The Role Of Women In The Ministry Of The Church

By
Rev. Paul M. Reiner


The subject of the role of women in the ministry of the church has become a very controversial subject only within the last 20 to 25 years. Until the early to mid 60's, the subject was not much of an issue. Churches of all varieties, whether bible-believing or not, for the most part, did not debate the issue. Until this time, the offices of pastor, elders, deacons, etc. were completely male dominated. For most of the history of the church, with only a few exceptions, this had been the practice of the Christian church. But with the advent of the women's liberation movement in the 1960's, and its questioning and attacks on the traditional roles of the woman in the home and workplace, came the opening up of the ministry for the female gender. In some cases, the leadership positions in some churches became not only open to female participation, but dominated by women. Since this time there has been much controversy as to whether women should participate in leadership.

While the controversy of women's participation in the ministry is relatively new, the question of who should participate in leadership is a very old question. In fact, we can find a dispute about leadership as far back in the Bible as Numbers 16. Chronologically speaking, Numbers 16 transpires somewhere around the year 1430 B.C. Here the controversy revolved around who was qualified to minister to the nation of Israel. Verse 1 begins,


Here is the controversy: the Israelites are traveling through the wilderness, and these men, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, along with 250 others, come and confront Moses and Aaron and question the source of the two's authority. To these accusers, Moses' and Aaron's authority was derived from their own ingenuity and resources, rather than by God's appointment. Even theological arguments were added to support their rebellion for they sate that the whole congregation is holy, and the LORD was among them all, which to a certain extent was true.

In the typology of the Old Testament, salvation was pictured by the act of God's deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. The wanderings in the wilderness are a picture of the trials that come into a believer's life to mature them leading them into adulthood of the promised land. All New Testament believers are holy as far as position is concerned. The word holy, in both Old and New Testaments, is a word that has as its basic meaning, to be set apart. All these Israelites were set apart from Egypt positionally, but not all of these believers were set apart from Egypt practically, for many of them were desiring to go back to Egypt. And in the same manner, the Lord was among them all in that the Spirit of God guided the whole congregation, not part of it. Manna came down from heaven and was showered upon the whole camp. When water came forth from the rock, there was water for the whole congregation, not just the elite, and Moses water was not Perrier, while the rest just got tap water. Their argument then was that since there was a uniformity in their salvation, and since there was a uniformity in the blessings of their salvation, there should exist a uniformity in the service of their salvation. Their accusation to Moses was that by restricting the leadership to him and to Aaron and his sons, they were denying the rest their legitimate right before God to do what they wanted to do.

The reaction of Moses is quite significant,


In only one area did Korah, Dathan, and Abiram err in their argumentation. They were correct that they all enjoyed the same salvation. They were correct that they all enjoyed the same blessings of that salvation. But they were "dead" wrong in concluding that they were able to enjoy the same functions within the plan of God. The significant statement of Moses is found in the phrase, "whom he hath chosen", the he being God. What they forgot is that God is a sovereign God, with the ability or authority to choose or not to choose whomever He wants to accomplish His purposes. They forgot that God has the absolute right to say in His sovereignty, "I want Moses to be the leader and no other" and "I want Aaron and Aaron's sons to be the priests, and no others". It was not that any others were physically less capable or emotionally or spiritually less capable, but that God has simply and sovereignly chosen Moses and Aaron.

Not only had they forgotten that, but they did not realize the significance of the choice that God had made in their own lives. We continue at verse 8,


Now remember that the Levites were those sons of Levi, the son of Jacob, whom God had set apart to take care of the physical aspects of the ministry of God in the nation of Israel. Specifically their jobs included the setting up and the tearing down of the tabernacle as they moved through the wilderness and care of the tabernacle furniture. Kohath was a Levite, so he was responsible for some aspect of these tasks. But Kohath looked with contempt upon God's call to service. Kohath looked with envy to the position of Aaron, thinking himself to be a second-class citizen in the economy of God. But as we look to the Scriptures we find that Aaron never made a big deal of the job that God had given him to do, he never exalted himself above the rest of the people, but quietly and unassumingly when about his business serving God in the capacity in which he was chosen.

Moses then turns to Dathan and Abiram. Apparently these two, not being Levites, but sons of Reuben, were looking not for opportunities to serve in the priesthood, but administratively, as did Moses. Verse 12 continues,


In much the same manner that Elijah would a few hundred years later, confront the prophets of Baal, Moses challenged Korah to see whose offering of incense would be accepted by God. The story concludes by the ground opening up and swallowing the followers of Korah. Now while that may have happened over 3000 years ago, God's character has not changed one iota in any of those years. He is still the same God today as He was then.

