I was too many years old when I realized that our contemporary understanding of pastoral roles wasn’t functionally operative in early church. That really does change the whole conversation. Or at least it should. Unfortunately, for all the talk of a commitment to a historical-grammatical hermeneutic among my hard-core complementarian friends, there’s very little regard for the “historical” part.
Excellent overview here. I love your approach. I think you and I have some overlap in our evangelical upbringing (spent 2 years at a Foursquare Christian school where women were in leadership and the rest of the time in churches/schools on the complementarian spectrum).
One of the most overlooked pieces of "evidence" for women in all levels of church leadership is exactly how you came at it: look at what they are doing, not just what is said. It's very easy to pull categorical theology from Paul's letter to support pet arguments, but it's harder to ignore Paul's relationships with women--how he treats/interacts with/talks about individual women like Priscilla, Lydia, Phoebe, Junia, etc.
Also, I think there is some merit in extending your argument from silence (yeah, I know they can be weak) to discussions on women elders. The position of elders is really the only leadership office discussed in much detail. (Obviously, there are apostles and church hosts but it's not completely clear from scripture alone what duties were involved). It seems Paul's two discourses on elders (1 Timothy and Titus) assume male elders but do not expressly prohibit women elders. If female elders were anathema or a practice utterly disgusting to God, I would have expected to see prohibition language (as we do with other behaviors/practices) --especially in the 1 Timothy passage which follows the Paul's exhortation for not letting a woman teach abusively, which addresses the manner not the practice. Context matters and if Paul was going to say women shouldn't hold positions of church leadership anywhere, it would be in Ephesus.
On that note, have you read Sandra Glahn's new book on Artemis?? :)
YES to all of this (except the Artemis book - I haven't read it yet)! BUT I was in my mid-40s, post Bible college, post Christian uni, post seminary, before I learned that Titus 2:3 actually has πρεσβῦτις (female of root presbyter) translated "older women" when just a few verses earlier in the same section 1:5 πρεσβύτερος is translated "elders."
!!!!!!!!!! Not enough exclamation points. I am with you - I think that if this was a first order universal doctrine we would have more than a handful of verses to specific contexts. I also find it so fascinating that ppl insistent on this ignore other kind of similar single verse distinctions (baptism for the dead anyone?) or even parts of what we do get in Acts 15 at the Jerusalem Council (meat strangled and from blood).
Have you read any of Philip Payne's work on this? It was SO helpful for me.
And good point on the single verse distinctions. No one talks about those verses. Especially the baptisms for the dead. (I have no idea what that's all about.)
Well, ok, I have heard a compelling argument made by a Messianic Jewish believer for why James/the Holy Spirit/The Council laid out those specific guidelines. Basically, came down to community cleanliness standards. These were the bare minimum guidelines that Gentile believers should follow out of love of their Jewish brethren in order to ensure the observant believers in their midst didn't become ritually unclean through their interactions with the Gentile Christians. It wasn't about making them "halfway Jewish" or anything like that. It was meeting people where they were and trying to figure out how to enable two different cultures to interact in harmony.
Oh yes! Thank you for reminding me about that! I'd forgotten that part. Of course, it gets dismissed (the same way deaconess does even though it's not a leadership position, sigh) by saying it's just referring to elder's wives.
On a related note, 1 Timothy 3 opens with τις (anyone/someone) not ἀνήρ or ἀνδρός (man). It's a shame that some English translators let their bias on this issue lead to mistranslation.
I believe Glahn addresses some of this in her book. It's really worth the read--very short for an academic read (about 150 pages), but packs a real punch. Highly recommend it. I got to take a class with her when I was in seminary. She had us read ALL the books (ok, the most impactful) from across the spectrum, but my Payne reading is limited to his essay(s) in the CBE book. From what I recall it did have helpful explanations.
Have you read Dr. Timothy Patitsas? You might enjoy his take on this whole subject. From his popular book, The Ethics of Beauty:
"The vision I saw was basically this: men and women alike are called to the same three offices: that of priest (to offer sacrifice), that of king (to lead and to fight), and that of prophet (to bring forth a word of insight). What differs between the genders is that the primary calling among these three offices for women is the prophetic office, while for men, it is the kingly office.
