Episode 287: What is “Headship” in Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 11? Feat. Marg Mowczko

 In this episode of the Bare Marriage Podcast, I am talking with Biblical Greek scholar Marg Mowczko about the true meaning of "headship" in the Bible. Marg reveals that the Greek word "kephale" (head) doesn't typically mean "leader" or "authority" in ancient literature, and that no verse actually commands men to lead their wives. Instead,  head-body metaphors are used in Scripture to describe unity and mutual care and as a picture of growing into the likeness of Christ for ALL Christians.  Together, Marg and I talk about the Biblical evidence of Paul's support for women in ministry roles. We also take a moment to discuss the best Bible versions for more accurate translation in key passages about submission and hierarchy. 

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THINGS MENTIONED

• Marg’s website
• Marg’s patreon
• Marg’s blog post on the best Bible version
• Everything on 1 Corinthians 11
• Everything on Ephesians 5

Transcript

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Sheila

Well, Marg, it is so wonderful to see you again.

Marg

It's great to see you, Sheila.

Sheila

Yeah, I still think it's so funny that you're one of the few people that I've met multiple times that I know online, and you live on the other side of the world, so, yes, the hemisphere.

Marg

Yes. I'm in winter now.

Sheila

I know. And we're just getting into summer, which is wonderful. And thank you for joining me. Like, it's like super late at night, your time. And it's super early in the morning. My time. So this is pretty funny. But I love I love bringing on other people from the Commonwealth, too. So good to get some Aussie voices out there. I don't know when I first found you I think it was like 2014 or something like that. But it's been a while. It's been a long while. And I just love what you do because you make all of these things so accessible. You know, you just have super short articles on very specific things, and your website is so easy to use. And sometimes it's, it's easier to point people to you than to a book because a book you have to purchase read the whole thing. But with you, you can just look up super short things. And I love that. So I was trying to figure out what I wanted to talk to people about, and I thought we could talk about the word head. But before we even jump into that, I would love to hear some of your story because you did not start out as an egalitarian.

Marg

No, no I didn't. Oh, so I got married quite young to my husband. We've been married over 40 years and still going really strong. And when we got married, we're both Christians. I just and I was also, like, a really keen Christian. You know, there's those people who really want to do everything right, who really love God. And and I thought to really please God, I would have to submit to my husband and he would be the priest of the home. And my head, the way that I understood head back then and already, like within hours of making our wedding vows, that was challenged. So I don't know if you know this story because it's on my website, but, like I said, we were we were quite young and the master of ceremonies was our youth pastor, and he had brought an axe, and the handle was wrapped in toilet paper to the, oh, I was going to say banquet. What do you call it? After the reception was actually after where the wedding cake was, and he thought it would be like, great fun if we cut the wedding cake with this ax. And my husband said, yeah, sure. I guess that's not a problem. Well, I just couldn't do that. I mean, it was a pretty dumb idea, it was it was. 

But the wedding cake had been a, it had been made by a lady in the church, and she had totally given it to us. So we didn't pay for the ingredients, we didn't pay for her time or work. So this woman had made this beautiful two tiered cake with love and giving it to us. And so there was like, no way. But we were going to cut it with an ax. And I was really devastated that, within like I said, a couple of hours of vowing to... I don't think we said love and honor... but it was something along those lines. And I remember we had made the vow that I would follow my husband, like, follow.

I do remember that word was in there that I was saying no, what? We're not doing that. I said it really nicely. But yeah, I said no plenty of times since then. And also like, this was in the 80s, and I read every Christian book about marriage that I could get my hands on. And my husband hated it. He just wanted me to be myself. And so one point he said, stop reading those books. And so I did. Yeah. And our marriage improved dramatically after that.

Sheila

I love that I actually hear that from a lot of people who are married to good men. It's like, no, I just wanted you to be you. And when did you get into all the translation stuff and all the Greek?

Marg

All. So at some point in my Christian walk, I got saved when I was ten. I'm going to say ten. I'm not exactly sure, but it's around ten. And, And I loved the Bible from day one. I opened the Bible as a brand new ten year old Christian, and I just loved it. I read John, I read acts, I read Romans, and I just kept going and I've been going ever since.

And at one point I found out that the New Testament was written in Greek. So I thought, well, one day I'm going to learn how to do that. And so once my kids were a little bit older, that's what I did. So I started learning online. I've since done, university courses. I'm in a reading group that meets mostly once a week and I'm really involved with reading Greek.

Sheila

Yeah, yeah, I love that, I love that. And, and then in that reading, did egalitarianism come after you learned Greek, or was it more that you learned Greek to try to figure out some of these questions?

Marg

It was, oh, let me think. It kind of sort of happened side by side because I never sought to be an egalitarian. I was quite content in some ways because I'm married to a very easygoing husband, for starters. And I'm quite easygoing in some ways as well. So we never... yeah, we were just ourselves. So, had to stop. I don't know... Oh, no, I do remember. Sorry about that. So I know.

Sheila

When it's been decades. Everything just kind of blurs. I'm like that too.

Marg

I think I was thinking that more about marriage and that has never been an issue, but it did become an issue with ministry. And I just felt, I think I was in my 40s, that God was leading me to be more of a leader in ministry. So that's where I started questioning things. And I really thought, no, I can't be a leader because I'm a woman. And I turned down opportunities to speak. And because I'm a woman. And so one day, this, this thing, this idea, this conflict was really in my mind. And I read Romans 12:6-8 in the NIV, the old NIV, and said, if a man's gift is... so it had the word man, and then it had, I'm just going to say eight masculine pronouns. Let him, let him, let him something like that. So I closed my NIV and I said to God, I literally said to God, see, I can't do that because that's all for men to do those ministries. And one of them is teaching, one of them's leading... There's other ministries too like, giving and stuff anyway. And then I thought, oh, I should check it out in the Greek.

