Christie, I don’t think I can debate you point by point without rewriting a lot of stuff, so I’ll just kind of boil it down to where I think this is most important.

God made men and women in his image, not just men. There is an equality built into our creation. Now, we can talk all we want about different roles not meaning inferiority, but when we move past the theory of that assertion into practice, saying someone can’t do something based on race or gender makes them less.

I just can’t see how we can draw a line between a woman being allowed to prophesy to kings but not being allowed to teach a room of common folk from scripture. Why can women be president, prime minister, CEO’s, even a prophet and judge, and any other kind of leader, but not a pastor? It smells rotten to me.

I know you disagree and I can live with that. Thanks for sharing your views here.

“Complementarian” .. sure doesn’t sound so complimentary.

As for the theological doctrine of women in leadership or teaching ministries.. I will have to save that for a one on one convo. LOL.

The way I understand it, the injunction that women are not permitted to teach men is in the context of roles of authority amidst the gathered Body of Christ. This means that a woman cannot preach in an official role/capacity to a crowd of men and women. This does not mean that a man can never learn from a woman or that a woman cannot author books or blogs. It does not mean that a woman can’t have informal conversations and share her theological insights with men. It doesn’t mean that women can’t be theologians (I believe in the priesthood of all believers). It doesn’t mean that women can never give their testimonies. Scripture does not say that women cannot teach children, so I have no problem with women teaching children’s Sunday school classes. Complementarians are not saying that women have nothing to teach men. They are just saying that there are divinely appointed contexts in which men and women are allowed to teach. That is not commentary on the inherent worth and value of men and women. So when Warnock says he learned a lot from a female author, that does not necessarily prove egalitarianism to be correct.

In response to your point about Biblical precedents for female prophets, I want to first make a point about the difference between the prescriptive and the descriptive. Just because there is a descriptive precedent in the Word, does not mean that we can extrapolate principles of obedience for ourselves. For instance, just because King David had multiple wives does not make a precedent for polygamy. So just because Deborah was a leader (albeit a reluctant one) does not mean that women can become pastors. By contrast, “I do not permit a woman to teach” is an example of a prescriptive command. As modern day Christians, we need to concern ourselves more with prescriptive injunctions and not base our theology on mere descriptive examples. Also, NT injunctions are priorities for us as believers living under the new covenant and no longer the old, Abrahamic covenant and Levitical law.

Now, in addressing prophecy: I believe prophecy is vey different from teaching. It does not involve the same authority. So yes, I believe women can prophesy. Prophecy can be thought of as two kinds: 1) fore-telling, and 2) forth-telling. The Psalms were prophetic in both ways. Not many of us can predict the future these days, so most of the prophecy today is probably the second kind, most often seen in the context of worship. I don’t see anything wrong with women “forth-telling” truths about God in exhortation and worship. But this is very different from exercising authority over the body to instruct on doctrine and rebuke disobedience.

Yes, in the past I admit that there have been complementarians that have probably blown things out of proportion and abused the principle for their own patriarchal self-serving needs. However, just because people have made mistakes, does not mean we throw out the principles without really asking ourselves what might be God’s higher plan behind it all. Above all else, we need to look to Scripture and not allow precedence, past track record of adherents, or prevailing culture dictate our theology.

Secular culture dictates that “same” means “equal” and “different” means “inferior.” The homosexual and feminist agendas are pushing for same treatment as evidence of equality. How is this Biblical? All we know from Scripture is that our inherent worth comes from God, and from knowing that we are His children for whom He died. Our worth is not dictated by society, jobs, titles, or power. To subscribe to that is to allow the world’s standards to seep into the church. What we are seeing here is a pandering to our culture, allowing our theology to be shaped by culture as opposed to our culture being shaped by our theology. Theology has always been counter-cultural.

I personally think it is more sexist to somehow say that ministry only to women is somehow second-class to ministry to men and women. Why do women feel like they are only validated in their calling and ministry if they preach to men (like somehow they’ve arrived in the big leagues)? That is more of a sexist knock on women and on Sunday school teachers than anything else! I am a woman heavily involved in ministry and theological discussions, but who has chosen not to pursue the pastorate. Do I feel oppressed? Do I lack for ministry? Absolutely not! I feel it is a privilege to minister to women, to children, and to my husband. I do not feel inferior at all. I think that it is indeed a higher calling to follow in the path of Jesus Himself, who chose to pursue an obedient and submissive life to the Father. That is true strength and power. Instead of grasping for equality, He chose to submit (Phil 2), which in no way makes Jesus inferior to the Father. In the same way, I think it demonstrates greater strength on the woman’s part if she volitionally chooses to be submissive, both in the church and in the family, in a day and age that pushes her to grasp her own equality.

