Latest / We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism / Ep. 9: Rage, Pigeons, and Submission

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Ep. 9: Rage, Pigeons, and Submission · We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism

0:00
Welcome to the We Are More podcast. My name is Alyssa.
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And my name's Bri. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism.
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We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach His
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Word. And apparently that's controversial.
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Get comfy.
0:30
Hello.
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Hello.
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Welcome to episode eight.
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We've got to stop making this joke. It's not a joke.
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I think it is episode eight, but it's part two.
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Yes.
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Continuation. Dreams come true.
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I was literally about to say that.
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Submission part two. Dreams come true.
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Things get better from here.
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Unknown.
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Maybe this part will be less rage.
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Maybe. I doubt it.
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Probably not.
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So last week we talked about the big S.
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Stacey.
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We talked about submission, which is one that we have been ready to kind of get into for
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a while.
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It's a tough topic.
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It's tough and yet it's like the most important thing.
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It's the most important and I think it's so misunderstood.
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Amongst the Christian community because a lot of people believe in it, but don't live
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it.
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Right.
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Well, we've talked about that before with our parents where they would have preached
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it.
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Like they would have said, yeah, this is what you're supposed to do as a Christian couple,
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Christian woman.
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But really like we never saw our mom was not any sort of submissive wife.
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Mom was just as much of a leader as dad was.
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Right.
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And I think that is kind of what shaped you and I into who we are today.
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We're strong, confident ladies.
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She'll like to hear that.
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You're welcome, mom.
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Yeah.
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I mean, because we saw an example of that, but at the same time, because it was preached
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to us in our home and at church, like not just for mom and dad.
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Yeah, for sure.
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From most of the female influences in our lives and a lot of the male influences in
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our lives too.
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I think at least for me, that's what shaped how I approached relationships and marriage
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in the beginning anyway, before I kind of started to branch off on my own.
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Yeah.
3:00
So last week was a little bit of a downer because we just were full of, as Taylor such
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as a female rage, the musical.
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She's trying to trademark that.
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She should.
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That's pretty good.
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If she does though, we might have to cut that part out.
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Sorry, Taylor.
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I'm sure she's listening.
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I'm sure she is.
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So we talked through a little bit, kind of the main complimentarian points, I think.
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For arguments that submission was pre-fault.
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Right.
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So the submission started like God was, when God planned out the human race, that he planned
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it with female submission in the perfect order of things.
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And really in order, I really think in order for the whole argument of wives should submit
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to their husbands in everything all the time, only works if it did precede the fall.
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So again, churchy terms, but if it happened before sin entered the world.
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So we just kind of went through a lot of the main arguments.
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We worked through a specific article, but it addressed all of the main things that we've
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heard at least, right?
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Yeah.
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So today we're going to go from the opposite perspective.
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Frankly, at this point, I'm not sure if this is a two parter episode or a three parter
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episode.
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I think it's an ongoing conversation.
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So these will be the two first introductions to the topic maybe on the podcast, but I think
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that's a topic that is going to spend the lifetime of you and I talking about this nonsense.
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I think it's going to spend our lifetime.
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And anyone who chooses to interact with us.
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Sorry.
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Prepare yourselves.
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Anyone who is obnoxious.
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So one of the, I guess, bloggers that I follow on Facebook, I'm actually not sure which one
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it was.
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I'll just pick that up and maybe post it on the Insta.
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If you're not following us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, I was going to say like
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Carrier Pigeon, Smoke Signal.
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You should!
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Yeah, you should definitely follow us on Carrier Pigeon.
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We're great at that.
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Very occasionally we post something very funny or inspirational.
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Mostly it's funny.
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But yeah, any of those we are more of a dot podcast, right?
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And then TikTok is...
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It's confusing.
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I'm sure if you looked up like we are more podcasts, we'd pop up, but it's like we dot
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more...
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Nope.
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Did that?
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This is the second time I've heard that.
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I think it is.
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We dot are dot more four.
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Okay, I think it's technically the name.
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And Bri posts some good stuff over there.
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So definitely check it out.
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We post previews there a lot.
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So that's always fun.
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You can kind of see what insanity we're about to see before you jump in.
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Or you could see our faces.
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Our beautiful, beautiful faces.
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They're so beautiful.
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Mostly my face on TikTok.
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I haven't figured TikTok out yet.
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I'm a little vain.
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Yeah, well, we know that.
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They've been listening.
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If you haven't been listening, go back and you can see how vain Bri is.
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I think we both are.
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I don't know what you're talking about.
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I am humble as much as you possibly could be.
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God hears your lies and he will smite you.
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So today anyway, I feel like every time I try and get us back on track, I say, so...
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So today!
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I think you should try.
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Get us back on track, Bri.
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If I were a train, what would I do?
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So today, we're going to go over a different article that argues that submission was not
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God's perfect design for humanity.
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Yeah, that women specifically submitting to their husbands wasn't God's perfect plan.
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Well, there you go.
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Because I think, you know, when we talk...
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The word submission is a rough one in general.
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It just doesn't come across very well.
