Women and Church Leadership

Transcription

1 Women and Church Leadership ML508 LESSON 6 of 13 Dr. Alice Matthews Academic Dean- Christian University GlobalNet Introduction Raymond Ortlund asks the question, Why go all the way back to the first three chapters of the Bible if our concern is with manhood and womanhood today? Because as Genesis 1 3 go, so goes the whole biblical debate. One way or the other, all the additional biblical texts on manhood and womanhood must be interpreted consistently with these chapters. They lay the very foundation. I concur with Dr. Ortlund. As we look at the major passages restricting women in the church today, we find that in two of them (1 Timothy 2:13-14 and 1 Corinthians 11:11-12) the apostle Paul refers back to the creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2. When we check scholars on this passage, we discover that virtually all commentators who deal responsibly with Genesis 1 agree that it underscores the ontological equality of the man and woman. However, as we move into Genesis 2, we find that commentators are not at all agreed on the issue of functional equality as the biblical record gives us more information about creation and then about the fall. What do we find here? I. Equal in Eden? Pause this lecture-segment and read through Genesis 1 twice, making notes to yourself of anything you think might be significant to this study. Genesis 1 provides an overview of the entire process of creation. Bilezikian points to the number of authority structures in this chapter: God assigned limits to the firmament, to water, to the earth, He set boundaries to the process of reproduction in order to preserve the integrity of each species: They produce after their kind. 1 of 12

2 He gave celestial bodies for signs and for seasons and for days and years. He established the sun to rule by day and the moon over the night. He prescribed in detail the human rulership over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over every living thing that moves over the earth, including cattle and creeping things, and over all the earth. The whole created universe from stars in space to fish in the sea is carefully organized in a hierarchy of order that is meticulously defined in Genesis 1. Yet there is not the slightest indication in Genesis 1:26-28 that such a hierarchy existed between the man and woman. From that, Bilezikian argues that it is inconceivable that the very statement that lays out the organizational structure of creation would omit a reference to lines of authority between the man and woman, had that been God s intention. The creation of humanity was the capstone of God s creative activity. The definition of authority structures between the man and woman would have been at least as important as the definition of their authority over the fish, birds, and cattle. In a chapter describing hierarchical organization as intrinsic to creation, it is all the more important that God would spell out the hierarchy of man and woman. But nowhere in this text is it stated that God intended the man to rule over the woman. The fact that no reference is made in Genesis 1 to authority roles between the man and woman in a text otherwise permeated with the concept of hierarchical organization tells us that their relationship was to be one of mutuality in equality, and that considerations of the supremacy of the one over the other were alien to it. As the climax of this splendid hymn of creation, God majestically crowned all that he had done with the creation of man humankind, male and female. Note that the first man and the first woman were created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-28): Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle; over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, 2 of 12

3 and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. It is on the basis of this image, this likeness, that Eve and Adam were given dominion over God s creation. It wasn t that the man and woman were stronger than the lions, tigers, and hippopotami around them. It was that they stood between God and His creation as His representatives. Imaging God in the world, they had a responsibility to care for everything God put under them. In addition to ruling God s creation, Adam and Eve were told to be fruitful and increase in number: have children. Everything in this text points to equal sharing in family building and in exercising dominion. God did not say to Adam, You are to exercise dominion, and to Eve, You are to build the family. Both the man and the woman were given both commands, pointing to shared parenting and shared dominion. From Genesis 1:26-28, it appears that the ontological equality is also functional equality. II. No longer equal in Eden? Now we come to Genesis 2. In chapter 1, it appeared that the man and woman were created as a single event. Now we learn that the man was created before the woman, and that a crisis man s aloneness played a part in woman s creation. It is here in chapter 2 that we find a number of reasons that many Christians believe that while women share an ontological equality with men, they have a functionally subordinate role to play in home and church. Here are the main reasons put forward by a number of evangelical theologians in support of that functional subordination. They believe these four factors are inherent in Genesis 2 and teach the woman s subordination to the man. A. The first factor, found in Genesis 2:18, is that the woman is created to be a helper for the man and as such is subordinate to him. This is the most widely used argument of the four. George W. Knight III put it this way: It is simply the proper application of concepts and realities to affirm that if one human being is created to be the helper for another human being, the one who receives such help has a certain authority over the one who is his helper. 3 of 12

