Hoping to hear us mispronounce some more Biblical terms? You're in luck! In our latest episode, we're diving once again into submission in Christian marriages, but this time we'll be exploring the term "Kephalē," or male headship (yes, we know how that sounds). Through lots of research, goofy stories, and Biblical takes, we'll explore how the Bible actually champions equality and mutual respect, not patriarchy. We hope you'll join us to laugh and learn, enjoying some ridiculous singing and stories along the way.
We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism
Ep. 11: Kephalē (alyssa & bri's version)
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the We Are More podcast. My name is Alyssa. - And my name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. - We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word. And apparently that's controversial. - Get comfy. (laughs) (upbeat music) - Hello! You're gonna hurt someone's ear. - Woo! - Someone's gonna kill you. - Hello. - I'm gonna kill you. (laughs) This is the last episode in our submission series. My stomach just made it really weird. (laughs) You just ate, so you can't be hungry. - I'm digesting. - So the first episode in this series, we went through an article on what this one pastor believed. - It was why submission preceded the fall. - You got it. - There we go. And talked through some of, it was one particular article, but kind of the main arguments of that side of things. And then last main episode, we talked through why submission in Ephesians means something different than, we've been taught, I feel like I say that all the time, but, and so this is gonna be part three. We're gonna walk, talk through an article, another article by, okay. So I've been corrected on her name. - Oh. - Supposedly, it is Mark. I've been told it's Mark. Who told you that? (laughs) - Mom listened to a podcast by Sheila. Sheila Rake Rigglar. - We love her. - We do love her. - Shower. - And I believe she knows the woman. - Or she just mispronounced her name. - It's very possible. - Who are we to say? - Either way, by Marg Mouseco. - I don't know, M-O-W-C-Z-K-O. - Yes. - So it's up to interpretation, really. - This is the same author that wrote the article that we worked through last week. And she is just so incredibly smart and educated. - She's a brilliant, brilliant Marg. (laughs) Like, if you have the chance to check out her website, she has just countless articles. - Do you think her real name is Margarita? - Yeah, I think that's probably-- - I hope it really is. I mean, there's gotta be people out there and I'm Margarita-- - There are people named that. - Are there any Margarita's listening? - Margarita, if there's any out there, I will buy you a Margarita and I will also buy myself a Margarita. We will go out together and have a Margarita. - What if they live in Spain? - Fly me out there. (laughs) I need a passport. - I could do. So anyway, so she did an article and it is called, let me pull it up. - Oh, can I say it? - You absolutely can. - Caffélé. (laughs) A male head ship. - And Paul's letters. - And male head ship. Let me say that again. (laughs) - Caffélé. - And, male head ship. (laughs) In Paul's letters. Let's talk about what male head ship means because not everybody knows what that means and it sounds kind of inappropriate. - It really does. I can't put that in the title. - No. - Have a nose. - No. Although we might get some more views. - That's true, but probably from the wrong audience, but we'll be reaching them and they need us. (laughs) - So basically this phrase is used in Christian circles. This is another really churchy way of saying things. - Like if you play cards Christians like, it's probably in there. - Yeah, probably. (laughs) - If you guys have not tried decking. (laughs) - It's cards against humanity, but for people who grew up in the Christian circles. - Yeah. - And it is so funny. It was made by a bunch of, I think youth pastors. - Maybe. - It was on Kickstarter a few years ago when I bought it and it's like one of the most popular games in our family. - Everybody loves it. - Fantastic. - Grandma does not love it. She thinks it's a little blasphemous. - And she might be right. - It's a little blasphemous. (laughs) But anyway, so this very churchy term essentially means, essentially we've been told, I guess, that it means that men are above women in authority, whether that's in the church or in their marriages. Think like the head of a company or the head of whatever you think, like the boss man. - Exactly. So that comes from a couple of different verses in the Bible. Look how quickly we got on track. Are you proud? It's like not even five minutes in. - Wow. - It's 'cause it's a thousand degrees in here. - Yeah, we're meeting business. - Yeah. - Business, we're business ladies. So this phrase pops up twice in the Bible. Once in Colossians and once in Ephesians. So I'm gonna read that to you. Once is in the household codes. So we've gone over this many times. We'll keep coming back. Ephesians is an exciting book for women. (laughs) But so it's Ephesians, let's see, five, 23. That's where this pops up. And it says, this is the NIV. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body of which he is the savior. And then it goes on to talk about submission. And then, which if you missed last week, listen to this one first and then bounce back. Highly recommend listening to this one first. And then (laughs) And then it pops up again in Colossians three. I'm really holding back saying Colossians the way that I want to. I would love if you just, you didn't do that. - Colossians. - Oh, first Corinthians, I'm sorry, I'm in Colossians. - Colossians. - Okay, so when I said Colossians earlier, I was wrong. It's in fact in first Corinthians and I can't read. - And I've always said that. (laughs) - So first Corinthians three, it says, but I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is man and the head of Christ is God. Not confusing it. Oh, so that's in first Corinthians. And that is kind of the section on covering your head in worship. So it talks about women wearing head coverings when they're worshiping God. So those are the two passages that really reference it. And in modern day, oh, that's why Colossians, okay. I found the Colossians first, guys. - Colossians. - So Colossians 118. - Excuse me, I said that so long ago. I said, it's right here at the