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But when you look at that, at the section in Ephesians that we're about to go through,
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you can see that before God tells women to submit to their husbands, he tells couples
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to submit to one another.
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So I think that's where you really can see, for lack of a better phrase, God's perfect
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plan for humanity is to both submit to one another.
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And we've put... there's a lot to this, and we'll get into it, but we've put a paragraph
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break in there between submit to one another and then the section about God's instructions
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to women and God's instructions to men.
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But the paragraph break was not there before.
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There's something that we added.
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Yeah, translators added it.
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And you have to ask...
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That we, you and I.
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That's true.
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But you have to ask the question, what was the motivation behind adding a paragraph break
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there, adding a chapter break there?
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Because all of the chapters and the verse numbers and things like that, we put in.
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Again, not you and I.
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I don't think I'm quite that educated.
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I'm not.
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I was an art major.
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But there's going to be certain motivations there.
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And depending on who is translating, you're going to get different biases.
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Biases?
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Again, I was an art major.
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You were the English major.
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Sorry, I still don't know.
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All right, so this article, I want to give you the website name, but again, I don't know
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how to say her name.
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It looks like Marge.
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It's Marge, but then I think it's Mausko.
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Is what I'm going to go with.
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Okay.
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We can link it.
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The title of it is The Chiastic Structure of Ephesians 5, 22 to 23.
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Or to 33, I'm sorry.
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About a mouthful.
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Holy cow.
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It is quite.
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But essentially she is talking about Ephesians 5, which is, I think they call them the household
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codes.
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That sounds right.
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Yeah.
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So it's essentially like Paul, because it wasn't Jesus talking here, it's Paul talking
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here to the Ephesian church and he's telling husbands and wives what they should be doing.
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Now preface all of that by saying husbands and wives in Roman society.
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So this is the segment where Paul is telling husbands and wives how they should behave
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towards one another, what God's plan is for them and what he wants from them.
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However, Paul is talking to people in the Roman world, to people in first century Roman
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societies, which again are very patriarchal.
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There are actual laws telling women you better do what your husband says or literal death
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penalty.
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Right.
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So keep that in mind.
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So I'm going to read the segment here.
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So this is Ephesians 5, 22 through 33.
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And so this does cut out the part where it says to submit to one another, but it's important
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to read it like this in the context of her blog, because she's talking about something
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called chiastic structure, which is super interesting.
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I had not heard about this before.
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And again, I was an English major, so maybe I just failed that class.
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Marge says that Paul in this section is using a common literary device that can be found
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in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament, and that he uses it several times throughout
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his writing.
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I think Haiku.
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Yeah.
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And this to me informs a lot of why Paul seems confusing.
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I'm gonna be honest, Paul is a confusing man.
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Yeah.
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But I think a big part of it is what she's saying here is Paul is writing in a structure
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that's common for them that day that we're not using now.
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No.
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So it's called a chiasm.
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And essentially it formed like the sentence, it's hard to explain over podcasts where I
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can't just like show you a piece of paper, but the sentences form an X shaped pattern.
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So the thoughts are stated sequentially up until the main point.
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So you'll have like thought, thought, thought kind of going up a pyramid, then you hit the
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main point, and then you come back down the pyramid.
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So the main point is like the cross of that.
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Yeah.
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So it's like the middle, the middle of it.
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So she says that in a chiasm, the main point or highlighted idea is often at the center
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of a passage.
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So that's what's happening here.
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So we're going to read specifically from this.
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So it says, wives submit or commit yourselves depending on your translation to your own
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husbands to your own husbands, not your siblings, husbands, not your neighbor's husbands, not
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that guy down the street that makes you feel weird.
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Thank you.
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As to the Lord for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ also is the head of
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the church.
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He himself is the savior of the body, but as the church submits slash commits herself,
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herself, herself to Christ.
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So also the wives to their husbands and everything.
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Husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her
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that he mates, he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with
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the word.
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So this now we've hit the main point and that is that he might present to himself the church
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in all her glory.
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So the he in this situation is Christ.
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Hmm.
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Christ.
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Yes.
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Not that guy down the street that makes you feel weird.
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Nope, not that guy.
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Oh, all right.
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So now we're coming back down the pyramid and it says having no spot or wrinkle or any
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such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.
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So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies.
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He who loves his own wife loves himself for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes
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and cherishes it just as Christ also the church because we are members of his body for this
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cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and the two shall
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become one flesh.
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And then she has another main point because it does another little bloop.
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This mystery is great, but I am speaking concerning Christ and to the church.
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Nevertheless, let each individual among you also love his own wife as himself and the
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wife is to respect her husband.
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So the way that this pyramid functions, so you've got that main point in the center,
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but then the others line up with each other.
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So point one on the pyramid lines up with the last point on the other side of the pyramid.
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Point two lines up with the next one.
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Between bricks and the ones directly across from each other line up so they can kind of
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inform each other.
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Which again is a big part of why this passage is confusing.
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Because it jumps back and forth from talking to wives and then suddenly talking to husbands
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and then suddenly talking about Christ and the church.
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And then like it feels disorganized to us here in 2024.
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Is that what year we're in?
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Is it 2024?
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It's unclear to me.
