Exegetist wrote:Christ is the head of the Man, and the Man is the Head of the Woman. The man is also said to be the Preacher, and to teach in the Spirit of Christ. Its fairly obvious that the text only really supports men being the Preachers, and really only supports this base don the ideas of the man being in the Image of God and the reflection of Christ to those he preaches to, were a woman can’t be as Jesus was, you know, a man.
This is a bit of craziness. Has anyone delved into how this is impossible in the Lord.
It sounds as though Paul is setting up a Metaphysical hierarchy. This cannot be the case, however, as he deconstructs it in the next few verses:(11)However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent F117 of man, nor is man independent F117 of woman.
(12)For as the woman originates F118 from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all R427 things originate F119 from R428 God."
Why would Paul set up a metaphysical hierarchy only to knock it down again? Why would he mandate what was already considered natural? The only gender relations that were known in Paul's world were those dominated by men. It is easy to read the Peagles book, or to hear the propagandizing of radical feminism and assume that the Gnostics, because their groups attracted women and because they talked about goddess "Sophia," that they were radically liberating women, and thus Paul's purpose might be seen as one of reinforcing the hierarchy. On the other hand, these Gnostic groups were not necessarily liberating to women. They attracted women in great numbers for their sexual liberation and because they offered a "quick fix" to knowledge of the divine and to salvation, in an otherwise dismal social situation. That does not mean, however, that they taught the superiority of women. As documented above, some Gnostic groups taught that women were "spiritually men." Even the one gender concept leaves the male as dominate. For a more sobering view of these goddess worship religions see the book by Yale Sumeriologist Tikva Fryemere-Kenski: In the Wake of the Goddesses. (1991).
Paul is reaffirming a hierarchy of sorts, but not one in which the husband rules over the wife. He's affirming a hierarchy in which Christ rules over both males and females, and in which marriage is sanctified by God; a rebirth of the originally intended role of partnership between the genders in creation. He disrupts the flow of the hierarchy in social terms and in terms of rank, by first pointing out the reversal in origins, and then by bringing it all back to God as the source of all. But from this context, because he does speak of who comes from whom, it seems clear that Kefalh carries the connotation of "origin" or "source." He brings up origins to say "in the garden of Eden man and woman were meant to work together." This is what egalitarians call "non-heirarchical complamentarianism." Egalitarians are sometimes complamentarians, male and female complament one another, but not in a hierarchical way. Not the only expression of that mutual labor among equals, but the primary expression of it, is marriage. Marriage is good, it is made by God, and genders are good, they are both equal and both made by God. This is what Paul says to the Gnostic faction when the speaks of "heads," the "sources."
If Paul set up a metaphysical hierarchy with God as the "boss" of Christ, he would be a non Trinitarian. Of course the doctrine of the Trinity didn't exist at that time, but we Trinitarians like to think its elements are found in the New Testament and that Paul would have been one if he knew about it. To say that God is the "boss" of Christ is opposed to stated church dogma regarding the equality of persona in the Godhead! Complamentarians often try to soften the blow of this connotation of "boss," by reducing it to "leader," but then is God just the "leader?" It would seem that God's headship is stronger than just Leadership. Is God Christ's "leader?" It seems the most logical approach is to understand the word as "source."
How is Christ the source of "a man?" It's a metaphorical usage! It doesn't have to have a hard and fast connotation that is the same in every enstance. Man is the source of woman in creation (according to Genesis) and woman is the source of man in birth. These both relate to becoming, but they are not exactly the same. God created everything, but God did not take everything out of a rib, nor did God give birth to the universe out of a womb. So these usages don't have to stack up in exactly the same way. Christ is the "source" of life in a spiritual sense. The life of a person is one of the meanings given kephale in Liddell and Scott. In this case spiritual life. Now, Christ is also the source of spiritual life for a woman, but, Paul is setting an analogy because he has a dual purpose. So he's not talking about that aspect for the women here, but he does say man is "a head of a woman." Man is not the only head of the woman, but "a head." So Christ is the head of a man in the sense of spiritual life, man is the source of woman in the garden, but also culturally man was in the dominant role in a marriage. Paul is not necessarily affirming that as a timeless gesture, but he is reaffirming marriage itself. Let's bracket that aspect, however, until the discussion on Ephesians 5:22.
Paul's dual purpose is (1)To get men not to cover their heads in worship; (2) to get women to cover their heads in worship
read more:
http://www.doxa.ws/social/Women/veil-2.html