Helper or Co-Head

Take a look around and compare our culture with what the word of God says we are to be and you'll see stark contrasts.  We are seeing men trying to be women and women trying to be men. We're seeing attempts to be rebrand and redefine marriage . They're trying to say that men can get pregnant and have periods. They're trying to redefine what love is rather than how God and His word define it.

 We're to look at the word of God and conform to it, not our society around us. Our society has infiltrated the church and church structures and is trying to use the mask of sounding holy while pushing these cultural redefinitions. Why is it so important to talk about headship, and authority? Because God structured it. Because we are called to be men and women of GOD, and we are called to reflect HIS glory, which includes gender roles and the family structure. 

A lot of doctrines and ideas have been tossed around in my hearing and I usually just file them away in my mind under the heading of "something about this topic doesn't sound right: look into it later" . For example, when I looked into the "Sons of God are Angels" doctrine, I found the exact opposite to be true (this isn't yet ANOTHER  post on that, its ok). Another one, which I'll be going over in this post is the "Ezer Kenegdo" and the subject of Headship/Authority. Though there is MUCH to be said about men and how men need to die to themselves to lead like Yeshua, this post is mostly going to address the aspect of women. 

God: Keep the Sabbath 

Women: Ok

God: Don't eat unclean 

Women: OK

God: Submit to your husband in everything 

Women: Woah, hold on there Bud... what if...

Sound familiar? What about this: 

Women: Men should lead

Women : To be in submission to a man's authority is slavery 

This dichotomy is a lose-lose for men that grinds away at the functionality God designed in their role as men. When looking at the origins of headship and the functionality of men and women we have to look at the first enactment thereof.  One presentation of the Ezer Kenegdo/Neged is that Man and Woman are co-equal in the matters of Biblical authority.  Man was created and God saw this and said it is not good for man to be alone, so He made Eve. 

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”- Gen 2:18

The words used are Ezer, and Neged- but with the Hebrew grammar that turns into Kenegdo somehow, but it looks like this 

 

What it means is a helper opposite of him. 

The way some people advocate the interpretation is that phrase "opposite to him" to mean equal in strength to oppose him. They use this because the term "Ezer" is used in other places to denote military assistance. One of the issues with this is that to read into it that the woman is to be the "Xena" to his "Hercules", is to injecting a narrative into the understanding when this word merely means "Helper" "sitting across from him". Advocates of this position have stated that because the word Ezer "help" is used in several places in reference to God "Helping" Israel in distress. Due to Israel asking for  this "help",  then in the garden when woman is made to "Help" man, she would be a Warrior instead of "Help" in response to his being one person in a kingdom of pairs. This places in woman in the position of God as the helper to Israel.  If a child needs help putting their shoes on and a sibling helps(Ezer) them does this make the sibling fit for war and an equal authority in his parents house? It does not.  Someone alone needs help, just as someone needs help. Eve wasn't there to wage war, She was put there to help. What war was in there in the pre-fall garden? 

To make the speculation that to be opposite of the man means to be equal in authority, but dismiss that the "curse" God gives over the woman is 1. Pain in conception. 2. pain in childbirth. 3. the desire for her husband (directly leading to) and that instead He will RULE over her. The text states that the man will have dominion over the woman 

That is synonymous with having authority over her.  This is headship. As we'll go over, this headship is still prescriptive in the New Testament. Whenever the subject of headship is brought up, many- and I'd go so far to say most-women in our society and culture picture a man Dominating and controlling, An apocalyptic warlord type that rules by force and makes women his slaves. THIS IS NOT THE BILICAL EXAMPLE OF THE WAY A MAN IS TO BE. I'll probably say that a few times in this post because every conversation I have on this subject, it is like no matter how many times I stress that point, The words are dismantled in someone's mind and reassembled in a way that sounds like "Men should control women". 

Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. 24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.- Ephesians 5:22-24

The husband is the head of the wife  the way Christ is the head of the church. Does the church regard it self an equal authority to Christ? Not unless you're Catholic. As the church is subject to Christ ( the church is acknowledging the Messiah's headship and authority) so also wives ought to be [ Submitted] to their husbands in everything. Most women who buck this are following the leadership of men that did not love them as Christ loves the church, men who refused to submit to Christ and to love their wives the way that Christ loves the church. Where these men lead an example of rebellion against the command of God to love their wives in HIS example, so too do many women follow suit in not submitting to their husbands. 