top. Colossians, Colossians, Colossians. Curse you, I'll bury the platypus. That could be the title of the episode. In fact, I'll read it. - Colossians 118, Paul writes, the son is the head, cafe of the church body of which he is the beginning, Archie. The firstborn of the dead so that he himself may be first in everything. Was that clear and obvious? If you're wondering why she said Archie in the middle of that, it's because the author has put in several instances of, are they Greek or? - Don't ask me. - Okay, so the original terms. So that's where Kafelei comes from. - A-R-C-H-E with like a flat accent. We should look up what that is. So, Mark. - Are we done? - Yes. She talks about how this verse, so that verse in Colossians is to show that Jesus was essentially the beginning of everything. Which means Jesus was the beginning of everything. - Jesus was the beginning of everything. - Interesting. - I like towards the end of the article when she says, the head body metaphor means that both, they're both part of the same body. One cannot be without the other. So it doesn't make sense that one person has more authority right now. - So then in Ephesians where it says the husband is the head of the wife, we translate that to mean that he is the leader of his wife, that the man is the head of the company. - Right. - But that's not a perfect translation of the word Kafelei. - Right. And Mark goes on. She goes on to talk about how the head body metaphor that Paul uses several times, which again, because it's not a perfect translation, probably wasn't exactly what he was saying, but what we've translated as the head body metaphor was not something that the early church people would have been familiar with. Like the word Kafelei wouldn't have meant leader. It wouldn't have meant the head of the company, the head of the church, the head of the, like it didn't mean that. But because-- - I'm assuming it meant more relating to Jesus or God. - Well, in Ephesians, it does talk about, you know, the husband specifically. So that's where, that's the only place where you see, or that is the place where you see the husband wife in this metaphor. And so then the question becomes, why? Why is Paul saying that the husband is the Kafelei? - Kafele. - Of the wife. If he's not the leader, what did it mean instead? So she says that it has a lot of the word Kafelei, it has a lot of metaphorical meanings, but a person in authority over others probably wouldn't have been one of the options. Like if you're doing a little Scantron, authority isn't one of the bubbles, or if it is a Scantron bubble. - Do they still do Scantrons? I think they do. - I think they do. Mostly they do tests on the computer though. It's not good for your eyes. - Like they bypass it. Only there is my phone, but here we are. So she says, "Nevertheless, today in Christianity and our churches, we have assumed that that Greek word means authority in the New Testament." Hey, it's Greek. Now we know. - Greek. - Give me a word. - Any word. - You've just finished the sentence. - I don't know the rest. - He goes, and I'll show you how the root of the word is Greek, Windex, and whatnot. You sound like grandpa a little bit. We come from Mediterranean descent, though you would not know it by how very pale I am. - Okay, so this is very off topic, but your hair right now. - That's why there's anything on topic. - We've lost our minds, it's so hot. Your hair right now. Because you've got, Breanna has a clock lip, a very large clock lip, sitting directly on the top of her head. - I don't like the judgment that's happening right now. - If you've ever seen Princess Diaries, too, where the guy that does the hair, he comes in and he does her hair the first time, and then he shows her herself, and she goes, "I look like a moose." (laughing) That's what I'm thinking of right now. (laughing) I feel like a moose. - I am so hot. Terra moose is particularly hot. They're very moose, moose, mises. What's the plural of the moose? - It's obviously me. (laughing) - We all know that. Anyway, maybe we can hop back on topic. - Back to Kefelay. Bring it back around, huh? Another piece of evidence that shows that Kefelay does not mean leadership or authority or any of those difficult words that we like to interpret it as, is that the Hebrew word for head, which was rosh, meant your actual head, like your physical body, like my brain and your eyeballs, the rest, the part that looks like a moose, all that. So that was the word rosh. And translators, through time, translated rosh into Kefelay. So that physical part of your body, they made that into the word Kefelay over time, because it's like a game of telephone. - Yeah, there's not a perfect translation for everything. We know that from modern day translations, because we know that translations aren't perfect and that over time, a translation of a translation of a translation has lost a lot of the initial meaning. So we have to really go all the way back to the original Greek, which again, no one expects the average person to be able to do. - Mm-hmm, no. - But your pastors, who tell you that men are in authority over women, have studied this. - They went to seminary, if you didn't know. At least probably most of them did. - They should have. - They should know this. - They should have studied Greek. - It shouldn't take the two of us goofballs on the internet telling you about it. - Quoting my big fat Greek wedding. - So she says that in Hebrew, like in English, had can also mean leader or ruler. There were Roche, not the word I feel like. The word Roche could mean leader in Hebrew. But in most cases, where it did mean ruler or leader, there was a different Greek word used. And that was, I'd say it, it's our shown, I think. - Guys, I'm gonna assume you're wrong. - (laughs) I highly recommend looking this up because I'm butchering-- - Spell it. - A-R-C-H-O with that fun little accent, N. And that word does mean ruler or leader. So the fact that Paul did not use the word Arshan and instead used kefele. - Kefelelele. - Exactly. Says something. It says something about the meaning. Yeah, Paul was very smart. He chose his words carefully. And if we were back in first century churches, right after Jesus died, I would stink a lot more than I do now. - Well, yeah, probably. - But also, this would make sense to us because this would just be your natural language. You wouldn't think that kefelele meant leader because it's never meant