Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Male Leadership

herself to him than Christ is inferior to God the Father because He subordinates Himself to the Father. So the headship-subordination re lationship of the man and woman is evidenced in the original creation order and in the greater order, the nature of the Godhead. With remarkable precision, S. Lewis Johnson, Jr., former professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, summarizes this truth: “The ultimate and telling proof that equality and submission may coexist in glorious harmony is found in the mediatorial mission of the Son of God, ‘God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God’ (Nicaea), who completed it in the true liberation of submission to His Father (cf. John 8:21-47; 1 Corinthians 15: 24-28; cf. 11:3).”I2 In verses 7-9, Paul reminds his readers of the original order of cre ation: “For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake” (I Cor. 1 1:7-9). Paul states that the woman is “the glory of man,” which means she was created to directly reflect the man’s God-created headship authority by submitting to and supporting his leadership; she is the man’s vice-regent. Commenting on these verses and especially the phrase “the woman is the glory of man,” David Gooding, former professor of Greek at Queen’s University, Belfast, Ireland, best sum marizes Paul’s thinking in this passage: Chapter 1 of that book [Genesis] makes it clear (1:27-28) that as to essential nature and status man and woman were both made equally in the image of God and were intended, both of them, to share dominion over creation. But chapter 2 of Genesis explains (2:18-25) that when it came to their administrative roles there were significant, God-designed, differences between the sexes. The man was made first and had already begun his God-given tasks before the woman was made. He was, moreover, made direct and not out of the woman. As he stood alone, fresh from the hand of God, he was, says the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 11:7) the image and glory of God, God’s Viceroy in creation, invested with God’s own glory as his official representative. The woman, on the other hand, says the Holy Spirit (1 1:7-9) is the glory of the man. He is referring to the fact that God made the woman out of the man and designed her role to be that of a partner, help and companion for the man,

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