THE PRIMARY COMMAND FOR HUMANS IS DOMINION

While there are many major differences between humanity and all other creatures on the earth, there is one that stands out strongly because it is a direct command from God. That is dominion. No other creature in the world is commissioned to care for the earth or for the creatures of the earthy, yet humanity is.  And this dominion has been given to every human, both men and women, no matter their age or ethnicity. If you are human, you have a gift and responsibility to care for the earth and its creatures.  If we do not take our responsibility seriously, the job doesn't get done.  It's up to us and no others.

Equally important is that this responsibility, with all its ensuing abilities, is our primary responsibility before personal blessings to populate the earth. Each individual no matter what our other responsibilities has a command to guard the earth and its creatures. 

Gen. 1:26 Then God said, 'let Us make man (humanity) in our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' 27 So God created man (humanity) in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Since each human was given this responsibility, each human has an inherent gift of leadership and guardianship, both men and women. Although our personalities, skills and sex will influence how we work it out, the commission and ability is the same.  There is no preference by God.  If you are human, then you inherently have leadership skills.... perhaps not in the world's systems, but in God's system you do.

Does Ephesians 5-6 Outline Male Headship?

Actually, it doesn't. When a word is used in metaphor or analogy it is used outside of its usual meaning. There is never a standard metaphorical usage in that there is only one metaphorical usage. Sometimes a metaphor is repeated often, but that does not constrain it as the only possible metaphorical use. The meaning of a metaphor MUST be determined in the context. In Ephe. 5:21-33 we have a metaphorical use of “head of” and “body of” inferring an element of husband wife relationship. Chapter six speaks of parenting (although Paul points to a failure of fathers) which we know holds an element of authority. Also chapt. Six speaks of the relationship between master and slave. Both children and slaves are under authority; a child to both parents, and slaves primarily to the husband, but in daily life the wife. The husband and wife relationship stands distinct from the other two by the metaphor of “head of” and “body of”. All three speak to the elements in a type of household of that era. Not all households had slaves, but when they did the responsibility of running the masters slaves fell to the wife who was to oikodespoteo them. 1 Tim. 5:14

Oiko - home
Despoteo – rule, manage (our word despot was transliterated from this word)

So what is the difference in the husband wife section of 21-33? Husband and wife are to become as one flesh. It is not one over or against the other. Many who have acknowledged the metaphor have still only paid heed to the “head of” tweeking it to mean “head over”. But the metaphor is not about the husband as "head" or “head over” and “body under”. There was a metaphor used occasionally in the OT of “head and tail”. That metaphor usually held the meaning of leader and follower; the head lead and the tail trailed obediently behind. That is not the metaphor here. Note that the husband is not told to be a “head” and the wife is not told to be a “body”.

So what does “head of and body of” have a meaning of in this place? It is defined in the context. The two elements leading up to the discussion of husband and wife are sacrificial love (vs. 2) and mutual honoring submission (specifically vs. 21 but encompassing 18-21). First the wife is mentioned that she is to extend the self instigated (verb form of upotassoMENOI) mutually honoring submission of verse 21 to her husband. The idea is that such respect (see vs. 33) does not stop at the door to the marriage. The wife is further admonished to mirror the trusting submission that all believers have toward our Lord (who first loved us and gave His life for us see vs. 2 again). Then the husband is told to sacrificially love their wife like Christ (vs. 2 again). Paul describes what Christ did in hopes of having a bride, sacrificing Himself and nourishing, caring for His potential bride. Then Paul says that a husband is to love (agape not eros) his wife and care for, nourish her as if she were his own body.

Thus the picture is that the wife is to honor, trustingly yield and receive from the husband as if he were “head of” her and the husband is to sacrificially love, nourish, and care for his wife as if she were “body of” him. The “head of” and “body of” metaphor is to tie them together to picture life’s union of “one flesh”. Husband and wife are to become as one flesh. Without the head the body dies, without the body the head dies. They are intimately dependent upon one another.

