# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S564
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Os ANNE AAEM ORE EES ote tins Yuasa EMS

|

564 INTERSYNODICAL AND DOCTRINAL MATTERS

the word is: “Husbands love your wives,” Eph. 5:25, nothing more
needing to be added). Nor would Paul have used the word with
reference to pastors as they exercise spiritual authority over their
parishioners through the magisterial Word entrusted to them
(there he uses terms like “guiding,” “guarding,” “shepherding”).
Paul uses this strong term because of his high estimate of mar-
riage and all that this involves for the church and the world
and because of his horror at contemplating any person willfully
stepping out of line and forsaking his or her place in the Creator’s
scheme of things. See above, Il, D, 4, 5, 6.

F. Answers to Some Questions.

(Note: These were some of the questions most frequently asked
in the correspondence received by the committee.)

1. Was Paul laying down rules only for the congregations of
his day?

The answer lies in the fact that in all these passages Paul
does not base his appeal on any position assigned to woman in
the society of his day but on the position assigned to woman by
God in the Order of Creation. The principles enunciated are, there-
fore, of universal and abiding validity and the injunctions dare not
be set aside as vetoes superseded by current sociological and theo-
logical trends. They express the mind and purposes of God.

2. Do these injunctions apply only to married women?

The answer is really the same as to the previous question.
Can anyone declare with sober face that the maiden ladies in
Corinth and Ephesus were granted rights that were denied to
the more experienced and responsible married women? An atten-
tive reading of the texts one after the other can yield but one
answer: the injunctions apply to all women. In this connection
Zerbst reminds us (p. 33 f.) that in all his pronouncements con-
cerning the position of woman “Paul’s central concern is for the
preservation and protection of marriage... - - It is a fundamental
consideration for him that the preservation of marriage always
depends on the deportment of the unmarried.” Hence occasionally
a characteristic indefiniteness whether he speaks of the married
woman or woman in general.

3. Is the Scriptural teaching of man’s headship over woman
and her duty of subjection (subordination, submissiveness) de-
grading and humiliating?

Any happily married woman will resent the very question.
We have tried to point out in the discussion of the Scripture pas-
sages that any implication of degradation is not inherent in

|
|
|

MA SEEDER

serene nui ts HWP MEERA SANE EE