metaphor of a Republic with many competing leaders sharing power. The household metaphor for society was carried forward by succeeding Caesars as they sought to solidify their power.

Meanwhile, in the backwater region known as Palestine, the Jews had been under various forms of oppression for centuries. There were now two Jews living outside of Palestine for everyone Jew living in Palestine. Aramaic had replaced Hebrew as the common language. The oppression by the Romans, in contrast to the glorious vision they believed God had in store for them, was distressing. The idea of God as loving father began to take root in the Second Temple era. The reclusive Essenes developed a very strong fictive family environment that served to reinforce solidarity and exclude outsiders.

As we have seen, Jesus emphasized the fictive family metaphor in his teaching. In fact, he set up a dichotomy between our earthly biological family and our fictive family, with God as the paterfamilias, and he demanded the highest allegiance to this fictive family. But in Jesus' household code (Matthew 19-20) we see the ethic of the Greco-Roman and Near East worlds turned upside down. Jesus makes servanthood the organizing principle for the household. I often hear this described as "servant-leadership." I wonder if that still does not put too much focus on leadership. It may not be grammatically correct but I wonder if it would be better described as "leading-servantship."

What we also see from Jesus is a household that is turned outward. It seeks to bring back law-breaking sinners and law-keeping sinners. It goes into the highways and hedges to bring those into the household who are from outside the community.

But we also see something very important in the metaphor that Jesus uses to describe his relationship with God: Son to Father. “Son” communicates two important aspects of the relationship. First, while there was some emotional distance between father and son in the Greco-Roman world it was less so in the Near East. With images like those of the compassionate father, we see that Jesus portrays God as a Father of unsurpassed compassion. Second, when sending messages in these ancient cultures, the status of the person bringing the message communicated much about the significance of the message. A son would be expected to have the very heart and mind of his father in all business and legal matters. A son would carry the greatest authority and bring the greatest significance to the message being delivered (See Mark 12:1-11) The metaphor of Father and Son is powerful for communicating the nature of the relationship and the mission. We are adopted into the family where we have the same loving relationship with the Father as brothers and sisters in Christ, having our heart and mind conformed to the heart and mind of God. Then, just as Jesus was sent in mission, so are we sent in mission to exhibit the image God, to evidence the New Creation that is to come, and to go into the world “compelling” others to come in.

As we turn to the post-Resurrection story, we find the Church has a new challenge. To this point the message of God has come largely through the nation of Israel, which means it was spoken into a Hebrew speaking world with Near East cultural traditions. There was a tradition of teaching through metaphor and narrative in the Near East. By Jesus’ day, Greco-Roman influences had had an impact on the Jews but it was still a culture deeply rooted in Ancient Near East thinking and cultural patterns. As the Church moved out of Palestine and spread to the larger Greco-Roman world, it was necessary to translate the truth of the Old Testament and of Jesus' teaching into a culture with dissimilar ways of teaching and learning. The Greco-Roman world tended to be much more didactic. We tend to be more didactic in our culture as well, which is one of the reasons why we frequently find it so much easier to understand Paul (or think we do) than understanding Jesus. He communicates in patterns that are more similar.

Therefore, when we read the New Testament, we must keep in mind that we are frequently dealing with three cultural contexts. We are “listening in” on the early Church as it attempts to translate God’s truth from the Ancient Near Eastern context into the Greco-Roman context, keeping in mind that many of these contexts contained both Jews and Gentiles. The third culture that must be acknowledged is our own 21st Century cultural context and we must resist reading our culture back into the passage. First, we are to understand what the passage was about in its own context and then we ask how it applies in our own context. We turn now to the post-Resurrection use of fictive family and household in the Church.

Series Index