Had we been speaking of “head and tail”, that would not be the case, since any animal can get along without a tail. But Paul is painting a picture to teach us how to maintain real godly life in a marriage.

A Conversation ~ About Being Born First and Authority

I am posting a conversation with a person who claims that he does not believe anyone can solidly prove that Junia was a woman. His mode of proving that she cannot be a woman is 1 Timothy 2:11-12. I've changed the quotes so as to make them generic.

Paul's statement and reasoning about not allowing a woman to teach a man OR TO USURP HIS AUTHORITY proves that Junia could not be a woman apostle. The reason? BECAUSE ADAM WAS FORMED FIRST...

OK let’s look at this reasoning. IF taking this piece of a sentence,” I do not permit a woman to teach or to usurp authority over a man”, means what you think it means; and the reason you cite is what follows, then you have a problem. You have a few problems. Not only must vs. 13, be part of the reason, but verses 14 and 15 also are specifically linked and therefore must fit in with this idea.

1. you say that being born/created first gave the man authority over who came second, namely the woman. Yet, there is no Scriptural evidence to support a law or rule of the first born always legally being given “rulership”.
2. The woman being deceived and the man deliberately sinning would make an interesting rule for leadership. All who deliberately sin are better equipped for leadership and anyone who has ever been deceived is automatically disqualified. Ever seen a Biblical rule like that? I haven’t.
3. And how does verse 15 fit in with being a reason for women to be forbidden to teach men? Most theologians struggle with the significance of this verse in what it says and why it is being said.

Basically, this interpretation does not work, does not fit with the rest of what Paul is saying and does not fit anywhere else in Scripture. This interpretation is a result of helicopter theology, swooping down pulling out a piece of a sentence and reforming it into a predetermined bias.

AND we are still left with the problem of a silent rule that has never been put into effect for 4000 years. You want to say that God laid down a principle that would affect all men and women in their relationships, but God didn’t tell us about it at all. He let His people go on and live otherwise for 4000 years. I repeat – 4000 years. And still Christ didn’t even mention it in His ministry. In fact God never did tell us that He forbade women to teach or lead. You say that one sentence in a private letter to Timothy, where Paul was advising Timothy about a problem that Timothy was privy to, that God inspired Paul to IMPLY a principle that was supposed to have been instigated at creation, that no one ever knew anything about until just then. And you want to say that such implication upon implication implies that it would be sin for a woman to teach right doctrine to males or lead people in Godly ministry.

That is both preposterous and incredibly illogical.

Being born first does not grant one person authority over another person.

It is CLEAR from Scripture (and Paul testifies to this that ADAM WAS CREATED FIRST), that man ruled or reigned over creation.

The man did not rule over creation alone. Dominion over the creation was given to two, which in effect translated to the entire human race. It is humanity that has been given the dominion of the earth, not male humans.

Gen. 126 Then God said, “Let Us make man (humanity) in Our image, according to Our likeness; let THEM have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man (humanity) in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed THEM, and God said to THEM, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

As you can see God gave rule/dominion of the creation to THEM, THE MALE AND THE FEMALE HUMAN.

Thus far you have not been able to Scripturally prove that the man was entitled to dominion over the woman in the creation, neither from being created first nor by being given sole rulership of the creation.

Because you cannot establish this in Scripture, then we must conclude that you are incorrectly inserting assumptions into the 1 Tim. verses that pull this section away from Paul’s intentions. IOW you are incorrectly interpreting this section of Scripture.

Bottom line is that if you wish to prove that Junia cannot be a woman by this approach, you have failed.

