Kara was kind enough to type out a great summary of what we covered in connecting point 2 Sundays ago (1/7).
So everyone please thank my wife, and here you go...
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What's God's Place for Women in the Church?
1 Corinthians 14:33-37 (NIV)
33For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints, 34women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. 35If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
Of course if you just read this verse at face value it seems pretty condemning of women having any leadership in the church. If women are literally to remain silent then they certainly can’t teach or preach. Some in class suggested that not speaking literally meant that they were being told to keep their mouth shut when in a public worship service, others thought it might mean that they weren’t to speak out in criticism in a public worship service, or speak in the sense of teach/preach.
Possible problems with this verse’s interpretation:
- It seems to directly contradict an earlier verse in 1 Cor.11:5 which talks about how a woman should go about praying and prophesying during a public worship service.
- “they must be in submission as the Law says” is problematic b/c there is nothing in the Law of Moses about women not speaking in the church and so there is no clarity as to what that is referring to. Some suggest Paul is referring to the local laws of the day but he has never before or after referenced any Law but that which is found in the OT and he always refers to a specific reference that we can look at, so this doesn’t seem like Paul
- Some scholars have suggested that these verses were not written by Paul at all and were added in later translations of the Bible based on the fact that theses verses appear in different places in different later transcripts. And it makes no sense why they would be taken out of order and reinserted somewhere else if they were in the original transcripts. (See separate notes on this)
- Some scholars suggest Paul was addressing a problem with women literally talking loudly amongst themselves and not allowing everyone to hear the person who was presenting the message and therefore would not apply to women teaching or preaching
1 Timothy 2:11-15 (NIV)
11A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
Again this verse taken at face value seems to say that women should not teach or have authority over men because of the fact that Eve was formed after Adam and she was the one deceived. Then somehow she will be saved through childbearing.
I found it interesting that most everyone in the class immediately assumed that this verse applied only to spiritual teaching and spiritual authority even though it doesn’t make that specification in the verses. Therefore we don’t argue against women professors in public or private schools or women being in authority over men at their jobs.
When we looked at other verses like Deborah, there was the argument that she only held judicial authority and not spiritual authority and that she did not teach.
Possible problems in interpreting this verse:
- The argument for why a woman shouldn’t teach and have authority is a spiritual one that would apply to all time: present, past, and future and yet we do have contradicting examples of Deborah, Huldah, Priscilla, etc that I will go into more detail on later
- The argument about Eve being deceived and therefore unfit to teach/have authority seems strange and out of character for the rest of Scripture. Adam was punished equally with Eve and he was there with her when she decided to eat the fruit and gave him some. He didn’t exercise authority over her or speak out against the deception. So he was either deceived as well or willfully and knowingly directly sinned against God and the command that he received directly from God. How does that make him better? It seems we may be lacking some understanding here b/c it doesn’t seem to make sense at face value and the part about women being saved through childbearing is even more confusing and problematic in terms of meaning/interpretation.
- The Greek verb in "I do not permit" is a present tense verb. It can be perfect present tense, which would suggest that at that time in that situation Paul is not permitting women to teach or have authority (which would be justified by the women in that time not being equally trained in teaching/interpreting scripture and possibly they are the ones spreading heresy that Paul is helping Timothy to combat) or it is nomic present which would mean I never permit now or ever.
Luke 2:36-38 (NIV)
36There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
Anna was someone who prophesied in the temple that she never left and is held up as a very godly woman. She spoke to them (Mary, Joseph, Jesus) and to all that were looking forward to the future redemption of Jerusalem. Some suggested only women heard her b/c she would have been in the women’s section but I find it interesting that it says she spoke to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. Would that be women only? Also Joseph was there and if he was there other men could have been walking through there as well.
2 Kings 22:12-16 (NIV)
12 He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Acbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary and Asaiah the king's attendant: 13 "Go and inquire of the LORD for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the LORD's anger that burns against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us." 14 Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to speak to the prophetess Huldah, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the Second District. 15 She said to them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, 16 'This is what the LORD says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people, according to everything written in the book the king of Judah has read…
Here we see Josiah the eight year old king asking the priests and other high ranking men who advise him to find out from God how to understand the Book of the Law (see a few verses earlier) they have found that suggests they have been in disobedience to God.
