Winger Video 3 -- Women in the OT

I've blogged and done videos on Winger's first two videos on women in ministry and the home. Here is the paper trail:

1. His introductory video: my blog post.and video response
2.1 His material on Genesis 1: my blog post and video response
2.2 His material on Genesis 2-3: my blog post on Gen 2 and video response to both Genesis 2-3 

I see I didn't blog post on Genesis 3 but it is covered in the video.

And now, his third (almost two hour) video on women in the Old Testament. I think I'm somewhere over 4 hours in. 8+ hours to go.
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1. I was a little disappointed with this video. On Genesis 1 and 3, I thought he was mostly right. On Genesis 2, I thought he had things out of focus, although his exegesis wasn't bad. But in this video, I think his biases did a lot of the steering of the ship.

We get a little of his personal journey in the video. He says in effect that he wanted to be an egalitarian but the exegesis (primarily of the female scholars) he investigated was so bad that it turned him off. He seems especially to have it in for Aimee Byrd. 

Miriam
2. When I think of Miriam, I think #3 leader in Israel at the least, maybe even co-#2 with Aaron. Clearly Moses is number 1. We might call Aaron #2 because he plays the role of priest (he is never called high priest in the Old Testament). But Miriam is clearly a leader of Israel too. It seems a natural reading of the text to see her as a higher authority than any other male in Israel except for these two.

Winger spends a little time in Micah 6:4. He spends most of his time targeting egalitarian overreach. It's just a distraction. She is a leader of all the other men in Israel. Full stop.

"I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam." There you have it. Miriam was a leader of Israel as part of God's plan. She's at least #3, out "before" Israel. She is thus a leader of Israel. God puts her in a higher place of authority than all the other men of Israel.

Margaret Mowczko rightly points out that in Exodus 15:21, Miriam sings to "them" -- masculine plural. That is, she is singing to all of Israel, including the men. The previous verse calls her a prophetess. That is, she is prophecying to all of Israel in this song. God is thus speaking Scripture into existence through her. God is using her to breathe Exodus 15. None of this seems particularly controversial to me. 

3. Again, Winger spends a lot of time making fun of interpreters (Aimee Byrd again) saying that Israel waited on Miriam after her rebellion in Numbers 12. He rightly points out that it was God who decided when Israel moved forward in the wilderness. He is arguing against interpreters who say that Israel didn't wait on Miriam during her uncleanness because they saw her as their leader. 

While I was listening to all this, I was thinking to myself. So... you're saying that God did not want Israel to move forward until Miriam could rejoin them? How does that make her less significant than if it was merely Israel waiting on her. 

I chuckled to myself like he chuckles at Aimee Byrd. So it was God that wanted Miriam back in place before they proceeded. OK. :-)

Huldah
3. With Huldah, he chuckles at Aimee Byrd again. You know, when I go read the passages he mentions in her book, she doesn't sound nearly as laughable as he treats her repeatedly. I have to wonder if something is going on with him here. Maybe he needs a little therapy.

For example, she writes, "Here we have a prophetess who is described as 'arguably the first person to grant authoritative status to the Torah scroll deposited in the temple treasury.'" Byrd is actually quoting someone else, but he laughs at her. It's not even an outrageous statement. Let's dig in.

They are refurbishing the temple. The high priest "finds" the Book of the Law. Most scholars think it was some form of Deuteronomy. Winger and Byrd both think it's the whole Pentateuch. 

But let the situation sink in. The high priest hasn't apparently known where the Law was. From Josiah's reaction upon hearing it, he has never heard it before. Josiah instructs the high priest to inquire of Yahweh.

Again, let that sink in. Judah has not been using the Law apparently for a long time. In fact, think of the prophets Elijah and Elisha. Deuteronomy says they should not be offering sacrifices in the north (Deut. 12:14-15). They're only supposed to sacrifice in Jerusalem. Think of Samuel who offered sacrifices all over the place and not just in the tabernacle. It's like none of these prophets have read Deuteronomy. 