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I'm pretty sure.
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So she says that when you can see the structure of the passage, you can see the points a little
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bit more clearly.
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So it again informs everything and helps you to understand.
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So first of all, Christ lowered himself down to our level because it says he became human,
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gave himself up for the church, died on the cross, all the things.
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Now if this passage is saying to men, do as Christ did, Christ lowered himself.
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I just want to like pause on that for a minute.
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These people are living in a very patriarchal society.
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Men have a much, much higher status than women.
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And Christ, who you're supposed to be exemplifying, lowered himself.
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Let's just put a pin in that.
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Yeah, the god of the creation.
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He created you, me, that guy down the street.
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And brought himself down to our level in human form.
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And we'll circle back to that.
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But I just want you to like, you know, keep that little thought right there in your head.
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And think about that in context to, I don't know, certain pastors, certain men in your
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life.
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So she says, but even more than that, even more than lowering himself, which I mean,
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yes, they were living in a very patriarchal society and men had a higher status, but the
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chasm between men and women is a lot less than the chasm between Christ and us.
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So remember that Christ lowered himself a whole bunch more.
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But beyond that, she says that more than lowering himself, Christ elevates the church.
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So yes, Christ came to where we are.
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He met us where we are, even though he had so much more authority, so much more power,
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so much more, he brought himself to where we are.
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And then from there, he put us up on his shoulders and lifted us up as high as we could go.
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I like that visual.
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And he did that by sanctifying, cleansing and glorifying the church, right?
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So that's what Paul is talking about.
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And Paul is comparing husbands to this story right here.
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Now one thing that I've heard, and this is a little bit of an offshoot, but I hear this
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all the time.
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These biblical wonderful men will say, well, I would die for my wife.
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I would die for the church.
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Oh yes, I would love to dive into it.
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It's just, it's the dumbest argument.
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I was actually thinking, this is one of my shower thoughts this morning.
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It is so much easier to think like, of course I would die for you.
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That is the easy way out.
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Oh yeah.
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To end it all and be done.
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It is so much harder to live for someone.
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You can't care for someone, like for example, on the plane, put on your own oxygen mask
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before you put on someone else's.
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It's a lot harder because you can't care for someone else without caring for yourself and
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making sure you're okay.
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Does that make sense?
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I think we bounced to do a different topic for a second there.
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Oh well, you can cut that part out.
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That was my shower thought.
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But your point is super valid because living for someone is really difficult.
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Just like with my kids, I can tell you that I love my kids enough that if a bus is barreling
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down the road towards them, I'm going to shove them out of the way even if it means I'm going
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to get hit by the bus.
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However, that's not, it's a one moment thing.
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It's a one moment decision as opposed to every day when they wake me up at seven o'clock,
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not getting frustrated with them and letting them climb in my bed and climb on top of me
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and say, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom,
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and living every day with them in mind, with their best interests in mind.
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So I think the point there and on top of that, what a stupid thing to say.
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I would die for you.
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In what scenario are you being asked to die?
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Alyssa, I would catch a grenade for you.
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Throw my head on a blade for you.
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I don't think people are going to know that song anymore.
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I was from high school.
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It's Bruno Mars.
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Look it up.
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Don't though, because he's kind of the worst.
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He is the worst.
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But it's just how often are you being asked to jump in front of a bullet for somebody
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else?
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No, rarely.
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You're just not.
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And you know that.
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The husbands who are saying, well, I'm fulfilling my calling from God because I'm willing to
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die for my wife, have simplified it to a level that is blasphemous.
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I mean really.
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That's asking absolutely nothing of you because you know and I know and your wife knows and
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the creepy guy down the street knows that you're not going to be asked to die for her.
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Maybe like maybe in some random 1% chance scenario.
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But 99.99999999% of the time.
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That's not happening.
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So stop being stupid.
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Don't offer to die for your wife.
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Live for her.
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Every day.
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Live for her best interest.
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Wake up and think, how can I show up for this person more?
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How can I serve her today?
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And that goes for wives too.
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I'm not saying this specifically for two men.
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Well it says submit to each other.
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Exactly.
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It's just kind of the point that we're making here is wake up and serve one another because
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Christ spent his life in humble service to the church.
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And if that's what we're supposed to compare ourselves to, if that's what we're supposed
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to be.
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And also offshoot.
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I don't mean to say like, well I did the dishes for her.
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Right.
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No.
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It's not her job.
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It's both of yours job.
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Both of your jobs.
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Be a partnership.
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Yeah.
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Work together.
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A little tit for tat.
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I'm gonna cut that part out.
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That's a quote from the Corpse Bride.
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Great.
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So anyway that was us just chatting.
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Let's reel it back in.
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Got a little off topic there.
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So what she says is that when you interpret this passage through traditional gender roles,
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so the expectation of like Christian conservative gender roles, the message of Christ lowering
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himself and elevating the church really gets lost.
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And I love how she says it because she says this glorious message is lost or overshadowed.
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So we've heard and we mentioned this in the last podcast, men will say things about a
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submissive wife and a submissive marriage like, oh it's this beautiful picture of Christ
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and the church.
