Biblical Headship is Real Leadership

This topic is one that largely applies to Christian readers, because it evaluates weak Christian teachings about marriage in light of the Bible. However, I believe the non-Christian reader can gain valuable insight about the Bible and marriage from reading it.

It should not be a complicated matter that the husband is the head of the home. This is especially true for Christians, who have not only natural law, but the Holy Scriptures, which teach clearly that he is the head of the home, in black and white, and in language which is easy to understand. In fact, it’s so obvious that the man has the authority over his wife, that the feminists historically have hated biblical gender roles. They point to this as an example of evil patriarchy and oppression of women. Christians have historically known how to read these passages, and even secular feminists know how to read them correctly. Somehow, primarily among modernist Christians, people forgot how to read, and now will rewrite biblical headship as something different. This is clearly aberrant to anyone who studies the topic, but many people feel pressured into believing it, because a softened headship has become the norm in many churches. The Christian should know it is false, and that the man has real leadership over his wife.

What does leadership look like? Well, both in Scripture and according to common sense, leadership will include things like making the rules. It will include telling those under you what they have to do. It will include giving correction and at times discipline when those under you do wrong. This is normal for headship, and you could go nearly anywhere in the world, and nearly anyone would understand that. If you are the head over someone you are the boss, and you have authority over them. If you disobey the head, the boss, the leader, the government, you will get punished.

Modern Christians try deceptively to soften this to the point of near meaninglessness. That or they deny it entirely. The common bogus and ignorant arguments you will hear are few and easy to spot in their rottenness. They will put a man’s sacrificial role against his real leadership, and then proclaim, with much conviction, that this means he doesn’t get to tell his wife what to do. Similarly, they may pit his love, or his service to his wife against his leadership, to turn it into “servant leadership” in a way that essentially denies real authority. Maybe he just stands there and sets a good example, and over time his wife will see it, and really want to submit to him. Maybe he says — How may I help you darling? — and moved by such loving offerings she becomes a godlier woman. They will latch on to any phrase about love and sacrifice and make the absurd leap that this means a man cannot really tell his wife what to do, and she does not really need to obey him. Sadly, some Christians believe this drivel, and it harms their marriages and their faith.

The Christian, and everyone else, needs to know that the man’s headship is true leadership. He does what any leader does: he leads, and his wife needs to obey him. When the Bible speaks of the man’s authority, it calls him the head. This is a simple word, and it is the same word used for the authority of Christ and of God the Father. In Greek, as in English, the word can refer to an authority, or the physical head of our body, which is like an authority, since it is at the top and commands the body. In 1 Corinthians 11, the man is said the be the head of his wife (vs. 3). There’s nothing complicated here about the language. This headship is set parallel to the headship of Christ and the headship of God, both of whom have real authority. The Church needs to obey Christ, and Christ in His ministry obeyed the Father. The passage does not say that the man is a “servant head” but simply the head. This is authority like any other using the same language as other authorities. This is easy to understand and that’s why even feminists have long hated the Holy Scriptures. Feminists may be misled about some things, but they do know how to read.

Moreover, let’s test the claim that sacrificial leadership, or service as a part of leadership, denies that an authority tells others what they have to do. Hmmm. What would be a good test? How about first let’s test the perfect biblical example of sacrifice: Jesus Christ. Now did Jesus only spend His time setting a good example for His people, and seeing if that inspired them to obey? Nope. He did much more than that. Did Jesus just sacrifice His body and His life for His people, without any use of commands? Nopers again! Now if the perfect example of being a humble leader, Jesus Christ, did much more than simply do nice stuff for people, a husband also does much more. Well, what else did Jesus do? He told other people how they need to live their lives many times over. He gave commands to His disciples, who became the Church. He warned and rebuked others. He promised punishment for sins. Hmmm, this is sounding like there’s a lot more going on than “servant leadership” isn’t it? Jesus also, in His instructions to the seven churches in Revelation, not only praised them for what they did right, but strongly rebuked them for doing wrong (chs. 2-3). He warned them of earthly punishment and of not making it into heaven. The New Testament further promises that Jesus will chastise, or scourge His beloved Bride (Rev 3:19, Heb 12:5-11). Those are things which Jesus manages to do as the head of the Church, and they don’t just include saying — Honey, what can I do for you? They include real authority, commands which need to be obeyed, plus the correction and discipline of His bride. Like Jesus, the man is the true head over his wife.

