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Lesson 20: Complementarianism, Questions

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Summary

This sermon examines the biblical basis for complementarianism through key passages in 1 Timothy 2, 1 Corinthians 14, and 1 Corinthians 11. We are reminded that men and women are equal in value before God but distinct in roles as ordained by Him, with these distinctions rooted in creation rather than culture or the fall.

Key Lessons:

  1. The behavior and practices of the world are not to dominate the behavior and practices of the church — our identity in Christ transforms how we present ourselves and relate to one another.
  2. The prohibition against women holding the office of pastor/elder is not about ability, intellect, or spiritual worth, but about God’s ordained order rooted in creation.
  3. Women played vital roles in the early church — praying, prophesying, teaching, and serving — and the restrictions are narrow and specific rather than broad silencing.
  4. When Scripture is ambiguous on a particular application, we should not build rigid doctrinal positions on uncertain passages, nor should we rush to call others heretical for disagreeing on secondary matters.

Application: We are called to approach Scripture with humility, letting God’s Word shape our thinking rather than imposing cultural assumptions. We should honor the roles God has established while fully valuing and utilizing the gifts of every member of the congregation, avoiding both the extreme of suppressing women’s contributions and the extreme of dismissing God’s ordained order.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How do we distinguish between cultural expressions of authority and submission versus the timeless biblical principles behind them?
  2. In what practical ways can our church better honor and utilize the gifts of women while maintaining biblical order?
  3. When we encounter passages that are difficult to interpret with certainty, how should that affect how strongly we hold and enforce positions based on those passages?

Scripture Focus: 1 Timothy 2:8-15 (roles of men and women in the church, the prohibition on women teaching with authority over men), 1 Corinthians 14:29-35 (women keeping silent in the context of judging prophecy), 1 Corinthians 11:3-5 (head coverings and women praying and prophesying), Romans 16:1-2 (Phoebe as servant of the church), Genesis 3:16 and 4:7 (the curse and desire to dominate).

Outline

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. 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 — Men and Women in the Church

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, we’re not going to be able to deeply dive into all of it here. There are a few observations we can make. It’s likely that these two statements are separate—one in verse 8 directed to men and one in verses 9-15 directed to women.

It seems like both of these statements, or all the statements made in these directives, are corrective in nature. Meaning that 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 and saying this to get it on the record—it was actually things going on.

Prayer and the Posture of Men

He’s saying, “I’m seeing this. I’m noticing these things happening. I’m getting reports of them.” And this is what God’s will is in this area. It could have been issues of questions that people had or disputes or things like that. And he’s setting the record straight. At least it would seem that way.

Here doesn’t mean it’s 100% that, but the language kind of lends itself to that. And one of the reasons—even when we look at this idea of prayer and he says I want the men in every place to pray—that seems like the obvious thing. You’re writing to a pastor of a church and you’re saying I want the people in your church to pray. That should be a no-brainer. Paul, why are you saying this?

It’s possible that, and I think we know this especially as men, that it can be sometimes more difficult to pray with sincerity because there’s a fear of vulnerability or dependency that seems to be naturally built into the way that many men in many societies are brought up. We’re taught to think that we should be handling things ourselves.

And even when we’re Christians and we’re talking about submitting to the almighty God, it is 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 that I know who’ve cried like once or twice in their lives.

And actually, I haven’t cried that many times. I almost cried at a movie that was actually a comedy. That’s so odd. But I think music sometimes will bring me to tears, but it’s very difficult even for me. And some of that might be because I was raised that you got to be tough, you got to be strong, just handle it and move on. You’re a man. Leave that emotional stuff to the women.

And sometimes that could get into our relationship with God and get into prayer. So it’s possible that even in that culture some of the men there had an issue with praying with true sincerity and they were relying on these more formulaic prayers that really wasn’t exposing their hearts.

“It can be difficult for men to pray with sincerity because there’s a fear of vulnerability or dependency.”

