1 Timothy 2:15 has been one of the most puzzling verses to decipher throughout church history. One of the difficult things in interpreting this verse is the translator’s rendering of some difficult grammar. Some translations leave out some of the grammar that is necessary to come to a correct interpretation. How can we claim to know what Paul meant in this passage if we leave out some of the key inspired grammar?

Here are some of the particular grammar issues that Paul presents in 1 Timothy 2:15 -

1. Paul switches from singular feminine to third person plural. Since it is improper grammar to allow both singular and plural to refer to the exact same person(s), then “she” cannot be the exact same thing as “they”.
2. Paul uses a unique form of childbearing by using a definite noun and not a verb
3. “The childbearing” is singular not plural
4. The grammar is future tense with a conditional clause so the “she” in question cannot be someone who is dead at the time of Paul’s writing.

Many of the translations of this difficult verse move into interpretation rather than just translation in an effort to help people understand Paul’s hard saying, but in doing so they leave out some of the inspired grammar that actually would conflict with their interpretation.   Without the presence of all of the inspired grammar any English translation of 1 Timothy 2:15 is going to be much harder to understand Paul’s thought process. For example some translations leave out the singular so that it appears Paul is talking about all women.  Others leave out the plural so that it appears that Paul is talking about a generic woman. Some change the singular noun to childbearing as plural as if the birth of all children is in view and some also leave out the definite article as if childbearing is concerning any child and any birth without any particularity.

Other translations make a change from the inspired preposition dia (meaning “through”) and switch it with the preposition for “in” so that it is “in childbearing” not “through childbearing” as if it is the childbearing itself that saves rather than something that comes through the vehicle of childbearing.  At least one translation changes the conditional “if” to the word “assuming” so that “she will be saved…if…” is changed from a conditional statement to an assumption that all women will want to continue in the faith.

Lastly one version, The New International Reader’s Version also removes the logical contrastive conjunction so that the verse is not connected to the previous verse but rather is asking a question instead of having Paul make a conditional statement.

1 Timothy 2:15 (NIrV) Will women be saved by having children? Only if they keep on believing, loving, and leading a holy life in a proper way.

The most faithful of all translations to the literal Greek grammar is Young’s Literal Translation that renders the verse:

1 Timothy 2:15 (YLT) and she shall be saved through the child-bearing, if they remain in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety.

If we take the literal words written by Paul we come up with the thought that the bad news about “the woman” (vs 14) as “being” in transgression (perfect tense meaning a completed action which has a state of being that exists in the present in relation to the writer) is going to change with a conditional promise in verse 15.  In verse 15 Paul says that “but/or and”and this is a logical contrastive conjunction that suggest an oppositional thought or relationship to the word, phrase or clause to which it is connected.  So while the continued state of sin is brought out in verse 14, the contrast to that is a positive outlook about her salvation.  Therefore “she shall be saved” is a positive promise. But “she shall be saved” is also future tense so “she” cannot be referring to a dead Eve but must be referring to someone else.

In “she shall be saved”, Paul uses the same Greek term (sozo) that he exclusively uses in his epistles to mean spiritual salvation. Thus spiritual salvation is the normal and natural way to interpret Paul’s usage of “sothesetai” (sozo) in 1 Timothy 2:15.

The way that “she will be saved” is “through” something.  “Through” here means a marker of instrumentality or circumstance whereby something is accomplished or affected, by, via, or through.  Therefore the childbearing is not the cause of salvation but the instrument that is used to bring the salvation “through” to the one who is in sin.  The instrument that is used for salvation is clearly shown in Philippians 2:5-8 -

Philippians 2:5–8 (NAS)
5      Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
6      who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7      but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
8      Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

The vehicle is taking upon Himself the likeness of a man through the process of conception and birth. The salvation is the death, burial and resurrection of the one who came through the vehicle of conception and birth.  The conception and birth is like a portal that was the vehicle to bring the sin-bearer from heaven to earth in the form of the Kinsman redeemer.

Paul continues in saying that “she will be saved through the childbearing” or “the bearing of (the) child.”  It is not any entry into the world of any child. It is a particular entrance with the definite “the” and a particular child whose flesh was the vehicle through whom salvation could come for all those who are caught in sin.

The childbearing has the genitive case which normally marks a noun as the source or possessor of something or refers to the kind of relationship that the noun has to another noun.

It is typically expressed in English by the preposition “of”. For example, in the phrase “throne of the king” the noun “king” is in the genitive and qualifies the type of throne. In “blood of Christ,” Christ is the genitive noun which describes possession. (Glossary of Morpho-Syntactic Database Terminology.)

So the literal rendering is bearing of child with the child as the possessor.

Next Paul says that “she will be saved…if” The “if” is an adverbial conditional conjunction which introduces a condition that must occur before another action or event can occur.

As part of a conditional clause this conjunction introduces the protasis (the if element of an if … then statement).  (Glossary of Morpho-Syntactic Database Terminology)

The conditions that are stated replicate the things that the false teachers were straying from that are listed in 1 Timothy 1:5-6.

1 Timothy 1:5–6 (NAS)
5      But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
6      For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion,

If a woman has been caught in deception and she has strayed from a godly love from a pure heart, strayed from a good conscience and strayed from a sincere faith, these are things must be turned back to in order for her to stay within the boundaries of the true faith.

The last thing to point out where Paul has made a clear condition is that “they” are to work through these conditions for “she will be saved…if they…”

The need for a helper to bring one to faith in Christ is never more crucial than in the issue of deception, for the truth of the matter is that the deceived rarely walk away on their own. The lure of deception is so strong that without help, the trap of the lie will keep the deceived in bondage.  The one who knows the truth but who has been silent in correcting the error must now step up to the plate to be a major factor in encouraging the woman who is in sin. His encouragement will help her to step away from the deception and into the light of the truth.

The next question is regarding whether Paul is giving a solution to the problem of a particular false and deceived teacher or whether he is describing the nature of a particular false teaching. I would like to explore these options to see which fits the passage in this one verse.

The letter that Paul wrote to Timothy was written concerning the problems in the Ephesian church.  In the city of Ephesus was a cult-like belief in Artemis the goddess of virginity, women’s concerns including childbearing, the hunt and the underworld. Many came to see her as such an important part of that culture that people gave her great loyalty and a temple was built in Ephesus in her honor.  Virginity was especially emphasized in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus: only virgins and men were permitted access and married or sexually active women were excluded under penalty of death (see documentation here).  Since women called on the many breasted Artemis to help with childbirth, Paul’s words about the childbearing are thought to be written in such a way as to be refuting a myth about the Ephesian goddess Artemis but is this really what Paul had in mind?

I would like to submit that it is highly unlikely that Paul was appealing to a particular myth about an Ephesian deity in verse 15 because of the specific grammar found in the verse.  While the myth was that Artemis oversaw childbirth and kept women safe during this precarious time, Paul wasn’t talk about keeping a woman’s physical life safe in the act of giving birth, but rather his grammar shows that in verse 15, Paul is referencing the bearing of one child and salvation is not being physically saved from the perils inherent in giving birth to children, but rather it is spiritual salvation from sin through the agency of the coming of One who became the source of our spiritual salvation. The genitive bearing of child determines something that belongs to the child as its source and no emphasis is put on the woman as source at all. Salvation is not coming through the mother or by keeping the mother physically safe, but through the agency of her child’s coming.

If Paul was creating a connection between a false teaching and a myth that associated protection during child birth to the help of the goddess Artemis as a woman’s physical savior and Mother of all, then he failed to use the proper grammar for that teaching. He should have used a verb instead of a noun and he should have used the plural “women” who would experience maternal protection rather than a singular “she”.  Rather than referencing all women and feminine protection from harm during childbirth, Paul used a term that he exclusively used for spiritual salvation in all of his epistles. That goes against the grain of a multi-breasted gynecological helper. Paul’s writing in 1 Timothy 2:15 takes the meaning of salvation in a completely different direction.

In addition, if verse 15 is all about refuting a false teaching regarding the one who women are to look to for help during labor, then the specific grammar of verse 15 makes no sense in that context. Who is the “she” and who are the “they” and what does this grammar change have to do with protection from child birthing problems? The conditional promise using both the singular and plural grammar simply doesn’t fit with a refutation of Artemis as a goddess midwife. I have just never seen a satisfactory explanation for a connection between verse 15 and the myth of Artemis. But is it possible that there is a connection between verses 13 & 14 and this goddess myth?  We will have a look at that question the next post.

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In a recent blog post there has been some discussion on 1 Timothy 2:11, 12 in the comment section, and the question of whether “a woman” is generic woman or a specific woman.  I always appreciate questions and challenges on my position as it continually pushes me to continue to do research in order to answer the questions that are posed to me.

