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Summary
We are reminded that complementarianism—the teaching that men and women are equal in value before God but distinct in roles ordained by him—is rooted in creation, not culture or the fall. Working through 1 Timothy 2, 1 Corinthians 14, and Romans 16, we are called to understand these roles not as a diminishment of women but as God’s good design for order and flourishing in the church.
Key Lessons:
- The prohibition against women teaching or exercising authority over men (1 Timothy 2:12) is grounded in creation order, not cultural preference or female inferiority.
- The silence commanded in 1 Corinthians 14 applies specifically to women judging prophecy in the gathered church, not to all forms of speech—women were actively praying and prophesying in the same congregation (1 Corinthians 11:5).
- The different monetary assessments in Leviticus 27 reflect the economic value of physical labor in an agrarian society, not the inherent worth or dignity of men versus women.
- Phoebe’s commendation in Romans 16 illustrates that women can hold significant servant-leadership roles in the church, even while the office of elder/pastor remains reserved for qualified men.
Application: We are called to hold God’s Word as the sole foundation for what we permit or restrict in church life—neither shrinking back from clear biblical boundaries nor adding restrictions Scripture does not actually impose, and always honoring the Spirit’s work in every member of the body.
Discussion Questions:
- How do you personally distinguish between a woman exercising spiritual authority over men versus a woman contributing her gifts and knowledge in a mixed-gender setting?
- In what ways might a newfound freedom in Christ—like the freedom women experienced entering the early church—lead someone to overstep God’s designed order, and how do we guard against that?
- How should a church respond when a doctrinal question involves genuinely ambiguous passages, and what does it look like to hold a position humbly while still being convicted by Scripture?
Scripture Focus: 1 Timothy 2:8–15 establishes the creation-rooted basis for male teaching authority; 1 Corinthians 14:29–35 addresses order in prophetic speech; 1 Corinthians 11:3–5 confirms women praying and prophesying publicly; Romans 16:1–2 highlights Phoebe as a model servant-leader; Leviticus 27 raises questions about gendered valuation in the Old Testament context.
Outline
- Introduction
- Defining Complementarianism
- 1 Timothy 2:8–15 Overview
- Instructions to Men: Holy Hands and Prayer
- Instructions to Women: Modesty and Godliness
- Freedom in Christ and the Risk of Overreach
- Women Teaching and Authority: Verse 12
- Creation Order as the Foundation
- The Fall as a Warning About Stepping Outside Order
- Verse 15: Women Preserved Through Childbirth
- 1 Corinthians 14: Order in Prophecy
- 1 Corinthians 11: Women Praying and Prophesying
- What Women May Do in Church: A Framework
- Leviticus 27: Monetary Valuations Explained
- Women Experts Teaching in Mixed Settings
- Phoebe and the Role of Deaconess in Romans 16
- Conclusion and Closing Prayer
Introduction
Before we begin going through the individual questions that came in, first I want to say thank you to everybody who sent in questions.
Two things. One, I should just quickly ask for prayer again. Last week I wasn’t feeling well for a different reason. This week, apparently I have something called zinc poisoning. Just asking if you can pray while I’m up here because I do not feel good.
But anyway, God, see me through this. Before we get into the questions, there are a couple of passages that we need to look at if we’re going to discuss this topic. Again, we’re talking about complementarianism.
And I think I can manage it this time.
Defining Complementarianism
Kind of this loose definition that we’re working with is that men and women are equal in value before God, but distinct in roles as ordained by him.
These roles include authority and submission. They reflect the relationship between Christ and his church. They actually have their root in creation, not in the fall and not in any particular culture.
“Men and women are equal in value before God, but distinct in roles as ordained by him.”
1 Timothy 2:8–15 Overview
The first passage we should look at is 1 Timothy 2:8-15. You can turn there if you’d like, though it spans multiple pages.
We’re going to work our way through this. This is not meant to be a full examination of the text. We don’t have time—that would probably take a month or two worth of sermons just to go through this and the next passage that we’re going to look at. But I’ll read it for us here.
1 Timothy 2:8-15 says, “Therefore, I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger and dispute. Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or expensive apparel, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women, making a claim to godliness.” Verse 11: “A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness, but I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.
For it was Adam who was first created and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a wrongdoer. But women will be preserved through childbirth if they continue in faith, love, and sanctity with moderation.”
1 Timothy 2:11: “A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness.”
That’s a lot, as you can see why we’re not going to be able to deeply dive into all of it here. There are a few observations that we can make. It’s likely that these two statements are directed to different groups—one in verse 8 directed to men and one in verses 9-15 directed to women.
It seems like all the statements made in these directives are corrective in nature. There were issues happening in the church of Ephesus, and Paul was writing this to correct the thinking and behavior of some of the people in the congregation. It wasn’t just writing to say this for the record—there were actually things going on.
Instructions to Men: Holy Hands and Prayer
He’s saying, “I’m seeing this. I’m noticing these things happening. I’m getting reports of them.” This is what God’s will is in this area. It could have been issues or questions that people had, disputes, or things like that. He’s setting the record straight.
At least it would seem that way. The language kind of lends itself to that. One of the reasons we can see this is in the idea of prayer. He says, “I want the men in every place to pray.” That seems like it should be a no-brainer—Paul, why are you saying this?
