Author: Kirk E. Miller

To the Contrary, Sex Ought to Be Egalitarian (1 Corinthians 7:3–4)

Kirk E. Miller

Warning: This article contains a passing reference to sexual assault.

“However we try, the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts. This is of course offensive to all egalitarians, and so our culture has rebelled against the concept of authority and submission in marriage. This means that we have sought to suppress the concepts of authority and submission as they relate to the marriage bed.”1

To the contrary, even those of us who are complementation and understand that gender differences are displayed throughout marriage, including the bedroom (e.g., the obvious anatomy differences involved in sexual intercourse), should nonetheless acknowledge elements of marriage that are very much egalitarian. Sex being one of them, as Paul himself explains:

“The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife” (1 Cor 7:3–4).

The very theologically conservative The Reformation Study Bible observes this about this passage,

“These are remarkable verses in that they reveal viewpoints that appear to be far ahead of their time: a healthy perception of the woman’s sexuality, and an understanding of the complete equality that exists between a man and a woman in the most intimate area of their relationship. The Scripture gives no support whatever to the notion that sexual relations are solely at the direction and for the enjoyment of the husband.”2

In other words, Paul’s instructions are radically egalitarian for its time, considering “It is not possible to find another reference in the literature of the ancient world which teaches that the husband surrenders his body exclusively to his wife on marriage.”3

I think as well of Ephesians 5:25–30 where the husband is to love his wife as his own body. He puts her needs first. Does this not apply to sex? Selfishness does not cease to be sinful just because it occurs in the bedroom. Or consider the Song of Solomon where the bride’s sexual anticipation and delight is highlighted, not just the man’s.

In other words, to be very blunt, Christian men should strive (and, where necessary, learn) to satisfy their wives sexually. This is not an imposed, foreign, “secular” concern, but a Christian one, considering God created marriage and the sex within it.

Complementarianism is self-consciously born out of a commitment to follow Scripture’s teachings, even in those places where it goes against the grain of cultural sensibilities like certain God-designed gender differences. The goal, as intended, is to conform ourselves to Scripture. So it would be quite ironic if, on account complementarian commitments to things like male headship, we ran roughshod of what Scripture clearly says in places like 1 Corinthians 7:3-4 by imposing ideas of “hierarchy” where they don’t exist.

Again, the goal is to follow Scripture where it leads—and no further, we might add!—not to apply some maximalist hermeneutic of headship to every issue imaginable. The only reason we adhere to certain instances of male headship (husbands, elders) in the first place is because Scripture teaches them. In other words, Scripture is the controlling principle, not some independent commitment to headship as an all-defining framework. We are to be as complementarian as the Scriptures are—and as egalitarian as them, when they are. For those committed to the authority of Scripture, this should not be controversial in the least.

And none of this even begins to address the additional problem of using aggressive and violent language like “penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants” to describe sexual acts, especially in a world of filled with sexual abuse.

Notes:

  1. Doug Wilson, Fidelity: What it Means to be a One-Woman Man (Canon Press, 1999), 86-87. ↩︎
  2. R. C. Sproul, ed., The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition) (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2015), 2024–2025. ↩︎
  3.  Bruce Winter, “1 Corinthians,” in New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition, ed. D. A. Carson et al., 4th ed. (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), 1171. ↩︎

40 Quotes from The Pastoral Rule by Gregory the Great

Kirk E. Miller

Gregory the Great wrote The Pastoral Rule to provide guidance for “spiritual directors” (clergy) on the responsibilities and tasks of pastoring. It is widely considered one of the best works of pastoral theology.

He breaks his work into four parts.

  1. He addresses the qualifications of those who would obtain pastoral authority.
  2. He provides directions on the proper life and work of the pastor.
  3. He offers specific guidance and insight on how to pastor particular types of people given their unique temperaments, struggles, characteristics, and circumstances.
  4. He closes with an exhortation to humility in pastoral ministry.

He sets out to write his book, among other reasons, “to express my opinion of the severity of their weight [i.e., the burdens of pastoral care] so that he who is free of these burdens might not recklessly pursue them and he who has already attained them might tremble for having done so.”1 At the close of his book, he says, “I have tried to show what the qualities of a spiritual director ought to be.”2

The following are some of my favorite quotes from the work, organized loosely by subject matter.3

1. The dangers of the pastoral authority

“No one does more harm in the Church than he who has the title or rank of holiness and acts perversely. … [B]ecause such a sinner is honored by the dignity of his rank, his offenses spread considerably by way of example. And yet everyone who is unworthy would flee from such a great burden of guilt if, with the attentive ear of the heart, he pondered the saying of the Truth: ‘He that scandalizes one of these little ones who believes in me, it would be better for him that a millstone was hung around his neck and that he was cast into the depth of the sea.’ … Whoever, therefore, gives off the appearance of sanctity but destroys another by his words or example, it would be better for him that his earthly acts, demonstrated by worldly habits, would bind him to death than for his sacred office to be a source for the imitation of vice in another. Indeed, his punishment in hell would be less terrible if he fell alone.” (32)

“[Jesus] chose instead the penalty of a shameful death so that his [followers] might also learn to flee the applause of the world, to fear not its terrors, to value adversity for the sake of truth, and to decline prosperity fearfully. This final concern [i.e. prosperity] often corrupts the heart through pride, while adversities purge it through suffering. In the one, the soul becomes conceited; while in the other (even if the soul is occasionally conceited), it humbles itself. In the one, the man forgets who he is; while in the other, he is recalled, even unwillingly, to know what he is. … For commonly in the school of adversity, the heart is subdued by discipline; but if one rises to a position of spiritual authority, the heart is immediately altered by a state of elation that accompanies the experience of glory.” (33)

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