Q&A: Are There Limits To Male Headship?

Recently I received an email at The Heidelblog from Katie with the following question:

I’m getting a lot of stick from my guy friends. They say that I should always submit to their lead and that this is biblical. I tell them that male headship is specifically within the context of marriage, but they won’t listen to me because I am female. It’s sort of a catch-22. Am I to submit to the lead of all males within the church?

There are two key passages regarding this subject. The first is 1 Timothy 2:8-15:

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

And then there is also Ephesians 5:21-25:

[S]ubmitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Knowing the context of a Scripture passage is critical to understanding the meaning of the text. Read more»

R. Scott Clark

This essay is adapted from this episode of the Heidelcast:

    Post authored by:

  • R. Scott Clark
    Author Image

    R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

    More by R. Scott Clark ›

Subscribe to the Heidelblog today!


22 comments

  1. I think we’ve had similar discussions before. I’m not a theocrat. Calvin was or something like it. He believed in a state-church and in the state-enforcement of religious orthodoxy. Like virtually all the Reformed (I say virtually in case there’s an exception of whom I’m unaware) in the period, he was of two minds. One the one hand he established a conceptual distinction between the state and the church by virtue of his doctrine of a “twofold kingdom.” He regularly distinguished between the sacred and the secular as well. As I’ve illustrated via quotations and explained in essays, that distinction did not mean that God is not Lord over both spheres but that exercises his dominion in distinct ways.

    He made those distinctions, however, in the context of a millennium-long assumption about the nature of things and especially about the relationship between national Israel and post-canonical states. On the one hand, he was clear that post-canonical states are not national Israel (conceptually) but, on the other, practically Calvin et al tended to treat 16th-century magistrates as if they were King David. Beza’s De iure magistratuum is a classic example of this very twofold pattern. There was a tension inherent the 16th and 17th-century Reformed account. In the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, the confessional Reformed worked out that tension in a way that led us to disagree with Calvin on church and state and the favored the discontinuity with national Israel over continuity. We rejected the de facto treatment of magistrates as if they are King David.

    I re-read ICR on civil government last night. It seems to me his prescriptions for Christian kings in a Christian society such as that they should enforce the first table of the law have more to do with circumstances than anything else. He was living in a society of Christians with kings who professed to be Christians. In such circumstances, I can see how a magistrate could punish blasphemy. In the same chapter he discusses ancient non-Jewish and non-Christian governments as well as contemporary versions of the same and said that the type of government mostly depended on the type of people ruled.

    I doubt Calvin foresaw the collapse of Christendom. In collapsed-Christian societies in Europe, magistrates enforce the first table of the law but only against blasphemy of Mohammed and Allah. They are wholly incompetent at enforcing the second table. We have men marrying men, babies aborted by the tens of millions, no-fault divorce, light punishments for murderers and thieves, etc. In Muslim societies, both tables of the law are enforced in the way Muslims see fit. In India, they’ve made it illegal to convert from Hinduism and are trying to add a death penalty as a consequence.

    I get that Christians don’t always live in Christian societies. Hundreds of millions of our brothers live this way now. I guess my question is, “What are some practical examples of non-theocratic societies?” All human civilizations seem to have theocratic rules as a circumstance of the people ruled.

    I now wonder whether some of these later revisions to confessional standards have more to do with the cultural trends than anything else.

    • Walt,

      Abraham Kuyper convinced the Reformed that, as a matter of principle, it is not the place of the civil magistrate to punish heretics.

      Here is a 2-part essay surveying the history:

      https://heidelblog.net/2013/05/the-revision-of-belgic-confession-article-36-on-church-and-state-1/

      The theocrats have never been able to make a case from the NT for theocracy. Why? Because it is impossible. The NT is completely disinterested in theocracy, i.e., state-enforced religious orthodoxy.

      https://heidelblog.net/2014/07/but-is-it-biblical/

      State-enforced religious orthodoxy was imposed by God upon Israel for 1500 years. That state expired and with it state-enforced religious orthodoxy.

      Why on earth would we want to bring it back? Doesn’t anyone read history any more? Please read the history of the Eighty-Years war (in the Netherlands, which included the Thirty-Years War in the rest of Europe). All those magistrates were nominally Christians, some Roman and some Protestant, and they each sought to enforce religious orthodoxy against the other by means of the sword.

      The American experiment has been a wonderful success. For the life of me I cannot understand the apparent enthusiasm for some Americans to go back to endless religious wars and persecution.

  2. Dr. Clark,

    A couple more follow-up questions:

    1. If male rulership in the OT was simply a matter of typology, what do you make of a text like Isaiah‬ ‭3:12‬?

    “As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.”

    2. By way of clarification, what exactly do you understand Paul to be teaching in his appeal to creation in 1 Timothy‬ ‭2:13-14?