The whole gist of the argumentation for the women's movement today, is basically the same argument of Korah, Abiram, and Dathan. The argument goes today just as it did then. Since men and women enjoy the same salvation and the same blessings of that salvation, they should enjoy the same function in that salvation. The chief passage of Scripture that is used to support this argument is found in the New Testament, specifically, Galatians 3:26-29. There, Paul writes,


In these verses, it is quite clear that all believers do enjoy the same salvation. There is not one believer in Jesus Christ that enjoys a greater salvation than any other believer, or for that matter, there is not one believer that has a lesser salvation than another. There is not one believer that is headed in a different eternal direction than another believer, all are headed for glory. It is also quite clear from this passage that all believers enjoy the same blessings in that salvation. If you know Jesus Christ as your Savior, you have the same access to the throne of grace as all other believers. No one's prayers get to glory any faster or slower that any one else's or with any differing priority. Every believer possesses at least one spiritual gift that has been given to them the very moment they trusted Christ. It took the very same amount of grace to save one sinner as it did every other sinner. It required the same blood. Every blessing of salvation that belongs to one believer, belongs to all believers.

But do we all posses the same opportunities to be called to the same functions within that salvation? Many today, believe that verse 28 teaches that we do...


Now there are just two gigantic problems with this reasoning. The first problem is the same problem found in Korah's reasoning. We forget that God is a sovereign God and is able to choose whosoever He wishes or does not wish to choose to accomplish a certain task. The passage here in Galatians 3 does deal with our salvation and the blessings of it, but has absolutely nothing to say about our individual function within that salvation. In context, it is just not there. Those who take this to speak to function have put that interpretation there, but it is not there on its own.

The second giant problem that this conclusion faces is that it directly contradicts the teaching of 1 Timothy 2:9-15. If it is true that Paul writes that men and women can have the same functions in the body of Christ, then somewhere between the writing of Galatians and 1 Timothy, Paul had to change his mind. Now either we declare one or both of these writings to be uninspired (the modern liberal has no problem with that) or we must conclude that the progressive interpretation of Galatians 3 is incorrect.

Now those who argue for the equality of function within the genders will suggest another alternative: change the historical interpretation of 1 Timothy 2. I suggest that the "new" understandings of the intent of Paul, rather of God, expressed in 1 Timothy 2 is quite imaginative, but quite erroneous. For example, some say that Paul never wrote verse 11-15 and are not really part of the inspired text. They believe that these verses were later added by someone trying to force their understanding of the role of women into the Bible. But there is insurmountable manuscript evidence to the contrary, that this is part of the original autographs. Another argument is that this contradicts the teaching of Jesus, therefore, this is Paul's idea or the influence of Paul's rabbinic training and not the mind of God. This argument would continue that Jesus broke down social barriers when He spoke to the Samaritan woman in John 4. In like manner, Jesus had a wonderful ministry with Mary and Martha and many other women along the 3 and one half years of Jesus' public ministry. Since Jesus was unconcerned about social customs, then neither should we when it comes to who can and can not minister in leadership positions. Since Paul's teaching is built around social customs and Jesus didn't care about these, we should disregard Paul's teaching.

A couple of problems can quickly be pointed out about this reasoning. As with the other arguments, whether it desires to or not, this destroys the inspiration of the Scriptures. If by any means Paul was inserting his own background or bias into 1 Timothy 2, then that whole writing is uninspired. Secondly, while Jesus did do many things with women in His public ministry, the are a number of things that He did not do with them. For example, there was not one woman in the apostles nor was any book of the New Testament written by a woman. Along the same lines, it can be noted that the Apostle Paul had a wonderful ministry with women also. The final, and most important rebuttal comes from the 1 Timothy passage itself. The question needs to be asked, "What are the reasons that Paul gives for his prohibitions in this passage?". If they were cultural and culture has changed, then we can "go with the flow" and allow the equality of function. However, if they are given for reasons that are non-cultural and therefore, time enduring, then we can not allow for the equality in function of the genders. We need to examine Paul's reasons.

Before we examine the reasons for Paul's limitations given in this passage, let us first examine the limitations themselves. Paul writes,


While these two verses are generally examined for the prohibitions, we must notice that an exhortation is first given to the women. One tendency over the ages has been that in times where doctrine is discussed, it becomes a subject to belongs exclusively to the men. Paul instructs the women however, to learn. Every one of us, regardless of gender, is called to be a servant of Jesus Christ. Regardless of our specific calling, we are called called to serve. And in our service for Christ, one of the areas that I believe that will be evaluated at the Bema seat of Christ is how those things were done. Not only will we be evaluated on what was done, but how those things were performed. Specifically, were those things done according to the prescription laid out for us in the Word of God. Therefore, the more doctrine we know, the better able we will be to perform the specific duties in the will of God for us. May I say that God wants studious women as well as studious men.

