The head of every man is Christ, the head of every woman is man…..
Interesting debate could follow.
The word for head is not ‘Lord’ nor master, but is in fact more the sense of ‘origin’. Paul goes back to Genesis where woman is said to have come from, found her origin in man, when God made her from Adam’s rib. (and started a whole heap of dud jokes!)
Later on Paul pleads for us to be aware that we need each other, when he states we are not independent of each other, because every man has come from a woman (except Adam of course). We need each other.
Paul also has the interesting point that woman was made for man, not man for woman. Woman was made to make up for the weaknesses than man has. She is the strong helper than comes alongside man and gives him what he does not have.
This is certainly true of me.
Interestingly enough, when I was going through this passage which a bunch of active smart 20 year olds, the overwhelming sense I got was that they wanted a return to old values, and blamed a lot of the issues with modern relationships with a moving away from this passage, they were more conservative in their views than I would have expected, or stated myself .
We talked about the modern malady of singleness in churches, which is a real issue. I feel deeply for those woman and men who hit 35-40, and realise they might not find a partner for life. Melinda and I often pray together for people….and we pray for those who just want to find someone, have kids and all that.
Their is certainly joy to be found in being single…and flexibility, and that too should be celebrated.
Now this might be controversial…but in community…in journeying together with other families…there would be situations where parents picking partners for their children would not be such a bad thing. If that was something the child understood from a young age, maybe was not bound too, it could be good.