And I was really only just starting. But I did know enough to so follow along. And I saw that in the Greek. There was no word for man at all, you know. NIV just stuck the word man in there. And there's not even a word for human, because, you know, sometimes the Greek word for human is sometimes translated as not, but like, there's none of that. And there was just none of that masculine language. And in the new NIV in almost all modern translations, Romans 12:6-8 is gender inclusive, with a few notable exceptions.

Sheila

Yeah, yes, like the ESV, which I...

Marg

ESV, I have to say is particularily... I'll just say bad on that because I haven't counted how many ministries there are in this list. In Romans 12:6-8, but that translated all of them in a gender inclusive way except for two: Teaching and leading. Like why? Why just add a masculine pronoun to those two?

When it's it's similar grammatical construction or like-. And I like to say that because if someone looks it up, you know, they might look at that in the Greek and go, well, there's masculine participles. But I say, well, the same grammatical construction in that's repeated in Romans 12:6-8 is the same grammatical construction in John 3:16 for whosoever you know, for God so loved the world that whoever believes, whoever believes, is all masculine. In John 3:16, because in Greek the masculine grammatical gender is like the default.

Sheila

Like in French, which I think people understand that if you know other languages, like in French.

Marg

Yeah. You know, grammatical language can mean absolutely nothing in some, in some contexts. Yeah.

Sheila

Yeah, yeah. So if there's a group of people in French, it's 'ils,' right. 'Il' like the plural for 'he' so it's 'they' as masculine even if there's men and women together. So. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Okay, so you see that that isn't true. And then you start to question if other stuff isn't true as well or translated badly.

Marg

So that was really shocking for me when I read the Greek of Romans 12:6 where, I even cried, because, it really rocked me. Because I really thought I couldn't do stuff. I didn't make a really concerted effort to look at things. It just slowly happened, and I don't know what happened next, but I guess my radar must have been out to see, what do these verses really mean? What do they say they mean? And, and, you know, I don't want people to question translations because most of the time they're fine. But the Greek does bring you a bit closer. And because sometimes you just cannot translate things perfectly from one language into another, whatever those two languages may be.

Sheila

Yeah. And that's why we need people like you who are on the front lines doing this, so that we don't have to. My husband loves Greek and my husband has learned a lot of Greek and is involved with some great groups as well. He doesn't do it as nearly as well as you, but he finds that he finds that really fun as well. I just can't do it. I'm not a language person, but I appreciate those of you who are. So I know there's so much that we could talk about because you know, on your website, you have articles on Genesis 3, on, Romans 16, on all kinds of- on first Timothy 2, all kinds of different passages which people ask about with women. And I thought, we can't do all of it. But I thought what we could do is the word 'head,' because I get asked about this a lot. And it appears mostly, in Ephesians 5 and first Corinthians 11. And I think that that is something that people get really hung up on is the idea of headship.

So so let's just jump in, Okay? And tell me about... is it Cephale? Kephale?

Marg

I'll pronounce it Cephale. Cephale. It's different schools. So there's even different schools of thought on how to pronounce ancient Greek. But I prefer Cephale. Yeah.

Sheila

And Cephale is the Greek word for head that Paul uses.

Marg

Yeah, yeah. And most of the times if you, you read this word in whatever Greek text, it means the thing on top of our heads. So I guess the first thing that I want to say about this word is if we look at the word head in English, a good English dictionary, you might have a whole page of definitions. And if you look at the Greek word, it's the same thing. There's a whole page of definitions and there's a whole lot of metaphorical uses. But people, Christians, they will just look at Ephesians 5:25 or 1 Corinthians 11:3 and where it talks about man, the man being the head of the woman. And they just got it means he's the boss, the person in charge, the person with more spiritual authority than the woman. And to challenge that view is really difficult because in English, especially, that's what head means. So can I ask you, like the French, if they're using the word the head, they don't automatically thinks it means leader, do they?

Sheila

Okay, I don't have great French. So I don't think I'm the right person to ask. Okay, okay. But yes, I mean, I've only ever known tete to mean like your physical actual head.

Marg

Yes, yes, I know, I know that is. And I look this up in some French. I'm going off track a bit, so. Okay. So French. Bible translations because, like, I was in Europe last year and I was really disturbed, but we think that there are some problems and some English translations. There are a lot more problems in French and Dutch and Korean translations, which really bothers me because it's so important that we have translations that accurately convey as best we can, the underlying languages. So I did look up ages ago. Ephesians 5:23, I think it was in French, and I didn't translate it head as tete, which is the normal word for head. They had translated to chef, which means oh, okay.

Sheila

Yeah.

Marg

Like the literal the boss or the person in charge. Yeah. Right, right. Anyway, let's not talk about French because I don't know about French, but yeah, it's it's... Yeah. That was said. Anyway, so what am I saying. What where am I.

Sheila

So, so, so Cephale. Oh, because I think what people don't know is that there's multiple words in Greek for head. And, and Paul uses a very specific one. Right.

Marg

Which is oh, nothing just Cephale means head. I don't know if another word, Greek word that means head. Oh, okay. The actual head.

Sheila

Right. But like for leader, for boss you would use like arche or something else. Yeah.

Marg

So I thought you meant our actual head. Yeah. Like that. Yeah. There's only one Greek word for head. Yeah. So Paul is the only person in the New Testament to use the word Cephale for a person or for Jesus. And once for God. So he uses it twice for a man, seven times for Jesus and once for God. No other New Testament author and New Testament authors writing in Greek uses the word 'head' to talk about people who we know were leaders, who are military leaders or religious leaders or community leaders. So the fact even that Paul is using this word is a little bit unusual.

Sheila

Yeah, yeah. Because, because, because what you're saying is like when Paul is referring to leaders, he doesn't use Cephaly he uses like leader. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marg

So there's definitely a whole stack of other great quotes that you can use that meant leader, person in authority over others, ruler. There's a whole stack of great words. Don't ask me what they are right now, because it's 10:00 at night.

Sheila

Right?

