The expanded women in leadership

Women in the Church
Adam Hoover
Biblical Seminary

The issue of gender roles in the people of God has deep roots. It goes all the way back to the garden in Genesis 2 and 3 and continues into the writings of the epistles. There has been a lot of debate and confusion in the church over women’s place in God’s family. In this paper we will explore how the curse in Genesis 3 has affected our view of women and how God has used women for his kingdom purposes. We will also look at the ultimate goal God has for his people and how the difficult and seemingly contradictory writing of Paul take part in this larger story.
Originally God created man and woman in his image and he said for the very first time in scripture that it was “very good.” (Gen 1:31) Man and woman were to together rule over all of creation (Gen 1:28). Then sin enters the picture with the rebellion of Adam and Eve against God. There were great consequences to this not least of which was Eve’s subjugation to Adam. (Gen 3:16) Adam also became subject to the ground to toil in his labor. Both Adam and Eve’s subjugation are painfully seen continued throughout the next several acts of the book and into our modern world. God did not create Adam to be subject to the ground or Eve to be subject to Adam but these were the results of sin breaking into our world. “The fall distorted mutuality by turning women against men and men against women; oneness became otherness and rivalry for power.” (McKnight pg.165)
The domination of man over woman can be seen through the Old Testament. This can be observed in what Israel became: a patriarchal, male dominated culture. (McKnight pg 157). But throughout these times God still raised up and used gifted and faithful women, placing them into leadership roles. Examples can be seen in Miraim, Deborah, and Huldah who play key roles in leading Isreal as a spiritual leader, leader of the government, and prophetess respectively. In reading though the scripture passages that recount these women’s stories it is impossible to deny that God used women in leadership roles to accomplish his purposes.
God instates laws through Moses, many of which put limits on male domination by placing restrictions on divorce, adultery, prostitution, and extra-marital affairs. God didn't approve of the abuse of women; instead he tried to curb it. “In its time, the old covenant provided the best possible situation for God to establish a community that would be responsive to his will. However, the ravages caused by the fall were so severe that they defiled the life of God's people in some of its most sacred expressions. The marriage ordinance provides a case in point. All the advantages of divine revelation and of moral guidance available to God's people did not suffice to help them recover the mutuality that had prevailed in marriage before the fall. Man continued to rule over woman under the cover of a depraved family structure that dehumanized them both.” (Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Role, pg. 68)
This is the world that Jesus enters. Does Jesus follow tradition and not rock the boat? -No, Jesus challenges many of the cultural norms of his day involving women. Jesus saw women as people. James Hurley puts it in his book Man and Woman in Biblical Perspective. He says, "The foundation-stone of Jesus' attitude toward women was his vision of them as persons to whom and for whom he had come. He didn't perceive them primarily in terms of their sex, age or marital status. He considered them in terms of their relationship or lack of relationship to God." (Hurley, pg.83). We see Jesus looking toward the life and healing of women in John 4, John 8, Luke 7,Luke 10, Luke 13, Mt 9, Mt 15 and John 20. These actions show that he did not view their needs and lives as unimportant. However, on the other side of the coin, women were conspicuous absent from leadership in Jesus’ movement.
As Jesus is being crucified we witness the faithfulness of the women in his life. It was two women who did not abandon Jesus’ grave and these women who were the first to see Jesus on the third day, the day of his resurrection. The resurrected Jesus revealed himself first to women and then to men. Women were the first to have faith and then men. We see both men and women receiving the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:18) as a mark insuring their inheritance and place in God’s family (Eph 1:13, Rom 8:18)
We also notice women take a more prominent role in the new covenant time of the people of God. Christian women such as Lydia were the spiritual pioneers of their families and led their whole family to faith in Jesus(Acts 16). We hear about Junia who was “outstanding among the apostles” (Romans 16:6). Pricilla taught God’s way (Acts 18:26) and Phoebe was a deacon (Romans 16: 1-2).
So far in the story we see women being oppressed and then liberated radically quickly. This brings us to the more confusing letters of Paul and Peter to the early church. In 1Corinthians 11:3-16 Paul is challenging the church in Corinth to conduct themselves in a more “fitting and orderly way” because of conduct in the church that seemed unfitting and disorderly to him. There is much to be debated in these verses of scripture and many different conclusions about women’s role in the church have been drawn from them. The restrictiveness of these verses do not seem to fit with the larger story of scripture.