Now we need to understand how the women are to learn. Paul says that they are to learn in silence. This word does not mean that it is not permissible for a woman to say anything or to ask a question. The Greek word that is translated here as "silence" is a word that has the idea of calmness of spirit, a sense of being settled down. It has the idea of not standing up and becoming boisterous. This prohibition of Paul is not violated if a woman should ask a question in a Bible study or give a testimony in a worship service.

The second part of this prohibition is that her learning is to be in all subjection. The word that is used here is a word that means to "rank under another" and generally the ranking is one that is voluntary, not coerced. In other words then, the woman is to be actively involved in learning, but with a spirit of voluntary submissiveness.

The opposite of that is seen in the next verse. There the woman is prohibited from teaching and exercising authority over the men. Once again, the prohibition is not against women teaching in general, but a specific type of teaching. In Paul's day, a teacher is one who taught with authority, who when he expounded his teaching, he expected compliance to it. The student was not free to exercise their will as to whether they would adhere to the teaching. If you wished to continue to follow the teacher, you would need to be obedient to him.

The other prohibition of this verse is that of exercising authority, which is the exact opposite of being in all subjection. The word from which the English words "usurp authority" is translated has an interesting history. The Greek word is the verb authenteo. In the earliest uses of this word it literally meant to take one's life, either your own, or that of another. As the word evolved in its meaning, it came to mean that of exercising authority over somebody, not necessarily to the point of life and death, but simply to exercise control. So the prohibition is clear, the woman is to be a learner but not a teacher over the men. The woman is to be a submitter, not a controller. The question can now be explored as to the reasons for this prohibition. Where they cultural and temporal, or were there other reasons for them that would require their continuance today?

Verse 13 begins the reasons for these prohibitions,


Part of good Bible interpretation is simply asking good questions. When I first came to this verse in my preparation for this subject, I asked myself a very profound question: "So what?". What does Adam's creation have to do with this subject? What difference does it make that Adam was first formed? As I sought for an answer, I discovered that it makes a big difference. The answer to this question is found in 1 Corinthians 11:2-3 where Paul writes,

The term that is translated as "head" is a word that is used to express authority. What Paul is saying is that there exists a divine ranking between the Godhead and creation. God the Father is given the ultimate rank, Jesus Christ the Son is given the second rank. Now understand that this ranking is that which was voluntarily submitted to by Christ. In His pre-incarnate state, Christ was co-equal and co-eternal with the Father, but in the incarnation, He voluntarily subjected Himself to the will of the Father. Paul continues that the head of man is Christ and the head of woman is the man. In the beginning of creation, before sin had entered the world, man and woman were equal on all accounts just as the Father and the Son were equal before the incarnation. Often times the argument is that the genders are not treated with equality, and that may be true in many cases, but not here. The issue is not one of equality of being, but of function.

Paul goes on to write about the expression of submission. In his day, submission to authority was expressed by covering one's head, usually with a shawl. The woman by covering her head indicated her voluntary subjection to her husband. But as the idea of being equal in Christ became known, the idea also spread that equality of being erased subjection and submission. The women of Corinth were now wanting to remove the head covering, not because of fashion, but because they wanted to remove the headship of man. Paul writes that they are not to do that. He continues in verse 7,


Now remember Genesis 1:26; God created male and female in His image and likeness. There is equality there, both being created in God's image and likeness. But remember how God created them. When God created man, He took of the dust of the ground and molded it and shaped it and then breathed into it the breath of life and man became a living soul. But when God wanted to create the woman, He used a different method of creation. If He had wanted, He could have taken another handful of the dust of the ground and done exactly what He did to form man, but instead He chose to take of man's side and created woman from man. Man was the direct creation of God and consequently bears His glory, but woman was the indirect creation of God in that God made her from man and thereby, she bears man's glory. I remind you, this has nothing to do with equality, but God, with His divine prerogatives, sovereignly chose to create mankind in this order and fashion. This is what verse 8 concludes,

Paul then adds another point about God's creative purposes,

Before Eve was created, God said, "It is not good that man be alone", and so He created woman. Now had God created woman first, He might not have had to make the opposite announcement. But the fact is that He did create man first and part of the reason for woman's creation was to fill a need in man. To many today, this sounds almost blasphemous, at the very least a great insult to the dignity of women. Nothing could be further from the truth. All this is, is a God intended sphere of ministry for the woman. Adam was created first then Eve. That is extremely significant.

In verse 14 of 1 Timothy 2, Paul gives a second reason for the limitation on the ministry of women, that being that in the original temptation of mankind by Satan, it was the woman who was deceived.