Marg

But, yeah. So when Paul is using Cephale, we have to pay attention because these are not the ordinary words that we would use to mean leader. Yeah, right. And also, so in the Septuagint. So the septuagint is the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, plus another, several other books, as well. The Hebrew word rosh can mean a leader. But when the Hebrew was translated into Greek, okay, let let me just try to explain it better. So in the Hebrew Bible, about 180 times, the word rose quite clearly means a leader, a person with authority over other people. But when they were translating the situation into when they were translating the Hebrew Bible into the Septuagint, there's there's almost no instances where those 180 times were then translated into cefaly. Right. So this is the translators of the Septuagint knew that Roche, even though it means later in Hebrew and Roche means head. I don't know if I said that Roche means head, that we can't just translate it into the Greek word for head, because Roche as head can mean leader. Cephale in Greek doesn't usually mean leader. But there's a handful of exceptions, and these few exceptions have been pored over by scholars in great detail. And it could just be as simple as the translation wasn't totally careful when he was translating or something. But even the simple fact that there were 180 instances where the Hebrew word for head meant leader, and only sort of 5 or 6 or 7 have been translated as head in Greek. Right. I think it's significant.

Sheila

Oh, yeah. Because I think what you're saying is like in Hebrew, the Hebrew word Roche is almost more like the English word head. Right? Like, yeah, it's also the Hebrew word for head, and the English word for head have a lot in common. And when the Hebrew was translating head into Greek, they didn't use Cephale. 

Marg

Yeah. So most of the time they do.

Sheila

Yeah. Like so. So we shouldn't think of it as leader either, which I think is super interesting.

Marg

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sheila

So okay. Where do you...

Marg

Oh, okay. Can I say something else too on that point. Yeah. So, so quite a few scholars, Christian scholars, including Al Walters, who's a complementary and scholar, they say that in non-biblical ancient Greek Cephale doesn't mean leader, and I need to, be clear what I mean by leader. And I think when we're discussing head, we really need to use our language carefully. We need to be precise, because people can be so casual with some of their expressions. And, you know, we really need to see what Paul's saying. So when I say leader, I mean a person with leadership authority over other people, because you can have a leader who's the first person in line or something, and that person doesn't have authority over other people necessarily. So when I'm using the word leader, I'm talking about a person with leadership authority over other people and people like Al Walters. There's a few people, the theological dictionary, the New Testament, which is, which is like 12 volumes. So they go into detail into all the Greek words they say. Yeah, it doesn't mean leader or person authority in secular Greek, but some people, because of the Septuagint, use it, then it becomes a little bit muddier because in the Septuagint there's this handful of times where head can mean leader in the Greek.

Also say something else about that, but it flew out of my head and I didn't fly back. Instead of another point in time. And now I can't remember what it is, but so, because I don't really want to talk about what other people have said, like, why include it? But most scholars who really know Greek will say, you know, in secular ancient Greek head did not mean leader, but oh no, I know what I was going to say.

So there's, a lexicon which is sort of known as BrillDAG. It was published by Brill and they say in that lexicon, well, it can mean leader, but the citation I gave is in the Septuagint, the ancient Greek version of the Old Testament. Yeah. Because of this handful of times. Yeah.

Sheila

Where they translate it that way and, and like you're saying, you just don't see it when you look at secular, which, which means when you look outside of religious texts, like we have lots and lots of Greek texts of other things, it isn't just the Bible.

Marg

Lots.

Sheila

And when you look at other Greek things, the philosophers writing, etc., Cephale didn't mean...

Marg

Yeah. So yeah, which is Sylvan. I quote him a few times when I'm talking, you know, he, he's been through all these lexicons, Xenophon, Plato, on Plato, Herodotus. I hope I'm saying it right. And he said it's not there. And I went to my university library once and looked at as many as I could. And yeah, they don't have a meaning. So, like, this isn't controversial. It's not controversial that ordinarily, in untranslated Greek texts originally written in Greek Cephale does not mean a person with leadership authority over other people. It's not controversial.

Sheila

Okay, so what does it mean?

Marg

Yeah. So to understand Paul's use, because that's what we want to know, we really need to look at the context. Also how he uses it in Ephesians, I think is slightly different to how he uses it in one Corinthians. So Paul uses it three times. He uses the word head Cephale three times in Ephesians, in Ephesians 1, Ephesians 4, and Ephesians 5. And how he uses it is really significant. So in each of those three instances, he uses it in a head and body metaphor, which he doesn't do in 1 Corinthians. And let me just think. Not exactly. Anyway, but it's what Paul is saying about what's happening between the head and the body that is really remarkable.

And something that I continue to really ponder on because it's really hard to understand what Paul is saying. And part of that is because I don't think we, most of us, myself included, really appreciate Paul's incredible view of salvation. I think a lot of our views of salvation is too small. What Paul had is this incredible view of salvation.

Let me just I've made a few notes, and I just want to make sure that I haven't missed anything. Okay. So in Ephesians 1, the word head occurs once, but it's used in two different ways. But when he's talking about the body, he's talking about us. That's the church. That's about us sort of being the fullness of Christ.

So we've got Christ as the head, and then we've got his body, and we're the fullness of Christ. In Ephesians one, he also talks about everyone else, being under the feet of Christ. So we've had we had I really think we need to think of what head means spatially. Head is at the top of the body, feet is at the bottom, and the top, usually has more status.

It's more prominent. The head usually has some more honor if you want to. And, you know, I'd like to talk about that a bit more, but so we've got the head and like if you look at Ephesians 1, it's all about Christ. Incredible status compared with everything else. But we are not under his feet. We are his body, and we are supposed to embody his fullness.

I don't really know what that means, but it's pretty amazing. In Ephesians 4 it's a lot easier to understand, thankfully. And there again, we've got head. Christ is the head. The church is his body. But in Ephesians 4, it's all about us becoming like Christ, measuring up to the stature of Christ, like growing up to the maturity of Christ.

So it's you know, it's not like Jesus is like way up there and like we way down there. It's like we are supposed to grow to become to the maturity and stature of Christ. So we need to have these ideas in mind. We may get to chapter five because in chapter five we again have Christ and the church as the metaphor, as the analogy for marriage.

