Women in Church, the rest of the story

Recently a post at Between Two Worlds discussed a letter written by Dan Wallace describing the angst he feels over maintaining the hard gender roles described by Paul, in particular in 1st Timothy 2:11-15. He writes I may not be comfortable with my complementarian position, but I am unwilling to twist scripture into something that it does not say.

He then describes And my conscience tells me that after all the exegetical dust has settled, to deny some sort of normative principle to 1 Tim 2:12 is probably a misunderstanding of this text.

Unfortunately, Wallace falls into the same practice that many pastors do when delivering a sermon. The letter says what he believes and why without giving any indication as to what might be said for the other side. It is this kind of "This is what the Bible says, and if you don't like it, you're a liberal" mentality that I cannot stand in the modern church.

The above may sound like I'm demonizing Wallace. I'm not. He sounds genuinely apologetic regarding his beliefs, and I completely affirm those who defend unpopular positions based on Biblical principles. My belief here is that he, like many others on this and other views, has allowed the beliefs of those Christian thinkers who came before us to unduly marginalize the importance of a raft of Scripture arguing against the conservative viewpoint.

Most of the time when people try to defend women in positions of authority they appeal to anthrocentric or sociologic reasons. They wonder why we restrict women who are willing to do good. They wonder why we allow the church to implicitly support gender inequality elsewhere. I do not find these arguments personally compelling, as they attempt to interpret and judge biblical principles through human ones.

Others make deductions based on passages like Galatians 3:28. While these can add support to an argument, they are so broad that we wonder what other principles we could deduce.

Paul's verses are very specific [actually, not as specific as might be thought, but we will get to that later], and this is why they are exalted so highly in the debate. But are there other passages of specificity that argue against the notion that women should be so barred?

Yes. Yes there are.

First, there is the important case of Deborah, the 4th Judge of Israel. The fact that Deborah was raised up by God[Judges 2:16], spoken to by God[Judges 4:6], led Israel [Judges 4:4], did so ably, and was venerated for doing so [Judges 5:7] is an insurmountable, thoroughly biblical objection to the absolute exclusion of women in positions of authority.

How does the complementarian respond to Deborah? Does he [or she] lament "Oh, what great sadness that God did not have Paul to warn The Almighty against calling a woman to rule. If only God had waited so that Paul could disclose this wisdom, the Lord would not have done something so embarrassing"?

No. Instead, amazingly, Wallace claims that Deborah's presence actually supports his view! He (and others, such as Piper (I am told)) say that it was shaming to Israel that it had to have a woman rule them. Nevermind that such poppycock is never stated in the Bible. Nevermind that Israel got into trouble when they didn't follow the Judge raised up [Judges 2:17]. Nevermind that it is God who chose the Judge. It wasn't an election. There were not nominees.
The discussion between Deborah and Jael indicates that Jael was unfaithful (for it should have been enough to have been told God would deliver the enemy to him), but that hardly says anything about God's decision to have a woman rule over Israel.

If you brought Deborah up to a random evangelical, my guess is that the best response he or she could give is "Oh, but that was the Old Testament." So, are we to believe that New Testament Christianity [where there is neither Greek nor Jew, slave or free, man or woman, etc.] is somehow more restrictive than the God of the Old Testament?

But there is plenty of New Testament passages regarding women...many written by Paul himself. In Acts 18:26 we read of Priscilla and her husband Aquilla both teaching a man who was already teaching others. This same Priscilla was very dear to Paul. He called her a "co-worker" in Romans 16;3, and he references their church in 1st Corinthians 16:19 and 2nd Timothy 4:19.

Priscilla is not the only woman teaching the Gospel to others. Paul refers to 2 more in Philippians 4:2, and the "book" of Philemon is actually written to 3 people who run a house church, one of whom is a woman. Nympha also had a church in her house [Colossians 4:15], to whom Paul wrote.

Finally, in a disputed passage (Romans 16:7), Paul appears to refer to a woman, Junia, as an apostle! [Many Bibles read "Junias" here, claiming that it is actually a male's name. There are many problems with that view, not the least of which being that no one anywhere has been able to find a single example of "Junias" ever being used as a name in any Greek or Latin writings.

What is interesting about this last bit is not so much that Paul called a woman an apostle [it is possible that Paul just meant that she had a good reputation among the apostles, but my guess is that the first Bible you pick up will say that "Junia(s)" actually was an apostle.]

The interesting thing is how much of a historical coverup has ensued trying to turn Junia into a man.