leader to you before. So Paul didn't-- - It meant my stinkin' head. (laughs) - So Paul didn't need to explain it. He didn't need to go through it for these people. It's just that now we're so far removed that we have to do some digging, yeah. We have to investigate a little bit. I think that's what's so important too is not just reading the words off the page. Dig into the deeper meaning. Dig into the historical context. Dig into the why of why you truly believe, what you believe, why do we believe that women and men are equal because of this, because of digging and doing research. And that's why we're sharing it with all of you. And I think it makes the Bible so much more real. Like Paul, before digging into this, not just for the podcast, but in my personal research, Paul was a little bit of the bad guy in my world because he has a lot to say about women. And I've said this before, it all seems really mean. He seems like he hates women, but when you dig into it and you look at what words did he actually use? What were his real actions towards women? You look at his relationship with Phoebe. It all makes Paul into a very different person than I thought he was. It turns him into a real person that I could really have a conversation with. - The relationship that I had with Paul, and I'm sure it was you two growing up, was going to church and hearing about the verses putting down women, is that Paul wrote? But like whenever they do a sermon on submission or Mother's Day or whatever, it's always (laughs) here's what Paul said to put you down, right? Keep you in your place. - Yeah. - And I think it's because it's because of translator bias in a lot of ways because you can look at certain translations that were written with the purpose of making sure women stayed where they were told. But I don't think Paul ever meant that. And I think there's just so much evidence throughout the Bible that Paul, like Jesus, was setting women free from these societal expectations. Well, you can tell a lot about a person from their actions. And just like you just said, his relationship with Phoebe or any other woman that he had an interaction with. - Prisca is another really good. - Respect, equal respect. What he called them, his coworkers. He sent them out to do things that today we would not, I don't, not we, but the very conservative Christian church would not let women do. Like Phoebe went to the Roman church, she carried the Book of Romans to the Roman house churches, and she preached it. - Girl preach. - Girl preach. She gave them exactly what Paul wanted, the message that Paul wanted to convey. She didn't just hear, here's a letter, and we did a whole episode where we talked about this, but she didn't do that. She preached to them, the message that Paul was trying to send. - And he trusted her to do that. - Right. - And the same thing when you look at Prisca or Priscilla, depending on the translation and what you're looking at, she was another one that was a co-worker of Paul's that Paul said, go preach. So Ephesians 5, 23 says, "Because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, he is the savior of the body." Nowhere does it say that man should be the head of his household or for a man to lead their wives and said he says six times somewhere in there that the husband should love their wives. - Yeah, well, our last episode, we went through that. We talked about how the entire passage, the household codes, talks about love and care and not leadership, not decision-making, not you are the be-all and all of your home, but that it means care for someone as you would care for yourself. - And she goes on to talk about why in a pairing, there's two people, it's not like it's a massive corporation. Why does there have to be one person that always makes the decisions, that always is the leader who isn't allowed to be questioned? It doesn't make sense for a pairing of two people to have that kind of power given to one person. - Well, we've said this before, I don't know, we've said it on the podcast or just in real life, but in no other relationship, are you looking for a leader? You would never say that about our sister relationship. Like, well, one of us has to be the leader, one of us has to make the decisions. - One of us does. - Like, you wouldn't say that about a friendship, you wouldn't say that about any other relationship. And all of the other people in your life would tell you that's a bad relationship. Why are you friends with her, stop being friends with her? - And we've talked about that so many times how any situation where you're so desperate for power just absolutely leads to abuse every single time. And we've seen it so many times in this submissive marriage unit. - Well, I see it playing out in our world today. I mean, I can point to situations and say, this is an abuse of power. And even if you want to subscribe to the submission based marriage, which I don't, I don't have major issues. Oh, that made it sound like I don't have major issues with it. I do, I don't agree with it. I have major issues with it. (laughing) Sorry. (laughing) You screamed it too. Even if you do, like, let's say you are, you're fine with that. That's the way you want to live your life. I guess have added if both of you agreed to that lifestyle. Even in that, don't abuse your power. Even in that for the men in those situations, you're still supposed to be the loving, caring servant that Christ calls you to be. - Right. - Not some authoritarian leader. - Because she goes on to talk about this later, but, like, the source that they're always talking about is not males in general, men in general. They're not the source, because God is the source. And just because a lot of their arguments are, well, Adam was created first, and then Eve was created from Adam. So therefore, he has authority. Adam really had nothing to do with it. Adam was asleep. He was passed out. And God was like, I'm like, don't mind me. I'm a ticket. I'm a ticket rip, don't mind me. He was passed out. He had no idea what was happening. And God made Eve in his own image. - Right. - Adam had nothing to do with it. - Yeah. - God is the source. Godhead ship. (laughs) - I don't like that either. (laughs) - We need to find a new word. - She goes on to say, I'm just gonna quote it, because I wrote it down in a quote. I'm proud of you. - She says, "Many Greek philosophers and writers, such as pull-tark?" - Plutark. - Plutark. - There