"What unites men and women, though, is that they are called to fulfill their primary offices in a priestly way -- that is, in a self-sacrificial way. They are charged to inscribe the cross of Christ within their primary gender offices, within their respective gender callings. Their first task is not, in a sense, to fulfill their gender calling, but -- a challenging paradox -- to 'crucify' that particular calling.
"When they do so, three things happen. First, their primary office (prophecy for women, kingship for men) seems to be all but wiped out as they become chiefly priests; in other words, their gender office dies, is humiliated, as it is offered sacrificially to God and to each other. Second, their gender office is re-born in a transfigured and much higher form.
"But the third point is the biggest surprise in what I understood, and is the reason why what I saw seemed so beautiful that I was filled with wonder. The real way that Christian gender is inverted from the world's is that in Christ each gender not only dies and is reborn, but in being reborn comes to a dynamic rest as the truest symbol not of its own life but of its partner's role and life. Men come to symbolize best the feminine prophetic office, while women come to symbolize best the masculine kingly office. Thus both men and women experience all three offices, but according to a Pattern or Way that is unique to each. This is how the genders are deeply reconciled in Orthodox life, in a loving act of mutual indwelling and self-offering."
Thank you for offering this perspective! I'm not very familiar with the orthodox tradition, and it's interesting to see a different way of thinking about these matters.
If you'd like to speak to it, I am curious to know what evidence is offered for this framework, though. Is it a traditional EO position?
This theory has never been articulated before, but upon examination is found to be well within Orthodox tradition. Dr. Patitsas bases his vision primarily on Orthodox hymnography and iconography as well as his own reflections. It is highly symbolic, like all of Orthodox sacramental theology, and represents a fresh, innovative look at these traditional elements. I’m not sure how familiar you are with Orthodoxy. There are a number of major differences between it and Western Christianity. Because we rely on the consensus of all the local churches before making definitive pronouncements on things, we don’t crank out new doctrine at nearly the rate of the Western churches. Rather, we haven’t really had new theological developments since the 14th century with St. Gregory Palamas and the doctrine of the essence-energies distinction (which implies that Christian transformation and the experience of heaven are attainable, starting in this life). So, since the gender issues have only been a “thing” for the past couple hundred years, we have no official pronouncements on it. Dr. Patitsas’s work is an exciting step in the direction of innovative and creative thinking on this topic, which is still steeped in Orthodox thinking. The central premise is based on St. Maximus the Confessor (AD 580-662), whose feast day we just celebrated yesterday. Maximus wrote that one of the five tragic divisions that Christ came to overcome is the one between men and women.
I set out rereading the chapter from the book looking for some of those examples from iconography and hymnography to share with you, but along the way, was enamored once again with several more quotes that I found pertinent to this discussion and wanted to share first. Let me know what you think. There’s a lot more. I stopped about one-quarter through the chapter.
“Even so, in the gender chiasm a woman fulfills the manly role in a more paradigmatic way than he can, while destroying nothing of her femininity. Likewise, a man fulfills the womanly role in a more paradigmatic way than she can, while destroying nothing of his masculinity. We will give examples of this later, but this is the reason why the Orthodox Christian sacramental priesthood will always be reserved to men: it is the duty of men to become the icons of the feminine office of motherhood by giving Christ’s Body and Blood for Christ’s children, while women are called to enact the masculine role by standing guard and protecting the performance of the offering. Orthodox Christian priesthood is too feminine a role to also be symbolized by women, as I will explain in a moment. Similarly, the foundation of a Christian society’s protection always must fall back on the fortress of motherhood. It is too masculine a role for men to make good icons of, in this rich sense of ‘icon’ that Orthodoxy uniquely preserves. You can’t symbolize what you already are.”
“The general kingly calling of men means that as individuals they tend to play out whatever talents they have in ways more visible to society. Meanwhile, the general prophetic calling of women means that they may prefer to work more or less behind the scenes, especially when they are confronted with the inability of some men to understand the word they are bringing forth.”