Also he says I want you to pray lifting up holy hands. Now this idea of holy hands refers to living in a way that honors God. We could see it. We don’t have time to look at it, but in Psalm 24:3 and 4, there’s a question that’s asked: who can ascend to God essentially? And it says those who have clean hands and a pure heart.

Just the hands themselves are not talking about your hands. It’s elsewhere where God talks about the nation and says that you have blood on your hands. And again, just because you are men of war—that was the idea. You are vicious, you are murderous people. You have blood on your hands. And so this idea of hands representing the life and the way that we live is seen throughout scripture.

So he says here I want you to lift up holy hands. Not necessarily meaning that you have to have your hands raised when you pray, although that was one of the postures that was taken especially in ancient Israel. But it doesn’t mean that he’s saying every time you pray you have to lift up your hands or God is not hearing. This is more talking about the posture in a way that you even approach prayer.

Paul also adds in a warning about having anger and dispute being parts of the life of the church. And those are things that would hinder the 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.

And so you want to honor your wives and you want to treat them tenderly as you would a precious item or something that’s delicate. And if you’re not doing that, your prayers will be hindered. So 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.

So it’s possible also that, and I’ve been saying all this talking about men, it’s possible that verse 8 was written to include women as well. So 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. Sometimes 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. And it wasn’t—or even you see things about man versus nature—and it isn’t talking about it has to be a man fighting a bear. It could be a woman fighting a bear too, if you want to see a woman fight a bear. I don’t know why, but it is also possible that when he’s saying I want men, it’s—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 he also could be saying that this is how I want this spiritual behavior 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. And that can happen.

I mean, in general, when we look at these things, why I’m saying this is 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, from the elders here. And I don’t want your first thought to be that they’re heretical. Sometimes we have that kind of reaction—we jump in, they’re different, that means heretical—and 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 that 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.

“With passages where there is some ambiguity, you don’t want that to be the primary source of a doctrine you hold.”

Modesty and the Heart Behind Adornment

Going to verse 9, there’s so much that could 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 Greek and Roman societies, it was common for wealthy women to show off their wealth by how they dressed. There’s this idea that modesty is just 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 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, and you make sure the logo is big so everybody sees you have this dress that costs that much money—they know the wealth that you have, they know the importance you have. Maybe they’ll even treat you 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. Cops let them off with a warning, where somebody who looks like me, Shrek, they’re just like, “No, I might just throw you in jail just for speeding.” But somebody else, they’re just like, “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 practices of the world are not to dominate the behavior and practices of the church.

“The behavior and practices of the world are not to dominate the behavior and practices of the church.”

When you belong to Christ, you are different. 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.

Adorning Yourself with Good Works

And so 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 and 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—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 have to go thrifting for everything, but look at your heart and examine your heart.

“Adorn yourselves by means of good works — your good works are the things that will speak before you.”

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 represented by three main cultures in the New Testament: the Greek, the Romans, and the Jewish culture. All three had a very low view of women and 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 the worth of women outside of the kitchen and bedroom.

Freedom in Christ and the Temptation to Overstep

And 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. That’s because Paul talked about her and how important she was. They didn’t have that for the most part in their society.

And so when they came to Christ, it was this freedom that was there—that 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 a liberating experience — there was so much more freedom in Christ.”

And that freedom could have caused them to move to a point where now they want to dominate. And now it’s just, “Oh, I get to be heard. Okay. Then every chance I get, I’m going to be speaking. And every chance I get, I’m going to try to teach. And every position of authority I’m going to try to fill now.”

And it could have been that this created an atmosphere, which we talked about 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 kind of master her husband, and in response, that her husband would rule over her and dominate her, rather than this complementary relationship that God intended from the beginning.

And so we even look at not just here but in other passages. Several times when Paul writes to women specifically, he’s writing about order and writing about roles. And 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.”

Quiet Submission and Authority in Roles

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 contention. 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. So yes, you could come and you can 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.

“Yes, there is freedom in Christ, but there’s still roles. There’s still order and we have to maintain that.”

