Stephen B. Clark: Man and Woman in Christ (1980)

Gal 3,28 nem társadalmi, hanem vallási; Jézus vs Pál nőkről: Jézus zsidóknak, Pál görögöknek ír; nincs matriarchális társadalom; háznép vs nukleáris család; apa időtöltése feleséggel vs többi férfival; macsó társadalmak: női családfők; fiút 5 éves kortól apa neveli

  1. Mt 19:3-9; you can’t observe the law until you understood God’s intention in giving that law; Gen 2: God treats Adam like a son: gives him a place to live & gets him a wife; man’s aloneness != loneliness: it’s not about personal support (that’s a modern approach) but a society to live in, a household and a people; helper != companion: not just personal sharing but practicality & common sense: man is supposed to “do something” for his wife (and vice versa), if this is missing, deep interpersonal sharing won’t make it a good marriage; complementary: equal, correspondence, but also different; subordination » obedience/command

  2. NT never bases any teaching on the causes in Gen 3; NT directives for marriage are for Christians, not the world; Genesis is the model for Christian community and family too (Eph 5,32-33); God’s desire for oneness -> subordination; 3 types based on origin: coercive, mercenary, voluntary; 3 types based on method: oppression, care, unity (for the sake of higher cause); goal of marriage: one flesh; genuine community cannot exist without unity -> subordination; today: ideal of independence/self-fulfillment <-> Bible, freedom: from being told what to do; the ideal of scripture is not independece but community

  3. household: not just family -> economic unit; household ~ church; 1Tim 3:4-5: care for ~ good Samaritan -> ruler + protector/provider; Job 29: 1) exercises authority effectively (not the “nice guy”, loving Christian husband, primary concern for family, not other’s opinion) 2) cares 3) concern for community; “Contemporary Western people often reach against the exercise of directive authority in the lives of others because they see direction mainly as the imposition of one person’s will and way on others. Indeed, since people in modern society often do not have any objective standards of right and wrong or good and bad, they cannot imagine directive authority being anything but arbitrary. Contemporary Western society especially lacks a consensus on values, particularly values that apply to people’s personal lives. Consequently, the only way someone could give a directive to another person, except when working under a policy laid down by some institution, is to impose his or her values or preferences on anohter person. (p. 55)”; objective moral truths -> big difference; head of family is supposed to know right/wrong based on God’s teaching; modern society: much more choices (food, occupation); wife: also household oriented -> government function (“second authority”), “woman of valor” (Prov 31:10-31), ruler of the house (<- enterprise), strong, active, competent; personal subordination is not weakness! (e.g. armies); family ~ army by early Christians; surprising activities: 1) teaching function 2) economic activity; “The wife’s competence in ruling her household freed her husband to assume greater responsibility for the affairs of the community. […] His wife was his partner, not in the sense that they did everything together, but in the sense that their complementary partnership in life allowed them to be a family which set a pattern for other households and ruled in society through the husband. […] Without a wife, a man cannot function well. Only when he has a wife does stability enter his life. She is a source of strength to him and makes it more possible for him to work and contribute to the life of the community. If she is a good wife, the man is very fortunate.”; kids: mother’s responsibility until 5-7 yrs, fathers take them afterwards, work along father, form him into a man, father & son still live together after adulthood, rabbi-disciple -> similar but with someone else; “Contemporary parents often think of their childrearing responsiblities in terms of pre-school training. When children reach age five to six, parents then turn them over to schools and other social institutions for the bulk of their formation and training. New Testament childrearing practices differed drastically from this model. The parents were expected to raise the children to become mature adult Christian men and women.”; training: educational activity which changes the way a person lives; husband-wife -> one flesh + parent-child (father-son) -> passing an image and likeness

  4. submissiveness: character trait for all Christians: stop argue/object, stop interfering in others’ business; husbands: care for their wives: treat household members so they gain respect; women’s weakness: 1) more prone to (spiritual) desception 2) physical weakness; woman: equal spiritual heir as man; husband: head & governor of the family, primarily resonsible for good order & discipline, relationships outside the family, community affairs, raises & forms sons & other young males in the household, protector & provider; wife: subordinate to the husband, ruler of family household, relationships inside household, raises & forms small children & daughters, serves the needs of household members (housework); members outside of household/family: guests, afflicted, needy; man & woman both focus on welfare of household members, but in different ways (man works to provide the food, woman prepares it); roles not related to activities but to relationships; their roles are independent; they are complementary partners, not comrades; “Spending a great deal of time at home is not intrinsic to the New Testament view of the role of the husband.”; husband: more outward focused, toward external community; women’s role is primarily within the household but it doesn’t mean that’s the only place she can be/serve - first the importance of home needs to be restored too education, social service, economic

