St. Paul, C.S. Lewis, and the Head of the Household
People within the Church get wrapped up in all sorts of internal debates. One of the biggest is the role of women, both in ecclesial leadership positions and in their roles in the home. While I myself am what is referred to as an egalitarian (and by that I mean that I support women's teaching and pastoring roles in the Church and equal, mutually-loving and mutually self-sacrificing roles between husbands and wives), there are many of my brothers and sisters who hold to complimentarian views and readings of Scripture. While the debate will not likely end anytime soon, C.S. Lewis offers us some helpful insight on what Paul meant when he referred to headship in reference to Christ as the head of the Church:
"The husband is the head of the wife just in so far as he is to her what Christ is to Church. He is to lover her as Christ loved the Church—read on—and give his life for her (Eph.5:25). This headship, then, is most fully embodied not in the husband we should all wish to be but in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion; whose wife receives most and gives least, is most unworthy of him, is—in her own mere nature—least lovable. For the Church has no beauty but what the Bride-groom gives her; he does not find, but makes her, lovely." -C.S. Lewis The Four Loves
No matter where one stands on the contemporary egalitarian/complimentarian debate, we must always remember that leadership and headship in the Kingdom of God means cross-like love and service. There is no room for forceful domination in the Kingdom (either in the Church as a whole or in individual families), for such Caesar-like power was defeated on the cross.
Live in Cross-like love!