March 8, 2024

Concerning Women’s Ordination: What About 1 Timothy 2:12?

Filed under: Women's Ordination — William Witt @ 2:38 am

AngelusI have addressed and responded to several criticisms of and challenges to my book Icons of Christ and its arguments in favor or women’s ordination and women’s equality through several essays on my blog. However, there is one crucial passage that I have not yet addressed at length – Paul’s assertion in 1 Timothy 2:12: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet” (ESV). I have made occasional references to this passage, particularly in addressing hermeneutical issues, but I have not discussed it in detail. So with apologies for a lengthy delay, I now turn to this passage.

Preliminary Reflections

Before examining the passage, some initial issues need to be addressed.

First, the disagreements about this passage are not primarily about exegesis, but about hermeneutics. I had addressed this in previous essays. For example, in a previous essay, I made a crucial distinction between “master passages” or “master stories” and “paradigms.” A “master passage” is a passage of Scripture that is crucial for one’s own understanding of an issue, and a “paradigm” is the interpretive key to the interpretation of the “master passage.” My previous essay to this makes clear the master passages that are central to my understanding of what Scripture teaches about what it means for not only men but also women to resemble Jesus Christ, and the corresponding “paradigm” is one of cruciformity, mutual service, and mutual submission.

(more…)

Icons of Christ: Reflections Three Years Later

Filed under: Women's Ordination — William Witt @ 12:58 am

Holy GrailSince publishing two books recently, I have learned that the only thing that I can be certain of as an author is that the things that I spend the most time worrying about when writing the book will largely be ignored, and the things that I think relatively unimportant, and on which I spend less time, are the things that others will think are the most important, and will devote all of their time to when reviewing the book.

In the book I recently published (with my colleague Joel Scandrett) on the doctrine of the Atonement, the chapter on Anselm’s doctrine of satisfaction was, for me, one of the least interesting chapters. I wrote that there are currently two very different (and conflicting) interpretations of Anselm, but concluded that Anselm’s real significance was as a transitional figure. Anselm was more important for what later writers did with his views, and I ended up focusing more on successors like Thomas Aquinas, Karl Barth, and Thomas Torrance on the one hand, and John Calvin and Charles Hodge on the other. I was surprised when an otherwise generally positive reviewer complained that our book had not paid sufficient attention to Anselm’s doctrine of satisfaction, and that the reviewer really did not seem all that interested in those later writers to whom we had devoted much more attention. Of course, the reviewer’s own understanding of the atonement largely coincided with Anselm’s satisfaction theory.

Similarly, when I wrote my book Icons of Christ on women’s ordination,1 I included as an illustration in what I regarded as the least significant chapter in the entire book, an informal logical syllogism which I knew at the time was not a formal syllogism, but whose point I assumed was self-evident, and which, regardless, was nothing more than an illustration along the way to making a point that was not directly related to the formal validity of the syllogism (15-16). To my surprise (and frustration), a reviewer focused on that syllogism almost as if it were the most important point in the book, with the consequence that a social media flurry broke out, the point of which seemed to be that my book could be disregarded because I had based my entire argument on an invalid syllogism. To the contrary, that illustration took up a paragraph, could have been entirely removed from the book, and nothing in my argument would have been affected.

If one were to ask me what was the point of giving the title Icons of Christ to a book arguing in favor of ordaining women to church office, what were the key biblical passages that supported my argument, and what were the most important chapters in the book, I would have responded that the key issue of the book has to do with how it is that not only ordained officers of the church, but all Christians, resemble Jesus Christ – thus the title Icons of Christ.

(more…)

October 19, 2023

Luke’s Guide for Christians Living in a Divided Culture

Filed under: Sermons — William Witt @ 3:25 am

Sirach 38
Psalm 147
2 Timothy 4:1-12
Luke 4:14-19

Christ EnthronedII would be surprised if I were the only one here this morning who has found the last few weeks to be particularly discouraging. As of last week, there are now two major wars going on in the world – one in Ukraine, and one in the Middle East. The attack on Israel last week deliberately and cruelly targeted non-combatants, including women, children, and old people. Those who did this certainly should have realized that Israel would respond in kind, and Israel’s response has already resulted in the death of over two thousand Palestinians, many of whom were themselves women, children, and old people. The United Nations estimates that 4,200 people have been killed, and over a million displaced in the last ten days. Meanwhile, here in the United States, political division is so intractable that one of the major parties cannot even agree among themselves to elect a leader, let alone work with the other party, and, at a time when strong US leadership is certainly needed, there is no functioning Congress.

