Women's Place in the World, and in the Church

I want to undertake this ambitious subject because of discussions I have been having with a woman who is smart, independent, and sensitive to women's issues. Being a man, I find that I have not been nearly as sensitive as I always thought I was about the way some of our more glib brothers talk about God's intended design. So I intend to conduct the most thorough review of the Scriptures on this subject that I can manage, and I intend to write a series of posts as I go. Please come along and help me.

Let me say at the outset that my beliefs as to what the Bible says about women are probably more liberal than many, but there are some places where I am forced to draw the line as to how women can best fulfill their intended role in Creation, if I am to respect the authority of the Scriptures. I think this is a matter of entropy and not value. By that I mean that men and women are different enough, both by original design and as a consequence of the Fall, that their paths through this life have distinct differences. That said, I assert that every one of us, man or woman, has a unique path to follow through this life, and we are all sinners, all needing to receive the redemptive work of Christ's sacrifice on the cross, all equally valuable members of His body when we do. And so I hold the notion of women's equal value with men as one of the most important revelations that Christianity has given the  world.



In the World, in civil society, I see no reason why women should not do anything men do, and deserve equal honor for it. Nor do I see any work being done by women that I think men should not do.

In sexual relationships, men have been assigned headship from the Fall and this Adamic pattern has been confirmed in the church era. Just what that is will be the subject of some serious discussion, but as my starting point I hold that the example we have of how to exercise this role is that of Christ, the servant king. "He that would be great among you must be a servant." God's authority cannot be pushed upon others, it must be voluntarily received. Couldn't God bring to bear ten thousand brigades of angels to enforce His will on us? Instead, he patiently endures our foolishness, grieving over our sins, until we should turn to him and be healed. Men are commanded to love their wives as Christ loved, and continues to love, the Church.

In the ministry gifts to the Church, I believe there are a couple of limitations. This too I will look at closely, but at this point I believe that women are not called to be pastors or deacons. The ministry of shepherd to a local group (how I would define "pastor") is one that is much more analogous to Christ's ministry to the whole church than any other ministerial gift of the Spirit. Actually, I think this may be a manifestation of headship more than anything else, as the pastor is supposed to be the husband of one wife, they two forming the full original Adamic image of God - and while the head is emblematic, getting the spotlight if you will, I have no doubt as to the work that pastors' wives perform in that ministry.

The role of deacon is not a spiritual gift, but an administrative function, and frankly it is surprising to me that the apostles didn't foist it off on the women at the time. Like who else would you get, from a human standpoint, to wait on tables? So I think the Holy Spirit led them to make this an opportunity for men to serve, and particularly to serve women, the widows who were receiving food and other support daily in the early church. Sadly, the office has evolved all too often into a more worldly resource management job. We are truly contradictory creatures, even knowing the Lord, fountains that sometimes give forth salty water and sometimes sweet.

Then there is the ministry of teacher, which ministry I believe I have been called to engage in.  This is distinct from that of pastor, who should be "apt to teach", and there is only one limiting verse in the New Testament that seems to restrict this ministry to men. In First Timothy 2:11-15, Paul allegedly advises Timothy to have women learn in silence and all subjection and not allow them to teach. He then goes on to justify this from Genesis with a two-pronged argument: Adam was made first, then Eve; and Eve was deceived into sin, not Adam. In over forty years of following Jesus and studying the Scriptures, I have never been able to reconcile this oppressive and whiny passage with the other things Paul himself writes, nor with the rest of the Scriptures. Furthermore, I have never seen it operate in the most Spirit-filled or lovingly faithful local churches I have visited or become a part of.

This next is a dangerous place to go, but I'm going there anyway: there is serious scholarship showing that passage was not part of the original letter. Most of the errors we know about commonly in the King James translation are pretty insignificant. This one, though, is such a significant statement of policy that I have always tried to understand it and work it into my life. It has never worked, and I am officially hereby giving it up. I worry about a thing like this, that it is a slippery slope to begin picking out what you don't like and throwing it away (the very definition of heresy); but I have to admit here and now that I have never been able to reconcile this passage with the rest, nor with my personal sense of the kind of guy Jesus is. So I am on record as saying that it is not displeasing to God for women to pray or prohesy aloud, nor to teach, in a church meeting or in day-to-day Christian life. Show me where I'm wrong.