Where did Thanksgiving come from? Many point to the “first” American Thanksgiving in 1621, a spontaneous outdoor celebration by the early New England settlers (the “pilgrims”) together with native Americans, prompted by a particularly plentiful harvest. Others point out that the tradition of holding a harvest celebration of this kind dates from long before European settlement of the Americas. Indeed, holding a harvest festival is a long-established English tradition; in England, the annual harvest festival is often linked with a church service in which prayers and thanks are offered to God for sustaining his people into a new year.

When I ask any of my American friends what thanksgiving is all about, I’m usually told it’s a time for seeing family, eating food until your stomach hurts, watching football, and just generally “giving thanks”. But this prompts more questions: giving thanks for what? And to whom? For many, the term “thanksgiving” just means being positive about the good things in life. For Christians, however, the term takes on a much richer dimension. The concept of “thanksgiving,” after all, implies more than an internal attitude. It’s a relational concept—it’s about positively expressing gratefulness to another person for the fact that they have been good to us and blessed us in some way. Christians know that all good things come from God the Father himself, and so we give thanks to him. The Bible is full of expressions of thanksgiving to God. The Psalmists are constantly giving thanks. Jesus gives thanks for food and drink at the feeding of the 4,000 and the last supper (Matt 15:36, Luke 22:17-19). Jesus also thanks God for hearing his prayer to raise Lazarus from the dead, a sign that all those who trust in Jesus will receive everlasting resurrection life (John 11:41). The apostle Paul frequently gives thanks and urges others to do so: both for physical blessings (e.g. Rom 14:6, 1 Tim 4:3-4), and also for the amazing spiritual blessings that God has given us in Jesus through his Spirit—inheritance, forgiveness, eternal life (e.g. Col 1:12). Paul is especially thankful for his fellow believers, praising God for the way that they have responded to the gospel in faith, hope and love (e.g. Rom 1:8, 1 Cor 1:4, etc.). Our prayers are to be full of thanksgiving (e.g. Col 4:2); thanksgiving is in fact supposed to be our default mode of conversation (Eph 5:4).

So I reckon an Aussie Christian like me can learn a lot from this festival so favoured by our American friends. We Aussies tend to prefer understatement and grumbling; we can look with suspicion at that American penchant for positivity. But “thanksgiving” is a thoroughly biblical attitude and mode of expression, especially for those of us who know the God to whom we can direct our thanksgiving. As Jean has rightly pointed out, thanksgiving is not trivial. Thanksgiving is a right and proper response to all the good things God has done for us, and it can take a lifetime to develop the habit. So I say: let’s have more thanksgiving in our lives together, all year round!

A case in point is James 3:1-12. The heading for this passage in a number of modern versions (NIV, RSV, ESV, CEB) is “Taming the Tongue”. This makes it sound like the passage is all about how Christians can and should bring our speech to the point where it’s firmly under our control. But that’s not what the text says. In fact, it’s the opposite of what the text says. James’ point is this:

No human being can tame the tongue (James 3:8)

This Bible passage is not a recipe for how to reach that blissful state where our speech is tamed and so we can speak freely, knowing that whatever comes out of our lips will by definition be pure and helpful for others. Rather, it’s a warning that, this side of the new creation, we can never reach that state. The tongue’s presence with us is always like a lethal fire (v. 6), a wild animal (v. 7), or a vial of deadly poison (v. 8). In fact, it’s even more potently dangerous than these things. It’s like a bushfire that we can never put out—smoldering away perpetually. It’s like a wild horse that can never be caught or tamed, no matter how hard we try. It’s like a vial of poison without any antidote, bubbling away on the chemistry bench of our hearts, ready to overflow.

Why does James assess our tongues so bleakly? He’s not trying make us despair. He’s not telling us to be resigned to our fate. He’s not urging us to zip our mouths and never speak again. He is, however, warning to be constantly vigilant about the danger inherent in our speech. We can never be complacent about our tongues, because we can never tame them. So we need to keep looking to the “wisdom from above” (v. 17)—grounding ourselves in God’s word through Jesus Christ and enabling that word to transform us from the inside out. We need to pray with the Psalmist that God would set a guard over our mouths (Psalm 141:3). It is the word of God and prayer that will help to counteract and subdue the fire, the wildness, the poison of our tongues, even if that fire will only be completely quenched and the poison completely neutralised at the coming of the Lord.

This is the problem we have with social media. The various forms of social media enable us to communicate and share so many good things with each other; but by the same token they can easily act to amplify and fan into flame the evil inherent in our tongues. By their nature—and due to their business models—social media corporations keep encouraging us to be the reverse of James 1:19, to be “quick to speak” and “slow to listen”. And when we do “speak” in the world of social media, we are speaking not just to one person, but to all our acquaintances at once. Social media, for all its good effects, encourages us to believe the slogan: “publish or perish.” The Bible, however, says the exact opposite: it warns us that the more we publish, the more in danger we are of perishing (James 3:6).

One final, but important, observation: this passage about the dangers of our speech begins with a word of caution concerning teachers.

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive a greater judgment (James 3:1).¹

The reference to teachers is not accidental. This passage is especially relevant to Christian teachers—those who are occupied with using our tongues to speak God’s word to others. Just as teachers have more opportunities than average to do good through speaking the life-giving word of God to others, so also teachers have more opportunities to do harm through our speech. People will listen to the words of a teacher especially carefully—not just the words we speak in the pulpit or the Bible study or the kids’ lesson, but also the words we speak in personal conversations, in small groups, to our families, and of course online and in social media. They will take our words to heart. Furthermore, because teachers are often skilled wordsmiths, we are open to the temptation to use words that flatter, or that slander, or that employ clever innuendo to cut others to the heart without leaving an obvious trace of verbal violence. “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so” (James 3:10).

So keep asking yourself whether and how, through God’s word and prayer, you are hedging in your dangerous tongue. That is especially important if you are considering becoming a teacher of God’s word—or if you are a teacher already. And if you are not a teacher, please pray for your own teachers, and lovingly hold them to account for the words they speak (and type) in all contexts.

Proposed lighting from Autism Awareness Australia

Autism is a complex developmental disorder that inhibits a person’s ability to communicate and develop social relationships, and is often accompanied by behavioral challenges. Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) are lifelong developmental disabilities which are characterised by difficulties in social interaction, communication, repetitive interests, behaviours and sensory sensitivities. The word ‘spectrum’ is used to describe the wide range and severity of difficulties people with ASD experience.

Many people are affected by ASD—current estimates are about 1 in 100. However, research is still in its infancy; the disorder is multifaceted, and as a result it is often hard to diagnose.

Our family has a personal interest in all of this. One of own our children has been diagnosed with ASD. She has particular difficulty in processing sensory inputs (touch, taste, hearing, smell, etc.); as a result, she finds the physical and social world more difficult to navigate than most, and sometimes gets frightened and distressed by it. She needs extra help dealing with day to day activities. Like any family who lives with a person with a disability, our family is subject to challenges and limitations which can at times be frustrating for us all.

