Women In Ministry

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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The path of the last Adam was a path that took Him from Heaven to earth, from the earth to the grave and from the grave to resurrection power on display as our  Lord, Savior and King.  But a study in contrast with the first Adam shows us the stark contrast to the faithfulness that the last Adam offers us in the place of the failure that we have experienced with our first earthly father.

1.  Sinner vs Sinless

The LAST Adam was born sinless and there was found no sin in Him.

1 John 3:5 (NASB)  You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.

The first Adam was created without sin but he didn’t stay this way. The first Adam brought sin into the world through his disobedience.

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On March 28, 2010 complementarian John Piper announced that he is leaving ministry for a time because of several issues of pride that were affecting his soul and had taken a toll on his relationship with his wife Noël .  Below is what Piper has written about his issues and his next steps.  It would be a good time to pray for John Piper.  It appears that being a rock solid complementarian is not a guarantee that a happy and fulfilling marriage will ensue.

As you may have already heard in the sermon from March 27-28, the elders graciously approved on March 22 a leave of absence that will take me away from Bethlehem from May 1 through December 31, 2010. We thought it might be helpful to put an explanation in a letter to go along with the sermon.

I asked the elders to consider this leave because of a growing sense that my soul, my marriage, my family, and my ministry-pattern need a reality check from the Holy Spirit. On the one hand, I love my Lord, my wife, my five children and their families first and foremost; and I love my work of preaching and writing and leading Bethlehem. I hope the Lord gives me at least five more years as the pastor for preaching and vision at Bethlehem.

But on the other hand, I see several species of pride in my soul that, while they may not rise to the level of disqualifying me for ministry, grieve me, and have taken a toll on my relationship with Noël and others who are dear to me. How do I apologize to you, not for a specific deed, but for ongoing character flaws, and their effects on everybody? I’ll say it now, and no doubt will say it again, I’m sorry. Since I don’t have just one deed to point to, I simply ask for a spirit of forgiveness; and I give you as much assurance as I can that I am not making peace, but war, with my own sins.

Noël and I are rock solid in our commitment to each other, and there is no whiff of unfaithfulness on either side. But, as I told the elders, “rock solid” is not always an emotionally satisfying metaphor, especially to a woman. A rock is not the best image of a woman’s tender companion. In other words, the precious garden of my home needs tending. I want to say to Noël that she is precious to me in a way that, at this point in our 41-year pilgrimage, can be said best by stepping back for a season from virtually all public commitments.

No marriage is an island. For us this is true in two senses. One is that Noël and I are known inside-out by a few friends at Bethlehem—most closely by our long-time colleagues and friends David and Karin Livingston, and then by a cluster of trusted women with Noël and men with me. We are accountable, known, counseled, and prayed for. I am deeply thankful for a gracious culture of transparency and trust among the leadership at Bethlehem.

The other way that our marriage is not an island is that its strengths and defects have consequences for others. No one in the orbit of our family and friends remains unaffected by our flaws. My prayer is that this leave will prove to be healing from the inside of my soul, through Noël’s heart, and out to our children and their families, and beyond to anyone who may have been hurt by my failures.

By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Read the full statement here on Piper’s Desiring God web site.

The one thing that I noticed when I was doing research on the complementarian worldview was that the leaders who were the most transparent admitted that especially in the early years of their marriage, the complementarian lifestyle brought problems into their marriages.  One popular preacher said that his wife felt like she was not a person.  I am certain that I heard John Piper talk about problems like this in his marriage at one point and it is not uncommon for a woman to feel like she is so focused on lifting up her husband’s ministry that who she is as a person becomes vague.  Does God really care about her or is her husband God’s main focus? The loss of personhood can be especially devastating when the children leave home since the complementarian teaching that the woman’s main calling in life is to be a wife and mother can leave her own individual gifts undeveloped or set on the back burner to support her husband.

While we may not agree with the complementarian view of marriage and ministry, we can be there to help complementarians when there are problems and failures from a male-only focused ministry and marriage.  When women are held back from passionately pursuing ministry with the gifts that God has given them, the church will be hurt because we are all needed.  If we give unrestricted authority to use’s gift to one spouse alone, pride is inevitably going to be a by-product.  I believe that God is working today to bring the church into a more balanced position where all of His gifts are accepted no matter which vessel the Holy Spirit desires to use.

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On Sunday March 21, 2010 a meeting was held to determine the fate of principal John Hartwig who had been suspended  earlier for engaging in conduct “unbecoming a called worker”.  The Baraboo News Republic in Baraboo, Wisconsin documents the letter that was sent to school parents that announced Hartwig’s suspension:

In a letter to school parents announcing his suspension, church pastors said Hartwig had promoted materials that questioned the church’s teachings and had engaged in conduct “unbecoming a called worker.”

Hartwig’s father, a former pastor, authored a document years ago questioning Lutheran doctrine that says women shall not have authority over men. Church members say Hartwig, who has been principal since the summer of 2003, was accused of distributing that document to several in the congregation.

Of the 300 people who attended the meeting, females were not allowed to vote and although they had been granted the privilege to speak at other meetings, this meeting they were not allowed to voice their opinions or even ask questions.

Sunday’s meeting was the first time in recent history that St. John’s Council President Don Finseth exercised his authority to prevent females from speaking, church members say.

Those at the meeting say that the vote was 76-74 to fire Hartwig.

How sad when women are treated as if their thoughts and opinions are worthless.  And this is at a time when the church needs every warrior in the battle against our spiritual enemy. I wonder how long it will be before our brothers in Christ see us as a tremendous value in the body of Christ and an equal heir of both the mercies of God and the gifts of God for the blessing of the body of Christ?

The full story is here.

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The question has come up on this blog whether Adam had a sin nature at the fall that would have been passed on to all of us and if this is an issue that is important regarding women in ministry.  After all we need to know why it is that only Adam would bring sin into the world and if all of us have something “hanging” onto us from just on man, why is that? We need to know why sin didn’t come into the world through the woman.  Is this because she was “under” the man so that anything she did was not placed on her account but on his account?  These questions and more will be answered in this post.

First of all it should be noted that the term “sin nature” is not found in the Scriptures. The Biblical terms are “old man”, “old self”, “body of flesh”, “in the flesh”, “uncircumcised in heart” along with the symbol of the old nature - the foreskin of the heart.  Here are just of a few of the verses that talk about the old nature in these terms.

Colossians 3:9 (NKJV) Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds,

Ephesians 4:22 (NASB) that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit,

Colossians 2:11 (NASB) and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;

Romans 8:13 (NASB) for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Romans 7:14 (NASB) The Conflict of Two Natures 14 For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.

Deuteronomy 10:16 (NASB) “So circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer.

Acts 7:51 (NASB) “You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.

God did not create mankind to be this way with sin controlling our lives. Mankind was created perfect and without sin, but a change happened when Adam chose to act in rebellion without any deception on his part that would have caused him to fall into sin and when Adam had the full knowledge of the truth. How long Adam and Eve had been in their state of perfection before the fall is debatable.  The only age given for Adam when he was outside the garden is at the birth of Seth who is said to be in the image of his Father Adam. Adam was then 130 years old. Adam had passed on his own fallen image to his children as none of them were born perfect as he had been created perfect.

If Adam was 130 when Seth was born, it certainly is possible that Adam could have lived as much as a hundred years or more before he was kicked out of the garden and before Eve gave birth to their first child. Whatever the time period, Adam and Eve were sinless during that entire time until the fall. This is in stark contrast to mankind after Adam, as all of us can hardly live one day without sin.

The difference between the ability to live a sinless life for perhaps as long as a hundred years or more and not being able to live sinless for a day is the result of the significant effect of what we call the sin nature or the old man who is now a part of the core of our being because we were all “in” Adam when he fell.  There is something in us that has been tainted by the fall.

1 Corinthians 15:22 (NASB) For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

Romans 5:14-19 talks about the effect of the one man’s sin upon the human race.

Romans 5:14-19 (NASB)

14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

15 But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.

19 For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.

16 The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.

17 For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

There was a condemnation that came to all men because of just one transgression of one man in rebellion. We will pick this up a bit later.

There are several common errors that come from the teaching about the effect of Adam’s sin on the world.  The first common error has caused many to reject the teaching of Adam’s sin having any effect on us.  That error that has been taught by many is the doctrine that Adam’s offspring are charged by God with Adam’s sin. The Bible lays this error to rest by stating that the son will not bear the punishment for the father’s sin.

Ezekiel 18:20 (NASB) “The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.

It is impossible for Adam’s sin to be charged to our account. In other words although we get the nature of the “old man” through Adam, no person will ever end up in hell to pay for Adam’s sin. Anyone who goes to hell will be there solely for their own sin because God does not charge the son with the actual sin of the father.

The other error is the thinking that God made Adam just like us as far as our ability to sin.  Mankind is not just able to sin, but we have been made slaves to sin with the propensity to sin as if it is just a part of our created nature. Watch a young child and see how naturally they learn how to lie without anyone ever teaching them this sin. But Adam was not this way. He was created able to sin when tempted but he was also created able not to sin.  He was created with sin having no hold on him. He could turn his back on sin as easily as shooing a fly off of his shoulder because that was his nature as a perfect sinless man. The only way that Adam or Eve could sin would be through deception or through willful rebellion. There was no other way possible as sin did not live in Adam or Eve.

A similar situation happened with the creation of one of God’s foremost angels. He was created perfect until the day that sin was found in him. Through one act of rebellion against God, he became a sinner who now cannot stop sinning. In fact Jesus said that there is no truth in him. His nature went from perfection to complete rebellion. The very focus of his existence  now as satan is the life of an opposer of God and an accuser of the brethren. It was only one sin and that one act of rebellion that took a perfect creature to the place of a habitual sinner without the ability to get back to where he had fallen from.

Adam was in this same place. When Adam chose to rebel against God’s one law in an act of rebellion, he fell from his place of perfection into the life of a habitual sinner. And it is Adam’s rebellion that we inherit. Adam’s rebellion tainted his very being at the moment that he reached out and touched the fruit and ate. It was because he ate with his eyes wide open to the truth and without any deception to cause him to act in unbelief, he acted in rebellion to the truth that he believed. Adam fell and just like satan he was not able to get back to the place where he had fallen from. He now was a rebel and a slave to sin just like all of his children after him.

There are three remaining questions that need to be asked and answered:

1. Why was Eve not charged with bringing sin into the world?

Eve was not charged with bringing sin into the world because she did not sin in rebellion against God. Eve was deceived into disobeying God’s command and so although she sinned, she did not sin in the way of satan the first rebellious one. It is impossible for Eve to bring the nature of rebellion to her seed because she never sinned in rebellion.

Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1 that he himself was an example of one who sinned in ignorance and unbelief and because he didn’t sin in outright rebellion against God, he received mercy.

