Supersillymanable
Puritan Board Freshman
It makes me sad when IVP publish rubbish like that... They've published much I have really benefited from... I'm glad Crossway and other publishers are still refusing to give to culture.
Woman Pastors: Biblical Defense
- Thread starter blhowes
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It makes me sad when IVP publish rubbish like that... They've published much I have really benefited from... I'm glad Crossway and other publishers are still refusing to give to culture.
crixus
Puritan Board Freshman
In San Francisco no one would even notice.
sevenzedek
Puritan Board Junior
I think the best defense for supporting the practice of putting women in the pulpit is to deceive one's self. Notice Paul's reason for not allowing a woman to have authority over men is not chauvinism, but bible.
1 Timothy 2:12-13
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
Scripture supports such a conclusion.
Isaiah 3:12
As for my people, children are their oppressors,
and women rule over them.
O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err,
and destroy the way of thy paths.
1 Timothy 2:12-13
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
Scripture supports such a conclusion.
Isaiah 3:12
As for my people, children are their oppressors,
and women rule over them.
O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err,
and destroy the way of thy paths.
ch0zen
Puritan Board Freshman
/agree 100%
i think, as men, there are many things we can learn from respectable, well educated, godly women. that doesn't mean that the bible tells women to step and fill a man's role when he doesn't do his job properly. there isn't a woman-of-the-gaps-theory. i feel that women in society (not only in leadership but marriage also) tend to fill a man's role when he doesn't do it appropriately... by filling his role it doesn't allow the man room to grow. leaving women in male positions with incompetent men being onlookers.
we should be praying for strong, biblical men to lead our church into the next generation... and great god fearing women to support them.
[edit: in no way am i hinting that a man who fails to lead can blame a woman... just observing one reason why i see a role reversal in my community]
Jackie Kaulitz
Puritan Board Freshman
I just want to throw this out. I think people argue for female pastors based on practicality and getting the truth of God out to the people.
Example: What if... there is only only Reformed believer in the entire county and she is a female and she TOTALLY knows her stuff. She has the skill to teach.
But all the male pastors in the county teach works-salvation and works-sanctification? So do you stick with this "best" male pastor of the worst even though he's teaching falsely and is closed to ever changing his beliefs? Or will the men say "I think God would rather I learn the truth from a woman then learn lies from a man?"
Is she allowed to be a teacher but just not "a pastor with leadership over a flock?"
Example: What if... there is only only Reformed believer in the entire county and she is a female and she TOTALLY knows her stuff. She has the skill to teach.
But all the male pastors in the county teach works-salvation and works-sanctification? So do you stick with this "best" male pastor of the worst even though he's teaching falsely and is closed to ever changing his beliefs? Or will the men say "I think God would rather I learn the truth from a woman then learn lies from a man?"
Is she allowed to be a teacher but just not "a pastor with leadership over a flock?"
Andres
Puritan Board Doctor
But that's not at all the case, so then what?
malum in se
Puritan Board Freshman
I have heard of this happening in a missionary situation, in that case I believe the woman trained a man to take over for her.
Loopie
Puritan Board Freshman
I have heard a number of people use the argument that Priscilla taught Apollos, and so therefore there can be nothing wrong with women teaching men. Here is the passage they quote:
Acts 18:24-26 (NASB)
24 Now a Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus; and he was mighty in the Scriptures.
25 This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John;
26 and he began to speak out boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.
The problem with their interpretation is that they fail to recognizes that BOTH Priscilla AND Aquila took Apollos aside and explained things to him. Priscilla never teaches Apollos on her own, or in a private setting (which probably would have been rather scandalous). She and her husband TOGETHER taught Apollos (and even then the text just says that they 'explained' things to him, not that they 'taught' him in any official setting).
Many people I have spoken to like to also argue that the man's leadership in marriage says nothing about the role of women in the church. Yet Christ himself describes the church using marriage terminology (with the church being the Bride of Christ). I think this passage also reveals the connection:
Ephesians 5:22-24 (NASB)
22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.
24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.