“Even a Christian queen is going to base her political rule on her chastity and modesty. When women try to rule or lead based purely upon a machismo or the latent threat of violence, this almost never succeeds, once men are involved.”
“Women differ from men, in that women have this unavoidable responsibility to prioritize at first the prophetic office: to be knowers, seers, givers of counsel, inventors, and discoverers. Women are the primordial originators of commercial life and of the crafts and of agriculture. This was true in prehistory and it is very definitely true in many parts of the world today. Women do most of the crafts, much of the agriculture, and they predominate in the markets of Third World countries. In truly primitive economies, it may be hard even to identify what at all men are contributing economically. In Christ, however, women learn to express this prophetic gift in a way that is also priestly. They now become mystical “unknowers” — that is, they unknow facts, things, and attributes, discovering how and when to look past them, to know instead persons. They this become the special ministers to those in liminal states, such as children, the dying, the sick, and those giving birth. In all these cases, they are better able than men to unknow the facts of diminished or unrealized human dignity and thus to affirm and nourish the personhood of vulnerable people. And women in their role as priestly prophets can lead us away from cruel uses of knowledge and towards humane uses. Scientists imitate priestly women when they rise through reductive explanations of the world and embrace the science of emergence and complexity.”
THANK YOU!! I feel like we have a tendency toward anachronistic thinking about what the early church looked like - imaging our conception of churchgoing onto it.
This puts forward many of my own reasons for maintaining women aren’t meant for church leadership. The scripture is pretty clear about this actually, there are offices within the church described that are clearly for men, and women were prohibited from preaching or having authority over men. That doesn’t exclude any of the work mentioned here remotely, and as you say in small churches you see the natural prominence of the church’s women working and carrying on the function of the church. I go to a small church with a male pastor and associate pastor and he and his wife are one flesh. It mattered that early church leaders were married and had their household in good order because a man’s wife matters significantly to his ministry and makes up a huge portion of it. A church mirrors the household. A house church is a household that hosts the church. Of course women were involved everywhere because no household or community is complete without women in it, just like the creation. My contention with ordaining women is the presence of a church’s women and their uniquely feminine ministry and mere existence is every bit as valuable as preaching or leading a church. Let he who is least among you be a servant. It is not an achievement to lead a church, it’s a duty and a responsibility that we never ought to regard as something a woman should be able to achieve to prove her equal worth to men (you haven’t made this argument here, I know, but ordaining women has no doubt been linked by some to “women’s equality.”)
There are many reasons thoughtful and faithful Christians have come to different conclusions on this. I've outlined here why I believe the biblical narrative does not restrict the work of women in the church, though I understand people hold different views. A few thoughts on your comments here:
For me, as I studied the verses used to prohibit women, I found that they weren't necessarily as clear as is often presented. For instance, in Titus 2, our English translations translate the masculine form of a Greek word (transliteration is presbyter from which we get priest) as "elder" in Titus 1 and the feminine form *of the same word* to be "older woman" a few verses later in Titus 2. There are numerous things like this (Philip Payne has done excellent exegetical work if you'd like to read more), but I continue to find Jesus' intentional commission women to be the first to proclaim His resurrection to be the most compelling thing, because isn't proclamation of Christ's death and resurrection the heart of preaching?
I agree with you that it's never been about jockeying for power or who can be the greatest, and for the most part I see many women quietly teaching and leading and pastoring without the title. In fact I have rough posts taking a closer look at both of these things coming up soon, so these things are on my mind as well!
One final thought: I am with you on the importance of men and women together showing forth the image of God, and I also wonder if defaulting to women's leadership roles being primarily for pastor's spouses (I am one, so no shade intended here) has some unintended problematic outcomes. First of all, it seems to me to ignore 1 Cor 7 where Paul expressly says that single people have more energy and time to devote to the things of God. Giving leadership roles to married people & spouses sidelines single people and can cause difficulties in clergy families.
