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Women, Authority and the Bible
Evangelicals have reached a critical impasse. Advocates of more traditional roles for women say the heart of the matter is biblical authority. Those supporting more open roles say the crux is not biblical authority but biblical interpretation and application.
What are the real issues in this controversy?
How can we make sense out of key passages in 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians and 1 Timothy?
How can legitimate change be encouraged in the church?
How can we keep in mind that the decisions we reach affect living, breathing human beings?
The twenty-six evangelical leaders represented here, all participants in the Evangelical Colloquium on Women and the Bible, ask the hard questions about women's roles. Not all of them agree on everything. But they do agree that we must begin with the question, "What does the Bible teach?" They also agree that too often poor exegesis has been used to advocate positions on either side. Here support for women's ministry allies itself with scholarly rigor in the effort to break new ground. Essential reading for all concerned about women in the church.
What are the real issues in this controversy?
How can we make sense out of key passages in 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians and 1 Timothy?
How can legitimate change be encouraged in the church?
How can we keep in mind that the decisions we reach affect living, breathing human beings?
The twenty-six evangelical leaders represented here, all participants in the Evangelical Colloquium on Women and the Bible, ask the hard questions about women's roles. Not all of them agree on everything. But they do agree that we must begin with the question, "What does the Bible teach?" They also agree that too often poor exegesis has been used to advocate positions on either side. Here support for women's ministry allies itself with scholarly rigor in the effort to break new ground. Essential reading for all concerned about women in the church.
- GenresTheology
304 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1986
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June 10, 2024
PAPERS FROM A 1984 COLLOQUIUM ADDRESSING ‘BOTH SIDES’ OF THESE QUESTIONS
The introductory page of this 1986 book explains, “The essays and responses contained here were selected from those presented at the Evangelical Colloquium on Women and the Bible held October 9-11, 1984, in Oak Brook, Illinois. Thirty-six evangelical leaders attended the three-day colloquium, which was open by invitation only, in hopes of furthering dialog and the biblical and hermeneutical issues surrounding women in ministry. Catherine Clark Kroeger, David M. Scholer and Stanley N. Gundry were the conference conveners.”
Patricia Gundry explains in the opening chapter, “Everywhere I go, women … come to me and tell me their stories. I am quite sure that most of the people in their churches do not know how difficult things are for these women. They have no one to tell. They even suspect that something is wrong with THEM. Like the child who naively believes that his parent abuses him because he is bad, they suspect they are in the wrong somehow, even though all they know of themselves, the Bible and God as friend and Father tells them otherwise… Why am I telling you all this? … I am telling you this because I want you to know how crucially important you are to freeing women here and now…” (Pg. 14, 16) She adds, “I am not asking you to defend, protect and free facts and ideas, but living, breathing women. They are the sheep of your pasture. Help them be fed the truth… If women are fully human, then help distinguish between inspiration and interpretation, between cultural and temporal instruction and divine and eternal principle, between doctrinal and practical, between then and now...” (Pg. 20-21)
Gretchen Gaebelin Hull acknowledges, “Yes, the Pauline ‘hard passages’ ARE a genuine problem that needs our full attention. But those who affirm the efficacy of Christ’s redemptive act must reject the traditionalist approach because it leaves WOMEN ONLY on a works basis, salvation through role, and creates for women only this dreadful uncertainty: ‘If I, a woman, am so flawed that Christ cannot or will not save me fully in this life, how can I be sure of my completed salvation in the next?’” (Pg. 26)
Roger Nicole states, “The most acute type of conflict is apparent when people understand the Bible as a sharply restrictive book… projecting an image of women that is clearly unacceptable to those who espouse feminism… This view ignores that fact that the Bible clearly stands for the improvement of the status of women as compared with the prevailing attitudes found in the surrounding social structures at the time of its writing. Specifically, the standing of women among the Jewish people was more favorable than in some other contemporary nations… The rabbinic outlook, developed after the close of the canon, does not do justice to the ennobling elements presented in the Hebrew Scriptures. Furthermore, the New Testament---particularly the teaching and practice of Jesus---lifts womanhood to new heights.” (Pg. 42-43)
Clark Pinnock argues, “I have come to believe that a case for feminism that appeals to the canon of Scripture as it stands can only hesitantly be made and that a communication of it to evangelicals at large is unlikely to be very effective. Biblical feminism… may have to be satisfied with the role of introducing into the traditional thinking some liberating insights… I would not expect my opinion to be welcomed in the circles of modern feminism… So I would not expect the feminist ideologues to be warm toward my suggestion that we may have to content ourselves with a modified patriarchalism…” (Pg. 57)