It’s possible that, especially as men, it can be more difficult to pray with sincerity. There’s a fear of vulnerability or dependency that seems to be naturally built into the way many men in many societies are brought up. We’re taught to think that we should be handling things ourselves. Even when we’re Christians and talking about submitting to the almighty God, it’s still sometimes difficult for us to not only say we need help, but to dig deep down in our hearts and expose all of the emotions that are really there.
There are some men I know who’ve cried once or twice in their lives. I haven’t cried that many times myself. I almost cried at a movie that was actually a comedy—that’s so odd. Music sometimes brings me to tears, but it’s very difficult even for me. Some of that might be because I was raised to be tough, to be strong, to just handle it and move on. You’re a man. Leave that emotional stuff to the women.
That could get into our relationship with God and into prayer. It’s possible that even in that culture, some of the men there had an issue with praying with true sincerity. They were relying on these more formulaic prayers that really weren’t exposing their hearts.
He also says, “I want you to pray lifting up holy hands.” This idea of holy hands refers to living in a way that honors God. We could see it in Psalm 24:3-4, where there’s a question asked: “Who can ascend to God essentially?” It says those who have clean hands and a pure heart.
The hands themselves are not talking about your literal hands. It’s elsewhere where God talks about the nation and says that you have blood on your hands. Because you are men of war, you are vicious, you are murderous people—you have blood on your hands. This idea of hands representing the life and the way that we live is seen throughout scripture.
He says here, “I want you to lift up holy hands.” This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to have your hands raised when you pray, although that was one of the postures taken especially in ancient Israel. It doesn’t mean that every time you pray you have to lift up your hands or God is not hearing. This is more talking about the posture and the way that you approach prayer.
Paul also adds a warning about anger and dispute being parts of the life of the church. Those are things that would hinder prayers and would stop them from being effective. We saw last week that he also said that for husbands, if you don’t respect your wives and treat them in a particular way—and that was in 1 Peter 3:7—then your prayers may be hindered. You want to honor your wives and treat them tenderly as you would a precious item or something that’s delicate. If you’re not doing that, your prayers will be hindered.
Even there we see this idea of prayers being hindered because of the character of the person praying, even if they are a believer and they have access to the throne of God.
“Holy hands refers to living in a way that honors God—the hands represent the life and the way that we live.”
It’s also possible that verse 8 was written to include women as well. When it says “therefore I want the men,” it’s using a word that literally means men, males. But we do the same thing sometimes when we talk about humanity. We’ll say mankind. We don’t say mankind and womankind. If I say mankind, I’m talking about humans versus other life forms.
My wife and I used to watch a show a long time ago called Man Versus Food. You see things about man versus nature, and it isn’t talking about a man fighting a bear. It could be a woman fighting a bear, too. It’s also possible that when he’s saying “I want men,” it could include women. But I kind of lean toward it not being that only because he says, “Likewise, I want the women.” So he has a directive for the men and a directive for the women.
It seems like that. But he also could be saying that this is the spiritual behavior I want for the church, and in particular, here are some things I’m hearing about the women there. It could be that as well.
With these passages, I’m going to lay out something. It is with passages where it’s difficult to pull out every bit of meaning, where there is some ambiguity. You don’t really want that to be the only or the primary source of a particular belief or doctrine that you hold. Especially if you’re going to hold to it and say this is 100% what God is saying, and then we get to heaven and God says that’s not what I meant at all. You really twisted it there or you didn’t fully get it. That can happen.
I’m saying this because we may come across a teacher or a church or a book that says something different than what you hear here from any of the teachers here or from the elders here. I don’t want your first thought to be that they’re heretical. Sometimes we have that kind of reaction—they’re different, so that means heretical.
It’s not the case many times. There are a lot of people out there doing some odd things in the name of the Lord. But we just want to make sure that we see there are some areas of scripture where there is room for moving. There’s room for some differences from people who are all trying to honor God.
Instructions to Women: Modesty and Godliness
So going to verse 9, even that there’s so much that can be said about that, but I just want us to see the flow of this passage so we can pull things out when we answer questions.
In both the Greek and the Roman societies, it was common for wealthy women to show off their wealth by how they dressed. There’s this idea that modesty, when it talks about modesty, is just talking about covering yourself up. If you’re a woman, cover up your lady parts, but if you’re a man, you don’t really have to worry about modesty because women aren’t—they’re more in thinking and in how they are, how they are aroused. Men are more visual in how they are.
And we know that’s not true to make those generalizations. But even if it was, Paul here is bringing up a lot more than just cover yourself up so that a man won’t stumble when he looks at you. He’s talking about the heart and one that tries to draw attention to themselves based on their appearance.
Your beauty, your loveliness should not come solely from how your hair is done or the dress you have on. Your worth should not be tied to your wealth. Coming with a dress that costs $2 million and everyone knows it does because you just saw a report on the news about this dress that cost that, and you make sure the logo is big so everybody sees I have this dress that costs that much money and they know this wealth that I have, they know the importance I have, maybe they’ll even treat me better.
That is how you gain your status among your friends, among your family, among society—by flaunting this wealth or flaunting something that you have versus godliness and your character. That also can apply to beauty as well, physical beauty.
People talk about pretty privilege and that people who seem to be attractive tend to get things for free or they kind of get a pass on things or cops let them off with a warning where somebody who looks like me, Shrek, they are just like no, I might just throw you in jail just for speeding, but somebody else they just say no, go ahead pretty lady. We know that actually exists, and God is saying that is especially in the church.
