Nicole on Biblical Egalitariansim

Roger Nicole, reformed Baptist theologian has passed on.  One thing that serparated him from many of those now extolling his virtues was his outspoken egalitarianism.

Since biblical egalitarianism is still viewed by many as inconsistent with biblical inerrancy, it is desirable to state in a very brief manner my position on this subject.

The matter of the place of women in the home, in society, and in the church is not an issue that can be conclusively determined by a few apparently restrictive passages that are often advanced by those who think that subordination represents God’s will for women.

The starting point must be at the creation of humanity, as our Lord himself exemplified by quoting Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 in response to a question by the Pharisees (Matt. 19:4-5, Mark 10:6-7). The climactic point must be at the consummation of the redemptive plan in the wedding supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9, 21-22), as St. Paul notes in discussing marriage in Ephesians 5:22-33. These two moments are the only ones in which sin has not damaged the institution. Thus, the line that connects creation and the eschaton of redemption represents the relationship of males and females in its unadulterated form. What comes in between may include factors due to human “hardness of heart” (Matt. 19:8).

Rest of his article on this subject available here.

Gen 1:27 and the Gendering of God

You hear people saying all sorts of stupid things about the Bible and if I blogged each one I would never stop blogging.  However a particularly choice example was the time I was told, with great enthusiasm, that Gen 1:27 tells us that God is both male and female, because God created male and female in his image.  (wait for it, that wasn't the most stupid bit) Because God is both male and female, but humans in his/her image are only male or female, when a man and woman have sex they bring those two aspects of God together and so when we have sex it is the closest we come to bearing the complete image of God!  I might forgive the person who said that, because they were single and so had no first hand experience that might dissuade them that coitus resulted in such a elevated state.  No I blame the supposed Bible teacher who told her that. 

Male and female fairy wrens, from here

The verse reads:

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

The point of course, is that God created them in his own image and he also created them male and female.  The point is not that male and female make up different aspects of God's image, but that BOTH male and female bear God's image equally.

In fact the male and female is not what makes us "in God's image" at all, but in actual fact gives us something in common with the animals.  Hence the Hebrew, zachar unekevah (זָכָר וְּנְקֵבָה), are the same words that you would use to refer to male and female animals.  And this is why, for Christians, sex, although a good gift from God, has nothing to do with being more or less close to God because eternal life does not involve marriage or procreation (Mark 12:25).  Being male and female is a consequence of the need to go forth and multiply, not of being made in God's image.  Consequently those who are single/celibate are no less bearers of the image of God than those who are married.  Finally it needs to be pointed out that if God were both male an female he would be an hermaphrodite.  No offence to hermaphrodites, but God has no body so for him/her to have any sexual organs, let alone both sets, is not possible.  God only gets called "him" or "her" because English has no gender neutral personal pronoun, which is pretty inconvenient, just ask an hermaphrodite.

Sex in the City of Corinth: It gets complicated

Sheila Briggs is my hero of the day, as finally I find someone who discusses the elephant in the room of 1 Cor 6-7, or in fact any discussion of sex in relation to the world of the NT, that is the fact that if you were a slave in the ancient world you didn't have much choice over who you had sex with, so for many NT Christians contemporary evangelical ideals of sexual conduct were simply unattainable. She writes,

Sexual exploitation of slaves, if it occurred within the Christian community, would raise several problems for Paul. He linked his discussion of marriage in 1 Corinthians 7 to his condemnation of visiting prostitutes in the previous chapter by bidding each man, who is unable to remain celibate, to have his own wife dia tās porneias (7:2). The direct addressee here is the free male Christian. Certainly, the urban and upwardly mobile male slave could have aspired to the same ideal of marriage. Paul was not just talking about the narrower legal definition of marriage, which would have excluded the liaisons of slaves and many of the low-status and unpropertied free, but the wider practice of social monogamy in the Greco-Roman world. It is also the case that slave as well as free men frequented the brothels. Paul’s prohibition of visiting brothels would have affected poor men, slave or free, more than prosperous men, because the former would not have had the resources (nor often, in the case of the slave, the owner’s permission) for social monogamy. The wealthier men, however, would have had the sexual use of their slaves and therefore their sexual activity would have been less restricted by not visiting brothels. Paul’s statement in 1 Cor. 7:4 that both wife and husband have control over each other’s body indicated that the free male did not have unrestricted use of his body and therefore implied that, since his own body in relationship to his wife has become a slave’s body, his own sexual use of slaves’ bodies has become illegitimate. This conclusion, however, Paul never makes explicit.

