Women and Church Leadership

Transcription

1 Women and Church Leadership ML508 LESSON 3 of 13 Dr. Alice Matthews Academic Dean- Christian University GlobalNet Introduction When I was young, my pastor occasionally preached from the parables of Jesus, but otherwise his sermons came from the letters by the apostle Paul. There was and still is an unspoken hermeneutical principle in some groups that the gospels are to be read through Paul. That is, that Paul s writings are the base standard and the Gospels are interpreted in the light of the Pauline letters. Yet to overlook the teachings and actions of our Lord Jesus Christ in His earthly ministry is to miss much of the Word of God Himself. The simple fact is that while the apostle Paul scandalized certain Jewish Christians with his insistence on the uncompromising acceptance of Gentile Christians, our Lord Jesus scandalized his contemporaries by wholeheartedly affirming the gifts and personhood of women, even women thought to be unclean. Jesus showed little regard for the Levitical codes that forbad a person from touching or being touched by an unclean woman (Leviticus 15:25-31). He drank from the cup of a Samaritan woman (John 4:1ff.). He commended the faith of the hemorrhaging woman who reached out to touch him (Luke 8:40-47). He refused to rebuke the woman of the streets who burst into Simon the Pharisee s house and lavished kisses on Jesus, much to Simon s chagrin (Luke 7:36-50). He declared that prostitutes understand more about the nature of God s kingdom than do men learned in the Law (Matthew 21:31-32). In all of these instances, we see antecedents to what Peter learned in Acts 10:15. What God has made clean, you have no right to call unclean. 1 of 11

2 I. The process we will follow in this third lecture-segment To get at Jesus teachings and actions in the Gospels, we will look at 11 different passages of Scripture. I will give you the reference. Then I want you to pause this lecture-segment, read that passage, then think about what it might teach about women their nature, their roles, their callings, whatever. Consider each passage in the light of the religious and social culture of Palestine in the first century (to the extent that you know anything about it). You may want to research life in first-century Palestine, especially for women, to help you understand the cultural expectations and limitations placed upon them. Then go to your Online Blog/ Journal and write what you think Jesus is stating or implying in this passage that says something about women. After you ve made your written notes in your Blog/Journal, you can continue with the lecture-segment in which I will point out a few relevant details in the text. Then repeat the same process for the next assigned passage of Scripture. In essence, this lecture segment is your opportunity to explore the question of Jesus interactions with women and His statements about women during His earthly ministry. You will do the Bible study, looking at my notes only after you ve written in your Blog/Journal. 1. Open and read Luke 10:38-42, then pause this lecture-segment as you study the passage and note your reflections in your Blog/Journal. When you finish writing your notes in your Blog/Journal, compare your notes to the following notes from various biblical scholars: To sit at someone s feet is the position of the receptive disciple (see Acts 22:3). It was the posture typical of rabbinic students expressing respect for their rabbi. In this passage, we see Mary take that position, unusual and presumptuous for a woman and generally disapproved. Martha fulfills the role of homemaker, busy with pots and pans and getting increasingly exasperated with her sister. Martha s indignation was completely understandable in the light of her culture. As a woman, she was exempt from rabbinic training and received no merit from learning the Law. Mary definitely overstepped her established role in society when she sat down beside the men to learn from Jesus. The men may have wondered what she was doing there! How did Jesus respond to that situation in the light of the educational assumptions of His time? When Martha 2 of 11

3 appealed to Jesus to send Mary to the kitchen where she belonged, Jesus reply was completely unexpected. He refused to send Mary away, but said that she had made a good decision of lasting value. In that statement, He turned upside-down the role traditionally assigned to her as a woman. Jesus would not allow Martha or anyone else to stop Mary from learning as His male students learned. Jesus actions said something about roles. Martha s problem was not entirely of her own making. She was part of a society that relegated women to a fixed inferior role from which escape was almost impossible. The do s and don ts were well defined. It s possible that the men present that day shared Martha s feelings: A woman should not sit at a rabbi s feet and learn theology. But in that scene Jesus revealed a lot about His view of women: They are intelligent persons who can understand His teachings as well as men can. In Deuteronomy 31:12, the Mosaic law stated, Gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the Lord your God and carefully observe all the words of this law. It was always God s purpose that women as well as men would hear and study God s law. In New Testament Judaism, as practiced by the scribes and Pharisees, women were held responsible for the evil in the world. For that reason, they were strictly segregated from the social and religious life of their communities. They were considered to be inferior and unteachable creatures, and they were mercilessly oppressed within the seclusion of their fathers or husbands homes. The rabbis were clear about the danger of letting women learn. Rabbi Eleazer declared, If any man gives his daughter a knowledge of the Law, it is as though he taught her lechery (m. Sota 3:4). Jose ben Johnan of Jerusalem declared, He who talks much with womankind brings evil upon himself and neglects the study of the law and at the last will inherit Gehenna (m. Abot 1:5). So much for the Mosaic law command that women as well as men should know God s law! Check your written observations in your Blog/Journal alongside the above bullet points from various scholars. Jot down what you think is the bottom-line teaching of this passage in Luke 10: of 11