The question that was posed to me was regarding “a woman” and whether there is any proof that she is a particular woman that Timothy was aware of.  The reason the question was asked is because in 1 Timothy 2:14 “the woman” is referenced and it is clear from the grammar that this is not Eve because “the woman” is still in the after effects of her transgression and her deception and since Eve is dead, her transgression is not on-going.  A similar situation is in 1 Timothy 2:15 where “she” will be saved…if…  The grammar is future tense and again it is impossible for this to be Eve as Eve is dead and gone and her salvation cannot be in the future and conditional.

The person who challenged me believes that “the woman” in 1 Timothy 2:14 is indeed a woman who is one of the deceived teachers who Timothy was instructed to stop from teaching, but he also seems to be convinced that since the first reference to “woman” in 1 Timothy 2:11, 12 is without the definite article that the first reference to a singular woman must be a “generic” woman while the last reference would be to a specific woman since the definite article is there.  He did say that it is possible that I am correct that “a woman” of 1 Timothy 2:11, 12 was that specific person but he said that there is no real way for us to know for sure.

In doing some research on this issue, I came across a strong precedent for a second reference within the context where the definite article attached to a noun connects to a first noun that is without the article.  It is called an anaphoric reference.  I have an audio clip from Dr. James White who is quoting his agreement on a grammar reference from Dr. Daniel Wallace on the anaphoric reference.  You can hear the audio clip here James White on Anaphoric reference.  Below is the transcript of the clip.

Normally when an anaphoric use is in view, the preceding use of the noun will lack the article. It will not be articled. And if you read Greek then you will know that in James 2:14 when it says that a person says they have faith (ean pistin lege) pistin does not have an article, so this is a classic example where you have a noun, then you have the repetition of the noun later with an article, that article is pointing us back to the preceding use of the noun. This is called the anaphoric use of the article.

The anaphora refers to the way in which a word or phrase relates to other text.  A term associated with anaphora is a cataphoric reference which refers to:

…something within a text that has not yet been identified.  For example, in “Because he was very cold, David promptly put on his coat” the identify of the “he” is unknown until the individual is also referred to as “David”.

The cataphora that co-refers to a later expression is described here:

In linguistics, cataphora (from Greek, forward + carry) is used to describe an expression that co-refers with a later expression in the discourse. That is to say, the earlier expression refers to or describes a forward expression. For example, given: “Finding the right gadget was a real hassle. I finally settled with a digital camera.”  The “right gadget” is an instance of cataphora because it refers to “a digital camera,” an object that hasn’t been mentioned in the discourse prior to that point. Cataphora is a type of endophora and it is the opposite of anaphora, a reference forward as opposed to backward in the discourse.

As a general rule, cataphoras are quite less common than anaphoras in all natural languages; furthermore, cataphoras that are not sentence-internal are typically very uncommon in informal, conversational contexts.

Cataphora is often used for rhetorical effect. It can build suspense and provide a description. For example:

• He’s the biggest slob I know. He’s really stupid. He’s so cruel. He’s my boyfriend Steve.

In keeping with Paul’s very uncommon one-of-a-kind grammar in 1 Timothy 2:11-15, we find not only a word that is found nowhere else in the Bible (authentein), a unique definite noun (the childbearing) but also a cataphora example of an anaphoric reference.  Paul describes the solution before he describes the problem (let her learn), he describes the solution as a promise (she will be saved…if…) and he describes the woman without the definite noun before he identifies her as “the woman” who is in the transgression.

We now know that Paul’s grammar using an anarthrous noun first and later referring back to the noun through a repetition of the noun but with the definite article is also used in James 2:14.

James 2:14 (NAS)
Faith and Works
14      What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?

Is there a grammar usage that assures us that Paul is not talking about all women and forbidding all women from teaching “a man” and “authentein a man”?  Yes!  It is a cataphora which is an anaphoric reference.  “The” woman in 1 Timothy 2:14 is the clear identifier of the specific woman that was the recipient of Paul’s prohibition.  Paul uses the anaphoric reference to take us back from verse 14 to her sin in verse 12 and the solution to her sin in verse 11 and through this grammar reference we can identify the woman who Timothy was instructed to give Paul’s prohibition to.

There you have it.  It is a precedent in a piece of linguistic grammar that makes the furthest reference clearer than the closest reference.  It is just what Paul did with “a woman”.

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The Bible records a law that requires men to take the place of sole master in the home. We find this law in the book of Esther chapter 1 verse 22.

Let me first give a little background.  King Ahasuerus was a very wealthy and powerful king who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces.  In the third year of his reign he made a huge banquet for his nobles and officials as well as military leaders.  Then for 180 days he displayed his great riches and all that went with the majesty of his position.  At the end of all this show of the king’s splendor, he threw a seven day banquet for all the people who were present in his capital city, both the greatest of them to the least of them.  It was at that time, after seven days of partying, that the king became joyful from the wine that was served at the banquet, and in a hasty decision to show-case all that he owned that was magnificent beauty, he ordered that queen Vashti be called to appear before the king wearing her crown in order to parade her beauty before the crowd. Vashti refused to have her person put on display and this caused the king to feel great wrath and he called his wise men to find out what could be done by law to punish queen Vashti for refusing to obey his command.  In verses 16 to 19 Memucan one of the wise men said,

Esther 1:16-19 Queen Vashti has wronged not only the king but also all the princes and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. For the queen’s conduct will become known to all the women causing them to look with contempt on their husbands by saying, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought in to his presence, but she did not come.’  This day the ladies of Persia and Media who have heard of the queen’s conduct will speak in the same way to all the king’s princes, and there will be plenty of contempt and anger. If it pleases the king, let a royal edict be issued by him and let it be written in the laws of Persia and Media so athat it cannot be repealed, that Vashti may no longer come into the presence of King Ahasuerus, and let the king give her royal position to another who is more worthy than she.

This is truly an amazing passage showing that a woman’s right to make her own decisions was something that was feared in that culture. It didn’t matter that one woman didn’t want to be treated as a piece of property that was being put on display, it was an act that threatened the perceived priority of the husband.  The thought was that if one woman received freedom to do as she pleased, then every woman would see that as setting a precedence and all the other wives will think they have the choice to act the same way. So a law was created to take care of the woman problem.  Memucan continued:

Esther 1:20 (NAS) “When the king’s edict which he will make is heard throughout all his kingdom, great as it is, then all women will give honor to their husbands, great and small.”

The Hebrew term in the passage used for honor means:

honor, respect, i.e., a state of high status in relation to another (Est 1:4, 20…)
Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains

Why is it that women would be taught to regard their husbands as having a higher status than themselves? It was because of the new law that the king would create.

Esther 1:21–22(NAS)

21 This word pleased the king and the princes, and the king did as Memucan proposed.

22 So he sent letters to all the king’s provinces, to each province according to its script and to every people according to their language, that every man should be the master in his own house and the one who speaks in the language of his own people.

The law was created so that every man should be the master in his own house and this would accomplish a status difference between men and women in the home.

Some people today are under the impression that God created the law that made the husband the master in the home.  But nowhere in the Scriptures  is such a law attributed to God.  It was a pagan king who created this law because of the fear of what a woman’s freedom might do. The origin of the law that made the male the master of the home came into being  around 482 B.C during King Ahasuerus’ reign from 485 to 465 B.C.

The fear that concerned men that they would lose their priority if women were allowed to have freedom to make their own decisions has been a consistent fear that was even used against the gospel.  The issues of slaves and women were two things that caused a great deal of fear and attacks against the gospel.  Even though in the gospel all are free men, slaves were told to regard their own masters as worthy of honor so that the name of God and the doctrine (teaching, instruction) would not be given a foothold for those looking for a way to slander the gospel.

1 Timothy 6:1 (NAS) All who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against.

In the same way wives were to deflect criticism of the gospel by subjecting themselves to their husbands. In this way the word of God would not be slandered.

Titus 2:5 (NAS) to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.

The Greek term for dishonor is blasphemetai which means:

‘to demean through speech’, an esp. sensitive matter in an honor-shame oriented society. to speak in a disrespectful way that demeans, denigrates, maligns

Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed.) (pg 178).

The world’s system is based on shame-honor and fear of anyone or anything that will come against their traditions.  How is a Christian to act in this worldly system?  Peter answers that for us:

1 Peter 3:16 (NAS) and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.

The author of Hebrews also affirms that acting in an honorable way in this world system is the right thing to do.

Hebrews 13:18 (NAS) Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things.