This is especially clear in the teaching that the husband is to sanctify his wife. This sanctification is compared to Christ’s sanctification of the Church: “That He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.” (Eph 5:26-27) This spiritual leadership will also require real authority, as Christ uses His authority in spiritually cleansing the Church. Christ will present His Church holy, just as the man will present his wife holy. Christ accomplishes this cleansing not with mere suggestion or setting a good example. He gives authoritative teaching. He gives rebuke. He sets guardrails on our lives. He leads us to do pure things and keeps us away from impure things. He leads and guides daily from a position of authority, and a husband must do the same. It’s not optional either. If husband isn’t doing this, he’s not doing his job.

Where else can we go to test their theory? We can go broadly to the teachings to Christians and how they should behave. We can ask: do teachings of love and of humility mean that a Christian in power cannot tell people what to do? Well, some of the same things spoken about the husband’s character are said even more so about the Christian. So let’s see if their logic works with the Christian. He is universally taught to love others. Jesus quotes Leviticus when He teaches: love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:39, Lev 19:18). Apostle John, in his first epistle, teaches that as Christians we are known for our love (1 John 3:11, 23). Our love even manifests to the world that we are Christian. Now if loving leadership somehow nullifies real authority, that would mean that when any Christian holds a headship position, he could not tell others what to do. It would mean the Christian parent cannot tell his children what to do. It would mean the Christian boss, or governor can’t tell people what they have to do either. Yet is this the case? Of course not. Most Christians would laugh if you even suggested it. Yet this is the same kind of atrocious logic they want to use with the husband. Ooh, how about humility. Let’s do humility next. All Christians are taught humility in the New Testament. Perhaps the most powerful passage is in Philippians 2, which compares that humility to Christ’s incarnation, life, and death (vss. 5-11). The Christian here is taught to care for the needs of others, and even to consider his brother “better than himself” (vs. 3). If we apply the modernist Christian logic here, this strong humility means that when a Christian has children, he certainly cannot tell his children what to do, since he must consider them better than himself. The Christian in government cannot pass laws, because that would put him above other people, and make him too proud. The Christian boss cannot have rules for his employees, right? That wouldn’t be humble enough. Their logic fails here because it is stupid logic, and it fails when applied to the husband as well. The husband can be loving, meek, humble, and also wield authority. He humbly tells his wife what she has to do. 

We can also look at Paul, who explicitly said he was as servant to the churches (1 Corinthians 9:19), even though by position he was an apostle. He modeled hard work for the sake of others and a humble attitude very well. He called himself the chief of the sinners and the least of the apostles. Yet does that mean that Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, only stood there as an apostle, set a good example, and didn’t exert real authority? Of course not. The Holy Spirit, through the Apostle Paul, tells the churches how they need to live, and does so in an authoritative way. Paul also teaches church discipline (1 Cor 5:9-11), strongly rebukes sinners and false teachers (2 Thes 3:6, 1 Tim 5:20), and while his normal behavior is gentle in demeanor, warns churches he will have to be harsh with them if they do not behave rightly (1 Cor 4:21). He warns them strongly about the consequences of evil behavior (Heb 10:26-29). He teaches the congregation to obey the elders who rule over them, watching after their souls (Heb 13:17), and referred to elders ruling well, being worthy of double honor (1 Tim 5:17). He similarly teaches to honor those who are “over you in the Lord and admonish you” (1 Thes 5:12). So holding a position of authority did not leave Paul merely gently encouraging believers to do good. Paul also used his apostolic authority, gave commands, affirmed the ruling authority of elders, and instructed in the use of discipline throughout the churches. These teachings are just as inspired as the “red letter” words of Jesus, and they come from the Holy Spirit. According to God, headship, whether in the Church or in the home, is real and involves more than saying — How may I help you? It is authority like any other.

You may hear the goofy argument that we really cannot be teaching men to lead their wives, because the New Testament does not teach husbands specifics of how to lead. This is an outrageously bad line of reasoning. Number one, the New Testament teaches men to lead. It does so when it calls man the head, and compares that headship to God and Christ. That means he is to lead his wife. It further teaches men to lead their wives when it teaches them to wash them with the Word and present them holy, as leading his wife in holiness is indeed a form of leadership, and it is done from a position of authority. The New Testament also teaches wives to obey their husbands, meaning their men will be leading them in the first place. If not having specific instructions for a husband on how to lead means Christians can’t teach men to lead their home, then no one could teach bosses to lead either, since the New Testament only teaches masters to be kind to their servants (Eph 6:9). It doesn’t teach them how to lead. Using the liberal logic, we’d have to say that the Christian employer shouldn’t learn how to lead, and can’t be expecting obedience from his employees. As I have noted above, it is a nonsensical position, and is inconsistently applied to husbands, and not other authorities. The liberal, even when he appears otherwise Bible believing, will jump at anything to justify flowing with the culture, instead of following the Word of God.