According to 2 Chronicles 34, the Passover that followed this event surpassed all the Passovers since Samuel. That fact lends some support to the idea that the Book of the Law largely had not been accessed since then. I'm sure there were traditions in Deuteronomy that they kept, but it was largely lost, it seems.

4. So, Josiah instructs Hilkiah the high priest to go and inquire of Yahweh in relation to the book. Many do in fact believe that Josiah is looking for verification that the book is legit. He thinks it is, but he wants to be sure. And he wants to know what the LORD's instructions are given how long Judah has been oblivious to the book.

Here is where I question both Winger and Byrd. The text does not say that Josiah sent the high priest specifically to Huldah. Josiah simply tells the high priest to inquire of the LORD. It is the high priest that seeks out Huldah.

Apparently, the high priest does not have a close enough connection with the LORD to seek him himself -- even though he presumably enters the Most Holy Place once a year. The high priest seeks out a higher spiritual authority than him. Huldah.

By the way, she's married. Having a husband presents no problem whatsoever for her to prophecy to the king and the high priest. She is clearly a higher spiritual authority than the king or the high priest. And being married makes no difference to her exercise of spiritual authority.

Does she verify that the Book of the Law is legit? I have always seen it that way. I say that she recognized its authoritative status rather than "granted" it. At the very least, she instructs the king and high priest what to do with it. And that is pretty significant.

Why did the high priest not go to Jeremiah or Zephaniah instead? They are around at the time. We don't know. Winger says she was in town and her husband worked in the palace. OK. It doesn't diminish the fact that the high priest and king submitted to her words, spoken from the LORD through her.

See more on priests below. Huldah is the highest spiritual authority in Israel in this moment.

Deborah
5. Deborah is the highest political leader within Israel in Judges 4. She is judging Israel (4:4). She is actually the only judge in Israel who does what the judges of Exodus 18:21-22 and 25-26 do. All the rest of them are merely military leaders that God raises up to fight back Israel's conquerers. She actually makes judge type decisions for the people. She is also the only judge about whom nothing negative is said. All the others in Judges are at least partial failures while she is a model judge.

Winger does a little flatlanding in this section. That is to say, he assumes that the ideal structure of Deuteronomy is in place with high priests doing what they're supposed to do and so forth.

However, Judges is the wild wild west. It has a much rawer, early feel than say Joshua. Joshua reads like a tidy position paper. If we read Judges inductively, it doesn't look like the ideal of Joshua is in place at all. This is why many scholars would argue that Joshua dates to a later time than the traditions of Judges. Joshua is telling us how it should have been. Judges is telling us how it really was.

So when Winger tries to say that she's a judge but not a teacher of Israel because that's what the priests and Levites do, he's imposing Deuteronomy on Judges. The Levite in Judges is no moral example or instructor in the Law (Judges 19). In fact, we get the impression from Judges that priests at this time are pretty much around to make sacrifices to deities, not because there is any true spiritual depth or understanding. 

Judges 17-18 give us a good glimpse of the wild west dimension of Israel at this time. You've got a guy named Micah in Ephraim. Decides he wants to make a shrine. Melts some gold, makes an idol. 

Now he needs a priest, a "Levite." He finds a man "from the family of Judah" who is a Levite (Judg. 17:7). It's as if they don't know that Levites are descendants of Levi. Micah hires the guy to be priest in his shrine. 

Meanwhile, despite the fact that Joshua tells us the tribe of Dan already has its allotment of land, the Danites of Judges 18:1 are still looking. They hire this Levite to come be their priest in the north. His descendants are priests in Dan until the time of the Assyrians, maybe even the Babylonians -- that is, through the whole period of the kings.

This entire story is crazy in the light of the Pentateuch as we have it. My point is that Winger is flatlanding it when he assumes that the priests are teaching the people the Law so that couldn't have been a function Deborah did. The priests seem to know almost nothing of the Law as we know it.