  5. 20th century churches ~ modern social institutions, not like early Christian community; women prophesied in the early church; older women were expected to teach younger women; male leaders should avoid caring for younger women; no evidence that women were allowed to teach the Christian community on a whole (instead: teaching in homes); men & women engaged in activities in different ways but no activity was closed to women; Christian service: modern invention; early communities: little free time, service in the context of household, fewer positions but more important; missionary work: women didn’t preach in public but teach & serve in women’s houses; order of widows had ecclesiastical rank; early church did not have all-male leadership (<-> now); early church = nation/people vs modern church = religious insitution; “The early Christians considered themselves a nation or people, a community, with patterns of committed relationships. […] By contrast, the contemporary church, sociologially speaking, is more of a religious institution then a people or community. […] When modern Christians form personal relationships, these are mainly motivated by personal attraction, common interests, compatibility, and other factors essentially unrelated to their common church membership.” (p. 125); governance: personal loyalty vs administrative roles; “representation” -> now: everybody has a say vs then: embody a group as a head; not different interest groups but one assembly; family = model for the rest of community; “a household is a little church” and “a church is a large household” (Chrystosom); family elements disappeared from churches; family and community cannot be separated; women were supposed to subordinate to one man, not to every man!; “women were honored less than man” -> misleading (e.g. queen: 2nd most important honored person above every man except the king)

  6. Gal 3:28: no locus classicus on man’s/woman’s roles (circumcision: male only vs baptism: woman too, woman: created in God’s image too, topic: new humanity in Christ); women were not required to keep the commandments; in Jewish eyes, Paul’s Gentile converts are not part of God’s people <-> in Christ they ARE; women were closer to God (in the temple) than Gentiles but farther from male Israelites; free adult male Jew -> first class citizen, others not; Gal 3:28 concerns religiously privileged groups; agape -> NT is not very different from OT; Gal 3:28 changes relationships but does not abolish role differences; Paul was not against Jewish Christianity + he was not an abolitionist!; man-woman relationship: based on order of creation <-> no divine insitution of slavery; “New Testament teaching provides no argument for preserving the institution of slavery. However, it does teach a certain way of behaving in the master-slave relationship, given that this relationship exists. The New Testament likewise teaches on way of behaving in the man-woman relationship, given that there are men and women.” (p. 163); parallel to abolition of slavery = abolition of male/females as different types of people -> currently not possible; “The, the ideas of equality before God and inferiority in the social order are in harmony in the NT. To be precise, the tension did not exist in first-century thought, and it is not present in the texts themselves. The tension arises from modern man’s inability to hold these two ideas together.” (Madeleine Bouder, p. 166); early Jews/Christans: focus on equality before God; modern Christians: focus on social issue

  7. 1Cor 11: headcoverings only for worship, not for daily life; not norm of society but similar to Jewish customs; woman’t head covering: honorable for Paul; “head”: 1) husband <-> wife 2) Christ <-> church 3) God <-> Christ 4) Christ <-> universe; head > governor: source/origin of unity; Greek: man = husband, woman = wife (same words); 1Cor 11:5 vs 1Cor 14:33-36: two different kinds of speeches - one is allowed, the other is not; “Paul instructs the women to be silent because they are women, not because they are disorderly.”; due to respect & good order, not cultural accommodation; intended for all women but wives are considered as a model; Jesus might have taught on role of women which were not part of gospel but remembered in the early church

  8. 1Tim 2:8-15 ~ 1Pt 3; men encouraged to provide spiritual leadership ~ women encouraged to subordinate; main point is subordination, not clothes; quietness: ready for learning, no directive teaching; teaching: involved authority (not just transfer of knowledge); “Teaching was not a function in which an expert came and performed a service which a client was free to receive or not receive as he wished.”; dominate: not taking position where man is subordinate to her -> prohibits exercising authority over men; no positions of govermnent in Christian community; does not prohibit all teaching (e.g. younger women); Eve not blamed for the Fall in NT (e.g. Rom 5); women: more influencable (open) / susceptible to spiritual influences => more open to faith, but also easier to deceive; empirical vs typological thinking (concrete event vs regularities -> Eve was deceived vs women more deceivable); role in Fall: women -> being deceived, man -> being disobedient; they are both equally defect but in different ways; woman was first to be deceived but also first to believe (Gen 3:15 resurrection)

  9. NT encourages adequate cultural expressions but not an exact pattern; intent of texts: hypotheses vs what Bible says; exegesis != application, exegesis = restatement of what the text says; “It is one thing to say that the scriptures states that the wife should be subordinate to her husband. It is quite another thing to describe what that subordination consists of.”

  10. Paul: “anti-feminist” <-> Jesus: “women’s best friend”; Jesus: Judaism <-> Paul: Gentile world; he taught things Jesus didn’t because the environment was different

  11. tradition: treasure vs leftover; benefit of reading Christian tradition: protects from the limitations of our age