Category: Articles

GPS – The Structure of Headship

by Rick Shrader

The subject of headship in the marriage and family immediately raises questions about equality, subordination, leadership, and love. The Bible says  plainly that headship involves the Godhead, marriage (1 Cor. 11:3) and also the church (Eph. 5:23). These three spheres of headship teach us important things that relate to husbands and wives.

God is the head of Christ (1 Cor. 11:3).  God has eternally existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one divine essence but in three equal persons. Though we speak of an eternal trinity, God is a tri-unity, not a tri-theism. He has always had one will and one essence. In the incarnation however, God the Son also took upon Himself a human nature with a human will. In the kenosis (or economic trinity) then, God the Father directs and commands the Son and in that sense is the head of “Christ” the incarnate One. The Son always obeys. Though the Father loves the Son, the role of authority flows only from Father to Son and not the other way. This arrangement, of authority and submission, accomplished salvation for mankind.

Christ is the head of the church (1 Cor. 11:3). This is stated specifically in Eph. 1:22; 5:23 and Col. 1:18, but it is implied in 1 Cor. 11:3 in that He is “the head of every man.” The flow of authority among Christ and the church also flows one way. Though Christ “loved the church and gave Himself for it” (Eph. 5:25), Christ does not submit to the church but the church to Christ. And still, as the Father eternally loves the Son in that divine headship (John 17:24-25), Christ loves His bride the church and gave Himself for her. We see in these arrangements both headship and submission as well as love with sacrifice.

The husband is the head of the wife (1 Cor. 11:3). Paul’s subject in 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 is the relationship between husband and wife. The reason for mentioning Christ being subject to God, and every man being subject to Christ, is to illustrate headship and submission for the man and the woman. This and  other passages suggest proper headship.

The husband is the head by appearance (1 Cor. 11:1-16). Head covering was a cultural way of showing the difference in gender and headship. A woman’s appearance ought to show her submission and the man’s appearance his leadership. A man ought to be recognized as a man and a woman as a woman in all the ways their culture shows it.

The husband is head by sacrifice (Eph. 5:22-33). The husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. His headship over his wife is sacrificial as was Christ’s. The love of one’s wife exceeds the love of one’s self; it washes every spot and wrinkle; it leaves one home to create another.

The husband is head by creation (1 Tim. 2:9-15). Adam was formed first but Eve was deceived first (vss. 13-14). For this cause men are the teachers and preachers over the women but not the women over the men. The woman finds special fulfillment in the rearing of children, her first created responsibility (vs. 15).

The husband is head by chivalry (1 Pet. 3:7). Being the stronger gender, the husband honors the wife by his protection. She is a valuable vessel that one handles with care and knowledge.

In all these analogies we are reminded that both the man and the woman are equal in worth as image bearers and children of God. Christ died for the church where there is no male or female but where Christ is all and in all (Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11).

Book Review:    

Married for God

By Christopher Ash

Sometimes we find authors we like by seeing them referenced in someone else’s book. This is how I found Christopher Ash. Ash is an Englishman who resides in Cambridge, England. At the writing of this book (2016, containing 162 pages of text) he was the writer-in-residence for Tyndale House in Cambridge. I first read his larger work, Marriage: Sex in the service of God. That larger work (2003, containing 365 pages of text) defends the sacredness of marriage and places it in the purpose for which God made it. In both works but especially in this later one, Ash defends the marriage ceremony and the public vows as a covenant before God. Marriage contains a betrothal (engagement) period which, for English-speaking people, is a time for finding out compatibility. Also, it is strictly not a time for intimacy. The marriage itself contains both consent, the public vows made before God and witnesses, and consummation, the private intimacy that has been promised only for one another.

Ash also champions marriage (engagement, consent & consummation) as opposed to cohabitation before marriage which he sees as intimacy without the sacredness of covenant promise, and is therefore not marriage at all. He comments on fornication that “it covers all sexual intimacy outside of marriage, including sex before marriage, sex while living together, homosexual acts, and sex with animals.”

Ash also deals with adultery within marriage and gives several reasons why adultery is a serious sin: it is turning away from a promise; it leads the adulterer from security to chaos; it is secretive and dishonest; it destroys the adulterer; it damages society; and it hurts children.

In dealing with singleness, Ash sees this situation not so much as a “calling,” though that may be, but more commonly as the situation in which one finds himself or herself. That situation is God’s gift to you. He even says, “I know which ‘gift’ I have by a very simple test: if I am married, I have the gift of marriage; if I am not married, I have the gift of being not married.” He then says, “Half of us will end our lives with the gift of singleness because we will be widowed.” He would also say that all of us start out life with the gift of singleness when we are not yet married.