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But here she's turning that completely on its head and she says here is a glorious message
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of Christ and the church, Christ lowering himself and elevating the church, not Christ
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staying at his high societally expected position and expecting the church to stay where she
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is.
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Sizzle.
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So think about that, he's elevating the church, making all their dreams come true, right?
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Rather than saying like, you might have dreams but mine are more important and you actually
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don't get to achieve your dreams, you get to help me achieve mine.
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Yep.
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Might be thinking about Harrison Bucker.
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So I just think that's a beautiful point.
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I think we've heard that traditional stereotype so many times and I just absolutely love how
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she words it.
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So she talks through a little bit of Ephesians and then making the church holy and blameless,
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things like that.
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And I think we've talked through a lot of this just in our random chatting.
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But she says that you need to note that Paul doesn't ask husbands to give up their lives
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for their wives.
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Like just make that little note.
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I know we kind of made that point a second ago but Paul doesn't make that point either.
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Right, it's something that we've just made up on our own.
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Because we will say, well Christ did give up his life for the church.
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Okay.
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Well it's like that toxic masculinity.
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They love talking about death.
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Yay, death.
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That makes me more manly if I'm willing to die.
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But she does talk about that.
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She says neither death or dying or the crucifixion or the cross are explicitly mentioned in Ephesians
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5.
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And there are enough explicitly mentioned things that Paul would have said that if that
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was the point.
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And he doesn't.
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He gives them actual, humble, real instructions of like here's who Christ was.
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I knew him.
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You knew him from his writings, his teachings, his whatever.
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Do that.
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Stop being dumb.
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She also quotes Ephesians 5, 2.
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So that's a little bit earlier in the passage but it's important to read the whole passage.
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I would encourage you to open up Ephesians, read the whole chapter.
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But Ephesians 5, 2, Paul tells the Ephesians to walk in love as Christ also loved us and
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gave himself for us a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.
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I think that's such an important message too because you look at the message of wives submit
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to your husbands all of the time.
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There's very little love in that.
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Love never gets mentioned.
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No.
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It says love your wives like Christ loved the church but the message is more geared
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towards women.
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Put aside your dreams.
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Pick up the broom.
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And that's your life and that's all you're ever going to amount to is less than.
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This is kind of an offshoot and we might cut this but I've had this conversation with
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many, many family members.
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But one of them that sometimes we agree on these things, sometimes we don't.
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But he had said that it's never a man's job to tell a woman what her job is, what God
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is telling her to do.
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I find that so interesting because it's always, not always, but often male pastors getting
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up and talking about submission and telling a wife what she is supposed to be doing.
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Pointing out the speck in someone else's eye instead of looking at their own.
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You're supposed to submit, you're supposed to do this.
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And not saying like, hey let's just keep to ourselves and whatever God tells me to do
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I'll do and whatever God tells you to do you should do.
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Because I believe that I have a relationship with God and you have a relationship with
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God and I respect both of our relationships separately.
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And that they can be different.
26:55
That my reality isn't everybody's reality.
26:56
And we say that all the time.
26:58
It's so important to remember.
27:00
I feel like I say that four times an episode.
27:03
She gets tattooed on our chest.
27:05
That wouldn't be weird at all.
27:07
But one of the really important, so she makes a footnote on this and we can circle back
27:10
later, but she says an important note is that husbands cannot cleanse or sanctify their
27:15
wives.
27:17
I love that.
27:18
Say it again for the people in the back.
27:21
So I'm just going to read this directly.
27:25
I just love it.
27:26
Note also that husbands cannot cleanse or sanctify their Christian wives.
27:29
That's the work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
27:32
Husbands are not Jesus.
27:36
If you guys could, I'm like gesturing with my hands.
27:40
Which I think so often in the conservative world, men forget that.
27:47
Oh yeah.
27:48
They would never say it, but they forget it.
27:51
But some of them do say it.
27:53
So she posts a video on this article and I will do my best to link this article.
27:58
But she posts a video where this man directly says that the husband's role is to sanctify
28:05
his bride and make her presentable before Christ.
28:08
You cannot.
28:09
If that's right.
28:10
And she makes this point.
28:12
If that's right.
28:13
If that's really true.
28:14
What about single women?
28:15
Yeah.
28:16
What does that mean for me?
28:18
You can't be sanctified.
28:19
You are screwed.
28:20
Find a man.
28:21
I'm going down.
28:22
And what does it mean about widowed women?
28:32
What does it mean about women who marry non-Christian men?
28:39
Because we've had examples of that in our lives.
28:42
Absolutely.
28:43
Or what about men who seemed like they were following God and then didn't?
28:50
She says that the Bible teaches that Jesus is the savior and sanctifier of both men and
29:00
women.
29:01
And I mean, you can see that throughout the whole world.
29:03
Yeah.
29:04
Jesus is the savior of the world.
29:05
Not that creepy guy down the street.
29:07
Or the creepy guy you married.
29:10
If you married a creepy guy.
29:13
Or the nice guy that you married.
29:15
Yeah.
29:16
It doesn't matter.
29:17
It doesn't matter.
29:18
But frankly, let's flip it on its head a little bit.