==== This is not about giving power to men or authoritarian control to men this is not about enabling abuse by men- as those are NOT the example of Christ to His church====

A husband has loving compassion for his bride, As Christ does the church
A husband seeks input from his bride, As Christ does the church
A husband gives sacrificially for his bride, As Christ does the church
A husband gives good gifts and provides the righteous desires of his wife, as Christ does the church
A husband guards against evil that seeks to destroy his family, As Christ does the church
A husband leads his wife in the Word, As Christ does the church. 

He's not a micromanager. As the example of Adam in the Garden with Eve, Eve ate the apple, but Romans says that sin entered through one man, Adam. When Adam sinned, God who I believe knew that Eve ate the apple first, called out to Adam to account for his actions.  This is why Paul cites this n 1 Timothy

    but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. 11 A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. 12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. 13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. 14 And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. -1 Timothy 2:10-13

Paul isn't just tossing out an opinion. He's not being sexist. He's citing the authority role that is given to the man, of headship. Men are to take input from their wives and attend to their needs, but when it goes wrong, that responsibility is on the shoulders of the man to have been doing what should have been done

 In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, 2 as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior.- 1 Peter 3:1-2

Of note is that these verses written to the wives of pagan husbands emphasize submission the most. Peter says that obedience is the way in which to win the unrighteous husband, not resistance. THIS IS NOT ADVOCATING FOR SUBJECTING TO ABUSE .  This demonstrates that the Biblical patriarchy of male headship and authority in leading the wife is established, and that even the new converts should exemplify this in order to show God to their husbands. This is stated in Titus 2

 so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. - Titus 2:4-5

The word of God is dishonored when authority/headship/rule is wrestled from the man and the man is subdued under the woman as exactly what the "curse" in Genesis states. If Submission meant only giving way when you agree, that isn't submission that is agreement. Thats bargaining. 
TO BE CLEAR, SUBMITTING TO A HUSBAND IS NOT SLAVERY

In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself- Ephesians 5:28

This is not the attitude of someone who deprives another for amusement, he gives to his wife in the way that he would give to himself. The husband makes judgments, like the example of Christ and the church. In making a judgment, he considers what is best for his wife and the family. He takes her counsel and input. He inquires God about matter. He then makes a judgment on a matter. The judgment is not passing authority to his wife and submitting to her headship, it is a judgment in her favor championing the wisdom and good counsel that she has provided. If the wife offers good counsel and wisdom and the husbands judgment is to not listen to it, THEN THE REPROACH IS ON THE HUSBAND. 
The Greek word for submit is hypotassō and it means:

..In this example,  hypotassō is
To arrange under- the husbands authority
To put in subjection- to the husbands authority 
To obey- ones husbands ruling
To submit to ones control- the one being the husband 
To yield to ones admonition or advice- the one being the husband
To obey/ subject- to your husband. 


Advocates of egalitarian authority innately in practice make null and void all other commands in scripture of submission by that we are all to submit to each other. The verse cited for these grounds is still in Ephesians 5 :21

and subject yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ Ephesians 5:21

It is easy to understand how one derives that we're to submit to one another and that the only headship/ authority is Christ. Yet, if we take this at face value with no surrounding context, then the next two verses have no meaning when they say 

Wives, subject yourselves to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. Ephesians 5-22-23 

Rather in the fuller context we see the practice of COMMUNAL submission as verse 15 points out

So then, be careful how you walk, not as unwise people but as wise Ephesians 5:15 

In goes from communal households collectively submitting to each other as a community, to the specific commands to husbands and wives about headship and submission in the marriage.  If we were to interpret verse 21 as the blanket headship, this then gives the entire neighborhood authority to govern the marriage between God, Man and Woman. I do NOT think that the community does or should have the INTIMATE form of Authority in the marriage between husband and wife. 
One of the common arguments against the word headship saying what the Greek defines it as saying is to convey that headship means something else entirely. As I most recently heard expressed

"Head doesn't mean authority it actually means the source, like the head of a river. it’s the source of its beginning."