Women and the Office of Pastor

We talked last week about 1 Timothy 2:12, which forbids women from teaching or exercising authority over a man, or holding the office of elder, pastor, bishop, or overseer. This is why we would not accept a woman as a pastor.

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. 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 didn’t know Christ at all when I came to that church to sing. It was through reading the word of God and talking to 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. 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. I thought, 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 until I was applying to seminary that things changed. The seminary made a statement that 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 with limited spots, they’re going to let in people who could be a pastor in the future.

I thought, “What? Why wouldn’t they?” Of course, they listed scripture to back up that statement. Then I’m like, “I didn’t even know that was in the Bible. Wow.” That led me to study a lot more.

When I met the president of that seminary, my wife and I, and I told him something he said he’d never heard before. I said, “Here’s my wife. You almost broke us up.” 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 this issue, I said, “Babe, what you’re doing is completely wrong. You can’t do that. Look at these passages here.” At first, she said, “Then we just have to break up.” I said, “We’re not breaking up. We’re going to study this. We’re going to sit and study this.”

And after intense study, if we don’t agree, fine, we break up. But if we still agree, we’re here. This year will be 20 years of marriage. I guess you see that she came around.

She realized you’re right.

You’re always right, even in non-spiritual matters. I’ll look right into the camera and say that, too.

But this is our basis, right? It’s the word of God. It’s not just, “Oh, that sounds weird. That’s disgusting. A man and a man together. That’s gross.” No, that’s not the basis for why we tell somebody something is sin or something is wrong or what God’s order is.

“God said there is an order and that is a role I want to be filled by men. That is the only reason.”

The Fall and Stepping Outside God’s 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. Then she gave the fruit to her husband and he said, “Oh, okay. I’ll just take it.”

I think what we see here 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 made on her own.

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 she was going to wear. This was about violating the only command that God had given them, and she didn’t even need to talk to her husband about it. She was just going to do it on her own.

It’s quite possible that Adam is the one who 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, and so I believe this is an example of what happens when we step outside of that order. Paul is saying it’s not just the optics. It’s not just that we want the church to look a certain way. There is a real danger that can happen that we may not see. We may not even understand it, 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.”

The Difficult Verse — 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—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 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, it 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. 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.

“Women being so instrumental for the furthering of the human race stops us from taking the view that women have less worth.”

So, another somewhat difficult passage. I’m going to try to go through this a little faster.

1 Corinthians 14 — Silence in the Context of 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 here—receiving revelation from God directly. This is one of the earliest churches and one of the earliest books that was 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. 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 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.

“God is not a God of confusion but of peace.”

Women Keeping Silent — What It Really Means

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. I believe that the command to stay silent is in that context. Paul is not saying women should not utter a word in the church building or in the house where they’re meeting, or at least not while the official service is going on. He’s not saying you should not hear a woman’s voice at all, and if you do it’s an abomination. That’s not what Paul is saying here.

Paul is saying when we’re going through this one by one, talking about what God is giving you in the revelation, women are not to take part in the judgment of another person’s prophecy. Why? Because go back to 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 even in this case where prophecy is being judged by others in the congregation.

“Women are not to take part in the authoritative judgment of another person’s prophecy.”

1 Corinthians 11 — Head Coverings and Women Praying

And the last passage reinforces that 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 scully. 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.

“In the church service, what are the women doing? Praying and prophesying — receiving and speaking the word of God.”

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.

Throwing Off Symbols of God’s Order

And I believe that this also goes back to what we said about the culture and the society of the time. In this new freedom that women were saying, “Oh, so what we were doing in society, how we didn’t have a voice, how we couldn’t speak, that was wrong.” Well, while I’m at it and I can talk now and I can teach and I can say things, I can pray publicly. Well, let me take this head covering off, too.

That is kind of an issue where they may have gone—well, they did go too far. They said, “I’m going to get rid of every cultural sign that there is authority and submission. I’m going to get rid of every symbol that shows that 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.