Peter indicates that the world is looking to peg us as evildoers, but we are to live in such a way that our lifestyle will silence the ignorance of foolish men.

1 Peter 2:12–16 (NAS)

12 Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.

13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority,

14 or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.

15 For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.

16 Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God.

In this last verse Peter affirms once again that all of us are free men. But our freedom is there to live our lives in service to God.

How was a Christian woman to live in her marriage since she is as fellow heir with her husband?  She was to live in freedom to serve God and freedom as a “son” of God.  However in order to be careful not to give any reason for the world to slander the gospel, she was to submit to her husband and give him honor. Submitting to serve one another and submitting to receive God’s gifts from one another is the Christian way, but a special submission was given in honor to one’s husband in order that the gospel would not be slandered in that shame based culture.

It is also good for husbands to realize that they are not sole masters in the home.  God has placed right beside them their own wives in a position of honor and also as a joint heir of God and a joint master of the home.

1 Timothy 5:14 (ASV) I desire therefore that the younger widows marry, bear children, rule the household, give no occasion to the adversary for reviling:

The tradition that the man is the sole master of the home is the world’s invention.  God’s way is husband and wives living as we were created - joint rulers and as Christians, joint heirs in Christ.  The amazing thing is that through Christians living lives for God and with God’s principles, the world has come to see that slavery is wrong.   The world has also been getting the message that male domination is wrong.  Yet the sad thing is that there are still some in the church who believe that God created the man as the master of the home and the master of his wife.  They are following a worldly tradition that they don’t even recognize is worldly.  Some of the church has heard for so long that God uses men and doesn’t use women that they have become indoctrinated into believing the lie.

It is easy to allow tradition to become a fact in our lives without even realizing that its foundation is based on a lie or on ignorance.  Let me give you one example from the book of Esther.  How was Mordecai in relation to Esther before he adopted her?  What do you think?

A. Her brother

B. Her uncle

C. No relation to Esther at all before adopting her

After you make your choice, then open the book of Esther to Esther 2:7, 15.  Read it carefully.  Now who was Mordecai in relation to Esther and tell me if the Bible contradicts a tradition that has been believed by many in the church?

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Newsflash July 24, 2010

Today I was emailed a letter that was just FedExed to Dr. Randy Stinson and Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III on behalf of the Freedom for Christian Women Coalition which is demanding an apology for harm done to Christian women because of the Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Freedom for Christian Women Coalition

July 24, 2010

Dr. Randy Stinson, President
Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
2825 Lexington Road, Box 926
Louisville, KY 40280

And

Dr. J Ligon Duncan III
Chairman of the Board of the CBMBW
First Presbyterian Church
1390 North State Street
Jackson, MS 39202

Freedom for Christian Women Coalition met on July 24, 2010, in Orlando, Florida, and agreed and affirmed this Demand for an Apology from the Council on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood because of the concerns as listed in the following pages.

For the sake of all Christians, men and women, we demand that the Council on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood, make a public apology for the misuse of Holy Scripture as it relates to women, and cease to publish or promote The Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood.

Sincerely,

Shirley Taylor
Waneta Dawn
Cynthia Kunsman
Janice Levinson
Jocelyn Andersen

Freedom for Christian Women Coalition

DEMAND FOR AN APOLOGY FROM THE COUNCIL ON BIBLICAL MANHOOD AND BIBLICAL WOMANHOOD

At a time in our church history that the main focus should be on winning lost souls and spreading the gospel to a hurting world, we fear for the future because the Council on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood has placed a greater priority on women’s submissive role rather than on the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is with that thought in mind that we make these statements.

1. We are concerned that men are being taught that they are god-like in their relationship to women within the church and home. As the mothers, wives, and daughters of these men, it is our concern that this doctrine is setting them up for failure as Christian fathers, husbands and sons;
2. we are concerned about the sin that evangelical church leaders commit when they deny the love of Christ fully to women simply because they were born female;
3. we are concerned about the damage this causes to families when husbands and fathers are told that they have Headship over their wives and daughters;
4. we are concerned about wife abuse, girlfriend abuse, and abuse to female children that takes place in many homes where evangelical men are taught that they have earthly and spiritual authority over women;
5. we are concerned that the children who attend churches that subscribe to the principles of The Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood will grow up not knowing the full redemptive power of the blood of Jesus for both men and women;
6. we are concerned for the mental and emotional development of girls and boys who attend churches that teach males have superiority over females;
7. we are concerned that men who are taught that they have Male Headship over a home and church do not feel that they are accountable for abusive attitudes and actions towards women;
8. we are concerned about the mistranslation of the scriptures by complementarian translation committees and by the false teachings propagated by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood;
9. we are concerned that pastors who teach and preach male domination/female subordination cannot relate in a loving, Christ-like manner to female members of their congregations because they have already judged them and found them lacking;
10. we are concerned that the issue of wifely submission, promoted so heavily by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, is more about power and control than about love or obeying the Word of God.

It is because of these concerns that:

1. We demand that the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood acknowledge the harm that has been done to the church body by The Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood, confess it as sin, and denounce it;
2. we demand that denominational leaders and all churches and seminaries which have adopted The Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood do the same;
3. we demand a public apology from the Council on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood, and from all heads of seminaries and Bible colleges that have adopted The Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood, for the inestimable damage this statement has done to all Christians whose lives have been influenced by it;
4. we demand that the Council on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood begin to promote the Biblical design of functional equality for all Christians, both men and women;
5. we demand that the Council on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood begin to speak out against pastors who continue to demean women and oppress Christians by the use of The Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood;
6. we demand that the Council on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood chastise pastors who claim that abuse of women is acceptable and justified because the wife is not submitting to the husband;
7. we demand that the Council on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood make known to every boy and every girl who attend an evangelical church, that God is their head, and that authority over another human being can come only from God;
8. we demand that the Council on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood teach men that they share equally in the burden of society’s ills, and that all that is wrong with society today cannot be blamed on women;
9. we demand that the Council on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood do everything in their power to teach seminarians to show the love of Christ to both men and women;
10. we demand that the Council on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood teach pastors to be loving towards those Christian men and women who disagree with The Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood;
11. and, finally, for the sake of all Christians, men and women, we demand that the Council on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood, make a public apology for the misuse of Holy Scripture as it relates to women, and cease to publish or promote The Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood.

Shirley Taylor, bWe Baptist Women for Equality , Presented at the 
Seneca Falls 2 Evangelical Women’s Rights Convention July 24, 2010 in Orlando, Florida

AFFIRMED BY THE FREEDOM FOR CHRISTIAN WOMEN COALITION AT THE SENECA FALLS 2 EVANGELICAL WOMENS RIGHTS CONVENTION
JULY 24, 2010 IN ORLANDO, FLORIDA

For more information see bWE blog or Women Submit blog

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In our past discussions on Ephesians 5:21-22, we have been discussing the issues of mutual submission and whether there is authority in marriage.  In this post, we will discuss the foundation of humility.

One very important part of the nature of God that is rarely talked about is God’s nature of humility.   In fact God as the humble One is revealed in the Old Testament and also through the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Psalm 113:5–6 (NAS)

5 Who is like the LORD our God,

Who is enthroned on high,

6 Who humbles Himself to behold

The things that are in heaven and in the earth?

While the amazing Sovereignty of God and His nature of omnipresence , omnipotence and omniscience seems inconsistent with humility, yet there was something about God that was mostly hidden until Jesus revealed the nature of God.  In fact it was God’s humble nature that was the very cause of Jesus becoming man.  Jesus spoke the truth when He said that to see Him was to see the Father as Jesus revealed the very nature of the Father as God.

John 14:8–9 (NAS)

8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”

9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

Jesus came in the nature of the humble God as He set aside all of His rights as God to come in humility to earth.  Paul explained that this humility was evidenced as looking out for the interests of others.

Philippians 2:3–8 (NAS)

3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;

4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,

6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,

7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.

8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

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Our discussions on Ephesians 5:22 has sparked a flurry of comments with literally hundreds of comments later and seemingly no end to the “iron sharpening iron” discussion between egalitarians as well as complementarians.  This is the place where the discussion will continue as my blog has a habit of blanking out all of the comments if I let too many accumulate under one post.  So continue discussion with this post and thanks all for your lively and irenic comments on a very hotly debated topic of authority and submission in marriage.

For those who haven’t been following all along, here are links to the previous parts of the discussion on Ephesians 5:22.