1 Timothy 1:13 (NASB) even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief;

Eve received mercy from God because she did not sin willfully in rebellion. It was her seed that would be the Messiah and this was God’s grace and mercy towards her and through the Messiah that brought mercy towards us as the children of Adam.

The fact that Eve did not bring sin into the world has absolutely nothing to do with what some teach is the place of the man having a priority role so that he was the sole one responsible for sin. This unfortunate teaching has permeated the church where many teach that because Adam was male he had some kind of special authority over the world as the sole ruler. This is just not true.  The difference between Adam and Eve as far as the original sin and the curse that was brought into the world is solely because of the way that Adam sinned in rebellion. It has nothing to do with Adam taking the blame because of his maleness. God did not call Adam to take the blame for Eve’s sin. God called them both to account for their sin individually but their individual sin was committed in different ways and this difference was used by God to bring mercy into the world through the seed of the woman. So through Adam was brought inherited rebellion and through Eve was brought the mercy of God through the Messiah. There were two different reasons for sin and two different effects on the world.

2. Why is it very important to our faith to understand the “old man” nature that each one of us has inherited from Adam?

It is  importance to understand the place that Adam had in bringing the “old man” nature of rebellion to each of us because Adam’s place of passing the inheritance of his own nature of rebellion to us is set up in Scripture as a type and contrast to the last Adam who is the Life Giver who is able to pass to us the inheritance of His nature of His perfect and sinless life so that we can be reconciled to God through His blood.

1 Corinthians 15:45 (NASB) So also it is written, “The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

3. Why is it important for Eve to have remained with her pre-fall ability to not sin after the fall so that she could remain as one who was never a rebellious sinner?

It is important that Eve did not take on a sin nature of rebellion for it was her seed alone that would be without inherited sin in order for the Messiah to be born sinless and without the natural inclination to sin as a slave to sin.  Eve was not taken from Adam after he sinned and thus Eve was the only woman who did not have Adam’s old man nature. She was the only one that the Messiah could come through her own lineage. If Eve sinned in rebellion there would be no one left for the Messiah to come through.

Adam was the only one kicked out of the garden because of his new rebellious nature. Adam could never go back to where he started as he had the nature of rebellion from his one sin.  God kicked the one man Adam out of the garden because his new nature made him a threat to the tree of life which was now forbidden to both Adam and Eve. God had told them that they would surely die if they ate the fruit.

God never prophesied that Eve might rebel and eat from the tree of life after the fall because Eve still had the ability to not sin. It was only Adam who possessed the nature of rebellion and who would act consistently with that nature. It was because of him that the garden was closed and because of Adam alone that the tree of life needed to be protected. Eve would have obeyed God’s new prohibition because she was no longer deceived and because she could obey. God prophesied that she would produce the seed that would be the Messiah and so we can know for certain that she did not end up in rebellion as a sinner like Adam with an old man nature.

The Scriptures have told us the truth when they say that sin entered the world through one man. If Eve had given herself over to rebellion like Adam after she left the garden, she too would have brought sin into the world. The fact that the Scriptures remove Eve as having any part of bringing rebellion into the world shows us that God was able to take the evil that satan had planned for mankind and turn it around by God Himself destroying the destroyer through His act of mercy to the very one who sinned because of the deceiver’s deception.

God receives the ultimate glory because He brought mercy to one who had sinned in her ignorance and unbelief. And God received the ultimate glory by bringing the Messiah into the world as the very seed of the woman who received His mercy.

Do you see God’s plan? Do you see the difference between the sin of rebellion that has no way to get back to innocence and the unintentional sin that God covers over with the blood of the one true lamb of God? This is an important issue and I challenge us all to think this one through so that we can put all the pieces together to bring a full picture of the Messiah and what He has done.

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In our continued topic of common objections to women in ministry, we come to the claim that Eve usurped Adam’s authority when she spoke to the serpent. To deal with this claim, we will be looking at both the claim that Eve rebelled against Adam in the garden and the claim that God gave Adam a responsibility to lead that He clearly denied to Eve.

In chapter 3 of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood written by Raymond C. Ortlund Jr headship is defined as a right that the man possesses to lead women in a God-glorifying direction. Ortlund writes:

First, the issue is framed in terms of “equal rights.” That sounds noble, but does God really grant husbands and wives equal rights in an unqualified sense? Surely God confers upon them equal worth as His image-bearers. But does a wife possess under God all the rights that her husband has in an unqualified sense? As the head, the husband bears the primary responsibility to lead their partnership in a God-glorifying direction. Under God, a wife may not compete for that primary responsibility. It is her husband’s just because he is the husband, by the wise decree of God. The ideal of “equal rights” in an unqualified sense is not Biblical.

According to Ortlund’s definition of head, women are not allowed by God to have any part in “competing” with men for the responsibility of leading. This is where the idea comes from that Eve sinned against Adam by taking a leading position. According to this complementarian thinking Eve usurped Adam’s authority and his responsibility to lead the relationship. But is this Biblical fact or complementarian fiction? The only way that we will know is to test this truth claim by the Scriptures.

Is there any Biblical text that gives rules and regulations for Eve regarding who she can talk to? Are there also any Biblical texts that show that Eve could not make any decisions on her own without consulting with her husband?

There is not a single Scripture that gives a foundation for Eve needing a life coach who must be consulted before a personal decision can be made. In fact the Bible shows that it was Adam who needed the woman and she was created to meet his need. The Bible gives no indication that being created for him means that she needed his control. Instead she was the answer to his need and her ability to rule alongside him was necessary in order to give him the aid that he needed. While the Bible shows that she came to meet his need, one gets the distinct idea from the Ortlund’s chapter in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, that the woman was created with an inability to think for herself and in serious need of constant supervision. This presents a serious problem for her personal worth as a helper. In fact Ortlund admits that her inequality was planned by God because otherwise manhood and womanhood would be obscured.

The paradox of Genesis 2 is also seen in the fact that the woman was made from the man (her equality) and for the man (her inequality). God did not make Adam and Eve from the ground at the same time and for one another without distinction. Neither did God make the woman first, and then the man from the woman for the woman. He could have created them in either of these ways so easily, but He didn’t. Why? Because, presumably, that would have obscured the very nature of manhood and womanhood that He intended to make clear.

So why is it that complementarians like Raymond Ortlund charge Eve with taking a forbidden role in leadership? I submit that it is because their theology is far more focused on man than it is on God.  By creating a male-right that needs defending, Ortlund creates prohibitions that do not exist in the text and violated rights that were never given by God in the first place.

Let’s look at what Eve did during the time of temptation to see what she has been charged with by complementarians and to compare the charges against God’s word.  There are 9 charges against Eve that have been identified by complementarians and we will test these by the Biblical record.

1. Eve is charged with having an illegal conversation with the serpent

The serpent asked the woman a question and by answering his question Eve is said to have usurped Adam’s authority. Ortlund writes:

This may explain why Satan addressed Eve, rather than Adam, to begin with. Her calling was to help Adam as second-in-command in world rulership. If the roles had been reversed, if Eve had been created first and then Adam as her helper, the Serpent would doubtless have approached Adam. So Eve was not morally weaker than Adam. But Satan struck at Adam’s headship. His words had the effect of inviting Eve to assume primary responsibility at the moment of temptation: (pg 108 Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood)

The charge is that the one who is second-in-command is not allowed to answer a challenge about truth.

2. Eve is charged with ignoring her second-in-command position

Notice above the subtle adding to God’s words to set up a charge against Eve? God never gives the woman a secondary rule. She is not second-in-command. She has the same rule as Adam does. In fact the only time that rule is mentioned is with the same word that applies to both.

Genesis 1:26 (NASB) Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Genesis 1:28 (NASB) 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.”

The Hebrew word for subdue means:

(2) to subject, to subdue to oneself, e.g. of. beasts, with regard to man, Genesis 1:28;

Gesenius’ Hebrew and Chaldee lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures (383–384).

The fact that Eve is given rule shows that she too had permission to lead as an authority set up by God. So if Eve was given the rule over all the animals, then she had permission to speak to the serpent by the very nature of her rule. It is impossible for her to be usurping Adam’s authority by talking to the serpent since she was given the exact same authority over the animals by God Himself.

3. Eve is charged with illegally speaking for Adam and taking his God-given position thus usurping his authority

Genesis 3:1 (NASB) Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”

4. Eve is charged with speaking for God which is a responsibility given only to the man

Ortlund says that the serpent struck directly at Adam’s headship by coming to the woman. Where is the Biblical support for this? There is none! While God made Adam a watchman of the garden before Eve was created, a responsibility for protecting the garden from evil, God never assigned Adam as a watchman for God Himself. There is no evidence that God assigned the man the sole responsibility to speak for Him or to defend Him. Surely both the rulers of the earth had the responsibility to defend God in their very own territory. How did Adam do in defending God? Silence is usually not a good defense is it? How did Eve do? Did Eve represent God fairly when she spoke up to defend Him? The fact that she started out defending Him is commendable.

The serpent asked Eve if God had failed to give them permission to eat from the fruit of the trees in the garden. The Hebrew shows that the serpent used the plural you showing that the question was about God’s permission for both of them. Eve answered that they did have permission to eat from the trees of the garden except for the fruit from one tree. This is what God had said in Genesis 1 where He gave them both permission to eat from all of the trees that had seed bearing fruit. Eve had every right to speak and answer and show that God had given her permission to eat. There was no prohibition ever given to her that would make it a sin for her to defend God.

5. Eve is charged with speaking to the serpent initiating a sex role reversal

Ortlund states that Eve was disobedient in that she took the male role in speaking to the serpent and the human race fell on the sex role  reversal.

Isn’t it striking that we fell upon an occasion of sex role reversal? Are we to repeat this confusion forever? Are we to institutionalize it in evangelicalism in the name of the God who condemned it in the beginning? (pg 107 Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood)

Instead of saying that the human race fell by disobedience to God’s command, the fall is reinterpreted by Ortlund as an occasion of sex role reversal. Not only does he reinterpret the fall but he boldly states that God condemned this sex role reversal. Where is his Biblical proof of this statement? He gives no words from God that would make Eve’s talking to the serpent a sex role reversal but it appears that we are to simply accept his condemnation of Eve without a quote from God. This is another occasion of pure fiction that has been added to God’s word.

The next part of the “role reversal” is charged to Adam for listening to his wife.

