04.05. Some Misunderstood Words

Chapter 5 Some Misunderstood Words

Now let us return to the New Testament and briefly examine some of the words used by the Apostle Paul to which we find attached in the margin a reference to Genesis 3:16, notwithstanding that Paul’s language applied only to women who were Christians, in the New Testament sense of being a Christian, i.e., born of the Spirit and partakers of the divine nature, or ’’a new creation in Christ Jesus"-members of the Body of Christ, drawn out of all classes, from every tongue and tribe and nation.

Subjection

First let us take the word " subjection" in 1 Corinthians 14:34, which verse, we have already seen, contains a quotation of the words of the Judaizers at Corinth. There was one sentence in their language which contained the truth, for they probably had heard Paul speak again and again of the duty of Christian subjection. But used by the Judaizers it was "truth" strained to suit their own purposes, for believing as they did in the Oral Law and imbued with its teaching about the subordination of woman, we may judge that they did not mean what Paul meant when they made use of the word ’’ subjection." They meant subordination, but Paul meant something quite different. An examination of the word in the original throws some light on this. Dr. Bushnell points out that ’’the verb ’to be in subjection’ is from hupo, meaning ’next after,’ or ’under’; and tasso--’arrange,’ meaning ’to arrange after, or arrange under,’ as soldiers are arranged, file after file, or under a captain. The way in which the Apostle Paul used the word may be seen by consideration of all its connections in his epistles and the various kinds of persons to whom he applied it. ’’The noun ’subjection,’ ’’ says Dr. Bushnell, ’’is not found in the Greek language outside of the New Testament." Therefore it is reasonable ’’to infer that it was coined to describe a relation peculiar to believers.’’ It is also noteworthy that the A.V. often translates the Greek word in question as "obey’’ and "submit,’’ but the R V. carefully renders it as ’’subjection," and "be in subjection," wherever it occurs, thus "distinguishing them in their sense from obedience.’’ (Compare the A.V. and R.V. in 1 Corinthians 14:34 and Titus 2:5. ) The true sense of the word, says Dr. Bushnell, describes "the Christian grace of yielding one’s preferences to another where no principle is involved, rather than asserting one’s rights. Schleusner’s Greek-Latin Lexicon to the Septuagint says that this verb does not always ’convey the thought of servile subjection.’ Jesus, as a boy, was ’subject’ to His parents, yet we know that He did not even consult them when about His Father’s business.’’ The use of the word in other connections in the New Testament shows that this meaning of subjection is correct and that Genesis 3:16, with its supposed ’’law’’ of’ "subordination" to "rule," is not a true interpretation of its purport when applied only women.

Let us look at a few of the other instances where the word is used. In Ephesians 5:21, R.V., we read "subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.’’ Here we have an admonition written to all Christians irrespective of sex. Again in 1 Peter 5:5, A.V., "all of you he subject one to another. . .", and in 1 Corinthians 16:16 the apostle urges the Roman Christians to be in “subjection” unto everyone that "helpeth in the work’’ (some of these being women as shown by Romans 16:3 and Romans 16:12). In Ephesians 5:22, R.V., the words "be in subjection" are in italics, showing that they are not in the original, yet in the R.V. margin to these very words we find the reference ’’see Genesis 3:16." Omitting the italics the sentence would read, "Wives, unto your husbands, as unto the Lord," obviously taking its sense from the previous verse inculcating the ’’subjection’’ of believers one to another, the "subjection" being in "wives" the very same kind of grace to be manifested in all. In Colossians 3:18 and Titus 2:5 we have again "subjection’’ enjoined upon wives, as is "fitting in the Lord’’--in each case the Greek word being the same as rendered "subjection one to another." Again this shows that the meaning of New Testament "subjection" is not the "rule" of Genesis 3:16, which Eve fell under because of her own turning to Adam and not by the preordination of God. This rule therefore does not originate from the Holy Ghost as a manifestation of the Spirit of Christ and may be incidentally evidenced by the fact that "to the extent that grace works in the heart of the husband, he loses his. . . desire to ’rule’ his wife’’--and, vice versa, any "rule’’ of the husband by the wife is an anomaly never suggested in the Scriptures! "Subjection" one to another is therefore a grace of the Spirit and a manifestation of the law of courtesy which should be seen as operative between sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, who always say the one to the other, "You first-I gladly go ’next after.’ "

Obedience

It is important to distinguish between the use of the words ’’subjection" and "obedience." They are different in the Greek, and the R.V. has therefore changed the words of the A.V. "obey" and "submit" into ’’subjection" wherever the Greek word for the latter is used in the original. It is striking that the word "obey" is used only in relation to servants and always for children but invariably the word "subjection’’ for wives; with one exception, 1 Peter 3:6, where the Apostle Peter points women to the example of Sarah, who ’’obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord" or "Sir." On the other hand, in Genesis 21:12, God bade Abraham "obey’’ Sarah’s voice when she said what was right, showing that the ’’relation of obedience and respect "was mutual and reciprocal and based only upon the question of ’’right" and not of sex. This distinction, brought out so clearly by the R.V., between ’’subjection" and ’’obedience," 1. is very important, and the fact that the former word has never been interpreted as meaning or including obedience, when it is used in the relation of man to man, is sufficient to free its use from the idea of servility or subordination. The New Testament meaning of "yielding preferences" one to the other in conciliation and loving self-sacrifice, every Christian, man and woman, will admit is a necessity for order and arrangement in the affairs of life, as well as being an expression of Christian character, which is well-pleasing to God.

