persons where it does not carry the sense of being subject to an
authority.
I have been asking a particular question in one form or another
for fifteen years now (since I first asked it in the plenary sessions of
the 1986 meetings of the Evangelical Theological Society in Atlanta,
Georgia), and I have not received an answer yet. The question is
addressed to egalitarians, and the question is this: “Why should we
assign to hypotassøin the New Testament a meaning (‘defer to’ or ‘be
considerate of, be thoughtful of ’) that it is nowhere attested to have,
and that no Greek lexicon has ever assigned to it, and that empties it
of a meaning (one-directional submission to an authority) which it
always has when speaking of relationships between persons?” The
question remains unanswered.^35
(4) The meaning of “one another” (in “be subject to one
another”). The Greek term translated “one another” (all∑lous) can
have two different meanings. Sometimes in the New Testament it
means something like “everyone to everyone,” as in verses like John
13:34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.”
Everyone would agree that this means that all Christians are to love
all other Christians. It has the sense “everyone to everyone.”
But at other times in the New Testament it means “someto oth-
ers.” For example, in Revelation 6:4, the rider on the red horse “was
permitted to take peace from the earth so that men should slay one
another.”This does not mean that each person first got killed and then
got back up and killed the one who had murdered him! It simply
means that some killed others. Here the word all∑lousdoes not mean
“everyone to everyone” but “some to others.” We see a similar exam-
ple in Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’sburdens, and so fulfill the law
of Christ.” Here Paul does not mean that everybody should switch
burdens with everybody else, but only that some who are more able
should bear the burdens of others who are less able to bear their bur-
dens. And in 1 Corinthians 11:33, Paul says, “When you come
together to eat, wait for one another.”This does not mean that those
who come early should wait for those who are late and those who are
late should wait for those who are there early! It only means that
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