There is a 50% chance you go to a church that does not believe in female pastors. Women are allowed to lead worship. They may teach children and other women, but not men. They are no longer required to cover their heads in church – that rule has been relaxed. But they must be silent in church. They can ask their husbands at home, and achieve salvation by having children. They are meant to be seen and not heard.
On the other hand, there is a 50% chance you know female pastors who are sincere women of God, who win people to Christ, who have a genuine heart for the people. In fact, they may be more sincere than a lot of male pastors you know.
So how do we make sense of this? This article explains why women can be in ministry today.
Main Points
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- Churches that prohibit female pastors are guilty of a double standard – they also don’t enforce the head covering rule.
- It is important to understand the “why” behind the “what” – why Paul commanded women to be silent.
- Women in ministry would have created an offense in the early church.
- Our culture no longer considers it an offense for women to be in ministry.
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Main Scriptures
1 Corinthians 14
34 Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. 35 And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church.1 Timothy 2
11 Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. 12 And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.
13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. 15 Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.
Introduction
In our Facebook group, we recently had a discussion on this topic. One person asked the question to another member who was against female pastors,
“What advice would you give to female pastors who are winning people to Christ and working tirelessly for the Lord?”
He responded,
“Thank God for all the people He won through your ministry, but you need to repent for rebelling against God’s ordinances.”
I don’t know about you, but something does not quite sit right with that teaching. She needs to repent for preaching the gospel? Seriously?
In Philippians 1:18, Paul said that he would rejoice even if people are preaching Christ out of selfish ambition as long as Christ is being preached. So you are telling me that Paul had no problem with men preaching the gospel out of envy and strife, but he was mortally offended by women in ministry – preaching the gospel out of sincerity. Something does not quite sit right with that doctrine. It does not fit.
This leads me to believe that there was something going on in the 1st century church that lead Paul to write what he wrote.
In this article, I will argue from scripture that Paul’s prohibitions against women in ministry were specific to the 1st century church. It’s not so much about culture, but about specific circumstances that were taking place then. It was not intended to be a rule for all time. But you study the scriptures for yourself and decide. If you disagree with me, that’s fine. I love you even if you’re wrong.
Scripture vs Culture
Now let me state equivocally that I reject feminism. Yes there are some churches who allow women to preach because they have given in to a feminist culture. For this reason, they are also likely to ordain gay ministers. We should absolutely NOT give in to worldly cultures.
But this is not about giving in to culture. This is not about feminism and women’s lib. It’s about scripture and rightly dividing the Word of God. That’s my focus in this article. I am going to examine the relevant scriptures on female pastors and women in ministry. And I am going to try my best to remove any denominational biases I may have. I am not going to allow a predetermined theology to affect how I read those verses. Let’s go.
How to Interpret Extreme Scriptures
The Bible contains a lot of extreme statements. For example, Jesus said to hate your father and mother, and to forsake your wife and children (Luke 14:26; Matthew 19:29).
There is no exegetical reason to believe Jesus was not being literal. By this, I mean, there is nothing in the text or the context that would suggest Jesus was using any figure of speech. These scriptures could be taken figuratively. But they could also be taken literally. There is no way to know UNLESS you compare them with other scriptures. For example,
1 Timothy 5:8 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Some scriptures are literal, some are figurative
This scripture sheds a little more light on Jesus’ statements. If you take Jesus’ words literally, then you end up with a contradiction. But if you assume He was using some figure of speech (exaggeration or hyperbole or whatever), then it fits. Therefore, the only plausible conclusion is that Jesus was not being literal – He meant to hate them in comparison to your love for God. That’s not hard to understand, is it?
Well the same thing is true with Paul’s statements on women in ministry. If we take them as a universal principle that was meant for all time, then we have a problem. It does not fit with the rest of the New Testament.
In the New Testament, the writers go to great lengths to warn us against trying to keep the law. We were set free from the bondage of trying to keep the law. The apostles rebuked anyone who would attempt to put that yoke on the necks of believers (Acts 15:10). Why would Paul say that women should shut their mouths because the Law says so? It is either Paul is contradicting himself, or there is something deeper that we are missing.
