Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Male Leadership

submits herself to him in everything.6 Thus headship—submission in the marriage relationship is not culturally conditioned. On the con trary, “it is part of the essence of marriage.”7

HEADSHIP AND SUBMISSION ROLES IN THE LOCAL CHURCH

Paul loves to use the household analogy when speaking of the na ture and order of the local church (1 Tim. 3:15). Just as he teaches male headship in the family, he teaches male headship in the house hold of God (1 Tim. 228-327). Since the family is the basic social unit and the man is the established family leader, we should not be sur prised that men would be the elders or fathers of the larger, local church family. In his mammoth study, Man and Woman in Christ, Catholic scholar Stephen B. Clark cogently highlights this principle: There is a further consideration which points toward the desirability of having the men be the elders of the Christian community. . .the structure of leadership has to be set up in a way that supports the entire social structure of the community. If the men are supposed to be the heads of the family, they must also be the heads of the community. The community must be structured in a way that supports the pattern of the family, and the family must be structured in a way that supports the pattern of the community. It is in the family that they learn their community roles as well. Conversely, what they see in the community reinforces what they learn in the family. Thus, to adopt different principles on the community level weakens the family, and vice versa.8 The principle of male headship, however, does not in any way di minish the significance and necessity of active female involvement in the home or church. First-century Christian women played an indis pensable role in the Lord’s work, and many passages give evidence of women working diligently in the Lord’s service. Some of Paul’s co laborers in the gospel were women (Rom. 1621-15; Phil. 422,3). Yet their active role in advancing the gospel and caring for the Lord’s people was accomplished in ways that did not violate male leadership in the

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