The teaching to wives is similarly clear and unambiguous. That is one of submission and obedience to their husband (Eph 5:22-24, Col 3:18, 1 Peter 3:1-6). The wife is taught to submit multiple times in the New Testament. This is with a word whose normal meaning is to submit to authority. Even if you think there may be a rare alternate usage of the word, the normal usage is submission as we understand it — obedience to a person above you by position. Look through all of its New Testament uses, and you will find people submitting to their superiors, or being controlled by something more powerful than they. There may be a rare exception, but that doesn’t change much. This is further made clear in the context of the passages. The woman’s submission to her husband is likened to submission to Christ. Christ is our authority. The Church must obey Christ. This fact further locks us into an understanding of obedience to authority, in case we thought we could ignore the common meaning of the word. We see this further in the context that the wife’s submission appears side by side — THREE times — with other vertical relationship. In Ephesians 5 her submission is side by side with the submission of children to parents and bondservants to masters (Eph 6:1-9). Could that just be a coincidence? Hmmm. Then in Colossians 3, her submission is also placed in a list with children submitting to parents, and servants to masters (vss. 20-25). In 1 Peter 3, it follows the submission to government and to masters from the previous chapter (1 Peter 2:13-20), with a brief interlude between them about Christ as an example of suffering servanthood (vss. 21-25). Then it teaches wives to likewise be in subjection to their husbands (1 Pet 3:1). It’s almost as if — gasp! — submission means what any normal reader would take it to mean.

In 1 Peter 3, the wife is taught to submit even to a husband who is not very godly (vs. 1). Here the word submit (vss. 1, 5) is used side by side with the common word for obey (vs. 6). It is the same word used throughout the New Testament for obedience to authorities. It can in certain contexts be used to refer to answering a call, such as a knock on the door, but such a context is not present here. This teaching is consistent with the others, if not stronger. We further see the vertical nature of this relationship in that the wife obeys her husband, as Sarah did, calling him “lord.” That word is a word that usually refers to an authority, and is also the Greek word used for the name of God, Yahweh. Interpreting this passage is not rocket science. It does not require a degree in theology, or even in ancient near eastern languages. It is teaching the wife to submit to her husband as one submits to any authority, even likening that authority to God. So naturally, she has to obey her husband, when he tells her what to do.

In terms of example, while it’s not the first place I go to prove a point, one of the best to look at regarding authority is the rather amazing passage of the Roman centurion. This centurion goes to Jesus to ask for a healing for his servant who is paralyzed (Matt 8:5-13, Luke 7:1-10). In his words of petition, the centurion reveals he understands something of who Christ is. He understands Christ’s power. When Jesus offers to come all the way to his house to heal the servant, the centurion says: No that is not necessary. You can just say a word and my servant will be healed. Then the centurion explains his thinking: I also (like you) am a man under authority. I have men under authority. I tell them to do something and they do it. The centurion is revealing that Christ can merely use his command authority, tell whatever powers he uses to heal people to act, and then the healing will occur. Being an officer he understands authority, so he knows all Jesus needs to do is say a word. That is the nature of Christ’s authority and position. It similarly is the nature of the husband’s. He has real authority, so he speaks, and those under him act. No verse ripped out of context about love, humility, or equality will change that fact. The husband’s authority is plainly taught in the Bible, and it is compared to Christ’s authority, which is taught and demonstrated many times.

If you study the subject, over and over again you will see these things: When people deny that headship is real authority, they’ve got to do some very funny things to the text. They’ve got to ignore the main meaning of words, and go for a very rare or made-up definition. They’ve got to ignore elements of the context, such as the ones I’ve pointed out, which strongly reinforce the ordinary meaning of the words. They’ve got to apply rules to male headship in marriage that they simply do not apply to other forms of headship in Scripture, stripping it of real authority, and showing their inconsistency. A respect for the man’s authority uses the ordinary means of reading and reads with normal understanding. It recognizes the surrounding context which also shows this is a vertical relationship. It is consistent in recognizing that biblical headship as a whole is true authority, and does not change the rules just for marriage. Basically, you don’t have to be a theologian here. You only need to read normally, and there is no problem. 