What he’s ultimately saying is the behavior and the practices of the world are not to dominate the behavior and practices of the church.
When you belong to Christ, you are different. When you belong to Christ, your motives are different. Your behavior is different because the goal is different. We’re now filled with the spirit, and so our attire may look different. The way that we speak may look different. These things that we do to try to gain favor with people based on wealth or looks or anything else like that will become different.
“The behavior and practices of the world are not to dominate the behavior and practices of the church.”
He gives this directive here in verse 10. This is what you should be. This is how you should adorn yourselves. This is how you should order, arrange yourselves—where we get the phrase cosmetic.
This is really how you should be adorning yourselves and making yourselves look beautiful by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. Your good works are the things that will speak before you. That is the thing that will be beautiful, and that is the thing that will create your worth—that God using you and how much God uses you. People will see that, and that is what will cause them to think highly of you. Not that you have an expensive coat.
I’m not saying that you got to go thrifting for everything, but look at your heart and examine your heart.
“Your good works are the things that will speak before you—that is what will create your worth.”
Freedom in Christ and the Risk of Overreach
So now we’re going to flow to the part that is more relevant to what we’re talking about here. What may have prompted these verses is that they came from a society, and all three main cultures represented in the New Testament—the Greek, the Romans, and the Jewish culture—all had a very low view of women. They all held women down in society.
People of a certain age can probably relate to that if you grew up in this country. They had a very low view of the value and worth of women outside of the kitchen and bedroom.
When women came to Christ and the church was being formed, this was like a liberating experience because there was so much more freedom in Christ for women than there was in Greek, Roman, and Jewish societies.
Their voices could be heard. They could be like Priscilla and help teach and make more mature one of the leading preachers of the day. They could be like Phoebe, who we’ll look at a little bit and gets commended. So 2,000 years later, we’re talking about the amazing work of this woman named Phoebe because Paul talked about her and how important she was. They didn’t have that for the most part in their society.
When they came to Christ, it was this freedom that was there—now I have a voice. Now I can be heard. I can be understood. Now I can actually influence things because God values all of his creation.
“When women came to Christ, it was freedom—now I have a voice, I can be heard, I can actually influence things.”
That freedom could have caused them to move to a point where now they want to dominate. Now it’s, oh, I get to be heard. Then every chance I get, I’m going to be speaking. Every chance I get, I’m going to try to teach. Every position of authority I’m going to try to fill now.
It could have been that this created an atmosphere, and we talked about this a little bit last week when we looked at the curse on Eve in Genesis 3:16 and compared that to what was said to Cain in Genesis 4:7. Looking at this desire now to master her husband, and in response, her husband would rule over her and dominate her, rather than this complementary relationship that God intended from the beginning.
Even in other passages, several times when Paul writes to women specifically, he’s writing about order and roles. It’s almost like a parent when a child starts getting older and you start letting them say a little more and a little more. Sometimes you have to reel them in like, all right, all right, I’m still your parent. All right, you’re getting a little older. You’re 13 and you think you’re grown now. But I need you to dial it down a little bit.
Women Teaching and Authority: Verse 12
Still got this child-parent relationship going on, and it seems like there’s a little bit of that going on. Like, okay, yes, there is freedom in Christ, but there’s still roles. There’s still order and we have to maintain that.
And so you have to make sure that you are quietly. And this “quietly” here does not mean not speaking. It’s the same word if you look at 1 Timothy 2:2. The word is used there as well, sometimes translated as tranquil or peaceable. And so it’s just this idea of being at peace and at rest with receiving instruction and being submissive.
So it doesn’t mean quiet as in never speaking, but it means quiet as in the attitude of your heart. It’s not one that’s contentious. It’s not one that’s always rubbing up against the authority.
And then he says, “I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man.” It’s possible that that’s what they were trying to do. It’s possible that Timothy even allowed it and said, “Yes, of course you could. My grandmother and mother were the ones who influenced me the most in Christ.”
“Quietly does not mean not speaking—it means the attitude of your heart is not contentious, not rubbing against authority.”
Creation Order as the Foundation
So yes, you could come and teach and you can do this. And he said, “Hey, Timothy, make sure that you maintain the order that God had set.” Which is why in verse 13, he goes and says, “For it was Adam who was first created and then Eve.” This is going back to creation, as we discussed last week.
It’s not just, “Well people in the culture aren’t going to like that. We can’t be too progressive. We can’t put too much on them too fast.” That’s not what he’s saying here. He’s saying that this was always God’s design to have there be this order and have there be roles.
It doesn’t impact value or worth at all or ability to minister for the sake of Christ. It just means that there are certain roles that everyone has and those roles come with different responsibilities. Some of the roles have authority and some of the roles will have submission, and some roles don’t have either in a small sense, but all in a sense have submission because we all submit to Christ.
“This was always God’s design—to have order and roles. It doesn’t impact value, worth, or ability to minister for Christ.”
We talked last week that this means formal teaching in verse 12—not allowing a woman to teach or exert authority over a man or even hold the office of elder, pastor, bishop, or overseer. This is why we would not accept a woman as a pastor. We didn’t have time to go into 1 Timothy 3, which we did last week, but this is the reason.
Not because they can’t, not because they’re not spiritual, not because they’re not intelligent and don’t know the word of God, but simply because God said there is an order and that is a role that I want to be filled by men. That is the only reason.
