“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; she must be silent” (1 Timothy 2:11-12)

This is probably one of the most hotly debated and divisive passages in the Bible. Interpretations will varying depending upon how the relevancy of the cultural situation is factored in.  While I see a timeless principle at work there is also some cultural considerations that are being addressed. Moreover, we have to weigh what Paul is instructing Timothy with the complete witness of scripture.

In that regard I think some questions are in order.

• What did “teach or exercise authority” mean in that setting?

• Did Paul really mean for women to have no voice in the church? How does that fit with the distribution of gifts for the edification of the body of Christ?

• Didn’t women prophesy in mixed settings? How does that translate to today, particularly related to a global perspective and organically developed ministry situations?

• What cultural factors if any were influencing Paul’s instruction and how does that translate into contemporary situations?

As a complementarian, I affirm male headship and do believe there are restrictions. I have no issues with learning in silence or submitting to male headship. But I also consider how this is to play out with how the whole body of Christ is edified so that it grows itself up in love (Ephesians 4:16). I think it’s unfortunate when cultural factors are given due consideration in other passages, but seem to get dismissed here under the rubric “the bible clearly says”.  I honestly think there should be some tension here. It’s also unfortunate when any assertion by women for speaking is construed as self-serving, which is the chief reason I tend to stay away from the gender debate.

Well, I’ll be going back in that hole soon. But for what it’s worth, I’d thought I’d share a position paper I wrote out last summer for a required course I took on Acts and the Pauline epistles.

Position on Women and Bible Teaching

I asked this question shortly after I got this blog started: is there a third option in the comp/egal debate. My reasoning was fairly simple. Much of what I see being labeled as complementarianism is not very complementary has produced strained, and in some cases manufactured role differentiation. After reading this rather perplexing article by D.A. Carson, What’s Wrong With Patriarchy, I’ve been ruminating on the topic and have come to the conclusion that the third option has been there all along: patriarchy.

Now, I have the utmost respect for the Don, as he is affectionately termed among my theological discoursers. You’d be hard pressed to find better scholarship in New Testament studies. But this article left me a bit perplexed and confused, especially this statement here

In a similar vein, while “patriarchalism” may refer, rather neutrally, to a social order in which fathers rule, the mental associations connected with the term may be hugely variable. For some, it may conjure up order, stability, and fathers of the “Father Knows Best” variety. When one examines family breakdown in many of our communities, with fathers known rather more for their absence than for anything else, a little “patriarchalism” may have its attractions. On the other hand, for many others “patriarchalism” conjures up macho condescension toward women, self-promoting arrogance at the expense of “the little woman,” and even (God help us) terrifying sexual abuse. Why would any Christian organization want to defend such grotesque distortions of what God has ordained? Similarly, “traditionalism” in male/female relationships calls to mind, for some older Americans, the stable families of the Eisenhower years (even while all sides acknowledge that the white picket fences sometimes enclosed more unseemly realities), but for many others “traditionalism” is associated with nothing more than preserving the status quo. If one associates that status quo with a refusal to overcome manifold injustice, then traditionalism itself is evil.

So John Piper and others coined the expression complementarianism. One of its virtues was its newness: it did not (yet!) have a history of wretched connotations. Denotationally it encapsulated what many of us were trying to say. The Bible does not present men and women as if they are interchangeable in every respect, save for the fact that only the woman has a uterus and can therefore produce babies. Rather, both men and women were made in the image of God and are of equal worth before him, but in God’s good design they fit together in mutually complementary ways that go way beyond mere sexual mechanics. The substance of this complementarianism has to be filled out by careful and reverent study of Scripture, study that is as suspicious of agenda-driven traditionalism as it is of agenda-driven egalitarianism. Continue reading →

I expanded my last post and published it on Parchment and Pen. Interestingly, it got little notice. But the post also pointed to an article I wrote three years ago on why I don’t get into the gender debate.  Unfortunately accusations of self-serving motives quickly arise at the mention that there might be an injustice of women’s value according to scripture. On one hand it is good to just quietly work out your gift and align with ministries that match your theological conviction. But on the other hand, there is so much strained and distorted thinking out there with respect to gender roles that it does compel some challenging.

I’ve come to reject the polarization that has occurred over the past few decades. While I identify myself as a Complementarian, I find the practical aspects of this position as it has been traditionally espoused to not be very complementary at all. Restrictions on gifts and contributions does not really serve the body well or the husband at home.  I think we’ve made much more of headship and submission than is warranted in scripture.  On the flip side, I cannot justify the complete obliteration of male headship since that would be dishonest to scripture. There is a place for male headship and for submission. That screams for a third option. In the end it is about the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, the word, faith, family and the church’s mission. Can’t we find a solution that takes care of business, reflects the imago Dei and just respects each other?

Today a conference is going on here in Dallas for men entitled Kingdom Men.  For obvious reasons, I have no interest in learning about being a kingdom man. But what I fear is that the Kingdom Man agenda has been so skewed towards the domination of men, that women get lost in the dust. I get the sense from some Facebook posts I’ve seen today that only men are kingdom warriors. The unfortunate reality is that it is a product of a poorly translated concept of the woman’s identity as a help-meet. What gets missed is that women are kingdom warriors too, co-regents with men over the earth.

The term helper is translated from ezer gets a bad rap as the woman being dependent upon the man as the head. A closer look reveals that ezer has the connotation of being a rescuer. When God saw that it was not good for man to be alone and that he needed a suitable helper, he sent a rescuer.  The NET Bible notes:

Traditionally “helper.” The English word “helper,” because it can connote so many different ideas, does not accurately convey the connotation of the Hebrew word עֵזֶר (’ezer). Usage of the Hebrew term does not suggest a subordinate role, a connotation which English “helper” can have. In the Bible God is frequently described as the “helper,” the one who does for us what we cannot do for ourselves, the one who meets our needs. In this context the word seems to express the idea of an “indispensable companion.” The woman would supply what the man was lacking in the design of creation and logically it would follow that the man would supply what she was lacking, although that is not stated here. Continue reading →