Part #2 http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2010/06/01/authority-vs-submission-ephesians-522-continuing-comments

Part #1 http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2010/05/23/authority-vs-submission-biblical-view/ Part 1 has problems because of the great amount of comments, but at least the original post can be read if the link doesn’t work.  Just scroll down to the bottom until you read the post of May 23, 2010 called Authority vs Submission a Biblical View.

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When is authority given and when can it be rightfully assumed?  These are questions that have divided egalitarians and complementarians in the area of marriage.  While egalitarians generally will agree that submission is a characteristic of Spirit-filled Christians who love and respect the body of Christ, and who serve each other with love, complementarians say that husbands are never commanded to submit to their wives because husbands maintain a God-given sphere of authority that requires sacrifice and not submission.  To a complementarian, submission is always something given to an authority.  Since they don’t believe that a wife has authority over a husband they refuse to submit to their wives.  Is this Biblical?

In order to refuse submission as a Christ-like action and/or attitude of both spouses in marriage, they must reject that the reciprocal “to one another” in Ephesians 5:21 really does mean “one to another”.  Instead they are forced to interpret the inspired reciprocal and change it to mean “some to others” as in “Christians who are subject to authority” are to submit to “those in authority”.  This makes it a one-way submission and it adds the condition of authority when no such condition exists.  It also nodles with the inspired text to remove the inspired reciprocal nature of the term to one another.  This is one of the weak links in the complementarian argument.

First of all let’s prove that Ephesians 5:21 has the reciprocal. Note the screen print below of the Greek and the reciprocal grammar:

If God had meant that Christians are to submit to authorities in the church, then why didn’t God God just say it like that in Ephesians 5:21 like He did in Romans 13:1?

Romans 13:1 (NASB) Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities…

Ephesians 6:7 (NASB) With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men,

The Greek term for “render service” means to be a slave, serve, subject oneself (active) and further to act or conduct oneself as one in total service to another.  See below the subjection (submission) that is part of the “service” that is given from the slave to the master.

Paul goes on in verse 9 to present the reciprocal nature of the submission:

Ephesians 6:9 (NASB) And masters, do the same things to them, …

The same things that these Christian masters are to do is what their slaves were to do for them.  Their slaves were to be subjected to them and serve them. God shows that the masters are to do the same.

This is the Christian doctrine of mutual submission. The submission is not just for slaves but for their masters too!  In the same way, husbands are to be a part of mutual submission and they are not a special class that is exempt from Christian submission.  (Eph. 5:21)

So what does this mutual submission look like in practice between husbands and wives, parents and children and slaves and masters?  It isn’t hard to envision.  It is two-fold submission that is expressed in willing service.  Submission is also expressed as a willingness to receive God’s gifts through the other brother or sister in Christ.  Let’s see this submission in action:

1. A wife has a busy day and needs to put together a meal before she leaves for her Bible study when she realizes that she forgot to purchase milk for the children. When her husband comes in the door, she asks him to go to the store to pick up the milk for the meal.  Her husband willing submits to his wife’s request.

2. A Father tired after a long day lays back in his easy chair to relax after dinner when his four year old son ask him to read him a bedtime Bible story. The Father submits to the request of his young son and goes to his son’s bed to read him a Bible story and tuck him into bed.

3. A servant has a teaching from the Scriptures that he will be giving to the congregation and his master submits to learn from the teaching that his own servant brings.

Notice that in all three examples the one who submits himself to the other one is not obligated to submit because the other person has authority over him. Rather he submits because it is the right thing to do. It is a Christian humility that puts himself under another person’s need or the submission is given to the brother or sister in order to receive a gift that the other person has for them. This is the face of reciprocal submission.

But most complementarians cannot even think about submission without re-defining submission as a response to an authority that is over them. But is Christian submission as defined by Ephesians 5:21 really to be assumed as an attachment of a God-given authority even though God never says that? Are we really to assume that God gave masters their authority over their slaves? The fact is that this reasoning was rejected a lot of years ago as a man-made system that was never authorized by God. So is the authority that husbands believe they have over their wife a God-given authority? Like the authority of the master, the authority of the husband is also never established by God.

So what is the unique authority that complementarians say that the husband has been given over the wife? Complementarians are not  in agreement over the extent of the authority. Some say that husbands have the final say in every decision of the marriage and home. Others add that the husband’s authority is to love his wife and sacrifice for her. However they can’t seem to explain how the husband’s authority is not also the wife’s when she loves and sacrifices for him.

What I would like to do is challenge complementarians to give a Biblical example of the one-sided submission that they believe must be given by wives to their husbands but is not allowed for husbands to do for their wives (i.e. a non-reciprocal submission)?  Let’s have a look at your examples and discuss the Biblical passages that originate that type of submission.

I will give the first example as one that Mark gave in the comment section on the last post.  Mark said:

Gal 5:13 is a prime example of the husbands role as husband. The husband is called to love his wife like Christ did the Church. IN Gal we are told to ‘through love serve one another’, so yes i would through love serve my wife.

I ask, what kind of love is the husband called to give that is not allowed for his wife to love him back in the same way?  What kind of service is not allowed for a wife that is only allowed for a husband?  In what way is this a role that is unique to a husband and where does the authority come from to command an application of a service to apply solely to the husband?

Thoughts?

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Since our last post on authority and submission had so many comments it appears it is going to crash the post like another post did.  So I am asking everyone to continue their comments on this post (comments post #2) so that we can continue without having a crash.

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Yesterday I received two polar opposite views of Ephesians 5:22 by email.  One was from “NN” who has responded here in the past.  He  is a complementarian who has commented on authority in marriage, one of a handful of complementarians who have been willing to give their views on women on this blog in a respectful manner.  In NN’s email he sent me a link to his view on submission in marriage which he says is not to be mutual.  In the other email my son Ryan gave me his conclusions after a time of researching on his own the issue of authority and submission in marriage in order to present a biblical answer to his pastor.  I am going to refer to both views in this article for us to consider.

NN suggested that my blog readers might be interested in his views that he has recently posted on his blog. NN wrote to me about the time period since he last corresponded on my blog back in December 2009:

Since then I have meant to write up a brief logical clearly addressing the question of hierarchy in the instructions of the apostles on the marital relationship.  Unfortunately it took until now for me to actually find the time.  Nonetheless - I thought you might be interested (and possibly even your readership given the torrent of comments in that last discussion).

NN’s premise is that submission in marriage is not mutual but my son’s conclusion is the polar opposite.  First of all here is Ryan’s finding.  His article starts with the thought that the understanding of “source” for the Greek word for head (kephale) in 1 Corinthians 11 can also fit in with Ephesians 5:22-25 when you consider the context.  Ryan’s main concern in his research is whether submission is mutual or relegated to wives alone.

Ryan’s research:

I think source fits well with the description in Eph 5:22-25 also.  As I was studying this, I noticed that the NASB showed “submit” as in “Wives, submit…” in italics, which means it wasn’t in the original.  I looked at the NET (New English Translation) notes and they highlighted that 3 MSS (manuscripts) don’t have “submit” after wives in v22.  These MSS are earlier than the others and are significant manuscripts, so this is likely the original reading.  Knowing that Paul tends to write run-on sentences (not to mention there were no ‘periods’ in the Greek), I wondered if the sentence might have been intended as an extension to v21.  Check this out:

“…(v21) and be subject to one another in awe of Christ, (v22) wives to your own husbands as to the Lord, (v23) for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself the Saviour of the body.”

Doesn’t that make more sense?  Look how Paul is describing mutual submission to one another and then continuing to elaborate on how that should look in the marital relationship as a corrective to the cultural norms of the day.  We need to remember that the Epistles are often correcting specific things that are happening which sometimes we can only understand from the historical context — and this can make interpreting passages like this that much more involved.

We know that the culture was already quite pre-disposed to subduing the wife in marital relationships.  Women were meant to propagate the husbands name and were treated more like property than equals.  What is the likely outcome of such subjection of the wife is a slave-master-like obedience.  Paul seems to actually be saying here that instead of obeying like a slave, the wife should submit to her husband in a more biblical manner, thus calling her out of her ‘pit’ so to speak.  The most revolutionary part of Paul’s words would be the fact that he says all are to submit to one another, and that most definitely includes husbands submitting to their wives!

And again, as we saw in 1 Cor 11, Paul elaborates the basis for the marital relationship, this time for the Ephesians as well: “for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself the saviour of the body.”  In other words, because the husband is the source of the wife (just like Christ is the source of the church) and therefore she his equal, they should be mutually submitting to one another in love.  (The church is also treated as the equal of Christ in the sense that the new person will have a new body and will no longer sin).  This description is a refutation of the idea that the wife is a lower-class partner to the husband, or that there are more important people in the body than others (ie. jewish believers vs. gentile believers).  It is a proclamation of the equality of all! The source relationship is a powerful foundation for equality, not hierarchy!