29:23
Do you want that responsibility?
29:26
I think we brought up this point in the last podcast too.
29:30
Men, do you want that responsibility of sanctifying your wife for Christ?
29:38
Because I can tell you the only way that that happened for humanity was Jesus coming down,
29:45
getting off his throne, or your high horse.
29:50
Completely blameless.
29:51
Sinless.
29:52
Yep.
29:53
Living a life, living a full entire life in service to his people, with zero other priorities.
30:01
No other work.
30:03
No spouse.
30:04
No kids.
30:05
No other priorities.
30:07
And then dying for it.
30:08
Say your thought.
30:09
Why is it okay for Jesus to be single but not me?
30:14
Well, the church, you're a girl.
30:18
I don't know.
30:19
I got nothing for you.
30:21
That's a different podcast, Brianna.
30:24
That is one that we should do.
30:25
Yes, it is.
30:26
Well, we wanted to do Single Women in the Church.
30:29
So this footnote, honestly, I could do a whole podcast.
30:35
I could do a whole podcast on the things in this footnote.
30:37
I think we really could.
30:41
But one of the other points that she makes, and I just want to bring it up, it kind of
30:46
is a little bit of a different thought.
30:49
She says that the idea that the husband is the final decision maker has no biblical basis.
30:57
Tell me more, Alyssa.
30:58
I would love to, Brianna.
31:00
Thank you for asking.
31:01
You're welcome.
31:03
She says the only biblical precedent that she can find is in 1 Corinthians 7.5.
31:09
So let's look that up real quick.
31:11
She links to it.
31:12
And I just want to point out the difference between this article and the article that
31:15
we read from on the last podcast.
31:19
The amount of references.
31:21
And research.
31:22
So much.
31:23
There are so many different biblical passages here.
31:28
She's got so much research.
31:29
I mean, this woman, this is a research essay.
31:32
If she turned this in, she'd get an A.
31:34
Yeah, it's not just like, here's a verse, but this is what I got from this verse.
31:39
No, it's like, here's the biblical research and history behind this verse.
31:47
Exactly.
31:48
And the other article just, it just didn't have any of it.
31:52
He would reference an occasional verse, and I think we talked about the verses that he
31:55
did reference, but it was mostly specifically from this passage in Ephesians.
32:00
And it's all just his thoughts about it.
32:02
Yeah.
32:03
This is what I interpreted, and this is what I think.
32:07
Which again, if this works in your life, like I guess, have a great time if your wife is
32:13
chill with it, but don't put it on an entire gender.
32:20
No.
32:21
And certainly don't put it on an entire gender and then say it was God's idea.
32:26
Because that's a recipe for abuse.
32:27
Cough, cough, cough, cough.
32:30
So do you need a Kleenex?
32:32
Yeah.
32:33
People need for coughs, right?
32:36
Kleenexes.
32:38
So she says the only reference that she can find for that is 1 Corinthians 7 and 5, and
32:42
I'm going to read that for you.
32:44
It says, do not deprive one another except when you agree for a time to devote yourself
32:49
to prayer, then come together again.
32:52
Otherwise Satan may tempt you because of your lack of control, of self control.
32:56
So I'm pretty sure this, I'm just talking about sex.
32:59
Oh, baby.
33:00
I actually want to look this up though in like the NLT.
33:04
I actually love what that says though, like, because just for me personally, like being
33:11
in small groups with women who were married, they would say, well, if we get into an argument
33:18
and we can't come to a decision, submission to me means that my husband gets just the
33:24
final say.
33:25
Mm-hmm.
33:26
Rather than stopping that argument right there and both praying about it.
33:30
Absolutely.
33:31
That's a really good point.
33:33
And assuming that God is not the God of confusion and that you both have good relationships
33:38
with him and that he will lead you to the same conclusion.
33:41
Right.
33:42
That's a really good point.
33:43
Yeah, thank you.
33:44
I thought about that.
33:45
It is about sex.
33:46
Baby.
33:47
This verse.
33:48
The NLT says, do not deprive each other of sexual relations unless you both agree to
33:53
refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely
33:57
to prayer.
33:59
But the reason that she references that verse in particular is that it's talking about husbands
34:05
and wives making a mutual decision together.
34:07
So whatever it's about, it's not necessarily, I mean, it is specifically talking about that,
34:13
but another big S. But coming together and making a decision together.
34:21
However, make a note, it says together, not and husbands tell your wives they're going
34:31
to do this, which again could lead to abuse.
34:35
Literally is abuse.
34:38
So that's kind of a little bit of that footnote and that's a good one to go into.
34:43
I really like it.
34:44
Okay.
34:45
So going back to that chiastic structure that we talked about earlier.
34:49
Full circle.
34:50
Are you proud?
34:51
No.
34:52
You should probably be.
34:54
I'm actually offended.
34:58
So that means that, and it's hard to, again, it's hard to explain without like having a
35:03
visual.
35:04
If we had an actual like YouTube video, I'd pop up a slide.
35:07
Oh, like a real professor.
35:11
Yeah.
35:12
I was impressed.
35:15
Yes.
35:16
They love slides.