Secondly, it's an enormous pressure on ministry families & expects a spouse to offer unpaid labor for the church. Ofc most people aren't in ministry for the money, but it is worth asking why in this one vocation we would expect spouses to contribute in this way to their husband's work without formal education, job description or compensation. It's an unboundaried kind of approach that can consume families and also in many cases is unwise. Pastoral training and the Spirit's gifting matters. Also I think defaulting to this displaces other women who perhaps are gifted for specific work.
While there may be women who seek pastoral office for the position itself or to make a point (as there are men who do so), I know many women who simply feel called by God & equipped by Him to serve the church.
In my ideal world, there would be a male and female pastor - called, equipped, and trained - for each congregation.
Sorry I’m just picking out a few things to reply to, really appreciate your taking the time to share all of your thoughts though! And yes I did appreciate the purpose of the post which I think was an excellent one.
1 Timothy 3 outlines the roles of bishop and deacons and that they must be the husband of one wife and have their households in good order. As you mentioned we see early church work done by a couple. It seems like a lot of conflating simply doing work for the Lord with holding an official position in organized church leadership, which are two different things (and as we agree, no more or less important than one another).
My biggest problem with this take (and I hear it a lot in my denomination re: Holy Orders) is that I don't see official positions that clearly outlined in Scripture. I think we read back into the few passages we have what we want to see (esp as Protestants with the reclamation of marriage we inherited from Luther) and maybe this is most evident by how different denominations claim these verses for their preferred style of leadership. Re: elder qualifications we have two letters written to specific churches that were organizationally chaotic - Titus was on Crete where family life was in shambles and Timothy was likely in Ephesus, a church riven by controversies and quarrels as well as the temple of Artemis & those implications. The qualifications make so much sense for the needs of those communities.
It's not to say we can't and shouldn't examine those principles re: leadership, but I think we must weigh it with what Paul says to Corinth where he applauds single ppl in vocational ministry as most likely he himself was. It's also worth noting that grammatically speaking, the text is actually "one woman man" rather than "husband of one wife." There are good reasons translators opted for the latter, but there's a good case to be made that the point here is monogamous marital fidelity.
Anyway, what this says to me is that in the context of the early church, where disparate small groups of people were popping up in all sorts of context, is that the Spirit was leading people and the church was counting on that.
I love your last sentence there. This is a really interesting and good conversation, thank you! I am actually a nondenominational evangelical (although I am a member of an Anabaptist church, I’m new to the denomination) so I’m always curious to learn more about high church theology and tradition. I love the Anglican liturgy and have often wondered where the reasoning comes in to ordain women. Do you believe (out of curiosity) that although it is a more modern conception, it is nonetheless still consistent with scripture? I think the one compelling argument I find for women pastors and why it’s not exactly a huge deal breaking issue for me is as you have mentioned in many cases where there is simply a need. What I love the most about what’s coming out of this discussion is the wonderful ways women serve the church of God 🥹 I think whatever one’s position on ordination may be, we need so much more recognition for the robust role women do and always have played in the church.
Personally speaking, I think the biblical case for women being fully included in ministry roles is strong. You can find people who hold both views within Anglicanism - some that would say women can not be ordained at all, others only as deacons, others only to the priesthood, and some would include female bishops as well. Some of this depends on country as well. In general, I think many Anglicans make a case from tradition against the ordination of women, and I also think that is sound depending on the weight you give tradition.
I meant to elaborate about my own church; our pastor’s wife and elder’s wives and older women are major figures in our church’s functioning simply by being wonderful women of God who pray for members, arrange our community dinners and meal trains, are good friends with and reach out to and spend time with virtually all the active members. We have a tight knit church because our women are all just being sisters in Christ to the other church members. So if you talk about our church to someone else, you’ll talk about the women. I think the value of this ministry alone is every bit as weighty as being a pastor.
I was too many years old when I realized that our contemporary understanding of pastoral roles wasn’t functionally operative in early church. That really does change the whole conversation. Or at least it should. Unfortunately, for all the talk of a commitment to a historical-grammatical hermeneutic among my hard-core complementarian friends, there’s very little regard for the “historical” part.