But we believe in the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. This gospel message gives us a powerful means to navigate and deal with the sadness, the limitations and challenges that arise from our little girl’s ASD. Here are some examples:

The Bible teaches us that a person is not defined by their abilities, but by their relationships—particularly their relationship to God. We don’t think of our daughter fundamentally as “autistic”; rather she is made in God’s image, and is a child of God through Christ—who also has an autistic disorder. We can love her and relate to her and delight in her as she is; accept her abilities and disabilities as part of that, and work to help her to overcome or manage the challenges she faces.

The Bible teaches us that wrong things in this world, including disability, are just part of living in a fallen world. We don’t have to hide from this disability, or pretend that these special challenges are merely “differences”. We live in a world subject to God’s general judgment against human sin. That’s bad. We acknowledge that together. That helps.

The Bible teaches us that Jesus loved us so much that he died to pay for our sins: We don’t deserve his love yet we are loved anyway. Remembering the depths of our own forgiveness also helps us to be loving, forbearing, when we need to sacrifice (yet again) our own comfort for the sake of helping our beloved daughter and sister.

The Bible teaches us that Jesus rose from the dead, giving us the sure hope of a new creation where there is no death, decay, suffering or weeping. We all look forward to immortal bodies and minds that aren’t subject to sickness or disability. When we do suffer and watch our loved ones suffer, we don’t despair: it makes us long for that new creation even more. Our suffering is, in this way, a gift from God, making us more like Christ, lifting our longings away from this world, and pointing us to God’s gift of new creation in Christ.

[Lionel has published this response on his own blog, and allowed us to re-post it here. You’ll find some interaction from other readers over there, and a longer, separate response from John Dickson in a week or so. -Ed.]

On Boxing Day 2012,* a series of electronic booklets called “Fresh Perspectives on Women in Ministry” was released by Zondervan. One of these booklets was written by John Dickson, a highly respected Australian evangelist, writer, researcher and Anglican minister. Although I have only met John briefly, I have personally appreciated and benefited from much of his written work—both academic and popular. He has been involved in Christian ministry for significantly longer than I have; nevertheless we do share a number of things in common. I write regularly for an organisation (Matthias Media) with whom John has had a long and fruitful association. I am a Sydney Anglican minister myself. I also share similar academic research interests to John, particularly regarding the application of New Testament historical research to contemporary ministry.

John’s booklet is, as the title states, “A Case for Women Giving Sermons.” The booklet raises issues which are of great interest—and importance—to many Christians, including (and perhaps especially) Christians in Sydney. It is inexpensive and easy to download, ensuring a wide dissemination. Furthermore, it has been released at a time over the Australian summer holiday period when many Christians are at summer camps and missions, reflecting and discussing theological issues with one another. The nature and timing of the release of this booklet necessitates a number of relatively fast, but also relatively substantial responses. There are already some responses out there (e.g. Luke Collings, Peter Bolt). I trust that this response of my own will be helpful for those seeking to engage with the issues John raises.

A measured response to “a modest proposal”

I write with some trepidation. Despite the need for relatively speedy responses, it is also important to write these responses with care and precision. There are a number of reasons for this. First and foremost, of course, we need to ensure we are doing justice to our brother’s views. This is especially important when the brother in question is a minister of the gospel who is seeking to promote discussion about biblical Christian ministry and preaching—a claim he makes repeatedly in his book, and which is of course clearly evident from his personal ministry over many years. Secondly, John has raised some real, important concerns about the nature of women’s ministry in our context. We need to be careful not to mute or overlook these concerns, but rather to take the opportunity to listen, learn and respond appropriately. Thirdly, we need to take care that any criticism we offer does not miss the mark and thus fail to be constructive. I will have criticism, of course. In fact, as my title indicates, I think John’s booklet has raised fundamental questions that deserve probing responses and further discussion—not just regarding the particular ministry of women, but also regarding the nature of contemporary preaching in general. It would be a great shame, however, if such responses and discussions degenerated into simplistic slogans. Finally, while I’m sure he doesn’t intend to create division, a number of the points John makes are potentially very divisive. In light of these claims, we need to do whatever we can to promote gospel unity and avoid an unnecessary “taking of sides”.

Dickson’s proposal is highly focussed, relatively straightforward and concisely argued. It concerns the meaning and contemporary application of the term “teach” in 1 Timothy 2:12:

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. (1 Timothy 2:11–12)

Dickson’s proposal is as follows:

I hope to show that the specific activity Paul disallows to women in 1 Timothy 2:12 does not refer to a general type of speaking based on Scripture. It refers to a specific activity found throughout the pages of the New Testament. It means preserving and laying down the traditions handed on by the apostles. This is not easily equated with the explanation and application of a Bible passage found in today’s expository sermon. If this is correct—if Paul’s “teaching” and our “sermon” are not identical—the biblical warrant for excluding women from the pulpit is not strong. (66-69)¹

Dickson is also at pains to point out a number of things that he is not seeking to do. Two of these things are especially worth noting here:

1. Dickson is not seeking to reject, undermine, remove himself from or in any way denigrate the biblical, reformed evangelical heritage of his Sydney Anglican context.
2. Dickson is not seeking to promote “egalitarianism”. He believes there are key differences between men and women in the home and in the church.² He is simply arguing that the ministry of the pulpit does not constitute one of these differences.

Of course, there may be consequences and implications arising from Dickson’s argument which he does not imagine or intend. Indeed, one of my aims in what follows will be to highlight some of these potential consequences and implications. However, I am not seeking to attribute any intentional malice or mischief to Dickson himself.

My response to Dickson’s booklet will follow, in order, three steps:

• I will affirm a number of things I genuinely appreciate about the booklet.
• I will scrutinise and question Dickson’s argument for a specialised, technical definition of the word “teach” (Greek didaskō) in 1 Tim 2:12.
• I will question Dickson’s (and indeed our own) assumptions about what is actually happening in a contemporary sermon.

Things I appreciate about Hearing Her Voice

There are a number of things about Dickson’s booklet that I truly appreciate, and which are worth highlighting and affirming.

Firstly, the booklet urges us to think historically about the Bible. Although Dickson’s booklet is not an “academic” publication, nevertheless it does for us what good biblical scholarship should do. It forces us to use the lens of historical imagination to think about the Bible and to apply God’s word to our contemporary situation. I am using the term “imagination” positively here. It is too easy for us to read the Bible assuming that the situation into which it is written is in every respect the same as our own. Although we should not highlight the differences too strongly, there is great value in “imagining” (on the basis of biblical and other historical evidence) what it would have been like “back then,” so that we can better understand what the Bible is (and is not) saying to us “here and now”. The particular questions which Dickson forces us to think through are important: What would church have looked like at a time when nobody (not even the “preachers”) had the same easy access to the collected documents of the New Testament which we take for granted? How should this affect us, as we seek to appropriate texts about congregational life, written into such a situation (such as 1 Tim 2:12)? These are questions worth asking, even if we disagree about the answers.

