160. Bible Questions: Why can't women be pastors (and elders) in some churches?

E160:  Bible Questions:  Why can’t women be pastors (or elders) in some churches?

Why can't women be pastors and elders in some churches?  41 fortune 500 companies are run by women. Nations are led by them though. The gallery of us presidents does not include them. That will soon change. As a majority of us, citizens are ready for one women operate on our bodies, police our streets, rule in our courts and carry us out of burning buildings. My own daughter's a firefighter yet in some churches, they're not allowed to be elders, teaching pastors or pastors at all through the world's eyes. It's a very bad look for the church. So churches that do not embrace women as church leaders or pastors need to have a strong answer to my student's question.

0

00:00:48

Why can't women be pastors or elders in my church first let's address the bad look issue. That's not always a bad thing. Jesus told us that the world has a lot of things wrong. And Jesus told us what the world should look like and would look like if it was right. If he was ruling as king episode 97, fleshes, much of that out, just a couple of examples of bad looks in the world's eyes from Jesus. First, Jesus said leadership is not how many people who report to you. It's how many you serve. Jesus also said truly strong.

0

00:01:28

People love their enemies. Turn the other cheek when wounded and forgive lavishly, as God has forgiven them in our world, serving is for the weak and turning the other cheek is naive at best and enabling at its worst. When it comes to our question, women and church leadership and teaching as pastors or elders. This is a big question in our world. It's the number one question asked on one of the frequently asked question websites. I frequent. I want to start with two points. This is an important and emotional issue. And second it is complex. There is no easy answer though.

0

00:02:10

Some of these websites will claim. It's so clear. Anybody should see it. I beg to differ and I hope you do. At the end of this conversation, almost all Christians, churches, and denominations who discuss and decide this issue are desperately trying to obey scripture and put a smile on the face of God. Before we proceed. I need you to understand the context to all this. If you haven't listened to the last episode, episode 1 59, please do. So. In that episode, I went cover to cover on how women are portrayed in scripture. I could have lingered a lot longer over the way Jesus interacted with women.

0

00:02:49

After all he is our model. One writer summarizes Jesus. This way it's striking Jesus did not treat women as women, but as persons, he took them seriously, ask them questions, encourage their potential and lifted them up to the dignity that they deserved. Here's another important point. As I said, in episode 10, we need to see the parts of scripture in light of the whole. I use the example of a jigsaw puzzle. Imagine you get a large jigsaw puzzle. It's a puzzle of the Sierra Nevada mountains covered in a blanket of snow. But inside this puzzle box, you pull out a piece that's purple with an eyeball on it.

0

00:03:30

And it looks suspiciously like the children's character Barney you'd conclude that piece doesn't belong in this box. So whatever piece of scripture we study, it should be consistent with the whole. It should fit in the puzzle. Then in episode 12, I looked at a principle of interpretation. That's critical in this discussion. It's the principle of description or prescription does this text I'm looking at? Describe what was, or does it prescribe what should be or a principle that should be customized to our cultural context. That's such an important piece of this. I might suggest you push pause, and you go listen to that seven minute podcast before continuing, there are approximately 350,000 churches in the U S today.

0

00:04:18

Now I don't know how many churches are in the group that does not allow women to be elders or pastors. At least the pastor who preaches or is the primary leader of the staff and ministry. Most of us do know that only males can be priests in the Catholic church. And as far as I know, the leaders up the chain to the Vatican are also all men, but there are also many Protestant churches that take this same approach. These 350,000 churches in the U S could be categorized into two camps. Churches who believe the Bible teaches men and women are interchangeable and churches who believe the Bible teaches men and women are complimentary that God intends them to function in certain roles within the church.

0

00:05:00

God's wiggly people. If you're a woodworker like a dovetail joint, different, but complimentary fitting together to form a strong whole churches who do not allow women as elders or pastors point to one primary passage in scripture is the basis for their decision. First Timothy two 11 through 15. I have to confess when my students read this out loud in class inside, I wince just the bit in our culture. It is a bad look. It's pretty strong. I'm going to read it to you from the new American standard version. This is a word for word from the Greek translation. That's very accurate.