The third interesting point is the very fact that God addresses Adam with this introductory statement, “Because you have listened. . . .” God does not address Eve in this way, but God does issue a formal indictment to Adam before his sentencing. Why? Because Adam was the head, the finally responsible member of the partnership. (pg 110 Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood)

According to complementarians this “listening to his wife” is about Adam allowing his wife to persuade and/or deceive him, but the Scripture doesn’t say this. Nowhere is it recorded in the text that Eve had to persuade Adam to take the fruit or is it said that Adam was deceived by either the serpent or his wife. Instead the charge against Adam is about his listening to his wife in the only recorded account of her words during the temptation - while she was being deceived by the serpent. Adam’s duty was to protect the garden from evil and and to speak out the truth when he knew that what was being said to his wife was a lie. When Adam let the serpent deceive his wife when he knew that what the serpent was saying was a lie, and he stayed by his wife silently letting her be drawn into disobedience through deception, Adams action was considered an act of treason just as God said in Hosea 6:7.

6. Eve is charged with sinning against the man by giving the fruit to him and thus initiating his fall

Giving the fruit to Adam is considered as Eve exercising headship thus subordinating him to her authority.

But Satan struck at Adam’s headship. His words had the effect of inviting Eve to assume primary responsibility at the moment of temptation: “You decide, Eve. You lead the way. Wouldn’t you rather be exercising headship?” Just as Satan himself fell through this very kind of reasoning, so he used it to great effect with Eve. Presumably, she really believed she could manage the partnership to both Adam’s and her own advantage, if she would only assert herself. (pg 108 Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood)

When Eve offered the fruit to Adam, she was in a position of one who truly believed that the fruit was good for them. In her mind she was offering him the good portion. But offering him the fruit is not the same thing as making him take it and eat it. Eve took no authority over Adam to make him obey her. She just gave to him.  The Hebrew word translated as gave means to give, offer or present. Eve merely offered him what she considered was her best. It is not a term of force but of a voluntary offering.

But in Ortlund’s reality, offering the fruit to the man was taking leadership over him. But what Ortlund may not realize is that by taking this stand, he is aligning himself with Adam’s excuse of blaming his wife for his own sinful action. This is not an issue of disallowed leadership but of blame.

Genesis 3:12 (NASB) The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.”

Notice that even Adam’s lame excuse doesn’t say that the woman God gave him took authority over him or that she took leadership over him. He hides his sin by blaming her for merely giving the fruit to him. It is an invalid excuse and yet complementarians are now using this to say that Eve sinned by usurping Adam’s authority when she gave him the fruit. Offering the fruit has become equal with challenging the man’s rule, but that meaning is foreign to the text.

Let’s think this one through. If giving food to the man is challenging his rule, then no woman would be safe by offering a man anything. If the mere act of offering something is equivalent to lording it over him according to the accusation against Eve, then any woman is subject to this charge. Should women stay away from offering food, directions or advice to a man for fear that they will also be charged with usurping his authority? This argument is so bad that it didn’t fool God. Why do we let it fool us today?

7.  Eve is charged with being a sinner before she ate the fruit

In an attempt to further charge the woman with sin, Ortlund states that she misquotes God and added to His words:

Eve also enlarges God’s prohibition with her own addition, “you may not touch it.” In her mind, the limitation is growing in significance. (pg 106 Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood)

We have dealt this issue before on this blog showing that it isn’t possible for Eve to have added to God’s Word, but I will point out here that God’s speaking to Himself in Genesis 3 shows that the concern over Adam is that Adam would reach out and eat, the very two things that Eve said were forbidden by God. The word for touch that Eve quoted God as forbidding them to do with the fruit, has the meaning of to reach for. And look carefully at what God said after the fall:

Genesis 3:22 (NASB) Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—

So while Ortlund disbelieves Eve’s testimony that God said that they could not reach for and take the fruit and they could not eat the fruit, God Himself affirms that she did not lie about what He said. He says that these two things are what is not allowed. No reaching forth to take and no eating. What a sad thing it is when complementarians charge Eve with sin even though God does not say that she added to His Word and the proof that she did not is right there in God’s own words!

8. Eve is charged with claiming that God said she would die if she ate of the forbidden fruit when God never brought death upon her for eating the fruit

Ortlund asserts is that Eve did not die because she ate the fruit. Rather she had the sentence of death on her only through the man.

The fourth point here is that God told Adam alone that he would die. But Eve died, too. Why then did God pronounce the death sentence on Adam alone? Because, as the head goes, so goes the member. (pg 110 Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood)

This claim actually calls God’s words into question just as the serpent said “Has God said?…you will surely not die”

Did or did not God say that if they would eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would die? This is the testimony of the woman that God said this to them and God affirmed his prohibition to both of them.  He did not ignore the woman so that she died because of Adam.  God came to her individually by asking her what she had done. Yet Ortlund is now claiming that she didn’t have to die from eating of that fruit. He claims that in Genesis 3:19 God pronounced the death sentence on Adam alone.

Genesis 3:19 (NASB) By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”

Genesis 2:17 (NASB) …for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

When God spoke to Adam later, He did not pronounce the death sentence. Instead God told Adam what his life would be like until the day he died:

Genesis 3:19 (NASB) By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”

In verse 19, God did not pronounce the death sentence to Adam as it had already been pronounced by God “if” they ate the fruit. It was given before the fall happened. The pronouncement of death was that dying they would die.  and the Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon shows that this is dying to become mortal:

1. die: a) natural death …b) …death penalty…become mortal

A concise Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon of the Old Testament. (188).

Adam did not become mortal when God confronted him. He became mortal at the time that he ate the forbidden fruit. This is what God had warned him about beforehand.

So when Ortlund denies God’s word and claims that Eve died because of Adam’s sin, he directly contradicts God.  It is impossible for Eve to have died because of Adam’s sin. She was not like us who were “in Adam” when Adam sinned. His sin could not cause her to die and such teaching is erroneous and dangerous. This teaching that the husband can cause a wife to die by his sin instead of by her own sin is contradicted by the Scripture. When Ananias and Sapphira had conspired together to lie to the Holy Spirit, Sapphira was not put to death because of her husband’s sin. Instead she was given the opportunity to come clean and tell the truth. Her husband was already dead when she was confronted and he died because he continue to lie. But his wife did not automatically die when her husband died. His sin did not kill her. It was her own continued lie that caused her death. (See Acts 5:1-10)

9.  Eve is charged with giving ungodly pressure to Adam to eat the forbidden fruit and also for having an insubordinate desire for him

The last thing that Ortlund asserts is that the man is the one who acted in a loving way and the woman was the one who was punished by God for what she did to the man.  According to Ortlund the man is the honorable one after God confronted them:

Instead of turning away from the bar of God’s justice in bitterness and despair, Adam turns to his wife and says, “I believe God’s promise. He has not cast us adrift completely…I believe God, and I honor you. (pg 110 RBM&W)

And then according to Ortlund, the woman is the dishonorable one who usurped Adam’s headship and her misery afterward is a result of her sin against the man. Her sin includes an ungodly pressure for him to eat the fruit and her desire for him is said to be an insubordinate desire that would cause him to take out his trump card to “put her in her place”.

God gives the woman up to a desire to have her way with her husband. Because she usurped his headship in the temptation, God hands her over to the misery of competition with her rightful head. This is justice, a measure-for-measure response to her sin.

The ambiguous element in the equation is the interpretation of the words translated in the NIV, “and he will rule over you.” We could draw one of two conclusions. First, God may be saying, “You will have a desire, Eve. You will want to control your husband. But he must not allow you to have your way with him. He must rule over you.”

If this is the sense, then God is requiring the man to act as the head God made him to be, rather than knuckle under to ungodly pressure from his wife. Accordingly, 3:16b should be rendered: “Your desire will be for your husband, but he must rule over you.”{47} In this case, we would take rule as the exercise of godly headship. This interpretation matches the reasoning in 4:7 more nearly, but another view is possible.

Second, God may be saying, “You will have a desire, Eve. You will want to control your husband. But he will not allow you to have your way with him. He will rule over you.” If this is the true sense, then, in giving the woman up to her insubordinate desire, God is penalizing her with domination by her husband. Accordingly, 3:16b should be rendered: “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”{48} The word “rule” would now be construed as the exercise of ungodly domination. As the woman competes with the man, the man, for his part, always holds the trump card of male domination to “put her in her place.” (pg 109 Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood)

Conclusion:

It is so sad to see that the original fall has been rewritten to make the man to be the one who was sinned against by the woman and the woman is the one to blame so that even her desire for him has become a personal attack against the man.

It is time to call us back to the inspired account instead of the fanciful rewritten editions that make the woman the fall guy.  The challenge by complementarians that God did not say what Eve testified He said and the challenge that Eve is guilty of sin against the man who was somehow made her ruler in the original creation (yet without a Scriptural account of this special rule set up by God) have greatly hurt the church of the Lord Jesus. Satan wants us to believe a lie. Will you reject that lie and get back to what God actually did say? May the Lord Jesus help us all to test all things and to hold fast to what is good and truthful.

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“…Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”  Luke 10:41-42

In the complementarian Christian community there is a lot of pressure to keep women away from a place that doesn’t belong to them.  Because of the teaching that there is a “biblical manhood” and “biblical womanhood”, and the way we follow Jesus depends on our gender, many have been focused on dividing and protecting the man’s portion as if something has been given to men alone.  Is this really biblical?  Is there really something that belongs to men alone that needs to be held back from women?

In Luke 10 the Lord Jesus encountered pressure to remove Mary from sitting at his feet as one of the disciples in order for her to take the place of a worker in the home.  His response to Martha is quite revealing about the Lord’s view of women.

Luke 10:41–42 (NASB)

41 But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things;

42 but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

Regarding the place of a disciple, Jesus said that there is only one thing that is necessary. Please note that Jesus did not say that there are two things that are necessary - one for males and one for females. The one thing that is absolutely necessary is to sit as a disciple at His feet.  There was no division between what is necessary for males or females.

The next thing that we can see from Jesus’ words is that Mary herself had chosen the good part.  The Greek word used here is eklegomai which means chosen for oneself.  Mary had the opportunity to choose for herself and what she chose as a disciple at Jesus’ feet is the good portion. This is a share or part in the opportunity and responsibility to learn and then do the work of a disciple.  It was Mary’s own choice to be a disciple and to have her portion alongside the rest of the disciples.

Jesus then reveals something that is extremely important. He said that what she has received (her portion as a disciple) shall not be taken away from her. The Greek word for take away is aphaireo and it means to have something taken away by force. Jesus is saying that her portion as one of the disciples, which rightfully belongs to Mary and which is a good thing, shall not be removed from her by force.

Mary’s faith in Jesus caused her to understand the gospel and to do the work of preparing the body of Jesus for burial as an act of her faith.

Mark 14:6–9 (NASB)

6 But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you bother her? She has done a good deed to Me.

7 “For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them; but you do not always have Me.

8 “She has done what she could; she has anointed My body beforehand for the burial.

9 “Truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.”

John tells us that this woman was Mary.

John 12:3 (NASB) Mary then took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

Mary the one who sat at the feet of Jesus and who received her share right alone with the men, is shown to have been prepared by the teachings of Jesus to accept and believe in his death when the other disciples did not yet understand. Jesus said that her work of preparing his body for burial would be linked to the gospel and its message throughout the world. This portion will not be taken from her.

