Theology Pathfinder

Tag: female pastors

  • Women in Ministry: Parting Thoughts & Recommended Reading

    Women in Ministry: Parting Thoughts & Recommended Reading

    In last month’s posts I sought to explain why my views on women in ministry have shifted from being more restrictive and hierarchical to more inclusive. This was not a hasty change, nor was it motivated by any agenda other than seeking to be faithful to the Bible’s own witness regarding gender and leadership.

    I once assumed that the Bible forbade all women from ever having authority over men in the church. This seemed to me to be the “plain” meaning of certain passages like 1 Timothy 2:11-15, and it was the dominant perspective in the cultural circles I grew up in. Women can’t be pastors or elders or preachers; they can only teach other women or children. That’s “God’s design.”

    But then I was encouraged to pay more attention to how often Scripture presents women in significant leadership roles, especially as part of the community of Christ’s followers. I had to consider what the implications were if there could be female deacons (like Phoebe), female teachers (like Priscilla), and female apostles (like Junia).

    I was challenged to learn more about the original context of passages like 1 Timothy 2:11-15 and 1 Corinthians 14:33-36. I saw that my previous understanding of these passages was missing the points Paul was originally trying to make in the culture he was writing in.

    And I’ve done more homework on the history behind how and why the long tradition of barring women from ministry rose to prominence, discovering in the process that the logic behind that tradition is completely out of sync with the biblical picture. 

    That’s why I’m now compelled not only to speak out in favor of allowing women to serve in high levels of ministry, but also to implore churches to encourage women to step up and exercise their gifts for the benefit of the body of Christ! I began this journey asking, “Could this be okay?” And I’ve arrived at a place where my soul is shouting, “We need this!” We need women in ministry!

    Female voices need to be heard in the church. When half of the body is silenced, the whole body suffers. 

    Whether you agree that women should be allowed to be pastors and preachers or not, I implore you, dear reader: Consider how you or your church can do more to encourage women, to let female voices be heard, and to give women a platform to do all that God is calling them to do. Not only that, but recognize and honor the women who are serving and giving of themselves for the cause of Christ.

    On a related but incredibly important note, for those churches that have women as part of their paid staff, pay them what they deserve for the work they do! 

    There is no excuse — biblically or theologically or ethically — for a church to pay or recognize women less than men simply because of their gender, or to bar them from a pastoral title and salary but then expect them to do the same level of work as the male pastors for less pay. If anyone should be leading the way in fair and equal treatment of staff, it needs to be the church! “The laborer deserves to be paid” (1 Timothy 5:8). Many congregations have a long way to to go in this matter.

    My prayer in writing all that I’ve written is to see Paul’s vision in Ephesians 4:12-13 come to pass: that all of God’s people — his sons and daughters — would be equipped to carry out the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity and maturity in the faith.

    If you’ve missed any of my previous posts, here are links to the whole series:

    Part 1: Preliminary Remarks

    Part 2: 1 Timothy 2:11-15 and the Question of Women in Ministry

    Part 3: Addressing “Biblical” Objections to Women in Ministry

    Part 4: Addressing Potential Historical and Theological Objections to Women in Ministry

    If, after reading my thoughts on the subject, you want to go deeper or still have questions, here is my recommended reading list on women in ministry:

    Online resources:

    • Why I Believe in Women in Ministry (Blog Series)
      This recent blog series by New Testament professor Nijay K. Gupta was the catalyst for my recent exploration of this topic. It spans 22 total posts, but each one is fairly brief and readable.
    • “Women’s Service in the Church: The Biblical Basis”
      This essay by N. T. Wright is a fantastic summary of most of the key issues.
    • This series of online articles by William Witt (Professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics at Trinity School for Ministry) on women’s ordination is an incredible and important resource, especially for info on tradition and church history as well as on the theological questions about women in ministry.

    Books:

    See you down the path.