you go. - Taught their, taught that husbands are the leaders and rulers of their wives. In contrast, no Bible author, including Paul, tells husbands to be the leader, ruler, or authority over their wives. Rather than using any of the Greek words, which mean ruler, leader, authority, Paul used kefele. (laughs) Which, with like the (mumbles) (laughs) with body to highlight the connectedness of husband and wife. So they're supposed to be connected. They're supposed to be one singular unit. - A metaphor that I've heard a lot is, and I don't like this metaphor. I'm not a fan of it, but I have heard it, is, well, the man is the head, but the wife or the woman is the neck. - You heard that from my big fat Greek wedding. - It's, I heard it in church, too. It's from my big fat Greek wedding. But the woman is the neck that turns the head where it goes. Now, I still have issues with that metaphor, because I don't like the concept of, first of all, both of you not being able to control yourselves in your own life, but it's an interesting way of looking at that, where it is interconnected. One needs the other. Like, the head can't really do much of anything or be connected to the body of Christ without the neck. And in contrast, the neck can't really talk, or look, or whatever. Again, I still don't like it. It has a lot of flaws. - I think I would prefer if one was like, the husband was the left-hand and the woman was the right. - Yeah. - You know? - Yeah, it's a good one. - You know who else talks about the philosophers as well, someone we haven't brought up in a while. Beth Ellis in bar. - Beth! - We should do a whole episode on Beth. - We should, just her and her life wouldn't be creepy at all. She's out there listening, sorry. - I've stalked her, and I know that she goes to Meyer. - You know, Meyer is regional, so most people don't know where Meyer is, especially our international listeners. - Well, that's fun to say, international listeners. - Hello, you all. - I know too, some people are listening. I mean, maybe, I don't know, maybe you guys are just major night owls and we go to bed at eight, so I don't know. But I wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy. Grab your glasses, you're out the door, you're about to hit the city. Before I leave, I grab my... No, she brushes her teeth with a bottle of Jack. And when I leave for the night, I ain't coming back. - Thank you. - No, but when I wake up in the morning, there are always lots of new views that I assume it's from people that are in different time zones than us, because I mean, maybe you guys are up till three. I don't know, but I'm not, so... - I'll tell you what I am not. - Our mother is, get some sleep, Trista. Anyway, back to Bethany Barr. So she talks in her book about the Greek and Roman philosophers of the time and how they were extremely patriarchal. Like, to the point where at this time, the prevailing theory was that women's bodies were like mutilated men's bodies. - Yes, I remember her talking about that. - Yeah, like women were screwed up men. - Yeah. - And there's something, I'll have to look up the quote for sure, but there's something about like, women in the womb were not strong enough to push their male parts out, and I've always said that. (laughing) - No, but really, I mean, like that was the thong process of the time, like it sounds absolutely insane, but that was the thong process. And so Paul, in the way that he words things, in the way that he speaks to men, in the way that he speaks about women, brings them into the conversation, sends them out on ministry missions, trips, I don't know. - Yeah, pilgrimages. - He turns that completely on its head and changes things for women. He's not putting them down. He's not putting them in their place. And I will grant you a lot of things Paul says because of the way it's been translated. It does sound like Paul's putting women in their place. - Yeah. - But when you jump into it, when you look at the Greek, when you break these things down, that's not what he's doing at all. - March, or good friend March. - March. - Says that unity, affinity, fidelity, equality, all of those terms were absent in the marriages of the Greco-Roman society. So Paul found it necessary to write about the godly ideals of marriage. Like you said, bring it into the picture. - Right. - Tell, kind of put men in their place too. - Yeah. Well, because up until this point, it's easy to look at these marriages where men could divorce their wives at this time for any reason that they felt like, I don't like the way she looked at me. - The pinky toe looks weird. - And she would be out on the street and her options were to find a way to remarry, which was difficult because she was divorced now, or become a prostitute. Those were the options for her. - I would be a prostitute. - Thank you for that information. And so Paul is calling some people out here. He's saying, this is not the way that I want you to live. And prior to this, they didn't necessarily have that instruction. We don't see this mentioned really in the Old Testament. It's not talked about as much by Jesus, which of course we wish it was, but this wasn't Jesus' main mission. His main mission was to show God's love to all people. And Jesus absolutely included women in that. But he didn't necessarily speak directly about marriage and the way that Paul is speaking of marriage here. - The only time the word authority or get ready for this pronunciation, scooshia! (laughing) Spell it. E-X-O-U-S-I-A. Thank you. - Scoooshia! (laughing) - Is used in the New Testament in the context of marriage is in 1st Corinthians 7-4. Do you want to look that up? - Sure. So 1st Corinthians 7-4 says the wife does not have authority over her own body, but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but yields it to his wife. - March says that this first shows that rather than the husband being the authority decision maker, Paul expects husbands and wives to make decisions mutually together in concept. - I think this verse is super interesting too, because, and this is a little bit of an offshoot, but male authority, so often in conservative Christian churches means women have to submit to sex whenever he says. I think it's so interesting. So this chapter seven here, at least the beginning of it talks a lot about sex and don't do it (laughing) don't sing the song. Boys to men, that's all I'll say. - All right, thank