Full disclosure: my first pastor was a woman and was very instrumental in my spiritual growth. I remember a few years into my walk with Christ—I didn’t know Christ at all. I actually came to that church to sing, and it was through reading the word of God and talking to some of the people there that God brought me into the real church.
Serving under her, I learned a lot. Then someone I was working with said, “Your pastor is a woman. What? You’re not supposed to have a woman as a pastor? Why not?” He never opened the Bible once. He was from a country where women can’t do anything but cook and bring up their children, and that’s it.
I’m like, of course you would say that. Had he just opened the Bible, I probably would have come to that realization much sooner. But it wasn’t actually until I was applying to or considering a seminary that the seminary made a statement saying they only allow men because they’re a small seminary and their goal is to train future pastors, not just give people a Christian education.
Since their goal was to train pastors in a very small private school and they only let a certain amount of people in, they’re going to let people in who could be a pastor in the future. So since they said that, I’m like, “What? What are they talking about? Why wouldn’t they?” Of course, they listed the scripture to back up that statement.
Then I’m like, “I didn’t even know that was here in the Bible. Wow.” That led me to a whole lot. Actually, I met the president of that seminary. When my wife and I met him one day, I told him something he said he never heard before. I said, “Here’s my wife,” and I said, “You almost broke us up.”
Then I let him know because she was actually pursuing being a pastor. I didn’t even want to be a pastor, but I was supporting her in that. When we came to that, I’m like, “Babe, what you’re doing is completely wrong. You can’t do that. Look at these passages here.”
At first, she was like, “Okay, then we just got to break up.” And I’m like, we’re not breaking up. We’re going to study this. We’re going to sit and study this.
After intense study, if we don’t agree, fine, we break up. But if we still agree, we’re here. And this year will be 20 years of marriage. So I guess you see that she came around.
She realized you’re right.
You’re always right, even in non-spiritual matters, you’re always right and stuff. I’ll look right into the camera and say that, too.
But this is what our basis is, right? It’s the word of God. It’s not just, “Oh, that sounds weird. That’s disgusting. Oh, a man and a man together. Oh, that’s gross.” No, that’s not the basis for why we tell somebody this is sin or this thing is wrong or it’s what God’s order is.
The Fall as a Warning About Stepping Outside Order
So I just want to throw that out there to make sure when we are discussing these things that we’re basing what we say on God’s word. We got a question about verses 13 and 14 together. It asks: doesn’t the prohibition of teaching with authority over men that we just saw in verse 12 have its foundation both in design, which is in verse 13, and the fall in verse 14? And then what is the meaning of verse 14 today?
Verse 14 says it was not Adam who was deceived but the woman was deceived and became a wrongdoer. That’s just referring to the fact that Eve was the one who was deceived by the serpent, and then she gave the fruit to her husband and he said, “Oh, okay. I’ll just take it.”
I think what we see there is an example of what happens when we step outside of the created order. God’s design was for the man to be the head, for Adam to be the head. He wasn’t even able to give input into this decision to plunge humanity into sin that Eve just did it.
Eve was deceived and she didn’t even go and talk to Adam about it. Who was her spiritual leader? Who was her head? This wasn’t about what shoes am I going to wear. This was: I’m thinking of violating the only command that God has given us and I don’t even need to talk to my husband about this. I’m just going to do this on my own.
It’s quite possible that Adam is the one that gave her the command in the first place. If you read the whole account, she got the command wrong. She said we can’t even touch it. That’s not what the command was. The command was don’t eat of it. They might have thrown in don’t touch there just to be extra precaution, but she still didn’t even quote God correctly.
But they said I have no need of going to the person that God has set up to be my spiritual leader. So I believe this is an example of what happens when we step outside of that order that Paul is saying. It’s not just the optics. It’s not just that we want the church to look a certain way. But there is a real danger that can happen that we may not see, we may not even understand. But there is a real danger that happens when we step outside of what God has ordained for us.
“There is a real danger that happens when we step outside of what God has ordained for us.”
Verse 15: Women Preserved Through Childbirth
And then verse 15, I’m so glad no one asked a question about verse 15. This is—I’ll tell you, I’ve probably read about 10 to 12 commentaries.
I’m interested to see what people think about this. About half of them said this is probably the most difficult verse to interpret in the entire Bible.
Yes, this is either the most or one of the most difficult verses. I believe it is saying that not that women will be—there are a few things that people think. One is that women will be saved, meaning rescued from the pain in childbirth. I think any woman who’s had a child here can say no, that’s not true. There still is pain. Christian women will experience pain in childbirth. That’s not what he’s talking about here.
There are some who believe that he’s saying that just by raising children and being godly in how you raise your children, that will save you. But there are a lot of Christian women who don’t have that opportunity. So again, it seems to be something he’s saying to all women, not just Christian mothers. But he says women will be preserved through childbirth.
I believe he’s talking about the stigma of being the one to plunge humanity into sin. I think he’s talking here, especially in verse 14, which would make you believe that women just make things worse or they just get in the way or that they’re naive and they’re just really easy to deceive. You can talk to them for a couple minutes. They don’t negotiate well. All these kinds of things that we think today about women.
Well, the fact that the man was not deceived but the woman was deceived could give somebody some type of backup for those types of things. So I believe that women being so instrumental for the furthering of the human race stops us from taking that view that women have less worth or that women have less intellect.
