The Bible and Gender Troubles: American Evangelicals Debate Scripture and Submission
In my church back home, sometimes Sunday school meets in the auditorium, the same place we meet for church service and worship. One day we were studying The DaVinci Code and discussing the theory it presents about patriarchal society and the role that played in writing the Bible. Since men wrote the Bible, did they write in a few things to keep women in check?
I don't really buy it, since scripture was inspired, but it is something to think about.
Anyways....
The class that day was normal, both men and women raising their hands to share questions and comments. Then a woman raised her hand to ask, "How come I can raise my hand and speak in this class, but as a woman, in this same room, in a few minutes I won't be able to speak?"
To which my preacher only offered, "That's a good question."
There are lots of Scriptures pointing either way, so I'm not going to drag a verse in here to try to make a point. The Bible is kinda foggy on this subject. So we depend on the leaders of our church to guide us. They just happen to be men.
But we have to ask ourselves. Does God see a difference with worship in a church setting and Sunday school (in that same settting) or even a Lipscomb classroom? Are women incompetent to hold discussions, lead prayer, offer ideas, lead singing and serve communion? Does God accept women's prayers if they're only surrounded by other women, but not if men are present? Aren't all of our actions and our lives fully supposed to be spent in worship?
In that case. Someone shut me up so God doesn't hear.
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I think that God clearly says that deacons and elders are to be men. ("Husbands of only one wife." 1 Timothy 3:2) But I do not think that this says anything about women speaking in the church. 1 Corinthians 11 talks about order in worship, "the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man." "Head" here means "source of." Man is "the image and glory of God" while women are "the glory of man." God has placed certain obligations on the man and the woman to be in submission to each other. Just because they have different roles, does not mean that they are not equal. There are different roles in the Trinity, and although the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all equal, Jesus submits to the Father. In the same way women are to submit to their husbands, but they are in no way beneath them. Therefore I do not believe that God thinks less of women or does not think they should speak or pray in the presence of men.
ReplyDeleteIn that same passage in Timothy, Paul addresses the women/wives, the translations is ambiguous because the Greek word can mean either. Phoebe is called a servant (deacon) in Romans 16. Were women deacons in the early church? In the 1 Corinthians 11 passage, Paul instructs women who are praying to do so with their head covered. Presumably this is part of the public worship and presumably women are vocalizing. Philip had four unmarried daughters who prophesied (Acts 21), Euodia and Syntyche accompanied Paul on his missionary journey and threatened teh peace in Philippi (Phil. 4:2), and Junia, along with HER brother, was called outstanding among the apostles (Rom. 16:7). Was she an apostle or simply someone one recognized by the apostles as extraordinary? Without ever considering issues of interpretation of difficult passages and of cultural differences, the above texts reinforce the questions posed by Sydney in her original post.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what the right answer is. Traditionally, men have always led the "church of Christ" church. But God tells us that we are all equal.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite female character in the Bible is Esther. She was a queen that saved an entire nation by risking her own life. If God wanted a woman to save His peope "for such a time as this"...why would He be opposed to women leading in the church? As far back as I can remember, the most influential teachers at my church were women but they taught an all girls class. I do agree that women connect and can relate to women better and vice versa for men. There are times, however, that the wiser person in a situation is a woman.
Personally, I might find it strange if a woman led prayer at church just because I'm not used to it. I think that all people have something to contribute to the church. I just don't know what God wants each of us to contribute.
Ok here is what I have been thinking for awhile—just my thoughts mind you. It seems to me that at the time of writing of the verses on women keeping silent in the church, women pretty much kept silent everywhere else too. A grandmother was generally honored less than a son, unless she was very lucky to have been blessed with a good family. A normal woman had no rights in ancient society unless she had a husband, and no rights at all if he left her or decided to beat her every day were he so inclined. As much as we may not like to admit our “barbaric” roots, this was still what was the societal norm in the time of Christ. (And may I mention did not change until only within the last couple of centuries, and still remains the same in much of the world.) With this point in mind, that women were treated as describe above and expected to accept their role in society, it seems ridiculous to me to think that Christianity could have possibly been a viable religion with women as its head leaders in ancient times. Let me use a crude example from our not so distant past—what if slaves were the heads of Christianity in America during the pre-civil war times? It simply would not have worked to further Christianity in the world as a whole.
ReplyDeleteThis is my opinion: Paul forbade women to take on active vocal roles in the leadership of worship in the early church in order to “keep the peace” between Christianity and the society it was set in. Thus I believe this law is societal in nature.
If you have an issue with saying that this forbidding of women’s activity in worship is societal, then let us ignore it. Lets embrace all directions of the New Testament, and try to do worship and behave exactly as the first century Christians were instructed to. We would be prophesying and speaking in tongues, not to mention selling everything that we own in order to form communes. By Paul’s instructions, it would be okay to own slaves as long as we treated them well (which likely means giving them at least one meal a day and the opportunity to buy their freedom when they are too old to work anymore). We would also make our women cover their head during worship, and if they do not then we would shave all of their heads (see 1 Cor. 11:3-10). We should also require that men uncover their heads during prayer and prophesy, and have short hair, and count it to them as sin if they do not follow this direct instruction from God’s ordained writer Paul. Do you know why this is likely something that you have either never heard of or heard preached on? Because long ago, in a century far far away, a group of “righteous” male leaders decided that this rule, so bluntly stated in the instpired word of God, is based on a society that they were not a part of –and thus it did not apply to Christians anymore. This whole societal-based interpretation is something that is not new—it is accepted and widespread.
All of these examples are in the Bible, believe it or not—and it seems very hypocritical to claim that we as the Church of Christ “are just trying to do church like the first century Christians did church”, if we are not set on following every single guideline and example of behavior to the T—that means including absolutely everything.
Let me ask you: Is it okay to have slaves today? Paul obviously is okay with it, thus it is not sin to force another soul to do your bidding for their entire lives without the ability to choose if they want to. Is it a sin for a woman to pray with her head uncovered? In Paul’s eyes, I would say that if she did that she would be going against his teaching, and thus guilty of sin—as would the man who prayed with his hat on or dreadlocks flowing—which would likely need to be repented of and confessed. Read your Bible—this is what is in it.
So I have to ask myself—since in our world today it is obviously accepted as a sin to have a slave and not a sin for a woman to have a bare-head in prayer—why is it that in this same world a woman can be president but she cannot teach or preach or lead singing or pray or serve communion or even ask questions in worship? If you can give me a straight faced, no-bull answer that is not based on the way your grandparents did church or some societal brainwashing scheme, I would love to hear it.