The problem with this is that the Greek DOES mean authority. The same Greek that is used in Ephesians 5 and 1 Peter 3 to say that wives should submit to the authority of their husbands is also used in the Septuagint for the following verses

You have him rule over the works of Your hands;

You have put everything under his feet,- Psalms 8:6 

Rule over- Hypotassō  

My faithfulness and my fortress, My stronghold and my savior, My shield and He in whom I take refuge, Who subdues my people under me. - Psalm 144:2

Again  Hypotassō   shows that rule is not source, it is authority/ ruling/ headship over. For a second lets indulge the analogy of the river, if  Hypotassō  was to mean source, it would be in the reference of the authority flowing from the  source of the husband to the wife. Even if we were to not take Hypotassō  to mean authority, headship and ruler the way that it does we still have another Greek word that means as such, Kephalē

Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the fathers’ households of the sons of Israel, to King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord from the city of David, which is Zion.- 1 Kings 8:1 

Solomon isn't assembling all the sources of the tribes, Thats just Jacob. He's assembling the authority, the leadership the Kephalē

You have delivered me from the contentions of the people; You have placed me as head of the nations; A people whom I have not known serve me. - Psalms 18:43

David is not the source of the nations. He's placed in Kephalē- authority and leadership of the nations. 

So the Lord cuts off head and tail from Israel, Both palm branch and bulrush in a single day. 15 The head is the elder and honorable man, And the prophet who teaches falsehood is the tail. 16 For those who guide this people are leading them astray; And those who are guided by them are brought to confusion. - Isaiah 9:14-16

The head Kephalē  = the elder/ honorable man leader- contrasted with the tail/fool, one who teaches falsehood. 

    The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “For this reason we have now returned to you, that you may go with us and fight with the sons of Ammon and become head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.” 9 So Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you take me back to fight against the sons of Ammon and the Lord gives them up to me, will I become your head? - Judges 11:8-9

It wouldn't make sense to be asking "Can I become your origin/ source" of all the inhabitants of Gilead or the Elders. It only makes sense in the context of becoming the Authority/ Ruler/ Headship 

   Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and chief over them; and Jephthah spoke all his words before the Lord at Mizpah.- Judges 11:11

They made him the Authority- Head- Chief-Kephalē

“You have also delivered me from the contentions of my people; You have kept me as head of the nations; A people whom I have not known serve me. 2 Sam 22:44

A people that he has not known now sever him as Head/ Authority/ Kephalē. 
The word for head as authority in the Greek Kephalē  is used in 1 Cor 11:3

 But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.- 1 Corinthians 11:3

We can see from the 2.A. that the Greek word for head, is Husbands authority in relation to his Wife, in the same manner of 2.B. that Christ is the Lord the husband  and of the Church. If we are to take the two words Ezer Naged/Kenegdo to mean warrior of the same authority of her husband, then these examples lose meaning and these words lose meaning.  Sarah uses the same definition of 2. A when she refers to Abraham as lord/master. This is cited in 1 Peter 3 

   For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands; 6 just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear. 1 Peter 3:5-6 

In a recent discussion it was suggested that doing this very thing would be like essentially abandoning autonomy and just becoming like a doll or a plaything to a man. However, what we see in the example of Abraham and Sarah is quite the opposite in the Hagar situation. Sarah wanted Hagar gone. Did Sarah remove Hagar- who was her maidservant? No. Sarah brought the matter up to her husband in submission. Abraham wasn't wanting to to do that as the text says that he was really bothered by this. What did He do? He SUBMITTED TO GOD THE WAY SARAH WAS SUBMITTING TO HIM, and God was the one that made the judgement- Do what your wife is asking of you. Sarah got her way. Sarah was not without voice. She was not a slave. Abraham loved his wife the way that Christ loves the church! Yeshua in the garden didn't want to go to the cross, but He prayed as an example of perfect submission to the Father "your will be done not mine" and then GAVE UP HIS LIFE FOR US!!! 

