What Headship Is

And he put all things under his feet
and gave him as head over all things to the church...
He is the head of the body, the church.
...the husband is the head of the wife
even as Christ is the head of the church, his body...
(Ephesians 1:22; Colossians 1:18, Ephesians 5:23)
If you want to start an argument quick, bring up the topic of male headship. The idea that a husband has a God-ordained role of leadership—and yes even authority—over his wife is not a welcome concept in many hearts today. Even among Christians who love Jesus and claim to follow his Word the debate continues; rages might be a more accurate term.

Part of the problem is that we Americans have pretty much declared war on any notion of authority. Our national creed is autonomy: live free or die is our slogan. We’re fiercely independent with a proud obsession to let no one tell us what to do. We’ve somehow gotten the hair-brained idea into our heads that if we admit to or submit to authority we have relinquished our self-identity or perhaps have conceded even inferiority or inadequacy. Think about it: can you even remember the last time you heard a fellow American cheerfully speak of obeying or submitting to someone? Not very likely.

Add radical feminism to this independent Americanism and it gets clear why the idea of male headship has suffered what might be called “the death of a thousand qualifications”. It’s been opposed, maligned, qualified, redefined, and muted so often that one wonders if the original meaning ever can be recovered. But we need not fear: the meaning of headship is not hard to recover if we turn to the obvious source for a definition, the Bible. I don’t mean to be glib, but I really do not believe that the biblical notion of male headship is difficult to define or to understand, though it may be difficult to accept and/or apply. We can recover its meaning if we follow just three basic lines of thought.

First, the very word head implies something pretty obvious. When we think of a head, we think of that part of our body which is clearly in the lead, at least when our body is working right! It is the initiator, the decider, the signal caller of the body. Paul chose this metaphor because it communicates obvious hints of leadership and even authority.

I’ll grant you—now that I’m 50—that sometimes the head and body don’t work too well together. Too often, my body lives in open defiance of my brain. There is a definite strain on the brain/body relationship going on in my life at the moment. It’s been nothing short of a growing mutual dislike. But it wasn’t always this way.

I remember the day when arms and legs served as extensions of my mind, and at the end of them a basketball or tennis racket or football all functioned as extensions of my body. Everything moved in synch with my brain. What my head told them to do, they did.

While this is no longer true to the same degree, the fact that it was the norm in my younger and better days is significant for our conversation about husbands and wives. Paul uses the metaphor of a head for the obvious reason that a head leads the body. The body is meant to work with, but also to work under the lead of, the head. Unless you’re going to hunt down some obscure secondary meanings for the word head (as some have tried desperately to do) Paul’s intent seems pretty clear. Husbands are to be to their wives something analogous to what a head is to its body.

Second, in defining the headship of the husband in the home, Paul likens it to the headship of Christ over his church. What Christ is to the Church, the husband is to his wife. Of course this is not an exact parallel. Christ is perfect; no husband is. Christ’s will and love are without defect; no husband can say the same. Christ’s headship is absolute and supreme; any husband that claims such is a megalomaniac. Differences exist, but these differences between a husband and Jesus do not negate likenesses. While the husband’s role is not exactly the same as Christ’s, it is meant to be similar.

There are real parallels between Christ’s headship and the husband’s. There’s an image or reflection of Christ’s headship in the headship of the man. Therefore, we can be sure that if there are authority, leadership, initiative and responsibility aspects in the headship of Christ over His Church, these will be mirrored in a marriage. What Christ is to His Bride, a husband should be to his wife. In other words, headship is defined by the model of the One who is the supreme Head, Jesus Christ.

Third, the word head is used dozens of times in Scripture to describe men as representative leaders in home and community. With all those texts in mind it’s not too hard to come up with some fairly clear thinking about headship. In fact if you want to get hold of a decent concordance, and look up all the times the word head is used for men in relationship to their families or nations, I think you could come up with a definition akin to mine. Your words might be different, but you’ll get the same basic idea:

Headship is the beneficent (good-doing and good-producing) leadership of a husband/father, patterned after the Father’s relationship to the Son and the Son’s relationship to the Church, in which he stands before God as the ordained representative, responsible authority, primary teacher, diligent provider, and mighty defender of his wife and children.

The key ideas are representation: the concept of one person standing in the place of others; authority: the idea of one bearing ultimate responsibility for decisions and directions in life; teaching: a role of instruction in the Word and ways of God; provision: the task of making sure that the needs of a family are met; defense: a calling to be the primary protector of wife and kids.

We’ll explore all these as we go on, but for now, as we begin our journey together, let’s make sure we’re on the same page. The husband is called to be head of his home, and that headship needs to be conceived of in terms at least close to those I’ve suggested. You may phrase it differently, but the substance of the definition stands pretty clear from Scripture. The question now is whether each of us men will stand where the Bible stands on this whole matter: will we lead our wives as Christ does His Church?

Application and Reflection Exercises

1. Review the three arguments used to defend and define headship. Do they stand up under closer review and biblical teaching?
2. Try your hand at defining headship in your own words.
3. Review the definition of headship given in the meditation; what parts of it are clear (or not) to you? What questions or even objections surface when you reflect on male headship as defined here?
4. Write a prayer confessing to the Lord where you are weak in these aspects of headship and expressing thanks to God for his forgiving grace.