When it’s women who are pouring into us and we’re raised by these women, we see their strength and their resilience and their brilliance and we see the sacrifices that they make. Even if a woman is not a mother, when I see you, I think of my mother. I think of my sister and her raising her kids. I think of these women that I see and that pour and speak life into people daily.
I am rescued from that thought of thinking that women may be inferior because it was Eve that led us into sin.
“We see the strength, resilience, and brilliance of women and the sacrifices they make—we are rescued from thinking women are inferior.”
So, another somewhat difficult passage. I’m going to try to go through this a little faster.
1 Corinthians 14: Order in Prophecy
1 Corinthians 14.
That is a long chapter and a chapter that has caused a lot of confusion. It is difficult to understand when you take just pieces out of it. Reading the whole thing is best, but we’re not going to read 40 verses here today. I’ll just pull these out: 1 Corinthians 14:29-35.
The chapter is primarily talking about speaking in tongues and prophecy—receiving revelation from God directly. This is one of the earliest churches and one of the earliest books written to the church. Keep that in mind when we talk about spiritual gifts in June. Paul is giving them instruction on the use of those gifts of tongues and interpretation of tongues in the service, as well as prophecy. Here he’s focusing more on prophecy.
Again, this is receiving revelation from God and speaking that revelation out to people. So prophecy, when you see it in the Bible, can also talk about preaching what you see today—what we do in the pulpit. But in this instance, it’s talking about receiving revelation and how to handle that when God is speaking to someone at that moment.
Verse 29 says: “Have two or three prophets speak and have the others pass judgment. But if a revelation is made to another who is seated, then the first one is to keep silent.”
Verse 31: “For you can all prophesy one by one so that all may learn and all may be exhorted and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.”
I actually stopped there. So you have this scene: a bunch of people are hearing from God and Paul says, “Okay, you can’t all talk at once because it’s chaotic and it’s not orderly.” The same thing was happening with tongues. People were just speaking in different languages, then other people are yelling interpretation. It was just chaotic. It was just a mess.
And here he’s saying that’s happening with prophecy. If it happens and you’re receiving a word and you’re speaking that word and someone else says, “Okay, I have a word,” you sit down, you let them speak, and then one by one each person will speak what God is putting on their hearts to say.
That way we can have some order. He says all of you can and we all may be able to be exhorted. We all may learn. When it says the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets, if someone says something, other prophets who are also hearing from God can say no—that doesn’t line up with what God is saying. They’re developing the written word of God at that time too, so they do have that as well.
So if one of the prophets says, “I just received the word: Jesus actually did sin. He sinned three times in his life and I’m about to tell you about him now,” then the other prophets can say, “Wait, wait, wait, brother. That’s crazy. Jesus did not sin. We know he didn’t. We have scripture. We have other revelation.” The entire gospel rests on the fact that he did not sin. And they can correct him there.
So that is what’s happening here. This is kind of an unfortunate cut off, but in the middle of verse 33, it starts a new sentence.
1 Corinthians 14:33: “God is not a God of confusion but of peace.”
Women and Prophetic Judgment in the Assembly
It says, “As in all the churches of the saints, the women are to keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but are 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.”
The context of this command is the authoritative judgment of another speaker’s prophecy. Paul is not saying women should not utter a word in the church building or in the house where they’re meeting, or that they should not be heard at all during the official service. That’s not what Paul is saying here.
Paul is saying that when we’re going through the prophecies one by one, talking about what God is giving in the revelation, women are not to take part in the judgment of another person’s prophecy. Why? Because look at 1 Timothy 2. What did he say there? That women are not to teach or exercise authority over a man.
In that space, a woman should not come and exercise spiritual authority over the men who are giving the prophecy by judging their prophecy and deeming it godly or ungodly, or saying it came from God or it didn’t come from God in that moment. That is what Paul is saying there, and not just there, but in all the churches.
If there is some dispute or if there’s something they just can’t hold in, then when you go home, talk about it with your husbands. Say, “I don’t think what that guy said was right. I don’t think he should have said Jesus sinned, or I think he was trying to say this thing in this way and it didn’t land.” Then you can talk just like you do now and talk about the sermons.
So essentially, Paul is saying women don’t interrupt the sermon. In those cases, there were men who were allowed to because it wasn’t a full, plain sermon. But understand this is kind of what the equivalence would be today: dare not to exercise authority over a man. So you shouldn’t exercise authority in this case where prophecy is being judged by others in the congregation.
“The context of the command to keep silent is the authoritative judgment of another speaker’s prophecy—not all speech in church.”
1 Corinthians 11: Women Praying and Prophesying
And the last passage reinforces this in the same book, in the same letter to the same people. We’re not going to talk about head covering. Thank you for not asking a question about head covering.
1 Corinthians 11:3-5 says, “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ. Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head.
Let’s make sure Brian’s looking at that.
So every man—we don’t know what the head covering was, so it probably wasn’t a skullcap. But it says in verse five, every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for it is the same as the woman whose head is shaved.
So without even knowing what this covering is, the first thing we see is that in the church service, what are the women doing? Praying and prophesying. They’re receiving and even speaking the word of God. They are praying in the public service.
But he says don’t do it in this way. That is a disgrace. Don’t do it in a way that casts off authority.
