10-2-2 Jesus And Gender

Now Jesus was speaking against a similar cultural background, and you will remember that he said that Mary’s devotion to him would be spoken of throughout the world for a memorial of her, of her. And that was absolutely a radical departure from the surrounding cultures, which refused to acknowledge women. The Lord Jesus Christ, we believe, was not the kind of person who in his heart actually believed one thing, for example that male and female were going to be absolutely equal in his church, and they were going to be able to be priests, or speak, or whatever, just interchangeably: he wasn’t the sort of person who would believe that in his heart, and then go and say something different! No.

Jesus was not frightened to challenge the surrounding cultural view of women. For example, the Rabbis taught that a man should never salute a woman in a public place, and yet you remember Jesus sat at the well with a woman from Samaria and saluted her and had a long public conversation with her. In first century Israel a woman had to follow the religion of her husband, but Jesus said: it’s a completely individual matter; whoever you are, male or female, you make your own decision, to follow me.”

The local Jewish culture very strongly stressed that the place of the woman was about domestic matters, not about spiritual matters. Yet in the case of Martha and Mary, Christ commended Mary because she had neglected her domestic duties and had chosen to concern herself with spiritual things. So then, Jesus did not just shut his eyes, as it were, to this gender division. And if you read his parables very carefully you will find that often he will tell one parable aimed at men and immediately after another one aimed at women. For example, in Luke 15, he talks about the joy of a man who finds his lost sheep, and then he talks about the joy of a woman who finds her lost corn. He says: “When I come again there will be two men in the field, and there will be two women grinding at the mill.”⁽¹⁾

Jesus was very sensitive to this gender issue, and he wasn’t frightened to contradict local culture concerning it. And yet, despite that, he didn’t stand up and say: “Now male and female must have completely equal role in my church” no. He chose twelve male disciples and a group of ministering women to support them in practice.

So you see the point I am making. In all these cases (the Law of Moses, the Old Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ) they weren’t frightened to absolutely radically challenge the place of women in the local society where they were, but despite being willing to do that and despite doing that, they still insisted that a woman should not teach and preach in the congregation of God, and that there was a difference of role between male and female in the church.

And so we come on then to the New Testament church, and again you see exactly the same thing: that the mention of women is not suppressed in the record of the New Testament church, they are mentioned, but they are not mentioned in teaching roles because quite clearly they didn’t have that role within the church. If women were and are not given the opportunity to teach publicly in the church, the whole issue of whether they should be ordained as priests is a non issue, as far as I can see it, apart from the fact that a priesthood, a human priesthood is not taught in the New Testament. But that’s another issue.

Now the Apostle Paul (who has often been labelled as a woman hater) in fact radically contradicted the attitude to women in his surrounding culture. He said for example that remarriage could only take place after the death of the first partner: that was absolutely radical, completely different to what was going on in the first century. And particularly in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, I would like to really emphasise this point, in verse 34 he says that he does not allow a woman to teach in the church, but he allows a woman to learn in silence. A lot of people look at that verse and say, “Well that was just Paul influenced by the local culture, saying a woman has got to learn in silence.” But in fact do you know he is actually quoting there from the Talmud, and in the Talmud the Rabbis said it is better to burn the book of the Law than that a woman should learn it! What does Paul say? “I suffer ... a woman ... to learn in silence”! The Rabbis must have pulled their hair out, if they heard about that: “Here is Paul saying that a woman can learn? Terrible!”. And Paul did the shocking thing of purposefully going and speaking to the women in Philippi, publically (Acts 16:13). And the women are described as believing his teaching before the men in Berea (Acts 17:12). So he was absolutely questioning local culture concerning women, going right against it but still insisting that women should be in silence in the sense of not teaching. I hope there will be some comment on 1 Corinthians 14:34 because I would like to know what it means if it doesn’t mean what it says in plain English: he says that a woman should be silent in the church: and he interprets what he means by ‘silence’ by saying that that is, she should not teach.