Christians also experience these divisions in our own churches. A former student of mine recently posted on Facebook that his church had been able to purchase some land to build a new building after they had lost their old building in the church wars. A well-known older combatant in the church wars commented in response that this was a waste of time because when the Baby Boomers in the congregation die in the next few years, the new building would be empty, and Generation Z are all abandoning the church. There will not be any need for church buildings in the future.

Any sober description of the world today would have to acknowledge that human beings are divided from one another. Indeed, various groups hate one another. And the only solutions we seem to be able to come up with are attempts to settle disagreements through coercion. If one side wins, the other has to lose.

The lectionary readings for today are for the feast day of St. Luke the Evangelist. Commentators regard Luke 4:14-30 – the story of Jesus reading from the Isaiah scroll in the synagogue in Nazareth followed by a short sermon – as the key to Luke’s entire Gospel. The passage contains all of the themes that Luke will develop, not only in his Gospel, but also in his sequel, the Book of Acts. I am going to focus this morning not simply on this Gospel passage, but on how these themes fit together in both Luke and Acts. Since I cannot talk about everything in the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, I intend to focus on one issue, what Luke says about the role of the church within a hostile culture. To make it a sermon rather than a Bible study, my title will be “Luke’s Guide for Christians living in a divided culture.”

(more…)

July 14, 2023

Appreciation for Professor and Bishop Grant LeMarquand

Filed under: Trinity School for Ministry — William Witt @ 9:57 pm

There are people who don’t make a lot of noise, who don’t put themselves forward, who do not deliberately call attention to their expertise, but just get things done. In the years I have taught at Trinity School for Ministry, I have learned that (now retired) Bishop Grant LeMarquand is that kind of person.

Grant has officially worn two hats at Trinity. He taught both New Testament and Missions. I first learned about the latter when I was interviewing at Trinity and was introduced to Grant. I mentioned that I liked the theology of Karl Barth, and Grant mentioned that Barth is not much read in Africa because of his negative views on religion. Africans, he pointed out, are a very religious people, and any approach to missions that simply disregarded religion would not be an effective mission strategy in Africa.

Trinity has a unique focus on missions, and during my first few years here, I learned that missions is one of Grant’s major concerns. Grant regularly went on short trips to teach in Africa, and I was surprised a few years after I arrived when Grant announced that he would be leaving Trinity because he had been asked by Bishop Mouneer Anis of Alexandria, Egypt to serve as Anglican Bishop of the Horn of Africa. Grant had initially thought that he and his wife Wendy would be serving a few thousand local Ethiopians, but because of a war in South Sudan, Gambela became the center of a crisis involving hundreds of thousands of refugees, and Grant and Wendy found themselves in the middle of that crisis. During their time in Ethiopia, Grant and Wendy served growing congregations, ministered to refugees, began a seminary, and Wendy used her skills as a physician to teach basic health care to mothers of children, which contributed to a significant lowering of infant deaths. Because of Wendy’s health problems, Grant and Wendy had to return to the US after five years, and Grant once again wore both his NT hat as well as his missions hat at TSM.

During the time we overlapped at Trinity, Grant was Academic Dean, he started and edited a Trinity Journal for Theology and Ministry, he was the Anglican member of a Roman Catholic group of African biblical scholars, he published numerous essays on African biblical exegesis, he began The Marjorie Stanway Collection of African Bibles, Prayer Books and Hymnals, one of the largest collections of African Bibles in the world, he was Director of the Stanway Institute for Mission and Evangelism, he was actively involved in the triennial New Wineskins for Global Mission Conference, and he served as a bishop in the ACNA College of Bishops.