Statistics:    

“Marriage is a Boundary, but Human Beings Rebel Against this Boundary.” From a section of the book by Christopher Ash (see book review).

“In the last half-century living together unmarried is easily the most significant way that God’s boundary has been crossed. This custom began in a small way in the 1960s among divorcees, but is now most common among young couples who have never married. Between 2006 and 2010 a large survey in the United States found that 48 percent of American women between 15 and 44 had lived together with a partner as their first sexual union, and presumably a similar proportion of men. Back in 1995 this figure had been about 34 percent, so it is rising steadily and may become the dominant practice.

“Typically these first cohabitations lasted between one and a half and three years. Around two in five led on to marriage, but many simply dissolve. In history there have been different cultural ways to enter marriage. These have included, in some cultures, what has been called ‘common-law marriage,’ in which a man and woman living together were regarded by their society as being married. But what we see now is different. Couples choose to live together in a relationship which is by definition not marriage; marriage is available to them, but they choose not to enter it.” pp. 97-98.

Another Statistic:

A 2022 Pew Research Study says, “More than half of Americans live within an hour of extended family.” Parents and grandparents have a huge influence on the younger generations connected to their family. Living near them has a real influence on them.

“Overall, 55% of U.S. adults say they live within an hour’s drive of at least some of their extended family members. Roughly equal shares of Americans say they live near all or most of their extended family (28%) or near some extended family (27%). Another 24% of adults say they live within an hour’s drive of only a few family members, while one-in-five say they do not live near any extended family members. Only 1% of Americans say they don’t have extended family at all.”  (Pew Research article, accessed 3/30/23)

GPS – The Genesis of Life

by Rick Shrader

It is God Who gave us life. “In Him was life and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4). “Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness . . . So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Gen 1:26-27). The word “Man” is from the Hebrew word “adam” (Adam). In Gen 5:2 it is translated “Mankind” when referring to both the man and the woman. This is like the New Testament word anthropos (Man or Mankind). We are all of the race of “man” or “Mankind.” This is why the Bible always uses the masculine gender to describe the whole human race.

This was day 6 of creation and God had already created the animals on day 5. But the animals are not in God’s image, nor the angels, only man in each gender, male and female. Adam was given dominion over the animals and even named each animal, “But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him” (Gen 2:20).

“And the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him’” (Gen 2:18). This “helper” is the woman. Adam said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman because she was taken out of man” (Gen 2:23). Adam also named her “Eve, because she was the mother of all living” (Gen 3:20). The image of God which began in Adam is now given to Eve and will also be passed on to each offspring of a man and a woman. Seth was born in the image of God from Adam and Eve (Gen 5:3). Every human being possesses the image of God.

In the dominion mandate given to Adam and Eve in Gen 1:26 and 28, the first two statements are to have dominion over all other creatures that God made (vs. 26) and also to “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (vs. 28). We will deal with dominion over the earth in a later article, but here we need to see that man was created male and female for the express purpose of reproduction.  On the first day of creation the earth was “void,” that is, empty. The same is said after the flood waters of Noah had receded (Gen 8:13-19). God made the animals male and female (one of each were taken on the ark) so that they would reproduce and fill the earth, but He also made mankind male and female to do the same.

It has always taken a male and a female to reproduce life whether animals or human beings. It will always take the sperm of a man and the seed of a woman to make another human being. At the time of conception this combines into XY or XX chromosomes, male or female. At that moment the DNA is set for life. The image of God is passed to this new person (an eternal soul) but also something else—the sin of our original parents, Adam and Eve (Rom 5:12). This is why “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23), and why “The wages of sin is death, but [and this is the good news] the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 6:23).

We live in a mixed up time. The sinful nature which comes to each of us at conception (David said, “In sin my mother conceived me”) can sink to unbelievable lows. In Romans chapter 1, three times we are told God gave human beings up to the immoral actions of their sinful nature which had produced in them a debased or reprobate mind (Rom 1:28). But the good news is still that God loved us and gave His only Son for us that we might be saved from our sin and have eternal life (John 3:16). God loves his image-bearers and we are all image-bearers.