YES. It's a very costly form of "chronological snobbery."
There’s clarification, perspective, & hope in these wise words.
https://mburtwrites.substack.com/p/the-women-of-the-new-testament
Thank you for reading!
'Is the Spirit moving?'
Now THAT'S the question. Thank you for this important piece Marissa. You've offered us clarification, perspective, and hope. Bless you.
You are very welcome!
Excellent overview here. I love your approach. I think you and I have some overlap in our evangelical upbringing (spent 2 years at a Foursquare Christian school where women were in leadership and the rest of the time in churches/schools on the complementarian spectrum).
One of the most overlooked pieces of "evidence" for women in all levels of church leadership is exactly how you came at it: look at what they are doing, not just what is said. It's very easy to pull categorical theology from Paul's letter to support pet arguments, but it's harder to ignore Paul's relationships with women--how he treats/interacts with/talks about individual women like Priscilla, Lydia, Phoebe, Junia, etc.
Also, I think there is some merit in extending your argument from silence (yeah, I know they can be weak) to discussions on women elders. The position of elders is really the only leadership office discussed in much detail. (Obviously, there are apostles and church hosts but it's not completely clear from scripture alone what duties were involved). It seems Paul's two discourses on elders (1 Timothy and Titus) assume male elders but do not expressly prohibit women elders. If female elders were anathema or a practice utterly disgusting to God, I would have expected to see prohibition language (as we do with other behaviors/practices) --especially in the 1 Timothy passage which follows the Paul's exhortation for not letting a woman teach abusively, which addresses the manner not the practice. Context matters and if Paul was going to say women shouldn't hold positions of church leadership anywhere, it would be in Ephesus.
On that note, have you read Sandra Glahn's new book on Artemis?? :)
YES to all of this (except the Artemis book - I haven't read it yet)! BUT I was in my mid-40s, post Bible college, post Christian uni, post seminary, before I learned that Titus 2:3 actually has πρεσβῦτις (female of root presbyter) translated "older women" when just a few verses earlier in the same section 1:5 πρεσβύτερος is translated "elders."
!!!!!!!!!! Not enough exclamation points. I am with you - I think that if this was a first order universal doctrine we would have more than a handful of verses to specific contexts. I also find it so fascinating that ppl insistent on this ignore other kind of similar single verse distinctions (baptism for the dead anyone?) or even parts of what we do get in Acts 15 at the Jerusalem Council (meat strangled and from blood).
Have you read any of Philip Payne's work on this? It was SO helpful for me.
And good point on the single verse distinctions. No one talks about those verses. Especially the baptisms for the dead. (I have no idea what that's all about.)
Well, ok, I have heard a compelling argument made by a Messianic Jewish believer for why James/the Holy Spirit/The Council laid out those specific guidelines. Basically, came down to community cleanliness standards. These were the bare minimum guidelines that Gentile believers should follow out of love of their Jewish brethren in order to ensure the observant believers in their midst didn't become ritually unclean through their interactions with the Gentile Christians. It wasn't about making them "halfway Jewish" or anything like that. It was meeting people where they were and trying to figure out how to enable two different cultures to interact in harmony.
Oh yes! Thank you for reminding me about that! I'd forgotten that part. Of course, it gets dismissed (the same way deaconess does even though it's not a leadership position, sigh) by saying it's just referring to elder's wives.
On a related note, 1 Timothy 3 opens with τις (anyone/someone) not ἀνήρ or ἀνδρός (man). It's a shame that some English translators let their bias on this issue lead to mistranslation.
I believe Glahn addresses some of this in her book. It's really worth the read--very short for an academic read (about 150 pages), but packs a real punch. Highly recommend it. I got to take a class with her when I was in seminary. She had us read ALL the books (ok, the most impactful) from across the spectrum, but my Payne reading is limited to his essay(s) in the CBE book. From what I recall it did have helpful explanations.
