What does 1 Corinthians 11:3-16 tell us about male/female relationships? Is Paul concerned with male headship in this passage?
Using a literary device called a chiasm, Paul argues from the creation account in verses 7-12.[i] While it is often assumed Paul is explaining how male headship came about, he is in fact talking about a man’s relationship to God.
Plus, Paul’s emphasis is not on man being God’s image, but on being God’s glory, a word not found at all in the Genesis account.
Nothing in this text refers to its introductory statement, which makes the view that male headship came about at creation especially difficult to support.[ii]
Rather than teaching female subordination, Paul is reflecting on how Adam was alone and incomplete at first; none of the animals could serve as a companion suitable to him, but when he saw the woman, he burst into song about this one who is bone of his bone and his own glory.[iii]
Paul’s point is that man is woman’s “head” (source) and she is his “glory,” thus women must pray and prophesy properly and not disregard external means of differentiating male from female.[iv]
However, Paul also affirms this does not mean woman exists for man’s purposes, but rather, that as believers, men and women are mutually interdependent on one another.[v]
As to the mysterious comment about angels, the Corinthian women may have thought they had the authority to uncover their heads because they were already like the angels (and were already speaking their language), and Paul tells them not to improperly use their freedom in Christ.[vi]
For clarity, let’s define two differing views about men and women.
Some Christians believe male and female human beings, while equal in value and significance, are created with complementary, God-given, permanent role differentiations (by which they mean men are to lead and women are to follow and support).[vii]
This is the complementarian view of male/female relationships.
The egalitarian (or biblical mutualist) view also sees men and women as different yet equal, but sees gender hierarchy as a consequence of sin rather than God’s original design.
Complementarians use six arguments to make their case based on Genesis 1-3:
Adam was created before Eve. God gave Adam the command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God created Eve as a “helper” for Adam. Adam named the woman made from his rib (indicating authority over her). The serpent “subverted God’s pattern of leadership” by tempting Eve. And God approached Adam first after both humans had sinned.[viii]
All these arguments rely on inference, not exegesis, since both humans are given the mandate to rule over creation together.[ix]
Differing “roles” for men and women, whether sociological or fixed and permanent, are never implied in the text.[x] Plus, the sequence of creation (on which some of the other arguments depend) does not automatically imply self-evident authority.[xi]
God gave Adam the command simply because he had not yet created the woman. He likely approached Adam first after they sinned because Adam had heard the command directly. Adam did not name Eve until after the fall (and naming does not always imply authority in Genesis—see 16:13, where Hagar names the Lord).[xii]
Regarding the notion of the man naming the woman upon her creation, there is nothing in the text implying God allowed the man to define the woman. Instead, the oneness of essence between the man and woman is reinforced by their names.[xiii]
(The Hebrew terms for man and woman are Ish and Ishsha in Gen. 2:23, not Adam and Eve, meaning either “man” and “woman” or “husband” and “wife.”)[xiv]
The meaning of ezer kenegdo in 2:18 does not imply a subordinate role. The noun ezer means “one who helps” and is most frequently used in the OT in reference to God as helper (consistently in a military context).[xv]
Ezer kenegdo might be best translated as a “necessary ally,” for the woman was created as a strong and essential companion to the man, one upon whom he depends for survival and success.[xvi] She is the man’s equal and is totally other than, yet one with, him.[xvii]
Adam’s song upon seeing the woman finds its joyful expression, not because he finally has a subordinate to command, but because he has gained a necessary ally.
Paul writes in Romans 8:14-17,
For all those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
Half of the people led by God’s Spirit are women. Half of those receiving a Spirit of adoption are women. When it comes to inheritance rights, daughters are sons in God’s eyes.
Women are the image of God just as men are, fully eligible for adoption by the Father and all the accompanying benefits.
The gospel restores women’s original purpose as co-regents with men, and makes men and women spiritual co-heirs.[xviii]
***
This post is an excerpt from Prophesying Daughters: How Prophetic Ministry and Women in Leadership Strengthen the Church. Grab the book and the study guide HERE.
[i] “Man didn’t have his origin from woman, but woman from man; and man wasn’t created for the sake of the woman, but the woman for the sake of the man. Because of this a woman should have authority over her head, because of the angels. However, woman isn’t independent from man, and man isn’t independent from woman in the Lord. As woman came from man so also man comes from woman. But everything comes from God.” (CEB). A chiasm is a literary device which begins with a point or event in several steps and then works backward to the original point.
[ii] Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, Revised edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), 570. Regarding male headship: “Nothing either in the language of this text or in its explicit statements refer back to the opening statement, which makes this view especially difficult to sustain.” Note that Paul carefully avoids saying woman is man’s image. Additionally, “glory” is not a term used in Genesis 1 or 2 (and never only with reference to the male human). Regarding male and female together as the image of God, see Lucy Peppiatt, Recovering Scripture’s Vision for Women (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2019), 60.
[iii] Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 572. See Gen. 2:23. Similar language of kinship and connection is used by Laban when he says to Jacob, “Yes you are my own flesh and blood (Gen. 29:14).”
[iv] Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 573.
[v] Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 578-79.
[vi] Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 577. Another explanation is that aggeloi sometimes meant human messengers rather than angels and that Paul was concerned about damaging reports being spread to other churches about the Corinthians’ behavior. Mowczko, “1 Corinthians 11:2-16, in a Nutshell,” https://margmowczko.com/1-corinthians-112-16-meaning/.
[vii] Thomas Schreiner, “Women in Ministry: Another Complementarian Perspective” in Two Views on Women in Ministry (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 288.
[viii] Schreiner, “Women in Ministry: Another Complementarian Perspective” in Two Views on Women in Ministry, 289.
[ix] Kevin Giles, “Complementarian Theology in Crisis,” Mutuality (blog), CBE International, October 24, 2018 and Craig Keener, “A Response to Thomas Schreiner” in Two Views on Women in Ministry (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 338.
[x] Giles, “Complementarian Theology in Crisis.”
[xi] Craig Keener, “A Response to Thomas Schreiner” in Two Views on Women in Ministry, 338.
[xii] Keener, Two Views on Women in Ministry, 338. See also Payne, Man and Woman, 46. Regarding the notion of the man naming the woman upon her creation, “Nothing in the text implies that God allowed the man to define the woman…Their corresponding names reinforce their oneness of essence.”
[xiii] Payne, Man and Woman, 46.
[xiv] CEB footnote, Gen. 2:23.
[xv] Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 112.
[xvi] Aimee Byrd, Recovering From Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Zondervan Reflective: Grand Rapids, 2020), 188-189. Cf. John McKinley, “Necessary Allies: God as Ezer, Woman as Ezer (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, Atlanta, GA, November 17, 2015), mps download, 38:35, www.wordmp3.com/detailsaspx?id=20759.
[xvii] James, 111.
[xviii] The different but complementary nature of male and female is a concept used by Christian scholars and leaders who believe in the full inclusion of women in ministry since at least the mid 1970’s. However, some Christian leaders who believe in male headship and the exclusion of women from certain ministry roles began using the term “complementarian” to describe their position in the 1980’s. Today the term “complementarian” doesn’t simply mean male and female are different yet equal; it is used to mean men and women have been given permanent roles which complement one another. What this boils down to is men being in charge and women being excluded from leadership in the church and the home.
Photo by Joshua Woods on Unsplash