And if we think that the analogy is that wives are supposed to be subordinate, we have completely, we have completely missed Paul's point. Yeah.

Sheila

We missed the theology of Christ.

Marg

Missed it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, people tend to focus on so in Ephesians 5, beginning in verse 22 to 33, it's all about marriage. And so one of the examples that Paul gives about Christ's example is that he gave himself up for the church. And so people look at that and go, yet Jesus died for us.

He was crucified in a horrific death. That's the example for husbands. But that's only half the story because, also, I think Ephesians 5 verses 22 to 33 is written as a chiasm. So the main point of the chiasm is the central point. And the central point of this passage is that Christ presents the church to himself in in splendor, in glory, in high esteem, and that word there is in doxis, which isn't just glory.

So if you look in any major lexicon, the first definition that I have is high esteem. So Christ lowered himself. He gave himself up for to the church, not just in his death. He did that as soon as he became human.

Sheila

That's kind of like Philippians 2, right? That we are to have the mind of Christ and consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself whole thing. Yeah.

Marg

Yeah. So, so, yeah, everything about Jesus earthly existence is about he literally came down to our level. He lowered himself. He gave himself for us. That's the example for husbands. But like I say, that's only half the story. Christ also raises the church up and presents her to himself in glory. So again, you know, raises, you know, presents herself in glory.

We have this elevation, so what that means, what that meant for the Ephesians, I think is slightly different to what it can mean for us today, because in first century Ephesus, I mean this church, this letter was probably written not just to the Ephesians, but to other churches in Asia minor, as well as a circular letter. So in that time, men did have a higher status in women.

Husbands did have a higher level of honor than their wives, generally speaking, not always, but generally speaking. So, you know, what Paul is saying to the husbands is basically lower yourself and lift up your wife. I really think that's what he's saying. And we focus so much on, you know, the versus to wives where Paul doesn't really give, well, I mean, that's where the, the example is of Christ as the head.

But he doesn't really elaborate on the submission. And submission is another word that I'm really I'm really been looking at a lot lately because I used to say that this was a normal, behavior for first century women, but it actually only occurs twice. Submission. This word, the verb tasso, only occurs twice in ancient texts about wives who purchase something into their husbands.

So it isn't even the ordinary word for wifely behavior. I mean, people like Plutarch would just use words like obey, and stronger words, and they would use much stronger words for husbands. And Plutarch was a reasonably good guy. Plutarch was writing around the same time as Paul, and he wrote this little essay to a couple that he was very fond of who were getting married.

And he he just says, yeah, the wife, the husband is the leader, using some of these other words, the husband, he uses like three. He actually says the husband is the decision maker. You never see that in the New Testament, despite what some people say. But Plutarch actually says the husband is the decision maker. And he, you know, he frames it a bit nicely.

But he uses the word submission once for wives. And it's also in another ancient Greek text about Alexander the Great's mom submitting to Alexander the Great's dad when the dad was really being not nice to her. So submission is really used in those two texts and in other Greek texts to create harmony in relationships.

And so while I'm on submission, because I know we want to talk about head, there are texts that show that, submission isn't always to a person in authority. So some people and I don't want to name names, but some scholars have said point blank submission is always to a person in authority.

Sheila

Which makes no sense for Ephesians 5:21 because we're supposed to submit to one another. So yeah, unless everybody is in authority over you.

Marg

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't. So there's the letter to Aristeas, which was written, 200 100 B.C. and this king is asking for advice on how you can get along with people. And the advice is to the king. They use this book for protest. So this king, he's a king. He's got, like, the highest authority.

He's not submitting to a person with higher authority, but he's acquiescing or he's getting along with people. He's not being a jerk. If I can say that, there's another one in one of the Maccabees letters or one of the Maccabees books. And again, it's a king who is besieging Jerusalem, and he finds out that there's problems back in his country.

So he has to go back and sort that out. So he tries to make up with the Jews. He makes up with them and tries to sort things out while he goes off and, sorts out his own problem back home. He's not acquiescing to a person in authority over others.

He's just trying to smooth things over. Yeah. And there's these others. There's plenty in the early church fathers as well. He talk about mutual submission. Yeah.

Sheila

I love that. So what you're saying is like this passage is not setting up an authority system. It's instead trying to tell us, you know, that our relationship should be about our attitudes. You know, the way that Christ had this attitude of giving to others, but then elevating those who are lower. And coming down to people's level so that we are all we are all in, in unity in Christ.

Marg

And if you look in 1 Corinthians 12, which I've got somewhere here, Paul says that. So, you know, 1 Corinthians 2 is like one of the most amazing passages, which is all about the body. And he says... I don't know if I can find it quickly. Let me see if I can find it quickly. He talks about... Here we go. I cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you and neither can the head say to the feet."

And again, I think head and feet is talking about social status. I have no need of you. And then Paul goes on to say, this is one Corinthians 12, verses 20 to 22. On the contrary, rather, the members of the body and its people who are weaker, and this could be socially weaker. Paul often uses the word weaker to talk about, socially disadvantaged people.

The weaker is just indispensable. And the members, we think are less honorable. To these we bestow no greater honor. So you see this idea in Paul's letters. He wants this leveling of honor. Well, he doesn't.

Sheila

Doesn't that reckon back to Isaiah where it talks about how the crooked paths were made straight, you know, and the valleys will be brought up in the mountains will be brought low, heavy in the day. But I also it's, it just it sounds so much like that to me how you know how God's in that in the day of the Lord, he brings the the valleys up, and he brings the mountain low so that we will have the straight path.

Marg

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'll have to look at that. So in in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul says, yeah, that we have to bestow greater honor, on those who we think are less honorable and on, supposedly, dignified members. We treat them with greater dignity, which and I'm quoting which prominent members don't need. So the people who already have honor the people who already prominence.

