Paul and Gender: Chapter 6
a book summary
This is a summary of the sixth chapter of Cynthia Long Westfall's book: Paul and Gender. This chapter is entitled "The Body" and deals with what Paul had to say about sex and men & women's physical differences. I'm a little disappointed that she doesn't address 1 Peter 3:7 in her book. This is the verse where Peter calls women the weaker vessel. However, Westfall's book is about Paul's writings, not Peter's. She begins this chapter by explaining the backdrop of Platonic dualism, which is Plato's idea that everything is either physical or non-physical, and the non-physical is superior to the physical. Westfall says that these beliefs influenced early church readings of Paul's distinction between the flesh and the spirit. Paul did not mean the physical body versus the spiritual life. Paul meant the life ruled by sin versus the life ruled by the Holy Spirit. However, early church people misread Paul and thus equated physical desires, the sex drive, and copulation as unspiritual things. This meant that a woman's body and all that related to her period, pregnancy, and childbirth were categorized as less than spiritual, shameful even, and proof that women were inferior to men. (Insert barfing noises here). Although the reformation prompted a backtracking of some of these false beliefs, the groundwork had been laid and false beliefs about men being better fit to rule based on the functions of a woman's body persist. "This also developed together with a positive evaluation of men and their bodies, in part because Jesus was incarnated as a male. However, Paul's view of the church and gender both enhances the view of the female body and relativizes the evaluation of the male body" (Westfall, 180).
Men Specific Issues
Westfall points out three issues Paul addressed concerning men's bodies: circumcision, physical athleticism, and anger problems. Paul's letter to the Galatians specifically addressed the issue of circumcision to help the Galatians realize that the Gentiles were now part of the body of Christ, thus joining the privileged male Jews. "Now an uncircumcised male could potentially be in a position of leadership and authority in the church over a male Christian Jew, which removed the male Jew's prized spiritual advantages and privileges that he possessed, according to Jewish tradition and its understanding of the law" (Westfall, 184). She quotes that famous Babylonian Talmud blessing to show how Jewish men tended to think of themselves: "Praised are You, ETERNAL ... God, who has made me an Israelite, who did not make me a woman, who did not make me a boor" (b. Menah as quoted in Westfall, 184). Jewish men believed they had this superior position. Paul in Galatians argues that that position may be shared with the Gentiles without the Gentiles becoming circumcised. "The priorities and the hermeneutics that Paul applies to the Jew-Gentile debate can and should be extended to the gender issue" (Westfall, 185). Just as the Holy Spirit came with power upon Gentile men, the Holy Spirit came with power on women. Just like Gentiles now share leadership positions with Jews, women may share leadership positions with men. I don't think this point can be over-emphasized (Abby talking here). Paul spent a considerable amount of time arguing that the Gentiles didn't have to alter their genitals to participate as equally functioning members in the body of Christ. Sometimes, I (Abby) worry that teaching that only men may be spiritual leaders, unintentionally conveys the message that if women changed their gender, women would be equally functioning members of the church. This is not how it works. Westfall next mentions Paul's writings about Greco-Roman physical masculine activity. Fighting/boxing, running a race in a stadium, receiving a laurel wreath, and athletic training were exclusively men's terms related to the development of the Greek ideal of the male body. And yet, Paul likens the training, self-control, and self-discipline needed in these physical activities to qualities all Christians need. It's funny because no one would argue that these attributes are something only men ought to have. We believe women need to be self-controlled, trained, and self-disciplined too. Thus, "all readers, male and female, are invited to enter into a masculine mentality when Paul uses athletic competition to illustrate spiritual reality" (Westfall, 185). Westfall next addresses anger in regards to physical violence, which Paul warns about in a number of his letters. While many of the places where Paul warns against anger and wrath are not specifically addressed to men, anger problems in Ephesians are addressed specifically to men. She acknowledges that violence and destructive expressions of anger statistically are a man's thing and need addressing. She does not say that only men can address men's anger problems.
Women Specific Issues
Westfall notes Paul's rather limited discussion about gender issues regarding women's bodies. The two she notes are purity and physical adornment. In the Jewish laws, women were ceremonially unclean for much of their adult life due to spotting, periods, and postpartum bleeding. Everyone and everything she touched became unclean in the Old Testament. And yet, Paul "insisted that Jewish and gentile Christians eat together (Gal. 2:11-14)" (Westfall, 189). So his silence on women's purity rituals, Westfall states, means that Paul most likely considered purity laws like he did circumcision—eliminated from the criteria needed to participate in the priesthood of believers. In regards to physical adornment, "Paul does not criticize women's goal to be attractive," but rather "legitimizes women's desire to adorn themselves and make themselves beautiful" (Westfall, 190) while being guided by "deeper spiritual realities" (Marshall as quoted in Westfall, 190), namely that of inner beauty and doing good. The church's appearance likened to a bride's confirms this. A woman's beauty is good. Her appearance is clean and unblemished like how Christ washes and makes the church holy and blameless (Westfall, 191).
Paul on Sex
Westfall's next body topic is sex. She notes that there was a big difference between what was expected of respectable women versus what was expected of respectable men in the Greco-Roman culture. Women were expected to be chaste while men were not as limited, and arguably, were encouraged to assert themselves. Sex was considered proof of man's superiority in Greco-Roman times. The man penetrated, conquered, and colonized and the woman submitted, surrendered, and received (Westfall, 196). Paul, on the other hand, saw marriage and sex quite differently. She gives Paul's contrasting opinions of sex outside of marriage and sex inside of marriage. Paul believed there was a deep and intimate connection when people had sex (1 Cor. 6:16), and that sex was a way for couples to satisfy each other's needs. Sex between a man and woman Paul calls natural relations in Romans 1:26-27. In 1 Corinthians 7:3-4, Paul talks about how the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And the husband doesn't have authority over his own body but the wife does. I found it interesting that the Greek word for authority here isn't "head" but a different word (Îξοuσιάζει, literally "has authority over"). Westfall points out that Paul doesn't emphasize the man's sex drive or passions as being greater than the woman's, nor does Paul say that men's promiscuity is less wicked than a woman's promiscuity. However, Paul's teachings would seem more prohibitive for the man than the woman since in that culture chastity was already expected of respectable women. Another interesting note: celibacy was a gift of self-control that few possessed: men or women. I find these all very interesting because I think our Christian culture has got it into their heads that men's sexual needs, passions, and lusts are greater or more destructive than women's. This might be true, but Paul doesn't say it. Thank you, Paul! How refreshing! Click the link to view the next chapter summary after March 29
Westfall, Cynthia Long. Paul and Gender: Reclaiming the Apostle's Vision for Men and Women in Christ. Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, Michigan. 2016)
Very interesting! Thanks Abby.