Paul’s restriction on women certainly elicited criticism then, just as it does today. So, as in nearly all other references to distinct male-female roles, Paul immediately supports his instruction with Scripture: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Tim. 2:13–14). Paul anchors his instruction firmly in the Genesis account. Like Jesus, Paul takes his readers back to creation, back to Genesis, back to the first man and woman (Matt. 19:3–9). Paul does not appeal to local culture, the lack of women’s education, or the supposed problems of heretical female teachers. He simply appeals to God’s original, timeless creation design and mandate (Gen. 1:27–28).
Editor’s note: The following essay appears in the Fall 2023 issue of Eikon.
There are many books and articles on leadership. Too many. But few courageously address the issue of male only pastoral leadership and why it is necessary. The Bible teaches that the church’s elders are to be men, yet this foundational, biblical truth is relentlessly attacked and deemed totally irrelevant by most people.
In this brief article, I will focus on Paul’s instructions to his beloved church in Ephesus. Ephesus was one of the four major epicenters of early Christianity and where Paul labored in the gospel for nearly three years. What Paul writes to this believing community is Holy Scripture and essential to our theme of a male-only church eldership.
Male Leadership in Marriage and the Home
While in prison in Rome, Paul wrote his magisterial letter to the Ephesians. In this letter he makes this stunning and authoritative statement about husbands and wives in Christian marriage:
For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Eph. 5:23–27)
“As Christ Is the Head”
Paul’s basis for the husband’s headship (leadership) is not first-century Greco-Roman culture. Instead, it is Christ and his church. This is the most compelling argument that male headship in Christian marriage is not cultural, but of divine origin: the husband is the head of the wife (and here is the analogy), “as Christ is the head of the church.”[1] Certainly, Christ’s headship over the church is not a relic of an ancient cultural patriarchy. Furthermore, Christian husbands are to love their wives “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). One cannot love his wife as Christ loved the church and cruelly use and abuse her. Scripture speaks clearly here of loving, Christlike family leadership, not selfish narcissism. Thus the Christian husband leads, protects, and provides.
“As the Church Submits to Christ”
So too, the basis for the wife’s submission is not first-century Greco-Roman society. It is Christ and his church: “As the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” (v. 24). In Christian marriage, the wife represents the church that freely and willingly submits to Christ’s headship; the husband represents Christ, the self-giving, loving head of the church.
Thus headship-submission in the marriage relationship is not culturally conditioned. On the contrary, “it is part of the essence of marriage.”[2]
The Home Supports the Church and the Church Supports the Home
Since the family is the fundamental social unit and the man is the established family leader, we should expect that men would also be the leaders of the extended church family, “the household of God” (1 Tim. 3:15). The local church family should be a model of godly male headship from which individual families can learn how to follow God’s design for the family. Stephen B. Clark succinctly states the principle of male headship in the home and in the church:
If the men are supposed to be the heads of the family, they must also be the heads of the [church] community. The [church] community must be structured in a way that supports the pattern of the family, and the family must be structured in a way that supports the pattern of the [church] community.[3]
To this statement, Paul would say: “Amen.”