Conference lgp30::christian-perspective

    ed,
    
    Can you provide some of the verses here that you are asking about?
    
    Thanks,
    
    Karen
    

    Re.0

     Ed:
          Back in #154.10 Collis, at my request, explained his views
      on this topic.  I thought he gave a pretty darn good explanation.
      You might want to read what he had to say and see if you agree
      or disagree or would care to add to what he said.

                                                               Mike

	From the KJV:

	Ephesians 5 22-33

	22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
	23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the
	   head of the church: and He is the savior of the body.
	24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be
	   to their own husbands in everything.
	25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church,
	   and gave himself for it;
	26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by 
	   the word,
	27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having 
	   spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and
	   without blemish.
	28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that
	   loveth his wife loveth himself.
	29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and
	   cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church;
	30 For we are the members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
	31 For this cause shell a man leave his father and mother, and shall
	   be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
	32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the
	   church.
	33 Nevertheless let everyone of you in particular so love his wife 
	   even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

    I am the boss of my house. Or so my wife tells me. :-)

    Actually I believe that verses 22-24 get too much attention. The
    rest of the verses talk a lot more about the man's responsibilities
    then the woman's. I'd like to see some comment on them as well.

    My wife and I regard 22-24 as a sort of tie breaker. If we disagree
    we discuss things. 99 times out of 100 we wind up agreeing because
    we're both such reasonable people. When we don't agree I get the tie
    breaking vote. Why me? Well it has to be someone doesn't it? This is
    not to say that things always go my way however. Some things are not
    worth fighting over and even though I may not agree with my wife I
    am smart enough to know that sometimes her instincts are better then
    mine. So I cast the tie breaker her way. Seems reasonable to us.

    It's always been interesting to me that these verses instruct the man
    to love his wife but do not instruct her to love him. Given that, in
    the times and culture the Bible was written, men took care of their
    wives badly at times the admonition to love ones wife and care for
    her as port of himself makes this one of the early anti wife abuse
    rules. And in fact this admonition is designed, I believe, to prevent
    abuses that could be caused by the admonition to wives to submit to
    their husbands.

    An other interesting dichotomy is that the husband is asked to leave his
    father and mother but no such command is given to the wife. Contrast
    this to the Moslem tradition, created some 500 years later, were the
    wife leaves her family and stays with the husbands. I'm not quite sure
    why this difference exists but I suspect that verse 31 is for the
    protection of the wife not the husband.

    All in all I view these verses as suggestions on how a man and a woman
    become one flesh and one body. How they can and should act for each
    others good and complement each other.

    The other lesson in these verses is how we are to fit in with the
    church as a body of believers. We must work together, love each other,
    and not our internal differences interfere with the work of the Church.

    			Alfred

Ed,

Historically, at the time of St Paul, women were posessions
rather than equal to man in the community. Only women of Roman
Citizenship had even a slight bit of rights. Men were the
educated if they were so privileged.

When the first churches were opened to women to worship, women
did not know how to behave and were often loud and unruly. The
admonishment was to quiet down and listen to their husbands.

I am sorry to see that the verses was used to "control" women. I
studied the Epistles of St Paul under conservative Franciscian
professor and more moderate Luthern professor. At the time, the
issue of ordination of women was a big issue in the Episcopal
Church; though my studies were not to change my mind, I found
that it helped me understand that Paul was neith anti-women or
was he gay as smoe of current studies may suggest.

Calvin

    re: .5,
    
    *Paul* possibly gay?  Wow.  That's a new one to me. :-)
    
    Karen

    Re: .6
    
    Karen,
    
    There is a Bishop by the name of Spong who has written a book
    entitled, "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism."  It the book
    Spong puts forth the hypothesis about Paul's orientation.
    
    Richard

    Thanks for the pointer bro Richard.
    
    :-)
    
    Karen