Another Mary also received her portion of the gospel on resurrection day.

John 20:15–18 (NASB)

15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (which means, Teacher).

17 Jesus said to her, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’ ”

18 Mary Magdalene came, announcing to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and that He had said these things to her.

Mary Magdalene was the first one commissioned to give the gospel to the other disciples and the Lord specifically chose to appear to a woman first.

But there are those in the church who have made it their own business to take away what has been given to women. While women were given the place as disciples sitting and learning at the feet of Jesus, some in the body of Christ deny women the ability to learn the deep things of God.

John MacArthur’s The Master’s Seminary denies women the opportunity to learn. The deep things of God are taken away from women and no opportunity is given them to choose to follow the Lord Jesus in this deep learning as women are denied entrance into John MacArthur’s seminary.

Also complementarians such as Ray Ortlund deny that God gives a calling to women that entrusts them with the gospel. “There is a grandeur to every man’s ministry“, Ortlund says and the gospel ministry that men have been given shows that they “have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel.” No limitations on men at all as Ortlund says “I don’t minister for his approval; I minister with his approval.  I can go for it.” But for women, there is no such approval in Ortlund’s eyes.

Is it true that only men have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel? Or have men usurped by force what has also been given to women? The first disciples refused to believe a woman who obeyed the Lord and who declared the gospel to them and today men are tempted to take away a woman’s portion by closing the door in her face. There are many things that she is not allowed to learn and many places that she is not allowed to go. But is this the way of the Master?

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Another reason some complementarians claim for denying women opportunities to minister in the church is that it is said that women are more easily deceived than men so men alone are permitted to minister in the church.  A good example of this kind of rationale is found here with this excerpt:

But why should Eve’s being beguiled in the Garden of Eden cause Paul to say that women should be silent in church? The answer must be that women in general have a tendency to be more easily duped than men. Because of this tendency, they are not to be teachers, or preachers, or hold an office (which implies authority) in church. …

…we must remember that Paul clearly states that women are to remain silent in church because of the creation order and because Eve was deceived.

Is Paul really saying that women are more easily deceived than men?  Let’s examine the text:

1 Timothy 2:14 (NASB) And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.

Paul clearly says that “Adam was not deceived” but in 2 Corinthians 11:3 Paul specifically lists Eve by name as the one who was deceived:

2 Corinthians 11:3, 4 (NASB)

4 For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.

3 But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

So is Paul really saying that Eve was created with a “tendency” to be easily deceived? No, that would be reading into the text something that is not there. Rather than describing a flaw in God’s design of the woman that provided for a deceived Eve, the emphasis is on the cunning, craftiness and trickery of the one who deceived her. She was not created as one who was easily deceived.  She was deceived through the cunning, manipulative trickery that was a masterful job in deceiving the very first woman.

Instead of Paul warning that all women have a tendency to be easily deceived, Paul warns the entire church in 2 Corinthians 11 that all of them could encounter the same deception and be led astray by a counterfeit Jesus, a counterfeit spirit and a counterfeit gospel.  It would have been so easy for Paul to focus in on just the women, but he does not do that for it is not a fact that women are created with a flaw that makes them easily deceivable. Rather then focusing on any one gender, Paul said that it is “your minds” that may be led astray.  Paul is speaking to all of the Corinthians. So much for men not being able to be deceived!

It appears that the complementarians who believe that women are more prone to deception have not thought this one through. If women are more easily deceived and fall prey to the enemy’s deception easier than men, then why would the church allow women who are easily deceived to teach little children who by their childish nature are easily manipulated and deceived? Also why would the church allow women to teach other women who would supposedly also be ripe for deception? Wouldn’t the best ones for women to teach be men who would easily recognize deception and thus be able to correct them? Yet men are the only ones who are forbidden to have women teach them if we believe the complementarian understanding. It just doesn’t make sense. If the Bible really does teach that women by nature are more easily deceived, then the church has not gone far enough. Women should be stopped from teaching anyone if this line of reasoning is true, don’t you think? But complementarians don’t carry this reasoning through all the way to its natural and logical conclusion. There is a flaw in their reasoning.

But Paul isn’t reasoning that one gender has a flaw or that easily deceived women can teach only other easily deceived people. Paul is dealing with deception due to lack of sound doctrine. Paul first of all commands that “a woman” is to learn (1 Timothy 2:11). Why the command to learn? Because learning sound doctrine is the first thing that combats deception. The second thing that combats deception is self-control. Salvation from deception must also come with self-control.

1 Timothy 2:15 (ESV)…continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

Paul isn’t setting up a universal prohibition to stop one gender from using their God-given gifts in their maturity for the common good. Paul isn’t attaching all women to Eve’s deception. Instead, in 2 Corinthians 11, Paul is warning all the Corinthians about deception and false doctrine. He isn’t warning the Corinthians about women teachers.

So why is it so easy for some to see all women as prone to deception? To be frank, I would suggest that it is easy for some to believe bad things about women because our world is so prone to prejudice especially toward women. So when Paul said that Eve was deceived, many people will read into this scripture that “all women” are easily deceived. But if all women are so easily deceived, then how come most cult leaders are men?

As we continue discussing common objections to women in ministry, we will be answering many more false interpretations on the hard passages of scripture on women in ministry.  In the meantime I would request that complementarians who are reading these posts to think these things through. There are many questions offered in this post. Are you able to answer these questions or are these questions too difficult to answer with your current view of women in ministry?

One last set of questions - are people deceived as a result of their God-given design or are they deceived because of their lack of knowledge and/or their failure to love and embrace the truth with self-control to stay away from error? If people are deceived because of their design, then who ultimately is to blame for their deception?

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One of the positions that complementarians commonly hold is that male and female were created with distinct roles so that one (the male) is said to have been given the authority over the other (the female) and the fact that Adam names Eve is used as proof of the man’s authority.  CMBW (The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood) records it this way:

Male and female were created by God as equal in dignity, value, essence and human nature, but also distinct in role whereby the male was given the responsibility of loving authority over the female, and the female was to offer willing, glad-hearted and submissive assistance to the man. Gen. 1:26-27 makes clear that male and female are equally created as God’s image, and so are, by God’s created design, equally and fully human. But, as Gen. 2 bears out (as seen in its own context and as understood by Paul in 1 Cor. 11 and 1 Tim. 2), their humanity would find expression differently, in a relationship of complementarity, with the female functioning in a submissive role under the leadership and authority of the male.

CBMW’s statement of their position says that Genesis 2 as viewed in its own context will show Adam’s authority over Eve as God’s original design and this is borne out in the act of Adam naming Eve.  Let’s have a close look at the context of Genesis 1-3 to see where Adam could have been given authority over Eve.

In my post on February 17th on Common Objections to Women in Ministry: God’s Design in Genesis we saw that Adam and Eve were given equal authority over all of God’s creation in the land, air and the sea.  If God had wanted to add to Adam’s authority the responsibility to a rule over the woman, Genesis 1 would have been a perfect place to list that authority, but God never gives Adam an authority over his wife in the original design.  The authority of rulership for Adam is clearly over animals and the earth, not people.  So if God did not give authority for Adam to rule Eve in the original creation, when is God supposed to have given him that authority?  Let’s look to Genesis chapter 2 for any evidence  of an added authority given to Adam.

Genesis 2:22 (NASB)  The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.

Adam’s exclamation of  joy in verse 23 when he first set eyes on the woman is a declaration that she is from him as flesh of his flesh, but where are there any words from God determining a “role” of authority for the man that would set him up as her ruler?  We do see Adam calling her “woman” but is this taking authority over her?  It can’t be.  For one thing, Adam was not the origin of the term woman.  God called her woman before Adam did.  Adam merely accepted her and affirmed her origin as being from him.  God did not give Adam authority over her and we cannot assign an authority without God first giving that authority.  To assume such an authority without God’s permission is a very dangerous thing to do.

Genesis 2:23 (NASB)  The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.”

Notice again that God never said that He gave the man an authority to rule the woman nor did God direct the man to “name” her as a way to take his authority over her.  The fact that God had already called her woman in verse 22 also reveals that God did not give any directive for Adam to exercise his own authority over her. She simply was identified as a woman already by God and she was accepted as such by Adam himself.

But what about after sin entered the world?  Did God give the man the authority to rule the woman then?  What did God say to the man after Adam admitted that he ate the fruit?

Genesis 3:17 (NASB)  Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life.

Notice that God doesn’t say that “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, I am giving you authority over her”.  Adam did not take authority over the serpent in the garden when the serpent was deceiving his wife and God certainly did not give an additional authority to Adam in his sinful state.  But Adam does name his wife “Eve” in verse 20. Is this proof that Adam had an authority given him by God that is never directly listed in the Scripture?

Genesis 3:20 (NASB)  Now the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living.

4) Adam’s naming of Eve indicates, in an OT cultural context, Adam’s right of authority over the one whom he named. And interestingly, Adam named his wife twice, first when she was formed from his flesh (2:23), and second after they had both sinned (3:20), indicating that his rightful authority over her continued after sin had come.

No, this is not true.  Naming someone does not prove the “rightful” authority over them.  Let complementarians prove Adam’s “rightful” authority over Eve in the words of God in Genesis.  Where did God give Adam this right?  Where is this authority determined by God as a design that He placed within man at his creation?

The fact is that this revision of the historical account is once again necessary to bolster the complementarians claim that only men are allowed to use their spiritual gifts in the church for the common good.  Once they can claim a non-existent authority in the beginning, they can claim anything they want because of that “authority”.

Are we going to accept another historical revision or are we going to challenge complementarians to prove their claim that Adam received authority to rule the woman?  Where is this authority given to Adam anywhere in the text?  If this claim cannot be pointed out in the text, then it is time to challenge complementarians to get back to the beginning and rethink their doctrine.

Thoughts?

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According to those who have been followed a trail left by our old friend Neopatriarch (who many of you may recall was the young complementarian who used to post challenges on this blog until he left in exasperation when his arguments didn’t make the grade),  he has apparently been presently himself recently on several discussion boards as the one who has refuted my exegesis of 1 Timothy 2:11-15. How interesting that he has been refuted time and time again and is still claiming victory.  Also how interesting that he has picked me as the one who has the exegesis that has to be refuted.  Well, I am quite flattered by all of his attention, and even though he is undoubtedly a very intelligent young man, his attempts to refute my sound argument have only called attention to my argument.  I guess I should say thanks.

Let’s have a look at Neopatriarch’s latest edition of his “refutation” of my exegesis.  Neopatriarch’s latest revision says:

Since the presumptive evidence favors our initial conclusion that any man and any woman are meant in verse 12 and verses 13-14 function as reasons in Paul’s argument, the most natural reading takes Adam and Eve as representatives of any man and any woman.