We don't need to give them more honor. We supposed to be giving more honor to the people who don't have it. And then Paul goes on, But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the members that lacked it. This is God. He's doing this so that there be no division in the body, but that members may have the same care for one another.

So it's all about unity. It's treating each other the same about trying to get rid of this imbalance between who has honor and who who doesn't have honor. So that's in, 1 Corinthians 12, which we should keep in mind when we looking at 1 Corinthians 11, which is in the previous chapter. So we can't just look at Paul either, we need to see what other first, how other first century authors were using Cephale.

And I don't use it a lot to people, but they do use it sometimes. So Phylo was writing about the same time as Paul? I think that's right, because I think Phylo died in, 50 A.D. 50. So writing just a bit before Paul's time, he just explains really clearly what head means to him in some of his writings.

So and I've got this on my website if people want to look it up, he says, as the head is to the body occupying the preeminence of situation. So we've got again, got the spatial idea of top or elevated position that seems to be behind this metaphorical understanding and in this, this is in rewards and in this is in his essay on Rewards and Punishment.

And he also uses the word first. He says, for as in an animal, the head is the first and best part, and the tail the last and worst part. Because in the Hebrew Bible you have these head and tail metaphors. Actually, I don't know if I mentioned that before. So in those handful of times in the Hebrew Bible, when Roche means leader and I said like only five, translated as head in Greek, I still find really that difficult to say succinctly, but in in Hebrew there are seven head-tail metaphors where head is the best bit and the tail is the worst bit, basically, and follow uses as well.

Then he goes on to say that a virtuous man shall be the head of the human race, whether he be a single man or a whole people. But a virtuous man isn't the boss of the whole human race, but he might be have sort of a superiority to the whole human race, or he might be an influence to the whole human race.

But no one seriously thinks that Phylo was saying that a virtuous man is the person in authority over the whole human race, right? Yeah. Right. And I have others like that. So sometimes if you're a person in your head in the Greek way of understanding, and you're a prominent person, you have a higher status or a higher level honor.

You can also be, a leader. But I really believe that in and of itself, the word Cephale did not mean a leader with a person in authority over other people.

Sheila

Right? Yeah. And I find that interesting because when people say, well, God commands men to be the leader, and you ask them, where does it say that? Yeah. Like, where is there a verse that says to men lead to your wives? And they say, well, it calls men head. Yeah. It's like, yeah, but it that's not what it means.

And so when you realize that, the whole argument that men lead their wives falls apart.

Marg

Yeah, yeah. There's no verse in the New Testament where Jesus or Paul or Peter or anyone says, men lead your wives. Men be the spiritual authorities of your wives, men be whatever. And because even for these verses in Ephesians 523, where Paul is talking about this, this analogy of Christ and the church, he's actually saying that to the wives.

He's not even saying that to the men. I mean, the men are, of course, listening. So there's no verse where Paul or anyone says to husbands, okay, now you be the boss, you be in charge. You make the just the decisions, which is just a made up idea.

Sheila

Yes, yes. It's not there.

Marg

There's so many made up ideas that people think are really in the Bible. So it doesn't even say a husband is the head of the house. Yeah.

Sheila

The closest is actually it says women are in Titus. Doesn't it say like women are the, the whatever of the household like the managers. Yeah, the despot of the house like it says that about women.

Marg

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also it says it in Esther 1. This is Xerxes, this is the pagan king Xerxes always got his nose out of joint because Vashti has snubbed him. So he makes a decree. Except they don't use the word head. But they do say that the husband needs to sort of be in charge of the house.

But, you know, I often say we don't take our cues for living as Christians from Xerxes or from the fall.

Sheila

Yeah. Now, interesting. In love and respect, Emerson Xerxes words in a positive way.

Marg

Okay.

Sheila

Yeah. Which is just crazy, because the whole point was that Xerxes was in the wrong here. Yeah, yeah. And him doing that set off this chain of events. Well, it's just like that.

Marg

Yeah. I mean, most scholars who understand Esther, they see Esther as a bit of a farce, but the author is lampooning the Persians and poking fun at people like Xerxes. And that his reaction is, is an absurd overreaction. It's not good advice.

Sheila

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so it's so interesting. Okay, so let's go to first Corinthians 11 now, because I think that people do have a lot of issues with that. Perhaps even I think they might get 'lead' even more from First Corinthians 11 than they do from Ephesians 5 in some ways, because it seems to say, you know, that just as you know, Christ is head of man, and therefore man is head of woman, etc. although the order. If you mean that the order is wrong, but I'll let you I'll let you do that.

Marg

It's if you think it's a hierarchy of status or a hierarchy of anything... Usually they go from greatest to least or least to greatest, but it's those... anyway. Okay, the first thing I want to point out with one Corinthians 11:3, which uses the word head three times, I think, and that whole passage is that it's about men and women praying and prophesying in church, and the men and women are doing exactly the same thing.

And Paul is not telling them to stop praying and prophesying. He's not telling the women to pray and prophesy. He's addressing something about either the hairstyles or head coverings or maybe bit of both. And I have my own theories about that. So first off, the men and women are doing exactly the same thing. It's about ministry. It's not about marriage, it's about ministry.

Whereas Ephesians 5 definitely like it's about marriage. So another thing, I think most New Testament scholars would agree that Ephesians 11:2-16 is one of the most difficult passages to work out, because he seems to be saying-

Sheila

First, sorry, first Corinthians, you said, I think you mean first. First, you first Corinthians. Yeah. 2:16 yeah.

Marg

Okay. So the first half seems to be saying something, and the second half seems to be saying something quite different. Because it is. And the way I explain that is it's two different social contexts. That's how I explain it. So in the first half beginning at verse 2 to verse 10, Paul is talking about reputations, about the social respectability of the Corinthians.

Marg

And that culminates in verse 10, which again is the crux or the center of the chiasm, because I think there's a...

Sheila

Okay and explain what a chiasm is.