Continuing… “[For] as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives [ought to be] to their husbands in everything” (v24).  The NASB has “But”, though this reads as a continuation of substantiation for Paul’s earlier statements.  Interestingly, the NASB adds “ought to be” (italics) which actually makes it sound like Paul is commanding the wives to submit and is not in line with how what he says is actually freeing them from cultural slave-master relationship.  In other words, in everything the wives should be willingly submissive out of love and not as a slave to a master!  Why would Paul be supporting what was already culturally in vogue?

And finally, v25: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her…”  Does this mean that women don’t need to be sacrificial in their love for their husbands?  Of course not!  In fact, they are the ones sacrificing everything in first century culture.  Even in our culture, the women usually have to manage the home as well as work and make meals, etc.  This is a corrective for the men who don’t participate in loving submission to their wives and families!

The conclusion is most certainly an equality in loving submission one to another in the whole body, and especially in marital relationships.  It is a corrective to the master-slave marital relationships which were typical in the first century.  The ‘new man’ should be one who treats his wife as his own flesh, as his equal, not as his inferior.

~End of article submitted by Ryan Schatz

NN’s views are opposite of Ryan’s in that NN believes that the submission of wives is the same as the master-slave relationship.  NN writes on his blog:

The Egalitarian argument runs along the lines of: “Eph 5:21 tells christians to ‘and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.’ But this is the same word used when it tells wives to “be subject” to their husbands. Since “be subject to one another” means that the husband is also “subject” to the wife, Paul’s later instruction specifically to the wives cannot indicate any sort of hierarchy in the marital relationship.” However, as discussed previously, the instruction here given is the same as that given to servants toward their masters and citizens toward the ruling authorities - it is quite clear that this instruction does imply submission to authority.

There are several problems with NN’s view.  The first is that he fails to document that the earliest manuscripts do not have the verb “submit” in verse 22. Instead the submission for wives must refer back to verse 21 which lists Christian submission as mutual.  In fact that grammar in verse 21 (one another) is reciprocal.

reciprocal — A pronoun that denotes reciprocity; that is, it indicates an interchange between two or more groups. (Glossary of Morpho-Syntactic Database Terminology)

The next thing that NN misses is that Paul’s reference to submission is at the end of a list of things that are the practical outworking of being filled with the Spirit which is the topic from Ephesians 5:18 and on.  Submission then is a work of the Spirit in our lives and the application is to one another.  NN continues:

But now we move on to the instruction which Paul gives to wives and husbands and note that the apostle makes a distinction in the command given. Specifically Paul tells the wife to “be subject to the husband” but does not tell the husband to “be subject to the wife.”

Paul doesn’t need to list the second half of mutual submission because verse 21 specifically and with reciprocity lists submission as a one another practice that follows the outworking of the Holy Spirit’s filling.  Husbands are expected to see that as Spirit-filled Christians they are to live a life of submission to one another just as surely as any other member of the body of Christ must live out their faith. Husbands are never listed as exempted from the Spirit-filled life that is to be lived out through submission.

So why is it important for Paul to list women who are part of the culturally disadvantaged class included as a special note for submission?  NN sees this as a clear sign that wives are under their husband’s authority.  In his second recent article NN writes:

Paul gives instruction that wives are to “hupotassoe” their husbands in Eph 5:22, Col 3:18 & Titus 2:5. Just after this last passage, in Titus 3:1, Paul again instructs his audience to “hupatassoe” the governing authorities. Similarly, just before his instruction to wives, Peter uses this same term to describe the relationship of believers to “ordinances of men” and of servants toward their masters.

There is a huge problem with NN’s reasoning. While it can be documented that the cultural system of that day mandated autocratic and all-inclusive authority to the husband over every area of his wife’s life, there is no mandate ever given by God for the husband to exercise such an authority over his wife.  Remember that in the beginning God made both the man and the woman as rulers of this world. He did not give either of them the right to take authority over and subdue each other. So while the worldly system has gone off on a tangent of lordship-authority as a male right, there is no God-given authority for the husband to subdue his wife nor is there a God-given extension of authority that has listed in the Scripture the husband’s extent of power, rights or lordship over the personhood of his wife.  If such an authority is culturally mandated and not God-given then she too is a free man as a son of God, free indeed from the worldly system that dominates and subdues humans.

So what NN fails to list is that there is a turn-about regarding the worldly system when believers are transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.  While the early Christians used to be bound under a system of authority that took away their freedom of choice as the earthly rulers subdued them, took dominion over them and subjected them underneath their authority, in Christ they had become true free men who were no longer bound by forced subjugation.  This freedom extended to slaves and women who were by virtue of their position in Christ now equal as God’s sons and thus fully free.  Paul refers to this when he writes to his fellow Christian Philemon who is a slave owner of a runaway slave named Onesimus.  Paul pleads with Philemon to embrace Onesimus no longer as a slave, but as a brother in Christ.

Philemon 15–16 (NASB)

15 For perhaps he was for this reason separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever,

16 no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

NN writes:

The relevant definition of this English word “submit: to yield oneself to the power or authority of another.” This word appears throughout the New Testament and is common in other writings of the time. While several arguments are advanced in egalitarian thought as to how we should understand this word, we are discussing its specific use in the Epistles of Paul & Peter, and we can quite directly observe their use of this word in other circumstances which make immediately apparent what they mean in the use of this word.

This cannot be the meaning of submission in the Epistles since Paul specifically defined submission as reciprocal. If submission in Ephesians 5:21 were to mean to yield oneself to the power or authority of another then each one would have a power or authority over everyone else. The thought of you submitting to my authority and me submitting to your authority becomes nonsense in the passage.

Let’s look at Ephesians 5 one more time in context:

Ephesians 5:1–2 (NASB)

1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;

2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

Habakkuk 1:7 (NASB)…Their justice and authority originate with themselves.

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While God is Sovereign, some men believe that they can set a limit on God’s gifts.  In the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood’s doctrinal stand, they believe that God is allowed to distribute gifts to men and women alike with the gifts listed in 1 Cor. 12:4-26 but that He does not gift women with the gifts mentioned in Ephesians 4:11 or 1 Peter 4:10, 11 for those gifts are for men alone.  Randy Stinson and Christopher Cowan writing an article for the Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood a work of CBMW write that:

By God’s grace, all men and women who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ receive spiritual gifts to equip them to serve together in Christ’s body-the church. God grants these gifts through his Spirit to all believers without distinction and for the edification of all (1 Cor 12:4-11). No member of Christ’s church is unneeded; each is gifted by God’s will so that the church, though many parts, may be one body (1 Cor 12:12-26).

Here we can see that they agree with us on several important issues regarding God’s gifts:

1. God’s gifts are given to all believers
2. God’s gifts are given without distinction (regarding social status, race or gender)
3. God’s gifts are given for the edification of all
4. No member of the church is unneeded with their God-given gift
5. The purpose of the gifts is to allow the church to be one body

However God cannot sovereignly give the gifts from Ephesians 4:11 or 1 Peter 4:10, 11 because CBMW has determined that the gifts in these lists are for men alone.  Here is what Ephesians 4 says:

Ephesians 4:11–12 (NASB)

11 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,

12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;

There is not a woman evangelist. There is not a woman who wrote…and you have twenty-seven books in the New Testament…any portion of the New Testament. All sixty-six books are written by men. And the New Testament is consistent with God’s plan for women as revealed in the Old, no woman is an evangelist, no woman is a preacher- teacher… There is not recorded in the text of all the New Testament a sermon delivered by a woman…or teaching given by a woman, none. They are not prophets. They are not evangelists.

John MacArthur has greatly overstated his case.  First of all to state that no woman wrote any part of the New Testament would be to boldly claim that he knows who wrote the book of Hebrews.  How does he know that no woman wrote any book in the New Testament?  If he knows that no woman was an author of a book in the NT, then surely he must know who wrote the book of Hebrews.  But he doesn’t.  MacArthur himself has stated:

Hebrews was written by an unknown author. Some think it was Paul, some Apollos, and some Peter. I stand with one of the great teachers of the early church by the name of Origen who said, “Nobody knows.” One thing we do know, it was written by the Holy Spirit. I personally don’t believe it was written by Paul.

And what about the Old Testament?  Who wrote the book of Esther?  And what about the book of Ruth?  Can John MacArthur claim to know who wrote the book of Ruth and that the person was a man?  Does MacArthur’s confident claim make him sure that he knows who wrote all of these books?  His own words show that he does not have special inside information so his over confidence is ill advised.

