This is a guest post. As promised, here is the first of Andrew Bartlett’s responses to my critique and engagement with his book. I will respond in a further article to his comments here. I don’t intend there to be a lenthy back and forth on each topic but there are some things worth picking up here.
I’m grateful for Dave’s engagement, but I need to say that he doesn’t accurately interact with what I wrote. Instead, he erects straw men and knocks them down. He does not address the points which I actually make.
Straw man no 1:
There is a small but significant difference between my words ‘a rather obvious place to start’ and Dave’s version ‘the obvious place to start’ (emphasis added). The nature of the difference between my actual reasoning and Dave’s version of it becomes clear where he suggests that treating 1 Cor 7 as the potential lead passage may give it too much weight and risk skewing the argument. That is a risk that I expressly guard against. On p29 I note that complementarians may think I am placing more weight on 1 Cor 7 than it can properly bear. In response, I explain the nature of my reasoning:
‘I will therefore be cautious in how I use 1 Corinthians 7 in support of understanding other passages. However, we will see that when those texts are carefully read they are fully consistent with what we have seen in 1 Corinthians 7.’
In other words, I do not use my reading of 1 Cor 7 to control the interpretation of any other passage. That means it makes no difference to my reasoning whether I start with 1 Cor 7 or whether I start somewhere else – the reasoning remains the same.
Straw man no 2:
Dave says: “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.”
Indeed it is different, but his point does not relate to what I wrote. I have not said that 1 Cor 7 ‘provides the most extensive teaching on the specific questions of headship and submission’. What I did say was that this chapter is ‘by far the longest and most detailed piece of writing in the New Testament on the subject of men, women and marriage’.
Straw man no 3:
Dave says: ‘the argument seems to be that Paul doesn’t mention the concept of headship here, therefore it cannot be that significant’.
That is another imaginary argument; it is not one that I have raised.
Dave’s review leaves unclear whether he believes I have departed from Scripture in getting the following from 1 Corinthians 7, as stated in my summary points (p29-30):
2. Paul’s view of the world is Christ-centred. Creation remains in view, but redemption and new creation are in the foreground. His perspective on marriage takes into account that the Messiah has come and the end is in sight. This relativizes all the present circumstances of believers’ lives, which become unimportant in comparison with what is to come. In this light, he commends singleness and offers a strikingly equal view of marriage.
3. According to Paul in verses 3–5, husband and wife have equal authority. He repudiates unilateral decision-making. Leadership by a husband that is conceived in terms of one-way authority over his wife is in direct conflict with the apostle’s teaching.
4. Verses 3–5 cannot justifiably be regarded as a special exception to a husband’s unilateral authority, applicable only in the areas of sexual intercourse and joint prayer.
5. As far as can be determined from verses 1–16, 25–28, 32–40, Paul envisages complete equality of personal relations between men and women. If Paul believed in a hierarchical, unilateral authority of husband over wife, it appears inexplicable that he wrote these words.
6. This does not mean that Paul is an egalitarian in the modern sense. He is not calling for individuals to exercise their rights within marriage; rather, he is calling each equal partner to yield in submission to the other, in line with Romans 12:10; Galatians 5:13; Philippians 2:3.
In 1 Corinthians 7 we have the only place where Scripture tells us expressly how to take decisions in Christian marriage. The decisions in view are decisions about joint prayer and about sexual intercourse. Paul says ‘by mutual consent’ (v5, NIV).
Andrew Bartlett, 19 November 2024
Faithroots 