Feminists would say “To hell with Paul. He is a male chauvinistic pig.” I say let’s study the scripture without the denominational biases. Forget what your church believes. Forget what you’ve been taught all your life. Take what your pastor says with a pinch of salt. Let’s go deeper into the scriptures on women in ministry.
The What vs The Why
When the Pharisees asked Jesus about divorce and remarriage, here is how Jesus responded. Moses said such and such, but he only gave that law because of the hardness of men’s hearts (see Matthew 19:1-8). Jesus did not just address WHAT the law said, but WHY the law was given.
And right there, we can extract a very important principle in interpreting scripture. The WHY is equally as important as the WHAT. It is NOT sufficient to know WHAT the scripture says. We must also understand WHY it says it. Most people, who forbid women to teach, do so on the basis that “the Bible says so”. They focus exclusively on the WHAT while not properly addressing the WHY. As a result, they end up with New Testament Law.
It is vitally important to know WHY Paul said what he said about women in ministry. That’s the key. If the reason women should be silent is because that’s how God designed it, then we have no choice but to accept that. But if the reason is something else – something specific to the 1st century church – then it behooves us to investigate it properly and come to the right conclusion.
A Deeper Look at 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2
Here are the basic ideas in the relevant scriptures.
1 Corinthians 14:34-35 – women keep silent (and submissive) in church because the law says so, ask your husbands at home.
1st Timothy 2:11-15 – women should be silent (with all submission) because God made Adam first, and Eve was deceived not Adam.
1 Corinthians 11:2-5 – keep the traditions about women covering their heads because God is the head of Christ is the head of the man is the head of the woman.
As I noted earlier, those who believe that women should not be allowed to teach in church, typically do not insist that women cover their heads. They say that the head covering was a “tradition”. And yes, Paul did use the word tradition. But he also insisted that they keep the traditions. There is nothing in any of these passages that suggest this has anything to do with culture, or that it was limited to the 1st century church.
Each of these passages has a similar structure. Paul gave a command/instruction/tradition and backed it up by appealing to something that was immutable – the Law / the order of creation / the nature of God Himself (God is the head of Christ).
People say that the command about women remaining silent applies to all time because Paul appealed to the creation order and not culture. Sure, but he did the same thing with regard to the head covering. So it is hypocritical to say one applies for all time while the other can be relaxed. It is inconsistent and intellectually dishonest.
The fact that in each case, Paul appealed to some immutable thing, implies that there is an aspect of what he taught that can never be altered. There is something in those scriptures that applies for all time.
Submission vs Silence
There are two things noted in the main scriptures – silence and submission. For sure the submission part is for all time. The Bible clearly teaches that women are to submit to their husbands just as Christ is the head of the church (Ephesians 5:22). That principle of submission is timeless because it is linked to an immutable thing. There is no way to argue out of that from scripture. Of course submission is not a negative thing (you can check out my article on submission).
But what about the silence part? Is that for all time? Or is that part temporal? Is silence equivalent to submission? I can show you very easily that it is not.
Paul said women should be silent in church because they are to be submissive. But they may ask their husbands at home. But aren’t women also to be submissive to their husbands at home? Why must they be silent in church, but not silent at home as well? The answer is very easy. It’s because silence and submission are separate things. Silence may be a means of submission, but it does not necessarily have to be. Have you ever received the silent treatment? Nothing submissive about that.
What was going on in the early church?
This leads me to believe that there was something going on in the 1st century churches that motivated these commands. Most likely, it was a case of women asking questions in church in a disruptive manner.
Are women easier to deceive than men? I don’t think anyone will seriously answer yes to that question. So why did Paul talk about Eve being deceived and not Adam? It was Adam who sinned (Romans 5:12), so why did Paul single out Eve? Was Paul teaching that women are more easily deceived? Or was it specifically the women at that time? Look at 2 Timothy 3:6. Clearly there was a situation with women specific to the early church.
2 Timothy 3:6 For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts
Artemis cult?
Some scholars allude to the Artemis cult that was concentrated at Ephesus, but to an extent prevalent among the Greeks in the 1st century. In this cult, the leaders were female. So in the Greek culture, women were much more liberated than the Jewish culture. Now imagine people being saved out of that culture.
