The Full Stature of Women as Servants of Christ in His Church - Part 4

The nature of headship - 1

If Jesus taught that we, his disciples, are not to exercise authority over one another (Mt 20:25-26), and if there is no longer male or female in Christ as far as status (Gal 3:27-28), then there is a serious problem with any interpretation that gives men status or authority over women in the church based on sex/gender differences.

Often the idea of "headship" is invoked by complementarians who want to do this. And while nowhere in the New Testament are leaders called "heads" in Christ's body, there are two key passages where men are called "heads" (kephale) to their wives. Today we will look at  Paul's use of this word in 1 Corinthians 11, then we'll progress to the other uses in our subsequent blogs.

A passage very often cited to support this form of sex-based hierarchy and authoritarianism is:

"Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." (1Co 11:3)

How Divine Is Jesus?

If you asked an Evangelical Christian, as late as the mid-1970s, if Jesus was equal to the Father in all respects, or if he was somehow less or subordinate to the Father in authority or rank, the unanimous reply would have been that each member of the Trinity is equal in all respects, and that any suggestion of hierarchy or subordination within the Trinity is an error likened to Arianism and Jehovah Witness teaching.

But something has happened under the "big tent" of Evangelicalism. And that answer is no longer unanimous.

I cut my theological teeth in the late 1970s studying the orthodox view of the Trinity as a reply to the cults. Resources like Walter Martin's Kingdom of the Cults, and the Spiritual Counterfeits Project Newsletter, helped me shape my understanding of Jesus' full and complete deity. My studies since then, as a theology student, pastor, and Christ-follower have deepened my love for the Trinity doctrine.

It seems that since the late 1970s a group of Christians with a social agenda aimed at imposing gender-based hierarchy in the family, church, and society have found it convenient and expeditious to harvest examples from church history that cast some doubt on the certainty we Evangelicals once had with regards to the total non-hierarchal and equal standings of each Person in the Trinity.