This post will be a simulated interview with the Apostle Paul taken from the position of what he might say if we could transport Paul from the New Testament account through a time tunnel into our present day.  We are interested in asking Paul his reasons for what he wrote about women and what he thinks about the present day church regarding women’s ministries.  However the interviewer that gets first “crack” at Paul will be a complementarian Christian who strongly believes that women are restricted from teaching men in the church.  The interviewer’s name will be “Doug”.

Doug: Hello Apostle Paul.  I am delighted in having the opportunity to meet you.  I am also delighted that you have agreed to this interview.

Paul: Please just call me brother Paul, after all we are all brothers in Christ.

Doug: Well, yes, we are all brothers in Christ, but you are special since the Holy Spirit used you to write the scriptures.

Paul: Ah yes, the Holy Spirit was gracious to use me to speak forth His words.  That doesn’t make me a more special sinner than you are, but I am truly grateful to God because He is a gracious Potter who saw fit to use this mere piece of clay for His glory.  I am amazed to be here in the year 2009 and to see the body of Christ from the standpoint of the future.  So much of what I wrote in scripture was with the future church in mind.  I was in your church yesterday and I was amazed to see such a disproportionate amount of men doing the ministry work.  Where are your women?

Doug: Well brother Paul, you know where they are.  They are set in their place just like you instructed.  They don’t minister in public.  If you went to the children’s quarters you would find many of the women there.  But we know from your writings that women are to be silent in church and they are not to teach men.  We are very proud that we have resisted the way of the world and we have kept your law.

Paul: What!  Where did I give you a law that commanded women to be kept “in their place”?  I have always been a strong advocate of women.  Didn’t you read about Priscilla and Phoebe and all the other women that I commended?  Do you think I kept them in the children’s quarters and didn’t release them for service to the full body of Christ?

Doug: But brother Paul, you only allowed these women to minister to other women.  You never commended women for doing men’s work.

Paul: There is no such thing as “men’s work” or “women’s work” in the Kingdom of God.  Where do you get such an idea?  Didn’t you read the book of Romans?  In Romans 16:1, 2 I said:

Rom 16:1  I commend unto you Phoebe our sister, who is a servant of the church that is at Cenchreae:

Rom 16:2  Welcome her in the Lord as is appropriate for saints, and provide her with anything she may need from you, for she has assisted many people, including me.

Doug: (sputtering) But Paul, Phoebe wasn’t a real Deacon, she was just a Deaconess who worked with the women.  You commended her for her women’s work.

Paul: Nonsense!  Phoebe was a servant of the church.  If I meant that she was a servant “of the women” I would have stated that.  She served many very well including myself.  Am I a woman?  How could you understand Romans 16:2 to be anything other than that Phoebe assisted both men and women?

Doug: But she certainly didn’t teach men!  That of course is forbidden.

Paul: Where did the Holy Spirit ever forbid women from teaching men?  What has happened to the church that you are now forbidding parts of the body of Christ from using their spiritual gifts for the common good?

Doug: But it was YOU who forbid it!

Paul: I bear you witness that I never forbid such a thing.  Where are you reading that women in the body of Christ are not allowed to teach their brothers in Christ?

Doug: You said it very clearly in 1 Timothy 2:12.

Paul: Doug, my brother, that was written to Timothy concerning a problem situation that I was helping Timothy deal with.  I left Timothy behind in Ephesus to deal with some specific problems regarding false teachers and false doctrines.  Why would you take this verse to mean that it is applicable to all godly women?

Doug: It cannot be taken any other way!

Paul: On the contrary, 1 Timothy 2:12 cannot be taken as a general law regarding all women.  Think about it carefully.  Did the Holy Spirit ever restrict women from teaching men before I came on the scene?

Doug: Well, no.  I don’t know any Old Testament scripture that  forbid women from teaching men, but your law is good enough, isn’t it?

Paul: If it was a valid and documented law of God, that would be right.  But is what I said qualified to be a valid and documented law of God restricting only the women who happen to be alive after I became an apostle?  How unlucky for those women, don’t you think?  Let us reason this through.  I want to help you to be a Berean.  We have established by your own admission that there was no such law before my writing that restricted all women.  Good.  Now here is a test for you.  Do you remember the Bereans?

Doug: Of course I do.  They were commended by you for testing your teaching by the Old Testament scriptures.

Paul: Good, good…so,  how would they have tested a “law” that had no connection at all to the Old Testament?

Doug: (Silence)….I never thought of that.  How would they have tested that law?

Paul: The test was always against what God had already written.  It is time to think and to think clearly.  Believers in 2009 should not be any less careful than our noble brothers in Berea.  Doug please tell me, what are the qualifications for a judicial ruling against a person?

Doug: What do you mean?

Paul: Come on now, this isn’t too hard.  What was required to find a person guilty of an offense?

Doug: Okay, I get you now.  You are talking about two or three witnesses aren’t you?

Paul: Absolutely!

Doug: Brother Paul, what is your point?

Paul: Where is the documented second witness for the “law” that takes all women who are unfortunate to be born after I became an apostle and forbids them from teaching the truth of God’s word to men?

Doug: But doesn’t God only need to say things once?

Paul: God has sovereignly chosen to command that every documented judicial matter must have a second or third witness.  He has done this for our good and I heartily agree.  Brother Doug, even Jesus submitted himself to the necessity of having a second or third witness.  In John 5:31, 32 Jesus said that His testimony alone would be considered untrue without a second witness.  So now, brother Doug, please tell me why my testimony would not have to have a second witness if even the testimony of Jesus required a second witness?

Doug: But…but….

Paul: No “buts” about it – every single law of God has the required second or third witness.  God was very consistent.  Didn’t you think that it was odd that I wrote a “law” regarding all women and placed such an important universal law only in a one letter written specifically to one person?  Didn’t you think that it was odd that I didn’t tell any other church that women could not teach men?

Doug: Well, no.  I didn’t think it was odd.  I agreed with your law.  I think women should let us men do all the teaching to the brothers.  It makes me feel kind of special.

Paul: (Sigh!)  You are special, brother Doug.  But you are no more special than our sisters in Christ.  God would never create a law that restricted all of his women “sons” and not give the required validating witness.   I myself thought so highly of the need for a second or third witness that I practiced it continually in my letters.  Don’t you remember what I wrote to the Philippians?  I wrote in chapter 3 verse one:

Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you.

 

Does that sound like I practiced saying important matters only once?

Doug: Well, no, it doesn’t.  But what about 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35?  You wrote that women were to be silent in the church.  I realize that you didn’t write that women cannot teach men in that passage, but silence is silence, isn’t it?  And didn’t you write 1 Corinthians to an entire church?

Paul: There are some important things in my letter that I will highlight for you so you can understand that passage.  But I must run for now.  I will be back again for another interview shortly, God-willing.  I am off to inspect this 2009 culture that seems so strange to me.  I received an invitation to stand behind the “pulpit” of John MacArthur’s church.  I don’t know what a “pulpit” is or why a church is named after a “Johnny Mac”.   Someone also told me I should check out their new “hard drive” on their “hot computer” that allows them to minister to the lost all the way to Australia and South America.  Hard drive??  Hot computer?? Australia??  South America????  I am totally lost…(turns to leave muttering to himself)….(turns around and lifts his hand in blessing) but grace and peace to you from our Lord Jesus.  Until we meet again.

{Note:  Does anyone have any questions for brother Paul that Doug could ask him about the women’s issue?  Feel free to record your questions or comments in the comment section.}

Part two of the Interview with Paul is here.