In verse 3 Paul writes “now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is man and the head of Christ is God.” This could be interpreted to say that man is over woman just as God is over Christ. But is God over Christ? The scriptures don’t teach that the Father rules over the Son but that they share equality and that one day the Father will give the reign of his whole Kingdom over to his Son. If anything we see a kind of mutual submission in the Trinity. Instead of meaning “over” or “boss” the word “head” could mean “source” or “origin”. Strong’s concordance (g2775) describes it as meaning “to bring under headings, to sum up, to summarize” which seems to indicate that Paul was saying that woman came from man. He continues this thought in verse 11 and 12 when he says that “woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. “ This shows both man and women’s dependence on each other.
1Corinthians 14:31-31 says that “women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak but must remain in submission, as the law says.” Taken literally and as a command that transcends culture women would have to remain absolutely silent in church; no testimonies, no greeting, no singing. I have never seen a church that interprets the passage this way. Most choose an interpretation that recognizes that this was not a command to be taken completely literally and forever. We try to make this command suitable for the culture we live in. We can also see that Paul does not take this command literally himself when in his previous letter mentioned, 1Corinthians, he says that he does permit women to pray and prophesy (11:5). Paul did not expect all women everywhere to remain silent, but only some women should remain silent based on his discernment. He seems to indicate that he discerned this based on the disruptive question asking that was happening and tells them to “ask their own husbands at home” (14:35).
1 Timothy 2:11-15 continues the themes of headship and silence and adds deception, submission, teaching, and authority into the mix. It is important to look at the way this passage was written. What is said and what is not said? The Greek word is epitrepó means to turn to, to trust, to instruct, or to permit. It is the only time it is used in the scriptures. It is not the norm for a way an instruction is carried out. The word epitrepó is used in the first person singular present. This differs with “epitrepē o theos” which is used in Hebrews 6:3 to say “ God permits”. We see in other letters of Paul’s that some commands can be his discerned thoughts for the people receiving the letter but not necessarily binding laws. He says, “Now about virgins: I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy” in 1Cor 7:24. This contrasts charges made in 1Timothy “I charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels…” (5:12) and direct commands “Do not entertain an accusation…” (5:19), “No widow may be…” (5:9).
Paul mentions in verse 13 that “Adam was formed first, then Eve.” One could interpret this to say that Adam was formed first and therefore is higher than Eve. This could be seen as a rule of thumb for all time because it reaches back to the garden. Paul is speaking directly about the fall of man into sin in Genesis 3. He reaches back to Genesis 3 but not to Genesis 1 and 2. This is similar to 1Corinthians 14:31-31 where Paul makes reference to the law which was revealed after Genesis 2 as well. In this context women are to be subject to man as a result of sin. When a church is still living out of the curse of Genesis 3 women should not have authority over men.
Paul himself differentiates between a Genesis 1-2 type of life and a Genesis 3 type of life when he says “In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God” (1Cor 11:11,12). In the Lord life is different from what life is like outside of Christ. Jesus did not come to keep the curse going but became the curse so that we could be free (Gal 3:13). We are all one in Christ. Those who are in Christ are not under the law that Paul mentions in his letter to the Corinthians (1Cor 14:34, Romans 6:14) but instead, as Paul says about life in Christ, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Authority, leadership and submission all radically change when moving from a Genesis 3 type of dominating, top down, heavy handed leadership to a servant style leadership. Jesus came to model for us how the one who holds authority is to be servant (Mt 32:11). This is demonstrated most poignantly in John 13 when Jesus “knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he” (John 13; 3-4) washed feet. The knowledge of his power prompted him to serve those under him. The top to bottom system gets flipped around. Paul reinforces this same idea when he is speaking of the church saying “those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor” (1Cor 12:22). The church is not a top down system, rather it is a bottom up system that shows great respect and honor to all parts of the body. “God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.” (1Cor 12:24)
It is important to be open handed in the disagreements among Christians about the nature of gender roles. Some believe the Bible teaches a timeless principle of male authority, where authority is defined in terms of the servant-leadership exemplified by Jesus Christ. Others believe that the idea of male authority expressed in Scripture is a culturally-conditioned teaching, and not trans-cultural law. They believe that the ideal model of marriage is that of mutual submission and leadership personality within an equal relationship. When guided by the principles of Godly love and servant-leadership, either model of gender roles can serve to foster God-glorifying relationships.

References
Bilezikian, Dr. Gilbert (1985). Beyond Sex Role: Baker academics

McKnight, Scot (2008). The Blue Parakeet: Zondervan

Hurley, James (2002). Man and Woman in Biblical Perspective: Wipf & Stock Publishers