Marg

Oh yeah. So I'm not one of these people that sees a chiasm everywhere, but there's lots of chiasms in, Jewish, literature. Okay. So a chiasm is when, there's a series of points being made until a central point is reached, and then the same ideas are repeated in some way, shape or form. And it's so 'chi' is a Greek letter that looks a bit like an X. Anyway, so yeah, there's repeated statements. Then there's a main point and then there's other repeated statements. And so the main point in a phrase...

Sheila

And in English. In English we don't really do this because in English we make our point first and then we explain. So we think the first statement is the most important. But often in Greek it's the middle statement that's the most important, not the first. And so we often use the first as the thing that tells us how to interpret the middle, when really we should be doing the opposite.

Marg

Yeah, yeah. So sometimes we lead up to our main point. But yeah, the main point is in the middle. And there's all sorts of ways that you can spot if something's a cause. Okay. So the central point in one Corinthians, I need to say one Corinthians on occasions is that the verse about the angels. Do I have that here?

Let's have a look. Verse 10. For this reason that a woman ought to have authority on her own head because of the angels. So what does that mean? Yeah. I think I know what it means. Okay, but let's get back to head in verse 3. So keeping the idea of status in mind... I don't know if we covered Ephesians properly yet.

Yeah. So even though men, in the first century had this high status, Paul wanted them to use this status to also bring up the two. Yeah. And he didn't want the men to rely on themselves, but there were two. Oh, can I say something else. It's something that really bugs me about Ephesians 5. So some people will say that men have this unique, instruction to lay down their lives for their wives, which is how giving up, is interpreted.

And that's just and, you know, we need to read the whole chapter. If we look at Ephesians 5, verse 2, Paul uses almost exactly the same language where he tells all his audience that all of us are to love as Christ loved the church and gave up himself, gave himself up for her. It's exactly the same Greek word.

Just a few words just switched out here and there. So loving sacrificially. It's not just for husbands, it's for everyone. And submission isn't just for wives, it's for everyone. So when we trying to understand Ephesians 5:23 and the head thing, the head verse, we need to at least start at the beginning of chapter five. But ideally we need to start at chapter one to see how Paul is using head and body in chapter one, in chapter four.

And then we get to chapter five, and then we understand, what it means that Jesus is the Savior of the body. And husbands aren't the Savior. We can all of us can look up to Jesus as our role model. But there's definite limitations, about what we can do anyway. So let's get into one Corinthians. I just wanted to say that.

Sheila

Yes, you know, very good.

Marg

Okay. Okay. So, there's a whole bunch of early church fathers who understood 1 Corinthians 11:3, which we probably should read out because I didn't read it out yet. What did I just read it that.

Sheila

No, no, no, go ahead. Go ahead and read it.

Marg

So I'm reading from the new NIV. "I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ and the head is the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." Yeah. So what does that means.

Sheila

And that's where you see that the order's wrong if you're talking about. Yeah. You should say the head of every woman is man. The head of man is Christ and the head of Christ is God. If you were going to do hierarchy, you would do it that way.

Marg

Yeah, but it's not sequential. Yeah. At all. Yeah. So a whole bunch of early church fathers think that this is talking about, the origins of, of Jesus of man and a woman. And I did write down a quick quote from Bruce Lester because he says it really succinctly. And again, I've got a whole bunch of quotes on my website.

Marg

And I did write down a quick quote...

Sheila

Oh, of Ambrosiaster. Is that are you talking about?

Marg

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sheila

Okay, I've got it, I've got it. You know. You got it. Yes. Okay. You read it, then. Okay. God is the head of Christ because he begat him. Christ is the head of the man because he created him. And the man is the head of the woman because she was taken from his side.

Marg

Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah, yeah. So it's about creation and I think it's about firstness. So. David-

Sheila

And just and just, just to clarify, we know that Christ was forever, but it means, like he's talking about Christ in on earth. Not Christ in his-

Marg

Yeah. Well, so Christology isn't my strong suit, but even like the early church fathers talked about Christ eternally proceeding from the father. Yes, yes. So there's still this idea of source even though source isn't my favorite word to describe head in. So I don't think so. I think there is an idea of origins. I think there's an idea of, first ness in 1 Corinthians 11:3.

I don't think there's these ideas in Ephesians. And that's why I know some people try to find one unified definition for how Paul uses his head. I don't think there is one, but I do think from reading other Greek literature is that there is always at least a nuance of higher status in the head, or a higher level of authority.

And I know that that can that idea can play into patriarchal thinking. But what we need to do, and I just really wish people would do this, is we need to replace words in context, because there are times when it sounds like Paul's building up this case for patriarchy and then he totally pulls the rug out from under it.

So like in Ephesians five, husbands, lower yourselves, but lift your wives, you know, and the idea that the church, as the body of Christ become like Christ. Okay, so here too if we look at the first half, I think Paul wanted the Corinthians, who were a little bit wild. You know, Christ worship services sound like pretty full on and people are talking over each other.

If you read 1 Corinthians 14, you know, people are just getting up and speaking and some people aren't getting a turn because people are hogging the floor and women are asking all kinds of questions because they want to learn. So it's it sounds a little bit- oh, and people are giving up on marriage because they think the resurrection has come. That's 1 Corinthians 7. So there's some pretty out-there spiritual people in the Corinthian church, and I think Paul wanted the men and the women because he addresses the men as well as in 1 Corinthians 11. Admittedly, he addresses the women more, but the men were a bit out there as well. So he's saying - and I think he's talking about hairstyles - I think he wanted the men to have short hairstyles, which was the respectable, hairstyle in first century Roman cities and Roman colonies. And Corinth was a Roman colony. So we tend to think maybe that it was Greek, but it was, it had been built as a Roman colony by Augustus with Roman rules, with Latin speakers and.

Yeah, anyway. And he wanted the women to have their hair respectable. So I actually think that some of the women were cutting their hair short. I don't know if it's getting way too much off track, but we know we have a whole bunch of early church texts. Which mentioned women like thick cloth who cut their hair short, who looked like guys, to fully devote themselves to God because it was kind of this idea, of sexual...