Neopatriarch has made it “presumptive evidence” now, but in his previous edition he called it  plain old “presumption”.  Here is his wording from his fall 2009 edition:

Since presumption favors our initial conclusion that any man and any woman are meant in verse 12 and verses 13-14 function as reasons in Paul’s argument, the most natural reading takes Adam and Eve as representatives of any man and any woman.

So what used to be “presumption” has now taken on a new life and has been transformed into the “presumptive evidence” category yet he has nothing new to add.  Sadly for Neopatriarch, he has no new evidence and his presumptions are still the same old presumptions.  Also sadly for Neopatriarch, he has so far refused to address my answer to his “refutation” and so his imaginery presumptions have come no closer to refuting my exegesis then he attained during his first and second try during 2009.  To see my refutation of Neopatriarch’s position and his second attempt to refute me see my post here.

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How is it that there are millions of Christians who all look to the same Genesis account yet find themselves with different and contradictory truth claims from the same account?  While many conclude that man was designed in a special way that sets him above the woman with special God-given privileges, there are still many others who conclude that God created both man and woman as equal rulers over creation. We all need to be careful that we don’t just see what we want to see because there is a tendency for each one of us to read our own position into the account. But as Christians we should desire to value truth above all else  for it is God’s design that we want to discover, not mankind’s aberration of God’s design.

As we search diligently in the creation account in Genesis, we look for how God conveyed His design differences to the attention of the first man and woman. Did the man know that he had been designed differently? Did he know that his design gave him special privileges that were withheld from his wife because she did not have the same design? And was it conveyed to Eve that she was not on the same level as Adam?  According to Ray Ortlund, God gave the man a special mission and a special “call” to accomplish and the woman had a special mission to please him.

God made Adam first and put him in the Garden with a job to do, a mission to fulfill.  In the heart of every fallen man is the self-doubt that wonders, “Am I man enough to climb this mountain God has called me to?  Can I fulfill my destiny?”  A wise wife will understand that question at the center of her husband’s heart.  And she will spend her life answering it, communicating to him in various ways, “Honey, I believe in your call.  I know you can do this, by God’s power.  Go for it.”  In this way, she will breathe life into her man.

God made Eve from Adam, for Adam, to help him follow the call.  In the heart of every fallen woman is the self-doubt that wonders, “Do I please you?  Am I what you wanted?”  A wise husband will understand that question at the center of his wife’s heart.  And he will spend his life answering it, communicating to her in various ways, “Darling, you are the one I need.  I cherish you.  Let me hold you close.”  In this way, he will breathe life into his wife.

So according to Orlund there is one call - for the man alone, but did you notice that he gave no scripture to support his view?  Let’s now view what God Himself has revealed.

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

God said that both of them were made in His image. He said that both were designed according to His likeness. Then God reveals that the design is for them to rule.  Would this not be the perfect place for God to say that He made the male to rule and the female to support the man’s rule? Why is it that this alternate design pattern of one that is called and the other who is to please the one who is called, is never mentioned? Why is it that the first mention of God’s design is equality in creation in God’s likeness and an equal design of rulership? Did God make a mistake and forget to show the design difference to the first pair? If we believe the Bible to be God’s inspired inerrant word, we can be assured that God did not make a mistake. There has been no difference in God’s design for their likeness or in their design that mandates their rule.

The next thing that we notice is that both were designed to rule the fish and the birds and the cattle and the earth as well as everything that creeps on the earth. Now isn’t this odd? If there was a design difference, shouldn’t we see something like a design that keeps a woman to the water world kingdom while the man gets rule over all three kingdoms - the air and the land and the sea? How come with so many levels of rule that they both get it all? How come there isn’t even a breath of difference between their rule? Those who say that man has a different mission to fill have a lot of explaining to do regarding why God’s design is not different for the woman.  There is no divided kingdom.

The next thing that we notice is the coveted blessing that was held out to the first born is given to both of them:

Genesis 1:28 God blessed them;…

God didn’t hold out the special first born blessing to just the man. Instead He gave the same special blessing to both:

…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.”

The blessing involved their fruitfulness on the earth, their freedom to rule and the full extent of their rule. Both of them were given the whole earth to fill and subdue it and rule over every living creature and rule over the land. Where is the difference in design here? There is no difference at all. There is only equality.

Notice another thing that is highly important.  In the issuing of the rule, God doesn’t call out the man to speak to him first as if his calling was special or different than the woman’s calling. God spoke to them both.  Then God gives them the food that they have permission to eat and God does not divide the two of them into a gatherer and a cook.

Genesis 1: 29 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;

The word “you” is plural in this verse. God speaks to both Adam and Eve and gives them both the mandate to be fruit and plant inspectors as they both need to know which plants have seeds. Again there is no design difference between Adam and Eve regarding their mission or their work.  Note also that God doesn’t give Adam the mandate to teach Eve about which foods they can eat. God gives her His word Himself. Both are treated as responsible and equally designed rulers.

Now that we observed what God said, let’s look to see what Adam said that would define any special design that he may have known that he had.

When Eve was talking to the serpent, did Adam claim that talking to the animals was his part of the rule?  No, Adam did not claim that there was a special animal rule that belonged to him alone because of the way that he was designed.

Did Eve understand that Adam had a special rule that she was to support him in that did not belong to her? No, there is not a single word from Eve to show she believed that Adam had a special rule. Well, what about the “helper” words of God? When God said that it was not good for man to be alone and He would create a helper comparable to him, does the term “helper” mean a lesser rule? Absolutely not. God is called our helper but He does not have a lesser rule than we do. Eve did not miss out on an equal rule with Adam because she was his helper. In fact the only way that she could be Adam’s helper is for her to be competent in the work. She is never said to need to wait for Adam’s instructions. She had her instructions from God Himself. She was a co-laborer with Adam.

Many will bring up an objection by saying that Adam’s first creation showed his special position.  The timing of his creation was necessary for Adam since God’s design was that the woman was to be made from his body. How could she be created from his body if she was made at the same time? The fact that God gave them both the first born blessing should remove any doubt that her creation from his body was meant to signal a secondary rule for the woman and a special first place rule for the man.

With no facts about a unique design of man that makes him the sole ruler or a special design that would include the rule over the woman, it appears that the documented account of the creation of man and woman has been rewritten and retold in such a way as to conform to fallen man’s way.  The question we must ask is why are complementarians allowed to rewrite history?  When the very foundation of the complementarian position is based on a recreated account of the origin of humankind, how is that a faithful way to view truth?

It has been said that changing the historical context changes the way we view the present. This is the power of historical revisionism. The very first attempt at rewriting history came out of the mouth of the serpent. Did God really say…, he asked as he challenged the historical account of God’s words. The rewriting of history was the foundation point for the very first lie. Today we are being told that the woman was not designed to rule but instead she has been designed to support the man in such a way that she does not do what he does. Can we actually change woman’s design by denying that she was created as a ruler and one who would give powerful aid to the man? How did the design of the woman get turned around so that complementarians are being taught that the woman was designed to be ruled by the man? It appears that it is true that if you tell a lie long enough and often enough, people will believe it. But a lie is never changed into the truth by repetition.

The next event that has been subject to historical revision is the fall. The consequence of man’s sin is downplayed in the fall so that the ruling of the man over the woman in Genesis 3 is made to be God’s original design even though God never mentioned it before the fall. History has also been rewritten when the words of God’s warning told to Eve about her husband’s after-sin way of relating to her is reinterpreted as God’s original design, not her husband’s new sin nature. But the truth unravels the revision when we study the context.  For if the context of the fall can be stripped away, then one can argue that God’s original design was weeds, a cursed earth and the necessary death of mankind.

I feel for my brothers and sisters in Christ who have had their “truth” molded by historical revisionism.  But I would encourage all of us not to forget the lessons of the past.  We are to remember what God has done for us.  God made woman to rule alongside the man.  When God originally created the man alone He stated that it was “not good”.  It is “not good” for man to fulfill his rule over creation alone. God made both the man and the woman to rule and the original rule was to be over God’s world and His animals, not over each other.

I also feel for my dear sisters in Christ who have been taught the revision of the creation account so that they have become afraid to go through the open doors that God has held open for them.  I would like quote a few words from a Women in Ministry blog from the First Baptist Church, St. Simons Island, Georgia.  This church has recently made a bold move to include women in a position of service in their church. Celeste writes some very thoughtful words about the open doors that God has for women.  I encourage you to read the whole post as I was very touched by it.

I see what you’ve done. Now see what I’ve done. I’ve opened a door before you that no one can slam shut. You don’t have much strength; I know that; you used what you had to keep my Word. You didn’t deny me when times were rough. Revelation 3:8 (The Message)

I wonder how many times in our lives we’ve prayed and asked the Lord to just “open a door” for us and told Him all that we would try to do to obey Him and to honor Him as we’d enter through it.

Open doors are a wonderful thing…
and the visual effect for us is very provocative and encouraging.

Then a door opens…
now what?

Indeed…now what?  How will we go through these open doors when we have fallen captive to the lie for so long?  Celeste gives words of advice in the finish of her post.

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Another common objection to women in ministry is the claim that when women speak and lead publicly it dishonors men.

The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) speaks of this as dishonoring the “calling” of men:

We would say that the teaching inappropriate for a woman is the teaching of men in settings or ways that dishonor the calling of men to bear the primary responsibility for teaching and leadership. This primary responsibility is to be carried by the pastors or elders. Therefore we think it is God’s will that only men bear the responsibility for this office. (pg 64 online version)

One thing that we can notice from the quote above is that CBMW says “we think it is God’s will…”.  The fact that they don’t know for sure is telling. The fact is that God has not revealed in the Scriptures that it is His will that only men can teach and lead in their gifts. God has also not revealed that women can never teach and lead with their gifts in the body of Christ.  Instead of a sure word from God, “inappropriateness” of the public use of women’s gifts is a position based on what some surmise is God’s will.  It is result of the teaching that men alone bear the God-ordained responsibility for teaching.

CBMW continues with the thought that it isn’t about competency:

The issue is not whether women are competent or intelligent or wise or well-taught. The issue is how they relate to the men of the church. … So the issue of shamefulness is at root an issue of doing something that would dishonor the role of the men as leaders of the congregation. (pg 65 online version, my emphasis)

So, according to CBMW, the issue is not about whether God gifts women or about women’s intelligence or their wisdom or how well-taught they are. The focus is solely on men’s dishonor. Where does this issue of shame and dishonor come from?  Is it a Biblical teaching or does it come from shame-based cultural “laws”?  There is no doubt that the worldly system is based on honor and shame.  In worldly Islamic societies if a woman does something that is considered a shame to the man she may suffer punishment even to the extent of  losing her own life.  In ancient Jewish culture recorded in the Talmud, a man may suffer shame by his wife exposing the hair on her head in public or by exposing a bare ankle or her forearm.  A man was encouraged to deal with this shame by divorcing his wife.  It was his right to punish her for his dishonor.  This was the world’s way of handling men’s dishonor, but is it Biblical to accuse women of shaming and dishonoring men by using their God-given gifts?

