The husband is the head of his wife and the wife is to submit to her husband.
But Paul always tells the wife to “submit” and slaves and children to “obey” masters and parents.
I’m quite sure that, using English language, a Christian wife has to obey her husband. However, Paul is quite clearly setting out two different sorts of authority here, with the the wife having a “higher” status.
I don’t know how to spell all this out, but I’ll never get any help if all conservatives can do is talk about how wives need to “obey” and never pay any attention to Paul’s rhetorical decisions.
Thoughts?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XfOPdeqwvk
What about Peter? In ch. 2, he tells slaves to “submit,” and in ch. 3, he tells wives to be like Sarah, who “obeyed.” So apparently he’s reversing Paul’s choices, which might mean the distinction doesn’t have all that much difference. Or is this a translation thing?
1 Peter, that is.
Good question. As I said, there is no question that submission includes to need to obey (and vice versa) but the Pauline command still has to mean something in such close proximity. The Petrine evidence would eliminate some wrong conclusions (i.e. if someone tried to claim that submission did not ever include obedience), but I don’t think it means we can say that Paul was making no distinction.
Yeah, I’m not protesting against your thought that there might be something there.