Book Review:    

Marriage and the Family

By Andreas Köstenberger

             Andreas Köstenberger has written a number of books recently on the family. This one (2012) was written with David W. Jones but is essentially Köstenberger’s. It is a good synopsis of his other writings in that it is only about 175 pages and contains shorter chapters written for the layman and parents. The chapters include Marriage in the Bible, Marriage and sex, Family in the Bible, Reproduction and Parenting, Singleness, Homosexuality, Divorce and Remarriage, God, Marriage, Family, and the Church. Köstenberger has been very good on headship, complementarity, submission, life at conception, marriage as a covenant before God, discipline for children of various ages, and is moderate on divorce and remarriage. In this volume I especially liked his comments on adoption into God’s family, help for single people, and an emphasis on the local church which stands separately and, in its own right, above family relationships i.e., our relationship to brothers and sisters in Christ is eternally longer-lasting than our earthly family relationships. That can be encouraging to singles and those in broken family situations. If you want to get acquainted with Köstenberger, this is an easy way to get started.

In a section titled, “Created in God’s Image to Rule the Earth for God,” Köstenberger writes: “The fact that both men and women are created in the likeness and image of their Creator invests them with inestimable worth, dignity, and significance. God’s image in the man and the woman has frequently been identified as conveying their possession of intelligence, a will, or emotions. While this may be implied to some extent in Genesis 1:27, the immediate context develops the notion of the divine image in the man and the woman as indicating representative rule.” (p. 12).

In his conclusion he writes, “For the first time in its history Western civilization is confronted with the need to define the meaning of the terms marriage and family. The cultural crisis that rages concerning definitions of these terms is symptomatic of an underlying spiritual crisis that gnaws at the foundations of our once-shared societal values . . . Human sexuality and relationships are rooted in the eternal will of the Creator” (p. 155).

Statistics:     

“Americans’ Complex Views on Gender Identity and Transgender Issues.”

“When asked what has influenced their views on gender identity – specifically, whether they believe a person can be a different gender than the sex they were assigned at birth – those who believe gender can be different from sex at birth and those who do not point to different factors. For the former group, the most influential factors shaping their views are what they’ve learned from science (40% say this has influenced their views a great deal or a fair amount) and knowing someone who is transgender (38%). Some 46% of those who say gender is determined by sex at birth also point to what they’ve learned from science, but this group is far more likely (than those who say a person’s gender can be different from their sex at birth) to say their religious beliefs have had at least a fair amount of influence on their opinion (41% vs. 9%).” Pew Research Center, 6/28/2022.

(Editor’s note: It is a shame that only 41% of people can say “a fair amount” of their opinion is influenced by their faith)

A New Year Promise

Psalm 121 has been a comfort to travelers for thousands of years. It is one of 15 Songs of Ascents (or Degrees) that the Israelites would sing as they ascended the hills of Judea to Jerusalem for the feast days.   The psalm is divided into four stanzas of two verses each. Each stanza gives a promise to travelers of God’s blessing and protection. Their help comes from the Creator (vs. 2); He will not allow their foot to slip (vs. 3); the LORD will be their shade (vs. 5); and then in vs. 8, the LORD will preserve their going out and coming in. We will all be going out or coming in this year and we need the Lord’s preserving. It could even be the time of our final home-going. Matthew Henry wrote,

“He will keep thee in life and death, thy going out and going on while thou livest and thy coming in when thou diest, going out to thy labor in the morning of thy days and coming home to thy rest when the evening of old age calls thee in.”  (on Psa. 121:8).

GPS – Headship in the Human Family

by Rick Shrader

From the beginning God created men and women to be in a marriage relationship with the man as the head of the woman. This was never a master/slave arrangement but rather a complementarity of assigned roles among equals. The Bible gives examples of what this relationship looks like.

In the Godhead.  “The head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor 11:3). The Father and the Son, though equal in essence, are complement in function or person. “Priority is not necessarily superiority.” Two can be equal with one as the head. Jesus said, “I always do those things that please Him” (John 8:29).

In the Garden. Adam and Eve were both created in the image of God and thus of equal worth as human beings (Gen 1:27; Gal 3:28). Yet the man is the head as the spiritual priest of the new family, having been created first and from the ground; having named the woman as Eve and mother (Gen 2:23; 3:20), being responsible for the tree and for Eve’s first disobedience (1 Tim 2:14). We sinned in Adam, not in Eve.

In the First Marriage. “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him  . . . Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife” (Gen 2:18, 24). Now Adam had a helper in his dominion mandate. “Then God blessed them, and God said to them . . . Have dominion’ (Gen 1:28). It is not the woman who leaves father and mother but the man. He will begin a new family with her as his partner. He will be the tiller of the ground (from which he came) and she will be the filler of the earth (responsible for the body out of which she came). Complementarity is not a result of the fall but of the sinless creation of man and woman.

