Jesus demolishes complementarian "servant leader" model
Matthew 23:8
“But don’t you be called leader for one is your master the Christ and all of you are brethren”
Comments: Matthew 23:8 In this passage, Jesus refutes the complementarian claim that men are always leaders of women and that women must always follow men. For Believers, only one is our leader, and that is Jesus, the Captain of our faith. We are all one in Christ Jesus—sisters and brothers in the Lord.
The word rabbi, used in this verse, means master, guide, leader. The compound word translated as master, is the Greek word kathē-gētēs, which is also used in this verse. Kathē-gētēs is only used 3 times in two verses in the entire New Testament (Matthew 23:8 and 23:10).
By using the word kathē-gētēs, Jesus portrayed the leading as a downward flow from heaven to only one human leader—the Son of Mortals, himself.
In ascribing the word kathē-gētēs to himself alone, Jesus raised women from historically degraded roles as “followers,” a role which has been wrongly imposed upon them for millennia. With this one declaration, Jesus raised women to their equal and autonomous status with men—a status which, from their creation, God had never taken from them Genesis 1:26, 5:1-2.
By declaring himself as the only leader and calling all Christians adelphos, “brethren” [which in this case is gender-neutral, including both women and men], Jesus removed any foundation complementarians may claim for male governance within HIS EK-KLESIA, the Body of Christ
This accords perfectly with *1 Peter 5:5, a verse which is present in the Koine Greek texts the New Testament was originally written in but was later eliminated from the classical Greek texts believed to have originated with Origen of Alexandria, in Egypt.
Alexandria, Egypt was a Greek rather than Egyptian culture.
Classical Greek was the written language of the highly educated few, while koine Greek was the written language of the masses. It is readily acknowledged that the Greek New Testament was originally written in koine Greek, the everyday language of the people. Despite this consensus, since the late 1800’s, classical Greek texts underlie the New Testament portion of most English Bible translations and are curiously given precedence over the koine. This is unfortunate, as the text of 1 Peter 5:5 is in perfect agreement with Jesus (Matthew 23:8) in eliminating gender-biased “leader-follower” caste-determined roles.
In Matthew 23:8, Jesus leveled the ground between his daughters and sons by declaring only one leader for all his followers. Peter had no problem with this and commanded all Christians, regardless of sex, to *be subject one to another.” These are but two examples of gender equality and autonomy found in the New Testament, with 1 Peter 5:5 being a prime example of why this writer coined the term, ** “Received Text Friend of Women.” The Received Text was edited from the Koine Greek, with over 5000 extant texts in agreement, and does not contain the bias against women demonstrated by most translators of it.
* 1 Peter 5:5 is found in over 5000 extant texts written in Koine Greek. Many scholars now disagree with subjective footnotes that say the verse is absent from the “oldest and best” manuscripts. These misleading and biased footnotes are found in many modern Bible translations and refer to only two manuscripts that are ancient but well preserved due primarily to the materials they were written on.
* When all New Testament uses of the Greek word “hypotasso” [translated as “submit”] are taken as a whole and within context, it cannot be claimed that the word is used in a military-like hierarchical way or that the word always means arrayed “under.” Indeed, there is at least one biblical example where the word is translated as “over” and not under. In the Greek texts of the New Testament, when referencing human relationships within Christianity, the word is consistently written the middle voice and connotes a yielding as in "preferring one another before ourselves”—the golden rule for both sexes.
**Though the Received Text, also known as the Textus Receptus TR, is consistently “woman friendly,” the English translation of it is not always. A few more terms coined by this writer are “English-Translation-Theology” and “Gender-Biased-English-Translation-Theology.”
Jesus is also a friend of women. He said “But don’t you be called teachers/leaders for one is your leader even Christ and all of you are brethren”
Jocelyn Andersen writes and speaks about a variety of topics with an emphasis on the subjects of Christian response to domestic violence and God and Women. She is working on her first novel and is the author of several non-fiction books including, "Woman Submit! Christians & Domestic Violence" and "Woman this is WAR! Gender, Slavery, and the Evangelical Caste System." Her work has been featured in magazines, newspapers, radio, and television. She is open to requests for writing assignments, anthology contributions, and conference speaker.
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