Sword & Trowel 2020: Issue 1


loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.’ The husband is respon- sible for making sure that he sets a holy example that brings light and life and happiness into the home and the family. In the 28th verse we read: ‘So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.’ How does a man love his body? Well, he makes sure he gets his meals and obtains what is essential for his survival. And just as he takes care of his body in that sense, he is responsible for his wife’s happiness and access to ministry – happiness in every way. ‘He that loveth his wife loveth himself.’ It should be the most natural instinct in the world.


SUBORDINATION OF WOMEN IN CIVIL LIFE?


We have spoken about the subor- dination that begins in the book of Genesis, and is amplified in the New Testament, concerning men and women in marriage and the church, but what about subordination of women in the state? What about society in general? May a Christian woman be a CEO or a prime minis- ter? Does the rule of subordination extend into secular life? Before an- swering, there is just one other thing we need to take in our stride – what about the concept of the woman as the homemaker? Some people stress this very strongly even today. They insist that in the book of Genesis, as you read through chapter 3 in particular, you see the man’s role is


outside the home and the woman’s role is inside the home. They take this and apply it right across the ages, making it a principle that the woman’s role is in the home and the man’s role is out- side the home. Is this so? It is clearly a wrong line of interpre- tation to take, because some aspects of life recorded in the Bible are matters of time-bound culture. For ex- ample, there are three New Testament texts in which the apostle Paul quite plainly indicates that men should work with their hands, which implies that many of us today are out of line with Scripture because we are work- ing with our heads, not our hands. There are Old Testament commands to fight the battle of the faith with spear and bows, but we understand that this language is time-related. We must be careful not to dismiss as cul- ture or time-related matters that have a theological reason attached to them (like the subordination of wives), but the exclusive home-keeper role is ob- viously a time-related issue. In America there are some quite large groups of churches that lay this down as a basic law – a woman should be in the home and that is that. If we were living among the Jews in biblical times, we would very probably have a smallholding, grow- ing food. Now that was the woman’s work. In the book of Proverbs the woman sometimes seeks a potential field, selects and buys it, then farms it to produce food for the family. Another laborious task was that of making bread. She frequently had to grind it with pestle and mortar, and we are told that the making of bread for her family took between two and


Biblical Roles of Men and Women


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