In his book, Men and Women in Christ, Andrew Bartlett begins his Biblical assessment with 1 Corinthians 7. He goes there before addressing the classic texts in the debate (Ephesians 5, 1 Timothy 2, 1 Corinthians 11 & 14 etc). He comments:
“By far the longest and most detailed piece of writing in the New Testament on the subject of men, women and marriage is by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7. One might therefore expect it to have a prominent place in any serious survey of New Testament teaching about men and women. Moreover, this chapter of 1 Corinthians is the only place in the New Testament where there is an explicit statement about a husband’s authority over his wife. So, it would appear to be not merely a relevant passage but a rather obvious place to start.”[1]
In my review of his book, I argue in response, that 1 Corinthians 7 is not the obvious place to start and that Andrew needed to build more of a case for his claim. Later in this article, I intend to explain why not only am I unconvinced that this is the obvious place to start but I would argue that it is the wrong place to start.
First it is worth saying that whilst I don’t consider it to be the obvious place to start, I agree with Andrew that is relevant and so its absence from much of the debate is surprising to say the least. Andrew in personal correspondence did pick up on the fact that I don’t engage with that text in my MTh Dissertation. There was a rather simple reason for this, scope and space. My dissertation was not intended as an exhaustive survey of the debate, or even the main Biblical texts. Rather it had a narrow scope which was to see how Ephesians 5 answered a particular pastoral question. So, there was much material of interest that simply did not make it into the final edit. 1 Corinthians 7, in my opinion at the time (and I’ve not changed my mind on this), offers an example of mutual submission. So, I could have referenced the passage in support but there was enough evidence, especially from within Ephesians 5 for me not to need to refer to it. I have referred to 1 Corinthians 7 since when discussing mutuality in marriage.
This is important to our conversation because whilst 1 Corinthians 7 may be considered a difficult passage for some complementarian viewpoints, especially those that exclude the possibility of mutual submission, it does not prove problematic for those who acknowledge that there is mutual submission in marriage, in the context of male/husband headship.
However, when we look at 1 Corinthians 7 as the potential “lead passage” when it comes to the egalitarian/complementarian debate, I don’t think it carries that kind of weight. In fact, beginning with this passage may risk skewing the argument. How you order and structure evidence matters.
Whilst it is true that 1 Corinthians 7 is the most extensive passage in men and women in terms of marriage, this is different from saying that it provides the most extensive teaching on the specific questions of headship and submission. This is important because the argument seems to be that Paul doesn’t mention the concept of headship here, therefore it cannot be that significant. Yet, given that the concept is seen as significant and pertinent in Ephesians 5 and a specific reason given for the wife to submit, this does not seem to me a sound conclusion to draw. It is surely more reasonable to argue that whilst Ephesians 5 is shorter and does not give specific examples, it does offer the more rounded description of a marriage relationship and that therefore, 1 Corinthians 7 needs to be considered in the light of that.
So, arguing that because 1 Corinthians 7 is a longer passage and offers more examples is a bit of a red herring. Whilst the first example of potential sexual abstinence deals with authority and submission, the other examples are to do with singleness v marriage and then divorce.
Indeed, given that the initial example is to do with abstinence from sex in marriage, it is perhaps worth considering that the whole chapter is focused on sexual relationships. This is perhaps obvious when it comes to the second example, the question of marriage or singleness in uncertain times will of course been underpinned by the question about the pros and cons of procreation within marriage.
When Paul talks about divorce, he deals with the unbeliever who deserts his wife. This has at times caused confusion. Is Paul here adding to or even contradicting Jesus who had insisted that divorce and remarriage were only permissible when there had been sexual immorality However, in the context of the rest of the chapter and especially the early verses, we might conclude that desertion was another way of depriving your spouse of sexual relations. In other words, the deserting husband is as unfaithful as the adulterous husband, even if we cannot prove that they have entered into a relationship with another. Perhaps, fornication or sexual unfaithfulness may be seen both as much as in the absence of sex in the right place as the presence of sex in the wrong place.
This also makes sense given the wider context of the immoral brother whose sin the church have bene taking pride in tolerating when they should have been disciplining him (1 Corinthians 5) or Paul’s concern about sexual immorality and idolatry (1 Corinthians 6:12-20). Indeed, 1 Corinthians 7 provides a continuation of the themes introduced in the second half of chapter 6.
If we focus 1 Corinthians 5-7 offer extended teaching on sexual immorality rather than focusing on 1 Corinthians 7 as handling a few disparate examples of martial issues then this will have an impact on how we read the chapter but also to my mind significantly undermines attempts to make 1 Corinthians 7 the starting point for our discussion on headship and submission.
[1] Bartlett, Men and Women in Christ, 18.
Faithroots 