you. - So I talked through a lot of that, and I just, so this was something that I think Sheila Ray Gregoire posted about. Sheila, Sheila. - I know we mention a lot of names. I would really encourage you guys to look up some of these women. So she had posted something about the three-day rule, which I was not familiar with, I will say, and I obviously grew up in very conservative Christian churches, but we also never talked about sex. That's true, like you never talked about it. I was very confused for a very long time, mom, thanks. So the three-day rule is essentially that a married couple needs to have some kind of interaction, interaction, thank you. At least every 72 hours. And just, I mean, first of all, give me a verse. I mean, seriously, give me an even, like-- - Paul, Jesus, speak up here. Are you saying anything like that? Like you can't even stretch a verse to find that. There is nothing that says that whatsoever, but that is supposedly the rule. And if the wife doesn't comply with that, because the husband has urges, you know, and he just can't possibly control himself, then he's liable to go out and cheat on her or look at porn or whatever it is to fulfill his needs. And it's hurtful. - Yeah, they put it back on the female and be like, that's on you, rather than looking at the men and being like, control yourselves. And this is obviously like not exactly the topic that we're talking about today, but I just think this verse throws all of that in the trash. You have to completely breeze on by this verse in order to even kind of get to a world where this 72-hour rule or any of those rules apply. Even in the ESV, it says, so I'll read from verse four. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. If you aren't familiar, the ESV was written, the English Standard Version, was written as a response to the new International Version, the NIV. It was written from a much more conservative place, so the NIV came out and took a lot of like traditionally translated as male verses and made them gender neutral, because that's what they should be translated as. They didn't just do it for fun. They translate-- - Well, look at the original transcripts and translate it exactly. - So the ESV was written in response to that because a bunch of the Baptist pastors decided that it was gender neutralizing the Bible and that that was not okay. So anyway, so that's why we talk about this. If you look at the difference there, and again, this is totally an offshoot, but I think it's an important offshoot, the NIV says the wife does not have authority over her own body, but yields it to her husband, and the husband yields it to the wife, right? Whereas the ESV says the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does, and the husband doesn't have authority over his own body, but the wife does. So I think the important distinction there is that the individual person does have rights in the NIV over their own body, and they choose-- - Exactly. - To allow the other person to also, I don't like have rights or their right, but choose to let that person into an intimate space, as opposed to-- - I'm very well said. - Thank you. - I could've said it a lot worse. - I know. (laughs) - As opposed to, I don't have any authority over my body, and I'm gonna give it to you, and you're gonna give it to me because-- - Or not even give it to the other person, just like you haven't-- - You don't have authority over my body. - I just think that's open to some abuse. - So anyway, let's go back to Marge. - The two sections that she talks about in this article are First Corinthians 11, 13, and Ephesians 5, 23. So those are the two uses of the head body metaphor. So First Corinthians, she goes into that, and she says, "It's not about marriage." Now we use this segment in weddings all the time, right? We love First Corinthians for that, but it's not about marriage. She says, "It's about the appearances of men and women who pray and prophesy in Corinthian assemblies." So that's why most English translations use man and woman as opposed to husband and wife in this verse, because they're not talking about husband and wife. - Exactly, but we like to take one thing and make it a blanket over everything. So First Corinthians 11, let's read from verse one here. It says, and this is the CSB, the translation. It says, "imitate me as I also imitate Christ." Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold fast to the traditions just as I delivered them to you. Now this is Paul speaking. - Paul? - The whole time it's Paul speaking. - It's Alissa speaking, not Paul. - Shut up. And now this is verse three. "But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man and the man is the head of the woman and God is the head of Christ. Every man who prays or prophesies with something on his head, dishonors his head." So she says that in this, again, the Greek word here is kafile. - Nice pronunciation. - Thank you. - It's like you listened to a video right before we started shooting. - Well, I listened to you the whole time we were. - Kafile. - So when it says, but I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man and the man is the head of the woman and God is the head of Christ, right? So first of all, not talking about marriage, just talking about people, humans. And again, here, she's saying it's not talking about authority. It's easy for us to read that and say authority. Like it, I mean, that tracks 20, 24 English speaking brain. - Exactly. If I was to say, I am the head of the company, that would mean you're the leader. - I'm the leader. I'm the head of this family. I'm the leader of the family. I'm the head of Brianna. I'm the leader of Brianna. - Watch it, sister. - But that's not what it's saying here. It's saying God created man and then he took man's rib and you created women. - Exactly. So she's saying it's, in this verse, it has a sense of firstness or origin. - Which again, firstness does not equal authority. - Well, we talked about that in the last episode, that if firstness means authority, actually two episodes ago, three episodes ago. - It's unclear. - A while ago, guys. - I must submit to the dog. I'll say it again. All the animals were created first. So if firstness really is the be all and all, humans were last. - Yeah, we should all be tree huggers. - I mean, submit to the fish in the sea, submit to the sun, submit to, you know, like, everything else came first, the