Secondly, the booklet makes us think practically about a particular biblical word. Dickson writes as one who is convinced (as I am) that God speaks to us through the very words of the Bible. Thus his special focus on the word “teach” (didaskō), far from being a dry exercise in pedantry, is designed to help us consider what God is really saying to us, and what that should mean for our contemporary ministry practices. There are, indeed, some parallels between what Dickson is doing here and the work of an earlier generation of Sydney evangelicals—most notably Broughton Knox and Donald Robinson’s articulation of the biblical doctrine of church. They pointed out that the Greek word ekklēsia, which is usually translated as “church” in our Bibles, doesn’t necessarily map directly onto the English word “church”. They then sought to apply that linguistic insight to our modern church practices. This generated many fruitful discussions (along with many disagreements and misappropriations!). Dickson’s investigation is nowhere near as detailed as that of Knox and Robinson, of course. Nevertheless, the parallels between the two endeavours should help us to remember that sustained concentration on individual words is a worthwhile exercise, even if we disagree about the results of the investigation.

Thirdly, Dickson raises an issue that is worth discussing—even more so than the oft-cited issue of “women’s ordination”. Dickson deliberately says nothing about ordination (52). This is, to my mind, a good thing. The question of ordination has to do with church structures, offices and organisation. These issues, while important, are derivative. They are not the heartbeat of the evangelical faith. Rather, we are (or should be) even more interested in those fundamental questions about the word of God itself: particularly about how God’s word is to be spoken and experienced in the concrete relational context of regular Christian gatherings. Dickson’s booklet raises these important questions, albeit from the viewpoint of a particular question concerning the role of women.

Fourthly, Dickson is seeking to promote the regular practice of women speaking encouraging words in church in a biblically appropriate way. Dickson calls on his potential critics to explain why our church gatherings so rarely allow opportunities for women to offer encouraging words (742). He says that he would be delighted with even a minimal response to his book, in which some of his readers decide afresh to “give women more of a voice in the church service” (747, cf. 290), even if they do not invite women to share the pulpit. I write as somebody who would fit roughly into this category of respondent. I recall just a few weeks ago at church how I was greatly encouraged by an elderly widow, a Christian woman who spoke at some length about her efforts at evangelism. Through her example she gently but firmly exhorted and rebuked us all! This sort of thing should happen more often. During my own time leading a congregation and preaching, I have made some efforts to do as Dickson suggests, but I have to admit that it’s been a bit feeble; I could do more. So I appreciate Dickson’s call here (on this topic, see also Luke Collings).

“Teaching” ain’t teaching?

Let’s now get into the details of Dickson’s argument.

Dickson’s technical sense of “teach”

As I have already said, much of Dickson’s argument is focussed on a single Greek word which appears in 1 Timothy 2:12: didaskō. This word is translated “teach” in most of our modern English versions. Dickson, however, is claiming that this word often has a “specific”, “particular” and “technical” sense, especially in Paul’s letters (including 1 Tim 2:12). It refers, he argues, to an activity which was directly relevant to the first century church, but which has no real modern equivalent. It refers to the process of

carefully preserving and laying down for the congregation the traditions handed on by the apostles. (294)

This was a vital role in the early church because of their historical situation:

In the period before the texts of the New Testament were available (before about AD 100), a church’s only access to the range of things the apostles had said about Jesus and his demands was through a teacher, the one entrusted with the “apostolic deposit.”(295)

Dickson thus links the term didaskō directly with the process of “oral tradition” by which early Christian teaching was transmitted (see esp. 407-433). Indeed, by quoting 1 Corinthians 11:23-24 (374), Dickson implies that the word “teach” belongs in pretty much the same field as other words which are usually accepted by scholars as referring to oral tradition, such as “deliver” (paradidōmi) and “receive” (paralambanō). Dickson is quite specific about what “teaching” would have looked like. It would have consisted of relatively short, concise repetitions of traditional phrases (see e.g. 695-696). The job of the teacher was simply to “rehearse for you [i.e. the hearer] the specific sayings he had committed to memory (just as the Pharisees could repeat what Rabbi Hillel had said about divorce laws)” (658). The teacher’s role was thus quite specific, but it was also invested with “maximal” authority because the sayings he repeated came directly from Jesus and the apostles and thus required unquestioning acceptance (685-693).

Of course, since we now have access to the authoritative New Testament Scriptures in the fixed canon, the role of “teaching” in this technical sense is defunct. “No human being preserves and lays down the teachings of Jesus and the apostles anymore” (664). Since there are no “teachers” in this technical sense, Dickson argues that the command of 1 Timothy 2:11-12 does not apply to anyone alive today. This kind of maximally authoritative “teaching” no longer exists—our authority, instead, lies in the Bible. In fact, while he doesn’t say it, we could reasonably imply from Dickson’s argument and his use of various analogies (70, 236) that it would be better not to use the word “teach” at all to translate the Greek term: “teaching” ain’t really teaching!

Dickson’s Rejected alternative: an extremely generalised sense of “teach”

In a number of places throughout his booklet, Dickson makes a contrast between his own very specific understanding of the word “teach” as a technical term for transmitting oral tradition, and an alternative understanding which he rejects as inadequate in most instances. The alternative understanding of didaskō which Dickson rejects is an extremely generalised sense of the term “teach.” In this understanding, the term “teach” refers to any sustained activity in which one person informs another person about (or on the basis of) biblical or gospel truth. Dickson refers to this sense variously as “pretty much any sort of biblical talk” (165), “the broadest possible meaning” (240), “any extended speech in church” (240), “all forms of public speaking in church” (677).

Dickson consistently contrasts his own very particular understanding of “teach” with this alternative, extremely generalised sense. Indeed, he often seems to argue as if these are the only two viable options for understanding the word.

The argument

Dickson’s argument has three key elements.

Firstly, Dickson points to the many instances where Paul uses the word “teach” or its cognates (such as “teacher”) alongside and in parallel with other words that refer to speech such as “prophesy” and “exhort” (e.g. Rom 12:6-8, Eph 4:11). This shows that the word “teach” cannot be used in the extremely generalised sense—otherwise, what are the other words doing there? Therefore, in Paul’s normal usage it must have a more specialised, technical sense (163-273).³

Secondly, Dickson points out that Paul sometimes uses the word “teach” in a context where he is clearly referring to the passing on and laying down of oral tradition (e.g. 2 Tim 2:2). Therefore, the word “teach” likely refers to this process (400).

Thirdly, Dickson shows that his specific, technical definition of the term “teach” is consistent with most of the other instances of the term or its cognates in Paul’s letters, especially in the pastoral epistles (1 Tim, 2 Tim, Titus).

Another (obvious) alternative?

Dickson claims that for his argument to be shown to be wrong, a critic must provide “an alternative understanding of authoritative teaching in 1 Timothy 2:12 that fits with the historical and biblical data” (736).

