Dr. Daniel Segraves's Response to My Critique of His Article "Marriage without a Helpmate" Part 1

As promised, below is Dr. Segraves's response to my critique of his article "Marriage without a Helpmate."  Dr. Segraves has uploaded my original Word document with his response in "comment boxes." I have copied and pasted his comments from those "comment boxes." You can see the actual Word document on his blog here: Daniel Segraves's blog. Due to the length of Dr. Segraves's response, I will have to post it in parts.

Bro. Weatherly, thank you for your response to my article. It is well-written, and I appreciate the opportunity to consider your view. You will see my comments below. Blessings!

Although procreation is certainly a significant reason for the creation of male and female, the first reference to the creation of humans sees other reasons indicating equality apart from procreation: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness: let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth’ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:26-28).

This earliest statement about humanity reveals God’s intention for the relationship between male and female. It describes shared dominion and shared imagery (i.e., both the man and the woman are made in the image of God). Before Genesis 3, there is no hint of male dominance and female submission.

The relationship between husband and wife must take I Corinthians 7:3-5 into consideration. I don’t see this in your response. Paul’s treatment of marital relations in the house codes, like Ephesians and Colossians, cannot be in opposition to this answer to the Corinthians: “Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”

This is a clear call to mutual submission. The affection is mutual. The authority is mutual. This mutuality extends even into the realm of spiritual disciplines, like fasting and prayer.

Before I respond to your understanding of Ephesians 5:21-23 and I Corinthians 11:3, I should point out that in the history of Oneness Pentecostalism, we have had significant numbers of married women called into the five-fold ministry. To reject the idea of mutual submission would certainly have introduced unnecessary difficulties into these relationships.

Again, the woman’s role is not limited to procreation. From creation, the woman was intended to share equally in exercising dominion, and she shared equally in reflecting God’s image.

I’m not quite sure I understand the consistency of the two statements “a wife’s submission to her husband is not the result of Adam’s sin in the Garden” and “God’s judgement that a wife’s ‘desire shall be unto her husband, and he shall rule over you’ speaks of sin’s effect on the relationship of a husband and wife.” These two statements seem to oppose one another. Genesis 3:16 addresses two results of the fall: (1) the multiplication of sorrow, conception, and pain in childbirth, and (2) a negative change in the marital relationship.

As R. S. Hess points out, “The desire of the woman for the ’ādām and his dominion in Genesis 3:16 must be compared with the words of God to Cain in Genesis 4:7, where the rare word for ‘desire’ as well as the word for ‘rule’ also appear together (Hess, 1993a). In both cases the desire is one of authority, and the struggle is one of the wills that exists between people. The statement of male dominance is a judgment of the way life would be, not an expression of the divine will. It is no more sinful to reject and seek to overturn it than it is sinful to use weed killer in light of Genesis 3:18” (R. S. Hess, “Adam,” Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker, eds. [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003], 20).

In his comments on Genesis  3:16 and 4:7, with which I agree, M. D. Gow remarks on “[a]nother view [that] has been argued by S. T. Foh (summarized in Wenham 1987, 81-82), noting the parallel with Genesis 4:7, where sin seeks control over Cain but he must master it. Hence she argues that the urge is not a desire for sexual intimacy but a desire to be independent of or to dominate her husband, but he will rule her. Against this view Walton notes that in each of the three texts where tesuqa appears there is no common object desired, so it is better to regard it as referring to a basic or inherent instinct. Whichever view one accepts, the comment of D. Kidner is apt: ‘To love and to cherish’ becomes ‘To desire and to dominate’ (Kidner, 71) Consequently, it ‘is hard to see how discussions of ‘male headship’ as an ‘ordinance of creation’ can be sustained by an appeal to this chapter. This chapter describes how things should not be; this is the broken world” (Atkinson, 94)” (M. D. Gow, “Fall,” DOT:P, 289).

