Who Is The Head Of Our Household?
Kid Sense is homeschooled. Twice a week, she take a Reformed Theology class with my dad.
My parents and I have some theological differences, but I want Kid Sense to be exposed to all sorts of different views. When she came home from class last week and told me her homework assignment was to ask me who is the head of our household, I knew this was an opportunity to have a larger discussion with her. Here’s the response I gave her:
You asked, as part of an assignment for theology class, who is the head of our family-- Dad or me? Grandpa and you must be reading the Pauline epistles! Some people believe these letters require Christian women to surrender all authority to their husbands. Let's consider some of these texts carefully:
Ephesians 5:22-24 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.
1 Corinthians 11:3 But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ.
Colossians 3:18 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
We can plainly see that Paul directed the women in the church communities he addressed to respect their husbands and defer to their authority. Was this instruction specifically for the women in the congregations he wrote to, or does this apply to married Christian women in all times and places? Let’s explore the context of these passages.
In two of these passages, the command for women to obey their husbands is immediately followed by the requirement that husbands should love their wives. Throughout the New Testament, Christians are reminded to set ourselves apart from the world by how we treat others. Love your enemies, said Jesus (Matthew 5, Luke 6, etc.). Paul echoed this, writing “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” (Romans 12:14). Christians in all times are called to differentiate ourselves from the world around us by loving everyone, even our enemies. So isn’t it strange, then, that Paul followed up the instruction for wives to submit with the comparatively easy task for husbands to love their wives? If all our fellow humans are our neighbors, surely that includes spouses? Even most non-believers in our fallen world consider this to be right. Jesus said, “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matthew 5:46).
Submitting is a different kind of sacrifice than loving. This incongruence clues us in to the idea that these passages are about something beyond marriage advice.
God used Paul’s ministry to spread the good news of salvation beyond the relatively small Jewish community Jesus lived in. As any salesperson knows, establishing and cultivating positive relationships is key to closing a deal. Paul was an effective witness because of his ability to connect with the people around him. Over and over, Paul demonstrated flexibility in dealing with the communities he encountered on his mission trips, winning converts in every corner of the Roman world. Despite his background as a devout Jew, he quickly dispensed with Torah edicts like circumcision and dietary restrictions when they got in the way of his goal of winning disciples for Christ. Letting go of some dusty Old Testament legalism may seem inconsequential to us today, but it certainly wasn’t to a well educated student of Jewish law like Paul. I imagine this would be more like if Dad and I were called to be missionaries to some far off country, but in order to fit in, I needed to accept that the cultural custom there involved Dad taking a second wife!
Fortunately for the church members in Ephesus, Corinth, and Colossae, that particular kind of cultural assimilation wasn’t required. Instead, Paul reminded them to behave in line with the communities around them as far as possible while obeying God. This must have been easier for some members than others. Husbands loving wives probably seemed pretty reasonable. Wives obeying husbands made sense when we consider that in these communities, women had few options for financially supporting their households and typically lacked much formal education. There were women in these Roman occupied cities who held leadership positions as priestesses for various pagan cults. These cults performed strange and grotesque ceremonies, and many scholars believe Paul barred women from the pastorate to differentiate the early Christian churches from these competing religions and their wild reputations. Paul also insisted women cover their hair in church, to avoid cultural disgrace. Enslaved people, who already led difficult lives, had perhaps the most challenging instruction from Paul, to “obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly” (Col 3:22).
If early Christians could demonstrate model citizenship through their day to day conduct– gaining a reputation for being easy to get along with and honoring their responsibilities by working hard and paying taxes– they would have a good shot at growing church membership. Any deviation from morally neutral cultural expectations would threaten the only important objective, glorifying God by growing His kingdom on earth.
Clearly, Paul’s instructions provided practical advice to these early churches. With this in mind, how should Christians today adapt ourselves to modern society? Like these early church members, we must walk a fine line. We are called to live peaceably in the world, but we “do not belong to the world, just as I [Christ] do not belong to the world” (John 17:16).We cannot abandon our moral responsibilities to fit in with those around us– adultery, greed, and selfishness are sinful, even as they feature prominently in our modern society. But we also must avoid unnecessarily separating ourselves from the neighbors God has placed around to love as ourselves.
Our non-Christian neighbors are confused and put off when we stubbornly point to our favorite biblical rules while ignoring others. Let’s put aside Old Testament laws about not getting tattoos or eating pork– Christians already accept that these rules were for people of a different time, while we were still wrestling with the covenant of works. But why don’t we see women wearing veils in church? That “rule” is right next to the instruction about submitting to husbands in 1 Corinthians. Is our society wrong for venerating abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, because they failed to follow Paul’s instructions for slaves, on the same page with his rules for wives?
Of course not. Any church that insists on provocative countercultural action on these issues misses an opportunity in its central mission of reflecting God’s love to the world. On some level, churches that preach on these verses frequently, exhorting women to be more submissive, understand this. They try to straddle the line by saying that husbands and wives are equal, but different. This reminds me of the line in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, where the despotic pigs who take over the farm proclaim that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Well meaning men who advocate male headship hasten to say they take their wives’ opinions into account when making decisions. These men don’t mean to be patronizing, and the happily married ones don’t order their wives around or make unilateral decisions. Self proclaimed heads or not, married men who want to stay married know the value of compromise and communication.
This is not to say that consenting adults can’t choose to order their marriages according to patriarchal traditions. Each person is unique, and there’s nothing immoral about a couple divvying up responsibilities according to each person’s strengths and weaknesses. In some marriages, it may be very beneficial to have one person control the joint finances, like if one spouse struggles with gambling or addiction. Today, “trad wives” are trendy on TikTok and Instagram– these women promote serving their husbands at home and wearing modest feminine apparel while their husbands focus on breadwinning. If both spouses are on board, that works! Marriage is intensely personal, and couples should prayerfully consider how to order their lives for maximum household harmony.
In circa 60 AD Ephesus, Christian husbands demonstrated their love for their wives through financial provision and explaining scripture to their (often illiterate) spouses, and wives were reasonably expected to be submissive and respectful. Christians of the era were directed to “to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we [Paul and Timothy] directed you, so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and be dependent on no one” (1 Thess 4:11-12). If these early Christian families had operated outside of societal norms by having female breadwinners and stay at home dads, they would have been mocked and dismissed. Certainly, Paul’s ministry would have been much less effective.
Let’s get back to your original question. Who is the head of our family? Who runs the show around here? Dad and I do, together. We love each other. We submit to each other, meaning our decisions are made jointly and both of us have veto power over major changes. We share everything– all of our resources are combined. When conflicts arise, we pray about them and choose to stand together. Ultimately, we hope that our marriage can be part of our Christian witness to the world, starting with our example for you and your brother. If we are successful, our marriage will be a sign of our faith: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