I will, then, propose an alternative understanding of the term “teach.” This understanding is, as far as I can tell from consulting dictionaries and looking up the term in Greek usage, a very common usage of the word in the ancient world. It also maps reasonably well (albeit not perfectly) onto the English term “teach”.⁴

To “teach” normally refers to an activity of transmitting intellectual and moral truth from one individual to another (or to a group of others), in a manner which is usually predicated upon some relationship of order or authority between teacher and learner (e.g. parent-child, teacher-disciple, leader-community).

This understanding of the term “teach” is, of course, more general than Dickson’s “special”, “technical” and “particular” sense which restricts its usage to the passing on of oral tradition. Nevertheless, it is also more specific than Dickson’s alternative, extremely generalised sense as “all forms of public speaking in church”. This is because “teaching”, when contrasted with other kinds of biblical or gospel speech, implies or assumes a clearer sense of an ordered relationship of authority between teacher and disciple.⁵

In this understanding, then, 1 Timothy 2:12 would be referring to a kind of communication of Christian truth in which there is a clear relationship of order or authority between speaker and hearer. Paul is prohibiting this kind of communication being exercised by women to men in a congregational context.

Returning to the arguments of the booklet

In light of the existence of this alternative, Dickson’s argument is not as strong as it might at first appear. Let us re-examine the various elements of his argument.

Firstly, I am quite prepared to accept Dickson’s argument that “teaching” isn’t used as a catch-all term to describe any communication of biblical truth to anybody else. However, ruling out this extremely generalised sense doesn’t necessarily imply that we must accept Dickson’s very specialised, technical sense. Another, standard, sense is available to us and should be considered first: teaching means the authoritative transmission of truth from one individual to another, in whatever way is most appropriate to the context in which the word is being used. This understanding of teaching, by itself, would account for the fact that “teaching” is distinguished from “prophesying”, “exhorting”, etc. Teaching is different to prophecy, exhortation, etc. because the relational dynamics involved in teaching are different to the relational dynamics involved in prophecy, exhortation, etc. We do not have to jump to the specialised, technical sense to explain the parallel use of “teaching” alongside “prophesy”, “exhortation”, etc.

Secondly, an understanding of the word “teach” which allows it to refer to any kind of authoritative transmission of the truth allows it to be used, on occasion, in places where the passing on of solemn tradition is in view (such as 2 Tim 2:2), since the passing on of solemn tradition is indeed one kind of authoritative transmission of truth. This does not mean, however, that every instance of the term (such as 1 Tim 2:12) must be referring to the passing on of oral tradition.

Thirdly, the idea that the word “teach” can refer to any kind of authoritative transmission of truth (depending on the context) is also consistent with the other instances of Paul’s usage. It makes sense, for example, of the command for older women to be people who “teach what is good” (using the cognate term kalodidaskalos) and so train younger women (Tit 2:3-4)—the relationship of authority here is predicated on age.

Furthermore, it is worth noting that outside the pastoral epistles, the word “teach” (didaskō) does not sit at all comfortably within the vocabulary of oral tradition. On the one hand, many of the key places in Paul’s letters which Dickson cites to support the concept of oral tradition (367, 378) do not in fact mention the term “teach” (e.g. 1 Cor 1:14-17, 2:2, 3:10, 6:9-11, 9:3-6, 11:2, 11:23-26, 15:1-11; Gal 1:6-9; 1 Thess 4:1-2). Rather, the more common technical terms for the passing on of oral tradition are words such as “deliver” (paradidōmi) and “receive” (paralambanō) along with their cognates. On the other hand, in the Old Testament and in contemporary Jewish circles, the term “teach” often involves a specific written text (e.g. Deut 4:10-13, Neh 8:8 LXX, 2 Chr 17:9 LXX, Ezr 7:10, Rom 2:20-21), and so must be broader than Dickson’s specialised, technical understanding of the term as a reference to the laying down and passing on of oral tradition.

Teaching is still teaching!

I still believe, therefore, that Dickson has the burden of proof before him. He has shown that his definition of teaching as the laying down or passing on of oral tradition is sometimes consistent with its usage in the pastorals. But this is far from proving that it must be what Paul means in 1 Tim 2:12. To my mind, a more obvious understanding of the word “teach” is the authoritative transmission of truth from one individual to another, in whatever way is most appropriate to the context in which the word is being used. Dickson’s insistence that we are dealing with a specific, technical understanding of the term is an interesting hypothesis, but it has yet to be developed into a compelling argument.

What’s actually happening in a contemporary sermon?

As we have seen, the first plank of Dickson’s argument is that the “teaching” activity which is forbidden to be exercised by women to men in 1 Tim 2 is a specific activity involving “carefully preserving and laying down for the congregation the traditions handed on by the apostles.” I have argued above that Dickson does not present a convincing case for this understanding of the term “teach”. The second plank of Dickson’s argument is that contemporary preaching is something quite different; it is more like the biblical activity of “exhortation” (e.g. Rom 12:8), an activity which is never explicitly forbidden to women.

Dickson’s argument does not ultimately stand or fall on the basis of whether contemporary preaching is identified with the activity referred to by the biblical term “exhortation”. Hence I will not pursue the issue here.⁶ I believe, however, that there are even more significant questions which arise from this second plank of Dickson’s argument. These questions concern Dickson’s stated understanding of what contemporary preaching actually is.

For Dickson, a sermon is essentially a verbal commentary on a Bible passage along with some application. Dickson articulates this understanding consistently throughout his booklet: preaching is “explanation and application of a Bible passage” (68, 266, 324, 458); it is “commenting on the apostolic teaching (and various other parts of Scripture) and urging believers to apply God’s Word to modern life” (634); “[t]he words of the modern preacher are more like a commentary on Scripture and an application of Scripture” (694, cf. 247).

Dickson does not argue for his view of preaching; rather he simply assumes that the bulk of his readers will share his understanding of the nature of the contemporary sermon. Of course, I completely understand why Dickson would assume this definition of preaching. “Commentary” and “application” is indeed what a lot of preaching looks like. In fact, in purely formal terms, Dickson’s description of preaching is pretty accurate. If you analysed the formal structure of most sermons, you would probably find that commentary and application do take up quite a large chunk of what’s going on (at least in Sydney).

But let’s take a step back for a moment. “Commentary” and “application” might be what preaching often looks like. But is this really what preaching actually is, at its core? Or at the very least, is this what preaching really should be?

Dickson’s booklet has caused me to reflect on my own personal experience of sermons by others, and sermons I’ve preached, and on what I know about the best preaching in church history. And I am not satisfied with an understanding of preaching which views it simply as “commentary plus application.” Now let me ask you, if you have experienced or participated in preaching—are you satisfied with this definition? I think there is far more going on.

Sermons at their best are, I propose, communicative acts in which a preacher, empowered by the Spirit of God, delivers God’s truth to his hearers in a way which transfixes and transforms their whole heart—mind, will, conscience, affections. Of course, because God’s truth comes to us in and through the inspired words of the Scriptures, it is right to ensure that our sermons clearly and demonstrably rely upon the very words of the Scriptures. This is why, as Dickson affirms, the “default form” of the sermon is “exposition and application” (461). But identifying the default form of the sermon is not the same as identifying the essence of the sermon. A good sermon is more than this. It is a delivery of God’s truth from speaker to hearer.