Genesis 3:16 does not describe a woman’s submission to her husband at all. It describes her desire to control him, which is a consequence of the fall. Before the fall, there is no evidence of friction or attempts at manipulation between Adam and Eve.

I see no New Testament evidence that the husband’s “authority over his wife is due to the order of creation before the fall of man,” and I discussed the pre-fall relationship between man and the woman in my second comment above.

This is a matter of textual criticism, but regardless of the Greek text used, the point is the same. We cannot have the same word (hupotassō) meaning different things in such close proximity. In other words, “submit” cannot refer to mutual submission in Ephesians 5:21 but not to mutual submission in the next verse.

Your point is not precisely what Robertson meant. As he pointed out, the word translated “subjection” is not in the Greek text of B, one of the earliest manuscripts (c. 325 A.D.), “But the case of andrasin (dative) shows that the verb is understood from verse 21 if not written originally” (A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1931], 4:544). Robertson also said it was grammatically “possible to start a new paragraph” with Ephesians 5:21 “as an independent participle like an imperative.” In other words, Ephesians 5:21-22 are grammatically joined. [NOTE: As Dr. Segraves points out, this is “possible” according to Robertson, not that that "are" joined grammatically – JLW]. Whatever submission means in one verse is what it means in the other. The only way this would not be the case would be if Paul wrote something like, “Husbands, do not submit to your wives.” If all believers are to submit to one another, we cannot avoid the issue of mutual submission.

Craig Keener’s comments on Ephesians 5:21-24 are helpful in that they take into account the cultural background of the biblical text: “The section 5:21—6:9 addresses what we call ‘household codes.’ In Paul’s day, many Romans were troubled by the spread of ‘religions from the East’ (e.g., Isis worship, Judaism and Christianity), which they thought would undermine traditional Roman family values. Members of these minority religions often tried to show their support for those values by using a standard form of exhortations developed by philosophers from Aristotle on. These exhortations about how the head of a household should deal with members of his family usually break down into discussions of husband-wife, father-child and master-slave relationships. Paul borrows this form of discussion straight from standard Greco-Roman moral writing. But unlike most ancient writers, Paul undermines the basic premise of these codes: the absolute authority of the male head of the house. 5:21. The final expression of being filled with the Spirit is ‘submitting to one another’ because Christ is one’s Lord. All the household codes Paul proposes are based on this idea. But although it was customary to call on wives, children and slaves to submit in various ways, to call all members of a group (including the paterfamilias, the male head of the household) to submit to one another was unheard-of.

5:22-24. Most ancient writers expected wives to obey their husbands, desiring in them a quiet and meek demeanor; some marriage contracts even stated a requirement for absolute obedience. This requirement made sense especially to Greek thinkers, who could not conceive of wives as equals. Age differences contributed to this disparity: husbands were normally older than their wives, often by over a decade in Greek culture (with men frequently marrying around age thirty and women in their teens, often early teens).

“In this passage, however, the closest Paul comes to defining submission is ‘respect’ (v. 33), and in the Greek text, wifely submission to a husband (v. 22) is only one example of general mutual submission of Christians (the verb of v. 22 is borrowed directly from v. 21 and thus cannot mean something different)” (Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary, New Testament [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993], 551.

Keener’s comments on Colossians 3:18-21 are also helpful: “Aristotle had developed ‘household codes’ directing a man how to rule his wife, children and slaves properly. By Paul’s day persecuted or minority religious groups suspected of being socially subversive used such codes to show that they upheld traditional Roman family values. Paul takes over but modifies the codes considerably. . . . 3:18. All ancient moralists insisted that wives should ‘submit’ to their husbands, but few would have stopped short of using the term ‘obey,’ as Paul does here . . . . 3:19. Although the ancient instructions to husbands normally stressed how he should rule his wife, Paul stresses instead that he should love her. . . . 3:21. Most ancient fathers and educators beat their children as a matter of course; like a minority of ancient moralists, Paul advocates a more gentle approach to child rearing” (Keener, Bible Background Commentary, 580).