dirt in the ground. You're really unimportant in that scenario. So firstness for early church writers wouldn't have meant leadership. It wouldn't have meant any of that. Additionally, if we're talking about firstness, Christ didn't come first. Christ came last, right? He put himself last, not first. Just saying, deep. - That was us. - Thank you. That's what I was coming for. So then the other verse that she talks about is Ephesians 5, 23, right? Now this one is about marriage. And she says that it's amazing to her that the church has a strong doctrine of male headship because of this verse. So Ephesians 5, 23, so let's read that. Now we've read this already, but because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, he is the savior of the body. She says, note that nowhere in scripture does it teach that the man is the head of the house or family. This is specifically talking about the wife. Now she goes on to talk about why that's not what it means to, but it doesn't say that he is the head of the family. It does not say that he's the decision maker or that he has more spiritual authority or spiritual responsibility. Yeah. I hear that all the time. That has been interpreted so wrong in so many ways. Like all the weddings that we've been to or church services that we've been to, just because you are a man, because you have, you pushed out your boyfriend in the womb just 'cause you had the strength to push out your boy parts in the womb. Doesn't mean that you are more spiritual or more wise or anything over me. Well, I feel like I've gotten that thrown at me countless times that you didn't push out your boy parts in the womb. No, not that much. I've never heard anyone say that to you. You said it just yesterday. You're right, I did. This is like Alissa. You have no authority here. Something's gone wrong. Anyway, maybe they just didn't have those strengths to push out their boobies in the womb. They didn't have the strength to suck it back in. Anyway, I've had that said to me before, men have said this to me, I'll say specifically. When I get to heaven, I am more responsible for the spirituality of my family than my wife is. But where does it say that? Give me a verse. Ephesians, literally, even if you forget the Greek, all it says is the husband is the head of the wife. Why does that automatically mean now I have a place of authority in my entire family? And we're not just talking kids. We're talking grandkids, great, grandkids. Like he's this superior figure. Right. And he is the head of the whole family. And I want to go back to that one verse. I forget what it was, but we've said it a couple times where it was like, yes, the first woman was born from man, but don't you forget every other man after that was born from woman. And we've referenced it many times. So that's Paul as well. Turning things upside down, right? Taking what was expected at the time and saying, this is terrible, right? This is terrible. This is not what God wanted for you. Both men and women were created in the image of God. Yes. Both have equal value to God and you should treat each other as such. And on top of that, we talk a lot about how this impacts women because we are women and that is our experience. I am a woman. Hear me roar. We talk about how this impacts women because we're women and that's the experience that we have, but the system as it is now is not beneficial to men either. It seems like it is because How authority got sounds great. But practically as human people, we need interaction. We need support. We need love. All of us men and women require that. Now I've heard many people say that women need love and men need respect as though the other person doesn't need those things too. Right. Men need love and women need respect. And we need to stop lying to our boys and our men and saying that they're not allowed to have emotions. They're not allowed to want love. They're not allowed to cry. We're just dehumanizing men. If you have to be the leader 100% of the time, when do you get to break down? When do you get to fail? You have to believe that there's so much anxiety and depression. If you feel like I have to succeed, I have to be the best at everything I do. And if I fail, I screw over, not just me, but my entire family. And God and God. Well, they say men are way less likely to seek counseling, to seek therapy and talk to someone. In large part because of this toxic masculinity attitude, this is not benefiting anybody. When you look at marriages, Christian marriages, sincerely, I have yet to see a submissive marriage that functions in a healthy way. Not ever in my life. And we've been surrounded by them. Left, right, up, down. If this was God's perfect plan, and I feel like we harp on this, but if this was God's perfect plan, why would he make it so hard? Yep. Why would he make it detrimental to women and men? When he made us because he loved us, he loves women, he loves men. It doesn't make sense. I think we forget that so often, particularly in the more Baptist conservative traditions, we take the love out of it. We do, we absolutely do. We forget that God created us in love and care. We replace love with rules. And authority. And authority. Because your faith and spirituality is completely tied to how well you follow those rules. Well, it seems a little bit more comfortable on the surface. If all I have to do is follow X, Y, and Z. But it's impossible. And it says it in the Bible. We were born sinners. But because of God, we're able to have that relationship because Jesus died on the cross for me and you and my brother and my dad. We're all on equal footing. And it's simple. That's the thing is it's so simple. Except Christ's love. And he will guide you in the path that he wants you to go in. He will give you passion for the things that he wants you just like he's given you and I a passion for this particular project. Yeah. And I believe that he is leading us down each episode. We've talked through a lot of topics. And sometimes I feel like, man, we're just going off the rails. Like, well, yeah. Today, we're going a little off the rails. But at the same time, things keep happening that affirm to us that like this was the topic we were supposed to talk about today. Yeah, absolutely. And something that we're saying right now is going to speak to someone else. It's just simple. Sometimes following God, most of the time, following God is just easy. Not because