Most people who know about Trinity School for Ministry are probably not aware of what a significant role Grant played in Trinity’s life while he was here, and specifically how central he has been for Trinity’s focus on Global Mission. Yet for those of who worked with him, he was simply Grant, our colleague and friend who was always glad to spend a few minutes in conversation if you passed him on the way to the copy machine outside his small office.

A week before Grant and Wendy moved back to Canada, my wife Jennie and I had them over for dinner, and we talked about what Grant would be doing during his retirement. During that conversation he mentioned casually that although he would not be teaching full time, he would still have plenty of work to do as an Anglican bishop. Afterwards, I thought about how I had just had dinner with someone who had been an Anglican Bishop in the Horn of Africa, was an important contributor to the relatively unknown field of African biblical studies, and had played such an important role in the global mission of Trinity School for Ministry. But for me, he will always be “Grant.”

July 12, 2023

I Get Mail: Christianity and History

Filed under: History,Theology — William Witt @ 2:07 am

MosesOccasionally, I get mail. The following are a couple of questions sent to me on behalf of someone asking about the historical reliability of Scripture. I am a systematic theologian, and not primarily a biblical scholar or a historian, and people trained in these areas could no doubt address these issues with more sophistication. At the same time, one of the things that theologians do is to try to address the questions that ordinary people ask, and this notion that the Bible is historically unreliable, closer to “fairy tales” than history, seems to be common in contemporary secular culture these days.

I am not a biblical scholar myself, but I read people who are, and, at the least, I can pull together what others who are more competent than myself have said about this topic. Perhaps ordinary lay people will find this helpful. The footnotes and bibliography will provide some guidance for further exploration.

If the Bible contains some truths and some stories, how do you determine which is which and who is the arbitrator of that “truth”? What is the evidence? I understand from a religious standpoint, this is a very dangerous and slippery slope that you may not want to explore, but I believe there are significantly more stories and embellishments in the Bible that render it essentially more philosophical or historically unreliable rather than factual.

Can Christianity exist if Judaism is proven false? In my mind, it seems I have a near-logical proof (at least to a degree of reasonableness) developing that indicates that the basis for Judaism is not valid (not dissimilar to the origin of Mormonism). If true, what are the implications?

History or “Story”?

The question needs to be more carefully put.

As stated, the question seems to equate “truth” with “factual” or “philosophical,” and “stories” with “historically unreliable.”

The real concern seems to be about the historical reliability of the Biblical narratives specifically as historical accounts. To address that question, it is necessary to provide some preliminary clarification. “Narrative” is probably a better word in this regard than “stories” because “stories” (as used here) seems to be equated with non-factual fiction. However, it is even misleading to equate “fiction” with “untrue.” Fiction can be “unhistorical,” and yet, in its own way, address issues of “truth.” For example, Aesop’s Fables are fictional accounts that communicate moral truths.

Narrative covers several possible categories.

(more…)

April 14, 2023

It is Not that Life Ends in Death, but that Death Leads to Life: An Easter Sermon

Filed under: Sermons — William Witt @ 9:42 pm

A live version of this sermon can be found here.

.

EmmausPsalm 105:1-11
Acts 3:1-10
Luke 24:13-35

After I graduated from college, I was the only Southern Baptist who was studying for a Master’s degree in theology at the local Roman Catholic seminary. I took an unusual course while I was there that was simply titled “Death.” I remember almost nothing from that course, but I do remember an idea that comes from the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Heidegger claimed that a unique characteristic of human beings is what he called in German Sein zum Tod, or, in English translation “Being Toward Death.” According to Heidegger, one of the things that makes human beings unique is that we alone of all other animals are conscious that we are someday going to die, and this knowledge functions as a kind of background awareness behind everything that we do. To be a human being is to be aware that we are “being toward death.” Paradoxically, the ultimate outcome of our living is that someday we are no longer going to be alive. We do not know when or how it will happen, but we know that death is inevitable. In the end, all life ends in death.