In the Fall. Paul makes it clear that though Eve was first deceived (1 Tim 2:14; 2 Cor 11:3) we sinned in Adam not in Eve (Rom 5:12). The human race was in Adam (Heb. adam, “man,” Gen 2:7; “mankind,” Gen 5:2; “sons of men,” Prov 8:31) and therefore the sin is truly ours as a member of the race of “man.” In the punishment meted out by God, Adam would still till the ground but in sweat and Eve would still bear the race but in pain. Both would do their part in the dominion mandate and the complementary responsibilities would remain the same.

In the Family. Now when we are told that “the head of woman is man” (1 Cor 11:3) we understand the nature of that headship. Submission is not inferiority and headship is not superiority. Headship is leadership and submission is followership. This arrangement was ordained by God in humanity’s innocence in the garden. Husband and wife find their God-given purpose in the family relationship. Children also find their purpose in their submission to parents (Eph 6:1-3).

In the Church. “There is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). All Christians are equal as children of God. Yet in the preaching of the gospel and the pastoring of the church, only men are found in the New Testament (1 Tim 3:1-7, Tit 1:5-9). Women find their fulfillment in a complementary role (1 Tim 2:12; Rom 16:1-3) as has always been the case in God’s world.

And so. We will come back to the subject of grandparents in this arrangement. Children grow up and start their own home. A grandparent’s role changes but never loses a spiritual influence. “Wisdom is with aged men, and with length of days, understanding” (Job 12:12).

Book Review

Men and Women in the Church  By Kevin DeYoung

I have read Kevin DeYoung on a variety of topics and have always found him helpful. This paperback book (of about 150 pages) is one of the best things I have read recently on the family and which closely aligns with the article in this paper. He writes, “So what is this book about? In simplest terms, this book is about divinely designed complementarity of men and women as it applies to life in general and especially to ministry in the church.”  Of creation DeYoung writes, “The man’s primary vocation is ‘naming, taming, dividing, and ruling.’ The woman’s primary vocation involves ‘filling, glorifying, generating, establishing communion, and bringing forth new life.’” Of the effects of the fall he writes, “The marriage relationship, which was supposed to be marked by mutually beneficial headship and helping, becomes a fight over sinful rebellion and ruling. God designed sexual difference for one another; sin takes sexual difference and makes it opposed to one another.”

DeYoung wrote this book in 2021 so it is up to date on marriage and church issues. In this volume he will also cover the headship issues in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, the marriage of Christ and the church in Ephesians chapter 5, and the preaching/teaching order in 1 Timothy chapter 3. For solid biblical information on these issues as well as gender and complementarity, this book will be a great read.

Statistics

The multi-generational household (where more than one generation of families live together) has been fluctuating back and forth for a century. The Pew Research Center points out that in 1900, 57% of adults 65 and older in the US lived in multi-generational households, whereas by 1990 only 17% did. That dramatic drop was due to the mobility of seniors created by retirements, Social Security and Medicare, and post-war prosperity. This created what is called “the social contract,” the so-called agreement between generations, “you leave me alone, and I’ll leave you alone.”

Pew Research is reporting that recently, beginning in about 2008, the multi-generational household is making a comeback with over 6.6 million seniors living with children and grandchildren. This is due to the down-turn in the economy but also to the fact that Boomers have a whole generation of children who are now able to provide for them in their senior years. A real question becomes, who is the “head” of the multi-generational household? 58% of the time it is the grandfather, in 42% of the time it is the son (depending on who moved in with whom!). Pew Research Center, “The Return of the Multi-Generational Family Household,” accessed 8/29/22.

A Short Word Study

Most people are afraid of dying. They kid themselves about what’s on the other side of death. The believer has assurance that death is just the door to a far better existence, that to be “absent from the body” is to be “present with the Lord” (2 Cor 5:8). The Psalmist said, “You will guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you?” (Psa 73:24; see also 49:15). The word “receive” (laqach) is used of Enoch in Gen 5:24, “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took (received) him.” It is also used in 2 Kings 2:10 of Elijah, “If you see me when I am taken (received) from you, it shall be so for you.” Paul knew that to die and be separated from our body is to be immediately taken into God’s presence. One day, however, the trumpet will sound for the whole church and living believers will be “caught up” (received)together to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thes 4:17), body and soul together! In either case, as the Psalmist expressed, “Whom have I in heaven but You?”

On the Light-Hearted Side

Jacob was 92 and Rebecca was 89 and they were engaged. As they were walking they passed a drug store and went in. “Do you have heart medication?” they asked. “Yes, of course” was the answer. How about for rheumatism?” “Yes, of course.” “Arthritis, jaundice?” “That too.” “What about wheelchairs and walkers?” “All speeds and sizes” was the answer. “Great,” Jacob said, “We’d like to use this store as our bridal registry.”