Furthermore, there are real relational dynamics of authority going on when preaching occurs in a concrete gathering of believers. These relational dynamics are different from the relational dynamics that are in play, for example, when an individual is sitting at home reading a written commentary or devotional literature. This is why the preacher has, and should feel, a weighty responsibility towards his hearers. He is communicating God’s truth to them; they are learning God’s truth and need to act accordingly. Granted, the authority inherent in the preacher is always derivative. Preachers rely on the Bible. They can get it wrong. They can and should be questioned. The listeners should check it out for themselves. The authority of the preacher is, of course, not “maximal” (692). But the authority of a preacher is still more tangible and weighty than that of a commentator, say, or of a person giving an encouraging word in church.

In other words, preaching is—according to the common biblical understanding which I outlined above—”teaching”!⁷

This is not the place to mount a strong biblical defence of this understanding of preaching as “teaching” in the sense of authoritative transmission of biblical truth. At this point, I must simply appeal to to the way in which preaching has been understood historically—at least in the Protestant, Reformed, Anglican tradition—and to my readers’ sense of what a sermon is.

In fact, in making this point, I’m not seeking simply to criticise Dickson’s booklet. This is a question and a criticism I have for myself, and for all of us. Dickson has given us a definition of preaching—commentary plus application—which he thinks, probably quite correctly, will be generally accepted by his readers. Why is this so? I wonder if it is because we have, as a whole, thrown out the baby with the bathwater. We have rightly recognised that the authority of the sermon is entirely derived from the authority of the Bible. We have rightly insisted that most sermons should follow the form of a Bible passage: sermons should bring out what the Bible says, speaking about it, explaining it, and applying it. But in doing so, have we reduced preaching to a set of activities? In concentrating on the form of preaching, have we forgotten its essence?

Indeed, one of the things I found most dissatisfying about Dickson’s book was his lack of attention to these kind of relational dynamics. As he discussed the various forms of Christian communicative acts in the Bible, he consistently relegated issues of authority in interpersonal relationships to the background. Whatever we make of 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, for example, we must agree that the main thrust of Paul’s argument is that the general nature of the man-women relationship must be visibly apparent in the act of prophesying. But Dickson’s discussions of these passages tended to concentrate mostly on observations of sameness: Paul doesn’t “forbid” prophesying (113); the woman’s prophecy is to be assessed in the same way as that of men (688). These are interesting observations, of course, and correct as far as they go. But they do not go very far.

I guess Dickson would object that he was making a very specific point, and so couldn’t go into all the details concerning relationships, authority, etc. This would be fine if Dickson’s booklet was simply a proposal concerning the meaning of the word “teach” in 1 Timothy 2. But he has offered to do far more than that. He is seeking to defend women preaching. The relevant passages of the Bible, as well as the relevant contemporary issues, all have relational dynamics and issues of authority at their core. These issues cannot be ignored.⁸

When Christians speak to one another (indeed, when anyone speaks to anyone else), we are at the very same time participating in and affecting relationships with each other. These relationships will, at times, involve different kinds of “authority”, sometimes subtle, sometimes explicit. In many parts of the New Testament (including 1 Tim 2:12), the relational dynamics of Christian speech-acts are clearly in the foreground. We can insist all we like that our communities only have the Bible as our authority, and there is no other kind of authority that is relevant. But that would simply be naïve. Leadership carries authority, and preaching carries authority—along with responsibility. If I claim there is no particularly relevant authority in my preaching, I am shirking my responsibility. I will not feel the weight and solemnity of what I am undertaking. And I will probably be quite dangerous too, like a man casually swinging a sharp sword around his head without realising its ability to cut and pierce.

Conclusion

There are many things to appreciate about John Dickson’s book. In particular, I believe that he is right in his desire to promote the regular practice of women speaking encouraging words in church in a biblically appropriate way. We should be asking ourselves whether we are properly affirming the speech of women in church. We should also be asking ourselves whether we are so fixated on “the sermon” in church that we denigrate other ways of speaking.

Nevertheless, Dickson’s argument—that the term “teach” in 1 Tim 2:12 should be restricted to the process of “carefully preserving and laying down for the congregation the traditions handed on by the apostles”—is not compelling. A more straightforward understanding of the word “teach” is the authoritative transmission of truth from one individual to another.

Furthermore, Dickson’s understanding of the nature of modern preaching is too restrictive. While “commentary” and “application” are the default form of sermons today, there is far more to preaching than this. Sermons involve the authoritative transmission of truth from preacher to hearer. The authority involved in preaching is a derived authority, which is always subject to that of the Scriptures. Nevertheless it is a real authority which cannot be understood simply by reference to the idea of “commentary” and “application”. Therefore the modern sermon has significant overlap with the activity of “teaching” referred to in 1 Tim 2. In our efforts to promote the speaking ministry of every believer—including and especially women—let’s not forget the weighty responsibility of the public preaching ministry.

If we should (and I agree with Dickson that we should) be hearing more of the voices of the women among us, at the very same time we will need to be discerning about the relational dynamics involved. We will need to do things that take seriously and clearly demonstrate those relational dynamics. After all, this is the thrust of 1 Corinthians 11 & 14—and the issue at hand in 1 Timothy 2. Dickson considers doing something like this in light of his own framework—he suggests that we could allow women to preach some kinds of sermons but not others. He claims, however, that it wouldn’t work, because any time he thinks of an example, it “smacks of a legalism that does not reflect the gospel” (755). I would suggest that the problem of legalism in fact stems from Dickson’s own approach, which seeks to divide Christian speech-acts into different formal types and then to ask which formal types are forbidden to women and which are not. A more rounded approach to relational dynamics and Christian speech-acts, such as that advocated by Claire Smith,⁹ would, I pray, be less susceptible to such legalistic applications.

What are we supposed to do with this great truth?

Some will urge us to use the incarnation as the basis for an ‘incarnational’ ministry or missionary strategy. That is, our task is to ‘incarnate’ Christ, or the love of Christ, in other people’s lives. This quest to imitate the incarnation is understandable. It’s an attempt to affirm what the incarnation affirms: that God is deeply interested in the physical world, the whole person, and the body as well as the soul. But an attempt to use the incarnation as a direct model for our own ministry or mission is wrong-headed. Although it tries to affirm the incarnation, in the end it trivialises its uniqueness. It puts us in the place where only God can be. If we’re ‘incarnating’ we’re actually being ‘condescending’: coming down from our lofty positions, making God real in the lives of others, bringing Christ from heaven to earth. But if we’re doing that, we’re failing to recognize the truth that we are not, like God, in a high and lofty position. We are sinners in need of grace. The voice of faith tells us that we cannot and must not attempt to ascend to heaven to bring Christ down; our role is simply to confess and to believe that God has done it all for us in Christ (Rom 10:6-8). We always need God’s grace just as much as those we are ministering to. We cannot incarnate anything: we are always the beneficiaries of the incarnation; God is always the subject.¹

The incarnation event itself, then, is matchless, unique and unrepeatable. Indeed, it’s the beginning of the most awe-inspiring series of events in the history of God’s dealings with the world. As such, it’s one of those deep truths that we can’t ‘do’—we can only believe it and confess it, as in the Apostle’s Creed. We can’t ourselves become incarnate; we can only stand in awe at the truth that God became one of us; we can only put our trust in the man who is indeed God, and so be saved.

