Perhaps if we dropped this on their heads ... |
Why, you may ask?
Good question.
In an article entitled
“Personal Reflections on the History of CBMW and the State of the Gender Debate”,
Grudem asks
himself the same thing: “Why did I spend so much time on this?”
What he discovered is
that nobody’s listening. At least, nobody’s listening that wasn’t listening
already.
Neighbours Writing Lies
When Wayne Grudem
first realized his Christian neighbours were promoting false teaching, he generously
assumed their misinterpretations of Ephesians 5:23
and 1 Corinthians 11:3 were honest errors.
Grudem’s neighbours were Berkeley and Alvera Mickelsen.
The wife was a journalism teacher, the husband a seminary professor. Together,
they wrote an article published in Christianity
Today back in October 1979 that provides the false doctrinal basis for the
evangelical feminist rebellion often referred to as Egalitarianism. The
Mickelsens argued that the New Testament does not teach the submission of
Christian wives to their husbands, and that the Greek word kephalē, usually translated “head”, should actually be translated “source”.
Grudem knew this was baloney, so he set out
to help. So, over the next sixteen years, he published no less than 132 pages
of lexicographical research in academic journals on the word kephalē, in which he demonstrates repeatedly
and conclusively that in the New Testament, “head” ALWAYS carries the meaning
of “authority”. There are no exceptions. Not a single one. The Mickelsens
were wrong.
The reaction of the evangelical community was a resounding “meh”.
Settling the Debate Forever
As Grudem puts it:
“That kind of evidence would normally settle the debate forever in ordinary exegesis of ordinary verses.
But this is not an ordinary verse. Because the evangelical feminists cannot lose this verse, they continue to ignore or deny the evidence. I think that is very significant.”
It is indeed significant, but what it’s
telling us is hardly a new phenomenon. It is one thing to have information and
quite another to act on it. It is one thing to know the revealed will of God
and quite another to obey it.
Information and Happiness
Solomon had more pure information to work with than any single man
who has ever lived. The writer of 1 Kings describes the great king of
Israel this way:
“God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore, so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all other men, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol, and his fame was in all the surrounding nations. He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005. He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish. And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.”
Solomon was a biologist, a botanist, a
sage, a poet, a master politician, and quite possibly an architect, not to
mention he knew a fair bit about human relations. He had no peers, and no
competition in the areas in which he was an authority. So far as information
goes, Solomon was chock full of it. Further, I am fully confident he had no
difficulty discerning (at least theoretically) how to govern his own household in
a manner that would please God and produce optimal long-term results for his
wives and children.
Aaaaaand … we all know how that went. No
amount of information, even divine revelation, will help you if you decline to
act on it.
The Eternal Optimist
The neat trick we do when we’re bound and
determined to go our own way is that we rationalize like gangbusters. Wayne Grudem
has dealt with every possible scholarly objection along the way, and has become
more convinced than ever about what the scripture teaches with respect to the
roles of husbands and wives. Nobody on the other side has been able to deal
effectively with his arguments, so they simply ignore them. And feminism
continues to make major inroads in evangelicalism.
Amazingly, Grudem does not despair:
“By force of argument, by use of facts, by careful exegesis, by the power of the clear word of God, by the truth, I expected the entire church would be persuaded, the battle for the purity of the church would be won, and egalitarian advocates would be marginalized and have no significant influence. But it has not completely happened yet!
I still believe it will happen.”
I’m not sure I am as optimistic as
Mr. Grudem on that front, but then I suspect he’s postmillennial, so that makes sense. But I just do not picture entire local churches, entire
denominations or especially entire movements as being particularly amenable to
the influence of streams of facts, however reflective of reality those facts
may be.
Knowing and Doing
Solomon was wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite,
but if Ethan had one submissive wife and loved her, he almost surely had a more desirable domestic situation than Solomon. Arguments, facts, exegesis
and truth are lovely things, but they require a practical, real-life response
to be of benefit.
Aristotle said this:
“Before some audiences not even the possession of the exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction. For argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are people whom one cannot instruct.”
When God addressed Solomon after blessing
him with what amounted to an information overload, he reminded him of this:
“If you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father.”
Obviously, those who deny the ways of God
cannot possibly benefit from them. But even those who know them and acknowledge
them as truth derive no practical benefit unless they put boots on that knowledge:
“Walk in my statutes. Obey my rules.”
What I AM sure of is that those who honor
the teaching of the word of God will themselves be honored. Wives who obey
their husbands will be happier than wives who don’t. Husbands who lead and love
their wives will be happier than husbands who don’t. Marriages in which both
parties conduct themselves in keeping with the true meaning of kephalē will flourish, and marriages
that don’t will languish.
God is not mocked. And for those of us who accept the truth he confirmed, Wayne Grudem’s time was not wasted.
No comments :
Post a Comment