Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 35:3 (Summer 2021)
Article: Mutual Submission Frames The Household Codes
Author: Craig S. Keener

PP 35:3 (Summer 2021) p. 10

Mutual Submission Frames The Household Codes

Craig S. Keener

Craig S. Keener holds a PhD in NT and Christian Origins from Duke University as well as MA and MDiv degrees from Assemblies of God Theological Seminary. He teaches biblical studies at Asbury Theological Seminary near Lexington, Kentucky. Well over a million of his thirty-plus books are in circulation. His award-winning, popular-level IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (now in its second edition and available in several languages) has sold over half a million copies. He is ordained by the National Baptist Convention, an African-American denomination. Craig is married to Médine Moussounga Keener, who holds a PhD from University of Paris 7. Craig and Médine work for ethnic reconciliation in the U.S. and Africa. Their story together is told in their book, Impossible Love: The True Story of an African Civil War, Miracles, and Hope Against All Odds (Chosen Books, 2016).

I adapted this article from a paper I presented at the Society for Pentecostal Studies conference, March 19, 2021.

Half of a book I wrote in 1992 dealt with mutual submission in Ephesians’ household codes. More recently, a PhD student here at Asbury Theological Seminary, Murray Vasser, has defended an excellent dissertation arguing for mutual submission in Colossians,1 and I have discovered something related to the same mutuality pattern while writing a commentary on 1 Peter.2 Neither Colossians nor 1 Peter is as explicit as Eph 5:21–6:9, but the collocation of such passages, all among mid-first-century Christians (on my dating), suggests that early Christians were on the more progressive edge of gender relationships in their world. (My implied ethical subtext is that we should be also, within biblical constraints. But my focus in this article is the raw material that I believe leads to that conclusion.)

Scholars often note that Paul (or, on some other scholars’ view, one of Paul’s disciples) adapts the contemporary literary form of household codes, following even the overall structure in place since Aristotle.3 More surprising are the adaptations Paul makes. Such adaptations include addressing not only the male householder but also the wife, children, and slaves; instructions to the husband to love; and the grammatically clear linkage of submission with not only wives but all believers in 5:21–22. Paul also relativizes the slaveholder’s authority in 6:5–9.

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