4 Others translate the Hebrew text (ezer knegdo) as helpmate rather than the old English word helpmeet or one meet or able to help, who comes alongside. Augustine ( ) held that the woman was a helper only in childbearing, but in every other case, another man is a better help (from De Genesi ad Litteram IX.5). Genesis 1 ended with God s statement that He saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. But then in Genesis 2:18, we hear God saying, It is not good that the man is alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him. What is this helper suitable to him or comparable to him? The idea of helper usually comes into our heads as a less-qualified subordinate, like a plumber s apprentice who hands the plumber the proper wrench. But there are two Hebrew words in Genesis 2:18 that give us a different sense of God s intention for women. The first Hebrew word is transliterated ezer and appears 19 times in the Old Testament. When we look at the other 18 cases, we get a sense of its meaning. In only 4 cases is it used in reference to a human institution or being; in 15 cases it refers to God as our help: Psalm 121:1-2; 146:3, 5; Exodus 18:4; etc. God is the one who comes alongside us in our helplessness. Any idea here of inferiority is untenable. God is not subordinate to His creatures. Philip Payne put it this way: The noun used here [ezer] throughout the Old Testament does not suggest helper as in servant, but help, savior, rescuer, protector as in God is our help. In no other occurrence in the Old Testament does this refer to an inferior, but always to a superior or an equal... help expresses that woman is a help/strength who rescues or saves man. If anything, the word points to the man s helplessness without the woman. While many devout Christians see Eve s function as a subordinate, the word ezer cannot support that idea. Eve was not created to serve Adam but to serve with him. The Hebrew language has four other words translated helper which do have the idea of subordination, but none of them was used in Genesis 2:18. The second important Hebrew word in Genesis 2:18 is knegdo and is translated comparable to him or suitable to him. The Hebrew preposition neged lies between the prefix k, signifying a 4 of 12

5 comparison, similarity, or proportion, and the suffix o meaning the one in front. Taken together, the word means one fit for him, in no way a subordinate. The woman in Genesis 2:18 was to be equal to the man in every way and she comes alongside him to complete him. Watch what happens next in Genesis 2: After decreeing in verse 18 that Adam needs a helper like himself, God then parades all the animals in front of him to be named. Genesis 2:20 then states that among all the animals there was not found a helper suitable to him. This was an object lesson for Adam, reinforcing the lesson that his need would not be filled by any but Eve. For the man, there wasn t another creature like himself. While he was alone, he was only half the story, unfulfilled without a female counterpart. From this text, we understand that maleness doesn t automatically confer completeness. Woman is not an afterthought or an optional adjunct to an independent, selfsufficient man. Without her, Adam s condition was not good. God s command to be fruitful and multiply was impossible without both the man and the woman. Only after the circus parade was completed was the stage set for Eve s creation. Note God s procedure: 1. In Genesis 2:7, God created the man out of the dust of the ground. 2. In Genesis 2:9, He made all the trees out of the ground. 3. In Genesis 2:19, He made every bird and beast out of the ground. But now God changed the procedure. He formed Eve, not out of the ground, but out of the side of the man. There is no possible confusion about her identification with him in his humanity. From one being has come two persons. The text tells us that the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and God took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman, and he brought her to the man. And Adam said: This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:21-24). 5 of 12

6 This is the absolute beginning of marriage. The words of Genesis 2:24 appear here and in three other places in the New Testament: Jesus quotes this verse in Matthew 19:5 and in Mark 10:7, and Paul quotes it in Ephesians 5:31. It is the only statement about marriage repeated four times in the Bible. B. The second argument for hierarchy is that woman was created after the man and therefore is secondary to him. One question we must ask is whether being created prior to something else in itself implies superiority of either being or function. The animals were created before humanity (Genesis 1:24-25). Does that give them superiority over humanity? Genesis 1:28 gives the human pair dominion over the animals. Those who hold that Adam s prior creation made Eve his subordinate base it on Paul s statement in 1 Timothy 2:13-14: For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. This was the reason Paul stated for forbidding a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but to be in silence (1 Timothy 2:12). Two things must be noted: First, Paul did not use the Greek word for create in 1 Timothy 2:13. He used plasso, to form. (Adam gar protos eplasthe, eita Eva.) Second, when Paul spoke of Adam being created before Eve in 1 Corinthians 11:9, he used the Greek verb for create: kai gar ouk ektisthe aner dia ten gunaika. In 1 Corinthians 11:11-12, Paul makes the point that Adam s creation before Eve s is meaningless in the Lord. Nevertheless, neither is man independent of woman, nor woman independent of man, in the Lord. For as woman came from man, even so man also comes through woman; but all things are from God. Paul s argument is that Adam s chronological primacy made him more knowledgeable and therefore less susceptible to deception. James B. Hurley argued that Adam s prior creation to Eve s gave Adam superiority, using the Old Testament law of primogeniture to support this. This law of primogeniture entitled the eldest son in a family to inherit twice the amount of the estate received by his brothers. Hurley states that Adam s status as the oldest carried with it the leadership appropriate to the firstborn son (Man and Woman in Theological Perspective, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981, p. 207). 6 of 12