35:19
Anyway, you can tell when we're being foolish.
35:29
It gets loud.
35:32
So she, she letters the sections so that you can kind of see them ascending and descending
35:38
so that you can see which verses are kind of matched up in that chiastic structure.
35:42
So she says that Paul links submission with respect in those, the first like the A, she
35:49
calls them the A sentences.
35:50
So that's those first kind of pillar blocks there.
35:53
So then that means that submission and respect are connected.
35:58
Now she points out that the word for submit is not always in all of the ancient manuscripts
36:07
that contain Ephesians 522.
36:11
Tell me more, Alyssa.
36:13
That's really all I know a whole lot about that, but it's just an interesting point that
36:20
again, it calls translators into question because they're pulling from all kinds of
36:26
ancient manuscripts.
36:27
But also you think like the different translations are all like, they all have a, there's an
36:35
agenda.
36:36
They're skewed a little differently.
36:38
Yeah.
36:39
Like KJV, ESV, they're all, they have an agenda to some degree.
36:46
And you can look that up and actually prove that.
36:50
So the King James version was written because King James needed a Bible that held up the
36:57
monarch.
36:59
Just knowing this from history classes and my Bible classes in college, the Bible, there
37:05
was a study Bible at the time.
37:06
I think it was the Geneva Bible.
37:08
I'm not a hundred percent sure.
37:10
That was the most popular choice at the time.
37:12
And it was very down on like the government, monarchy, whatever.
37:18
And so he needed something that was going to religiously tell people that they had to
37:22
follow him.
37:23
So he had the KJV commissioned.
37:27
It's a great way to manipulate people.
37:28
Absolutely.
37:29
Religion always has been.
37:30
Tell people that God wants this of you rather than I want this of you.
37:36
You're going to get a lot more pull that way.
37:39
And then you can look at the ESV as well, which was written in response to the NIV,
37:45
I believe.
37:46
The NIV was written and put a lot of more gender neutral terms because it was, they
37:52
were translating it that way because they were looking at the original manuscripts and
37:56
they're saying, oh, hey, this doesn't mean a masculine term or a feminine term.
38:02
It means both.
38:04
So the NIV translators wrote it that way.
38:08
The ESV was written because they looked at the NIV and they said, no, absolutely not.
38:15
You're taking gender out of the Bible.
38:17
How dare you?
38:18
And so they wrote it in a much more extreme male based way.
38:26
So you can see that happening all over the place.
38:28
So that's just kind of what she's saying here is like in a lot of the ancient manuscripts,
38:32
the word submit is not there.
38:34
So it's just, that's why when she quotes it up here, she says submit slash commit yourselves
38:41
because that would be the other translation.
38:42
I just really wish that in all of this, people would look at each other and say, God created
38:53
you and God created me in love.
38:57
So let's just love each other.
38:59
Let's quit trying to put each other down, trying to argue for who's more in power.
39:06
It's just really frustrating because I don't think that's what Jesus would want.
39:10
No, but that's even how we structure our whole churches.
39:14
You've got the pastor up here and then you've got the elders and you've got the deacons
39:18
and then you've got the volunteers, but only these volunteers are the important volunteers.
39:22
And then it's a show.
39:24
It is oftentimes.
39:25
And not only like the leaders of the church, but even people who go to church, it's about
39:31
like what car are you driving?
39:32
What are you wearing to church?
39:34
How many sports are your kids in?
39:36
How many kids do you have?
39:38
Are you single?
39:39
Are you married?
39:40
Are you with someone?
39:41
There's just so many ways to judge people.
39:44
Well, as people, we love to be the most in power, the most influential.
39:52
And unfortunately that seeps into our churches and we don't even, I don't want to say we
39:57
don't realize that, we don't want to admit to it.
40:00
I guess is better.
40:03
So anyway, so she says that the reason that you'll see submit in pretty much every translation,
40:10
not every translation, but a lot of them is because their translators are inferring it
40:15
from the preceding verse, so 21, where Paul calls for mutual submission among all believers,
40:23
meaning Christian brothers and sisters, etc.
40:28
And then she says that the entire household code is introduced by a call to mutual submission.
40:36
So submit slash commit yourselves to one another out of reverence to Christ.
40:40
I just want to make it clear as a single woman.
40:43
I have no problem submitting to Christ who died for my sins, who made it heaven available
40:50
to me.
40:51
I do not want to replace that submission directly to God when and if I get married to a human
40:58
man.
41:01
I don't.
41:03
And unfortunately, this is like kind of off topic too, but like, I look at the different
41:08
people that I've dated and I've dated both Christian men and non-Christian men.
41:14
And I got more love and respect from the non-Christian people.
41:19
How sad.
41:21
Yeah.
41:22
Because the Christian men that I've dated were interested in power.
41:28
Whereas like the non-Christian guy that I dated, he just took my feelings into consideration
41:33
way more than the Christian men ever have.
41:35
Well, because I mean, you would hope and society at large, particularly from what I've heard
41:41
in online dating can definitely be very like toxic masculinity stuff going on there.
41:48
But at the same time, like the not crappy guys are now being taught, hey, respect women,
41:58
hey, take their feelings into account, hey, be not a jerk.