MacArthur claims to know of no female evangelist, no female Biblical teacher and no female Biblical author.  This must mean that God cannot gift women as preachers, teachers, pastors or evangelists since according to MacArthur women cannot be preachers, teachers, pastors or evangelists.  But does God have to follow the expectations of John MacArthur and CBMW or can God sovereignly gift women with any gift as He sees fit?  Some complementarians even agree that there might be many gifted women who can do a better job at preaching and teaching than many men.  CARM (Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry) has a founder who has dedicated himself to warning the church against women pastors and who seeks to encourage the the church to remove women pastors from a place of authoritative teaching and preaching.  In fact this man loves to go into churches that have female pastors and confront them and their fellow male pastors. Yet even CARM’s founder admits that there are gifted women out there, even though he denies that gifting is the deciding factor:

There are many gifted women who might very well do a better job at preaching and teaching than many men.  However, it isn’t gifting that is the issue, but God’s order and calling.

According to CARM, God does not “call” women as pastors even though God apparently has gifted many for preaching and teaching.  So what is God doing gifting women this way?

Let’s look at it this way.  According to these complementarians, God’s gifts to women for preaching, teaching and pastoring either doesn’t exist at all or these gifts are claimed to be of no consequence since God’s gifts are subordinated to God’s calling.  And how would we know what is God’s calling?  Aren’t the gifts evidence of God’s calling?  Not according to CBMW, MacArthur and CARM.  Apparently there are some gifts given by God that are meant to be withheld from the common good even though God Himself said that His gifts are commanded to be used for the common good.

1 Corinthians 12:7 (NASB)

7 But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

God’s command is that the gifts that are given are to be employed for the church as good stewards of God’s grace.

1 Peter 4:10–11 (NASB)

10 As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

11 Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

So while Scripture says that “whoever” is gifted with speaking is to speak the utterances of God, these complementarians say that women are not allowed to speak the utterances of God in public for the common good.  It is no wonder that they stay away from 1 Peter 4:10, 11 as the context is Christian worship and speaking the utterances of God is nothing less than authoritative speech in worship assemblies according to the Word Biblical Commentary.

11 “Whoever does the speaking, [do it] as one bringing words from God.”  (lit. “if anyone”) does not introduce conditional clauses in this verse, but simply means “one who,” or “whoever” (see BGD, 220.VII). Peter introduces only two examples of “God’s diversified grace,” speaking and serving (in contrast to seven examples in Rom 12:6–8 and nine in 1 Cor 12:7–11). Having emphasized all along the danger of “evil speaking”…Peter now points to the positive importance of speech as a source of strength and cohesion among Christian believers. “Speaking” refers not to ordinary conversation (which would not have to be “a word from God”) but to authoritative speech in worship assemblies. While Kelly (180) limits the speaking Peter has in mind to “routine functions like teaching and preaching” (in distinction from “ecstatic utterances”), there is no proof of this in the text. The term could embrace all that Paul includes under “prophecy” (Rom 12:6), “teaching” (Rom 12:7), and “exhortation” (Rom 12:8), as well as “wisdom” and “knowledge” (1 Cor 12:8). …It is clear, however, that his focus is not on missionary proclamation (as, e.g., in Acts 4:1; 10:44; 13:42) but on the speech of Christian believers “to each other” (v 10) in a setting of worship.

Michaels, J. R. (2002). Vol. 49: Word Biblical Commentary : 1 Peter. Word Biblical Commentary (249–250).

The inspired Scripture in 1 Peter 4:10 makes universal language clear that “each one has a gift” and in verse 11 “whoever speaks” is to speak with God’s authority.

Women are commanded to use their God-given gifts and God has surely gifted them with things that He intends for them to use.  Women like men are commanded to use their gifts for the common good.  Also it is clear from the Scriptures that God has commanded all of us to use our God-given gifts and we will give an account of what we did with what God gave us.  We are not to set our gifts aside to leave them unused or bury our gifts.  We are all accountable.

So the question we need to ask is, should we call God to account for gifting women in areas that men say God has “disallowed” or “disqualified” women from using their gifts for the benefit of all?  After all wouldn’t it mean that God would be guilty of creating a terrible dilemma for women?  They either use their gifts for the common good and get God’s wrath for doing so (according to complementarians who determine that using these gifts for the common good is a sin) or they shelve their gifts and withhold them from the common good and get God’s wrath for withholding His gifts from the body Christ which is the intended purpose of all of the gifts.

Does this sound reasonable that God gifts people but He then forbids them from using their gifts?  Should anyone be fearful of using their God-given gifts for the benefit of the body of Christ?

It is far more reasonable to understand that the gifting is God’s endorsement to use the gift.  1 Peter 4:10, 11 stands in sharp contrast to CARM’s claim that a “calling” (a calling that mere men determine if it is a valid calling or not) supersedes God’s “gifts”.  Let’s look at it God’s Word one more time and you decide.  Is God guilty of gifting for the purpose of causing women to sin?  Or is every gift that comes down from the Father of lights a good and perfect gift and the one who has been given the gift has the authority to use their gift?

1 Peter 4:10–11 (NASB)

10 As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

11 Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

James 1:16–17 (NASB)

16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.

17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

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The comments on the original post have gone over 400 comments and for some reason the original page is not properly loading just by the link so I will need to find out what the problem is.  It does look fine when one goes to http://strivetoenter.com/wim and then scroll down to the March 26, 2010 post called “Adam and Eve and the sin nature that comes through the man - how does this affect the issue of women in ministry?”  It is loading okay that way so that one can read the post but when one tries to read the comments that page won’t load.  **update - It looks like the 175 pages of comments was just too much for the blog post and there is nothing I can do to get the comments to show up.  In future I will try to start a second page sooner so that this doesn’t happen again**

In the meantime the comments can continue on this post.

The dialog has been lively and Mark our regular complementarian blog visitor has been going through his Calvinist proof texts with me as we dialog on John 6 verse by verse discussing sin and free will.  Future comments should continue on this new part 2 post.

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CBMW (Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood) has set itself up as a go-to organization for those complementarians who have not been able to figure out from the Bible which things are allowable for women and which things are not.  But does their counsel exceed the Bible?  I would like to present the evidence and then let you decide.

In a sermon preached by J Ligon Duncan III and reproduced on CBMW’s web site, Ligon Duncan writes that the “teaching office” of the Church is restricted to men.  But what is the “teaching office” of the church?  According to Ligon, the “teaching office” is “ministry of preaching and teaching in the church is undelegatably vested in the men who serve as the elders of the church.”  So the on-going preaching and teaching to the body of Christ is to be done by men.   The problem really gets sticky for complementarians when it comes to women teaching other women.

According to Ligon Duncan, the place for women is that of receiving teaching.

Paul is saying that he wants an all male teaching office in the church.  He wants the women to receive that teaching; he wants them to be disciples-that was revolutionary in and of itself in his own day and time-but, he wants the eldership to be the ones who are responsible for doing that teaching.

So what CBMW and Ligon Duncan are doing here is defining a regular teaching ministry as the work of elders alone.  And since they say that elders can only be male, there is no room left for women to be the primary teachers for other women in the church.

Women are not to be the givers of instruction as the church gathers and as the word is authoritatively proclaimed.  They are to receive that instruction and godly men, elders are to be giving that instruction.

Notice here that this is not just about women teaching men, but women teaching anyone.  According to CBMW the “teaching office” of the church is not allowed for women to authoritatively proclaim the Word of God period.  What about a woman who regularly teaches the Word of God to other women in a Bible study or in a Sunday School setting or even a women’s only weekly service?

According to John MacArthur (on CBMW’s Board of Reference) women cannot teach the Bible authoritatively because they are not allowed to have the position of ultimate responsibility of God’s Word.  Instead of having responsibility, MacArthur says that the woman needs men to be a savior for her as well as a spiritual protector because the woman has “an inability to act independently of her protector”.  MacArthur preaches in his series on God’s High Calling for Women part four:

But woman…woman who is designed by God to be under a head and a leader and a helper and a protector and a savior, when she stepped out on her own and acted independently of the headship of Adam, when she acted without his leadership, without his counsel, without his protection, she became vulnerable.  And it is inherent in the nature of woman that she should not find herself in that position of ultimate responsibility.  For woman has a deceivability when out from under the headship of a man.  So the woman then in verse 14 was deceived.  She showed by that her inability to lead effectively.  She met her match and more than her match in Satan.  She shows an inability to act independently of her protector.  And by the way, the term for being deceived is very strong, it is stronger than just a common word for deceived, it is a word that means because it has the addition of a preposition on the front of it, it means to be fully deceived, to be thoroughly deceived, to be completely deceived.