One of the most characteristic ways of dealing with this awareness of death is self-deception – to find some way of ignoring death, of attempting to stave it off, of pretending that death only happens to other people. Perhaps the three most typical characteristics of American culture today are money, sex, and power. If we think about it, each one of these is in its own way an attempt to deny the reality of death. If you have enough money, you can avoid all those things that might threaten you or cause you to fear for your safety – to fear death. In a culture in which people do not believe in much of anything beyond their immediate awareness, sexuality is the one thing that provides the closest thing to a kind of transcendent experience, something that can at least distract us from our eventual mortality. Power has lots of equivalents. If we don’t seek power over others, perhaps we seek status or a sense of identity as part of some larger group. But power, status and identity are all ways of saying “I matter. I’m important.” For now, at least, I can ignore the inevitability that some day I won’t matter. Some day I’ll just be one more headstone in the cemetery. Despite all of our attempts at denial, the one thing that we can be absolutely certain of is that all life ends in death – that death is the ultimate outcome of life.

And that is why the message of Easter is so radical. Easter is completely contrary to the one thing that we know with certainty is absolutely true. As we read the story this morning of Jesus’ appearance to two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus, we hear a radical claim, a claim that goes directly contrary to something we all know to be true. In what follows, I am going to look at three themes in this morning’s Gospel reading.

The first theme is that if there is a God who created the entire universe, a universe in which it is indeed true that all living things eventually die, nonetheless, it is also true that in this universe where death prevails, the God who has created this universe has also raised his Son Jesus from the dead. What that means is that it is not the case that all life simply ends in death. The Christian claim is not that life ends in death, but that life comes out of death. (more…)

April 11, 2023

Mutual Submission or Ordered Hierarchy? Ephesians 5 (Part Three) Responding to Objections

Filed under: Women's Ordination — William Witt @ 2:58 am

Christ in the House of Martha and MaryIn the previous two essays, I argued that Ephesians 5:21-23 should be understood as advocating “mutual submission” rather than an “ordered hierarchy.” What follows will respond to objections to this interpretation.

Objection 1

The meaning of “submission” must come from verse 21, not from verse 22. Since wives are told to “submit” to their husbands in verse 22, this submission of subordinates to superiors is what “submission” means.

In the previous essay, I pointed out that in his commentary on Ephesians, Peter O’Brien denies that the pronoun allēlois (“to one another”) is “reciprocal,” claiming rather that verse 21 is calling for a submission of subordinates to those in authority over them. O’Brien recognizes that there is no imperative “submit” in verse 22, and that any command to submit must be implied as carried over from the participial phrase in verse 21 – “submitting to one another.” Nonetheless, he claims that the “flow of the argument” in verse 21 is “a programmatic statement which introduces the topic of ‘submission,’ and thus is developed in the household table of 5:22-6:9.” Since there is no verb in verse 22, the idea of submission must be “unpacked”: “It is as though the apostle is saying: ‘Submit to one another, and what I mean is wives submit to your husbands, children to your parents, and slaves to your master.’” Any other reading would be [t]o interpret v. 21 by abstracting it from the context . . .”1

In its “Response” to the essay “Women n Holy Orders,” written by myself and TSM NT Professor and ACNA Bishop Grant LeMarquand, the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word takes a similar approach. At first, the writers of the “Response” seem to disagree with O’Brien (as well as a review of my book Icons of Christ by Matthew Colvin) in acknowledging that the “submission” in verse 21 is indeed mutual: “It is true that the word’ translated ‘submit’ in Ephesians 5:22 is borrowed from the previous verse. . .” They also acknowledge that the word translated “submit” in verse 21 “should be carried over to 5:22. If Paul intended otherwise he would have need to supply a verb for 5:22.” They continue to write: “It is also true that Ephesians 5:21 establishes a general principle: that all Christians must humble themselves, submit to, and serve one another” (Response, 55). So far, I would be in complete agreement.