4 2. Open and read Luke 11:27-28, and then pause this lecturesegment as you study the passage and note your reflections in your Blog/Journal. Think about this question: What is Jesus challenging here in these two verses? Jot your notes in your Blog/Journal. When you ve finished, consider these points: Jesus challenged the commonly held view that bearing children, particularly sons, was the fulfillment of a woman s life. In that culture (as in many cultures today), absence of children was considered a great misfortune for a woman, often thought to be a divine punishment for some sin she committed. A fruitful womb was a sign of God s blessing; the barren womb was a sign of God s curse. But Jesus said, Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God and keep it! What matters more than childbearing is our response to the Word of God. Being one who hears and practices God s Word is more important even than being the mother of Jesus. With this one statement Jesus catapulted women, along with men, to the cutting edge of God s program for the redemption of the world. New creation by the Word, not procreation by the womb, is the fulfillment of female personhood, as it is for men. 3. Open and read Mark 3:32-35, and then pause this lecture-segment as you study the passage and note your reflections in your Blog/ Journal. This passage is similar to the previous one you studied. Are there additional insights here that could be important? Write out your reflections on this passage in your Blog/Journal. Jesus identified those who followed him as His true relatives. His true mother and sisters and brothers are those who do the will of the Father in heaven. This family includes anyone who meets the condition of obedience. Note that Mark didn t merely use the word brothers generically, as is sometimes the case in the New Testament. He specifically included sisters. It is unlikely that Mark would have referred to women among Jesus followers/ disciples unless it was strongly rooted in the minds of the early Christians. 4. Open and read John 4:3-36, then pause this lecture-segment as you study the passage and note your reflections in your 4 of 11

5 Blog/Journal. After you study this chapter and write your reflections in your Blog/Journal, consider these points and questions: The Samaritan woman was a completely unlikely candidate for discipleship with her checkered past and her uncommon theological interest. Note that her role didn t end with believing Jesus; she spontaneously assumed the role of public witness and many believed on Jesus through her word. But how did Jesus conversation with her scandalize His disciples (4:27)? How did Jesus bring this woman to the point of change? What resulted from her conversation with Him? 5. Open and read John 11:17-27, then pause this lecture-segment as you study the passage and note your reflections in your Blog/Journal. As you study this passage, you might want to ponder these questions: How does Martha s confession parallel Peter s confession in Matthew 16:16? Where do you think Martha got that insight? Why do you think Jesus allowed Lazarus to die in the first place? What came of Lazarus resurrection from death? When you ve finished your study and noted your reflections in your Blog/Journal, consider this (which you may already have seen in the text and captured in your Blog/Journal): We met Martha in Luke 10:38-42, and we now meet her running the public aspects of her brother s funeral. But in the midst of her mourning, she rises to the highest level of faith recorded in the gospel. In John 11:27, she states, Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world. In that one statement we see that she understood (1) Jesus lordship ( Lord ), (2) His messianic mission ( You are the Christ ), (3) His divine nature ( the Son of God ), and His ministry as the fulfillment of God s divine purpose ( He who is coming into the world ). At the end of the gospel (20:31), John states that this is the purpose for which the entire gospel was written: that others might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, they might have life through His name. 6. Open and read John 12:1-8; also consider Matthew 26:6-13 and Mark 14:3-9; then pause this lecture-segment as you 5 of 11

6 study these passages and note your reflections in your Blog/ Journal. When you ve noted your reflections in your Blog/Journal, consider this: In John 12, we again meet Mary of Bethany, this time extravagantly anointing the head and feet of Jesus over the protests of Judas and the other disciples (as we see in Matthew 26 and Mark 14). To wash the feet of one s master was an act of veneration by a disciple. It was also the act that Jesus later commanded His disciples to do for others in imitation of His example. What is important in John 12 is that Jesus approved of Mary s original way of displaying her love for Him. She didn t choose something conventional, but she decided for herself what form her ministry to Jesus would take. When another disciple objected, Jesus silenced him. 7. Open and read Luke 8:1-3; John 19:25; 20:1-18, then pause this lecture-segment as you study these passages and note your reflections in your Blog/Journal. When you ve noted your reflections in your Blog/Journal, think about Mary of Magdala and her life as a demon-possessed woman in a small town on the northwest shoulder of the Sea of Galilee. Of all the women mentioned in the gospels, Mary Magdalene is mentioned most often (14 times). From Luke 8, we know that Jesus delivered her from the dominion of seven demons and that she was part of the group of women who traveled with Jesus and His disciples itinerantly all over the Galilee and back and forth to Jerusalem in the southern part of Palestine for the feasts. From John 19:25, we know that she was at the cross during Jesus execution. She was present when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus hastily buried Jesus body in the tomb, and she was one of the first at the tomb after the Sabbath to anoint Jesus body. From John 20, we know that she was the first to be commissioned by Jesus as a messenger of His resurrection: Go and tell my disciples. This function of witness to the resurrection later became a favorite designation of the apostles and early Christians (Acts 1:22; 2:32, etc.). It was the reward of a loyal female disciple that Jesus entrusted her with the most powerful message: He is risen. It s not 6 of 11