So let me state what has always seemed obvious to me. Deborah is not only the highest political authority in the land at this time -- the judge of Israel for forty years (Judg. 5:31). She is a prophetess and, as far as we can tell, the key spokesman for Yahweh in Israel as well. And she is married. Barak is the fighter, but he implores her to go along with him too so that they will win (4:8), and she give instructions to him from Yahweh (4:6).

Miriam, Huldah, and Deborah were exceptional for Old Testament times, but they show that women in leadership and ministry was possible even under the old covenant. There was no prohibition against it. And if there was no absolute prohibition on it, then how much more in the age of the Spirit should we expect women in ministry and leadership to be perfectly normal.

Priests
6. Let me get to the punchline first. There are no men or women today who are correlates to the Old Testament priests. Jesus is the only high priest. Hebrews is clear. None of the Old Testament sacrifices could actually take away sins (Heb. 10:4). Only the sacrifice of Christ did (10:14). Only Jesus is this type of effectual priest (7:23-25).

In a sense, there is a priesthood of all believers, which includes women (1 Pet. 2:9). We all have access to God through Christ, and the temple veil is torn in two (Mark 15:38). And there is Christ, the only high priest in the true, heavenly tabernacle (Heb. 8:1-2). 

Bottom line. The fact that the priests of the old covenant were all male has nothing to do with whether women can be ministers today. We can ask why they were only men in the old covenant. The Bible gives us no answer. It certainly fit the culture of the day.

Why did Jesus come as a man? I can find no theological reason why he couldn't have come as a woman. But he had to pick one, and in the world to which he came, being a man was most beneficial.

7. Let me make a bold observation. The priests of the Old Testament are not known for their godliness. They are not known for their spiritual insight. Yes, in Deuteronomy they are supposed to teach the Law (Deut. 33:10). But we almost never hear of them actually doing it (cf. 2 Chron. 15:3). Deuteronomy is a kind of position paper that apparently was rarely carried out. Malachi, at the end of the Old Testament, is still indicting priests for failing in this regard (Mal. 2:7).

We can look from the Levite who becomes the priest of Dan in Judges 18 to Eli and his sons in 1 Samuel to the fact that Hilkaiah himself can't say what to do with the Law. To all the prophetic words against all the vain sacrifices that Israel offers (Isa. 1:11; Mic. 6:6-7). To the words that Jeremiah speaks to those who put their faith in the temple (Jer. 7:4). He mentions that God allowed Shiloh to be destroyed in the north (7:12).

Bottom line: The priests in the Old Testament by and large are not in any way models of godliness or true spiritual insight. The prophets are those who are models of godliness in the Old Testment. They are the closest correlates to ministers today, and women are obviously among them. The priests of the old covenant offer sacrifices, and that's about it.

Kings
Women were not kings in Old Testament times. That's just the way it was. Winger is correct that the two examples of royal women are ungodly, but all the kings of the north were ungodly and the vast majority of kings in the south were too. I find no data here of relevance to the contemporary debate.

Mike Winger video 1: Listen to the Bible with an Open Mind

I've had Mike Winger's name mentioned to me often enough as a kind of trump card that I've decided to submit myself to his 13 hour extraganza on the topic of women in ministry. 

These are my notes. In more than one place I have heard, "Say what you want, but Mike Winger." 

So bring it.

I listened to Hour #1, the Prologue. He has 7 pre-points and 3 more pre-points. Here's what I heard:

1. Don't make your decision on the basis of experience, make it on the Bible.

2. No, not everyone who is in favor of women in ministry has been duped by feminism.

3. We good complementarians aren't arguing for the bad old patriarchy either.

4. Equal valuing of women doesn't rule out God-designed role differences.

5. Complementarianism doesn't necessarily lead to women abuse (even if some complementarians are abusers). 

6. A person's individual story doesn't trump the Bible.

7. Don't just use one verse to trump the rest of the Bible.

Then three things he says he won't do in the videos:

1. He will not submit the Bible to cultural pressures.

2. He won't play games with "polemics" or moral pressure.

3. He doesn't need to defend God or be his PR agent.

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OK. Bring on the Bible. Let's go. 

Here are some thoughts on the subtext of video #1 -- what's going on below the surface. 