Again 1 Corinthians 11 we see this headship, the Kaphale / the Authority stated outright

3 But I want you to understand that Christ is the head [kephalē] of every man, and the man is the head [kephalē] of a woman, and God is the head [kephalē] of Christ. - 1 Cor. 11:3

Christ is the Authority over every man, man over a[his] woman. This is in direct contradiction of the interpretation that the woman's authority is = to her husband egalitarian mindset of Ezer Naged/Kenegdo. It points back to the context that woman is the help man. Just as Esau despised his birthright and traded it for stew, women in our culture have traded this gift of being cared for and provided for and loved, and cherished, and valued and the ability to love and sow into a husband... and they have traded it for genuine slavery to the corporate machine, and bosses that they're forced to submit to in a way that they fear from a husband. 

So many women IN THE CHURCH think that submitting to their husband is a form of slavery, but they do not think this same thing about submitting to Christ, and Christ says to submit to your husbands! That is obedience to Christ. ITS NOT ABOUT DOMINANCE AND CONTROL TO THE MAN, it's about TRUSTING GOD and having FAITH IN GOD  that the man you CHOSE to marry is going to also be obedient to GOD 


There are examples of headship/authority all over the scriptures and commands of God

        Also if a woman makes a vow to the Lord, and binds herself by an obligation in her father’s house in her youth, 4 and her father hears her vow and her obligation by which she has bound herself, and her father says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand and every obligation by which she has bound herself shall stand. 5 But if her father should forbid her on the day he hears of it, none of her vows or her obligations by which she has bound herself shall stand; and the Lord will forgive her because her father had forbidden her. - Numbers 30:3-5

By the Headship/Authority of the father, the woman breaking a vow is not under penalty This same authority set up is for husbands to wives 

     However, if she should marry while under her vows or the rash statement of her lips by which she has bound herself, 7 and her husband hears of it and says nothing to her on the day he hears it, then her vows shall stand and her obligations by which she has bound herself shall stand. 8 But if on the day her husband hears of it, he forbids her, then he shall annul her vow which she is under and the rash statement of her lips by which she has bound herself; and the Lord will forgive her. - Numbers 30:6-8

How many women commit to something they wish they hadn't and wish they could get out of it. Try Biblical Headship/Authority.  The nullification of vows passages themselves show that the egalitarian co-Head authority isn't Divinely structured. This is not the Ezer Kenegdo/neged Xena warrior mindset. She is someone across from him reminding him always to be more like the Messiah, to die to self, to love, to submit to God in his actions the way or greater than the way she is submitting to him. To serve him, and along with him,  not war against him like the "curse" states. 

Even if we were for some reason to outright ignore BOTH Greek words talking about the husbands headship we still have it from God. There is also a section of Numbers 5 that says that the wife is under the authority of her husband. The word husband is added to the text, a practice that I don't normally endorse,  but the context is clear that it is an appropriate translation. 

The priest shall have her take an oath and shall say to the woman, “If no man has lain with you and if you have not gone astray into uncleanness, being under the authority of your husband, be immune to this water of bitterness that brings a curse; 20 if you, however, have gone astray, being under the authority of your husband, and if you have defiled yourself and a man other than your husband has had intercourse with you”

This is the law of jealousy: when a wife, being under the authority of her husband, goes astray and defiles herself- Numbers 5:19-20;29

Even if we were for some reason to outright ignore BOTH Greek words talking about the husbands headship we still have it from God as shown above and from Genesis itself. 

To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, In pain you shall deliver children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.”-Gen 3:16

God expressly states that the husband does in fact rule as in authority. That same word is used when God warns Cain 

“If you do well, will your face not be cheerful? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master H4910 it.” - Gen 4:7

Do you see the parallel of "The Desire will be over your husband" and "Sin is lurking with desire for you" and the parallel between " And he will rule over you" with "you must master it" . It is the same word of overcoming in regards to authority. 

When we state to our Christian brothers and sisters that obedience to God's Law is love, they so often reply that "The Law is bondage". We who walk in God's Law know that obedience is freedom, and the lie of it being bandage becomes almost laughable. It's a delight to bask in the joy of our God. 

The world tells us that same lie about marital submission, calling it bondage and slavery

...and men, If you are dominating your wife in authoritarian power trip, REPENT because you are doing evil.