They continue, however: “How does this principle play itself out in various contexts: husbands and wives, children and parents, slaves and masters? Paul does not answer that question by suggesting there are no more hierarchies. . . . Paul does not do away with the role distinctions or hierarchy in marriages, in family, in labor. Rather, the gospel transforms these hierarchies so that they are no longer exploitative. The leaders and those led are also brothers and sisters, equals before Christ. The one who takes the leadership role, therefore, must seek to give himself over for the good of those he leads, just as Christ came to serve rather than be served. And those who are in subordinates roles serve as if they are serving Christ himself” (“Response,” 55).

It is clear then that the “Response” understands the leader of the household to be playing the role of Christ as one who who rules over subordinates. This becomes even more clear on the next page, when the “Response” claims that the “typological witness” between marriage and Christ and the church “itself militates against Drs. LeMarquand and Witt’s egalitarin reading”: “Does Jesus submit to the Church? No. Does he serve and give himself up for her? Yes. Does the Church submit to Jesus? Yes. Is Jesus’ rule tyrannical. No. Is the Church’s submission coerced? By no means” (“Response,” 56).

Although not stated explicitly, the implications are clear: Does the husband submit to the wife? No. Does the wife submit to the husband? Yes. Is the husband’s rule tyrannical? No. Is the wife’s submission coerced? By no means. In a previous essay, I addressed the error of importing into the comparison between the metaphor of Christ as “head” and the male or husband as “head” aspects of Jesus Christ’s identity that are not actually mentioned in the context. Jesus Christ is both Lord and Savior of the church. However, the husband does not occupy that place in marriage. Rather, the example that Jesus provides for all the members of the household in Ephesians 5 and 6 is found in Ephesians 5:2: “Walk in love as Christ loved us, and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling offering.” Despite their earlier apparent acknowledgment that “all Christians submit to one another,” the “Response” makes clear that while husbands seek the good of their wives, they do not submit to them, and thus the submission is not actually mutual. Thus the model that Christ provides for husbands is not the model of self-sacrifice that Paul actually mentions in Ephesians 5, but the role of “authority over” that he does not. While the rule of the husband over the wife is not “tyrannical,” the husband does indeed rule the wife as Christ rules the church, and the wife submits to the husband. Never the reverse.

To the contrary, there are three reasons why interpreting the meaning of verse 21 through verse 22 rather than the reverse is mistaken. (more…)

Mutual Submission or Ordered Hierarchy? Ephesians 5 (Part Two)

Filed under: Women's Ordination — William Witt @ 2:53 am

AngelusIn the previous essay, I laid down the preliminary background for addressing the question of whether in Paul’s discussion of relations between husbands and wives in Ephesians 5 he was advocating “mutual submission” or rather an “ordered hierarchy.” In this essay, I move from preliminaries to address the specific claim that Paul is not advocating “mutual submission” between husbands and wives, but rather an “ordered hierarchy” in which husbands exercise a hierarchical authority over wives – wives submit to husbands in marriage, but never the reverse.

Is “Submitting to One Another” in the Middle Voice?

In “Chapter 7: Mutual Submission” of Icons of Christ (Baylor University Press, 2020), I make the argument in pages 99-112 that Paul is advocating “mutual submission” in Ephesians 5:21-32. Toward the end of that discussion, I have a two-paragraph summary of Paul’s use of the two words ὑποτασσόμενοι ἀλλήλοις (hypotassomenoi allēlois, “submitting yourselves to one another”), which I identify as the “two key words” in verse 21. The next two sentences read: “The root word υποτάσσομαι (hypotassomai) is in the middle voice. It literally means ‘to place oneself under.’” At the end of the paragraph, I write “Hypotassomai does not mean ‘obey; and it is neither in the active voice (a command given) nor in the passive (a command received). Paul is not urging Christians to exercise power over other Christians or asking Christians to submit to those in power. Rather, he is calling for them to voluntarily subject themselves to one another, to ‘opt out of the power struggle’”(Icons, 110).

Earlier, I had written: “The Greek words translated ‘submit’ or ‘submission’ in the New Testament are usually ὑποταγη (hypotagē) or ὑποτάσσω (hypotassō). Generally, the words simply mean the ordering of one thing under another. Sometimes the words mean what ‘submission’ normally means in English, the involuntary obedience to an external authority. . . . However, when used with the middle voice (which has to do with actions that one does to oneself), the term can take on the sense of a voluntary submission to another person out of love, humility, or compassion” (Icons, 92).