  • Women in Ministry: Some Preliminary Remarks

    Women in Ministry: Some Preliminary Remarks

    I recently had the opportunity to speak at a Bible study where the passage under consideration was 1 Timothy 2. If you’re familiar with that chapter, you know that it is particularly important — central, really — to conversations about whether women should be allowed to be pastors. The key section is verses 11-15, which read:

    “A woman is to learn quietly with full submission. I do not allow a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; instead, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed. But she will be saved through childbearing, if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with good sense.” — 1 Timothy 2:11-15 (CSB)

    This is the single most debated and commented-upon paragraph in Paul’s Pastoral Epistles (1 & 2 Timothy and Titus) — at least in the last two centuries, when women’s rights became a major subject of public discourse. On one side, some Christians argue that these verses function as an absolute, universal command for all churches. On that reading, women are prohibited from authoritative (i.e. pastoral) leadership roles.

    Conversely, other Christians assert that Paul’s words were addressing a specific, local situation in their ancient context, and therefore can only be applied to limited, analogous situations today. If that’s the case, it doesn’t prohibit capable, gifted women from serving at any level of ministry.

    Now, before I dive into my explanation of this passage (which I’ll do in a follow-up post), I want to share a little bit about my own journey wrestling with the broader topic of women in ministry.

    Examining My Inherited Assumptions

    As a young believer growing up in socially- and religiously-conservative evangelical circles, I never really had that much exposure to women pastors or teachers other than having the occasional female Sunday School teacher, or perhaps seeing a Joyce Meyer or Beth Moore Bible study being used in some of our church’s small groups. (Speaking of Beth Moore, the recent controversy over her leadership role in the Southern Baptist Convention makes this subject all the more timely.)

    In other words, my environment was decidedly complementarian. Within that camp, the Bible is understood as teaching that: 1) Men and women, while equal in worth, have different roles and must adhere to a God-ordained hierarchy; 2) Women at all times and places are not allowed to teach or have authority over men in the church (complementarians read 1 Tim 2:11-15 as an absolute), but they can teach other women or children; and 3) Women who did participate in ministry were limited from being a pastor, from preaching from the pulpit on Sundays, or from teaching men unless a male authority was involved to provide oversight and “headship.” 

    Then I went off to a Christian college and then seminary, where some of my Bible and theology classes were taught by some incredibly gifted female professors. I also read books, articles, and commentaries written by female Christian scholars. And I benefited greatly from the insights these women shared (one of my favorites being the stellar commentary on 1 Peter by Karen Jobes).

    The fact that I, as an adult male, was being taught Scripture by women caused me to start asking a few questions about the perspective I grew up with. Was it okay for these women to be teaching me?

    After some pondering and study, the conclusion I came to was, “Well, 1 Timothy must be talking about women not teaching men in the church as pastors.” After all, the rest of that epistle deals with issues arising in the church that needed correcting, and chapter 3 goes on to list qualifications for leaders in the church.

    And that is the most common complementarian explanation. Women can teach or have authority over men outside the church; they can work in education or politics, or as police officers, doctors, or military personnel. They just can’t be pastors.

    Notice that this interpretation is derived from context. It isn’t necessarily a literal, face-value reading of the text as it stands. If we did take these verses in a completely straightforward, literal manner, with no regard for context, then women would never have any form of authority over any men, ever.

    So my justification for being taught by female professors, or having female bosses at work, or listening to female politicians, but not supporting female pastors was from the literary context of 1 Timothy as a whole — it’s Scripture written to address only church situations.

    But what I had yet to do was to take it one step further and look more at the cultural context, as well. One of my assignments in seminary was to participate in a forum-style debate with my classmates over 1 Timothy 2:11-15, and I was surprised how little I previously understood about the culture of first-century Ephesus (in which Timothy was pastoring) or the potential strength of non-complementarian readings of Scripture.

    In the years since that assignment, I’ve sought to correct that weakness by studying both sides of the debate more thoroughly. We’ll talk more about that in the next post, where we’ll examine the text in more detail.

    See you down the path.