the thing you're doing is easy, but because the faith should just flow out of you. And marriage should be easy. Not because the day to day life of marriage is easy, not because fighting with your spouse is easy or having differences of opinions is easy, but because what marriage is supposed to be should just flow through you. And I think it's hard to speak to that from my perspective too, because I'm not married. But maybe that's why I'm not married is because it seemed so hard, you know? It seems like the conservative Christian world makes it look impossible. Like there's not a lot of love there. No, I do have some good, like I'm a dad. I love each other. But I wouldn't want that for myself. I don't want a man thinking that he's just a leader over me. I want a man who's a partner who cares, loves, and respects me as much as I do for him. - Do you perchance want a man who stands beside you? - Not in front of or behind me. - Is that Shania Twain? - No, it's-- - Who is that? - Jodie Messina. - Oh, that's an old one. ♪ Give me a man a person holding me ♪ ♪ Not on me ♪ - Thank you. I needed you to sing at least one of us. ♪ And I'll give all the love ♪ - That's a good song. - That is a good song. - I think it's on a playlist. - I think that's so important, because no one wants to walk into a relationship even people who believe wholeheartedly in female submission, no one wants to walk into a relationship where they feel devalued. Or where they feel less than like property. Nobody wants that. Even if you are like hook line and sinker as a woman, I should be submitting to my husband, whatever. Even if you're all the way down the path. I guess I can't speak for everyone, but I can't imagine that any of those women are picturing their lives and they're thinking, "Yeah, this is gonna suck." - Well, we're obsessed with romance, like rom-coms and romantic movies and books and stuff. Why do you think people are obsessed with that? They're obsessed with the idea of love, right? - And not just authority. - And breaking down that word of love because Paul calls men to love their wives. So let's break down that word of love, to be cherished. It's to be truly adored. I think we simplify it so much by saying, "Well, you should put this person's needs above your own, you should die for them, you should whatever." But think about not just the act of that because actions are fairly simple, right? But again, for something to flow through you instead of, "All right, this is such a drudgery, I'm gonna put this person's needs above my own," to cherish that person enough. Of course I'm gonna put them above me. For example, Nathan, my husband, every single morning gets up with the kids at summertime now, so my daughter's out of school and it's a rough time over here, guys. (laughs) It's like boredom. We're working through the early summer boredom where we figure out what the schedule for the rest of the summer is gonna be. And so the kids get up so early and I am not a morning person. Okay, I don't talk in the morning, like don't interact with me in the morning. I know I'm the worst. You'd think we would be because we go to bed so early, but no. Have you ever heard, I think it was not a meme. It was like, I'm not a night owl or an early bird. I'm an always tired pigeon or something. Like, I think I have to say that. That's an always tired pigeon. Anyway, so Nathan gets up in the mornings with the kids every single morning because he knows that's rough on me, like that I just, I don't get up and function well and he's gotta get up for work. So he gets the kids up and they all go downstairs and my daughter puts some pancakes that I've pre-made into the toaster and they all just hang out for a little while while I become human. (laughs) And I think that's what it's talking about. It sounds so simple. It sounds so silly, but to love someone enough that just putting them ahead of yourself is just natural. And I guess that's what I think marriage should be. And so often, it's not. And it's not even an expectation. I think if you're going with what God wants, it should be good, right? It should be the best God has to offer. Not to say that following God doesn't have its trials and tribulation, but look for the good. Find the good. And God's perfect plan. We use that phrase all the time. So God's perfect plan as in what he wanted humanity to be before sin entered the world. God's perfect plan should be easy. It should be perfect. So if this is God's perfect plan for marriage, we shouldn't have a bunch of women miserable writing blog articles on, you know, I thought submission was going to be terrible, but I guess now that I'm living in it, nobody died. (laughs) And that's the best thing that you can say about your marriage is like, it's all right. It just, it makes me sad because I think Christians are getting divorced. I believe statistically at a higher rate than non-Christians. And it's because of this garbage. It's because of this stupidness. If this was God's perfect plan, it would work. God isn't stupid. Whoa, watch it. (laughs) God didn't make a bad plan for us. Made a good plan for us because he loves us. And we're choosing to make it complicated. That's what humans do. So let's stop. That's right. You've heard it here first. We're stopping. (laughs) Well, we are. I don't know what you're doing with it. So anyway, back to this article. - In March. - So our good friend, Marge, in her conclusion. She says that headship is a term that does not appear in the Bible, yet male headship or male authority has been part of the church's dogma for centuries. This is because many have interpreted scripture while being influenced by the prevailing patriarchal culture. That's not easy to say. No, it's not. (laughs) God has tolerated patriarchy in the past and he continues to tolerate it, but true equality and mutuality are the biblical ideals that kingdom people should be aiming for and aspiring to. Male headship and male primacy do not reflect the gospel message of freedom and equality for all people. I wanna just like hang out there real quick. Freedom and equality for all people. Freedom in Christ, we talk about that all the time. But we are not free in the way that we've set up marriage. And I think that's true for women and for men. - Mm-hmm. - If we're stuck in these boxes that we've created for ourselves and you have to be this type of woman or you have to be this type of man, there is no freedom