I have a friend who is on staff at an independent church where the pastor is trying to convince his elders that women in ministry is not prohibited Scripturally. Here is my most recent presentation of the case:
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The woman thing is hard and you can see I've flown around that airport several times, trying to stop a fundamentalizing trend in my own denomination. I guess my big picture argument goes something like this:
1) if we had to guess what God's position on this issue was, what would we guess? If women have the Spirit just like men (Acts 2), if women are sons of God just like men (Gal. 3)--we know we men aren't always more spiritual, wiser, more intelligent or more responsible than them. So if we had nothing else to go by, spiritual common sense would lead us to think, "Yeah, if God calls a woman and she has the goods, why not?" If our plane is about to crash and needs a pilot, and there's a woman who can fly planes and I can't, it would be silly (not to mention stupid) to insist I do it because I have a penis, eh?
2) There's really only one verse in the whole Bible that comes even close to sounding like it's against women taking leadership roles. Women take leadership roles in both the OT, Acts, and Paul's mission. They pray and prophecy in Paul's churches (he assumes this in 1 Cor. 11, which by the way eliminates the 1 Cor. 14 as an argument against spiritual speech by women in church). The headship passages don't work against women in ministry, because if God calls women, then a husband-head would be in defiance of his head if he refused her to fulfill God's call. Most men with wives who minister support their wives' ministry.
That leaves one passage 1 Tim. 2:12-15. This is a passage written to a church having problems with false teaching, and 2 Tim. 3:6 makes it sound like women were involved. I'll come back to this verse but that makes us think of
3) We simply do not have full information on the background to the words of the Bible so that we can know for sure what the precise connotations of all its comments are. Just a little information on so many passages might make us completely rethink many interpretations that seem really obvious on the surface. That's why applying the Bible must be a spiritual task, not a task of the letter. The Pharisees of the gospels and the Judaizers were interpreters of the letter. In contrast, Paul and the NT writers showed great spiritual freedom in their appropriation of the text.
Because we don't have full information, we must always bring the Spirit of Christ with us when we are trying to discern God's will. I've already mentioned what I think it is in #1. I think any person full of the Spirit would be puzzled at the suggestion that God would not use women in leadership simply because they don't have a penis. That sounds more Muslim than Christian, frankly.
So back to #2. 1 Tim. 2:12-15 has some bizarre arguments. First, is it really about husband wife relationships primarily? It could be translated that way, "I don't allow a wife to be an autocrat over her husband"?
Second, does the argument, "God made Adam first" pull on our brains the way it did on people 2000 years ago? Or is it an argument aimed at a particular culture.
Third, Eve was the one deceived, Adam wasn't. So women are more easily deceived than men and shouldn't be allowed to teach men. Again, women were less educated in the first century than men, but clearly this argument doesn't work today. All women aren't more easily deceived than all men. And we're only arguing here that women God calls and gifts should be allowed to obey God. Who has the boldness to tell a woman who believes God has called her to ministry that she's wrong? Boy, better make sure you're not fighting God on the basis of a deception on your own part.
Finally, Eve and the women in her will be saved through childbearing? I thought we were saved through Jesus Christ! Isn't that blasphemy? Oh, he's probably talking about the fulfillment of the curse on Eve, pain in childbearing.
In short, this passage raises far too many questions to serve as the starting point of our understanding of women in Christ. Galatians 3:28 seems a lot more like the central station from which our train drives into the countryside.
I think I know where history is going on this one. Catch the Spirit and join the "winners" on this issue. Fully support women in all roles of ministry!
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5 comments:
did you really write this at 6-ish am??? Sheesh.
I don't have a problem with women in ministry, but I am a little uncomfortable with having a woman as the head pastor of a church. Maybe it's my personal preference, as the one main issue that I had was addressed. Still, if there's no other "pilot" volunteering for the job, I do believe it's acceptable for a woman to step up.
Steph, from my perspective, if people would allow for the possibility--that if a woman is there who clearly has the gifts and graces, and from all appearances sure seems to be called, don't put any obstacles in her way and don't let pre-conceived notions stand in the way--if everyone would allow this much, I think the whole attitude toward the topic would change. No one's asking to force women into ministry or to put into ministry women who aren't called and don't demonstrate any of the gifts and graces. If we would just allow for the possibility, I think we would find we have been losing out.
You already know that I fully agree with your position on women in ministry (and in the church, and I extend it to "in the home" beyond you perhaps) so I’d like to respond to one of your asides in this post... the notion of trying to guess God’s position on a matter.
I know this was merely an aside of yours but I think it is a gem worthy of a whole post sometime by you. I note that you often take this approach… that is, you assume God has a position on matters but a quick proof text often does not give us God’s position automatically. You seem to think that the verses are “indicators” or clues to God’s position and a single verse (or one taken out of first century context) does not automatically give us God’s final answer on a matter. IN this you are like Wesley. And you are also like him when you call for a whole-Bible approach to finding God’s position, and insisting that the answer be consistent with the Character of God. And (also like Wesley) you allow for church tradition, and the continual leading of the Holy Spirit in the church.
It seems to me that all of this can be summed up neatly in the process of “guessing God’s position” on things so I hope you fully develop that some day, especially outlining why God’s position is not absolutely clear on all things and why we say “guess” on this matter.
(I suppose I am sensitized to this issue recently because I’ve been interviewed a dozen times these last two weeks by “Christian radio” and so many there seem to have God’s position clearly worked out on all things with total certainly and an accompanying verse… everything from God’s position on the war in Lebanon to minimum wage increases. )
The true ambiguity of the biblical text is very clear at Bible conferences where everyone is trying to come up with the "right" interpretation and carve out a scholarly identity for themselves in the process. Students in my classes do this all the time because of their own intelligence and creativity, throwing out ingeniously new ways of looking at biblical words that had never even occurred to me. When we are all listening to the same Christian radio broadcasts, it can seem like there really isn't much disagreement. But this is the deception of the common Christian culture Christian media has forged over these last thirty years.
So one of the reasons why I am firmly opposed to an overly "Christianized" government is that we are inadvertently fooling ourselves on no doubt many issues. Better for government to take a neutral stance in which all peaceful stances can coincide. And this I think is also the lesson of history.
Steph said (in another place) Sorry to refer back to the last post, but I was surprised by one of Drury's comments about women in leadership in the home. I'd appreciate hearing (reading) him expound on that.
Drury's response: I think who should lead at home is like asking who should pitch for a baseball team--obviously the one who can pitch the best.
This may be the man or the woman or leadership can be shared in various areas--for instance the person most competant to handle finances should lead here etc. I also believe that these things change over a life's marriage--thus people might even take turns being the "final word" on matters at different stages of life... making a coupls in their 20's having a totally different "chain of command" than that same couple when they are 85...
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