This is the full extent of my discussion of the “middle voice” in Icons of Christ. Note that only two sentences actually use the words “middle voice,” while a third states that hypotassomai is neither in the active voice nor the passive voice– a total of three sentences out of a book of 439 pages. My comments about “middle voice” have some relevance to the discussion, but they serve to provide support for my main argument. Those sentences could be entirely omitted from the book, and nothing would be lost.

One of my favorite internet memes shows a person with a smug look on his face accompanied by the following tagline: “That moment when someone hits you with the impeccable argument but you realize they misspelled one word at the beginning.” In my initial response to Matthew Colvin’s review of my book, I noted that “Colvin regularly cites isolated passages from my book, writes as if this single statement were my entire position, and then quibbles about some detail in the isolated passage.” I would add that Colvin substitutes pedantry for argument several times in his review.1

Colvin’s discussion of my chapter on “Mutual Submission” is just such an example of focusing on isolated sentences, while ignoring the surrounding context and argument. Colvin states that “philology, while opaque to a reader with no Greek, is very near the fulcrum of theology: the determination of what the words of Scripture actually mean is prior to the task of building theology on those words. Small changes close to the philological fulcrum can then turn into huge changes when they are traced out on the theological perimeter.” Colvin then turns to my three sentences on “middle voice”: “Following Alan Padgett, Witt claims that the verb υποτάσσομαι in Eph. 5:21-22 . . . has a distinct voluntary meaning in the middle (92, 110). But in the first place, the middle voice in Greek cannot be equated with a reflexive self-determined action. Second, contrary to Witt’s assertion that ‘Hypotassomai does not mean’ obey’ and it is neither in the active voice (a command given) nor in the passive (a command received), we must note that the participle in Eph. 5:21 could very well be morphologically passive, and that the passive of this verb does in fact mean ‘obey.’”

Colvin engages in a bit of misdirection for the uninformed reader here. If by his statement “the middle voice in Greek cannot be equated with a reflexive self-determined action,” Colvin means that this is not always the case, he is correct. However, if he means that the middle voice is never reflexive, this is not correct. My old Greek grammar lists four uses of the middle voice. The first “refers to the results of the action directly to the agent, with a reflexive force.” The third use “represent[s] the agent as voluntarily yielding himself to the results of the action, or seeking to secure the results of the action in his own interest.”2 Both of these are reflexive. They are actions done by the agent either to the self or on behalf of the self.

Likewise, as I point out on page 92, hypotassō literally means the “ordering of one thing under another,” and that sometimes it can mean the “involuntary obedience to an external authority.” I don’t state that the “verb has a distinct voluntary meaning in the middle,” but that when used in the middle, the “term can take on the sense of a voluntary submission” (emphasis added) That does not mean that the term has a “distinct voluntary meaning in the middle” (emphasis added), but that context would indicate whether the submission is voluntary.

Again, Colvin is correct when he states that “the passive and middle voices are not morphologically distinguished in the present tense of Greek verbs.” However, again, as my old Greek grammar states: “Since the middle and passive have in several tenses forms alike, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between them. The matter must be determined by the context and the meaning of the verbal idea.”3 A glance back to page 110 where I had used the expression “middle voice” shows that I followed this with: “Context determines meaning. The verb can mean involuntary submission to an authority . . . . However, the context of Ephesians is quite different from the military or political context associated with [involuntary submission]. The entire context of the passage understands submission as the voluntatry taking on the role of a servant . . . .” (emphasis added).