0

00:05:41

Here. It is. Quote, women should learn quietly and submissively. I do not let women teach men or have authority over them. Let them listen quietly for God made Adam first and afterwards he made Eve and it was not Adam who was deceived by Satan. The woman was deceived and sin was the result, but women will be saved through childbearing. Assuming they continue to live in faith, love holiness and modesty unquote. It certainly sounds like you could paraphrase this as follows ladies. You can't teach or lead in the church you were made after Adam and you are the one deceived go home, have babies be submissive and learn from the man of the house.

0

00:06:27

I think you'd agree. That is a bad look to a whole lot of people who need to hear about Jesus and get connected to a local church and grow as his apprentices. But once again, bad looks to the world are often precisely what scripture inspired by God intends to communicate in order to restore us in this broken sin saturated world. So are these churches, right? These churches who believe women should not be leaders and pastors in the church. I'm going to start with giving you the gist of their argument on why they are willing to rule out half the population of our planet and well over half the attendees of their own churches from teaching and leading, at least teaching and having leadership over men.

0

00:07:14

If you're in the other camp, please hang in there because I'm coming to why you view this differently. Here's their argument. Churches who believe men and women are complimentary with site creation. They would say God intended from the beginning that men and women would dovetail together to form a whole equal the different and functioning differently. Why wouldn't God in restoring his people use that same creation principle in how men and women function in the church, the body of Christ, they would then move on to this first Timothy chapter two passage. They would note these verses are in the most doctrinal section of scripture. The letters, unlike styles of literature in the Bible like Proverbs or narrative, the new Testament letters are assembly instructions.

0

00:08:02

Every word matters as does the punctuation scripture claims Paul was being carried along in first Timothy by the holy spirit, as he wrote these assembly instructions to Timothy. Second, this verses in a special letter, first Timothy, a pastoral letter, the pastoral letters were specifically written to pastors in how to guide God's wiggly people, the church in how they do church. That's important, too third. They would argue the immediate context for first Timothy chapter two verses 11 through 15 comes in verse eight. Paul writes in every place of worship I want.

0

00:08:44

And then he follows it with an explanation of the activities and attitudes of men and women in verses nine through 10. This certainly sounds like general instructions. At least for meeting in worship for, they would say this is also supported in other scripture passages, which is another interpretive principle we have in first Corinthians chapter 11 to another church. Paul writes a kissing cousin passage in this passage. He's also talking about Adam and Eve who came first and who came second, which was the first image bearer, reflecting the glory of God and his keyword here, head on the internet. You'll read arguments all day long about what that word means in the Greek.

0

00:09:27

Does it mean leader or source like the headwaters of the Mississippi? I'm not going to go there. I'm just going to say first Timothy chapter two is not, Paul's only bad. Look to the world, kind of passage about men and women fifth, they would argue this should not be a bad look for the church at all to lead in our world is considered a value statement. The world views leaders as more important, paid more respected more, but in the church, that's not to be the case at all. It certainly was not with Jesus. And it wasn't with Paul words like leading teaching and submission are viewed totally different by the world than God's people and the church.

0

00:10:10

And last they would say consider the source. Paul is a brilliant old Testament scholar. He knows God and God's revelation in the old Testament. He's the one who planted these churches from the ground up. He knows them backwards and forwards who would be a better expert on how they should operate well, and beyond that, Paul's being carried along by the holy spirit as he writes. So we need to say, this is God breathed instructions for God's people. That sounds like a pretty tight argument. Doesn't it controversial? Yes. A bad look to the world. Yes, but a tight argument, but many churches aren't convinced those arguments are correct.

0

00:10:54

They would say they're well-intended for sure, but not correct. Here are the arguments churches give for not deciding to exclude women from leading teaching men in or pastoring a church first, they would say every text has a context. Paul wrote this to Timothy who pastored an emphasis. We learned in episode 1 37 emphasis was the bullseye for the worship of Artemis or Diana women were priests further in the kissing cousin, pastured cited. First Corinthians 11. We looked at this in episode 1 33 chorus was filled with new baby believers who were really missed up in first Corinthians 12.