7 surprising that Augustine called her the apostle to the apostles. Jewish rabbinic law held that the testimony of a hundred women is not equal to that of one man. Yet women were the ones who consistently stayed with Christ through His agony and death on the cross and later at the empty tomb. If a woman s testimony was to be discounted, why did Jesus choose to appear first to a woman after His resurrection and send her as His messenger to the disciples? 8. Open and read Matthew 5:27-30, then pause this lecturesegment as you study the passage and note your reflections in your Blog/Journal. In this part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus redefined adultery. The hierarchy in that patriarchal society conferred on men the privileged right of ownership: Any woman was fair game for the satisfaction of their lust. But Jesus cut across the legalisms they had used by requiring a radical change of heart that would make it unnatural for a man to want to exploit or degrade a woman. He said, in fact, that this change in mentality toward women may be so difficult to achieve that it will feel like self-mutilation: Giving up the myth of male privilege may be as demanding as plucking out an eye or cutting off a hand. But Jesus couched the requirement in the form of a command, and He promised hell as the alternative to obedience. One of the main reasons for keeping women secluded in Jewish society was so they would not be sexually tempting to men. Women were not to be taught because, if they attended a school, they might be seen and thus tempt men into immorality. But Jesus turned the problem around by demanding the highest chastity from men in Matthew 5: Open and read Matthew 5:31-32 and 19:3-12, then pause this lecture-segment as you study these passages and note your observations in your Blog/Journal. Jesus revoked divorce and vindicated monogamous marriage. He showed that men who discard their wives reduce them to the status of whores, disposable items, throwaway playthings to be used a while and then dismissed. The man who would do this has the heart of an adulterer (Matthew 19:3-8) because he sleeps with someone he intends to treat as a whore. By addressing His disapproval to men, who alone had the power in that society to initiate divorce, Jesus made it clear that they should accept the 7 of 11

8 blame for the practice, make amends, and correct it. Jesus refused to endorse the fall as a basis for defining marriage. Jesus hopped over both the old covenant and the fall to base His definition of marriage squarely in the creation ideal: He quoted Genesis 1:26 in Matthew 19:4 and Genesis 2:24 in Matthew 19:5. The bottom line in the Matthew 19 discussion with the Pharisees and disciples is that in the age of redemption, the frame of reference for male/female relationships is the creation narrative of Genesis 1 and 2. The fall and its consequences are aberrations, not what God intended. Those aberrations were overturned by the coming of Christ. He made God s creation standards normative for the new community. This overturns the authority structure that had been spawned by the fall. 10. Open and read Luke 7:36-50 and Matthew 21:31-32, then pause this lecture-segment as you study these passages and note your observations in your Blog/Journal. Jesus redeemed prostitutes. The Pharisees who watched the prostitute anoint Jesus with costly ointment saw only the fallen, unredeemed woman. Jesus saw only the repentant sinner and considered the Pharisee Simon to be unredeemable. In Matthew 21:31-32, He told the assembled leaders of Judaism that harlots were far ahead of them in entering the kingdom because the women believed in Him while the leaders rejected Him. 11. Open and read Luke 18:1-8 and Luke 21:1-4, then pause this lecture-segment as you study these passages and note your observations in your Blog/Journal. The persistent widow in this passage (Luke 18) is a model for believers who may be tempted to stop praying and give up before the end. She teaches us how to face persecution in full reliance on God s faithfulness. Jesus used other women as models of faith as well. The poor widow in Luke 21 brings all that she has to God and is an example of devotion and faith. She loves God enough to give Him all that she has, and she trusts Him enough to rely on His providence for survival. II. General reflections on women in the Gospels Compared to other literary works from the first century, the gospels have a relatively high number of references to women. What is even more remarkable is that in Jesus actions, there is not a single case in which a woman is put down, reproached, 8 of 11