    ‭‭“For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”

    • David,

      1. When (in redemptive history) was Isaiah written, to whom, and to what end? Was it written to norm post-canonical civil government? No. Another relevant question: what is the genre of Isaiah 3? (Hint: it involves hyperbole).

      Authorial intent, original context, and the progress of redemptive history & the progress of revelation (i.e., its place in the canon) matter. When we account for those things your questions are answered.

      Paul grounds the official authority and function of women in the church by appealing to the creational order and to the order of the fall. He is giving the ground for his instruction in v. 12: “But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” The context of 1 Tim 2 is clearly ecclesiastical. Most likely he is envisioning the public assemblies of the church. Hence, the instruction about prayer etc. He addresses the role of men and women. There is an order in the church (not an ontological hierarchy). 1 Timothy 2 is not speaking to civil or common life. As the church nominates and ordains officers she must submit to God’s holy and inerrant Word. Indeed, this is all prologue to his instruction concerning ecclesiastical office in chapter 3.

  3. I mostly agree with Dr. Clark. I say mostly because, it was the reasoning of some of the commenters that I have dabbled in egalitarianism (though its not a hill I would die on, nor do I think should complementarians). Nice to know some comps still have common sense!

  4. It seems to me that the NT makes it very clear that there are no more distinctions of gender, or race among Christians. We are all one in Christ. Christ is our ultimate head. Although He was equal with the Father, yet Christ voluntarily submitted to the will of the Father. Inasmuch as men who are in positions of headship in the Christian family and the church, represent the headship of Christ, women, in submission to God’s will, should submit to them. This puts an awesome responsibility on men exercising headship in the church or family. As representatives of Christ men are called on to love their wives, as Christ loves the Church, and to dedicate or give themselves for their wives and the Church. Just as Christ did not submit to the will of the Father because he was He was inferior to the father, women are not to submit because they they are in any way inferior to men. So all Christians are called upon to submit to one another, voluntarily, in so far as that submission accords with submission that is ultimately in obedience to God in Christ. Eph. 5:21-32

  5. Dr. Clark,

    Thanks for your response. A few thoughts, if I may:

    1. I don’t see what theocracy has to do with this.

    2. Deborah is an exception to the rule, no? She was a “mother in Israel” and her actions showed that her hope was ultimately that a father in Israel would be raised up. It was not her desire that a woman should be credited with the slaying of Sicera.

    3. Was it entirely arbitrary that all the monarchs of Israel (the legitimate ones anyway) were men? Or that the rulers of the gentile nations were too (queen of Sheba an exception). You must think this to be the case if you think it isn’t self-evident that civil magistrates should ordinarily be men.

    4. Similarly, based on what you argue about what nature requires, you would seemingly have to think that the NT requirement for male eldership is a positive law (with no grounding in nature), something we do only because God said so. But Paul grounds it in nature. With all due respect, wouldn’t that make you the one who is “of two minds” on this issue?

    • David,

      The question of theocracy is central to this discussion because it goes to the progress of redemptive history. This is what modern theocrats seem unable to understand (in my 30+ years of arguing with Theonomists and theocrats) on both the left and the right They all want to make (usually selective) appeals to the history of Israel to norm modern politics. All such arguments fail because they refuse to see where we are in redemptive history and that the USA (or any other post-canonical state) is not national Israel. We have a long history of such selective appeal as I have already sketched. Repeating that inconsistency (e.g., versions of Calvin’s or Beza’s arguments) will not be persuasive.

      As I explained to Walt (see my reply to him) my argument from Deborah is that it shows that a female civil magistrate is not contrary to nature. Yes, it was an exception for Israel and irregular for Israel but not for secular states nor for post-canonical states.

      No, it was not arbitrary for Israel’s judges and kings to be male but it was not grounded in nature but in grace—another distinction that modern theocrats seem not to understand. As I said, arguments from nature must be self-evident to be persuasive. It is simply not self-evident that females are constitutionally incapable of civil leadership.

      Males were designated as federal heads of households and as civil magistrates under the typology (i.e., under the types and shadows leading to Christ) in order to point to Christ. Even Calvin failed to distinguish nature and grace here. Distinguishing nature and grace is not arbitrary and there no I “must” not necessarily agree with you. Non sequitur.

      Paul’s appeal in 1 Timothy 2:13 is to the creational order not to ability. It was (v. 14) Eve, not Adam, who was first deceived. Those are facts. Women are saved through not their own pregnancies (contrary to some interpretations of this difficult passage) but through Mary’s. They are saved through the childbirth. We need to be careful not to read back into Paul Victorian sensibilities and assumptions.

      The argument in 1 Timothy 2 is about the church, i.e., the sacred, not the secular, the ecclesiastical, not the civil realms. We may not use divine legislation about the sacred to leverage the secular, whether under the types and shadows (the OT broadly) or under the New Testament.