Also, you need to prove that Miriam was not a leader in Israel of any kind, that God did not send her or choose her to stand before His people. You must prove that Deborah was not called of God, that she did not judge Israel for 40 years by God’s directions. You must prove that Huldah was not a prophet of God and did not lead the nation back to God by her instructions on the meanings of the discovered scrolls. You must prove that Priscilla did not actually teach Apollo. You must prove that Phoebe was not really a minister of the church of Cenchre, was not given authority, and certainly would not be entrusted with the epistle to the Romans since that responsibility carried a certain authority with it. And then you must actually prove that Junia was not a woman, rather than trying to say she just couldn’t be.

Kephale

The literal meaning of the Hebrew word “kephele” is the head on ones shoulders. Metaphorically, it can be used in a variety of ways (to be determined contextually) or it can mean literally the head on one’s shoulders.

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Gordon Fee pg. 149, “Discovering Biblical Equality”.
Kephale in 1 Cor. 11:3, Paul metaphorical use of “head” in verse 3 ………………
1. This is both its first occurrence in Paul’s writings and its only appearance in a context where “the body” is not mentioned or assumed. Later when Paul speaks of Christ as “head” in relationship to the church (Eph. 4:15-16; Col 2:19) it is a metaphor not for “lordship” but for the supporting, life-giving role that in ancient Greek thought the (literal) heas was understood to have in relationship to the physical body.
2. ……….at issue, finally, in this whole passage is the nature of the relationship perceived between God and Christ.
3. What we know from the evidence is that when the Jewish community used this metaphor, as they did frequently in the OT, it most often referred to a leader or a clan chieftain. On the other hand, although something close to this sense can be found among Greeks, they had a broader range of uses, all of which can be shown to arise out of their anatomical understanding of the relationship of the head to the body (its most prominent or important part; the “source” of the body’s working systems, etc).
4. The earliest extant consistent interpretation of the metaphor in this passage is to be found in a younger contemporary of Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria (d.444?), who explicitly interprets in terms of the Greek metaphor: “Thus we can say that ‘the head of every man is Christ’, for he made by (dia) him…as God:’but the head of the woman is the man’, because she was taken out of his flesh…Likewise ‘the head of Christ is God, because he is of him 9ex autou) by nature” (Ad Arcadiam et Marinam 5.6). That is , as with Chrysostom’s understanding of the two pairs (God-Christ, Christ-man), Cyril is ready to go this way with all three pairs because of what is said in ver 8: that the woman was created from the man. Not only was the idea that the head is the source of supply and support for all the body’s systems a natural metaphor in the Greek world, but in this case it also supported Cyril’s Christological concern (not to have Christ “under” God in a hierarchy), just as it did for Chrysostom.
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To put an interpretation of “authority over” for the man toward the woman in 1 Cor. 11, is to do the same with God and Christ, which was a heretical understanding which Athanasia fought hard against.

Does Naming Give One "Authority Over"?

The naming idea is a huge stretch. God named them both adham (Gen. 5:1-2) God named their gender, male and female. When God presented her to the man it is more likely that God said this is from-adham. And the man did not actually give her something we can consider a real name until after they were expelled from the Garden.

a. Ish and ishah are nouns, not names. Adham was simply recognizing in poetic form that the woman was from himself, a fact God had to reveal to him first.
b. When an official act of naming occurs, there is a distinctive formula. It is employed in Gen. 5:2 where it is shown that God named the two of them Adham. It is found in 2:19-20 where the man names the animals. It appears in 3:20 where the man renames the woman Eve.
c. God never instructed the man to name Eve.
d. Since God already named them both, no naming was necessary. We could think of them as the Adams, or Mr. and Mrs. Adam. That was their name, given to them by God, their creator.
e. The fact that the man renamed her Eve after they were expelled from the Garden, confirms that the man did not consider ishah a formal name, which it wasn’t.

Does the fact that the man named the animals, the means to which he was granted or given dominion over the animals? It cannot. God assigned stewardship dominion of all the creatures of earth to BOTH the man and woman before He even created them. Thus, naming anything is not a means to obtain rulership of any sort.