While web-surfing recently I came upon Family Reformation, the website of Family Reformation Ministries run by James and Stacy McDonald. Stacy is co-author of Passionate Housewives, Desperate for God. The ministry's directives as listed on the homepage are:
* A husband must love his wife as Christ loves the church
* A wife is to submit to her husband as the Church is to Christ
* Children are commanded to honor their parents - obeying them in the Lord
* Men are to take dominion of the world for the glory of God
* The Church is to make disciples of all nations
* We are to remember that our strength comes only from the Lord
* The foundational covenantal unit, by God's design, is the family
My topic for this post is the fourth statement. Mr. McDonald responded promptly and graciously to my email requesting explanation, saying,
In a nutshell, the charge from the Lord to "take dominion" is in the Creation account in Genesis and then repeated to Noah after the Flood. In Matthew, the Lord then gave the Great Commission. This is our call, to see the nations converted.
The first reference I believe is to Gen. 1:26-28, which reads, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them; and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." (NASB). The KJV renders "rule over" as "have dominion over."
In Genesis 9:1, God blesses Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the terror of you shall be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given."
After both of these passages, God tells man what He gives him as food - in Gen. 1 it is plants; in Gen. 9, "every moving thing that is alive." Note the fear and terror that every creature will have toward mankind, and that they are given into his hand, even for food -- this is man's dominion over creatures.
The Great Commission in Matthew reads (28:18ff): "And Jesus came up and spoke to [the disciples], saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
Rule over all creatures is quite different from a call to see the nations converted. I am not sure how McDonald gets from the former to the latter. The Great Commission is in no way equivalent to taking dominion, nor is our charge to see the nations converted, but to make disciples of them and teach them to observe all He has commanded. (Which we can't do unless we are disciples observing His commandments ourselves.)
We are to have dominion over all of the non-human creatures of the earth, but not over one another. Making disciples and teaching do not include taking dominion over those we disciple or teach, or help convert, nor does it mean that we do so by converting them. Rather, we bring them into our ranks. The New Commandment (John 15:12, 13:34) decrees that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. We love by serving one another in His name -- we do this because He has been given all authority in heaven and on earth.
I am wondering, is this "dominion" theology related to the complementarian teaching which holds that husbands are to rule over their wives?