If we look later in the passage, it tells us that this covering was a symbol of authority and submission. This is why the one who is the head—the man—should not have this covering on, but the woman who is under the authority of the man should have it on.
“This covering was a symbol of authority and submission—don’t rebel against the roles God put in place.”
I believe this also goes back to what we said about the culture and society of the time. In this new freedom, women were saying, “What we were doing in society, how we didn’t have a voice, how we couldn’t speak—that was wrong.” Well, now that I can talk and I can teach and I can say things and I can pray publicly, let me take this head covering off too.
That is an issue where they went too far. They said, “I’m going to get rid of every cultural sign of authority and submission. I’m going to get rid of every symbol that shows there is a distinction in the roles between men and women.”
And God says don’t do that. Don’t rebel against the roles that I put in place.
What Women May Do in Church: A Framework
And if your culture, if your society has something that indicates submission, something that indicates authority, don’t throw it off just by the way that it looks. And he said, because it’s the same as a woman whose head is shaved. There’s different things about whether a woman whose head is shaved was just being rebellious, was being an ultra-feminist, or even some say that there was indication that meant a woman was into prostitution.
All of these things were saying “I’m throwing away the natural order that God has created when he created humans as male and female.” And he said, “God is saying, you are not to do that. Even though you have more freedom in the church and I’m allowing you to do things that the world has said you can’t do, there’s still order.”
There were several questions that were pretty much all started with: Can women lead worship? Can they pray in a service? Can they read scripture in a service? Can they do announcements? Can women do everything in a service except preaching a sermon? Can women do this in some form?
There are kind of two things I think we look for when we want to answer these questions.
Does a direct prohibition of the action exist?
And if not, does all or part of the action fall under a direct prohibition of another action?
The only clear and direct prohibition in the New Testament is that a woman may not hold a position or office that causes her to be a teacher, which is a more literal translation of 1 Timothy 2—not just to teach, but to be a teacher or to exercise authority over a man.
“The only clear prohibition is that a woman may not hold a position that causes her to be a teacher or exercise authority over a man.”
Anything else is either unclear or is possibly or probably based on a certain context and shouldn’t at least be used as the foundation for a doctrinal position. Now if there are five or six of those together, then maybe. But in legal terms, you say that’s circumstantial evidence.
Applying the Framework: Prayer, Worship, and Scripture Reading
If you just find something, I’ll give kind of an example by looking at these two questions. Going back, can a woman pray in the service? There’s no direct prohibition of the action. There’s no verse that says women cannot do this, a woman should not do this, or it is wrong for a woman to do X.
If you find that, then clearly a woman can’t do it. The other thing we look at is whether prayer falls under some aspect that would cause the woman to slip into the role of a teacher or to give them spiritual authority over the men that they are praying over. If you believe that to be the case, then you don’t have women do that. But if you don’t believe that a person is transferred some spiritual authority because they are praying, then it’s fine for women to do that.
Now at our church here, in public we have a pastoral prayer, meaning it’s the pastors of the church that are praying over the flock, praying on behalf of the sheep. So we’re not going to have a woman do that. But if you notice, only the elders do that anyway. We don’t say, “Oh, any man come and do it. As long as you have a Y chromosome, you can get up there in the pulpit.” That’s not the case.
We have something that we have a stronger purpose behind the prayer. It is the pastors praying over the flock at that time. But if it wasn’t and it was just prayer, just congregational prayer, then there’s nothing in scripture that says that a woman couldn’t do that.
“If it was just congregational prayer, there is nothing in scripture that says a woman couldn’t do that.”
Going back, lead worship, read scripture. So reading scripture, we your elders here will say no, there’s no issue with a woman reading scripture in public for the same reason. And even leading worship, the question of leading worship comes again—there’s no direct prohibition against any of it.
Is that causing them to be a spiritual leader or give them some sort of authority? The only kind of thinking that comes in is, well, what if before a song they’re introducing a song and they go into scripture and they exposit the scripture for a minute or two and they’re giving like a little mini Bible study about why this passage is so important, and the scripture is laid out to music and all. But I don’t want to read into the hearts and minds of people.
I would just say that it’s very difficult to make that argument from scripture that by just stating, “Oh, this comes from this song is based on this verse in the Bible and it’s gotten me through a lot of tough times, so join me in singing this song,” that person has now exercised spiritual authority.
I’ve even had someone say, “Well, they’re saying sit down and listen to the sermon. Or they’re saying, ‘Please stand and sing.’ And just those words alone are giving them authority because they’re telling me to sit down or stand up.”
And I mean, this is a real spiritual concern, a real concern that someone had. I couldn’t see that. Someone even said something in the words in the lyrics of the songs. In their membership interview many years ago, they’re not here. I’m not trying to tell them someone was here. But just saying some of the things that I’ve heard, someone really had an issue with women singing because there might be a lyric that says raise your voice to the Lord.
“Oh, they’re telling me what to do. A woman just told me to lift up my voice or to lift up my hands to the Lord. They just acted in authority.” And so you see here, it’s talking about being a teacher and exercising the spiritual authority. We don’t want to get to a place where we’re demeaning not just women, but we’re devaluing the Holy Spirit working in half the congregation and that we’re not giving the spirit a chance to work and to use people.
