I am trying to be as careful as the situation warrants in discussing this issue and responding properly to the posts and words of others that I discuss, but the issue is exceedingly complex, and I am, as I said, a bit discombobulated, and sometimes distracted, and not always as sharp as I would like to be. So I beg your grace and mercy as I proceed, and appreciate being alerted to error I make, and hopefully will not muddy things further by having to make too many corrections!
That said, I was too hasty in my summary on my last post of Dr. John Mark Reynold's brief essay; I conflated it with the opening statement of the post in which it was contained: "Why do some people say that there is no evidence kephale can mean 'source' or ‘origin?'" I put a note of correction in my post.
At the end of my post, I derived authority from headship as defined by Paul in terms of Christ's relationship to the church, and to God. I want to say that I also think it's possible that "source" also enters in, in that the source of woman is man; she was created from him. So it is possible that there is authority in this in the sense that it is authoritative that woman was created from man in order to be a suitable helper to man, and, as it is incumbent upon him (authoritative from Christ) to give himself for woman, so it is authoritative that she be his suitable helper. His authority over her is as being the one whom she must suitably help. She does not have authority over him in this regard.
This can't be merely related to marriage, although the first man and woman were married. But of course men and women interact in many ways other than marriage, and if woman was made from man, then the dynamic of being created from man as a helper to man applies to all man-woman relationships. This does not mean, however, that all men have all authority over all women in all ways.
I also didn't mean to imply, in the closing statements of my last post, that a wife only submits to being a suitable helper to her husband if and when he is being properly sacrificing and giving to her. If he is not, she still must be a suitable helper to him in whatever way that might be. See I Peter 3:1, where a wife's quiet behavior suitably helps the husband who is disobedient to the Word, that he may be won to the Word.
I will stop there, as I haven't the resources at the moment to continue. But stay tuned; I will develop this further.