Have you read Dr. Timothy Patitsas? You might enjoy his take on this whole subject. From his popular book, The Ethics of Beauty:
"The vision I saw was basically this: men and women alike are called to the same three offices: that of priest (to offer sacrifice), that of king (to lead and to fight), and that of prophet (to bring forth a word of insight). What differs between the genders is that the primary calling among these three offices for women is the prophetic office, while for men, it is the kingly office.
"What unites men and women, though, is that they are called to fulfill their primary offices in a priestly way -- that is, in a self-sacrificial way. They are charged to inscribe the cross of Christ within their primary gender offices, within their respective gender callings. Their first task is not, in a sense, to fulfill their gender calling, but -- a challenging paradox -- to 'crucify' that particular calling.
"When they do so, three things happen. First, their primary office (prophecy for women, kingship for men) seems to be all but wiped out as they become chiefly priests; in other words, their gender office dies, is humiliated, as it is offered sacrificially to God and to each other. Second, their gender office is re-born in a transfigured and much higher form.
"But the third point is the biggest surprise in what I understood, and is the reason why what I saw seemed so beautiful that I was filled with wonder. The real way that Christian gender is inverted from the world's is that in Christ each gender not only dies and is reborn, but in being reborn comes to a dynamic rest as the truest symbol not of its own life but of its partner's role and life. Men come to symbolize best the feminine prophetic office, while women come to symbolize best the masculine kingly office. Thus both men and women experience all three offices, but according to a Pattern or Way that is unique to each. This is how the genders are deeply reconciled in Orthodox life, in a loving act of mutual indwelling and self-offering."
Thank you for offering this perspective! I'm not very familiar with the orthodox tradition, and it's interesting to see a different way of thinking about these matters.
If you'd like to speak to it, I am curious to know what evidence is offered for this framework, though. Is it a traditional EO position?
Hi Marissa,
This theory has never been articulated before, but upon examination is found to be well within Orthodox tradition. Dr. Patitsas bases his vision primarily on Orthodox hymnography and iconography as well as his own reflections. It is highly symbolic, like all of Orthodox sacramental theology, and represents a fresh, innovative look at these traditional elements. I’m not sure how familiar you are with Orthodoxy. There are a number of major differences between it and Western Christianity. Because we rely on the consensus of all the local churches before making definitive pronouncements on things, we don’t crank out new doctrine at nearly the rate of the Western churches. Rather, we haven’t really had new theological developments since the 14th century with St. Gregory Palamas and the doctrine of the essence-energies distinction (which implies that Christian transformation and the experience of heaven are attainable, starting in this life). So, since the gender issues have only been a “thing” for the past couple hundred years, we have no official pronouncements on it. Dr. Patitsas’s work is an exciting step in the direction of innovative and creative thinking on this topic, which is still steeped in Orthodox thinking. The central premise is based on St. Maximus the Confessor (AD 580-662), whose feast day we just celebrated yesterday. Maximus wrote that one of the five tragic divisions that Christ came to overcome is the one between men and women.
I set out rereading the chapter from the book looking for some of those examples from iconography and hymnography to share with you, but along the way, was enamored once again with several more quotes that I found pertinent to this discussion and wanted to share first. Let me know what you think. There’s a lot more. I stopped about one-quarter through the chapter.
“Even so, in the gender chiasm a woman fulfills the manly role in a more paradigmatic way than he can, while destroying nothing of her femininity. Likewise, a man fulfills the womanly role in a more paradigmatic way than she can, while destroying nothing of his masculinity. We will give examples of this later, but this is the reason why the Orthodox Christian sacramental priesthood will always be reserved to men: it is the duty of men to become the icons of the feminine office of motherhood by giving Christ’s Body and Blood for Christ’s children, while women are called to enact the masculine role by standing guard and protecting the performance of the offering. Orthodox Christian priesthood is too feminine a role to also be symbolized by women, as I will explain in a moment. Similarly, the foundation of a Christian society’s protection always must fall back on the fortress of motherhood. It is too masculine a role for men to make good icons of, in this rich sense of ‘icon’ that Orthodoxy uniquely preserves. You can’t symbolize what you already are.”