0

00:11:36

It sounds like someone who believed they had the gift to speak directly for God may have been standing up in the worship service saying Jesus is a cursed. No kidding. Can you imagine that if things like that were happening in worship services in Corinth and let's speculate by a woman, or if women who are used to dealing with Artemis worship in emphasis were doing similar out of bound things in emphasis where Timothy pastored is that at least possible Paul was describing and prescribing a solution for those local congregations. I imagine your company purchases a subsidiary outside the gates. They post the sign. Absolutely no smoking on these premises. Under any circumstances you could decide, this is an across the board company policy against smokers and it's discriminating.

0

00:12:24

Or you could discover this is a new subsidiary company, a propane manufacturing plant. That is an exceptional explosion risk. And this is a safety procedure for that site only. That's what folks who embrace women as pastors and leaders are saying about the first Timothy chapter two passage. Then they would point to the historical context they would ask were things different than 50. And the now for God's wiggly people, women then generally were not spiritually. Well-educated like men. They also were considered less credible witnesses today. Both these things have radically changed more women now graduate with college degrees than men and women are not only viewed as credible witnesses, but credible judges over 30% of our federal judges are women.

0

00:13:17

And that's climbing number three, practically speaking. It's very hard to live this out consistently in the church. When it says a woman to teach a man, what do you mean? Are you just speaking in a church worship service? How about a woman worship leader who guides with scripture, prayer and stories? Is that okay? Even if she goes longer than the sermon, or how about a woman coming up and giving an extended testimony? Is that okay? Or is she teaching men in the congregation? And does this just apply to your Sunday morning in the sanctuary or auditorium? Is it okay for a woman to be teaching a co-ed class somewhere else in the building or a discipleship or small group on another night?

0

00:14:02

Should you say they're not teaching, but just leading discussion. Is it okay for her to teach or perform pastoral functions outside the church services? Could she counsel a couple or officiate their wedding? Could she baptize someone at camp or hover in the hospital over a dying patient, shepherding him or her into the arms of Jesus. And how about teaching through writing and speaking? Should men not read books or listen to podcasts of women teaching the Bible? And then there's the matter of what is a man in this passage is adjust, meaning a male. So women shouldn't teach little boys, Timothy himself we learned was taught and mentored by his mother and grandmother, or does it mean older boys?

0

00:14:50

And if so, at what age did they become men? According to this passage and as for being under the authority of a man, what if a woman is not at the top of your church leadership, organizational chart? What if there's a board there and what if they are all men, if she's under their authority, could the entire staff be made up of women who are pastors and speaking of boards, many churches have a board at the top. Should those be all male? This group would point to creation and say, it was not good for man to be alone. Males by themselves were incomplete. They'd argue. Now, as Jesus moves his wiggly people back to a restorative creation shouldn't women beyond those boards.

0

00:15:34

And if they aren't, won't they be incomplete. Clearly women have gifts and insights needed to see the big picture and to move forward wisely. And since women make up well over half the attendees had nearly every church in the United States. Isn't it common sense to have them woven into the staff and lay leadership, which sets the mission and fine tunes, the methods and speaking of gifts and insight, this group would add the high water mark of scripture on how God gives certain gifted people and gifts to people to build up the church as Ephesians four and especially verses 11 through 13 in this passage, there's not a trace of gender assignments at all.

0

00:16:17

It just says to each one, God gives finally they would point to Paul's own words in the letter of Galatians in chapter three, verse 28, Paul says there is no longer Jew or Gentile slave or free male or female for you are all one in Jesus Christ. Churches that believe genders are now interchangeable in roles would say just as the church has colorblind and economic blind, it should be gender blind. We'd never dream of discriminating against a person of color for a pastor or someone who came from a poor background. So why should we with their gender? Yes, they would admit the context of this passage is Paul talking about people being saved that were justified by free gift through faith in Jesus that's colorblind economics, blind, gender blind, but they would argue that Paul taught that salvation is not just the moment when we are saved.

0

00:17:13

He taught many places. It's a lifetime of being saved as God restores us as his image bearers, they would argue God does that through both men and women who lead teach and shepherd us. That is a pretty strong argument too. And I remind you both groups deeply desire to honor God and to obey his revealed will and scripture. If my students press me, which group is right, I'd take a coin out of my pocket and flip it to me. It's a coin toss.