We don’t want to get into that and try to find these little technicalities here and there. Again, we’re coming at this as God has freedom and God has put his spirit into every person who is a believer and he wants to use them mightily. They can do anything until I see something in scripture that says this is for a select group for whatever reason. Only certain people can hold this role.
And you see that even with different things when we talk about elders—there are certain qualifications. Deacons—there are certain qualifications. It doesn’t mean that the people can’t be used greatly, but certain roles are meant for certain people. And that is the only time that we will bring a restriction in.
Leviticus 27: Monetary Valuations Explained
There are a couple more questions. I think they were a little less heavy. One was: why in Leviticus 27 is the monetary value of a boy, girl, man, or woman different? We’re going to look at the scripture here.
Okay, it ends up being kind of long. So I’ll just read the scripture. Leviticus 27. Then we’ll talk about this because again the Lord spoke to Moses saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, when someone makes an explicit vow, he shall be valued according to your assessment of persons belonging to the Lord.
If your assessment is of a male from 20 years even to 60 years old, then your assessment shall be 50 shekels of silver by the shekel of the sanctuary. And if the person is from five years even to 20 years old, then your assessment for a male shall be 20 shekels, and for a female 10 shekels. But if the person is from a month even up to five years old, then your assessment shall be five shekels of silver for a male.
And for a female your assessment shall be three shekels of silver. If the person is from 60 years old and upward, if a male then your assessment shall be 15 shekels and for a female 10 shekels.”
So we see there, as the question states, that the value, the assessment, is different for the men and the women.
It would seem that reflects the value of their labor, simply because in a society where just about every bit of labor is manual, the men were just able to do more. They were able to lift more and they have more endurance. They have more muscle. So they’re able to do more in a field and carry more than a woman typically, on average.
I mean, there are some strong women out there and some weak guys too. Looking at some of y’all. But on average, as a generalization, a woman would be able to do less of the type of work and labor that existed through much of the society.
Most of the society wasn’t about sitting behind a car and driving or sitting behind a desk and being on the computer, where everybody is equal according to their brain. Although I used to be a day laborer a long time ago and I was told I couldn’t have office jobs because they like to give them to women because women could do tedious tasks longer than men. And so even there I was kind of shut out because they’re like, “No, you’re going to be bored.
Like, stuff 5,000 envelopes for a mailing campaign and I’m going to just stop doing it or I’m going to be joking around with people.” A woman is able to just stuff envelopes for eight hours.
So I couldn’t get those office jobs. But I was able to go get the jobs where they want me to put a 100 pound sack on my shoulder. So even there, that company and companies that hired from us valued us differently. They had specifications based on gender. They didn’t say, “We want the person to take a test to see how well they pay attention. If it’s a man, we don’t want them.”
And so it seems that this is what’s going on here. Most of a person’s value in that society was in the work that they could perform, the physical work and labor. So in that case, you’re going to assume that a man could do more than a woman.
“The assessment reflects the value of labor in a society where just about every bit of work was manual.”
Now we got this.
Women Experts Teaching in Mixed Settings
And this is the question. This is the question that somebody posed to me. I want to call them out because, like, why are you all making me think so much? Why are you making me—just give me the softball stuff. But nope.
But if there is a Sunday school or co-ed group talking about a specific subject matter, let’s say transgenderism, and a Christian woman with a PhD was brought in to speak about it—so they’re a subject matter expert—first question is: would that occur and in what setting? And two, to what extent can she support her arguments and research with the Bible without it becoming teaching to men or teaching men with authority?
I think that’s such a great question to just think about because it can really happen. And in the moment you’ll be scrambling like, “What do we do? How do we do this?”
I think in this case, if it’s not someone teaching directly from the Bible, we wouldn’t have it in a Sunday school setting or something like that. We probably would do something else and say we’ll do something on a Saturday, like we’ve done for the biblical counseling conference or things like that, which are actually more biblical. But we’ve set up certain times for that.
We actually did have a woman come in and give a presentation about domestic violence to the young adult ministry years ago. I think we did it after the service, in the afternoon. It wasn’t so much being afraid that it was a woman speaking, but that type of topic wasn’t coming from the Bible. She wasn’t even a Christian.
But it’s interesting here because in the second part of the question—I think if they were just presenting their research that’s not coming from the Bible, you would say, “Okay, you’re presenting research.” But the question really comes in: what if they start getting into the Bible? Now they’re teaching God’s word. They’re not just teaching from their research because they’re a Christian and they’re an expert.
They’re a PhD. They’re presenting their research, but they are a believer and they’re showing from scripture these certain things as well.
I think in that case there would be more leniency. I think there’s like a temporary moratorium or something on that. For instance, if we have a Sunday school which is not set up where one person’s talking for a full hour because there’s so much to say, but there’s more dialogue—women are speaking, women are given the mic—and if Glenda talks for three minutes about something and it’s coming from the word of God and you learn from it, did she just violate scripture?
Or are we just saying okay, somebody is sharing something. She’s not taking this authoritative role. She’s not saying, “I’m diving into the scripture and teaching you these meanings and all that.” But we say okay, in the normal course of conversation, even in a kind of public forum, it’s okay because everyone knows and realizes there was not a transfer of authority. Every time someone in the congregation grabs a mic, they’re not now taking the authority from the teacher or from the elders at that time.
So I think we just automatically say, “No, it’s not a big deal.” And I think the same thing is true when we have kingdom workers come and speak and it’s a husband and wife team or something. We’re not like, “Okay, well your wife just has to sit there and take pictures of you while you’re up there talking. You’re the only one who could do anything.” But we like to hear from both of them.