9 humiliated, or cast into one of the lewd stereotypes of that day. Nineteenth-century New Testament scholar Alfred Plummer called the gospel of Luke the gospel of womanhood because of the materials unique to Luke. Nearly a third deals directly with women. Repeatedly, Luke pairs stories of men and women. For example, Luke 1: Elizabeth and Zechariah Luke 2: Mary and Joseph, then Anna and Simeon Luke 4: the first healing of a man followed by the first healing of a woman Luke 7: the centurion narrative followed by the widow of Nain Luke 13: the Sabbath healings of the crippled woman and the man with dropsy; also in Luke 13 the man s mustard seed and the woman baking bread with leaven Luke 15: the parables of the man s lost sheep and the woman s lost coin Persistence in prayer is illustrated by the friend waking a neighbor at night (Luke 11) and by the woman obtaining a hearing with the unjust judge (Luke 18). I admit that I become emotional about Jesus as I read the Gospels. Unlike other Jewish men, He spoke freely to women in public. He taught theology to women. He had women as disciples or followers. He made it clear that women would be active participants in the work of His kingdom. As we watch Jesus move through the Gospels, we see Him taking a firmly countercultural stand on many issues, because His mission was to oppose all that violated the will of God. Although He supported the Jewish concern for the Old Testament law by fulfilling various observances in His own life, He highly criticized the misuse of God s laws and the addition of many encumbering oral laws. Over and over again, we see Him base His definition of persons and His directives for male/female relationships in God s creational purposes in Genesis 1 and 2. III. Who were the disciples? Teaching about the nature of discipleship in Mark 8:34, Jesus said, If anyone would come after me, let that person deny self, take up the cross, and follow me. The technical term denoting discipleship in the Gospels was following Jesus. In all four Gospels, we find women as well as men following Him throughout the Galilee and back and forth to Jerusalem for the various feasts (Luke 8:1-3; Matthew 27:55; Mark 15:41). 9 of 11

10 Jesus had a great many followers. There were the Twelve whom we normally think of as His disciples. The New Testament records the calling of the Twelve and their commissioning. But these were not the only official disciples. There were also the seventy whom He sent out with the same missions of proclaiming the gospel and healing the sick. In Luke 10:16, we find that after commissioning the seventy, Jesus said that those who listened to them, listened to him, and those who rejected them, rejected Him. Who were these 70? Did they include Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathea, who are also called disciples of Jesus? Were Cleopas and his traveling companion on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13ff.) part of the 70? Did this group include any of the company of women who traveled with Jesus (Luke 8)? We do know who was included in the Twelve. We know they were all men, and from that it has been concluded that only men should serve in ministry positions. But note that all Twelve were also Jews. If gender excluded women from ministry positions, one could argue that race should also exclude Gentiles from ministry positions. But we know from the book of Acts and the letters of Paul, Peter, and John that the church that began as exclusively Jewish rapidly expanded to include non-jews and non-jewish leaders. The apostle Paul scandalized the Jewish Christians with his insistence on the uncompromising acceptance of Gentile Christians, and today the Christian clergy is largely Gentile. Jesus scandalized the religious leaders of His day and even His disciples at times by His inclusion of women among those who followed Him. As we look at these and other women in the Gospels, we note that they are presented positively: No woman is shown resisting His initiative, failing to believe, deserting Him, or betraying Him. This is in sharp contrast to the way John presented men in his gospel. Even among the Twelve there were evidences of hypocrisy (12:4-6), vanity (13:37), fickleness (13:38; 16:31-32), obtuseness (3:10; 16:18), deliberate unbelief (9:24-25), and thorough evil (13:2, 27-30). The women in the Gospels are not one-dimensional stereotypes, a kind of bloodless representative of the eternal feminine. No, they are all original characters. And because of their faith, their understanding, and their fidelity, women were often paradigms 10 of 11

11 of discipleship for the men who often lacked those qualities. And as negative as first-century religious leaders were about women, Jesus affirmed them as whole persons with both the privilege and responsibility to follow him. No argument for or against women in church leadership can be made directly from the Gospels on the basis that we see women in the gospels as learners or followers, not as leaders. We also do not see men leading in the gospels; they too are followers, learners. We must turn to the story of the New Testament church before we can talk about leadership. Take a few minutes now at the end of lecture-segment 3 to reflect in your Blog/Journal on what you studied in the Gospels. Did anything emerge in this study that took you by surprise? If so, what? If you have found yourself curious to know more about Jesus and how He saw and came alongside women in the four Gospels, you will find much more helpful background material in these two resources: Chapter 2, The Torn Curtain: Jesus Teachings and Practice concerning Women in Aida Besancon Spencer s book Beyond the Curse (Nashville TN: Thomas Nelson, 1985). Chapter 4, The New Creation in Christ in Gilbert Bilezikian s Beyond Sex Roles: A Guide for the Study of Female Roles in the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985) or in the updated version, Beyond Sex Roles: What The Bible Says about a Woman s Place in Church and Family (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006). Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 11 of 11