There can be no doubt then that the marriage relationship is a reflection of the relationship between Christ and his church. It would seem odd then for women to assume the role of pastor/elder. It would also set up a strange scenario if the wife was a pastor/elder while the husband was not. Very likely, in such a scenario, the wife would be the spiritual head or leader in the family, much like the pastor/elder is a spiritual leader in the church. I don't think that God intended it to be this way.
Personally I find the accounts in Genesis to be very reflective of the differentiation of roles that God instituted. The man is made first, and exercises leadership by naming ALL the animals (and then he names the woman). When the serpent tempts Adam and Eve, he subverts the leadership of Adam by going straight for Eve first. When God responds to the situation, he doesn't approach Eve first (even though technically she sinned first). Instead, God approaches Adam about their sin, which certainly points to a sense of leadership and responsibility that Adam had.
Those are just a few things that always come to my mind when talking about the relationship between husband and wife and about the role of men and women in the church.
Acts 18:24-26 (NASB)
24 Now a Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus; and he was mighty in the Scriptures.
25 This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John;
26 and he began to speak out boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.
The problem with their interpretation is that they fail to recognizes that BOTH Priscilla AND Aquila took Apollos aside and explained things to him. Priscilla never teaches Apollos on her own, or in a private setting (which probably would have been rather scandalous). She and her husband TOGETHER taught Apollos (and even then the text just says that they 'explained' things to him, not that they 'taught' him in any official setting).
Many people I have spoken to like to also argue that the man's leadership in marriage says nothing about the role of women in the church. Yet Christ himself describes the church using marriage terminology (with the church being the Bride of Christ). I think this passage also reveals the connection:
Ephesians 5:22-24 (NASB)
22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.
24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.
There can be no doubt then that the marriage relationship is a reflection of the relationship between Christ and his church. It would seem odd then for women to assume the role of pastor/elder. It would also set up a strange scenario if the wife was a pastor/elder while the husband was not. Very likely, in such a scenario, the wife would be the spiritual head or leader in the family, much like the pastor/elder is a spiritual leader in the church. I don't think that God intended it to be this way.
Personally I find the accounts in Genesis to be very reflective of the differentiation of roles that God instituted. The man is made first, and exercises leadership by naming ALL the animals (and then he names the woman). When the serpent tempts Adam and Eve, he subverts the leadership of Adam by going straight for Eve first. When God responds to the situation, he doesn't approach Eve first (even though technically she sinned first). Instead, God approaches Adam about their sin, which certainly points to a sense of leadership and responsibility that Adam had.
Those are just a few things that always come to my mind when talking about the relationship between husband and wife and about the role of men and women in the church.
What is interesting about the Genesis account is how quick Adam is to abdicate the leadership role he was given, and how quick Eve was to take that leadership role which she was not given. The fault was not all Eve's. I see this played out time and time again even today.
timmopussycat
Puritan Board Junior
I came to the Lord in churches that affirmed unrestricted female teaching ministries and I studied in a seminary that did likewise. Ironically it was in exegesis class (taught by one of the leading egalitarians of the day, Dr. Gordon Fee) that I came to reject egalitarianism, by applying Dr. Fee's own principles to one of the principle texts in the debate, i.e. 1 Tim 2:11-15.
Many critiques of the egalitarian case do not address fully how the most biblical egalitarians use this text, nor consider how to respond if their exegesis of a key grammatical point within it, is, in fact, correct.
That point arises in 2:12. Background: 1 Tim. is an occasional letter written as a reminder, to a man who already knew Paul's views on church order. In the previous sentence of v. 11 Paul is speaking in the imperative, when he commands women to receive instruction, but with verse 12 he switches to the indicative. What is at issue is the consequences of the change for Paul's intended meaning. The imperative must stand for all time as it is an apostolic command not specifically limited by the context, but are we to read it over into the next sentence (which, as the grammarians, tell us sometimes occurs and read the first clause as "But I do not allow. . .") or are we to read it as an indicative (which is also known to occur, – see the similar interplay of tenses John 7:8 where Jesus certainly intended the indicative in the second clause: "I am not going up to the feast." if Paul intended the indicative in 1 Tim 2 :12 it would read "But I am not permitting. . ."). If the latter is correct and we are to read Paul as writing "I am not permitting", then what we have is Paul telling Timothy that he is varying his customary practice, and, for reasons peculiar to Ephesus, not permitting women to teach in the Ephesian church. It is this grammatical ambiguity that ultimately creates the problem.