Richard N. Longenecker notes, “The attitude of Jesus toward women … is different from that of his contemporaries, whether Greek or Jewish… He had women followers who learned from him, traveled with him at times and supported him financially… He frequently ministered to women… Many rabbis of the day doubted the ability of women to learn Torah and depreciated their worth. Jesus’ attitude was totally different… Jesus imparted to women a new dignity and role. In so doing he set a pattern for all his followers.” (Pg. 71-72)
He continues, “A fundamental axiom of Christianity is the integral relation of Old and New Testaments. But… while insisting on continuity, we must also affirm development… a developmental hermeneutic is important for an understanding of both Christian theology and Christian ethics… I would identify four implications of such a hermeneutic … [First] a functional hierarchy is not necessarily fixed, particularly when redemptive concerns overshadow what is true because of creation… both creation categories and redemption categories must be taken into account… with priority given to the latter. A second implication … is to begin the study … at the point where progressive revelation has reached its zenith, that is, in the ministry of Jesus… Third… to distinguish between (1) what the New Testament proclaims about new life in Christ, and (2)… how that proclamation was practiced in the first century… A fourth factor involves the effect of circumstances on Christians of the first century… their preaching and teaching … was expressed in the … circumstances they inherited and faced.” (Pg. 81-84)
The response to Longenecker by Marianne Meye Thompson notes, “Longenecker assumes that ‘headship’ implies hierarchy… But numerous commentators … believe that ‘kephale’ means … something more like ‘source'; as in ‘headwaters’… [in] Genesis 2… woman is taken out of man, and so is her ‘source’… In Ephesians 5:22-24… Longenecker points to… ‘subordination and submission’ … But there is a very close connection between verse 22... and verse 21 with its exhortation to MUTUAL submission…” (Pg. 91-92)
Berkeley & Alvera Mickelsen point out that “About 180 times, the Hebrew word ‘rosh,’ meaning ‘head’… refers to … a chief man, chief city, chief nation… Septuagint translators used fourteen different Greek words to translate ‘rosh’… ‘Kephale’ would have been the natural word to use in all 180 instances if the word had been commonly understood to mean ‘leader or chief.’ Its rare usage indicates that translators knew that ‘kephale’ did not commonly carry this meaning.” (Pg. 102-104)
Walter L. Liefeld states, “the Corinthians [in 11:2-16] were… allowing women to prophesy. There can be little doubt that this was a church meeting since Paul has already spoken of the Lord’s Table… Therefore attempts to explain away the public prophetic ministry of women in church are unconvincing.” (Pg. 136-137)
Klyne R. Snodgrass suggests that Galatians 3:28 “points to something new established by Christ for each category, and each statement reacts against the old valuations. Gentiles, slaves, and women are granted access and standing in Christ … with the same valuation, privileges and responsibilities as Jewish and free men… justice must be done to the newness proclaimed in Galatians 3:28… we err greatly if we do not insist on equal standing for women with men in Christ… Galatians 3:28 prohibits the valuations and divisions of the old order and insists on equal standing and unity in Christ.” (Pg. 178, 180)
W. Ward Gasque argues, “what about the apparent contradiction between the affirmation of women’s equality in Galatians 3:28 and the apparent limitation of women’s freedom in passages such as 1 Corinthians 11 and 14 and 1 Timothy 2? The answer is rather simple: the danger for the church in Paul’s day lay in the exact opposite direction from the church in our day, that is, there was the danger that it might press the principle of Christian freedom too far. Rather than defending the status quo… the first-century church called into question many of the fundamental structures of contemporary society. First-century Christians might… push their new-found freedom to extremes. Liberty might easily degenerate into license.” (Pg. 191)
David M. Scholer says of 1 Timothy 2:9-15 that “if Paul’s purpose was to stop heretical teaching within the church’s worship, then the male false teachers should have been included within the injunctions of 2:11-12… Nevertheless, the context of 1 and 2 Timothy suggests that the women involved were special targets of the male false teachers and were probably used by them as a means of infiltration. Certainly Paul does not condone or ignore false teachers simply because they are men… The abuses of men are handled elsewhere in the letter.” (Pg. 204)
J.I. Packer summarizes, “First, the colloquium suffered from the built-in awkwardness of a double-barreled agenda. On the one hand, we were begged to … strateg[ize] to help the many gifted and godly women who have been hurt by the restrictions and put-downs of pseudo-Christian legalism in … church order… Second…I think the New Testament papers … make it evident that the burden of proof regarding the exclusion of women from the office of teaching and ruling within the congregation now lies on those who maintain the exclusion rather than on those who challenge it… Third, while I am not keen on ‘hierarchy’ and ‘patriarchy’ as terms describing the man-woman relationship in Scripture… [various passages] continue to convince me that the man-woman relationship is intrinsically irreversible.” (Pg. 298-299)
This collection of essays will be of keen interest to those Christians studying male/female issues in the church.