1. He seems sincere. He says he really wanted to switch to being an egalitarian, but the Bible just didn't turn out that way. He says he's done lots of research. He doesn't yell at his wife even though he's a complementarian. Great. 

He portrays himself as a truth-seeker. Just the facts of the Bible, ma'am. You can see where the style would be very appealing to the Jordan Peterson type. This is the "T" personality that thinks it's logical while everyone else lets their feelings get in the way. None of this emotional crap. I'm going to tell it like it is. Nothing but the real Bible here. 

Before we've really heard a word of the Bible, he's beaming out, "You wouldn't need to watch any more videos to know that complementarianism is right. I've done the homework. You're good to go on being the head of your home, guys. Just reference the 13 hours. Nobody's going to actually watch all that."

2. But he is giving off a clear vibe -- in fact, it's more than a vibe. His subtext is that egalitarians aren't true to the Bible. He's beaming that egalitarians aren't good thinkers -- women egalitarians especially.

3. He does a hit and run on several books. Some will no doubt think -- I don't have to worry about anything those books have to say. Winger quoted a paragraph from them and, BAM, that means the rest of the book is crap. 

I want to focus on two in particular. One is Philip Payne's 512 page book, Man and Woman in Christ. Winger complains that it's a long book. I sure hope Winger engages this book in the later videos because otherwise he's dismissing this guy's work by quoting less than a paragraph of it. (Payne has a PhD from Cambridge and was a missionary to Japan)

Again, many will subconsciously think, "That whole book is wrong because Winger read a paragraph from it and trashed it."

What I found most objectionable was the way he scoffed at Beth Allison Barr's book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood. I'm sure some men watching enjoyed that. Stupid woman, chuckle, chuckle. Touchy feely. I seriously wonder if he read beyond the first chapter. We'll see. Now I feel like I need to blog through her book to make it clear how smart she is after his, chuckle, chuckle, stupid woman.

His hit job here quotes a passage where a student in one of her classes at Baylor -- yes, she has a PhD in history -- would not shut up and stop being rude to her because she was a woman professor. The student should have been kicked out of her class. 

Here's a logical fallacy. Just because a book has some experiential elements or personal stories doesn't automatically mean that its argument isn't biblically based. Let's see if he engages it again when he gets to the actual Bible because she discusses the Bible throughout the book. Otherwise, he may have revealed his true heart.

For many men, this is pretty much an academic issue. It's not personal, says the hit man about to kill someone. But women who hear God calling them face this stuff all the time. It is personal for them. And it's serious. The issue costs most men nothing. 

But if he's putting a stumblingblock in front of women God has called, that's serious. If he's putting roadblocks in front of the Holy Spirit, that's VERY serious. Why not take a Gamaliel approach -- if they're not called by God, God will stop them?

On to the Bible...

Why I Am an Egalitarian

My posts on Mark Driscoll have created some side conversations on the egalitarian/complementarian issue. An egalitarian is someone who believes that women can play any role in the church or home that men do. A complementarian believes that there are certain God-ordained roles for men and women in either the home or the church.

My denomination affirms that God calls women to all roles of ministry, including the highest leadership, and is most naturally an egalitarian denomination. Nevertheless, there are some in my church who combine a sense of complementarianism in the home with a belief that woman can be ministers. In 1 Corinthians 11, for example, the wife in part wears a veil so that she can prophesy to other men while not shaming her husband-head.

So we are a denomination that affirms women in ministry but allows for its members to be complementarians. In this post, I want to share why I believe God is an egalitarian.

1. It fits the Spirit of Scripture.
If you look at the way Jesus and Paul applied Scripture, they were not fundamentalists in the slightest. For example, if you look at how Jesus "fulfilled the Law," he shook some things up. The Law says, "eye for an eye" and he says don't do that part (Matt. 5:38-42). The Law fully allows for divorce but he says that wasn't ever God's best intention for marriage (Matt. 5:31-32). He makes exceptions to pretty significant rules, like not eating temple bread (Mark 2:25-26).  And the Parable of the Good Samaritan builds off of two individuals whose OT job is to keep purity rules--and who won't make an exception to save a life.