If we do a Biblical search for the issue of shame or dishonor coming upon godly Christian men merely because of  a woman using her spiritual gifts, we find no verse that teaches such a thing.  No woman is ever charged with dishonoring a man by giving her gifts for the benefit of the body of Christ.  So where does CBMW get such an idea that women teaching the truth of God’s Word shames and dishonors men?  I suggest that issues of shame and dishonor follow quite naturally with the issue of pride.  Proverbs 11:2 speaks about pride that brings dishonor:

Proverbs 11:2  When pride comes, then comes dishonor,  But with the humble is wisdom. (NASB)

When one has a coveted “position” or “office” to defend, the pride that follows will set up boundaries to hold others outside. Then when women dare to function in the gifting that these men believe they alone have received from God, their pride is hurt and shame and dishonor follows.

Paul did not experience this shame. Instead of experiencing any kind of competition and thus dishonor, Paul gave his personal commendation on behalf of a woman to the Romans. This woman who received Paul’s personal recommendation was a servant or minister or deacon of the church at Cenchrea.  Depending on the translation, Phoebe is called “a deacon of the church”, “who serves the church”,  ”our sister, who is a minister of the assembly”.

Paul describes this woman as one who actively served the entire church at Cenchrea. Because she was one who served in this way, she was to be received favorably by the Romans and because she had been the benefactor, protector, helper of many people, including Paul himself.

Romans 16:2 I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.  (TNIV)

Paul was not dishonored that a woman had been his benefactor. Nor did Paul indicate that the church at Cenchrea was dishonored by having a woman minister to the entire church. She is not said to be a deacon of the women but a deacon, minister, or servant of the church.  ’She is not said to bring dishonor, but Paul’s extended his commendation in honoring her. Phoebe used her gifts to benefit many people including men because she used her gifts to benefit Paul.

Paul also was not dishonored by the ministry of Priscilla who was a “fellow worker” of Paul’s (Romans 16:3). Priscilla was one of the teachers who taught Apollos the way of God more accurately. Apollos did not experience shame or dishonor by being taught and corrected by a woman.

Yet some are so dishonored by a woman’s using her gifts for the benefit of the entire church that they have kept some of the best of men’s teaching away from women. Just in case that a woman might dishonor them, they will not allow her to learn about anything that has been held in high regard for the use of men alone. They will not allow her into their seminaries or take pastoral courses even though the Scriptures never hold back learning from women and Paul himself commands that a woman should be allowed learn. A man’s  protection of his “office” from suffering “dishonor” causes him to disobey the Bible’s clear injunction to allow a woman to learn.

Rather than holding to a position of boasting in an “office”, the Bible turns men away from such a boastful way and it commands all who desire to be the greatest in the kingdom to be the servants of all. The servant then must equip the saints for the work of service.  (Eph 4:12)  The true servant of God will equip all for service for the express purpose of building up the entire body. There can be no dishonor in equipping women to serve the body.

Eph 4:11 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; 13  until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. NASB

True servants of God should never suffer dishonor through their position of equipping the saints when these godly women saints take that equipping and use it to build up the body of Christ.  When a Christian man turns aside from both protecting the flock and preparing them for ministry, pride will cause them to feel a need for protection from the flock especially from the gifts of godly Christian women. Any Christian leader who is dishonored and fearful of equipped Christian women is short sighted and has taken his eyes off of Jesus as the giver of the gifts and the One who has empowered us with the Holy Spirit for body service. When men’s shame and dishonor comes before the work of God it is time for men to repent and seek His forgiveness.  I believe that when godly men turn from their pride in an “office” and turn back to the Lord Jesus in humility and start practicing the equipping of the entire body of Christ for service, God will be honored and the Church will go out triumphant in all her glory to win the lost for Christ.

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One of the first objections to women in ministry is the fact that Jesus chose only males as his twelve apostles. If Jesus only chose men for this special “class” of people who were to be His witnesses of the resurrection, then didn’t Jesus show by this act that He does not allow women to minister in the church as men alone are to have a special position of authority?

I would like to suggest that Jesus deliberately chose men as part of the group of 12 who were to be witnesses to the resurrection since these men were to be witnesses to the world while Jesus assigned women to be the first witnesses to the church.

In the culture of that day only men were considered to be credible witnesses. So a witness to the world would be most effective with the witness of those who could legally give testimony. It was the men who would establish a legal testimony to the world and go on to establish the integrity of their own witness by laying down their lives.

But Jesus considered the brethren to be different than the world as they were to accept the word and the witness of women without the world’s prejudice.

The angels at the tomb gave the gospel first of all to the women who spread the word by promptly giving the gospel to the men:

Luke 24:6  ”He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee,

Luke 24:7  saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.”

Luke 24:8  And they remembered His words,

Luke 24:9  and returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.

In the book of Matthew, the angel commands the women to give the good news of the gospel to the Lord Jesus’ disciples:

Matthew 28:5  The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified.

Matthew 28:6  ”He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying.

Matthew 28:7  ”Go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you.”

Matthew 28:8  And they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to report it to His disciples.

While the women were on their way to report the good news to the disciples, Jesus Himself met them and it was Jesus who commissioned them as witnesses:

Matthew 28:9  And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him.

Matthew 28:10  Then Jesus *said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and take word to My brethren to leave for Galilee, and there they will see Me.”

In the book of John, Mary was also given the privilege of seeing the resurrected Christ and she too was commissioned by Jesus to give a message of hope to the disciples:

John 20:15  Jesus *said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing Him to be the gardener, she *said to Him, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.”

John 20:16  Jesus *said to her, “Mary!” She turned and *said to Him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (which means, Teacher).

John 20:17  Jesus *said to her, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’”

In Mark’s account an angel commands the women to take word to Jesus’ disciples telling them that what happened to Jesus and the resurrection was “just as He told you”.

Mark 16:5  Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were amazed.

Mark 16:6  And he *said to them, “Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him.

Mark 16:7  ”But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.’”

But the men would not believe the gospel given by the testimony of the women:

Luke 24:10  Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James; also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles.

Luke 24:11  But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them.

These disciples were acting like the world in that they would not receive the testimony of the women. Jesus Himself came to some of these male disciples on the road to Emmaus and keeping their eyes from recognizing Him, he questioned them about what had happened. The men answered:

Luke 24:18  One of them, named Cleopas, answered and said to Him, “Are You the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?”

Luke 24:19  And He said to them, “What things?” And they said to Him, “The things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people,

Luke 24:20  and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to the sentence of death, and crucified Him.

Luke 24:21  ”But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened.

Luke 24:22  ”But also some women among us amazed us. When they were at the tomb early in the morning,

Luke 24:23  and did not find His body, they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that He was alive.

Luke 24:24  ”Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the women also had said; but Him they did not see.”

Even with the testimony of all these women saying that Jesus was alive, they did not believe the women. Jesus chided them because they had not believed the testimony of the women nor had they believed the testimony of the prophets of old who had prophesied about His death and resurrection:

Luke 24:25  And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!

Luke 24:26  ”Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?”

The undeniable testimony of the women and their belief in the resurrection was designed by God to be the very first witness to the early Christians.  The command for women to testify was from angels and from the Lord Jesus Himself.  By this act, Jesus removed the stigma of women as unreliable witnesses and He prepared the heart of his own brethren to receive women with full acceptance of their gifts through the coming in-filling and commission of the Holy Spirit which would shortly come to pass.

We should be able to see that it was the unbelieving world that needed the witness of 12 men. In contrast it was Jesus’ disciples who were given the witness of the women. God’s people were to accept the witness and gifting of godly women.

While the world is prejudiced against women, it is not to be that way among you.  The world’s way is prejudice against women.  That is why Jesus sent 12 male witnesses to be the commissioned witnesses of the resurrection to the world.  Jesus was not prejudiced against women - the world was!  But Jesus completely changed things with the church by sending women to the unbelieving brethren, because the church is to learn from Jesus a better way that is love without prejudice.

Jesus desired to teach his male disciples that they could accept the testimony of a woman sent by God.  She was just as worthy a witness as they were. Today Jesus is still sending a message to the church.  We are to be different from the world.  We are to be salt and light showing a different way.

I believe that when we love God enough, we will accept His gifts through female vessels without prejudice.  We as the church need to humble ourselves to embrace and encourage God’s commissioned witnesses and God’s commissioned gifts even from women whom God calls and gifts.  When we stop acting with prejudice as the world acts, the world will take notice that we have been with Jesus and we are changed.  Truly they will know that we are His disciples by our love for one another.  Let no man grieve the Holy Spirit by rejecting God’s gifts that flow through his sister in Christ.

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The bride of Christ has been given gifts but are teacher and pastor two gifts or one?

God has given many gifts to the church and the main purpose of the gifts is to edify the body of Christ so that God will ultimately be glorified.  Paul makes it clear in 1 Corinthians 14:12 that we are to strive to excel in the gifts that will build up the church.

1 Cor 14:12  So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. ESV

While Paul encourages Christians to excel in building up the church, most complementarians do not believe that women are allowed to build up the church by being gifted as teachers.  How can they disallow the Holy Spirit’s ability to Sovereignly decide who receives the gifts? Ephesians 4:11 says:

Eph 4:11  And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, NASB

Here we see separate gifts that God has given to the church but the list in Ephesians is interpreted by some with “pastors and teachers” as one “office”.  John MacArthur says it this way:

pastors and teachers. This phrase is best understood in context as a single office of leadership in the church. The Gr. word translated “and” can mean “in particular” (see 1 Tim. 5:17). The normal meaning of pastor is “shepherd,” so the two functions together define the teaching shepherd. The MacArthur Study Bible

MacArthur is identifying “and” as not a conjunction between two separate gifts, but a “particular” emphasis on the gift.  In other words in MacArthur’s world a pastor is the teacher.

Others point out that there is a singular definite article before pastor and no definite article before teacher.  The one definite article they say, connects the two together in such a way that the one gift should be called singular as pastor-teacher.

However the exact same grammar is also in Matthew 5:20 where “scribes” and “Pharisees” have a singular definite article before two nouns joined together by the Greek “kai” or “and”.

Matthew 5:20  ”For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus has connected the scribes and Pharisees as having a common type of “righteousness”, however is Jesus here saying that the scribes and Pharisees are one united thing?  Would it be proper to call them scribe-Pharisees as a singular unit?  No, not at all.  While most scribes were Pharisees, certainly not all Pharisees could be called scribes.  The Pharisees and scribes are related, as they have a common self-righteousness, but they are not the same. Here is another example:

Matthew 2:4  Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.