Many 1st century churches contained a mixture of Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. The Greek women might have thought they could take charge of a service, and this would have been a major stumbling block to the Jewish Christians.
This was the main problem that Paul was addressing. He had a decision to make. If he allowed those women to take charge, that would have caused a major offence to the Jewish Christians, and he did not want that. So he decided to give commands for them to be silent in church.
Someone may make the point that in the early church, the leaders were male – the apostles, elders, deacons – all male. Well duh! Of course they were. But the reason for that is not because of God’s design, but because of a deeper principle that took precedence.
The principle of submission to authority is timeless and this is why Paul appealed to immutable things in his instructions. Women are to be submissive because God created Adam first then Eve and because of the very nature of God. The command to be silent was for a very specific (and local) reason.
Commands vs Principles
Throughout the New Testament, there is a clear distinction between commands and principles. In fact, Paul usually appealed to the OT Law to derive principles by which Christians should live as opposed to commands they must obey. See for example 1 Corinthians 9:9.
One major principle that Paul lived by is this:
Acts 24:16 … I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men.
1 Corinthians 9:20 and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; 22 … I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
This principle plays out in a lot of commands that Paul gave. This is the WHY behind the WHAT.
No such thing as New Testament law
Personally I have a problem with the concept of New Testament Law. The Bible writers go to great lengths to teach us that we have been set free from OT Law. Are they now binding us to NT Law? That is so counterintuitive. It does not fit. But when we understand WHY they gave these commands, it makes sense.
A tale of 2 Greeks
Look at another example. What does the NT teach about circumcision? It clearly teaches that we do not need to be circumcised (Acts 15 and many other scriptures). Much of the NT was written to counter the teachings of Judaists who were insisting that Gentile Christians keep the Law. YET Paul ensured that Timothy was circumcised because of the Jews.
Acts 16:3 … And he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in that region, for they all knew that his father was Greek.
BUT he did not insist on Titus being circumcised.
Galatians 2:3 Yet not even Titus who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.
So what up with that? Why the glaring inconsistency? Two Greeks, Paul circumcised one of them and not the other. The actions or the commands were different. But the deeper principles remained unchanged.
Principle #1 – don’t be an offence to the gospel.
Command – Timothy, get circumcised.Principle #2 – don’t give in to law keepers.
Command – Titus, don’t get circumcised.
It all fits
When you truly study the scriptures honestly, there is no contradiction. It all fits. This clearly explains why commands could vary. It’s because commands are temporary means of keeping principles. The principles are timeless, the commands are temporal.
This is why I am willing to put my neck on a block and tell you that the principle of submission is timeless, but the command for women to be silent in church was specific to the 1st century church. If female pastors and women in ministry are no longer an offence, then the command may be relaxed while keeping the deeper principle.
In most churches I know where women are pastors, the men in the church have absolutely no problem with it. So how is it rebellious? The reason they are pastoring is not because they are usurping men’s authority, but rather because no man is available for the job.
Husband of one wife
“Well doesn’t the Bible say elders should be the husband of one wife?” you ask in a whiny nasal voice. Yes it does. I bet you think that means a pastor must be male, right? Fasten your seatbelt.
The expression “husband of one wife” literally means someone who is 1) male, 2) married, and 3) monogamous. It implies ALL 3. Yet Paul was not married. Neither was Timothy. So #2 was clearly negotiable.
This expression is used as a qualification for elders / pastors (1 Timothy 3:2, Titus 1:6) as well as for deacons (1 Timothy 2:12). But we know for a fact that there were female deacons (Romans 16:1). So #1 was not literal either.
“Husband of one wife” is simply an expression that means “not promiscuous”.
Conclusion
I have used 3000 words to present a Biblical argument for female pastors and women in ministry. I appealed to the deeper principles behind the commands of scriptures such as 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2 – the WHY behind the WHAT.
You can hide behind shallow interpretations of God’s word, focusing on the WHAT while conveniently ignoring the WHY. But then you miss the main point and you end up with unbalanced and inconsistent teachings.
As I said at the beginning, feel free to disagree with me. But do so on the basis of a proper understanding of scripture not because your church teaches this, or your denomination teaches that, or because of what you have always believed. Throw all of that out, and allow the scriptures to guide you.
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