Paul was not a sexist nor was he “hopelessly patriarchal” as one polemicist said in the 1990s. Nevertheless, we should not confuse Victorian prejudices with biblical teaching. Paul does not argue that men are inherently smarter or more rational than females. Peter recognized differences and similarities between men and women (1 Pet 3:7). We are both the heirs of the “grace of life.” Against the radical egalitarianism of our age, however, Paul, like Peter, does teach a creational order. We are not free to disregard his instruction because it puts us at odds with the Zeitgeist (spirit of the age) or widely held assumptions.
In the fall Adam chose to exercise autonomy, to rebel against God. Since the fall humans have carried on Adam’s ignominious tradition. Cain rebelled against worshiping God truly and, in a jealous rage, murdered his brother who did worship God truly. We, the world that then was (2 Pet 3:6), became so rebellious against God that he wiped clean the slate and, as it were, started over.
In our radically egalitarian (i.e., not recognizing hierarchy or distinction) age we bristle against the assertion of even the most basic and lawful authority. When a cop pulls us over we think (and too often say), “Who are you…?” As unfair as it may seem (“What about that guy over there?”) and as irritating as it may be (“I’m late for my appointment”) it is his job to pull us over when we are not driving safely and legally. When he acts according to justice, he is God’s minister (Romans 13). We owe submission to him.
The Fifth commandment says:
Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God gives you (Ex 20:12).
In Heidelberg 104 we interpret this commandment to require:
That I show all honor, love and faithfulness to my father and mother, and to all in authority over me; submit myself with due obedience to all their good instruction and correction, and also bear patiently with their infirmities, since it is God’s will to govern us by their hand.
As with the other Commandments, in the fifth commandment there are two parts: duties and prohibitions. Our duty to divinely-instituted authorities is to submit and honor or to honor and submit. The prohibition is implied in the conditional promise,” that your days maybe long…” we are prohibited from dishonoring and disobeying those whom God has placed in authority over us.
Who are they? There are two kinds of superiors, most basically, our parents but the list of authorities to which we must submit does not end with our parents. In scripture we see the the Fifth Commandment reflected in the Old Testament civil laws, e.g. Deuteronomy 21:
If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear (Deut 21:18–21; ESV).
That civil legislation and such civil punishments however, expired with the death of Christ. This is how the civil punishments are interpreted in Reformed theology. See Westminster confession 19.4, which says:
To them also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the state of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.
Hence, theonomy, or the teaching that the Mosaic civil laws have a biding validity in exhaustive detail is contrary to the Reformed faith.
Nevertheless Deuteronomy 21 illustrates the Lord’s attitude toward disobedience certainly to parents. That same principle is expressed in the New Testament.
Parents and Family
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 (Eph 5:22–24; ESV).
These are difficult verses, of course in a post feminist world. When we hear those words some might be tempted to interpret them as teaching some sort of patriarchy. They do not. They do, however, reflect divinely intended order, not inherent (ontological) superiority or inferiority. The following verses, 25 and following, this very clear. We know this is not some Pauline idiosyncrasy or misogyny. Peter teaches the same principle of complementary relations between husbands and wives.