Dr Craig Keener: Paul Taught Mutual Submission

This recording is an academic presentation from the Asia Pentecostal Summit 2025, held in Singapore at City Harvest Church.

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Scholar:
Dr Craig Keener (F.M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies, Asbury Theological Seminary)

Paper Title:
Paul Taught Mutual Submission

Paper Précis:
The longest passage that some to support wives’ submission is Ephesians 5:22-33. But it belongs to a wider passage addressing submission, 5:21—6:9. This passage uses the ancient literary form of household codes. Although Paul contextualizes submission for his audience in the Roman empire, he qualifies the code in a specifically Christian way, explicitly framing the code with the call to mutual submission, both regarding marriage (5:21) and slavery (6:9). His invitation to wifely submission is grammatically inseparable from his invitation for mutual submission. This follows Jesus’s teaching that calls all Jesus’s followers to serve one another. Similarly, when Peter urges submission to every human institution (1 Pet 2:13), he gives examples within his culture of kings, slaveholders, and husbands (2:13—3:6), without expecting all cultures to continue monarchy, slavery, or patriarchal marriage.

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