When sin entered into the world, the first one to fail the test was the woman. This does not mean that there was any difference in guilt between Adam and Eve. Verse 14 does not say that Adam was not in the transgression. Adam was in the transgression just as much as Eve was, they were equally guilty. This verse, though, revolves around the word "deceived". Adam was not deceived, Eve was. The original language marks a further distinction between Adam and Eve. The root verb that is translated "deceived" is the same for them both, but when the word is used for Eve, there is a preposition added to the beginning of the verb, which acts to intensify the action of the verb. In order to capture the color of this verse, we might translate it this way, "Adam was not deceived at all, but the woman being thoroughly deceived, was in the transgression." When Eve took of that fruit and ate of it, she didn't know which end was up. She was in the transgression being thoroughly confused. Adam however, was in the transgression knowing exactly what he was doing.

Now notice one other oddity of this passage. In verse 13, the given names of Adam and Eve are used. Likewise, in the beginning of verse 14, Adam's given name is used, but when Paul comes to Eve, he doesn't use her given name but calls her "the woman". Why did not Paul use Eve's name here? Some have suggested, and while there is no way to affirmatively conclude this, I think it nonetheless is a reasonable possibility, that the possibility of being more easily deceived is a characteristic of the female gender that is there by the intentional creation design, not flaw, of God, in the same manner that it was not good for man to be alone and needed the woman. This does not mean that every woman individually, is more easily deceived than the man, but as a whole, because of their physiological creative design, women are more easily deceived. Whether this is true or not is debatable. But there is one fact that is undebatable. Because of their sin, both Adam and Eve suffered consequences. The consequence to the woman was that God said her desire would be to her husband and that he would rule over her. In that judgment, God gave a divine order or economy of the household. The equality of being between the genders was never disturbed, only the authoritative order. To conclude this prohibition then, Paul says that the women is to learn in a controlled and submissive fashion, not teaching in an authoritative manner nor exercising authority over the men because that was not part of the creative order of God and a consequence of the sinful disorder of man.

At this point many women will more than likely feel like Korah, Dathan and Abiram in that, with these prohibitions, there is not a possibility of doing anything of importance for Christ. Paul now addresses that issue in verse 15. He concludes,


This verse has been given at least four major explanations, three of which I believe are incorrect. The first explanation is that of the Roman Catholic church. They posit that according to this verse, God gives grace in childbearing which leads towards salvation. Childbearing has become one of the 7 sacraments of the Roman church. After all, the verse does say that she shall be saved in childbearing. It is obvious that this interpretation totally contradicts Ephesians 2:8-9 where we are told that our salvation is not of our works but by God's grace. What would be the condition of he woman who was physically unable to bear children? Would she then be unable to enter heaven?

A second explanation that is given is that this word "saved" does not refer to a spiritual salvation, but a physical one. The salvation then, that is afforded, is protection from harm or even death in the process of bearing children. A quick check of reality will tell us that this is not so. Even with all the technological advantages of our day, the are still, from time to time, those who die in childbirth. Even godly women die giving birth such as Rachel, in giving birth to Benjamin.

Probably the most common explanation of this verse is that this is prophetic, speaking of Christ. Genesis 3:15 speaks of the Messiah as being the seed of the woman, and that salvation would then come through the woman. But there are a couple of problems to this interpretation. First, the salvation is future tense, "she shall be saved". When Paul wrote this letter, Jesus Christ had already come and gone to Calvary's cross and salvation was already accomplished. In fact, about 30 years have transpired since the earthly ministry of Christ when Paul writes this. Secondly, a condition is attached to the salvation. The condition is that the woman shall be saved if "they", that is, the children continue in those virtues. If the child that is born is a reference to Christ, then there must be more than one Christ, or Paul got the wrong pronoun, he should have used he instead of they.

What then is the woman saved from? May I suggest that she is saved from a uselessness in the divine plan of God. If the woman is not permitted to teach authoritatively or exercise authority what can she do? Like the Levites who said that all that they could do was that menial task of picking up the tabernacle, and carrying the tabernacle, and putting down the tabernacle, and setting up the tabernacle, and of what benefit was that. The benefit was that it provided a place for the priest to perform their function without which, the people of Israel would have been lost. In the same way, the Christian woman, in raising godly children, is training the leaders of tomorrow, without which, the church of Jesus Christ will be apostate. Tell me that is not a meaningful job. What we find then, is not a limitation, but an exaltation in the sphere of ministry that is God-given to the woman.

God was angry with the Levites who rebelled against their God-ordained functions in the ministry of the nation of Israel. So angry was He, that He consumed them in judgment. It is a sorry thing to say, but many Christian women today are also rebelling against the God-ordained roles they have by neglecting their responsibilities as a mom, while seeking those offices to which they are not called of God.

I conclude with this thought. Restrictions can be thought of as a limitation of one's freedom. However, they may not necessarily be so. Train tracks do restrict where a train may go but in doing so, they provide the train with the greatest opportunity to accomplish that for which it was created, to go from one place to another. The restrictions of 1 Timothy 2 may seem like a limitation on the capabilities of a woman, but in reality, they are the means of her accomplishing what God created her to do for His glory.