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