The incarnation does, however, teach us how to live. This is especially the case when the incarnation is placed, as the Bible always does, in the context of Jesus’ ongoing life, death and resurrection. The humility of the incarnation-death-resurrection of Jesus acts, for example, as a model for our own other-person-centred humility (Phil 2:1-11). We cannot claim to follow the Son of God who became incarnate and who died on a cross, while at the same time seeking power or honours or benefits or high positions for ourselves. The incarnation-death-resurrection of Jesus also shows us that God is not detached from our lives, but is intimately interested in our world and in our actions towards others. The true Spirit of God is the Spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh (1 John 4:2). That means we can’t simply wish others well without also seeking to care about their physical needs (e.g. 1 John 3:17-18). The incarnation, in that way, is made real in our lives when we put ourselves at the service of others; when we abandon quests for greatness; when we care for the flesh-and-blood needs of those around us.

This Christmas, then, let’s savour the incomparable incarnation. We cannot repeat it. But we can and should stand in awe of it. Let’s delight in it. Let’s follow through on its implications. And let’s confess it to others.

1. A few centuries after Jesus was around, various people had various ideas about various things.
2. Some people living at some point up to 300 years after Jesus lived possibly claimed that Jesus had a wife.
3. Some of these people wrote their ideas down in story-form.
4. A small bit of the thing they wrote seems to have been found recently by somebody somewhere, and has been purchased by an anonymous collector.

The important question is not, of course, whether these facts prove anything about Jesus’ actual marital status (obviously, when you think about it, they don’t). The important question is why “Jesus’ wife” has turned into such a big story in the media. In other words: Despite such flimsy evidence, why do so many people want Jesus to be married?

Maybe it’s because many of us are deeply suspicious of the organised, institutional “church”, so we’re predisposed to believe anyone who casts doubt on the writings of the New Testament and the Christian message, without properly checking it out.

Maybe it’s because we assume sex makes us human. Sexuality and sexual relationships are so often seen today as keys to our self-definition and our identity. If Jesus were married, he’d be a powerful pin-up boy for the quest to put sexual expression at the core of our own humanness.

Maybe there’s other reasons too. But if the possibilities I listed do happen to ring true to you or to your friends, here are some suggestions.

Firstly: If you want to check out the Christian text with the most ancient public manuscript evidence, read John’s Gospel. The earliest manuscript fragment, from the early 2nd century, is in Manchester UK, and it’s free to the viewing public (I viewed it last year).¹

Secondly: Please realise that the New Testament (as well as the church’s historical teaching) strongly affirms Jesus’ humanity. But Jesus’ humanity is not defined primarily in terms of sexual expression. Personally, I reckon that’s great news! For one thing, it’s a powerful affirmation of the value of singleness. It also helps us to avoid running after sex and marriage–which so often disappoint–to fulfil our deepest desires. Most importantly, it helps us to see that there is something far greater to life, something which Jesus himself gives: a union with God as our loving heavenly Father.

Comments are closed on this post; see Tony’s article for why.

I find the discussions about submission and love and even mutual submission helpful but a bit hard to understand practically.

Often the discussion is centred around the controversial passages and is understandably directed towards women who have qualms about what this means for them. This is a good thing. However (sorry if I missed the updates) I find precious little directed towards how men would apply this and how they should be a loving husband.

If I were married I’d want to know this especially if we are supposed to love and lead. So in wives submitting to their husbands, what does this mean for the husband?

Andrew went on to say (quite rightly!) that he was unsatisfied with simplistic solutions such as the idea that the husband is the ‘final decision maker’, or the idea that the husband just has to ‘sacrifice’ his own opinions whenever there’s a deadlock in the decision-making process. I also received an email raising similar issues from another bloke who’s been married for some time.

In this post, I’d like to make a few observations about the nature of a husband’s sacrificial love based on one of the relevant passages (Ephesians 5:25-32), and then invite others to contribute examples of how this sacrificial love might work out in their own situations.

As I begin, there are two important caveats:

1. Although an online discussion like this is valuable, it can’t deal with the issue fully. Ultimately, the day-to-day reality of the Christian life is best learned in the context of personal relationships and communities. This doesn’t mean than an online discussion has no value; it just means that it is of limited value. In fact, if you’re a bloke, and you think this is a valuable discussion, then I’d encourage you also to actively seek opportunities personally to encourage, and to be encouraged by, other blokes whom you know.
2. Usually, biblical principles will need to be applied in different ways in different contexts. In this case, since every man is different, and every woman is different, and therefore every marriage is different, the application of these principles will be different. Hence it would be a mistake to lay down absolute rules or policies. This discussion is more about godly wisdom, attitudes and desires, which are informed by biblical principles, and which work themselves out in different ways in different circumstances.

Now let’s turn to the passage from Ephesians. The key principle in this passage is that the husband-wife dynamic makes proper sense when it’s grounded in the gospel of Jesus Christ:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25-27)

Paul is not saying that the husband-wife relationship is parallel to the Christ-church relationship at every point. When you think about it, that would be ludicrous, wouldn’t it? Nowhere does the Bible teach, for example, that all husbands are splendidly holy like Christ, or that only wives need cleansing of sin. Rather, Paul is reminding his readers of what he’s been saying right from the start of his letter. Although none of us deserve anything but God’s judgment for our rebellion against him, nevertheless God has shown incredible grace and mercy to us. God, through Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross, has forgiven, redeemed and purified us, and made us his own children, a people for his very own:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. (Ephesians 1:3-4)

God’s great plan for the world is a cosmic plan; a plan which includes our own adoption as God’s children and the forgiveness of our sins; a plan which culminates in the whole world being united in Christ (Eph 1:10). This theme continues all the way up to chapter 5, where Paul  reminds his readers of this great truth, and insists that the husband-wife relationship is best understood in light of the great plan God has for the world in his Son Jesus Christ.