in that. - No. - It's pretty hard for God to use you when you're sitting in a box. Throughout this article, I love how she takes everything that we've thought, she addresses it. - Mm-hmm. - And then she says, okay, but if you really look at what Paul actually wrote in the language that Paul was speaking in, here's what he said. And I don't know how you can refute that. - You can't. - Okay, if you have the opportunity to look up her blog, there's so many articles in here that are so well-researched. - Well, I think everybody should do this kind of research. Figure out why the Bible's saying, what you think it's saying. - Mm-hmm. - Dig deep into it, research it. Look at people like Marge and Beth. And Sheila, I think they're great sources. - Well, I think for so many of us, our interaction with the Bible is church on Sunday and maybe doing like your daily devotions where you read from our daily bread. (laughing) - That takes me back, I know, to a place. There's gotta be a song that starts with that. - I just walked in and found you here without that look up on your face. - Thank you. - So you might do your little devotional and read a couple of verses or whatever, but you essentially just hear what that devotional or that pastor tells you about it. And that can really create a lot of bias. So you do see a lot of this gender bias. - Because that's what they want you to hear. I don't wanna have this like they want this, but at the same time, that's what the patriarchal structure that has taken over so much of the church wants you to hear. - Yeah. - And I would consider this kind of research and digging deep into these topics, that is also devotional. That's also spending time with God. - Yeah, when you're researching these things, first of all, this article in itself has lots of verses in it, but jump out of the article and read the whole passage. - Yeah. - 'Cause that's so important to read the whole thing in context. Sometimes on the podcast will pull out just a verse because we're only here for an hour and I don't know how to read. (laughing) I've always said that. (laughing) And be in prayer while you're reading these things. - There's a podcaster that I listen to. I think she doesn't have her podcast anymore, but her name is Blessing. And she talks about similar to what we're talking about now, but she said she's in constant communication with God. Like, it's not just a prayer that she prays before she eats and before she goes to bed, like her whole life. She's just talking to God in her head, like her inner dialogue. And I think that's a really cool way to think about it. Like, you are supposed to have a relationship with God. And if you're stifling that relationship to only include Sundays and 10 minutes for a devotional, it's not as impactful as it could be. - I think the church has instilled a lot of fear. And you can see this through history where the Catholic church didn't for a long time want their people to read the Bible. They wanted it to be interpreted through the priests. And I think that in a lot of ways, the Protestant Christian church has done the same thing. They don't say don't read your Bible, but it's don't really look any further than the actual pages of your Bible. Read the words as I've interpreted them for you. I don't question. - Yeah, don't look into the history of it. Don't look into the Greek roots of the words. Don't look into any of those things. Just read the pages, it'll be fine. And so you do wind up with all of this bias. And I think we do it and I've heard some people say this where like, well, that's gonna distort the Bible if you look up the history, if you look up whatever. But I think it makes it more miraculous. It's real, yeah. When you can read it the way that it was originally intended to the people it was originally intended to, that's powerful because we can pick up on things like Paul talking to a very patriarchal society and taking things from the time, writing out exactly what that person said, what that philosopher said or whatever, and saying, no, this is stupid. Yeah, we're gonna fix this. And if you don't have any historical context, you don't know that it was a Greek philosopher or a Roman philosopher or whoever that said the first thing. You don't know that. You don't know that. But the people in Paul's time would've known that. So it's important to jump back and it just makes the Bible so much richer. And I think we're missing out in a lot of ways if we don't do that. - We want to be wealthy with knowledge as well. - Wealthy with knowledge. - So I think we'll wrap it up now, yeah. You have anything else to say? You have more songs to see? - No, but I don't like the way you said wrap it up after we've been talking about what have shown out our private heart? - You have made, it's not me. You have made like 12 inappropriate jokes. - But yeah, so we will see you guys next week. We hope you've been enjoying our mini episodes as well. I think two will have gone out by this point. And we hope you've been enjoying them. We wanted to break up some of the really intense heaviness of the bigger episodes. - Also because my brain just can't take it. - Yeah. - So we're doing mini episodes on current, I don't want to say current events. - No, just like whatever suits our fancy. (laughing) - I don't want to try to record them a little bit more in real time so that we can talk about things like Harrison Butler's speech and Kurt. You know, see, I cut that out of the last episode. (laughing) And things like that. So that you can hear just our opinions on things and our thoughts and those ones aren't as research based. They're just kind of fun for us to do. - Yeah. - And we like to chat. We like to chat. I don't know if you've noticed. Perhaps it's been unclear. Oh, wait, follow us on Instagram and TikTok. Breanna is very funny on TikTok. - I'm brilliant. (laughing) - So if you search it's we.r.more.4. No doubt after the four, I don't know. We.more.4. - No, you did that before. We.r.more.4. (laughing) Just, I'm sure if you look up like we are more something, it'll pop up. We hashtag, we are more a lot. So I'll be a hashtag it and then we're there. Follow us over there. We're pretty funny. - We don't really understand how to work TikTok, but I'm getting there. She's figuring it out quickly. - It's not brilliant. - She's brilliant. Okay, love you, bye. - Love you, bye. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)