Again we find in Matthew 2:4 that there is one article for the two nouns which are joined together by “kai”.  So we need to ask, are the chief priests all scribes?  Should the chief priests be called chief priest-scribes?  Again we have to say no.  Although the chief priests and scribes are placed in a related function in the verse, they are not the same and one can be a chief priest without being a scribe. John MacArthur admits that the chief priests were mostly Sadducees while the scribes were mostly Pharisees.  The fact that they are listed together with only one definite article does not make them completely tied together so they must be listed as a hyphenated noun or as referring to a united “one”.

So does the fact that pastors and teachers share a common definite article in Ephesians 4:11 mean that they are so interrelated that there is actually only one gift and only one function?  Should they be listed as a hyphenated noun as if they are only one gift?  No it cannot mean that as comparing Scripture to Scripture shows us clearly that teacher is a gift of its own.

Many complementarians state that only pastors are allowed to be teachers because of the common definite article, but the grammar of Ephesians 4:11 cannot remove the singular gift of teacher and attach it inseparably with the gift of pastor.  Paul lists teachers by themselves in 1 Corinthians 12:28 without any attachment to the gift of pastor.

1 Cor 12:28  And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.

Paul also states that the distinct gifts are to be utilized with the grace given to each of us.  We can note that the one who teaches is to use it in proportion of his/her faith in their act of “teaching” not in “pastoring”.

Romans 12:6  Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith;

Romans 12:7  if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching;

While the gifts can operate together they are distinct and the portion of faith for each gift is distinct.  Why is it so important for complementarians to try to remove teachers as a separate category of gift apart from pastor?  It is because teachers were historically listed as the kind of the gifts that were very clearly done by people who were ministering to the whole church.  The Bible Knowledge Commentary by Valvoord states:

Gifted apostles, prophets, and teachers characteristically ministered to a whole church, and so would engender unity and mutual edification.  Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures.

I would like to suggest that we as the church would do well to embrace all of God’s gifts that resides in whomever God desires to gift.  If it pleases God to gift women as teachers, we need to allow them to fulfill their gifting so that it benefits the church and to that their gifts can be rightly used to grow the church into maturity.

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The following article was sent to me this morning by Mabel, a follower of this blog.  The pastor of the church that had its charity status removed in Canada also contacted our ministry as we went through the same kind of persecution from the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) regarding their disallowing as “charitable” the work of ministering Jesus to the cults.  They allow people to preach Jesus in their own congregations, but if one is persuasively bringing Jesus to those who are lost in the world of the cults, the government of Canada see this as an “uncharitable” work and will actively move to withdraw one’s charitable status. The consequences of the removal of charitable status means that all ministry money and equipment must be given away or the government taxes it at 100% rate. It was a very difficult time for us as we had to purchase back our own equipment and stock just to continue in ministry. Our ministry is now based out of the USA as a charitable organization.  It is a very sad time when Christian ministries face restrictions when Christians speak up about the things that God intends to make us salt and light to this world.  There is no doubt to me that the time is short and we must continue to live our Christian lives fearlessly speaking the truth with love no matter what the cost.

I rarely mention this, but anyone wishing to contribute financially to our on-going ministry needs may do so on line here.

Calgary Church Loses Charity Status: Opposition to Abortion, Homosexuality Cited as Reasons

By Patrick B. Craine

CALGARY, Alberta, January 21, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has revoked the charitable status of Kings Glory Fellowship (KGF), a Christian church in Calgary.  CRA cites a number of issues with KGF’s application, but the decision is based, in part, on the ground that certain KGF Board members have spoken out strongly against abortion, and other moral issues.

“The members of the Board of Directors espouse strong negative views about sensitive and controversial issues, which may also be viewed as political, such as abortion, homosexuality, divorce, etc.,” wrote CRA agent Dian Prodanov in an October 29th letter.

These “political” views make the church ineligible because, according to the agent, a registered charity “may only engage in non-partisan political activities as long as it devotes substantially all (usually 90% or more) of its resources to charitable activities.”

KGF’s pastor, Artur Pawlowski, is also the founder and pastor of Street Church Ministries, which has made headlines because of its battle with the city of Calgary to uphold its right to preach to and serve the city’s poor.

In December, a provincial court judge sided with Pawlowski and SCM, striking down several city infractions against them.  Further, the judge found that “the City’s attempts … to limit the scope of the efforts by the accused to minister to his congregants, fall precariously close to being excessive and, to any reasonable observer, an abuse of power.”

Prodanov cited numerous problems with KGF’s application, such as a lack of detail about various expenditures, but Pawlowski called these other reasons “smoke screens.”

“The main point is that they don’t like my opinions about different controversial issues, and I speak about them openly on radio, in paper, and on TV,” he said.  “So that’s what happens when you express your views as a pastor.”

“If they take the charity status away from a church, they are hoping that they are going to starve us to death in Canada, and therefore we will not be able to influence anyone,” he continued.  “That’s basically what happens.  That’s what they want to accomplish.  They want to muzzle us up.”

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Last year I blogged about Dr. Barb Orlowski’s research on spiritual abuse.  Barb contacted me during a time when I was going through a very difficult period in my own life and she was very helpful to me in both her active listening and in her own decision to contact the District church leaders that she knew personally to act on our behalf.  Her intervention resulted in an investigation that dealt with the abusive situation.  While the cause of the abuse was ultimately removed, I had to privately go through my own grief and deep sorrow. I was raised as a preacher’s kid and had always seen the church as a place of safety. As a result of the spiritual abuse, the idea of church as a safe place was no longer that same place of safety to me.  Time does a great job of helping us heal, but I am not yet sure when I will come full circle and be back to where I started. Spiritual abuse is that devastating. I have never made any of the details public although I am currently working on a DVD project that is a result of the things I have learned as a direct result of the abusive situation I endured.  God certainly is able to work all things out for good to them that love Him and are called according to His purpose. What seemed like evil to us can and will be used for good by God who holds us in His hands.

Although I personally spent 16 years helping others who had been abused in various cults, mostly dealing with the hurt of Jehovah’s Witnesses who had lost family relationships as a result of their exiting the Watchtower organization, and their struggle with unlearning the cult doctrine and relearning the basics of Christianity to enable them to experience a real relationship with Christ, I had never before experienced spiritual abuse myself. I can now say by personal experience that it is devastating both physically and emotionally and I know many who experience spiritual abuse find themselves suffering spiritual devastation as well. Last year I was completely covered with red welts from the stress of the situation and the diagnosis for me was that the welts would be a permanent affliction that I would have to suffer due to the stress of the spiritual abuse. But praise God He knows how to heal and after months of suffering I was given a medication that really helped and I no longer have any marks on my body from what I went through.

The issue of spiritual abuse has come up once again as Barb Orlowski has recently contacted me that her book on this subject called “Spiritual Abuse Recovery Dynamic Research on Finding a Place of Wholeness” is complete and can be obtained through her by emailling her at info@churchexiters.com. I understand that she has access to the sale of these books right now if anyone contacts her directly. Barb’s web site is churchexiters.com and people can also request an autographed copy from Barb.  Below is a description of Barb’s book and the endorsements that she has received:

Book Description

What factors contribute to active Christians in ministry leaving their church and becoming exiting statistics? Every year dedicated Christian people leave churches because of spiritual abuse. The stories of people who left their home church because of a negative and hurtful experience paint a picture of a widespread occurrence which beckons consideration by church leaders and church congregants alike.

Spiritual abuse, the misuse of spiritual authority to maltreat followers in the Christian Church, is a complex issue. This book shows how people processed their grief after experiencing spiritual abuse in their local church and how they rediscovered spiritual harmony. Theirspiritual journey shows how one may grow through this devastating experience.

This book offers a thoughtful look at the topic of spiritual recovery from clergy abuse through the eyes of those who have experienced it. It invites church leaders to consider this very real dysfunction in the Church today and aims to demonstrate a path forward to greater freedom in Christ after a season of disillusionment with church leadership.

Endorsements for Back Cover

“In an age of increasing calls for strong church leadership, this book is a gift to church leaders and those who have been severely hurt and abused in our churches. Through careful research and an insider’s perspective, Barb has opened up both pathways for healing from church abuse and insights for leadership to ensure that potential future abuse is stopped.”

—Alan Jamieson, author of A Churchless Faith

“What we refer to as spiritual abuse was a concern for Jesus in his earthly ministry and it is a common problem today. It is, therefore, surprising that more attention is not given to it by today’s Christian community. Barb Orlowski, however, does take it seriously as she offers insight into the causes of bad church experiences and how to recover from them. Her counsel alerts people to the dangers ofspiritual abuse, and if leaders hear her, they will be less likely to become part of the problem . . . I encourage you to read it.”

—Ken Blue, author of Healing Spiritual Abuse

“Dr. Orlowski’s research has provided a balance for various perspectives on the experience of woundedness. She listens to the voices of the wounded and lets them inform us of their reality of feeling disappointment and disenfranchisement, tragedy and turbulence in the Church . . . For recovery, Dr. Orlowski gives an excellent starting point—the voice of the wounded—and follows that with the grace of God demonstrated through hearing the voice of God and basing recovery on the Word of God.”

—Kirk E. Farnsworth, author of Wounded Workers

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I have been notified that my Women in Ministry blog has been picked as one of the top 55 pastor bloggers on the online Christian Colleges web site here.  My blog is listed up women pastors.  Also my blog has been picked up as a bibiloblog by biblioblogtop50.wordpress.com and this biblio blog site.  It is nice to see that the issue of women in ministry has received notice.

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I have a great concern tonight for my Pastor. Pastor Jim Reimer and two of our worship team along with a group of teens from our local high school flew into Haiti around noon today.  They were intending a two week ministry trip. The devastating earthquake struck Haiti around 5 pm.

We are praying for pastor Jim and the team not knowing what has happened to them and whether they are safe or not.  Please join with me to pray for God’s protection on these members of the body of Christ during this very difficult time.

**Update Jan 13th 2010**The news media has reported that the team made it two hours away from the airport before the earthquake hit and everyone is safe.  We will continue to pray for our pastor and the team that they will be greatly used in their mission and will make it home safely.

**Update January 15, 2010** An email from Pastor Jim came through.

From Pastor Jim:

Today is January 15
We started the day with a large tremor at 4 am. It shook our shelter and sent the kids running. To be awakened in this manner was quite scary. It is now 8:40 am and as I was typing that sentence, another good quake came. It suddenly struck me as funny, I never even moved from my seat. It is amazing how quickly one adapts to the situation. We have been experiencing these tremors about one every 90 minutes. Each one is lesser or greater intensity. None though, with the force of the first one.

We are camped out under a tin roof, Poll barn type structure, which serves as their church building. It has no walls and is about 48 x100 feet in area. It has a ground floor. Kids are all sleeping in a row on the ground. We used sheets of plywood for ground cover. We risked entering the main house to retrieve mattresses and all our supplies on Wednesday.