Rev. Ron Jones writes about the order in marriage and also in the church:
“God divides up the primary relationships in society and the church into two primary roles to create order so that people can be properly cared for. God chooses one person or group to focus his or their energy on loving and caring for the other person or group and gives them authority to do so. God then gives the other the responsibility to submit and follow as the one in authority exercises that authority in loving and caring for the other. The reason God does this is to make certain that someone is responsible for making sure the family is taken care of. If both husband and wife shared the exact same leadership responsibility, then both could either abdicate the responsibility and blame the other or both could polarize over priorities and other issues. A good example of what can happen when everyone is given the same leadership responsibility is the popular TV show “Survivor.” Among the group of survivors in every show, because no clear leader is designated or elected, chaos, bickering, and laziness quickly arise. In God’s way of doing things, God always appoints someone or a group to take responsibility for the care of others. There are four essential authority-submission relationships in the Scriptures that affect adults, i.e. government/citizens, Christ/church, elders/congregation, and husband/wife The reason God gives authority to a person or group is so that people might fulfill the responsibility of caring for others which God has given to them.” (http://titusinstitute.com/premaritalinstruction/differentrolesmarriage.php)

So even though egalitarians would like to paint a patriarchal, discriminatory picture of godly headship and submission in both the family and in church, the true principle is that this divinely ordained order is given to us by God for our ultimate care and shepherding, as well as for clear accountability and responsibility.

If Paul is in line with God’s desire to keep women away from authority positions over men, then it’s hard to make sense of these other points in OT revelation. I admit that either way we slice these passages, we have to make some pretty tough interpretive calls, but I simply can’t get past Deborah, Huldah, and Junia.

My sister clued me onto your blog – I really appreciate what you’re doing with it! I honestly think it has eternal value in the kingdom of God.

I appreciate your insights into the 1 Corinthians 11 passage, though a quick 2nd read of that chapter seems to do more to convince me of my original position. The whole point in the passage as it relates to the physical practice of head-coverings stems on a statement in verse 6 – “But since it is disgraceful for a woman [or wife; depending on the translation] to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head.” And then in verse 10 “That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head…” I apologize for posting snipits of text as the context is important but I just want to bring out a couple of things in this passage – first, that per created order, women are under the authority of men and, second, that symbol of authority in that day was the head covering. The passage goes on to say that men and women are interdependent on each other (woman was made from man and now man is born of woman). Here’s the important distinction from the 1 timothy passage that I was thinking of in my last post – we have an important cultural tie here – shaved or uncovered heads were disgraceful (namely because of the temple prostitutes). So in today’s context the uncovered or shaved head isn’t necessarily disgraceful. The principle of authority (as in 1 Timothy) is there, but will look different based on the cultural context.

Basically what I’m saying is that in that context we have an example of a warranted appeal to culture as to why women don’t necessarily have to cover their heads today. This appeal doesn’t seem applicable in the 1 timothy passage. As to the other passages regarding women prophesying along with men I believe that the consistency there is issue of authority – I haven’t done a comprehensive study but from the passages that I have, it seems that in most, if not all, of those cases, the authority structure remains consistent, just fleshed out in various ways.

I haven’t been able to check out those articles that you posted yet but I will certainly look into them! We certainly agree on the equality of men and women as both bearers of God’s image. Marginalization and injustice towards women has been a historic problem with the church and is absolutely unacceptable – especially in light of such radically pro-women instruction in scripture! It seems that our point of disagreement is whether distinct roles (as opposed to value) in church governance constitute such injustice. It would seem to me that historically the injustice that women have experienced is largely due to an unbiblical view of the value of women rather than the role. I really don’t think the two can be equated. Are not the father and mother in a parenting relationship equally important and valuable? Yet they certainly have distinct roles physically (which we really can’t change – unless the movie Junior comes true). If God designed it this way physically, is it really any kind of a stretch to believe that it is that way spiritually? I honestly don’t think so.

I am encouraged, however, that we can dialogue amiably about such a heated issue. I’ll take a look at those articles – who knows, perhaps it will prove more biblically sound.

I see your point about the image of God, but if I can tease it out a little… You find that women have the image of God, but they are somehow inferior to what men have? I’m not choosing the words you would choose, but I’m trying to dig into the implications. “Different” or “not identical” quickly becomes “inferior.” Women and men have their differences sociologically and biologically, but I don’t see how we can make judgments over who bears what part of God’s image and who gets to have the superior end of God’s image. It strikes me as too far a leap.

In addition, if we’re boiling this down to authority over men and go with complementarianism, then God clearly violated this with Deborah as the judge and Huldah the prophetess whom the king sought out for direction. Scripture presents a complex picture here, but it just seems far more likely that Paul was regulating something in the Ephesian church that we’ll never quite understand on this side of heaven, while the broader picture in scripture presents the ideal of women on an equal footing with men, even though the culture of the Bible was predominantly patriarchal.

Of course, thanks to Paul we’ll be writing, blogging, and commenting on this until the end of time.