This is the key for us as we come to think about the idea of sacrificial love in marriage. If we don’t have the gospel of Jesus Christ firmly in our sights when we read Ephesians 5, we’ll only end up with a twisted distortion of the sacrificial love / submission dynamic that it describes. That’s because we’ll probably be thinking about the husband-wife relationship in terms of some other paradigm which we’ve gleaned from somewhere else, and which doesn’t do proper justice to the meaning of the passage. For example, here are some common alternative paradigms for understanding the husband-wife relationship:

1. The power struggle. In this paradigm, marriage is primarily about two individuals in competition with one another. The most powerful person wins, so you need to make sure you protect your own interests. If we are thinking about marriage in these terms, the sacrificial love / submission dynamic will just end up being a cynical effort at aggressive or passive-aggressive power-plays. We shouldn’t be surprised that this paradigm exists, of course; after all, in Genesis 3:16, after the man and the woman rebel against God, God himself says that the man-woman relationship will be cursed by a struggle of desire and rule. It’s a paradigm that affects our own sinful hearts, and one to which we are still constantly tempted to return.
2. The economic partnership. Sometimes, even without realizing it, we can think and act as if marriage is simply an economic partnership. Marriage, in other words, can be thought of as a contract between two people who acknowledge that they have somewhat conflicting interests, but who nevertheless enter into a mutually satisfactory co-operative arrangement to ensure that each others’ needs are met, a little like a corporate partnership. Of course, this way of thinking isn’t entirely wrong, because marriage always has economic aspects. If, however, we view marriage primarily in terms of an economic partnership, we will tend to be absorbed by the questions that characterise the corporate world: management, chains of command, questions about who makes the ‘decisions’ and who does the ‘tasks.’ The sacrifice / submission dynamic, if it is understood in these terms, is at best a convenient management structure for making the partnership run smoothly, and at worst a way for the husband to keep his wife as a ‘subordinate’ in the chain of command.
3. The fairy tale (a.k.a. the Hollywood “happily ever after”). In this paradigm, marriage is ultimately all about ‘the two of us.’ We are ‘fulfilled’ in one another. Perhaps we’re on a romantic journey together; we don’t know where we’re going on this journey, but it’s nice to hold hands on the way. Of course, love and marriage go together like the proverbial horse and carriage. But if we put such inward-focused romantic love on a pedestal and make it the ultimate goal, it becomes idolatry, as Valerie Ting points out in her recent article on singleness.

We need admit that all these alternative ways of thinking affect us at various times. That’s why we need to keep coming back to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Those who know Jesus Christ have been redeemed and made God’s precious children. We have been given a vision of a better way of life. It’s a way of life which can rest secure in God’s forgiveness rather than needing to struggle for power in the world. It’s a way of life that cannot be reduced to economics. It’s a way of life which isn’t oriented toward ourselves and our own desires, but which has a further goal outside of our own relationships, a goal which we do not determine for ourselves. This goal, as we have seen, is God’s great plan to unite all things in Christ (Eph 1:10). It is from this goal that the “profound mystery” of marriage (cf. Eph 5:32) must take its ultimate cue.

According to Ephesians 5, the paradigm for marriage is not a power struggle, or a partnership, or a paradise. It is, rather, a deeply profound union, with an orientation to something even more profound, outside the union. Marriage is, in other words, a Christ-oriented one-flesh relationship. This is the basis for Paul’s instruction to husbands:

In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:28-32)

What might this mean when it comes to a husband sacrificially loving his wife? Here are a few general observations:

• Because marriage is a one flesh relationship, the immediate goal of a husband’s love is to nurture a deep and tender union with his spouse. His responsibility is to love his wife in a way which seeks to maintain and deepen the profound unity of the marriage relationship itself, a unity which is for the mutual good of both of them.
• Because marriage is a Christ-oriented relationship, the ultimate goal of a husband’s love is directed toward God’s great plan for the world, to unite all things in Christ. What should matter to him is whether the marriage is heading towards greater godliness, greater concern for God’s desires, greater love for one another, greater concern to see Jesus Christ known and honoured in the world, and greater service of others.
• Because a husband’s love is Christ-like, it will involve sacrifice. However, this ‘sacrifice’ is not simply a matter of giving in to his wife’s whims at the expense of his own whims. Just as Christ’s sacrifice was intended to achieve a purpose—our cleansing from sin and unity with God the Father—the husband’s sacrifice is also intended to achieve the purpose of the marriage. He sacrifices himself and his desires for the sake of maintaining and deepening his unity with his wife, and for the sake of making his marriage a marriage which glorifies Christ.

What might that mean? It would be unfair to ask you what it would mean without giving some thoughts from my own life. So here’s some of the things it means in my own situation. We’ve just returned from a 3-year stint in the UK, where I was a theological student. Although we’ve been well provided for through generous donors, being in this situation has meant that I haven’t been able to ‘provide’ for my wife the same level of material security and stability that some of our peers enjoy. But that’s OK; our marriage is meant to be Christ-oriented, and we made the decision for me to do this study in order to serve Christ together. At the same time, my constant temptation is to be too absorbed with study. I really like reading and writing and preaching; and if I’m not careful, my wife gets the second-best of my energy and attention. I need to be pro-active in cherishing my wife; not just reactive. That sometimes means I need to say ‘no’ to more opportunities to read and write and preach. How do I actually go at loving my wife? Sometimes I fail; sometimes, by God’s grace, I succeed.

In concentrating on a few verses in Ephesians, I’m aware that there are many things that haven’t been said. I’m also very aware that Ephesians gives us a standard to which we men so often fall short. But hopefully it’s enough to go on. Now it’s over to you. How might a husband’s sacrificial love be expressed in the various situations in which you find yourself?

To ensure that this discussion achieves its aims, I’m going to add some special guidelines for comments on this post:

1. The assumption for making a comment is that you agree with complementarian principles for marriage, and that you are providing an example or a thought about how these principles actually work out, or asking a question along these lines. If you don’t share the assumption, this thread isn’t for you to contribute. There are plenty of other forums in which you can express your disagreement.
2. Although the discussion should stick to the one topic of a husband’s sacrificial love, that doesn’t mean that only husbands are invited to make comments. Whether you’re a man or woman, married or single, please feel welcome to contribute.
3. The examples you provide can include things you’ve learned from your own failures, or your own successes, or the failures of others, or the successes of others. You don’t have to tell the rest of us where you got your example from, and we won’t assume anything either.

As Christians, we have—or at least, we should have—our lives, our passions, our desires and our thoughts shaped by constant engagement with the Bible. The Bible speaks, again and again, about an infinitely loving God, whose Son Jesus Christ willingly sacrificed himself for our sake, to bring forgiveness of sins and to include us in his own intimate relationship with a loving heavenly Father. The Bible calls us to give our lives to this loving God, to rejoice in our status as God’s beloved children, and to respond in thankfulness and love to Jesus’ unfathomably great sacrifice. This is what the Bible calls ‘submission.’ This sacrifice-submission dynamic between Christ and his people is at the core of our lives, and it is also meant to inform the relationship between husband and wife.

But according to book-sale statistics, a huge proportion of our non-Christian friends are having their lives, their passions, their desires and their thoughts shaped by devouring a book whose view of human relationships is as far from the biblical vision as it could possibly be. This is a book which revels in sado-masochistic sexual deviance and abuse, and tens of millions are craving and consuming it as a form of entertainment. The popularity of this book means that our world is frequently hearing the term ‘submission’ in the context of the passive acceptance of sexual victimization. This, of course, means that when many of our friends hear us using the word ‘submission,’ their thoughts will automatically run to the degrading and damaging things they have filled their minds with.