From Sheila Briggs, "Paul on Bondage and Freedom in Imperial Roman Society," 

in Horsley (ed) Paul and Politics, Trinity 2000, pp110-123, p115

Some more of other people's blogs

Marriage is under attack in the UK by those promoting adultery as entertainment, am I really a reactinoary old prude for thinking that should be stopped quickly?  Loren argues that Paul was converted rather than called which is interesting and I thiknk depends largely on how you understand conversion and religion.  Meanwhile the decade of the Atheists is over, but what will come next?  i would like a decade of really really good pie shops opening in my local neighbourhood.  Steve asks how true do we need the Bible to be?  But I wonder how much we can rely on history to make some of those decisions given how much of the data is still underground and how little survives in any form.  But in case it never occured to you, it didn't me, Goliath's helmet was an important historical clue.  And it should be noted that even the most happening lively active church can be lonely and we need to make the effort to spend time in each other's homes, but that would be hard if you go to "commuter" church.  Bon appetit!

Countryman on Adultery

Among us, sexual activity outside the marriage on the part of either partner is understood as adultery; in antiquity, only such activity on the part of the wife (or the betrothed woman) qualified. The husband could commit adultery only by having intercourse with the wife (or betrothed) of another man; if he had sexual relations with a slave, a prostitute, a concubine, or a divorced or widowed woman, this did not constitute adultery against his own marriage. Again our own explanations of what is wrong in adultery usually focuses on the betrayal of trust and of formal commitments between spouses, whereas the ancient understanding of adultery assumes rather that it is a violation of another man's property. What for us is a kind of betrayal was for them a species of theft.

Countryman, Dirt Greed and Sex, 2007, 154-5

This well written book continues to be quite uncomfortable reading, although I imagine it would be more so for members of Family First et al. This is the conclusion of a very well argued section on the understanding of adultery in the Torah. Once again this highlights the danger of reading our modern conceptions back into the Bible. Is this really the "biblical family values" we want a return to?

Let me know what you think, :-)

Book Review: Emerson Eggerichs, Love and Respect

This book is essentially a Christian version of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus." It's central hypothesis is that men and women see the world differently and have different needs and that because of this misunderstanding often causes problems in marriage. (In this way it is also a bit like the five love languages stuff) The solution according to Eggerichs is that men need to love their wives, and women need to respect their husbands... whether or not they feel they deserve it at that moment in time. Eggerichs helpfully diagnoses the "crazy cycle" which is a vicious circle where withholding love or respect from your spouse causes your spouse to withhold the love or respect that you desire which causes you to withhold even more, etc, etc. This book is very practically focused and I have to say the advice is pretty good. A lot of people would benefit from reading this and I will definitely use some of this material in my own ministry. but I do have some significant issues with this book.

1. it is too long and rambling, it needs to be half the length and have a much tighter structure
2. Eggerichs never actually defines what exactly he means by love and respect he just takes it as a given, although we do get some clarity from his examples of what constitutes love and respect, these words have a wide potential range of meaning and it needed clarifying
3. Eggerichs spends far too much time promoting his ministry and conferences, which is annoying
   
4. Eggerichs overdoes how unique and original his teaching is, which is annoying
5. this book is hopelessly stuck in middle America and it would have benefited from being based broader culturally, this limits its usefulness in other contexts
6. the use of scripture in this book is appalling, proof texting, paraphrasing and downright inaccuracy abound, although none of his conclusions are 'unbiblical' as such, he behaves as if the scripture were written directly to address middle class 21st C American marital problems, this made it hard for me to recommend

In giving my final score to Love and Respect I need to take into account the final section, which I nearly didn't reach. This redeemed the book from one I couldn't really recommend to one I feel I can, with qualification. This contains some really good and truly Christian (rather than just pragmatic) teaching, but even that is still rather slap dash and would have benefited from a more theologically critical editing. Overall, some good practical advice, but with significant shortcomings.

[This book review was done under the Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers Program, go to http://brb.thomasnelson.com/ for details.]

One flesh - what does it really mean?

While we are on the subject of sex, I had a hunch today, as I was working on 1 Cor 6:12-20, that everyone I was reading was being to quick to assume Paul's quotation of Genesis 2:24 was a reference to sex. Now given that the context is a discussion of the theological reasons for not having sex with prostitutes that is perhaps understandable. But it also highlight that among modern Christians "becoming one flesh" has become a euphemism for sex, and perhaps consequently sexual activity has become the defining characteristic of marriage. See for example this or this, both extremely interesting articles from Christianity today. So on this hunch I thought I would consult an expert on what was really meant by one flesh in Gen 2:24. For the Old Testament scholar Gordon Wenham, becoming one flesh, "does not denote merely the sexual union that follows marriage, or the children conceived in marriage, or even the spiritual and emotional relationship that it involves, though all are involved in becoming one flesh. Rather it affirms that just as blood relations are one’s flesh and bone... so marriage creates a similar kinship between man and wife.” [From his Genesis 1-15 commentary, p 71]

So a Biblical view of marriage is not first and foremost about having sex, although that is included, but first and foremost about being family. Joined together, as one flesh, committed and interdependent. I believe this truth, properly applied, could be transformational for many Christian marriages. What do you think?

Now all I have to do is figure out how this changes my understanding of 1 Cor 6:12-20!

The Mysterious Dance of Love

...is a far better title than the one John Piper came up with for this otherwise wonderful post on 1 Corinthians 7:3-5.