And it is exactly the same in 1 Timothy chapter 2. He says that a woman should be in subjection: “I do not suffer a woman to teach but she should be in silence.” That word for ‘subjection’ when it says “a woman should be in subjection, she shouldn’t be teaching,” occurs later on in the next chapter, 1 Timothy 3 v 4, where he says a loving father should have “his children in subjection.” it doesn’t mean he has to lord it over them, but he refers to that same mutual relationship which should be there between male and female.

Now those two passages, 1 Timothy chapter 2 and 1 Corinthians 14, are quite clearly major stumbling blocks in the path of anyone who is going to suggest that women should teach in the church and should have an equal role to men. And reading the literature of feminist theologians I have observed the intellectual desperation that they are driven to explain those passages. They either have to say they are not inspired, or to say that they only reflect the surrounding culture of the time concerning women; and yet we’ve seen that the Bible definitely does not reflect the surrounding culture of the time concerning women.

Now our position does not actually hinge just on those two verses. We have shown that those verses are basing their teaching on the typology of Genesis and that consistently. Right from the record of Adam and Eve’s creation, right through the Law and the Prophets and the teaching of the Lord Jesus, there is a consistent message. Our position does not hinge on just two verses.

Now I would like to conclude by putting some questions which I hope will be answered by either Jacquie, or possibly by some of your own contributions through the question boxes. These are questions really for those who would argue that there is an equality of role within the church for male and female, and that in fact it is quite legitimate for a woman to stand up and teach the church.

First of all, we have seen that the Bible does teach the concept of a male headship over the woman. Now how can that be reconciled with this idea of completely equal roles for male and female in the church?

Secondly, how can the Holy Spirit tell us one thing consistently throughout the Bible and now in the 20th century tell us something different?

Thirdly, is the Bible’s teaching concerning women influenced by the local culture of the time in which it was written; yes or no? Is the Bible influenced by local culture or not?

The other point I would put is that if the biblical commands and examples of the place of women in the church can somehow be overridden (I don’t mind how they are overridden) for example by the claim that this is just local culture coming through in the writings of the Bible, well how many other commands can we just override? For example, the Bible says don’t commit fornication. What are we going to do? Say, “Well in this day and age, that’s just the Bible, I mean it’s a bit out of date now”? How are we going to know which commands we can scrub out, which principles we can scrub out, and which we can leave in?

So I would submit then that if we are going to believe in complete equality of role between male and female, and if we are going to believe that women can teach in the church and have the same role as men, then we are driven to really question some basic doctrines:

a) We are driven to the conclusion that Christ and God are directly equal.

b) We are driven to the conclusion that Christ and his church are directly equal and that they are on a par in their relationship, and yet this just is not so: the Bible does not teach that.

c) We are driven to the conclusion that the Bible is not really inspired in the sense that it is a once for all revelation.

d) We are driven to the conclusion that the events in Genesis didn’t literally happen and the idea of typology is not that important.

And so that is why we think this issue is important, because it is a reflection of our attitude to more fundamental doctrine.

Now I would submit that the brief case we have put before you this evening, biblically, in terms of biblical exposition, is relatively unassailable. I must emphasise that we do take the Bible as our only authority. We have found that the Bible, in our little survey we have made, is very sensitive to this gender issue. It doesn’t just suppress the mention of women, the Bible doesn’t reflect the local culture concerning women.

But the Bible gives a lot of emphasis to this idea of typology; the man represents Christ, the woman represents the church; and in the same way as there is this dynamic positive relationship between Christ and his church, and between God and Christ, so that is reflected between male and female in Christ.

Notes

(1) “Luke often presents his material in pairs. When he mentions a man, he most likely will also note a woman. In chapter 1 of his Gospel, Zacharias and Elizabeth are presented, and in the following chapter, Joseph and Mary, and Simeon and Anna. In succeeding chapters, he refers to the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian. In the parables, he places the man with the mustard seed next to the woman mixing yeast in her flour. The parable of the shepherd who found his lost sheep is followed by the parable of the woman who found one of her silver coins”. Simon Kistemaker, The Parables (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002) p. 174.

Chairman:

Thank you Duncan for being timely. I am very pleased then to ask Jacquie to talk for us on her perspective of the role of women in the church for 25 minutes.