Picturing Theology, Revised Edition

224 | Picturing Theology, Revised Edition

with the gist of the New Testament teaching on the role of authority in the Christian home. The Greek word hupotasso , which means to “line up under” refers to a wife’s voluntary submission to her own husband (cf. Ephesians 5:22-23; Colossians 3:18; Titus 2:5; 1 Peter 3:1). This has nothing to do with any supposed superior status or capacity of the husband; rather, this refers to God’s design of godly headship, authority which is given for comfort, protection, and care, not for destruction or domination (cf. Genesis 2:15-17; 3:16; 1 Corinthians 11:3). Indeed, that this headship is interpreted in light of Christ’s headship over the Church signifies the kind of godly headship that must be given, that sense of tireless care, service, and protection required from godly leadership. Of course, such an admonition for a wife to submit to a husband would not in any way rule out that women be involved in a teaching ministry (e.g., Titus 2:4), but, rather, that in the particular case of married women, that their own ministries would come under the protection and direction of their respective husbands (Acts 18:26). This would assert that a married woman’s ministry in the Church would be given serving, protective oversight by her husband, not due to any notion of inferior capacity or defective spirituality, but for the sake of, as one commentator has put it, “avoiding confusion and maintaining orderliness” (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:40). In both Corinth and Ephesus (which represent the contested Corinthian and Timothy epistolary comments), it appears that Paul’s restriction upon women’s participation was prompted by occasional happenings, issues which grew particularly out of these contexts, and therefore are meant to be understood in those lights. For instance, the hotly-contested test of a women’s “silence” in the church (see both 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2) does not appear in any way to undermine the prominent role women played in the expansion of the Kingdom and development of the Church in the first century. Women were involved in the ministries of prophecy and prayer (1 Corinthians 11:5), personal instruction (Acts 18:26), teaching (Titus 2:4-5), giving testimony (John 4:28-29), offering hospitality (Acts 12:12), and serving as co-laborers with the apostles in the cause of the Gospel (Philippians 4:2-3). Paul did not relegate women to an inferior role or hidden status but served side-by-side with women for the sake of Christ “I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord. Indeed, true companion, I ask you also to help these women who have shared my struggle in the cause of the Gospel, together with Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life” (Philippians 4:2-3). Furthermore, we must be careful in subordinating the personage of women per se (that is, their nature as women) versus their subordinated role in the marriage relationship. Notwithstanding the clear description of the role of women as heirs together of the grace of life in the marriage relationship (1 Peter 3:7), it is equally plain that the Kingdom of God has created a