7 Two things must be said in response to that. First, that the primogeniture law came much later in Genesis, and it s not justifiable to project this law retroactively back into the creation story where the practice receives no sanction. Second, the law refers to how brothers inherit from their father. It was never applied to the relationship of husbands and wives. To apply it here strains the definition of primogeniture. C. The third argument for hierarchy in Eden is that the woman is taken from the man and is therefore secondary to him. E. Jacobs (in his book Theology of the Old Testament, p. 73) states that Man by himself is a complete being, the woman who is given to him adds nothing to his nature, whilst the woman drawn forth from man owes all her existence to him. Think about that in the light of Genesis 2:18 and 21. Samuele Bacchiocchi argued that in biblical thought, origin and authority are interrelated. A child must respect the authority of his parents because he derives from them. In Adam s historical situation, Eve derived from him in the sense that God formed her from his body. Thus Adam was her source and to him was due appropriate respect. Bacchiocchi does state that this line of reasoning is not explicit in Genesis 2. G. Taylor s response to this reasoning is that Eve s first and primal contact is with her Maker. Woman herself knew God before she knew her counterpart, the man. Phyllis Trible explains, Man had no part in making woman... he is neither participant nor spectator, nor consultant at her birth. Like man, woman owes her life solely to God. For both of them, the origin of life is a divine mystery. It is as wrong to say that woman owes all her existence to man as it would be to say that man owes all his existence to dust and is therefore subordinate to it. Both the man and the woman are direct, individual, and purposeful acts of the Creator God. The whole emphasis of Genesis 2 is not on the difference between male and female but on their relatedness. It emphasizes that the whole human race came from one ancestor, establishing the absolute unity of humanity. (The Human Genome Project noted that there is only one race of human beings.) In Genesis 2, we noted that God created the beasts and birds as 7 of 12

8 well as Adam from the ground. Had Eve been created from the ground as Adam was, what was to connect her to him rather than to the beasts and birds? God chose a method of creation that underscored the absolute unity of the man and woman. D. The fourth argument establishing hierarchy in Eden is that Adam names the woman, making her subordinate to him (Genesis 2:23). Hurley explains this argument for us: Name was associated with function and the power to assign or to change a name was connected with control... Within this context we can begin to see the importance of God s bringing of the animals to the man whom he had appointed to rule the earth in order to see what the man would call them. Hurley argues that assigning names reflects control. This argument is based on the idea that in the Old Testament naming implied dominion, and in Genesis 2:23 Adam is exercising dominion over Eve. But there are two issues to consider here. First, in the Old Testament there is a standard naming formula in which we find the verb to call and the noun name (for example in Genesis 4:25). The only place in Genesis 2 in which this naming formula appears is in verse 19 in reference to the animals. In verse 23, the noun name does not appear. Second, in verse 23 the word woman is never used as a proper name. It is a common noun designating gender. It is in Genesis 3:20, after the fall, that we read that Adam called his wife s name Eve. What we have in Genesis 2:23 is excited recognition that, after that long circus parade of animals, at last here is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh someone like me! So the question is whether Genesis 2 teaches gender hierarchy as part of God s creational intention for male/female relationships in the home, the church, and the wider society. As we come to the end of these first two crucial chapters in the Bible, we see: Both the man and woman are created in the image of God, and that humanity exists in two parts: male and female. Each is a complete individual, but what is stressed here is not their individuality or the difference between them. It is their unity and the fact that they are indissolubly bound together. On the strength of all that has gone before, the chapter concludes: Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave [or be joined] to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24). Far from teaching any kind of hierarchy, 8 of 12

9 Genesis 2 stresses the reciprocal dependency and mutuality of the man and woman bound together in one flesh. It is in 3:16 where we see hierarchy in human relationships for the first time: Your desire will be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. III. Unequal after Eden! In a sense, traditionalists and egalitarians agree that Genesis 3 displays a hierarchical relationship between the man and the woman. But in contrast to the egalitarian belief that the fall led inevitably to hierarchy, Ortlund states, We have seen... that God built male headship (not male domination) into the glorious, pre-fall order of creation. Though they agree on the result, they do not agree on the prior condition of equality in Eden, as we have already noted in this lecture. Recall that the Ephesian women had turned away to follow Satan (1 Timothy 5:15). What happened to them had already happened in Eden when Eve followed the temptation of Satan. Adam had been formed first, then Eve. God personally instructed Adam about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil before Eve s creation; and she was deceived by Satan. Fortunately for the Ephesian women, this was not the end of the story. They had been deceived by false teachers, but they could now learn in quietness and continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety (2:12, 15). They were redeemable for God s purposes. Pause this lecture-segment and read Genesis 3 at least twice. Make notes to yourself of anything that you think is significant. Paul s argument in 1 Timothy 2:13-14 is not based on chronology, because no implication is drawn from the fact that Adam was created first except that he would not be deceived because he had been present when God created the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He had heard the command God gave him concerning it (2nd person singular). Eve had not yet been created when Adam received that knowledge from God. The verb in 1 Timothy 2:13 is plasso, meaning formed not created. This is about education. God educated Adam directly about the tree before Eve was created. In 1 Corinthians 11:11-12, Paul had already stated that creation birth order was irrelevant. Eve could be deceived because she had received God s command secondhand from Adam. In your notes on Genesis 3, did you include the fact that Adam 9 of 12

