To be honest, my church background took a hard stand on women in leadership in church. Woman are only to be communicators and leaders to children and other woman, never to men or even mixed groups where adult men were present. Therefore, they could not be pastors, deacons, or even worship leaders.
There were cultural times when this stance was easier to grasp hold of, but probably was always fought against. And though I do not think culture should be the driving force in accepting change, I do understand that there were things in scripture that seemed directly geared towards that particular culture. However, I do believe that even those portions of Scripture are applicable in giving us wisdom in those particular areas in how God might have designed things to best function.
So how should the church of the 21st century take portions of Scripture like 1 Timothy 2:11-12 “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. She must remain quiet.” Was this just an admonition from Paul, not from God as we’ve seen said before like in 1 Corin 7:12? Was this just Paul taking a stance against the Jewish way of not even letting the woman learn the law and therefore, Paul’s cultural stance against the norm should be the model for challenging the norm of the culture of our day? The formula of this model would be something like culture + 1 step challenge = God’s way for the day.
Can the principle of reasoning for those verse (1 Timothy 2:13-14 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner) be still viable in understanding God’s design at creation of man and woman’s differing functions (functions, not superiority) so that maintaining male as leadership in the church best serves for reasons we may not totally comprehend because we live after the Fall, apart of God’s perfect creation design?
I do believe woman are essential to ministry. They have very much to offer in understanding how to minister to people. Just as men, different woman have different gifts in which Jesus gave all believers to best equip the church to become mature in living for Him. And not utilizing those gifts hurt the church at large. There are biblical examples of woman in leadership roles, including a deaconess to the first church in the New Testament and a major judge for Israel in the Old Testament.
So woman in ministry leadership: what’s your take biblically?
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As far as the church of the 21st Century taking what Paul said, we can take it as it is written. So many people take this scripture way out of context. It is not speaking to all women. He was speaking to a specific group of women. I believe it was the Prestess of the Temple Diana. They were converted to Christ and did not have the knowledge they needed to be teaching. It also was not a permanent edict to them, it was just till they had the knowledge they needed to teach. When it says that "a women should learn in quietness and submission it is refereing to a style of learning. much like our Sunday service how we sit in silence and listen.
thank you for commenting Brandon. I have read many other views of this passage and have not read about it referring to a specific group of women from the Temple Diana. Is there a cross reference of another passage that would indicate this? There seems to be many understandings of "woman" and "teach."
I could gather from the context that the group of women (referred to singularly as "woman", possibly to be understood as womankind in general or wife in general) could not be the ones teaching false doctrine because Paul's use of the word to "remain quiet" does not refer to a complete silencing. If it was false doctrine, Paul would have used a common word for complete silencing of false doctrine that is found in these Timothy letters. The other argument is that these woman were those being deceived by false doctrine and they needed to learn the truth before they could teach. I can see this as more of a viable understanding. Then my question remains why Paul focused on the deceived "woman" in general to learn quietly and not "mankind" in general. Is it bigotry to say woman are deceived more easily and they needed the heeding?
Then the issue centers around the word "teach" and "exercise authority." Some have said teach alludes to correct doctrine of the gospel (public speaking), some have said it alludes to correct behavior that follows correct doctrine (correcting, rebuking false doctrine, church discipline = pastoral care), some have said teach directly correlates with exercising authority (church government or elders), and some have alluded that it is tied with the deceived woman and that once they were undeceived, they could teach and exercise authority over man.
One thing that I have a hard time seeing, given the context, that there was this specific situation being spoken of and the exhortation was temporary. Do we understand the modest verse as temporary? Do we understand the previous verse talking to the men to "pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling" to be temporary? Present tense verbs do not necessarily speak of temporary. And even if it was spoken towards a specific person at a specific time, do we not apply messages Jesus spoke directly to the disciples as specific people in a specific time?
It is wrong to understand this passage as a plea to God's created design of male and female distinctive and complimentary roles, a submissive stance of woman to male leadership, like in Ephesians for wives to husbands (and hence the reference to Genesis), therefore claiming Paul's preference to woman submissiveness to male church leadership (which immediately proceeds his qualifications of an elder/pastor)? Or could the references of woman and man be more of wife and husband and have nothing to do with women and men in church leadership as some have alluded to? But then, why do no translations translate it like that?
I have a tendency to also go back to verse 8 when Paul says "I want" or "I desire" to be a charge by Paul of his preferences in how to have people of the church act and conduct themselves. They were descriptions not prescriptions of godly living. A good rule of thumb so to speak. Maybe we should make it a rule that men must raise their hands in prayer in every place. Why not fight about that one?
here's some referencing to articles I found on the web:
http://www.carm.org/apologetics/women-ministry/1-…
http://books.google.com/books?id=zNTr2ez8abcC&…
http://books.google.com/books?id=NHPxcYNV0BwC&…
http://bible.org/article/paul%E2%80%99s-concept-t…
http://books.google.com/books?id=pHvDAAAACAAJ&…
http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2006/12/02/what-does…
All I know is when I was in middle school with your wife, I always tried to use the verse on her "Greet each other with a holy kiss", but it never worked.
Seriously, I tend to think that is more a directive than a commandment. I think that the biggest issue is the issue of the heart. Why does someone (male or female) want to be a leader?
I don't think that men are given a special dispensation whereby they understand theology and/or biblical principles better than women. Sociologically speaking however, men are considered to be the leaders of there homes and I do believe that this is where this issue is coming from. Women should be able to share their beliefs and teach in a mixed setting, but they should still be subservient to their husbands as Christ has commanded (men you must also love your wives as God has commanded [which makes a huge difference in the aforementioned statement]). If this is the case and the woman is in her "proper" role within the family, then her role within the church would also be in its proper place.
Beth Moore may choose that she ministers to women, but many men have read her books and seen her videos and profited in their spiritual lives. In Bible college, I learned many Biblical principles and a theory of missions from a lady professor – does that make what I learned unprofitable? God forbid.
I think that sometimes well meaning Christians get caught up in the sacred cows of Christianity. These issues are often rooted in a belief that has been passed down without as much regard to the Biblical principles that underlay what they believe. Without ever delving into the fact that lies on the bottom, they rely on their unchecked personal belief system or what they have been taught to believe – without searching the scriptures daily to build their own base.
With that being said, can a woman be a teacher or even a pastor? (Husband of one wife) I'm not sure, but I do know that women can be and should be leaders in our churches – maybe they could even pray in public.
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