I mean, there was a big movement of sexual renunciation in the early church starting with one Corinthians seven. You see it in 1 Timothy. So that's pretty early because this is the 15 that people are already giving up on marriage, that people are completely giving up on sex. And so gender distinctions weren't being, yeah, they weren't they were being blurred, let's say that.

And that's what I think 1 Corinthians 11 in the first half is all about. Paul wanted the men to look like first century Roman men. He wanted the women to look like first century Roman women. Because of the angels. And I don't think the angels refers to spiritual beings. I think it refers to people, people who saw the Corinthians church going a little bit crazy, because the church was new, the church was small, and Romans were really suspicious of, religious movements that might be subversive.

The Christians were, there's a whole bunch of texts where Christians defend their Christianity, and to show that it wasn't subversive, and letters written to emperors to go: "Now we're really not cannibals. We're really not. Yeah, we're really not atheists." Which was a bad thing to be, defending the Christian faith.

Sheila

And I think that's, that's important to see that. Like Paul's big concerns was to make sure that the church didn't become so out there or so countercultural that that it came into ill repute. And then the Romans and so, you know, in many ways and you can see this throughout Paul's letters, he's accepting the power systems of the time.

He's not trying to overthrow the power systems of the time.

Marg

Which would have been impossible because we're talking about Rome.

Sheila

Right. And so and, and that's why, you know, in the Bible, he's not explicitly anti-slavery, right. Like he talks about how slaves can act, how masters can act. So he's not saying... that doesn't mean that Paul supported slavery. Right. Like but he said given that this is the culture we live in, what are we going to do to be Christians in that culture?

Yeah, but we want our church not to be condemned by Rome, and we want our church to appeal to people and not to seem so freaky and cultish. Right. So yeah.

Marg

And being a Christian could be dangerous. I, I don't think we see that a lot. But Paul definitely knew how dangerous it could be to be a Christian. It says that, Priscilla and Aquila risked their necks for Paul. So they had been in danger. It it's literally restrained. It's. Junia had been in prison and prisons in those times were so awful.  Paul before he was saved, persecuted and handed over all the men and women and some were killed. So to be a Christian was risky. And Paul wanted to minimize those risks as much as possible. And so a lot of... especially the pastoral epistles, some of the, the advice, I'll call it advice, some of the instructions that he gives to women and to men, to us- and especially in 1 Peter, which isn't Paul at all, you know, it's because in 1 Peter we definitely see that people were being persecuted. They were being slandered. They were having a tough time. The wives as well. And Peter's advice is, you know, don't sort of fight back against it too much because that's going to end in disaster.

Yeah, basically he doesn't say that, but that's the message. Yeah, yeah. So there's a whole bunch of verses in Paul's letters and also in one Peter. And the advice has to be read with the understanding that they're had to conform to society to some extent for the sake of outsiders. But within the church, getting back to 1 Corinthians 11, things are different.

So in the first half of 1 Corinthians 11, verses 2-10, Paul really wanted the men and women who are praying and prophesying, who are ministering to have their hair or their heads in socially respectable hairstyles. And he brings in the idea of status. But in verse 3, like we think probably he could have done that a bit clearer, but what he chose to do is talks about this idea of firstness, which is linked to status. Did I really dig into DeSilva?.

I know now, he says, I'll have to just paraphrase because he says "however we might interpret head in one Corinthians 11:3, the idea of firstness is hard to escape." Yeah. The first is tied to status. But then from verse, then the second half of this passage, and I think it starts with "nevertheless," like he didn't want to then to take it too far. He says, "but in the Lord" and that's us in the Lord.

And then he says, man is not independent of woman, and woman is not independent of man. And then instead of, you know, having this hierarchy of firstness, he says, everything comes from God. God is the ultimate first one. That's the only one that really matters. Yeah. So to understand 1 Corinthians 11, I think we have to understand the two different contexts.

And I know other people have explained it in other ways, but I really do think it's some reputations in broader Corinth outside the church and relationships within the church. And also like Paul then says in the second half that a woman's long hair is her covering, which makes me think that at least some of the women were cutting their hair when they were renouncing sex, they were cutting their hair.

Sheila

Super interesting, I love it. So anyway, the point that I want y'all to hear as you listen to this is that those people who say it's obvious, like the plain reading of Scripture is that men lead their wives. It isn't, it isn't. And anyone who approaches the Bible with fairness and with, like, with true curiosity, and with humility will see that this is way more complicated.

And when we focus on the actual gospel message, you get away from the idea of hierarchy like Jesus. If you focus just on Jesus in the Gospels, every time there's hierarchy, he brings it down.

Marg

The first will be last.

Sheila

Yes. Yeah. You know, it's not supposed to be that way with you, people. Like, you know, over and over and over again. And so when people say, oh, but the whole reason that, God, you know, the whole message about marriage to us is that it's supposed to be a hierarchy. It's like 'you've missed the entire point then.'

And where are you getting that from? And so people who talk about the plain reading of scripture, it's like, no, that's not- they're saying that to make you stop asking questions.

Marg

Yeah. And when you think about 1 Corinthians 11, people in the past especially, they made women cover their heads and they also stopped them from speaking, which doesn't make any sense at all, because it's all about men and women praying and prophesying in church. Like people just pick and choose which bits they want to focus on. Like Paul never silenced sound teaching. He never silenced edified speech from anyone. All the verses that sound like Paul is trying to shut down women- and he also shuts down men. But we don't focus on those. It's because there was something problematic in what they were saying. In Corinth and in Ephesus, you know, Paul never shut down Priscilla.

He never shut down other women. You know, Paul does, you know, offer, address, bad behavior and offer corrections to bad behavior. But, yeah. So in one, the women were praying and prophesying, and Paul doesn't tell them to stop.

Sheila

Yeah, exactly. And I love the point that I first learned this from you in Romans 16 when Paul is mentioning all of these people, you know, like he's saying, okay, say hi to this person, say hi to this person because they, you know, what was it, 10 of 29 is that the number? Is that right?

