Kephale is the Greek word for head, and in Ephesians 5:23 it has been used to build an entire theology of male authority over women. Sha'ul writes: "The husband is the kephale of the wife, as Messiah is the kephale of the assembly." In English, "head" means boss, leader, the one in charge, the top of the chain of command. English readers see "the husband is the head" and hear "the husband is the authority." That is what the word means in English. It is not necessarily what it means in Greek.

The Greek word for authority, ruler, or commander is archon. Sha'ul did not use it. He used kephale, which in Greek literature could also mean source, origin, or starting point, the way English says "the head of a river" to mean where the water comes from, not who is in charge of it. Scholars have debated this for decades. Wayne Grudem argues kephale means authority. Gordon Fee, Philip Payne, and Catherine Clark Kroeger argue it means source. The debate is real and not settled. But what is not debatable is what Sha'ul does with the word in the very next verse.

"Messiah loved the assembly and gave Himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25). That is the definition. Whatever kephale means, Sha'ul defines it immediately: the head is the one who dies first. The head is the one who goes first into sacrifice, not the one who sits at the top of a chain of command. The KJV, ESV, NASB, and NIV all translate kephale as "head" and let the English connotation of authority fill in the blank. None of them footnote the source/origin possibility. None of them note that Sha'ul's own definition in the next sentence is sacrificial, not hierarchical. The model of headship Sha'ul presents is a man laying down his life. That is the opposite of what mashal describes in Genesis 3:16.