They are asking no one to go back into the houses until the tremors stop. Each day since Wednesday they say “tomorrow” it will be safe. People are sleeping everywhere. Last night we had about a hundred stay on our compound. Not as many are here as in other places as this place has many trees and the locals are afraid of the trees falling on them in the event of another quake.

We went on a walk about today. Saw home after home levelled. The people had nothing, now they have even less. The proposed goat farm wall that was half built is all down. The wall around the compound is mostly down, and that what is standing has to be taken down and started over again. It would cost 50,000 dollars to rebuild the compound wall. The rebuilding of these walls is necessary to continue the mission here for safety and security reasons.

To see the devastation is one thing, to hear of the loss of life compounds the sense of loss exponentially. One can hardly imagine how these folks will have hope and courage to move forward.  There is no employment to go out and make money. The little food they had is now gone as well. The kids were moved by the situation and immediately emptied their pockets to buy rice. We raised 2500 dollars with the group. It will purchase 4000 pounds of rice. We are going to distribute it to the families this afternoon.

The goat farm is only two acres, which mistakenly thought was 10 acres. This plot of land will house about fifty goats. It has its own well and will be irrigated from it. There is another plot of land adjacent to this plot for sale. It would be prudent to purchase it, but Marc did not know the cost.

There is a ten acre lot in another location dedicated for an orphanage. The need for an orphanage has increased dramatically now. The last report we heard that 700,000 people have died. We can not substantiate this amount, but constantly we hear of someone who lost a family member or a friend.

Carla Jadue and Veronica Bocca both from Chile arrived on Jan 10 to holiday here. They were rescued by the Chilean government on January 15 by helicopter. It was emotional to see them go.

We know have just returned from distributing food. One of the students said, “each day it is getting better for me, this experience has changed my life for ever. When I get home I am going to fund raise for these people.” This was said, as we were leaving from distributing rice, riding in the back of a police truck with fourteen of us piled in there. The line never ended; when the rice did, it broke our heart.

When we got back to Haiti Arise, we got more bad news. During the confusion of Tuesday night’s earthquake someone came into the unsecured house and stole 10,000 US. This was money set aside for food for our team and their staff.

It is hard to come to terms with the depravity of human nature in the light of a disaster. Suddenly the price of rice increased, diesel prices jump, the Haitian dollar is worth less, and neighbours loot neighbours houses. One man reported that people were stepping over his dead wife while they looted his house.

But then, we see the other side. In the community of Grand Goave people lives are being changed and impacted through the generosity of people like Marc and Lisa Honorat, founders of Haiti Arise and people all around the world supporting their ministry.

Information is so sketchy here. One of the individuals John Louis Meloche was in touch with is daughter who works for Air Canada. She contacted Mrs. L’heureux who is a Minster of Foreign Affairs in Quebec. She reported that Foreign Affairs did not know about us.  We thought the information was out that we need to be evacuated.

Everyone is still healthy here, except for Sue. She is still in a lot of pain and should be seen by a doctor

Jim Reimer, Pastor of Kootenay Christian Fellowship.

**Update January 17th, 2010**  The team has now been rescued from the mission’s compound and is in the Canadian Embassy in Port-au-Prince Haiti.  Latest news reported by Jorge Barrera, Canwest News Service on Canada.Com

**Update January 17, 2010** The team is now on their way to Montreal and should arrive tonight.  They will be flown back to BC on Monday.

What a wonderful ending for all their loved ones here.  We will be very happy to get back our pastor and several of our worship team.  Thank you LORD!

**Update January 18** The Kootenay team was unable to all get on the same plan leaving Haiti so Pastor Jim and worship team will take a plane home to BC tomorrow with all the team together.

**Update January 19th** Pastor Jim and the team are on a flight from Montreal.

As of 9 pm BC time they are all home safe.  Praise the Lord!

**One final update on January 21, 2010 - below is Pastor Jim’s letter regarding his time in Haiti during the earthquake:

I want to express my heartfelt thanks and appreciation for the many calls, emails, prayers and expressions of love towards me and my family while the team was in Haiti. I am humbled and give praise to God that our team of 24 people was spared death and serious injury in light of the earthquake we experienced.

It is good to be home, but I feel undeserving considering how much I have and how little so many people in the world have, especially in Haiti right now.

As you know, Kootenay Christian Fellowship (KCF) initiated a mission to Haiti which was supported by the Nelson Daybreak Rotary Club and Mount Sentinel School. Our Haiti team was made up of two groups.  One was from the school, directed by Don Warthe, teacher at Mount Sentinel, two adult chaperones, and seventeen students from the Quest for Community. The second group was made up of one couple from KCF and two Pastors; Doug Middlebrook from Kootenay Lake Community Church and Jim Reimer from KCF.  Together we formed the group of 24.

We went to Haiti with the intention to drill a well for the community, build a goat farm, to teach in the technical school, participate in the graduating ceremonies of this year’s graduates, and to be a blessing generally to the Haitian people by giving out clothes, school and dental supplies. With great anticipation of what we were going to accomplish, we arrived at Haiti Arise on Tuesday, January 12, at 4 pm. We eagerly filed into the house with our 20 containers of gifts, materials and luggage. Then just 53 minutes later we experienced the most life changing event of our lives; a 7.0 earthquake. The building rocked, sending all of us to the floor. Miraculously the house did not collapse like every other home in the area. Not only were we spared death, but despite falling articles in the house only one of us experienced injury. Sue, one of the adult chaperones, suffered a cracked rib from a falling mirror.

We escaped the mission house and sought higher ground. Just imagine the trauma the students and adults felt – strange land, no orientation to our surroundings, can’t understand the language, hundreds of people streaming into the field, with darkness closing in on us. We spent the night in that open field with aftershocks of various degrees rocking the earth every twenty minutes. Adding to our misery, a light rain descending upon us.  The Haitian people sharing our space sent up a chorus of prayers, shouts of praise, and cries of anguish with each aftershock experienced. They would sing, clap and shout their petitions to the God of heaven until the sun broke through. It was both comforting and disquieting.

When morning finally came, we were comforted somewhat by the warmth of the sun. We decided to go back to the compound of Haiti Arise. There we set up our refuge camp and lived until our rescue by the Canadian Army. As the days continued, more and more people joined our makeshift camp. We were happy to share our food and water supplies with our new guests.

Communication was difficult and accurate information was hard to obtain. But eyewitness evidence was clear – almost every house in the rural area we occupied was flattened. Many locals reported deaths in the family. Devastation was everywhere.

The timing of the earthquake (4:53 pm) was fortunate in that most people in the rural area where not in their homes. Had it happened in the middle of the night, the death toll could easily have been tripled.

While in Haiti, the students helped clear roads, bought rice and distributed it to over 500 families, and assisted in the refuge camp with various chores. In addition, our group offered prayers of comfort and a listening ear to those suffering human and physical loss.

Haiti Arise is to be commended. As a mission they have a commitment to excellence. The mission house we were in withstood the quake and thus we were all spared death. This is a testimony to the quality of work Haiti Arise is committed to. They have a goal to help Haitians become self-sufficient and a spiritually and physically healthy community of people.  Haiti Arise supports students in their quest for education by operating a technical school for 400 students and a Bible school.  They also provide medical and dental help for locals. Their recent project to create a goat farm was just one more example of their programs to offer sustainability for locals. Future goals included an orphanage and elementary school. The latter goal is even more urgent now than ever before.

Haiti Arise is a registered charity in Canada and thus donations to this ministry are eligible for the matched dollars by the Canadian Government. Donations to local groups, like Haiti Arise, will be an efficient method to bring immediate help to the locals. Immediate needs are to develop security, distribute food and water to the locals, and then the creation of a plan to help the locals achieve suitable housing again. We need to have a qualified engineer to ascertain the damage to the buildings at Haiti Arise to see if they have been compromised.

Contributions can be made directly to Haiti Arise by going to their website at www.haitiarise.org or by going to www.kootenaychristianfellowship.com.

Tomorrow, Friday, January 22, Marc and Lisa, founders of Haiti Arise, will be interviewed on the CTV morning show at 7:15am across Canada in every province.

Once again to all those who have donated to KCF to help Haitians, offered prayers, and called our home to offer support, a heartfelt, huge and thunderous thanks. We love you all.

Pastor Jim, humbled and grateful earthquake survivor.

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Paul’s use of “I am not allowing” in 1 Timothy 2:12 has caused a lot of speculation regarding his reasons for disallowing certain activities. In this post we are going to look at this phrase very carefully.

The first thing that we can note is that Paul is not appealing to an existing law.  Paul does not say “God’s law is not allowing” as if God had already set up a law that restrained women from using their spiritual gifts.  Paul also does not say “God does not allow you to let a woman… ” as if Timothy is under a law that he may have been disobeying.  What Paul clearly says is “I am not allowing…”

What is even more curious is that there is no other verse in the entire Scripture like this one.  Nowhere does a man of God state that he doesn’t allow something. God’s prohibitions are never put in the personal will of the man of God. They are always by God’s authority. So why did Paul use his own authority in 1 Timothy 2:12?

In 1 Timothy Paul tells Timothy ‘you do it’ a number of times.  In chapter 1 verse 3 Paul tells Timothy to instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines.  In chapter 5 verse 11 Paul commands Timothy to refuse to put younger widows on the widows list lest they later desire to marry and in chapter 5 verse 19 Paul commands Timothy not to receive an accusation against an elder except for the required two or three witnesses.  In chapter 5 verse 20 Timothy is commanded to rebuke an elder who continues to sin and in chapter 6 verse 17 Paul commands Timothy to instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited.

So why doesn’t Paul continue his pattern of commanding Timothy to “do” things and instead Paul lifts up his own authority in 1 Timothy 2:12 saying “I am not allowing”?  May I suggest that Paul is giving his own apostolic authority to Timothy to act in a very sensitive situation.

Timothy was a young man who in his youthfulness would have had a difficult time going past another man’s wife in order to stop her from teaching. In that culture a man’s home and family was his own responsibility alone. If you were going to deal with a man’s wife, you needed to go through the husband. But if the man of verse 12 was another “Adam” character who was saying and doing nothing about his wife’s deception, who could interfere? Paul could.

In the church Paul had the apostolic authority to go around the husband to stop the deception and false teaching of the wife.  By Paul saying “I am not allowing” Paul is giving his authority to Timothy to act on his behalf in one of the most uncomfortable tasks that Timothy had to accomplish. It was one thing to command the false teachers to cease and desist and to publicly rebuke elders who will not stop sinning, but how does this single young man rebuke another man’s wife? Paul takes the heat off of Timothy by making this one task a little easier by providing Timothy with the use of Paul’s authority. Paul is not allowing…

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