“The general kingly calling of men means that as individuals they tend to play out whatever talents they have in ways more visible to society. Meanwhile, the general prophetic calling of women means that they may prefer to work more or less behind the scenes, especially when they are confronted with the inability of some men to understand the word they are bringing forth.”
“Even a Christian queen is going to base her political rule on her chastity and modesty. When women try to rule or lead based purely upon a machismo or the latent threat of violence, this almost never succeeds, once men are involved.”
“Women differ from men, in that women have this unavoidable responsibility to prioritize at first the prophetic office: to be knowers, seers, givers of counsel, inventors, and discoverers. Women are the primordial originators of commercial life and of the crafts and of agriculture. This was true in prehistory and it is very definitely true in many parts of the world today. Women do most of the crafts, much of the agriculture, and they predominate in the markets of Third World countries. In truly primitive economies, it may be hard even to identify what at all men are contributing economically. In Christ, however, women learn to express this prophetic gift in a way that is also priestly. They now become mystical “unknowers” — that is, they unknow facts, things, and attributes, discovering how and when to look past them, to know instead persons. They this become the special ministers to those in liminal states, such as children, the dying, the sick, and those giving birth. In all these cases, they are better able than men to unknow the facts of diminished or unrealized human dignity and thus to affirm and nourish the personhood of vulnerable people. And women in their role as priestly prophets can lead us away from cruel uses of knowledge and towards humane uses. Scientists imitate priestly women when they rise through reductive explanations of the world and embrace the science of emergence and complexity.”
THANK YOU!! I feel like we have a tendency toward anachronistic thinking about what the early church looked like - imaging our conception of churchgoing onto it.
You are so welcome! Yes! I think they could've never imagined our experience or the millennia (!!!) of church practices in between - and vice versa!
This puts forward many of my own reasons for maintaining women aren’t meant for church leadership. The scripture is pretty clear about this actually, there are offices within the church described that are clearly for men, and women were prohibited from preaching or having authority over men. That doesn’t exclude any of the work mentioned here remotely, and as you say in small churches you see the natural prominence of the church’s women working and carrying on the function of the church. I go to a small church with a male pastor and associate pastor and he and his wife are one flesh. It mattered that early church leaders were married and had their household in good order because a man’s wife matters significantly to his ministry and makes up a huge portion of it. A church mirrors the household. A house church is a household that hosts the church. Of course women were involved everywhere because no household or community is complete without women in it, just like the creation. My contention with ordaining women is the presence of a church’s women and their uniquely feminine ministry and mere existence is every bit as valuable as preaching or leading a church. Let he who is least among you be a servant. It is not an achievement to lead a church, it’s a duty and a responsibility that we never ought to regard as something a woman should be able to achieve to prove her equal worth to men (you haven’t made this argument here, I know, but ordaining women has no doubt been linked by some to “women’s equality.”)
There are many reasons thoughtful and faithful Christians have come to different conclusions on this. I've outlined here why I believe the biblical narrative does not restrict the work of women in the church, though I understand people hold different views. A few thoughts on your comments here:
For me, as I studied the verses used to prohibit women, I found that they weren't necessarily as clear as is often presented. For instance, in Titus 2, our English translations translate the masculine form of a Greek word (transliteration is presbyter from which we get priest) as "elder" in Titus 1 and the feminine form *of the same word* to be "older woman" a few verses later in Titus 2. There are numerous things like this (Philip Payne has done excellent exegetical work if you'd like to read more), but I continue to find Jesus' intentional commission women to be the first to proclaim His resurrection to be the most compelling thing, because isn't proclamation of Christ's death and resurrection the heart of preaching?
I agree with you that it's never been about jockeying for power or who can be the greatest, and for the most part I see many women quietly teaching and leading and pastoring without the title. In fact I have rough posts taking a closer look at both of these things coming up soon, so these things are on my mind as well!
One final thought: I am with you on the importance of men and women together showing forth the image of God, and I also wonder if defaulting to women's leadership roles being primarily for pastor's spouses (I am one, so no shade intended here) has some unintended problematic outcomes. First of all, it seems to me to ignore 1 Cor 7 where Paul expressly says that single people have more energy and time to devote to the things of God. Giving leadership roles to married people & spouses sidelines single people and can cause difficulties in clergy families.
