47. XLV. The Family in the Teaching of Paul

XLV. The Family in the Teaching of Paul

Paul’s conception of social life and the importance of the family in the Church has been often judged too exclusively from what he says in his first letter to the Corinthians, and especially from 1 Corinthians 7 of that letter. From this letter, taken by itself, we should readily gather too narrow a view. At the moment when he was writing 1 Corinthians 7, Paul was championing the freedom of the individual man or woman; and the same tone runs through the next chapter. (This tone was suggested by the letter of the Corinthians, and intended to correct them.) The individual must be free to work out his own salvation in his own life. He must not be in bondage to others, not even to a wife or a husband. “Ye were called for freedom . . . for freedom did Christ set you free, . . . where the Spirit is, there is freedom.” (Galatians 5:1-13;2 Corinthians 3:17.) Yet the individual does not stand alone. He was called for social life. He was called for family life. He must sacrifice even his freedom for others, and in the sacrifice find the higher freedom. There is this double call on the individual. The two calls may conflict, or seem to conflict, in human life. How shall they be reconciled?

We must not draw our conclusion from the narrower field of the first Corinthian letter alone, and especially not from one single chapter of that letter. Such a line of reasoning would, as I think, be wrong, for it ignores the peculiar character and purpose of the letter; yet, undoubtedly, it would be easy and natural to infer, by arguing from that letter alone, that in Paul’s estimation marriage is the poorer fashion of life, and merely the second best, on which a man or a woman falls back because he or she is too weak to be capable of the true life of man, the life wholly devoted to God. The duty of a man or a woman in marriage conflicts with the full and complete devotion to the things of God. He who will devote himself wholly to the latter must not give himself to the former. That seems to be the view stated in 1 Corinthians 7; but 1 Corinthians 7 must not be taken by itself alone.

If we now turn to the Ephesian letter we see that in Paul compares the relation of husband and wife to the union of soul and body, and to the union between Christ and the Church, the most intimate and perfect relationships that can be conceived by the human mind. Such comparisons imply that, in Paul’s judgment, marriage is in the highest sense the divine life and the perfect harmony of human nature. Christ’s existence in the world is consummated through the Church. The Church is the body to which Christ is the soul. Soul does not attain its full existence without body. Each is the necessary complement of the other. The Church is the inheritance of Christ and the completion of the purpose of God. So also marriage is the perfection of the life of mankind. The one member of the pair is not complete alone. The two form a unit. Marriage is part of the purpose of God. Such is the teaching of the Ephesian letter.

It follows from this that the true unit in the constitution of the congregation is the married pair, and not the individual. The Church is made up of families, and the family forms the basis for the organisation of the Church. “This mystery is great,” as Paul says to the Ephesians, for the individual has his own rights and must save his own soul. In the unified pair the two are one; but yet each member of the pair is a complete unit, the evolution of the Divine purpose and the expression of the Divine power. Each is complete in himself or in herself; and yet each finds completion in the other. The congregation is based on individual members; and yet the congregation is based on families.

Here we have another of those apparent contradictions in the expression of Paulinism, which present only an apparent inconsistency. Both facts are true. They are reconciled in the higher truth of growth, evolution, continuity. On the double truth we must build up our conception of human nature and its relation to God.

Paul, in his first Corinthian letter, shows himself quite aware of this double truth. We must not read 1 Corinthians 7 alone; or, if we do so, we must bear in mind the breadth of Paul’s outlook, and add his own personality as we read. He expresses the other side in 1 Corinthians 11:11 : “nevertheless, neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman, in the Lord”: the evolution of the Divine purpose requires both, and requires them in the higher unity. The Church is constituted of families, and not of individuals in isolation.

Paul is never unconscious of what we may call the “pastoral” idea. He gives fullest expression to this in his letters to Timothy and Titus; but it appears elsewhere. A good deal of both Thessalonians and First Corinthians is “pastoral,” and the same element is always latent even in his most exalted and mystic moods. (The failure to see this is the cause of much error about Paul, and especially of the opinion that the Pastoral Epistles are not his work. Those Epistles, on the contrary, are necessary to the complete understanding of Paul.) He must work with men and women as they are; and he must lead them towards the future ideal. The concrete and perfect truth is made up of the past, the present, and the future, and of the law that runs through the process from the past to the future. He must keep the ideal clear in their minds and before their eyes; and yet they are after all weak, erring, timorous, sinful creatures, who cannot do what they would, and who sometimes would not what they can. The ideal cannot be attained by them; and yet it must be attained. The ideal is attained by them, in so far as they move towards and desire it and believe in it. Their belief is counted to them for righteousness. They are saved by their faith.

There is equality in the perfect Church of the ideal. There is equality in the Church of the present, and yet there is inequality. Every Christian, male and female, is and must be a teacher: it is part of their duty, and a necessity of their profession. Yet a woman shall not teach in the congregation, says this same Paul. Every one must teach in the way that is practically most useful: there are diversities of endowment, and some are set apart by their heredity and their opportunities for one path of teaching, some for another. A teacher must have pupils; and in the existing state of Roman and Greek and Jewish society, people were not ready for women in public teaching. Nor had women in that society the education that was needed for such teaching.

Unanimity of will, and not domination of one, is the ideal of marriage. Both should will the right, and thus attain unanimity. But that is the ideal, towards which we strive; but which man cannot attain. When there is difference of will, Paul seems to say, the husband’s will must overcome; and the wife should obey. That was inevitable in the constitution of society at that time. There is, however, a higher law, that the right should be done, and that both should unite in this. That is a far harder law. Can it be attained? Can it be followed? Is it not too hard for human nature? Should we not acquiesce in a lower, but more easily realised aim? The Christian law aims at the highest and the perfect, and will be satisfied with nothing less. Just because it is most difficult, and remains above human nature, this unanimity of will in the right is the only Christian law. It demands much: it exacts too much from mere human beings. Yet it is the ideal which draws us on towards it through error and failure, and which will conquer us and rule us in the end, if we believe in it. The hardest experience in life is when diverging conceptions of duty or difference in judgment about what is right, causes separation between friends and allies, as for example between Paul and Barnabas at the beginning of the second missionary journey. Each did what he believed to be right; and, after years of united work and achievement, they parted, and never met again. Each thought that the Spirit was with him, and each went on his own course. Luke, who tells the story, simply states the facts, and expresses no judgment which of the two was right; but the Spirit decided in future history. Barnabas drifted into a backwater. Paul was in the central current of affairs, by which the world was moved. As we look back now over past history, we see which was moving with the Spirit; but how should the friends and companions of the two decide at the time? At the moment it was not necessary for every one to decide, perhaps not for any one. Paul lays down about a year or two later a rule that might apply. (1 Thessalonians 5:21f.) Respect every expression by any individual of the will of God, as the individual sees it, or thinks he sees it, in the Spirit. Encourage these expressions; yet test them. They are not always right. They are sometimes discordant. Brethren in the Spirit forbade Paul to go to Jerusalem; but he knew that it was right to go, and the Spirit decided so in the evolution of history. The criterion is to hold fast the standard of moral excellence: nothing that conflicts with the fundamental principles of moral rectitude can come from the Spirit: you must not do evil that good may result from it, even although some individual in the Spirit bids you do evil.

Paul had to face this great trial; and there are occasions when any one may have to do the same.