Paul is the same. Whether he keeps much of the OT Law depends on who he is ministering to (1 Cor. 9:19-23). "The letter kills, the Spirit gives life" (2 Cor. 3:6).

American fundamentalism, however, is a culture of the letter and stands on the side of the biblical Pharisee and the Judaizer.  What are the signs of a letteral religion? There are three hermeneutical tasks in applying the Bible: 1) interpreting the meanings of the words, 2) fitting the various passages with each other, and 2) applying the words to today. Fundamentalism fails at all three: 1) it limits meaning to the letter (and then often fails), 2) it reads individual passages without processing them in light of the whole, 3) it applies individual passages directly to today without a sense of what they meant in their own time.

By contrast, the spiritual use of Scripture 1) can hear the Spirit dance with individual texts, 2) sees the big picture of Scripture and locates individual Scriptures in that light, and 3) is mindful that not all texts are for all times and situations.

That's all groundwork. On this issue, the fundamentalist runs aground on certain individual verses, like the household codes of Colossians or 1 Peter. It does not think about how these passages fit in a patriarchal world or how they would have given a good witness at that time. There is nothing uniquely Christian about telling a wife to submit to her husband in that world--back then it said that Christians were orderly, good people.

Is subordination a good witness today? Not in the slightest because in our time, everyone knows that women are not less intelligent than men. A woman can be as good a leader as a man. A woman can know how to fix a car better than a man. A woman can be stronger than a man.

In our world, to say a woman can only do certain things comes across as irrational. The complementarian can only say, "That's just the way God wants it." There's no sense to be made of it. In our world, it restricts in a way it did not in the biblical world.  Indeed, it tells God, "Sorry, God, you can't call a woman to do this." Or worse yet, "Wife, you know your husband is an idiot on this decision, but it's God's will that you let him lose all the family's money because he's the head of the home."

Several of my other points are peeking out but I wanted to address the Scripture one first because it is really the only argument for complementarianism.  The complementarian has to argue that this is just God's will, even though it doesn't make any sense whatsoever in our world. It reflects a defective use of Scripture, even if one all too common in our world. It reflects a letteral use of Scripture, rather than the spiritual one that Jesus and Paul used.

2. Subordination is a Fall thing.
For a minute, let's play the fundamentalist game.  If we are to play the rabbinic game, Genesis 3 clearly places the subordination of the wife as a consequence of Eve's sin.  "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you" (Gen. 3:16). She is created as a helper earlier (Gen. 2:18). Important to recognize that this same word is used of God as our helper (e.g., Ps. 33:20), so the word in itself does not imply subordination.  The Genesis text points to Eve's sin as the cause of subordination, not the created order of things. Indeed, in Genesis 1:27, both men and women are commanded to rule the earth.

Since Jesus undid the curse of the Fall, we are on flimsy ground to insist Christian women fall into place with subordination on these grounds. Indeed, this is one of the very strange aspects of 1 Timothy 2:14-15, which seems to use Eve's sin as an argument for the wife's continued subordination to her husband.

The tension between "Christ's death atones for all sins, including the sins of Eve" and "Eve's sin has put wives in a state of transgression from which childbearing saves them" is so striking that it is the height of foolishness to think that 1 Timothy 2 gives us anything like the ground zero of a theology of wives and women.  Any real sense of what 1 Timothy 2 seems to be saying makes it fantastically bizarre that anyone would think these are the "clear" verses on this topic!!!

No, we believe, along with the fully developed theology of Hebrews, that Christ has atoned for ALL sins, including the sins of Eve. To unnecessarily perpetuate the curse of Eve in a time when it is actually a good witness to empower wives and women fully--as they will be in the kingdom of God--is perversity.  It is to say that we know what God's ultimate will is but we choose to hold off on it just because... well, I'm not sure why we are holding off on it.