Given that only context can determine whether hypotassomenoi allēlois is middle voice or passive, does Colvin actually claim that it is passive, and on what grounds? Alternatively, what do NT scholars themselves say? Colvin does not actually make an argument for the passive, nor does he indicate how he would translate the verse except to say that if it is passive, it would mean “obey.” However, since passive voice would demand a subject performing the action which is passively received, the only subject supplied by the text would have to be allēlois – “one another.” But this just gets us back to where we started from. If everyone is obeying “one another,” then the submission would be both mutual and voluntary. (more…)

Mutual Submission or Ordered Hierarchy? Ephesians 5 (Part One): Preliminaries

Filed under: Women's Ordination — William Witt @ 2:46 am

Van Eyck Wedding

Ephesians 5 has been crucial to the debate on women’s ordination because of the English translations of Ephesians 5:22-24, translated as does the ESV: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.”

At first read, the passage seems to teach that women should submit to their husbands, and that this submission is unqualified and universal: “submit in everything to their husbands.” The submission also seems to be absolute. As Christ is “head” of the church and has absolute authority over the church, so the husband is the “head” of his wife. As Christ’s authority over the church is absolute, so, it might seem, is the husband’s authority over his wife.

In the essay “Women in Holy Orders,” written by myself and NT Professor and ACNA Bishop Grant LeMarquand at the request of the ACNA College of Bishops, we devoted only three pages to this passage (because of requested page-length limitation), and only an additional paragraph to the controverted interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:2-15, the other NT passage where Paul uses the metaphor of “head” to describe relationships between men and women. However, in my book Icons of Christ: A Biblical and Systematic Theology for Women’s Ordination (Baylor University Press, 2020), I devoted two full chapters (Chapters 7 and 8, pages 99-144) to discussing these two passages.

“Complementarian” Protestant evangelical opponents of women’s ordination have made this passage a centerpiece of their argument, as may be seen in the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word’s Response to our original essay. In addition, Matthew Colvin echoes complementarian arguments in his negative review of my book.

In each case, the “Response” (and Colvin) repeat standard complementarian talking points.

First, following Complementarian author Wayne Grudem, the Response insists that kephalē (the Greek word translated “head”) when used by Paul as a metaphor in Ephesians 5:23 and 1 Corinthians 11:3 must mean “authority over” (“Response,” 59-67). The “Response” devotes more space to this claim than to almost any other topic in their essay. Similarly, Colvin dismisses the discussion of kephalē in my book as “commit[ing] errors of lexicographical method.” Colvin defends Grudem: “If Grudem has Philo and the LXX from before the NT on his side, then he has the main texts of Judaic Greek on his side.” Because of its centrality to the discussion, I have already devoted three essays to the question of whether Paul’s use of the metaphor kephalē means “authority over.” Contrary to Colvin, Grudem does not have the “main texts of Judaic Greek on his side.” See my essays:

“Response to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word: Does ‘head’ mean ‘authority’ in Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 11? Part One”

“Response to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word: Does ‘head’ mean ‘authority’ in Ephesians 5? Part Two”

“Response to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word: Does “head” mean authority over in 1 Corinthians 11? Part Three”

Second, the “Response” claims that Paul’s use of the word that the ESV translates as the imperative “submit” indicates a hierarchy of authority: “Obey your parents, [Paul] tells the children. Obey your masters, he tells the slaves. Paul does not do away with role distinctions or hierarchy in marriage, in families, or in labor. Rather, the Gospel transforms these hierarchies so that they are no longer exploitative” (“Response,” 55). Similarly, Colvin insists that Ephesians 6 “gives the lie to the reciprocal and mutual submission that Padgett and Witt claim: slaves are commanded to obey masters, and children obey parents, but no reciprocal obedience or submission is enjoined upon masters and parents.”

Third, the “Response” draws on the parallel that Paul makes between Christ as the “head” of the church and the husband as the “head” of the wife to claim that as Christ exercises authority over the church, so the husband necessarily has authority over his wife: “For Paul, marriage is a living typological witness to the Gospel. It ‘refers’ to Christ and his Church. . . . . This typology itself militates against Drs. LeMarquand and Witt’s egalitarian reading. Does Jesus submit to his Church? No. Does he serve her and give himself up for her? Yes. Does the Church submit to Jesus? Yes. Is Jesus’ rule tyrannical? No. Is the Church’s submission coerced? By no means” (“Response,” 56).