Marg

Oh, you know, I'm so bad with numbers, which is why I wrote this article, I think.

Sheila

I think it's, I think it's.

Marg

29, but this 28 based in Rome, because it's Phoebe who's in the first two verses of Romans 16. And then I think there's 28 Romans after this.

Sheila

And 10 of them are female, and 7 of those females are mentioned in relation to the work they do for Christ, like their ministry roles. And so, you know, that's a lot that's a very high proportion of women.

Marg

Yeah. And who's the first person in Rome to be greeted in that list? It's a woman. It's Priscilla. Yeah. So the very first person based in Rome that Paul says hi to. Yeah. It's a woman. Yeah. It's. Yeah, I do know some people. I think Michael Bird and others have said that Romans 16 was the passage that changed their mind.

Oh, yeah. But some people still can't look at that. I just had, a really awful conversation with someone,  which focused on Priscilla. And he'll just say, "Oh, but they can't teach because of, you know, 1 Timothy 2:12." But, you know, she's clearly teaching in acts. She not only is she clearly teaching, and then she's teaching a man who is himself teaching, who is recognized as an eloquent teacher and who is accurately teaching the way of God.

This is in acts 18, but he didn't quite have something about baptism. So she corrects a teacher. It's usually the job of elders and overseas to do that, and Luke has no problem in telling the story. Paul has no problem with greeting Priscilla, first of 28 Christians based in Rome. It's not Paul and the author of acts who has a problem with Priscilla.

It's other people that can't see what she's actually doing. And then they try to import all these different ideas like, you know, she wasn't teaching in a church setting, and-

Sheila

And she was under the headship of her husband. It's really it's like, no, honey, you're doing the you're the one who's not actually reading the scriptures, but. Yeah, exactly. Well, Marg, you have I don't know how many articles you have on your site, but it's got to be hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds.

Marg

It's several hundreds.

Sheila

Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. And one of the things when you go to Marg's site, in her menu bar, you can just choose from different Bible passages, like you can look up everything she's ever written on first Corinthians 11, everything in Ephesians 5, everything in Genesis 3. Everything in first Timothy 2, etc. but you can also look for, concepts, like, like submission or whatever.

Sheila

There's, there's lots of different...

Marg

I've got one on Cephale.

Sheila

Yeah. Just yes, yes I did I clicked on that this morning. So yeah. So just go to her site and the articles are all super short, very byte-sized, very easy to understand. And she really translates all of this for us. So I really appreciate what you do. You're one of the few people that I support on Patreon as well.

So she. Yes. So you can check out I'll put a link to Marg's Patreon as well. Because she does all of this free of charge, and she offers such an immense service that I really appreciate. So, yeah, any last words that you want to say to people who...

Marg

I think what I often close with when I'm speaking is that Paul actually loved women. So, I really think he was buddies with Priscilla and Aquila. He valued Phoebe. You know, he says really nice things about women, but we just tend to focus on those verses where he seems to limit women.

And like I said, where he does limit women, it's either for women to conform to certain social, norms or it's because these particular women were misbehaving in some ways. But it's not all women. Yeah. So Paul mentions about 18 women. I think it is, most of them by name, and he says really nice things about them.

And I just really wish, we could, appreciate that. And I wish we could appreciate Paul's view of salvation because it's big, it's magnificent. It's incredible. And when we understand that, then we can understand what he's saying in Ephesians 5 far better as well. I think our view of salvation sometimes is a bit too small.

Sheila

Yeah. Oh, and the most common question I get one of the most common questions I get, and I always refer to you for this one, is what Bible translation is best. And I always link to your article on it, which I will put the podcast notes. But what do you use? What do you use and what you...

Marg

Okay, so if I need an English translation. So I actually use and I need to say it right, because I often say, oh, it's the CSB, which is the Christian Standard Bible. And a lot of people are horrified because it's published by a complementary and publisher, but I continue to be delighted with it. Absolutely delighted. There's a few verses that I don't like.

They downplay Phoebe and Jesus ministry, but there's other bits that I think are spot-on and they do better. So I do have an article, and in that article that you link to, I have a few verses where I think the this but you could do better. So because I actually do read the New Testament in Greek, that's my main Bible, but I can't use that when I'm teaching or when I'm writing. So then I need to find an English translation. So I would look on Bible Gateway to see what English translations matched what I thought it was saying. And after a while I realized I'm just picking the CSB all the time.

Almost all the time. Almost all the time. Except for Fabian, Priscilla and the other cases. And, so that's the first one I look at now. And yeah, I don't know how it's gotten through this complementarian publisher. It's really good. I also like the NIV, the new NIV 2011 edition. 

I also like the common English Bible. No... The Christian-. So this is why I get mixed up with CSB and CSv. I like the Common English Bible because they break with tradition. Because there's a lot of Christianese jargon where it's not exactly- It could be better and Common English Bible goes, "this is what we think it means."

And I go yeah, I think you're right. So it's always good to have, like, we're spoiled for choice. And we have these resources free online. So, a lot of people like the New Revised Standard Version, I think they spot on with how they translate the expression "husband of one wife." So that's a whole other game.

I think they're spot on with that, but I don't like the style. It's too chunky for me.

Sheila

Yeah, that's what I use. That's the one I use. But I know you mean it's chunky.

Marg

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sheila

All right. Well thank you. And I'm going to link to Marg Mowcsko. Marg is really easy to spell. But the link is going to be in the podcast notes so you can find it there. Find Marg and I will link to everything she's written in first Corinthians 11, everything on Ephesians five.

But you can just go and browse her website and it will you'll go down lots of rabbit trails. That'll be lots of fun. So thank you.

Marg

And, thanks so much for having me.

Sheila

Yes. And good night to you. I'm just beginning my day as you're finishing it, but, yeah, hopefully I will see you again in real life one day. Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to. Yeah, right. Thanks, Mark. Okay.

Marg

Bye, Sheila. All right.