Household Codes, Slaves and Hierarchy

 I recently was drawn into an online discussion with an improbably named US dude, who was dogmatic that we must accept the "plain meaning" of the Scriptures. He claimed:

"It is clearly written in the ancient scriptures..,

*God, Man, Woman, Child, Creatures.*

That is the order / hierarchy".

But is that plain and clear?

There is a reasonable biblical argment for humans over creatures:

Genesis 1: 26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness,
so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the
sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the
creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in
number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea
and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on
the ground.”

However... there is no hierarchy of men over women in this scenario.

One might make an argument for hierarchy in the household codes in Paul's letters, such as Colossians 3:

"18 Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

21 Fathers / Parents, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.

22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord."

But plain and clear? 

Not so fast...

I challenged my US debater to come up with an eternal hierarchy that included owning slaves, based on household codes like this one. Is the divine order of authority men-women-children-slaves-animals? Or something else? Does the gender of the slaves matter? 

He has so far declined. to clarify.

My response:

From my point of view, passages like this highlight the inconsistency of those who claim a direction for wives to submit to husbands is God's eternal will (one way, not mutual submission as implied in Ephesians 5:21) and in the same breath say that instructions for slaves was Paul's concession to the culture of the day to keep the Christian community in good standing. They don't actually defend Christians owning household slaves. Why? Not because it contravenes the "plain meaning of the text", but because owning slaves is not in their experience and is socially unacceptable. So they interpret such references in a completely different way or ignore them altogether.

Entirely different hermeneutics kick in for biblical directives certain people are familiar with and do like (wives submitting to husbands) compared to directives people aren't familiar with and don't like (Christian households owning slaves). In fact, the former is seen by some as a test of biblical faithfulness (or even orthodoxy), and they latter commands are ignored completely or interpreted away ("that was only for those times").

It's in the same passage!

Ditto one difficult passage that might imply women can't teach in church is carved in stone, apparently, while the straightforward command to kiss other brethren is ignored completely. (Romans 16:16, I Corinthians 16:20, II Corinthians 13:12, I Thessalonians 5:26, I Peter 5:14).

I went on to write:

We don't want to fail in our discipleship because we've read the scriptures but completely missed what God is trying to say. This was the failure of the Pharisees in spades: they knew the Scriptures backwards but missed the key points of love and justice.

If you"weight" all of the New Testament the same without cultural and language nuance, you'd enforce regimented kissing, female head coverings, enthusiastically promote celibacy, allow slave ownership, require those who were serious disciples to sell everything and give to the poor, dismember oneself if a body part is leading to sin... etc. And if you weighted all scripture the same, we'd be stoning disobedient children to death, refusing to wear fabric blends, not eating pork products, not planting crops once every 7 years... etc etc. in the law of Moses.

But no sensible Christian reads scripture this way.

"Weighty scriptures" include the law of love of God and love of neighbour, and a life showing the fruit of the Spirit: ..."against such things there is no law." (Galatians 5:23).

A final note on hierarchy: Jesus explicitly rejects this for his followers:

Matthew 23:8 “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

That seems much clearer to me.

(Weird picture for attention!!!!)