10 was present but silent while Satan tempted Eve? Scholars throughout the ages have held Eve responsible for the entrance of sin into the world, and they have puzzled over the fact that God held Adam, not Eve, responsible for that result (Romans 5:12-14; 1 Corinthians 15:22). Eve s sin is described only as her having been deceived (2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:14). The chronology in Genesis 2 makes clear that Eve had a relatively limited knowledge of God, compared to Adam. She was vulnerable to error because what she knew had come by transmission through Adam, not directly from God. Adam knew better, but stood by as Satan challenged Eve to eat the fruit because God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:5). From your reading of Genesis 3, you know the result. Both Adam and Eve ate the fruit, immediately knew themselves to be naked, sewed fig leaves together to cover that nakedness, and then hid from God among the trees. In your notes, did you include the fact that while Eve had first eaten the fruit before Adam, God first challenged Adam, not Eve, about their disobedience (3:9)? Some scholars take this as an indication that Adam had been in charge of Eve (the male headship mentioned by Ortlund). If you accept the arguments for male headship in Genesis 2 that we ve previously looked at, then you might agree that Adam was being held responsible for Eve s actions. But God held him responsible for his own actions. Throughout verses 9-12, God addressed only Adam, using singular second-person pronouns. (We can miss that in an English translation.) God asked Adam, Have you [singular] eaten of the tree of which I commanded you [singular] that you [singular] should not eat? (Genesis 3:11). That command had been given to Adam (Genesis 2:17) before Eve was formed, putting Adam first in line to account for his disobedience. Bilezikian notes that Instead of owning up to personal guilt, [Adam] recited a history of the temptation that was intended to hold others, both God and Eve, responsible for his fault... Obviously, this cowardly subterfuge was not acceptable to God. When the promised sentence of death fell upon Adam and Eve, it was pronounced not on Eve but on Adam (3:19) (p. 52). In Adam s response to God (3:12), we see the relationship 10 of 12

11 between Adam and Eve deteriorating in his blaming of her. By the end of the chapter, we will see the consequences of the fall already at work: alienation from God their Creator, alienation from each other, and alienation from their natural environment, the earth Adam would then have to till by the sweat of his brow. Did you note that when God turned to Eve (3:13), he asked her a different question from the one he asked Adam? God knew that Eve s information about the command was secondhand from Adam; instead, he asked her to describe what she had done. When she admitted that she had been deceived by the serpent and had eaten the fruit, God laid out the consequences in Genesis 3: Did you note that God cursed the serpent and the ground, but did not curse Adam and Eve? Many people think that the human pair was cursed, but this is not so. Certainly they would suffer for their sin. But even in the litany of woes they would experience is embedded the hope of redemption in 3:15: Speaking to the serpent, God said, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel. We know this passage as the protoevangelium, the first announcement of redemption, alluded to by Paul in 1 Timothy 2:15. The awful sin of the world will entail suffering for Jesus Christ ( you shall bruise His heel ). Death now permeated all realms of life, and suffering will attend the process of life from its beginning: The woman would have pain in childbirth. The man would suffer in tilling a resistant soil. Life will go on after the call, but it will be a struggle from beginning to end. Did you note that for both Adam and Eve, as a result of the fall, they would each be subject to their secondary source? Eve was now subject to her source, Adam (3:16), and Adam was now subject to his source, the dust of the earth (3:17-19). As a result of their sin, the man was now the master over the woman and the ground was now master over the man. Egalitarians conclude from this that both death and male dominance are contrary to God s original intention in creation. Both are the result of sin. Some of the books in the bibliographic suggestions in lecturesegment 5 reappear here. In particular, you may want to look at these: Bilezikian, Gilbert. Beyond Sex Roles: What the Bible Says about a Woman s Place in Church and Family. Grand Rapids: Baker, 11 of 12

12 1985, Pierce, Ronald and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, editors. Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity without Hierarchy. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, Piper, John and Wayne Grudem, editors. Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991, Saucy, Robert L. and Judith K. Tenelshof, editors. Women and Men in Ministry: A Complementary Perspective. Chicago: Moody Press, Spencer, Aida Besancon. Beyond the Curse: Women Called to Ministry. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 12 of 12