42:02
Women like humans.
42:04
But then you contrast that with men in the church who are being taught that they need
42:10
to be the leader.
42:12
And dominant.
42:13
Yeah.
42:14
They need to take charge.
42:15
They need to make all the decisions.
42:16
And if they don't, they are not following God's plan for them.
42:21
Right.
42:22
Right.
42:23
Which is a lot of pressure on them too.
42:25
And even the ones that, and you know, we talked about people preaching this, but not living
42:31
it maybe, and this is just totally me in my own head, so no research based at all.
42:38
But maybe for men in that situation, the reason why they're preaching it is because if they
42:43
don't, then they feel like they're not fulfilling God's plan for them.
42:49
Right.
42:50
Very true.
42:51
And I think that's an important point to make too, is that we recognize that like men struggle
42:58
with a lot of this stuff too.
43:00
Sure.
43:01
This is not, I mean the submission one is kind of female based, but dealing with persecution
43:10
within the church, dealing with manipulation within the church, and the changing of God's
43:17
word and things like that, this is not specific to women.
43:20
That'd actually be a great idea to have Nathan come on the podcast one time, or your husband
43:26
come on the podcast.
43:27
We've said his name before.
43:29
Because I don't know what men go through, I just know what me as a woman, what I go
43:36
through.
43:37
Well and it's super important to say, I don't understand your experience.
43:44
I have not been there.
43:45
Well even like someone who was listening to our podcast, her and her husband, he was saying
43:52
I didn't know women were being taught that.
43:55
I don't know what the men are being taught either.
43:57
Exactly.
43:58
Well we don't get to go to the men's conference.
43:59
Well we're not invited.
44:00
We don't get to go golfing and shooting andâ¦
44:04
Have strippers on stage apparently.
44:06
I was going to say taxidermy.
44:09
I don't know.
44:11
What do men do?
44:13
So Brianna's idea of traditional man and womanhood, women embroider.
44:18
Men do taxidermy.
44:21
Is that not right?
44:22
What?
44:23
I found a book the other day at the book sale that was all about embroidery.
44:29
I wanted toâ¦
44:30
I think that would be a great podcast, just me reading that book.
44:33
Yeah I think people would love that.
44:36
Traditional womanhood.
44:37
I don't think anyone's arguing that traditional womanhood means embroidery.
44:42
I think that's just you.
44:45
Women love to do that.
44:46
No they don't.
44:47
No one loves to embroider.
44:48
Did you ever see Bride and Prejudice?
44:51
They sit there and they're like why are we doing this?
44:56
Because women embroider and they play piano and they doâ¦
44:58
We're at 53 minutes and I've got more points to make.
45:00
Not bad.
45:01
So then she says in the B statements so that next block up on either side, ascending and
45:07
descending, Paul links the husband is the head of the wife with a verse from Genesis
45:13
2.
45:15
So that's where it says the man shall leave his father and mother shall leave his wife,
45:19
etc.
45:20
And she said that a lot of people, and rightfully so, would read the word head and interpret
45:29
it as a metaphorical meaning for a leader or someone in authority or the person making
45:36
the decision, the brains of the operation.
45:41
But in ancient Greek, which of course is where this is coming from, the word head would rarely
45:50
have meant that.
45:52
Would rarely have meant authority.
45:55
And she has a whole article on this and I would really love to do a whole episode on
46:00
it's the Greek word is actually kafele for the Greek word for head.
46:06
And she talks about this metaphor.
46:11
But as a very basic explanation, it means unity.
46:16
Oh!
46:17
Unity.
46:18
I've never heard it interpreted that way.
46:22
Well, it's because we don't hear about it in context.
46:25
No.
46:26
And we're not taught to look into the original Greek.
46:30
Not at all.
46:31
Or the original translations at all.
46:35
However, I would like to point out that our pastors as a rule who have been educated in
46:41
this have studied the ancient Greek, have studied the ancient Hebrew, and they should
46:46
know this crap and they should be able to inform you about it.
46:50
The fact that the two of us are sitting here being the first ones to tell this to you is
46:57
a little sad.
46:59
Like I'm really glad that we can have this time with you and that you trust us to...
47:04
You're welcome.
47:05
...to talk about these things and hopefully make you laugh a little bit.
47:11
But your pastor should be telling you this stuff.
47:14
It shouldn't just be us.
47:15
So demand better, I guess is what I'm saying.
47:19
Demand better.
47:21
So then she talks about how Paul uses the head-body metaphor previously also in Ephesians
47:27
1.
47:28
Ephesians is a really interesting book.
47:30
And she says that he uses it when he talks about how amazingly God has endowed the church.
47:36
So the verses are Ephesians 1, 18 through 19, and then she moves on to verse 23 and it says,
47:41
"...the riches of his glorious inheritance and his holy people and his incomparably great
47:46
power for us who believe."
47:48
And then we jump to verse 23 because it says, "...as his body, we the church are the fullness
47:53
of him, Christ the head, who fills everything in every way."
47:59
So again, we've got Christ in here.
48:01
Look, he keeps bringing God in.
48:03
What?