      • “Women like Deborah and Ruth had to rule because there were no men to be found” – David, if this is the case, Boaz must have been a real hide-and-seek champion!

  6. Dr. Clark,

    You write: “In the civil sphere, females may exercise authority in a way that they may not do in the ecclesiastical/spiritual kingdom (sphere). Females may own businesses and even rule kingdoms.”

    But doesn’t the fact that Paul’s argument is grounded in creation necessarily imply an application to the civil realm as well?

    Calvin apparently would answer, “Yes,” as he comments on 1 timothy 2:12 as follows:

    “He adds — what is closely allied to the office of teaching — and not to assume authority over the man; for the very reason, why they are forbidden to teach, is, that it is not permitted by their condition. They are subject, and to teach implies the rank of power or authority. Yet it may be thought that there is no great force in this argument; because even prophets and teachers are subject to kings and to other magistrates. I reply, there is no absurdity in the same person commanding and likewise obeying, when viewed in different relations. But this does not apply to the case of woman, who by nature (that is, by the ordinary law of God) is formed to obey; for gunaikokratia (the government of women) has always been regarded by all wise persons as a monstrous thing; and, therefore, so to speak, it will be a mingling of heaven and earth, if women usurp the right to teach.”

    What do you think?

    • David,

      I think we’ve had similar discussions before. I’m not a theocrat. Calvin was or something like it. He believed in a state-church and in the state-enforcement of religious orthodoxy. Like virtually all the Reformed (I say virtually in case there’s an exception of whom I’m unaware) in the period, he was of two minds. One the one hand he established a conceptual distinction between the state and the church by virtue of his doctrine of a “twofold kingdom.” He regularly distinguished between the sacred and the secular as well. As I’ve illustrated via quotations and explained in essays, that distinction did not mean that God is not Lord over both spheres but that exercises his dominion in distinct ways.

      He made those distinctions, however, in the context of a millennium-long assumption about the nature of things and especially about the relationship between national Israel and post-canonical states. On the one hand, he was clear that post-canonical states are not national Israel (conceptually) but, on the other, practically Calvin et al tended to treat 16th-century magistrates as if they were King David. Beza’s De iure magistratuum is a classic example of this very twofold pattern. There was a tension inherent the 16th and 17th-century Reformed account. In the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, the confessional Reformed worked out that tension in a way that led us to disagree with Calvin on church and state and the favored the discontinuity with national Israel over continuity. We rejected the de facto treatment of magistrates as if they are King David.

      Thus, the P&R churches have tended to revise their confessions (e.g., Belgic Confession Art 36) accordingly. Here are some materials on this:

      https://heidelblog.net/2013/05/the-revision-of-belgic-confession-article-36-on-church-and-state-1/

      https://heidelblog.net/2013/05/the-revision-of-belgic-confession-article-36-on-church-and-state-2/

      https://heidelblog.net/2013/03/belgic-confession-art-36-magistrate-advance-gospel/

      https://heidelblog.net/2014/09/gods-twofold-kingdom-in-belgic-confession-art-36/

      As to what nature requires:

      1) Paul doesn’t draw the inference that Calvin did because Paul wasn’t a theocrat and Calvin was. Context and assumptions matter. Paul wasn’t in Calvin’s context and didn’t share his assumptions.

      2) Nature is self-evident. It is not self-evident that women are incapable of being magistrates. Deborah was a civil magistrate under the theocracy and the prophet who wrote Judges 4-5 does not seem disturbed at all. Indeed, in 4:1 and 6:1 the Deborah cycle is bracketed by the formula “the Sons of Israel did evil…”. Deborah is set in contrast. She’s a deliverer and a hero.

      3) The Queen of Sheba is not presented as exceptional or contrary to nature in 1 Kings 10 nor in Matt 11:31. The Queen of Ethiopia is taken as normal in Acts 8:27.

      The Victorians (or at least the caricature of the Victorians were wrong—which is ironic between “Victorian” refers to Queen Victoria!—women are not as fragile as they were portrayed in the 19th century. It is self-evident to rational humans that men and women belong to different sexes but it is not self-evident that they cannot serve effectively as secular magistrates. There is nothing in the NT to lead us to think otherwise. Elizabeth I was a very successful ruler despite whatever misgivings the Reformed in the period might have entertained. Her reign was less “monstrous” than Henry’s certainly.

    • Dr. Clark,

      Almost every society in history has been a patriarchy, correct? Man was made first, then woman. Woman was made from man and for man. Aside from Genesis, we know from science (not SCIENCE!) that men are larger, stronger, more athletic, and think completely differently. The literary, scientific, and artistic accomplishments of women pale in comparison to men. These aren’t nice things to say but are true.

