LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2010, Page 322

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS
mission to kill animals for food, but He prohibited the shedding of human
blood: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image” (Gen 9:6; emphasis added). Whereas
animals may be killed for food, Adam’s descendants remain created in
God’s image even after the Fall. To murder a human being made in God’s
image is to offend God Himself. James 3 also shows that human beings
remain created in God’s image after the Fall. “For every kind of beast and
bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of
deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse
people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come
blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so” (James
3:7–10; emphasis added). James warns against misusing the tongue to curse
people. Animals can be tamed but no one can tame the tongue. With the
tongue we can bless God but we can also curse people. When we do that,
James reminds us, we are cursing humans (anthrõpous, literally, “men”),
who, in contrast to animals, are made according to God’s likeness. In the
original Greek, the verb “are made” is a perfect tense, emphasizing that
people remain in God’s likeness. To curse humans who are made according
to God’s likeness is also to offend God Himself. What James says applies
to the way we Christians treat everyone, including non-Christians, in the
business world, politics, school, the marketplace, and in all walks of life.
11. It was commonly thought in the ancient Near East that there were
gods and goddesses who procreated and filled the heavens with additional
gods and goddesses. The biblical writers inspired by the Spirit strongly opposed such a notion. Sexual differentiation does not exist within the Creator. The Creator does not procreate, filling the heavens with baby gods and
goddesses. Sexual procreation belongs only to creatures.
12. Genesis 1 uses two verbs to emphasize the task. One verb (Hebrew
radah) conveys the general sense of “ruling over, having dominion over.”
It can denote a dignified and honorable exercise of royal authority, used of
a king ruling over his people (1 Ki 4:24; Ps 72:8). The other verb (Hebrew
kabash) has the more narrow meaning of “subdue.” It designates the activity of intentionally bringing the earth under human control.
13. Note that all capitals are used for “The Lord” when it translates
the proper name Yahweh. “Lord” without capitals is used to translate the
Hebrew word Adonai.
14. Human Sexuality, 14. Online at http://www.lcms.org/graphics/
assets/media/CTCR/Human_Sexuality1.pdf.
15. “She was not taken from his head to rule over him or from his feet
to be trampled on by him. She was taken from his side to be his companion,
from under his arm to be protected by him, from near his heart to be loved
by him.” Attributed to Augustine, this statement may be of more recent
origin. (See http://www.archive.org/stream/bathfablesonmora00wils/bathfa
blesonmora00wils_djvu.txt which suggests something similar from “The
Bath Fables.”) Augustine does say of the creation of the woman from the
man: “the fact that a woman was made for the first man from his own side
shows us clearly how affectionate should be the union of man and wife.”
City of God, Book 12, 27.
16. C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 1, trans. James Martin (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, n.d., reprinted
by Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1971), 90.
17. Human Sexuality, 14–15.
18. See Human Sexuality and Divorce and Remarriage, online at http://
www.lcms.org/graphics/assets/media/CTCR/Divorce_Remarriage1.pdf .
19. Genesis 2 describes the creation of the first man and woman and at
the same time the creation of the first husband and wife. In fact, the same
Hebrew words for “man/human-male” (ish) and “woman/human-female”
(ish-shah) also denote “husband” and “wife.” She is his “woman” (ishshah) and he is her “man” (ish). Also in Greek the terms for “man/humanmale” (anõr) and for “woman/human-female” (gynõ) can mean “husband”
and “wife.” Throughout Genesis 2–3 and often elsewhere, when the Scriptures speak of “man and woman,” they are also referring to “husband and
wife.”
20. See, for example, Song of Songs 1:2–3, 15–16; 2:16; 4:10; 6:3;
7:10. This book is also rightly understood as pointing to the relationship
between Yahweh and Israel, Christ and the Church (see Eph 5:31–32). See
Christopher W. Mitchell, The Song of Songs (St. Louis: CPH, 2003), 20–23.
21. AE 1:139–40.

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22. Notice how the serpent just calls Him “God” instead of using God’s
personal name Yahweh, “the Lord God.” The serpent subtly creates a distance between Yahweh and the woman.
23. AE 1:139.
24. Two interpretations of Gen 3:16 are found in Gordon Wenham,
Genesis 1–15 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1987), 81–82: That she will physically
desire her husband, even though he “rules her” (oppressively) or that she
will desire to dominate her husband, but instead he will rule over her (compare Gen 4:7).
25. See the explanatory diagram in the CTCR’s The End Times: A Study
on Eschatology and Millennialism, 1989, 14 (online at: http://www.lcms
.org/graphics/assets/media/CTCR/endtme-2.pdf).
26. See Gal 4:5–7, Heb 2:11–17, and John 1:12–13.
27. The tables or, “household codes,” can be found in these passages:
Eph 5:22–6:9; Col 3:18–4:5; 1 Tim 2:8–15; 6:1–10; Titus 2:1–10; 1 Pet
2:18–3:7.
28. See the use of this phrase in the ethical sections of Paul’s epistles
(e.g., Eph 5:8; 6:1; Phil 4:1–2; Col 3:17).
29. The NIV is quoted for ease of reading. The ESV renders the verb
“submit” as a participle in v. 21, which completes the previous sentence
beginning at v. 18: “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery,
but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your
heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence
for Christ.”
30. Daniel B. Wallace suggests that Eph 5:21 acts as “a hinge” between
5:15–20 and 5:22–6:5, noting, “the participle [translated “submitting” ESV]
belongs equally to both.” Greek Grammar: Beyond the Basics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 650–51.
31. 1985 report of the CTCR on Women in the Church, 31. The call to
“submission” in the NT indicates “that the general rule demands readiness
to renounce one’s own will for the sake of others” and so it is an aspect
of agapé. Gerhard Delling, hypotassõ, in Gerhard Kittel, ed. Theological
Dictionary of the New Testament, (hereafter TDNT) 8:45. See 27–28 below.
32. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early
Christian Literature (hereafter BDAG), rev. and ed. by Frederick William
Danker (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), 332.
33. For a detailed discussion of the semantic issues regarding kephalé,
see Peter Cotterell and Max Turner, Linguistics and Biblical Interpretation
(Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1989), 139–45.
34. Lutheran Service Book (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House,
2006), 861.
35. Paul’s response to the Corinthian slogan “It is good for a man not to
have sexual relations with a woman” (1 Cor 7:1) suggests that some of the
Corinthians may have been influenced by a Platonic soul-body dualism that
disparaged the body and encouraged asceticism.
36. See Human Sexuality, 14–17.
37. “The weaker vessel” here probably signifies the general gender difference of physical strength, not that women are “weaker” in other ways
(e.g., intellectually, emotionally, spiritually).
38. Martin H. Franzmann, Concordia Bible with Notes (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971), 309.
39. After all, the prophet Joel had announced this very thing (Joel 2:28–
29). Paul refused to quench the Spirit (1 Thess 5:19–21). As he says a little
later to the Corinthians, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one
body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one
Spirit” (1 Cor 12:13).
40. See, e.g., the work of Bruce Winter, Roman Wives, Roman Widows: The Appearance of New Women and the Pauline Communities (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 77–96 (esp. footnote 1 and its listing of newly
published studies). See also Bruce Winter, After Paul Left Corinth: The
Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2001), 121–41.
41. For example, justification was expounded in Galatians in the context of the debate over circumcision. See James W. Voelz’s discussion of
culture-bound assertions with temporary authority versus underlying theological concerns with enduring authority. See What Does This Mean? (St.

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