48:04
In the Bible?
48:05
In the Bible.
48:06
It's shocking.
48:07
I'm baffled.
48:09
So he's using this in his illustration to husbands and wives to yet again say, hey,
48:16
look, Christ took himself from the authority that he was given, brought himself to where
48:24
we are.
48:25
He is the three in one.
48:26
He could be himself.
48:27
That's true.
48:28
To where we are and raised the church up.
48:32
So we're just essentially like making the same point, but in a different, more poetic
48:36
way.
48:37
They say that if something is truly important, it's said about three times.
48:41
Yeah.
48:42
They also say if you're going to buy something online, you have to put it in front of someone
48:45
like three to five times before they'll actually click purchase.
48:48
I am telling you those shoes have been everywhere.
48:53
They are like, you need to buy these shoes on Instagram, on Facebook and my dreams.
48:56
Because they know.
48:57
I know.
48:58
They got me.
48:59
You're going to buy them.
49:00
I know.
49:01
So one point I just do want to circle back to and I hope that I've made this clear, but
49:08
we're not saying that like men are so superior to women that they have to lower themselves
49:12
to our level.
49:13
No.
49:14
What we're saying is that in the Roman world, in the Greek world, men had so much more authority
49:20
than women, so much more power than women.
49:23
Yes, there were some women that were able to break free of that, but as a whole.
49:27
Yeah.
49:28
And we're reading this with our 2024 hats on.
49:32
You got to think about this in ancient Roman or ancient Greek, whatever time.
49:37
Right.
49:38
So what's being asked of these men, of these husbands is take that authority that you have
49:46
and toss it to the side.
49:47
You don't need it anymore because God's your authority.
49:50
Right.
49:51
Because God's your authority.
49:52
Yeah.
49:53
Be different than the society that's around you.
49:56
I think it's used, you hear that a lot arguing against Christian feminism to say like, well,
50:03
we need to be different than society and society is so feminist.
50:06
Well, yeah.
50:07
Not the society back then.
50:09
No.
50:10
Paul calls us to be different than society.
50:13
Absolutely.
50:14
But he called us to be different than his society.
50:16
Right.
50:17
That he knew.
50:18
Right.
50:19
Not the society that we're sitting in.
50:20
I think that's such an important point and if you want to rewind it, listen to it again.
50:26
I think we've also made that point before.
50:29
We have.
50:30
Hey, if something's important, you say it more than once.
50:35
So yeah, I think that this is a good, a good starting point.
50:39
We've hit an hour at this point.
50:41
You guys might be bored of us.
50:43
Expect a part three because this is just something that we're super passionate about and that
50:47
you think is really important.
50:49
We've seen too many stories where women get told that this section of Ephesians means they
51:00
have no authority.
51:01
They have no brain of their own.
51:05
Yeah.
51:07
When God gave you and I both a brain.
51:09
Yeah.
51:10
Now I don't use mine very often.
51:15
Or just this is, I think this is of critical importance to the future of the church.
51:22
If we don't get this right, I don't know how we stand before God at the end and say,
51:28
God, look what we did.
51:29
Or I don't know how I can go on to tell like other people, yeah, you should definitely
51:35
follow this church or follow this religion.
51:40
So let's try again guys, as a church, as a community of believers, let's take another
51:47
pass at what Paul is saying and really think it through.
51:56
Really dig super deep, not just let's do a quick Google search and let's find the highest
52:01
rated things because let me tell you, they're bad.
52:06
But really dig in.
52:07
It's really difficult to find quality research on this topic and I'm glad that we're able
52:13
to share this with people.
52:15
Yeah.
52:16
So we will see you again in two weeks.
52:19
However, we are super excited.
52:21
We're going to start doing something a little bit new because we need to make this a priority
52:26
in our lives and in yours.
52:29
We are your priority.
52:33
You need to hear our voices more often.
52:38
We're a great time, okay guys?
52:41
So on our off weeks, so right now we are, we post bi-weekly and we would love to get
52:47
to a point where we are posting full episodes weekly, but we both have jobs and yeah.
52:54
So that's just not practical for us right now.
52:56
So what we are really excited to start doing is on our off weeks, we're going to do a mini
53:01
episode and we're going to try and record those more kind of in real time so that we
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can talk about things that are happening right now.
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Hot button current events.
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Absolutely.
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For example, the Harrison Butker speech.
53:17
Yes.
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I'm very passionate about that.
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We're going to record that, but probably tonight because we got to get ready to go.
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So that'll be a shorter episode.
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It's just going to be less research based and more just us chatting about what's going
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on in the world.
53:31
We love it.
53:32
We love to chat.
53:33
I don't know what you're talking about.
53:34
We haven't been talking for an hour.
53:35
I'm a little sassy and she's maybe sassier?
53:41
I don't think so.
53:44
I just have no filter.
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You have no filter.
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That's true.
53:48
We know.
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Mom is very upset by it.
53:52
I know.
53:53
Okay.
53:54
So thank you guys so much for listening.
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Please follow us on our social media accounts at wearemore.podcast or we.r.more on TikTok.
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And we'll see you next week.
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We love you and good night.