Where does the Bible say that women cannot teach the Bible authoritatively to other women?  Where does the Bible say that women need men as a spiritual protector and a savior?  Is this Scriptural?

Let’s work through John MacArthur’s view of Genesis to see if he has added to God’s Word.

MacArthur says that the woman was designed to be under:

1. a head

2. a leader

3. a helper

4. a protector

5. a savior

Where is any of this listed in Genesis in the account of the creation?  If we take the complementarian position that “head” means “authority over”, in which verse does God make Adam an authority over Eve?  In which verse does God make Adam a “savior” of Eve or the leader over Eve?  How does MacArthur read into the pre-fall account any of these things?  We can get “protector” of the garden but none of the other terms are in the text at all and no leader of the woman was a position assigned to Adam.

MacArthur says that Eve acted independently of Adam when she acted without his leadership.  So what do we gather from this teaching?  Apparently a woman is not allowed to speak about God to anyone who questions her without the man’s permission.  She is also not apparently able to make a decision about her own spiritual welfare without his permission.  Certainly if the woman was incapable of thinking for herself, making a decision for herself and giving God’s Word to an animal, then wouldn’t this also make it apparent that she isn’t capable of giving out God’s Word to women either without supervision?  And God forbid what she might do without supervision with little children!

MacArthur goes on:

So we conclude then, beloved, that when a woman leaves the shelter of her protector and savior, provider and nourisher, she has a certain amount of vulnerability because she is designed for protection.  That’s true even in the physical sense, isn’t it?  So the Fall then was the result of not only disobeying God’s command not to eat, but the Fall was the result of violating the divinely appointed role of the sexes and woman acting independently of man.  Woman assumed leadership, and you know what man did?  He messed up his role and then he instead of maintaining the leadership acted in submission to whom?  To the woman.  And the whole reversal was part and parcel of the Fall.  So subordination of women in the church wasn’t invented by Paul, it is rooted in the nature of the sexes and it is confirmed in the Fall.

Now may I say to you that a woman is not more defective than a man?  Please.  She was deceived and he subjected himself to her deception.  The weakness of a woman is that she needs a head.  The weakness of a man is he needs a woman.  We are not less defective than women, we are differently defective.  We’re defective in different ways.  We’re temptable and vulnerable in different ways.  So that’s the reason that we have affirmed the leadership of men, is in the creation and the Fall.  And no daughter of Eve should follow the path of Eve and lead to tragedy by entering into the forbidden territory of rulership which was intended for man.

So according to MacArthur, women are “defective” in a certain way and this defect makes women forbidden to enter the territory of authoritative teaching in the church.

What kind of impression would one get from this kind of teaching?  John MacArthur states the obvious:

… It might leave the impression that woman sort of lies under God’s permanent displeasure.

And what is the solution according to MacArthur?

So to avoid that we come to the final point, their contribution in verse 15, and this is just marvelous.  I don’t know why people get so mixed up about this verse.  They’re contribution, wonderful instructive verse.  “Nevertheless,” or not withstanding, or in spite of all that, “she shall be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with sobriety and self-control.”

What we have to understand here is that all women are delivered.  Now listen carefully.  All women are delivered from the stigma of having caused the Fall of the race by childbearing.  In other words, women led in the Fall but by the wonderful grace of God they are released from the stigma of that through childbearing.  What’s the point?  Listen carefully.  They may have caused the race to fall by stepping out of their God-intended design, but they also are given the priority responsibility of raising a godly seed.  You understand that?  That’s…that’s the balance.  Not soul salvation, not spiritual birth, but women are delivered from being left in a second-class permanently stigmatized situation for the violation of the garden.  They are delivered from being thought of as permanently weak and deceivable and insubordinate.  Can you imagine what it would be like if men had babies and all women ever contributed to the human race was the Fall.  The balance of it, women led the race into sin, but bless God, God has given them the privilege of leading the race out of sin to godliness.

So according to this male teacher, women must bear children in order to be delivered from the stigma of having caused the Fall of the race.  They are delivered from been thought of as permanently weak and deceivable and insubordinate by bearing babies.

Where does the Bible say that the woman caused the Fall of the race?  It doesn’t say this.  In fact the blame for the Fall is placed on the one who was not deceived by the serpent.  It was Adam who ate with his eyes wide open to the truth and he was not deceived.  He caused humanity to enter into sin.

But MacArthur fails to preach that truth.  Instead he says that there is a role designed for the gender which is weak, deceivable and insubordinate.  This role must be accepted and believed by women that she is not allowed to give overt leadership to the church.  MacArthur says:

What Paul is saying by the Holy Spirit is that a woman must accept her God-given role and that role is not to give outward overt leadership to the church, …

Paul’s directive here is unmistakable. God’s Word alone determines who may and may not preach in the worship of the church. That’s why our position is what it is. It’s not because we’re mean; it’s not because we’re male chauvinists though some of us may act like male chauvinists, but the fundamental reason is because God’s Word very clearly teaches this.

This blog Women in Ministry is filled with articles refuting John MacArthur’s and other Complementarian’s teaching about women in ministry, but the purpose of this article is not to refute MacArthur but to question how complementarians who believe teachers like John MacArthur can even allow a woman to teach the bible to other women?  If she is not allowed to be a regular teacher in the church and she is not allowed to give outward overt leadership as that would be stepping into male territory, why do they even allow women to teach at all?

This all reminds me of the words of the Jewish oral law of the Pharisees now written in the Talmud:

“The words of the Torah should be burned rather than entrusted to women” (JT Sotah 3:4, 19a)

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It has been awhile since my Women in Ministry blog has taken a humor break. This one is going to test whether men and women can share a common sense of humor about the blessings of motherhood - i.e. mothering a talkative three year old.

So are you ready to test your funny bone?  Click here to watch Potty Break a 4 minute clip about a Christian mother’s real life experience. This animated true story had me in stitches. It so much reminded me of my oldest son who was the talkative one in my family. Here is the description:

As this true story proves, kids can definitely say the darnedest things. As this story also proves, they can say them at the most inopportune time. However, in the face of all that, watch one mother’s love for her son grow stronger during this hysterical situation.

Story written by Shannon Popkin. Shannon lives with her family in Grand Rapids, MI, where she no longer uses public restrooms. To read more about Shannon and her work, you can visit her blog here.

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In our continuing topic of common objections to women in ministry, the objection is raised that women cannot have authority in the church since wives are under their husband’s authority. The concern is that if women had leadership roles in the church, then their leadership role would be in submission to their own husbands. So instead of women making individual decisions, their husbands would be the ones making the decisions for them and the wives would be obligated to obey.

The objection comes from the theory that the husband is the ruler of the wife so that any decision she would make in a leadership role outside the home would come under his control. In essence it is believed that women’s leadership in the church would result in their own husbands leading through their wives and how would that look if he was an unbeliever?

This common objection is easily countered with the fact that women can biblically make their own spiritual judgments without consulting their husbands. In fact God Himself went around a betrothed husband in order to bring a very important arrangement solely to the attention of his betrothed wife. The husband was never even consulted concerning his wife’s agreement.

God set a precedent by sending an angel to Mary to tell her of His plan for the birth of the Messiah.

Luke 1:30–31 (NASB)

30 The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God.

31 “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.

Mary’s agreement with God’s plan did not involve her asking for Joseph’s permission even though the pregnancy and birth would affect him too.

Luke 1:38 (NASB)

38 And Mary said, “Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

Matthew 1:18–21 (NET)

1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened this way. While his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 1:19 Because Joseph, her husband to be, was a righteous man, and because he did not want to disgrace her, he intended to divorce her privately. 1:20 When he had contemplated this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 1:21 She will give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

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The 2010 Together for the Gospel conference is on right now as I write this article. The conference this year is called The Unadjusted Gospel and according to J. Ligon Duncan III’s blog post on CBMW’s blog, complementarianism is a necessary testimony of the Gospel that cannot be denied or the witness of the Gospel is damaged.  While the T4G conference is affirming The Unadjusted Gospel, at the same time they are continuing in their pattern to adjust the Gospel to add in complementarianism.

Instead of seeing Christians united on the Gospel while having charity and grace on the non-essentials, the T4G conference has once again chosen to separate from other Christians over non-essentials and made complementarianism such a necessity that it is introduced as the fulfillment of Biblical teachings that make this doctrine essential as a witness to the Gospel.

My question is, how can godly pastors go along with this addition to the Gospel calling it The Unadjusted Gospel? Isn’t there any out there who have a twinge of shame at the division that is caused by such an adjusted Gospel?