3. Subordination and patriarchal culture.
Again, most people don't have much experience with other cultures and think that the meaning of certain structures or actions are self-evident. But the meaning of husband-headship in ancient Corinth is completely different from husband-headship in modern America.  In Paul's world, his empowerment of women must have been striking, to have a Priscilla as a coworker or a Phoebe as a deacon. There was nothing uniquely Christian about saying the husband is the head of the wife--Aristotle says the same basic thing in his Politics.

What was distinctly Christian about Paul's writings was thus when he said things like, "In Christ there is not male and female."  Notice the odd wording.  After two "neither-nors" in Greek, he switches to "not male and female."  Could he be alluding to the wording of Genesis 1:27 and saying that Christ in some way undoes the distinction between the genders?

In our world, husband-headship actually works against the trajectory of the gospel.  It requires us to disempower rather than empower women. And it is a hindrance to the gospel rather than an asset.

4. It is a common sense thing.
I believe Christians, including myself, often make God look bad, and this issue is a potential biggie for it. Why would we insist that a particular person take the lead on the basis of their genitalia rather than on the basis of... whether they are the best leader in a particular instance? The male organ, after all, is not particularly known either for its godliness or sound wisdom.

"Someone needs to make the final decision." That's such a flimsy cop-out it's embarrassing. If you have to designate one person as the leader, why not pick the one who is... the more gifted leader?  Duh.

In a proper relationship, husband and wife would submit to each other (Eph. 5:21). Each would be willing to sacrifice for the other. They would want to surrender individual happiness in preference to the other. Each would give and take and recognize that in some instances the wife has a better sense of what to do and in others the husband does.

In a proper relationship, each would yield to the other egolessly when it is clear that one or the other has the best insight, regardless of gender. When conflict ensues, you negotiate the way any two people negotiate when they disagree. If the two can't work out disagreement, that indicates a much deeper marital problem than gender.

This is the way my parents operated before the "husband is the head" movement arose in the seventies and eighties. On any given choice, my Dad would generally sacrifice his own desires in preference to mother's preferences. She is not a strong personality that pushed him to do so in any way. Anyone who knows my mother knows that's the wrong interpretation. He did it completely from his own love of her.

And she felt fully free to share her opinion of what they should do. There was never a sense that her opinion was inferior to his in any way. I never remembering hearing this: "Dad is the head of this house." That rhetoric didn't become popular until I was out of the home and it became part of current American Christian culture in reaction (intimidation?) to the empowerment of women in American society.

Some in my circles like to distinguish the secular feminist movement of the 50s from the feminism of my Wesleyan roots in the 1800s and no doubt there are distinctions.  But there is usually an undertone, as if the "feminism" of the 50s was obviously evil. I challenge you to show what was any worse about women sticking up for their rights than blacks standing up for their rights in that same period. This continued blight on the drive for women to have equal rights is as myopic as those in my circles who criticized those black "law breakers" who refused to use the right water fountain.

A show like Mad Men reminds us that such individuals are on the wrong side of history. We have forgotten how sexist American society actually was back then. We have selective memory. The "husband headship" movement today has made all the concessions it must, given how common sense has changed, but it holds the same historically wrong position as its forebears.

I've used this example before.  If I'm on a plane that's about to crash and we need a pilot, I don't want them to pick me because I have male genitalia.  I want them to pick the best pilot. And if there's a woman on the plane who knows how to fly a plane, I want her flying the plane.

Anything else doesn't make any sense to me at all!

Christians, Women, and Leadership

I think I make a post like this one at least once a year.  Here's a summary of my argument for total egalitarianism.

1. If we were starting from scratch, what would we think given only a few starting points like

• God does not show favoritism.
• God is love.
• God wants the world to be reconciled to him.  