      My understanding of the period of the Judges is that it was a dark time in Israel’s history. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Women like Deborah and Ruth had to rule because there were no men to be found. I think we should be cautious in using the female judges as normative though Calvin refuted Knox using the examples of the female judges. Women can rule. There were and are many monstrous male kings. However, I still think I can agree with Calvin that,

      But this does not apply to the case of woman, who by nature (that is, by the ordinary law of God) is formed to obey; for gunaikokratia (the government of women) has always been regarded by all wise persons as a monstrous thing

      Many heathen philosophers and historians have noted this. In particular, Sir John Glubb in “The Fate of Empires” noted that feminism and the rule of women and retreat of men from authority was a sign of imminent collapse of a society. He gives several examples.

      Given all this, I don’t think we can go so far as to say women should only submit to their husbands or church officers in church. I think the evidence from nature and the Bible is that men, in general, should be running things and that feminism and the retreat of men from civic life is a huge blight on society. Women can be magistrates and even queens but we should start asking what’s wrong with men and women when we have what we have today. Even during the reign of most of the queens of England that you mentioned, most public offices were held by men, weren’t they? Wasn’t parliament all male during Elizabeth’s reign?

      I certainly don’t think women can’t own businesses or that someone else’s wife or daughter needs to submit to me, but I’m also can’t go along with what we have today: feminism and men having to fear women. Look at the Kavanaugh hearings as an example.

      • Walt,

        An argument from what was to what must be does not follow. It used to be that women were not allowed to own or operate businesses but you are not opposed to that? Why not? If there was a Patriarchy (and that is, in my view, a gross over-simplification of history) it doesn’t follow that was the proper order of things. One may not simply assume the righteousness of the alleged Patriarchy and all the more (as a matter of logic) on a selective basis.

        That females were not allowed to do x, doesn’t imply that they are cannot (are not able) to do x. S

        As to redemptive history and Judges, yes, it was a dark time but your account is a sort of special pleading. You’re asking us to ignore the evidence from Judges because it contradicts your view.

        My argument from Judges is that evidently it is not against nature for women to be civil magistrates. Calvin appealed to prejudice. Repeating his argument doesn’t vindicate it.

    • “Women like Deborah and Ruth had to rule because there were no men to be found” – David, if this is the case, Boaz must have been a real hide-and-seek champion!

    • While I generally support your point overall Dr. Clark, Walt S. is not engaging in special pleading. Not only is Judges non-normative (e.g. assassinations, sleeping with prostitutes, disobedience to parents, vow breaking, human sacrifice all committed by judges), but Deborah is an oddball within Judges. She is not given the same title as the others, but is given a diminutive form. While the book of Judges is very repetitive and formulaic, the same formulas are not applied to Deborah. There is no reference to the Spirit of the Lord coming on her (cf. Judges 3, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15) as we see with even the worldliest judges. She is not said to save as the other judges did (cf. Judges 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13). She does not accomplish the delivering, but needs another (Barak) to do so unlike any of the other judges. Sisa is not said to be given to her hands, but to Barak’s hands and the Lord was to go out before Barack (4:14) rather than Deborah. She is not given a term of time for judging (cf. Judges 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16). These are important as Judges 2:18 sets the criteria for a judge: LORD raises up the judge, LORD is with the judge, the judge saved the people.

      Additionally, she is excluded from the two lists of judges: 1 Sam 12:11, Heb 11:32. Now of course a lot of other judges are also excluded, but of note is that Barak is included in both lists which exclude Deborah.

      So special pleading requires that the distinction be arbitrary or lack justification, but in this case there is sufficient justification for believing that she is not intended to exemplify what should happen.

      • Jeremiah,

        You have missed my point. It is simply this: Deborah illustrates that female civil rulers are not against nature.

        I am not arguing that she was normal. I agree that she was extraordinary. It is also the case that she is not condemned. By earlier point about how she fits in the narrative stand.

        I agree that, had the men of Israel performed their duty, she would not have been queen I agree that, have the men of Israel performed there duty, she would not have been a judge but, in the providence of God, she was a judge.

        Attempts to erase her from the narrative do amount to special pleading.

  7. Isn’t there yet another (hidden) contextual reason why Paul stipulated “quietness” from women during church services beyond just the created order of things? Weren’t the oracles in ancient Greek culture usually women and, therefore, if women spoke during meetings of believers most of those who were new converts in attendance (male and female alike) would have had the tendency to turn and listen to them versus the preacher? So, though Paul is applying ecclesiastical rationale for the explanation, is he not mainly concerned with the overarching behavior of the pagan culture creeping into the church?

  8. Is sufficient attention paid by Bible teachers to the fact that γυνη and γυναίκα can mean either woman or wife, depending on what we decide, carefully, is the context? For instance, if the word is qualified with a possessive pronoun, shouldn’t the preferred rendering be “wife” (as in, e.g., 1 Corinthians 14:34, Majority Text)?

Comments are closed.