Two Views on Women in Ministry Quotes

“the Bible permits women’s ministry under normal circumstances and prohibits it only under exceptional circumstances. Because Paul’s letters to Timothy address a specific situation”
― James R. Beck, Two Views on Women in Ministry

“Close to half my students in one class in northern Nigeria, where head coverings are part of the culture, held this view, so after they had finished debating with the other half, I asked why none of them had greeted me with a holy kiss—and they laughed! The holy kiss is an explicit command repeated in Scripture five times as often as head coverings (Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:26; 1 Pet. 5:14), but the usual response is, “That was merely a cultural form of greeting.” Indeed it was, but covering the head (technically, all the hair) was also merely a cultural expression of sexual modesty, as can be demonstrated from a massive number of ancient sources.26Yet a few of my students bordered on calling other students “liberal” because they did not insist on head coverings as a transcultural requirement! Who determines where to draw the line? Is everyone liberal who holds as cultural something we hold as transcultural?”
― James R. Beck, Two Views on Women in Ministry

“it is a bit disingenuous for anyone, complementarian or egalitarian, to protest that a certain view cannot be true because it reflects a small, minority perspective in church history. By that logic, the Reformation could never have been justified; by that logic, slavery could never have been abolished. What must prove ultimately decisive for establishing any Protestant evangelical doctrine is the most accurate synthesis of biblical teaching possible, irrespective of where this puts an individual on any theological or historical spectrum.”
― James R. Beck, Two Views on Women in Ministry

“At the same time, I recognize that equally godly scholars who are equally committed to the inerrancy of the Bible come to different conclusions because of the complexity of the data.”
― James R. Beck, Two Views on Women in Ministry