There are some Christians who will assent strongly to the man’s authority, and the wife’s need to obey, but then turn around and claim that the husband cannot “force” his wife to obey. This suggests the husband may not use any form of discipline to punish his wife when she is disobedient, even though that disobedience is wrong. While there are Bible believers who make these claims, and who otherwise sound kosher in doctrine, it’s still wrong for basically the same reason: It denies what headship is, which is real authority. It is self-contradictory to say the husband is the head, but cannot compel his wife to obey. Real authority contains within it the right and ability to punish transgressors. It can insist that others obey, and then compel them to obey through discipline. Therefore, clearly a husband can compel his wife to obey, although whether we call this “forcing” his wife to obey depends how one defines the word. Many wives readily obey, and they are willing to accept discipline when their husband applies it. Similarly, misled Christians may claim a wife must “choose” to submit, which on its surface is true, yet this is a choice she already made when she got married. She chose at that time to submit to her husband for life, and any submissive wife will do so. You no more stop submitting in marriage than you stop being faithful or stop loving. Both husband and wife consented to this in their marriage. Disciplining his wife then, just like commanding his wife, is fully in line with biblical authority elsewhere in Scripture, and with the love of Christ, as we have already been over above. A man does not just sit there and hope his wife obeys, but he can rightly insist that she does. When a traditional believer claims a husband cannot “make” his wife obey, you can be confident they are simply trying not to offend the culture, and don’t want to get in any trouble. They don’t want their ministry friends to get upset with them either. They probably know better, they just don’t want people to demonize them. It is a weakness and a compromise, but as a doctrine cannot be defended.

There is an awful assumption in the churches that any clear leadership is in conflict with a man loving his wife. This of course, is false, as we have seen, and as I trust you can see elsewhere in Scripture yourself. Just as love is implemented in many ways through leadership, leadership itself is guided and moderated by love. They are part of the same whole for the husband, as they are for God. The rules he sets for his wife are for her good, as well as for the good of the household. The standards he sets for her help her fulfill her work, and grow as a woman. The aim he sets is her virtue and holiness. He is there not only to give her commands, but also to instruct, to encourage, to offer praise, and advice. He shows understanding for her weaknesses. He wants to lift her burdens, and be her lord as well as her comforter. Women don’t want a weak man either, and many are not afraid of saying they want a man who is strong. Many will admit they have a hard time respecting a man who is a wimp, or who lets her get away with anything she wants. That kind of man just looks pathetic. The woman is moved and stirred in her femininity by the man’s strength, and this includes his command of her, which he has in every domain, which he shows in his care and thoughtfulness of her condition. He also shows it in his firm correction, and when he needs to discipline her for doing wrong. He doesn’t take any nonsense from her. It is all a part of the same picture, which is loving lordship over her.

This is a teaching I give enthusiastically. That is because of the number of Christians who are misled by the churches, and left not knowing what marriage is about. I write for the sake of the young people especially, who if they listened to most ministers, would have a weak hold on what it will mean to be a husband or a wife. Many of them are left with homes in chaos because they were given the same meaningless drivel about headship not being real leadership, and about how a man who tells his wife what to do is a prideful tyrant. They heard it, and they fell for it, and it has caused them harm. The man doesn’t know how to take charge of his wife. The woman has a hard time following him, and is allowed to get away with awful behavior. Many are the couple who will testify how relieved they were to finally discover real authority in marriage, and the peace it brought to their home, often quickly. Many are the couple too who regret having spent years without leadership, often quarreling, or being resentful and unfulfilled. Some would say that kind of chaos is what led to their divorce, which while that should never happen, is a predictable option that many couples choose. I have personally seen them; men who have zero command over their wives, those who get disrespected by them, those who have to cower in fear of their wives. It is truly disgusting, and I write for those couples, and especially for the young. Don’t accept lies and half-truths from your pastor. Headship is true authority, and a wife must obey her husband, who may correct her when necessary. This should be understood and committed to by both man and woman before they marry. If someone is getting funny with you and trying to change the definition of headship, they are lost or a liar. It does not matter if they have initials after their name, or the title of minister before their name. Ignore them. They will only do you harm.