While many egalitarians recognize that Paul's reasons for his prohibition are anchored first in the creation order and then in the fall, they say that Paul does not make it explicit that he is adducing those reasons for an eternal prohibition, and if he is, they ask why did he make the imperative/indicative switch, which implies the contrary possibility, in v. 11? Not to mention asking why Aquila allowed his wife to apparently help teach Apollos and how Luke (who certainly knew Paul's regular practice) notes the fact without comment, if Paul's normal practice totally prohibited women in unrestricted teaching roles?
This argument forms the heart of the egalitarian's exegetical case for allowing women to minister in unrestricted teaching or authority roles. I believe that while we may freely concede that such arguments are a possibly valid reading of the biblical evidence, they are not strong enough to prove the egalitarian case. For us, today lacking firsthand knowledge of whether Paul intended his prohibition as temporary or permanent, the fact that Paul anchors his his prohibition in the creation order and the fall events is strong enough to require egalitarians to provide more than "possibly valid reasons" to justify their stand. Unless it can be proved by the Confessional standard of biblical proof (i.e., good and necessary consequence deduction from Scripture) that Paul's prohibition is local and or temporary, the grounds of the prohibition will require us to enforce it today.
Absent such proof, I cannot see how anyone can accept the egalitarian explanation with any high degree of confidence, let alone the required certainty of faith.
Many critiques of the egalitarian case do not address fully how the most biblical egalitarians use this text, nor consider how to respond if their exegesis of a key grammatical point within it, is, in fact, correct.
That point arises in 2:12. Background: 1 Tim. is an occasional letter written as a reminder, to a man who already knew Paul's views on church order. In the previous sentence of v. 11 Paul is speaking in the imperative, when he commands women to receive instruction, but with verse 12 he switches to the indicative. What is at issue is the consequences of the change for Paul's intended meaning. The imperative must stand for all time as it is an apostolic command not specifically limited by the context, but are we to read it over into the next sentence (which, as the grammarians, tell us sometimes occurs and read the first clause as "But I do not allow. . .") or are we to read it as an indicative (which is also known to occur, – see the similar interplay of tenses John 7:8 where Jesus certainly intended the indicative in the second clause: "I am not going up to the feast." if Paul intended the indicative in 1 Tim 2 :12 it would read "But I am not permitting. . ."). If the latter is correct and we are to read Paul as writing "I am not permitting", then what we have is Paul telling Timothy that he is varying his customary practice, and, for reasons peculiar to Ephesus, not permitting women to teach in the Ephesian church. It is this grammatical ambiguity that ultimately creates the problem.
While many egalitarians recognize that Paul's reasons for his prohibition are anchored first in the creation order and then in the fall, they say that Paul does not make it explicit that he is adducing those reasons for an eternal prohibition, and if he is, they ask why did he make the imperative/indicative switch, which implies the contrary possibility, in v. 11? Not to mention asking why Aquila allowed his wife to apparently help teach Apollos and how Luke (who certainly knew Paul's regular practice) notes the fact without comment, if Paul's normal practice totally prohibited women in unrestricted teaching roles?
This argument forms the heart of the egalitarian's exegetical case for allowing women to minister in unrestricted teaching or authority roles. I believe that while we may freely concede that such arguments are a possibly valid reading of the biblical evidence, they are not strong enough to prove the egalitarian case. For us, today lacking firsthand knowledge of whether Paul intended his prohibition as temporary or permanent, the fact that Paul anchors his his prohibition in the creation order and the fall events is strong enough to require egalitarians to provide more than "possibly valid reasons" to justify their stand. Unless it can be proved by the Confessional standard of biblical proof (i.e., good and necessary consequence deduction from Scripture) that Paul's prohibition is local and or temporary, the grounds of the prohibition will require us to enforce it today.
Absent such proof, I cannot see how anyone can accept the egalitarian explanation with any high degree of confidence, let alone the required certainty of faith.
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