Let's also throw in some obvious truths about men and women from experience and reason as well:

• Gender is not a predictor of spirituality, insight, or leadership capacity.
• Some women are more spiritual, have more insight, and have greater leadership gifts than some men.  In other words, general trends in terms of gender are irrelevant when it comes to individual persons and situations.  Even if you could show certain trends relating to gender in terms of spirituality, insight, and leadership capacity, such a finding is irrelevant to the question of whether an individual woman or man is more spiritual, has more insight, or is more gifted as a leader either in general or in terms of a specific.
• In cultures where "the gig is up" on the idea that men are always smarter than women, that women can never lead as well as men, to take a position that assigns leadership roles purely on the basis of gender likely creates an obstacle to the gospel.  If we take this position, we had better have a good reason. 

So the stakes are high before I even come to the gospel.  Male genitalia are not particularly known either for their spirituality, insight, or leadership capacity.  Quite the contrary.  And since "God is no respecter of persons," a person who starts without any bias would come to the Bible expecting it to affirm a fully egalitarian position.

2. Everyone finds some things strange in the Bible.  Christians have always found some verses in the Bible that are "unclear."  So you're telling me Jacob put striped branches in front of sheep and goats when they were mating so that they would have striped and speckled offspring?  Whaaaat?  So you're telling me a woman should veil her head when she is praying or prophesying because of the angels?  Whaaaaat?

If a person really understands #1 above, passages like 1 Timothy 2:12-15 should have the same effect.  So you're telling me that women have come to be in transgression because of the sin of Eve but they will be saved through childbearing?  Whaaat?  I thought we were saved through the blood of Jesus Christ!

When there are examples of women ministering in Acts and Paul (you know the drill--Priscilla, Phoebe, Junias...) and Paul lays down the principle that men and women are equally sons of God, when Acts 2:17 puts the prophesying of women as a sign of the age of the Spirit, verses are at hand for us to find "clear" on the principles.  We know the original context impacts how we apply some verses.  When #1 is so overwhelming, what perversity would lead us to see 1 Timothy 2:12 as the clear verse, when the principle of the kingdom is at hand?

3. We know where it's headed.  In the kingdom, there will not be marriage.  Women will not be "given" to men (Mark 12).  In other words, there will be no differentiation of gender authority in the kingdom.  If we can move things closer to the kingdom now, especially when it is makes overwhelming sense, why wouldn't we?

4. No verse prohibits a woman from leadership over men in general.  I'm arguing for complete egalitarianism, but I want to start by separating out the argument.  The household codes of Colossians, Ephesians, and 1 Peter have to do with, well, the household.  They are about the relationship between wives and husbands.  I believe the most likely interpretation in fact of all the notorious women passages in the New Testament fall into this category.

a. The only OT passage that explicitly subordinates wives to husbands is Genesis 3.  This is a consequence of Eve's sin.  Since Christ atoned for all sin, this is not a good argument for anything.  You could argue that it is built into the creation but, as in #1, this is simply not the case.  Naturally speaking, many individual women are regularly more intelligent, more spiritual, and have greater capacity to lead than many individual men.  "Let's stick with the Fall when we can transition to the kingdom."  That makes no sense at all.

b. I'll assume for the sake of argument that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 were originally in 1 Corinthians (there is an issue).  "Let them ask their own husbands at home."  Mention of the Law and subordination.  OK, we're talking about wives here.

But what kind of talking are we talking about here?  In 1 Corinthians 11, women prophesy in church.  They are to veil their heads to show they are under their husband heads.  So apparently, whatever silence 1 Corinthians 14 is talking about is not spiritual speech but disruptive speech.  They are asking questions, questions they should ask their own husbands... rather than someone else's?

Whew.  I'm glad I have an answer for that verse, because #1 is really making me sweat.  I mean, I don't think God is stupid, but it's really hard to see any intelligence in the "men can only fly the plane because they have a penis" argument.

What's even more important about 1 Corinthians 11 is that wives are both speaking for God to a congregation while also being in proper relationship to their husband-head.  This implies that subordination of a wife to a husband does not preclude women in spiritual leadership.

c. When we then see that 1 Timothy 2 is likely also talking about the husband-wife relationship, we reach our first egalitarian goal.  We see that the Bible does not prohibit a woman from taking leadership--spiritual or otherwise--over men in general.  We of course see women even in supreme leadership in the Bible.  Huldah is the supreme spiritual authority in 2 Kings 22.  Deborah is the supreme "political" leader in Judges 4-5.