“God says don’t rebel against the roles that I put in place.”

Can Women Lead Worship, Pray, and Read Scripture?

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 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?

We kind of look at two things 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 2:12—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 Two-Part Test for Roles

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 her spiritual authority over the men that she is 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. 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 with 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, congregational prayer, then there’s nothing in scripture that says a woman couldn’t do that.

“If it was just congregational prayer, there’s nothing in scripture that says a woman couldn’t do that.”

Going back, lead worship, read scripture. Reading scripture—our elders here will say no, there’s no issue with a woman reading scripture in public for the same reason. 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 giving 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. It’s 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.

Avoiding Extreme Restrictions

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.

I mean, this is a real spiritual concern. Someone said they couldn’t see that. Someone even mentioned that during their membership interview many years ago, they had an issue with certain lyrics in the songs. They’re not here, and I’m not trying to say they were here. But 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 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. We’re not giving the Spirit a chance to work and to use people. We don’t want to try to find these little technicalities here and there.

God has freedom and God has put his Spirit into every person who is a believer. He wants to use them mightily, and they can do anything until I see something in Scripture that says this is for a select group. Only certain people can hold this role for whatever reason.

“We don’t want to get to a place where we’re devaluing the Holy Spirit working in half the congregation.”

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. That is the only time that we will bring a restriction in.

Leviticus 27 — Different Monetary Values

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 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 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. 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 liked to give them to women because women could do tedious tasks longer than men. So I was kind of shut out because they said, “No, you’re going to be bored. You’ll stuff 5,000 envelopes for a mailing campaign and then stop doing it or joke around with people, whereas a woman is able to just stuff envelopes for eight hours.”

But I was able to get the jobs where they wanted 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.”

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—their physical labor. So in that case, you’re going to assume that a man could do more than a woman.

“The different monetary values seem to reflect the value of their physical labor, not their worth before God.”

Now we have this.

A Christian Woman Expert Teaching in the Church?

And 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.

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, they’re a subject matter expert. So the first question is: would that occur and in what setting? And second, 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 think about because it can really happen. 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.

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 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 is talking for a full hour because there’s so much to say, but there’s more dialogue and women are speaking and women are given the mic—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 an 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 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 taking the authority from the teacher or from the elders at that time.

“Everyone knows and realizes there was not a transfer of authority every time someone grabs a mic.”

So I think there we just automatically say, “No, it’s not a big deal.” 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.

Romans 16 — Phoebe and the Role of Deacon

So, 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. Yes, I do. Okay, good. So if you’re not able to or just whatever, you can look it up too, but it’d be good to actually see this.

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 here 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. And he’s saying, “Well, there’s this person that 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. Paul wants them 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, “Oh, 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 now 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.

But this is one of those places where I think I’ve only said it to my wife because I’m like, “I’m not saying this in public.” 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 a 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—so baptismo was baptized. If we didn’t use the word baptize, which really doesn’t exist in English (it’s a Greek word that’s just moved over with English letters), then we would know it says immerse. That’s actually the real meaning.

The real meaning here of diakonos is servant or minister. So 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.

“Even the role 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. So 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. And she’s at least in that sense organizing. Not spiritual authority, but authority enough to kind of 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. And like I said, it’s difficult to say with 100% certainty when we go back to 1 Timothy 3:8-13 or 3:14. 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 the deacons who are serving alongside of them.

So 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 and 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. So 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.

And so 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. So again, 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.

What About Abuse and Submission?

So there was one more question that came in that we’re not going to have time to answer, and 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. And it might actually be on here so you can see. Yes.

How is abuse, whether verbal, emotional, physical, psychological, and of varying levels of severity, viewed and handled by the church? And also, another person asked that I’ll just tag into here.

Does a wife have to submit to an abusive husband? I think that would be 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 with 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.

“There’s no passage on domestic violence, but there are principles in the Bible that we apply with prayer and wisdom.”

Closing Prayer

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 we would be, as your word says, 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 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, God, 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.

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