Secondly, it's an enormous pressure on ministry families & expects a spouse to offer unpaid labor for the church. Ofc most people aren't in ministry for the money, but it is worth asking why in this one vocation we would expect spouses to contribute in this way to their husband's work without formal education, job description or compensation. It's an unboundaried kind of approach that can consume families and also in many cases is unwise. Pastoral training and the Spirit's gifting matters. Also I think defaulting to this displaces other women who perhaps are gifted for specific work.
While there may be women who seek pastoral office for the position itself or to make a point (as there are men who do so), I know many women who simply feel called by God & equipped by Him to serve the church.
In my ideal world, there would be a male and female pastor - called, equipped, and trained - for each congregation.
Sorry I’m just picking out a few things to reply to, really appreciate your taking the time to share all of your thoughts though! And yes I did appreciate the purpose of the post which I think was an excellent one.
1 Timothy 3 outlines the roles of bishop and deacons and that they must be the husband of one wife and have their households in good order. As you mentioned we see early church work done by a couple. It seems like a lot of conflating simply doing work for the Lord with holding an official position in organized church leadership, which are two different things (and as we agree, no more or less important than one another).
Sure! Always happy to engage.
My biggest problem with this take (and I hear it a lot in my denomination re: Holy Orders) is that I don't see official positions that clearly outlined in Scripture. I think we read back into the few passages we have what we want to see (esp as Protestants with the reclamation of marriage we inherited from Luther) and maybe this is most evident by how different denominations claim these verses for their preferred style of leadership. Re: elder qualifications we have two letters written to specific churches that were organizationally chaotic - Titus was on Crete where family life was in shambles and Timothy was likely in Ephesus, a church riven by controversies and quarrels as well as the temple of Artemis & those implications. The qualifications make so much sense for the needs of those communities.
It's not to say we can't and shouldn't examine those principles re: leadership, but I think we must weigh it with what Paul says to Corinth where he applauds single ppl in vocational ministry as most likely he himself was. It's also worth noting that grammatically speaking, the text is actually "one woman man" rather than "husband of one wife." There are good reasons translators opted for the latter, but there's a good case to be made that the point here is monogamous marital fidelity.
Anyway, what this says to me is that in the context of the early church, where disparate small groups of people were popping up in all sorts of context, is that the Spirit was leading people and the church was counting on that.
I love your last sentence there. This is a really interesting and good conversation, thank you! I am actually a nondenominational evangelical (although I am a member of an Anabaptist church, I’m new to the denomination) so I’m always curious to learn more about high church theology and tradition. I love the Anglican liturgy and have often wondered where the reasoning comes in to ordain women. Do you believe (out of curiosity) that although it is a more modern conception, it is nonetheless still consistent with scripture? I think the one compelling argument I find for women pastors and why it’s not exactly a huge deal breaking issue for me is as you have mentioned in many cases where there is simply a need. What I love the most about what’s coming out of this discussion is the wonderful ways women serve the church of God 🥹 I think whatever one’s position on ordination may be, we need so much more recognition for the robust role women do and always have played in the church.
Personally speaking, I think the biblical case for women being fully included in ministry roles is strong. You can find people who hold both views within Anglicanism - some that would say women can not be ordained at all, others only as deacons, others only to the priesthood, and some would include female bishops as well. Some of this depends on country as well. In general, I think many Anglicans make a case from tradition against the ordination of women, and I also think that is sound depending on the weight you give tradition.
I meant to elaborate about my own church; our pastor’s wife and elder’s wives and older women are major figures in our church’s functioning simply by being wonderful women of God who pray for members, arrange our community dinners and meal trains, are good friends with and reach out to and spend time with virtually all the active members. We have a tight knit church because our women are all just being sisters in Christ to the other church members. So if you talk about our church to someone else, you’ll talk about the women. I think the value of this ministry alone is every bit as weighty as being a pastor.