The priest and other advisors go to a woman, Huldah, a prophetess to discern God’s will for the king and the people. The previous king, Manasseh undid all the right things his father Hezekiah did and returned the people to idol worship.
They were so far from doing God’s will that it seems Josiah his son had no knowledge of the Book of the Law or what was right. Even the priest Hilkiah didn’t seem able to advise him suggesting that the priests as well had fallen away from God’s teaching.
Acts 18:18
18Paul stayed on in Corinth for some time. Then he left the brothers and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila.
Acts 24-26
24Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. 25He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. 26He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.
Ro 16:3
3Greet Priscilla[a] and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus.
Here we see something unprecedented in Scripture and that is Priscilla mentioned before her husband several times when Paul references them. It seems clear that Priscilla had some role of importance in the early church to be mentioned like that and she also taught Apollos with her husband and explained God more adequately to him. They also had a church that met in their home (1 Cor. 16:19) and Paul calls her a fellow worker.
Certainly you don’t have a sense of Priscilla not being trusted or having to keep her mouth shut in silent submission to her husband.
Some argue that Priscilla only taught a man in private with her husband there but that still seems to me to contradict our 1 Timothy passage which doesn’t allow for any woman to teach or hold authority over a man period if we take the face value interpretation of that verse.
If you look at Phoebe, Ro 16:1-3, Paul calls her a servant of the church. The Greek word used there can also be interpreted "deaconess" and says that she has ministered to many people including Paul himself.
Last but not least let us look at Deborah. Judges 4 & 5 give us her story. She was a prophetess who led Israel at one point, deciding their disputes, communicating God’s will to them, commanding them to go to war.
If you study judges and prophets and their roles with the people of Israel you see a pattern. Israel sins against God, turning from the laws and instructions he has given them for godly living, and they become involved in idol worship and all kinds of abhorrent practices of the peoples surrounding them. God’s response is to use the peoples around them to discipline them by making it unsafe for them to live in the villages, placing heavy taxes on them, causing them to lose battles and to come under the domination of a neighboring king and his army.
After cruel oppression for many years, 20 years before Deborah comes on the scene, they cry out to God for help. Then God places them under a leader who leads them in spiritual revival and they turn back to worship of God and living under His statutes.
Once again they experience freedom from oppression and peace while they remain in obedience. As soon as they loose this leader or fall under the leadership of someone ungodly, they fall back into oppression and hard times until they cry out for help again. Once again God raises up another leader and they have spiritual revival and peace for some amount of time.
So what are the roles of a prophet? We see prophets used as God’s mouthpiece, so to speak, and communicating truth to the people. We see them confronting sin in people’s lives and showing great discernment from God to see their impure motives and hidden sins as in the instance of Samuel and David. They are often sought out for wisdom in knowing how to proceed by priests, kings, etc.
So did Deborah the prophetess somehow stay outside of any spiritual guidance/teaching/leadership as judge of Israel?
I think it is pretty hard to make that argument considering that it was with her in charge the Israelites experienced spiritual revival and obedience and then 40 years of peace under her rule. You have to water down the role of Deborah as a prophetess to less than that of other prophets like Isaiah, Samuel, Jeremiah, etc and say that she only took on a limited prophet role less than that of others.
Some comments in class were that Deborah wasn’t using her own discernment or understanding when she spoke the truth to others and therefore God was teaching, not her. I would argue that I would expect that to be the case in every situation when someone is given the spiritual gift of teaching, pastoring, prophecy, etc. in the church. If we argue that Deborah was the only one not using her brain and that she was a thoughtless mouthpiece with no discernment of her own I think we are making assumptions outside of the text to make her fit in the box we see with the two passages in the New Testament.
CONCLUSION:
My conclusion was that I am still not clear on the roles of women in the church but I am not willing to base an entire theology on the two NT verses that seem extremely difficult to understand the original intent of the author and what he was trying to communicate.
There are too many inconsistencies for me to take those verses at face value and too many examples of women who are leaders in some capacity and shown in a positive light in Scripture.
I think one could argue that elders have to be men but I don’t see clear arguments against women as teachers outside of our two problematic verses. I myself obviously teach in some capacity to men but feel that I am also under the authority of my father as the minister of adult connecting points and I am consistently aware when I teach that I am not teaching anything he would disagree with. So that is how I do what I do in good conscience.
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