Essay 4 Truong

David Truong

Essay Blog 4

Spring 2014

According to Ephesians, early Christianity wanted to establish a hierarchy within society. Christ led the church, which led the men, whom in turn would lead the women (Eph. 5:23-24). This is a deviation, or rather a return to the traditional values that existed before Paul’s declaration of freedom from binary values in Galatians 3:28. According to E. Johnson in The Women’s Bible Commentary, the generations that followed wanted to reestablish the male as the head of the household, applying the hierarchy of the church to the household.

I wonder if during this time, family structures were beginning to fall apart. If women were taking taking positions of authority, they no longer relied on a husband to live successfully. If such were the case, I would then understand why post-Pauline Christians would be so hesitant to follow Paul’s teachings exactly. There would be great pressure that traditional family values would  suffer as a result if women began to become separate personalities from men. I feel this argument is more credible because of passages such as Eph. 5:31 which refers back to Genesis where man and woman have become one flesh. It is a word of advice for women to remain with their husbands just as Adam and Eve once were, as Christ is to church (Eph. 5:32).

Paul was quite the progressive in early Christianity, such as allowing women to take on authority. This would no doubt have cause a great deal of anxiety for older established male leaders who were not quite ready to give up their seats of power. There may have been those that felt that women were not capable of becoming leaders as well and wanted to create a standard for women to follow that kept them subservient to men. I think that is the situation that led to the creation of Ephesians, particularly the passages Eph. 5:21-6:9.