J. Ligon Duncan III writes:

We affirm that the Scripture reveals a pattern of complementary order between men and women, and that this order is itself a testimony to the Gospel, even as it is the gift of our Creator and Redeemer. We also affirm that all Christians are called to service within the body of Christ, and that God has given to both men and women important and strategic roles within the home, the church, and the society. We further affirm that the teaching office of the church is assigned only to those men who are called of God in fulfillment of the biblical teachings and that men are to lead in their homes as husbands and fathers who fear and love God.

We deny that the distinction of roles between men and women revealed in the Bible is evidence of mere cultural conditioning or a manifestation of male oppression or prejudice against women. We also deny that this biblical distinction of roles excludes women from meaningful ministry in Christ’s kingdom. We further deny that any church can confuse these issues without damaging its witness to the Gospel.

Duncan gives four reasons why complementarianism is included in their doctrinal statement. His first point concerns the authority of Scripture.

One, the denial of complementarianism undermines the church’s practical embrace of the authority of Scripture (thus eventually and inevitably harming the church’s witness to the Gospel). The gymnastics required to get from “I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man,” in the Bible, to “I do allow a woman to teach and to exercise authority over a man” in the actual practice of the local church, are devastating to the functional authority of the Scripture in the life of the people of God.

May I suggest that Duncan’s point #1 makes the church a laughing stock to the world. While the T4G men turn a blind eye to the fact that the English term “exercise authority”  is a strongly disputed meaning in the lexicons for authentein, they also fail to mention that Paul never once gives men permission to authentein anyone making a male authority in the church non-existent by this passage in 1 Timothy 2. These men also fail to explain why the complementarian adjusted doctrine allows for authority of women in government. If after all it is as claimed to be a prohibition instituted at creation, then how could God allow for any woman to have functional authority?

Many godly complementarian men supported Sarah Palin’s run for Vice President never once blinking an eye about the apparent contradiction. This has been a cause of ridicule as the world sees the gospel presented as a rule about women not having any functional authority in the church but allowed to have unlimited functional authority in the world with no explanation of what happens when the two worlds collide or why God turns a blind eye to government. What happens if a Christian woman were to become President or Vice-President? Can it be denied that she has authority and what will happen with that authority in the church?

Does holding a non-complementarian view devalue the authority of the Scripture in the life of the people of God? The Scriptures are not devalued in solid, mature egalitarian Christians.  May I also suggest that the complementarian adjusted Gospel makes God to be inconsistent and part-time prejudiced. How sad that men have allowed this secondary doctrinal issue to come into the realm of the Gospel. Is this not a shame to the church and where are the men who should be speaking up about this?

Duncan also suggests that one cannot have a view of Biblical inerrancy and hold to egalitarianism as one or the other eventually wins out. This charge appears to assign a heresy label on egalitarians - hardly a loving action toward brothers and sisters in Christ. This blog (WIM) is a testimony to a strong view of inerrancy existing side by side with an egalitarian view.

Duncan continues with his second reason why complementarians must be included in a doctrinal statement and why the T4G conference sees this as an issue of the Gospel:

Two, and following on the first point, the church’s confidence in the clarity of Scripture is undermined, because if you can get egalitarianism from the Bible, you can get anything from the Bible. Paul may be excruciating to read aloud and hear read in a dominant feminist culture, but he’s not obscure in his position! In 1 Tim 2:11-12 he says, “A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” Elsewhere, in 1 Cor 14:34-35, we find the confirming parallel to this previous pronouncement: “The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says. If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.”

In this second reason of Duncan’s, I would like to suggest that it again shows an inconsistent and embarrassing view of the Scriptures by saying that women are not allowed to speak in the church for they are to be silent, and then allowing women to sing, pray, read the Scripture and talk to one another! And the fact that these men cannot point to a single place where the Scriptures state such a Law that women are forbidden to speak in the assembly and must keep silent, has become another embarrassing failure when their own women are not silenced at the door. While holding to inerrancy, they have failed to hold to proper interpretation of the inerrant Scripture so their view is so inconsistent that complementarian churches all over the US look to a complementarian P.O.P.E. to make magisterial decisions on what women can and cannot do in the churches.  CBMW (Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood) regularly takes the position as P.O.P.E. to give out their own wisdom regarding a revealing of the mind of God on these un-addressed Scriptural issues. So while holding to inerrancy, they actually find themselves going beyond the Scriptures which is an unfortunate fall-out of complementarianism.

J. Ligon Duncan III continues:

Cultural cooption of the church’s reading of the Bible robs the church’s ability to speak prophetically to the culture and to live distinctively in the culture, which in turns undermines the church’s Gospel witness.

I would suggest that it is the complementarian failure to properly explain all the contradictions in their position that make the Bible seem a confused creation of man rather than an infallible work of God that actually undermines the church’s Gospel witness.

Point three is raised that creates a false equating of equality of male and female with Enlightenment thought.

Three, because the very ideal of equality championed by egalitarianism (whether secular or Christian) is a permutation of a particular strand of Enlightenment thought, and because this particular ideal of equality is actually alien to the biblical anthropology and ethic, whenever and wherever it is read into the text of Scripture and its principles are worked out consistently, there is a competition with a biblical view of manhood and womanhood. For instance, try to find this view of equality in Genesis 1-it’s just not there.

Duncan’s third point is one of the most embarrassing points that defies us to find equality in Genesis 1 when there is nothing but equality there!

Genesis 1:27–28 (NASB)

27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Consequently, commitment to evangelical egalitarianism opens the door for two competing but incompatible ethical norms and ideals within the individual, family and church. If the egalitarian impulse wins out, the church is compromised precisely at the point where paganism is assaulting the church today. For, as Peter Jones has brilliantly demonstrated, paganism wants to get rid of Christian monotheism by getting rid of the Creator-creature distinction. And one way paganism likes to do that is through gender confusion-hence, the bi-sexual shaman, the sacred feminine, goddess worship, etc. Paganism understands that one of the best ways to prepare the way for pagan polytheistic monism over against the transcendent Creator God of the Bible is to undermine that God’s image in the distinctiveness of male and female, and in the picture of Christ and the church in marital role distinctions, and in the male eldership of the church. Egalitarianism is just not equipped for that fight, and in fact simply capitulates to it.

So Christian egalitarianism is like the bi-sexual shaman and pagan goddess worship?  How embarrassing to complementarians to describe their brothers and sisters in Christ this way. It is a very weak point to equate physical differences in the sexes (which we agree with) with spiritual differences and then to attach it to bi-sexuality and charge egalitarians as capitulating to sexual sin! If the complementarian position was such a strong position taught by the Scriptures, our dear brothers in Christ wouldn’t need to charge their evangelical brothers and sisters in Christ with such inaccurate and slanderous accusations. How embarrassing for Duncan and T4G to take such a warped and slanderous view of brethren in Christ. This kind of argumentation does nothing to present a solid and unified Gospel to the world. Rather it presents an adjusted Gospel that is made to suit the prejudicial views of these men.

Duncan’s last point equates discipleship with gender distinctions. Apparently there are male ways to follow Jesus and female ways to follow Jesus:

Four, when the biblical distinctions of maleness and femaleness are denied, Christian discipleship is seriously damaged because there can be no talk of cultivating distinctively masculine Christian virtue or feminine Christian virtue. Yes, there are many Christian ethical norms that are equally directed and applicable to male and female disciples, but there are also many ethical directives in the NT enjoined distinctly upon Christian men as men and Christian women as women.

Duncan speaking for T4G determines that only complementarians can produce godly Gospel discipleship:

We need masculine male Christians and feminine female Christians, and that kind of discipleship requires an understanding of and commitment to complementarianism. Hence, denial of complementarianism compromises Gospel discipleship.

How embarrassing to the complementarian movement to insinuate that one cannot be a godly Christian disciple without being a complementarian.

The ungodly attacks against brothers and sisters in Christ done through separating from us insisting that only complementarians can be faithful in believing and presenting the Gospel is an affront to God who commanded us to love one another. For complementarians to use the precious Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ as a way to separate from other Christians is really inexcusable.

I would like to ask my brothers and sisters in Christ to rethink this issue. Have you been guilty of damaging the witness of the Gospel by using secondary issues as if it is a primary issues of the Gospel to separate over?

WWJD? (What would Jesus do?)

J. Ligon Duncan III:

For these reasons and more, I think we were right to “deny that any church can confuse these issues without damaging its witness to the Gospel.”

The Apostle Paul:

 

Ephesians 4:2 (NASB) with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love,

Jesus Christ:

John 13:35 (NASB)  “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

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