The introductory page of this 1986 book explains, “The essays and responses contained here were selected from those presented at the Evangelical Colloquium on Women and the Bible held October 9-11, 1984, in Oak Brook, Illinois. Thirty-six evangelical leaders attended the three-day colloquium, which was open by invitation only, in hopes of furthering dialog and the biblical and hermeneutical issues surrounding women in ministry. Catherine Clark Kroeger, David M. Scholer and Stanley N. Gundry were the conference conveners.”
Patricia Gundry explains in the opening chapter, “Everywhere I go, women … come to me and tell me their stories. I am quite sure that most of the people in their churches do not know how difficult things are for these women. They have no one to tell. They even suspect that something is wrong with THEM. Like the child who naively believes that his parent abuses him because he is bad, they suspect they are in the wrong somehow, even though all they know of themselves, the Bible and God as friend and Father tells them otherwise… Why am I telling you all this? … I am telling you this because I want you to know how crucially important you are to freeing women here and now…” (Pg. 14, 16) She adds, “I am not asking you to defend, protect and free facts and ideas, but living, breathing women. They are the sheep of your pasture. Help them be fed the truth… If women are fully human, then help distinguish between inspiration and interpretation, between cultural and temporal instruction and divine and eternal principle, between doctrinal and practical, between then and now...” (Pg. 20-21)
Gretchen Gaebelin Hull acknowledges, “Yes, the Pauline ‘hard passages’ ARE a genuine problem that needs our full attention. But those who affirm the efficacy of Christ’s redemptive act must reject the traditionalist approach because it leaves WOMEN ONLY on a works basis, salvation through role, and creates for women only this dreadful uncertainty: ‘If I, a woman, am so flawed that Christ cannot or will not save me fully in this life, how can I be sure of my completed salvation in the next?’” (Pg. 26)
Roger Nicole states, “The most acute type of conflict is apparent when people understand the Bible as a sharply restrictive book… projecting an image of women that is clearly unacceptable to those who espouse feminism… This view ignores that fact that the Bible clearly stands for the improvement of the status of women as compared with the prevailing attitudes found in the surrounding social structures at the time of its writing. Specifically, the standing of women among the Jewish people was more favorable than in some other contemporary nations… The rabbinic outlook, developed after the close of the canon, does not do justice to the ennobling elements presented in the Hebrew Scriptures. Furthermore, the New Testament---particularly the teaching and practice of Jesus---lifts womanhood to new heights.” (Pg. 42-43)
Clark Pinnock argues, “I have come to believe that a case for feminism that appeals to the canon of Scripture as it stands can only hesitantly be made and that a communication of it to evangelicals at large is unlikely to be very effective. Biblical feminism… may have to be satisfied with the role of introducing into the traditional thinking some liberating insights… I would not expect my opinion to be welcomed in the circles of modern feminism… So I would not expect the feminist ideologues to be warm toward my suggestion that we may have to content ourselves with a modified patriarchalism…” (Pg. 57)
Richard N. Longenecker notes, “The attitude of Jesus toward women … is different from that of his contemporaries, whether Greek or Jewish… He had women followers who learned from him, traveled with him at times and supported him financially… He frequently ministered to women… Many rabbis of the day doubted the ability of women to learn Torah and depreciated their worth. Jesus’ attitude was totally different… Jesus imparted to women a new dignity and role. In so doing he set a pattern for all his followers.” (Pg. 71-72)
He continues, “A fundamental axiom of Christianity is the integral relation of Old and New Testaments. But… while insisting on continuity, we must also affirm development… a developmental hermeneutic is important for an understanding of both Christian theology and Christian ethics… I would identify four implications of such a hermeneutic … [First] a functional hierarchy is not necessarily fixed, particularly when redemptive concerns overshadow what is true because of creation… both creation categories and redemption categories must be taken into account… with priority given to the latter. A second implication … is to begin the study … at the point where progressive revelation has reached its zenith, that is, in the ministry of Jesus… Third… to distinguish between (1) what the New Testament proclaims about new life in Christ, and (2)… how that proclamation was practiced in the first century… A fourth factor involves the effect of circumstances on Christians of the first century… their preaching and teaching … was expressed in the … circumstances they inherited and faced.” (Pg. 81-84)