But getting back to the point regarding women. Not only did they teach and preach, but they also prophesied [Acts 21:9], and were deaconesses/ministers of churches [Romans 16:1.] (Note, this word can be translated as merely "servant," but strangely enough the ONLY time the word is translated as servant when discussing someone in church is when a female is mentioned. The other 23 times, it is translated "minister" or "deacon." Greek has a perfectly good word for "servant," used over 100 times in the New Testament.)

One has to wonder why Paul is commending and greeting all these teachers and deaconesses and why the prophetesses were not rebuked. One also has to wonder, while we're at it, how Paul can say women should only "pray" and "prophesy" (which can also mean "teach") with head coverings [1st Corinthians 11:3] if they are not supposed to speak at all!!! [1st Corinthians 14:35]

Keep in mind a couple other things about the early church.

• Prophets were not mere seers. They also taught and preached about God, as well as selected officers in churches.
• In the earliest churches, the "teaching" was, in fact, evangelism. The idea of a "message" to those who already believed did not come about until later.

So, all the descriptors of women as evangelists and prophets also made them teachers as well.

So, what are we to make of all this? What is the real story here? It would be an incredible task to convince yourself that God appointed Deborah in a moment of insanity and multitude of women Paul mentions all somehow avoided having any authority or teaching while being 'co-workers' and "sharing [his] struggle,"...and somehow the women "prophesy" and "pray" without speaking, etc.

Instead, I give some alternatives:

i) The Greek word for woman is the same as the word for wife. Given the wording in 1st Timothy 2:12 and 1st Corinthians 14:35, Paul might be more concerned with women not submitting to their husbands. The poor widow would have little recourse based on the "woman" reading as she has no husband to enlighten her. Perhaps Paul does not want a wife teaching her husband.

Note, just as the word for wife is the same as the word for woman. The word for man is the same as the word for husband, so "I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man" would have the same Greek as "I do not allow a wife to teach or exercise authority over a husband. You might say "hey, but wouldn't you say "her husband," instead of "a husband." In English you would, but in Greek you never say the "a" and the "her" can be implied. In fact, that is exactly what happens in Ephesians 5:33. There is no "her" in front of the "husband" there. Same thing in Romans 7:2, 7:3, 1st Cor1nthians 7:3, 7:10, 7:11, 7:34. In fact a quick look only shows one place where Paul actually put the possessive there.]

Also note that Paul uses the singular. He says for a woman/wife not to have authority or teach a man/husband. Of course the situation where a woman is actually preaching in church is one where a woman is preaching "men."

This explanation (possibly mixed with iii below) is the best way of making Paul not look like a moron. If the point is that a wife should not have authority over her husband, then all the cases where Paul personally greeted women who taught [as prophets and evangelists and perhaps apostles] and where Priscilla taught Apollo would all dissolve. This solution also lets God off the hook for allowing a woman to lead Israel.

ii) Paul could be more concerned with married women not fulfilling their roles as women. This would make sense in the context of Paul's teaching in 1st Corinthians 7:34. This would not really get around Priscilla, though.

iii) I do not like to bring it up, but it should be pointed out that 90% of critical scholars believe 1st Timothy, 2nd Timothy, and Titus were not written by Paul [or so says the late Fr. Raymond Brown, who was a member of the Vatican's Roman Pontifical Biblical commission and was considered by many to be not only the the premier Catholic scholar of North America but the most important theologian [of the Catholic church] to ever arise in America. The 4 "pastoral" epistles are the only Pauline works missing from the earliest known suggested Canon [Marcion's. While Marcion's views are very far removed from the views of the church expressed just a century later, Marcion absolutely loved Paul, so the absence of the pastorals strongly suggest they either were not known, or were known to be pseudonymous at the time.]

This would not get around the 1st Corinthains verses [some say they were inserted later.] I know of no one of note who doubts the Pauline authorship of 1st Corinthians.

iv) Paul could be simply be wrong. He appears to have been wrong about suggesting people not marry because "the time has been shortened" [1st Corinthians 7:29]. Paul appears to have been wrong about the innocence of eating food sacrificed to idols [1st Corinthians 8:4-8, 1st Corinthians 10: 19-28], that is to say if Jesus is any judge on the matter [Revelation 2:14, Reveation 2:20]. However, this would not explain why he would refer to women praying and prophesying in church in one breath while in the other he says they should not speak at all.

What's your theory?

[Incidentally, why are there so many churches who are willing to have Paul tell them not to let women speak...but yet those same churches (in general) do not require their women to wear head coverings? The message about head coverings is even more clear than the message of 1st Timothy 2:12, and none of the scripture I mention here really contravene it?]