So I think it’s that same mindset there.
“We don’t want to devalue the Holy Spirit working in half the congregation by trying to find little technicalities.”
Phoebe and the Role of Deaconess in Romans 16
Another question. This is actually the last question that we’re going to have. In the framework of the deacons and deacons’ wives, how do we understand Phoebe’s role in the church in Romans 16?
Let’s turn to Romans 16, please. I have it up there. Romans 16:1-2 says: “I recommend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea, that you receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints and that you help her in whatever matter she may have need of you, for she herself has also been a helper of many and of myself as well.”
Paul is talking about this prominent woman who was very important to him in his ministry. He’s writing to the church at Rome, hoping to be able to see them. He’s saying there’s this person you’re going to see coming. She might even have been the one to bring the letter. Phoebe is a servant of the church, and she’s coming there. I want you to receive her.
He’s vouching for her, which is a good reason to think that she might have either brought the letter herself or was with the group that brought the letter. They can say, “Okay, she’s not just a random person.” Paul is saying this is somebody that you not only should have respect for and honor and be glad that she’s there, but he said help her in whatever matter she may need of you. You are to serve her.
The other part of that question was if the Greek word uses diakonos, and it is. That word—you can kind of hear it in it—is where we get the word deacon from. It’s a transliteration of the word.
This is one of those places where I think I’ve only said this to my wife because I’m like, I’m not saying this in public. But sometimes I just wish different decisions were made with things in the Bible. In this case, it wasn’t what was written. It was just a translation.
There are some words that if they weren’t transliterated—transliteration just means you take the word in one language and you kind of just bring it over into English letters and spell it the same—then we would know it says immerse. That’s actually the real meaning. The real meaning here of diakonos is servant or minister. This is one who serves.
Even the role of deacon, the office of deacon—it’s so big and official—but it means one who serves. In that office, they are ones who serve and organize the serving. They’re the ones who are kind of in charge of the serving.
It sounds like here that Paul is saying when she comes, treat her like a deacon. Treat her like somebody who not only serves well but who helps to organize the serving. There’s some authority that goes into her serving because she’s saying this is what you should do. She’s at least in that sense organizing—not spiritual authority, but authority enough to kind of manage what’s going on.
“Phoebe was someone who not only serves well but helps organize the serving—with authority enough to manage what’s going on.”
It’s difficult to say because there wasn’t another word that was created for that office or that officer. It’s just a transliteration of a word that means servant. So everybody here is diakonos. Everyone here is a servant. We all are.
But there’s also a group. It’s difficult to say with 100% certainty when we go back to 1 Timothy 3:8-13. If that is saying that the women who serve in that role should be the wives of the deacons who are also qualified and serve, or if there are women who may not be married at all or married to deacons who are serving alongside of them.
If you see a church doing either, they’re not unbiblical for that. But at Calvary, we take that to mean the wives of the deacons who are qualified. As in many churches, as in ours and could have been the case at Rome, anybody can serve. The deacons typically will go and reach out to others. The deacons aren’t the ones doing all the work. The deacons will ask other people to serve in different capacities.
If the deacon asked you to serve as a woman who’s not married to a deacon and you serve, you just were a servant there as well. You just did the same role. It’s hard to know if Paul here is saying that Phoebe has the role of deacon in her current church and when she comes there, accept her as an official deacon in that office, or if he’s saying she is an incredible servant. So much so that she could even come and help you guys get organized in the way that you serve and she could maybe take over a ministry and help out with that because she does so well and her character is so strong.
It’s hard to know for sure. We wouldn’t use this as the basis for a doctrinal position. We would go elsewhere and maybe use this as a supporting piece to combine with something else.
There was one more question that came in that we’re not going to have time to answer. I’m actually going to—the other elders don’t know this—but we’re going to make it a part of the larger elder Q&A. It might actually be on here so you can see.
How is abuse, whether verbal, emotional, physical, psychological, and of varying levels of severity, viewed and handled by the church? Another person asked something I’ll just tag into here.
Conclusion and Closing Prayer
Does a wife have to submit to an abusive husband? I think that’s a really good question to hear. The Bible doesn’t say that. There’s no passage on how to deal with domestic violence.
But there are principles in the Bible that we apply to that, and a lot of prayer and a lot of wisdom. I think it would be great to hear multiple perspectives about it and hear the elders talking about it together.
That’s all we have time for. I’m going to pray. I don’t have to be part of a soundcheck, so I’m able to stay around and talk if you want to talk after this. Let’s go to the Lord in prayer now.
Our gracious God, we want to thank you for giving us your word and making it so clear what your will is. We thank you for that, God, because as your word says, we would be tossed back and forth with every new piece of doctrine, every new belief, every cultural fad that comes along. We are thankful that we could be grounded in your word and rooted in your commands.
I just pray that you would help us, Lord, to seek to honor you above all else. When we approach your word, God, if our thinking doesn’t line up with it, you would change our thinking, you would change our beliefs, you would change our behavior.
We pray, God, that we would be able to look back and see our growth, see our maturation, and be able to thank you for it. I pray for the time of fellowship we’re about to have and for this service, that it would honor you and you would speak to us through it.
I ask all of this in Christ’s name and for his sake. Amen.