Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: Contradictions and Other Fallacies

Because the Bible doesn't say God gave the man authority, and because Ephesians 5 talks only about love, theologians have had to come up some seriously ingenious ways to answer the question: how should a husband exercise authority over his wife.

Fallacy # 7 Ephesians 5

George W Knight's answer: through love.

Find it in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

Knight: p 171


Complementarians point to the fact that the Bible tells wives to submit and husbands to love as evidence that Ephesians 5:21 cannot teach mutual submission (hypotassomenoi allelois).[1] Although it is true that the Bible doesn’t explicitly tell wives to love (agape) their husbands,[2] the New Testament tells believers to love each other (agapate alleleous).[3] Since the husband is also a brother, a wife should love her husband just as he loves her, for the instructions given to the married cannot conflict with the rest of the Bible. If a wife ought to love her husband, the husband ought to be devoted to his wife, especially because it is explicitly mentioned in Ephesians 5:21.

Because Ephesians 5 does not mention authority, Knight makes the husband’s love the means of his authority over the wife.

Paul’s direct command to the husbands is to “love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…” (verse 25). This is clearly how the apostle demands that the husband exercise his leadership in everything as the head over his wife. He is to love her “just as” (kathos) Christ loved the church [4]

But it is not possible for Ephesians 5:1-2 says, “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk [peripateo] in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us,[5] an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” Are all called to exercise authority over the other members of the body?

Paul mentions love three times in Ephesians 5.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her … So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself … Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself (Eph 5:25, 28, 33a).

If the husband’s love for his wife is the means for his leadership, is he to exercise authority over himself (i.e., lead himself) since he should love his wife as he loves himself, and by loving (leading) his wife, he loves (leads) himself?

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[1] Piper and Grudem, 199.

[2] In Titus 2:4 Paul uses philoandros and philoteknos. Not agape.

[3] See John 13; Romans 12; 1 Thessalonians 4.9; 1 Peter 1.22; 1 and 2 John.

[4] Piper and Grudem, 171.

[5] A better translation of peripateo is “to live.” The New International Version translates the verse accurately: “Live a life of love.”