47 Mark Keown, Paul’s Vision of a New Masculinity (Eph 5:21–6:9) PAUL’S VISION OF A NEW MASCULINITY (EPH 5:21–6:9) Mark Keown Laidlaw College, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand Ephesians 5:21–6:9 is a key passage in Christian discussions over family relationships, and in particular, the question of whether women must submit to their husbands. 1 In this article I want to consider this Haustafel or house- hold code afresh. I will argue that while Paul’s concern is to give a vision for the whole Christian family, including wives, children, and slaves, the struc- ture and emphasis of the passage indicates that his primary focus is to de- ine what it means to be a paterfamilias (husband, father and master) in the ancient Christian family. When this is understood, the passage is subversive and challenging to patriarchy, traditional understandings of parenthood and slavery, calling the Christian paterfamilias to live in a diferent way. At its heart is Christology, with Jesus’ gentleness and self-giving the primary pattern for what it means to be male (and human) (cf. 5:1–2). his cruciform Christology is seen most clearly in the irst section (Eph 5:23–25). he picture painted by Paul is of a paterfamilias who loves his wife sacriicially, raises their children and serves his slaves. Questions of women in leadership are subordinated to Paul’s radical appeal to men (Eph 5:21). 1 I am writing from the perspective that Ephesians is a letter written by Paul or his amanuensis from Rome to Ephesus and the other Asian churches around 60–61 ce. As Peter T. O’Brien (he Letter to the Ephesians, PNTC [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], 4–58) has persuasively argued, while diferences can be found in theology, language, literary style and the portrait of Paul compared with those of the undisputed Paulines, the “early and consistent attestation” of the letter (Ephesians) to Paul along with the “evidence against pseudonymity in relation to the New Testament letters, the restrictions placed on Paul’s ability and versatility as a writer and theologian, the changed epistolary situation envisaged in Ephesians, and so on” points to Pauline authorship (46). Further, while there are diferences, there are substantial similarities with the Paul of the undisputed letters. I concur with Clinton E. Arnold, who writes that: “It is not unreasonable to think of Paul re-expressing, developing and modifying his own thoughts.” (“Ephesians,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne and Ralph P. Martin [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993], 243). As N. T. Wright (Paul and the Faithfulness of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God 4 [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013], 60) has recently said of Ephesians and Colossians: “It is time, I believe, that we allow at least the possibility that Ephesians and Colossians, rather obviously companion pieces of one another and, in the case of Colossians, possessing an obvious link to Philemon, should be brought back into the fold [of the Pauline Epistles].” he passage is a Haustafel, a “household code” giving instructions to Paul’s Asian recipients concerning how to live in family.