1 Timothy uses words for man and woman in 2:12-15 that normally mean husband and wife when they are used in close proximity.  Adam and Eve were husband and wife, and they are the supporting argument, both in terms of birth order and who was deceived.  Wives are the ones who have babies.  The relationship that 1 Timothy uses to support its instruction is thus framed in terms of a husband wife relationship.

I can't think of any verse that prohibits women from leading men in general elsewhere--the subordinate issue is always a husband-wife issue.  I'm frankly puzzled that so many interpreters of this verse can't see it.  It's pretty obvious if you're thinking like people thought in the first century.

Whew.  I'm glad I have an answer for that verse, because #1 is really making me sweat.  I mean, I don't think God is stupid, but pretty much anyone on the street is going to think he is if he sees genitals as the secret to competent leadership.

5. The real issue is thus the husband-wife relationship.  With the previous point, there is no more argument against allowing those women whom God calls into leadership to take any role to which God calls them.  "What if their husband-head disagrees?"  Then he'd better repent because he has to obey God first.  His soul is in danger.  We have to be wise in the working out of principles.  Sometimes the gospel is hindered when we are unbending--even when we are right!

In fact, Jesus says that God allowed divorce to be "on the books" in the OT because Israel was not ready.  I guess God is pragmatic even in Scripture sometimes.  I suppose that makes sense if he actually wanted to help the people he first sent Scripture to--ancient Israel, Corinthians, Thessalonians, Romans.  I know from cultural anthropology that they didn't think like me and that actions had different meanings in different places.  I guess, whether I like it or not, I can't just blindly apply the words of Scripture directly to me without considering such things, because it explicitly tells me it was written to them... and I'm not them.

My argument for full egalitarianism, including the home, involves many of the same points I made above:

• the kingdom trajectory--There will be no husbands and wives in the kingdom.
• spiritual common sense--In other words, #1 applies here just as much as in the previous section
• the cultural argument--There was nothing distinctly Christian in the first century about wives being subordinate to their husbands.  In fact, it won't be so in the kingdom.  This was the assumption of the ancient context of the Bible.  It is when the Bible empowers women and equalizes men to them that it was being unique.
• the blinders argument--Those who argue against egalitarianism are blind to their own cultural situation.  

a) Sincere opponents would be appalled if they heard the arguments against egalitarianism made 100 years ago and are thus blind to the fact that their position has already shifted considerably, in keeping with the common sense of #1.  In other words, they have already violated their own "no accommodation" rule historically.  They are now more sophisticated than before, but this is just feet dragging on the inevitable egalitarian conclusion.
b) The husband-wife subordination issue was massively impacted by the post WW2 era when women were empowered.  So called "secular feminism" has pushed traditions like mine away from its historical positions and practices because of the association of egalitarianism with social groups its people tend to oppose.  In short, complementarians are riding cultural waves every bit as much as egalitarians--they are simply riding a different wave.
c) They are unaware of the way in which we can get verses out of focus.  I used to do this with jewelry verses.  "No woman could possibly wear an earring without it being a matter of ungodly pride."  "Any man wearing a wedding ring must really be proud of that gold jewelry."  The truth is, I was so focused on an individual tree (verse) that I couldn't see the forest.  I now realize how absurd my thoughts were.  Complementarians are so fixated on some rather "Whaaat?" verses that they can't see the bigger principles of Christianity and how they would most naturally play out.

• the stumbling block argument--It's a hindrance to the gospel.

I'm not worried.  Our grandchildren will wonder why this was an issue.  Were we stupid?  We feel the same way about those fundamentalist Christians who argued for slavery as an institution 100 years ago.  What were they thinking?  How could they not see the obvious ideal?

Of course slavery continued for 1800 years after Christ.  There is no guarantee of inevitable movement toward the kingdom.  But let me speak prophetically.  Even the Roman Catholic Church will be ordaining women by the year 2050.