I had already addressed this conflation of Christ’s authority with the husband’s authority here: “Throughout the Response, the authors regularly conflate the issue of Christ’s authority as God incarnate and Redeemer of sinful humanity with the authority husbands exercise over wives without regard to the actual language Paul uses or the context in which he uses it.”

Given that I have already addressed the issue of Paul’s use of the kephalē metaphor at length and conflation of the husband’s authority with Christ’s authority, the following three essays will focus rather on the question of hierarchy and authority in marriage. Specifically, in Ephesians 5, does Paul understand the relationship in marriage between husbands and wives as one of reciprocity and “mutual submission,” or does Paul rather advocate what P. T. O’Brien, in a commentary cited by Colvin in his criticism of my book, calls an “ordered hierarchy” of top-down ruling over and being ruled?1

(more…)

January 20, 2023

The Light Shines in Darkness: An Epiphany Sermon

Filed under: Sermons,Uncategorized — William Witt @ 9:00 pm

A sermon I preached at Trinity School for Ministry chapel. The videoe version can be found here.

Exodus 12:21-28
Psalm 40:1-11
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
John 1:29-42

Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory, that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

 

Lamb of God

I begin this sermon by talking about a couple of reasons why I don’t trust the liturgical season of Epiphany.

First, the season of Epiphany seems like a contradiction. The word Epiphany comes from the combination of two Greek words: epi meaning “on” and phainen meaning “to show” or “appear,” or, more literally, “shine on.” According to my Greek lexicon, in pagan writings, the word epiphaneia had to do with the visible manifestation of a hidden divinity. So it makes sense that in the liturgical year, Epiphany marks the season following the celebration of the feast of the Magi – the wise men who came from the East to bring gifts to the child Jesus – and it commemorates the first appearance of Jesus to the Gentiles.

The etymology of the word Epiphany comes from a word meaning “to shine,” and it is significant that the season of Epiphany is marked by light imagery. The Magi follow a star that leads them to Bethlehem. The Psalm from the fifth Sunday of Epiphany begins with the words “The Lord is my light and my salvation: Whom Shall I fear?” (Psalm 27:1) This morning’s Psalm is full of imagery of deliverance: “I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry . . . He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord” (Psalm 40:1, 3).

So a central theme of the Season of Epiphany has to do with the shining of the light, with images of celebration, and deliverance, of new beginnings. It is a kind of continuation of the celebration of Christmas. Yet Epiphany season takes place in the gloomiest time of the year, especially in Western Pennsylvania, but elsewhere as well. January through March. Gray day after gray day. The name for a chronic depression that affects many people during this time of the year is Seasonal Affective Disorder. The lack of light day after day leads to depression. Why would the church choose to celebrate the Good News of Jesus’ manifestation to the world during a time of year in which it is so hard to see God’s presence anywhere? It doesn’t seem to make sense.

Second, Epiphany feels like a false promise. This season after Christmas commemorates various ways in which God’s incarnation in Christ was manifested: the baptism of Jesus; Jesus’ call of his first disciples; the Sermon on the Mount; the presentation of the baby Jesus in the temple. This morning’s Gospel reading speaks of John the Baptist recognizing Jesus as the “lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” and the calling of some of Jesus’ first disciples, including Simon Peter (John 1:29, 35-41). It’s a big party! Yet we know what is right around the corner. Epiphany is like a poor step child in the liturgical year. It marks a kind of place marker on the calendar. We need something to do before the Season of Lent, so we just extend Christmas a bit with some “feel good” stuff, “happy stories” about Jesus. And Epiphany is ephemeral. It does not even last a set number of weeks. Sometimes it’s long; sometimes, it’s short. At least for me, one of the consequences is that while I am hearing all of these wonderful stories about Jesus’ baptism and the calling of his disciples, I am looking over my shoulder. I am not going to get too excited or celebrate too much because I know Ash Wednesday is going to be here before I know it, and Lent is going to land on me like a pile of bricks.

Of course, what I just said is deliberately facetious. It reflects a misunderstanding of what is actually going on in the liturgical year. (more…)

Older Posts »

Non Sermoni Res — William G. Witt is proudly powered by WordPress