Headship

Again we find the marginal reference Genesis 3:16 attached to the words in 1 Corinthians 11:3, "the head of the woman is the man.’’ But we must not forget that "at Corinth the church used the Septuagint Greek version and would read Genesis 3:16 as ’Thou art turning to thy husband, and he ’will’ rule over thee.’ ’’ so it would not convey to the Christians at Corinth what it does in our day. "Now had we always read Genesis 3:16," writes Dr. Bushnell, " ’he will rule over thee’ instead of ’he shall rule over thee’ and known that the verb is a simple future (as all ancient versions testify), ignorant, careless, or dishonest interpreters centuries ago would not have thought to show that this rule was God-ordained...

We question, then, the correctness of placing Genesis 3:16 against the words ’of a wife the husband is the head,’ as interpreting it to mean, ’of the wife the husband is the ruler.’" But what is the New Testament meaning of the "headship" of the husband? (Not, let us notice, of " man" over woman in general, as the use of the word aner (husband) in 1 Corinthians 11:3-14, makes clear.) Dr. Bushnell devotes an entire lesson to showing the use of the word "head" in the Old Testament, but we can look only briefly at her clear explanation of the word in the New Testament as interpreted for the Christian- and only the Christian-by the analogy of Christ as the Head of the Church. She asks in what sense Christ is described as " head" to His Church. Then he points out that Colossians 2:19 describes it most fully. He is "the head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.’’ Neither here nor in Ephesians 4:15 is Christ’s government referred to but His headship as the support, nourishment and builder of the Body. In Ephesians 1:22, His headship as a "rule’’ is clear, but this is over principalities and powers (see Ephesians 1:21-22), which are placed under his feet. But we are never told that this is the place for His Church! God gave Him to be "head over all things to the church which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.’’ The place of the Church is then shown as ’’raised up with him," and made to "sit with him,’’ to share in his rule over the ’’all things" placed under His feet (Ephesians 2:6).

It was true in those days, says Dr. Bushnell, that the husband was ahead of his wife, but this made it all the more obligatory upon him that he should also be a " head" after the pattern of Christ, to support and lift up his wife to his own level. The words of Ephesians 5:33 concerning this obligation are very beautiful in the original. They read, " Let every one of you in particular, so love his wife even as himself, in order that [expressed in Greek by a single Greek word denoting design] the wife may reverence [or revere] her husband."This is the key to "headship." The true ’’headship" is won by self-sacrificing love, even as Christ won His Church--not by rule and domination-- but by laying down His life for her. Reverence is gained by love; it can never be demanded as a right, nor created in the one who is to give it in any other way than by being "ahead" in manifesting the character of Christ. Therefore in the Church of Christ "even as Christ" (Ephesians 5:23) is the meaning of the headship described by the Apostle Paul-a headship which most truly shows forth the divine pattern of Christ and His Church.

Diakonos

There are also same other misunderstood words in the New Testament in connection with the work and status of Christian women in the early church, showing that in translating other parts of scripture bearing upon the subject, the minds of the translators have always been colored by Genesis 3:16 and the supposed teaching of Paul in the three obscure passages on the position of women to which we have referred. Dr. Bushnell points out an instance of this bias of mind: the rendering into English of the Greek word diakonos whenever it occurs in connection with women’s ministry. The word occurs, she says, thirty times in the New Testament and is almost always rendered "minister.’’ It is translated seven times as " servant," three times as " deacon," and twenty times as minister. (2) It may, or certainly does, refer to an ecclesiastical office, as in Php 1:1, and 1 Timothy 3:8, 1 Timothy 3:12, where it is rendered "deacon." But in Romans 16:1 where Paul says, " I commend unto you Phoebe, our sister, who is diakonos of the church which is at Cenchrea,’’ the translators render it as "servant’’ (A.V.), the R.V. margin giving it as "deaconess."

Bishop Lightfoot, speaking of the translation of diakonos as " servant," gives strong reasons for believing that 1 Timothy 3:11 refers to women deacons and says, " if the testimony borne in these two passages to a ministry of women in Apostolic times, had not thus been blotted out of our English Bibles, . . . our English Church would not have been maimed of one of her hands." As to the R.V. margin rendering the word as "deaconess," Bishop Ellicott says that this is open to the objection that "it introduces into the New Testament the technical name diakonissa, which is of later origin"; it is not the word which Paul himself used. So the fact remains that the Apostle described Phoebe as a "deacon,’’ not a "deaconess" -a ’’minister’’ of the church, using the very same word as in 1 Timothy 3:8, 1 Timothy 3:12 --this fact going a long way, observes Dr. Bushnell, "toward proving that when he gave directions as to ordaining ’deacons’ he made no distinction as to sex in his own mind."

Notes

1. This also throws light on Romans 13:1, as not in contradiction to Acts 5:29, i e, ’’subjection’’-a conciliatory spirit, does not imply "obedience" to anything contrary to the known will of God.

2. Romans 15:8; 1 Corinthians 3:5; 2 Corinthians 3:6, 2 Corinthians 6:4, 2 Corinthians 11:23; Ephesians 3:7, Ephesians 6:21; Colossians 1:7, Colossians 1:23, Colossians 1:25, Colossians 4:7; 1 Thessalonians 3:2; 1 Timothy 4:6.