I’m not making any apologies for my naivety. I’m glad I was naïve, and wish to remain so as much as I possibly can. I am, of course, aware that Fifty Shades of Grey is an exceedingly popular book; yet I am deliberately avoiding having anything to do with it. My own heart is subject to sin; I suspect that even considering the themes of the book will damage my (all too faltering) attempts to love, cherish and protect my wife, my daughters and my son. I’m very grateful that Kara read (most of) the book, so that I don’t have to.

Nevertheless, now that I’ve realized the existence of my naivety, I have a couple of brief suggestions for others.

1. If you’re a Christian, be aware that when you use the term ‘submission’ in any public discussion, the chances are high that you’ll be heard saying something quite different to what you mean. That’s not a reason to fill your mind with the abuse-as-entertainment that is so prevalent in the world. Just be aware that if you want to use the word ‘submission,’ you’ll have quite a bit of explaining to do.
2. And if you’re not a Christian but are reading this, I have a suggestion: please give Christians the benefit of the doubt when you hear them using the word ‘submission’ in a public discussion. They’re not necessarily thinking what you’re thinking. Wait for their explanation of what they mean before jumping to conclusions. It’s almost certain that if you stop and listen, you’ll hear something far more beautiful and upbuilding than anything you’ll find in Fifty Shades of Grey.

However, sometimes in their further desire to rule out any suggestion of abuse or power struggles in marriage, some Christians will refer to a catchy little slogan: ‘mutual submission.’ The slogan is supposed to be a summary of a verse which occurs just before the relevant passage in Ephesians:

“… submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5:21)

When the slogan ‘mutual submission’ is used, it’s usually designed to make the following argument:

1. Ephesians 5:21 clearly means that everyone must submit to everyone else without exception (‘mutual submission’)
2. This ‘mutual submission’ in Ephesians 5:21 must be used to override / temper / change the meaning of the passage about submission in marriage.
3. Thus husbands must submit to wives just as much as wives submit to husbands.

However, this logical argument is flawed.

Firstly, “…submitting to one another” does not necessarily mean that everyone must submit to everyone else without exception. It could mean that, but it doesn’t have to. The term ‘one another’ has a wide range of meanings. In some passages, the term ‘one another’ just means that some people are doing something to some other people. Revelation 6:4 talks about people “slaying one another”; it just means that some people were killing other people, not that everybody was killing everybody else simultaneously. The same goes for ‘judging’ in Romans 14:13. You can’t make a dogmatic decision about what “submitting to one another” means until you’ve read the rest of the passage.

Secondly, the idea that Ephesians 5:21 must be used to override / temper / change the meaning of Ephesians 5:22-24 is a very bad way to read the Bible. The tried-and-true method to read the Bible is to use the passages that we find clear to interpret the meaning of passages that we find unclear. But the ‘mutual submission’ argument does the exact opposite: it uses an ambiguous verse (“submitting to one another”) to override the complementarity which is spelt out clearly in the following verses. Ephesians 5:22-6:9 lists a number of different kinds of relationship (wife / husband; children / father; slaves / masters). In each relationship, the first party is called on to voluntarily submit, while the second party is called on to care for the first party in a way which has the first party’s best interests at heart. Submission and care are clearly related to each other, but they’re not the same thing. So “submitting to one another” can’t mean that everybody submits to everybody else.

By all means, let’s call on husbands to man up, to take their responsibilities seriously, to sacrifice themselves for their wives, to treat their wives with tender care and respect, and to hate any kind of abuse. But let’s not use ‘mutual submission’ to do it. In fact, I reckon we should avoid using the slogan entirely. It’s lazy, and it’s a bad way to read the Bible.

For more: check out Tim Challies’s summary of Peter O’Brien’s Ephesians commentary.

flickr: Gary Soup

In our previous post, we looked at a story that has often been used as analogy for the way that Christians can use secular wisdom in gospel mission and ministry. This is the account of the Israelites, plundering the gold of the Egyptians as God rescued them from slavery (Exodus 3:19-22). The analogy works because at least some of the Egyptian gold probably ended up being used to worship God (Exodus 25:1-8). But keen readers will notice that there’s another place the Egyptian gold ended up too:

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

Exodus 32:1-4

The gold of the Egyptians was not only an instrument for worshipping God. It was also the source of a terrible, deadly danger for Israel. The plunder from Egypt became an Egyptian-style idol. Israel, in other words, used the gold of the Egyptians to turn away from the living God.

The Israelites’ problem was, in the end, a problem of theology. When I say “theology” here, I’m not talking about dry dusty academic books; I’m talking about the life-changing knowledge of the God of the universe. Israel had originally come to know God through hearing his servant Moses and witnessing God’s spectacular deliverance of them from slavery in Egypt. But then, very quickly, Israel abandoned their theology–that is, they abandoned their relationship with this powerful, true and living God.

Of course, the Israelites probably wouldn’t have put it that way. In fact, they probably thought they had their theology all sorted out. After all, they were able to remember (and repeat) one of the fundamental truths they’d just learned: God was the God who had brought them out of Egypt. But it was a superficial theology. They didn’t go any further with their knowledge of God. They got bored. They knew that Moses had been God’s spokesman, but they wondered where he’d got to, and decided they needed something more tangible than words and memories. And so, instead of glorifying God with the gold of Egypt, they ended up using the gold of Egypt to fashion their own god (or gods). Because they had got bored with Moses’ revelation of God, the shiny gold of the Egyptians became their new god(s).

This, then, is the dark underbelly of the often-used analogy between Egyptian gold and secular wisdom. Secular wisdom, in the end, isn’t just a collection of shapeless nuggets, or discrete techniques, that we can grab and bolt harmlessly on to our theology as we seek to serve God. Wordly wisdom affects our whole way of thinking, our way of relating, our way of speaking to one another. Corporate management textbooks invite us to speak (and therefore to think) about our church as a corporation. Music lessons encourage us to treat church as a performance. Self-help books invite us to believe that we can help ourselves. None of this is a reason to avoid secular wisdom altogether. In fact, as we’ll see in future posts, we can’t avoid using secular wisdom. But it does remind us that secular wisdom is inherently dangerous. The more we think and speak and behave according to secular patterns, the greater the danger there is to us of forgetting about God and who he is. The more we get used to the groove of secular wisdom, the more we run the risk of fashioning a god for ourselves out of our secular nuggets. Given this danger, then, what should we do?

The short answer is to make sure we don’t get bored of theology. We need to keep growing in our understanding of the Bible, and of our love and knowledge of God. This will enable us to constantly and explicitly measure the worldly wisdom we’re using against the light of our knowledge of God. In one sense, this is something that all Christians need to pay attention to. But it’s also particularly relevant for you if you have any kind of responsibility in Christian mission and/or church life. You don’t want to end up like Aaron (Exod 32:24)–sheepishly shrugging your shoulders and making lame excuses as you witness those shiny nuggets of secular wisdom which you gleaned from the world emerging from your ministry as an idol, bringing spiritual death to those under your care. In fact, one of the greatest challenges of Christian leadership is working out how to plunder the gold of the Egyptians without seeing a golden calf emerge from your ministry furnace.

The long answer? That’s something we’ll explore more in future posts.