The response to Longenecker by Marianne Meye Thompson notes, “Longenecker assumes that ‘headship’ implies hierarchy… But numerous commentators … believe that ‘kephale’ means … something more like ‘source'; as in ‘headwaters’… [in] Genesis 2… woman is taken out of man, and so is her ‘source’… In Ephesians 5:22-24… Longenecker points to… ‘subordination and submission’ … But there is a very close connection between verse 22... and verse 21 with its exhortation to MUTUAL submission…” (Pg. 91-92)
Berkeley & Alvera Mickelsen point out that “About 180 times, the Hebrew word ‘rosh,’ meaning ‘head’… refers to … a chief man, chief city, chief nation… Septuagint translators used fourteen different Greek words to translate ‘rosh’… ‘Kephale’ would have been the natural word to use in all 180 instances if the word had been commonly understood to mean ‘leader or chief.’ Its rare usage indicates that translators knew that ‘kephale’ did not commonly carry this meaning.” (Pg. 102-104)
Walter L. Liefeld states, “the Corinthians [in 11:2-16] were… allowing women to prophesy. There can be little doubt that this was a church meeting since Paul has already spoken of the Lord’s Table… Therefore attempts to explain away the public prophetic ministry of women in church are unconvincing.” (Pg. 136-137)
Klyne R. Snodgrass suggests that Galatians 3:28 “points to something new established by Christ for each category, and each statement reacts against the old valuations. Gentiles, slaves, and women are granted access and standing in Christ … with the same valuation, privileges and responsibilities as Jewish and free men… justice must be done to the newness proclaimed in Galatians 3:28… we err greatly if we do not insist on equal standing for women with men in Christ… Galatians 3:28 prohibits the valuations and divisions of the old order and insists on equal standing and unity in Christ.” (Pg. 178, 180)
W. Ward Gasque argues, “what about the apparent contradiction between the affirmation of women’s equality in Galatians 3:28 and the apparent limitation of women’s freedom in passages such as 1 Corinthians 11 and 14 and 1 Timothy 2? The answer is rather simple: the danger for the church in Paul’s day lay in the exact opposite direction from the church in our day, that is, there was the danger that it might press the principle of Christian freedom too far. Rather than defending the status quo… the first-century church called into question many of the fundamental structures of contemporary society. First-century Christians might… push their new-found freedom to extremes. Liberty might easily degenerate into license.” (Pg. 191)
David M. Scholer says of 1 Timothy 2:9-15 that “if Paul’s purpose was to stop heretical teaching within the church’s worship, then the male false teachers should have been included within the injunctions of 2:11-12… Nevertheless, the context of 1 and 2 Timothy suggests that the women involved were special targets of the male false teachers and were probably used by them as a means of infiltration. Certainly Paul does not condone or ignore false teachers simply because they are men… The abuses of men are handled elsewhere in the letter.” (Pg. 204)
J.I. Packer summarizes, “First, the colloquium suffered from the built-in awkwardness of a double-barreled agenda. On the one hand, we were begged to … strateg[ize] to help the many gifted and godly women who have been hurt by the restrictions and put-downs of pseudo-Christian legalism in … church order… Second…I think the New Testament papers … make it evident that the burden of proof regarding the exclusion of women from the office of teaching and ruling within the congregation now lies on those who maintain the exclusion rather than on those who challenge it… Third, while I am not keen on ‘hierarchy’ and ‘patriarchy’ as terms describing the man-woman relationship in Scripture… [various passages] continue to convince me that the man-woman relationship is intrinsically irreversible.” (Pg. 298-299)
This collection of essays will be of keen interest to those Christians studying male/female issues in the church.
December 28, 2022
One of the more helpful books for studying egalitarian arguments in their own words. Even though the book is dated, you still see it referenced in current books attempting to defend egalitarianism. A helpful resource for complementarians to use in researching this issue.
March 2, 2012
This is one of the most encouraging books I've read in a long time. Many women feel the call to teach and preach the Bible, but are told they can't because women are not allowed to do such things. This book challenges that conventional wisdom, but in a way that is so historically and Biblically based, those who would deny its conclusions must nitpick, or simply agree to disagree on exegesis.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews