Category: women’s role

Women’s Role Isn’t The Issue

Neal Pollard

Anecdotal and emotional appeals are made. Expressions of dissatisfaction with how things are “done in churches of Christ” and anxious concerns that we are in the minority seem to ignore something much more significant. What does the Bible say?

A preacher recently wrote, “I wonder how many of our members are as dumbfounded as many of our ministers about our current practices with women in our churches, but have allowed fear and caution to keep them silent as our practices remain the same. Is it groupthink? Do we have well thought out theologies supporting our current practices? Do most of us realize the oddity of our male dominated services in 21st century society? Perhaps there are more who want to ask these questions than we sometimes imagine.”

In an age when women have been allowed by society to ascend all the way to the top of the corporate ladder, assuming the heads of companies, the fields of medicine, science, politics, and education, it may seem odd to some that she does not lead singing, lead prayers, “preside” over or serve the Lord’s Supper, preach, or serve as an elder or deacon in mainstream churches of Christ. Is this a civil rights issue? Is it a cultural issue? Exactly what is the issue?

The reason that those certain preachers feel “there comes a time that silence must give way to words and actions” seems bigger than a single issue. The reason has to do with a basic approach to the Bible and an attitude toward what it is and how it serves today. If the issue was simply what the Bible has to say, the issue would be an open and shut case. In 1 Timothy 3:15, Paul tells Timothy he is writing that letter “so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.” This follows a “household of God” matter already mentioned by Paul in 1 Timothy 2:8- 15. Amid a discussion of women’s role, Paul says, “A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet” (11-12). The reason he gives is not tied to first century culture. As Timothy was the preacher at Ephesus and was half-Greek himself, Paul did not appeal to ethnicity. He goes back to the creation, a different time, place, and ethnicity. Cultural practice or norm was not the issue.

Here is the issue. What is our attitude toward the Bible? Is it God-breathed, equipping man for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17)? Is the God who created each of us, our world, and the universe, with every amazing intricacy of design, smart enough and powerful enough to successfully communicate to man in written form in a way that would stand the tests of time, transmission (making copies from original documents), and translating it into different languages? Certainly, man would be incapable of this, but dare we say that God did not do this? Especially should we be careful when the Bible claims over and over again that God did communicate through inspired men.

If scripture is not reliable as the standard of religious authority and does not contain an established pattern for teaching and practice, so many other matters are up for grabs–the institution of marriage as it is, homosexuality, abortion, calling our Creator “Jehovah” rather than “Allah,” the Deity, atonement, and resurrection of Christ, and the list is truly inexhaustible. On what grounds do we reject clear teaching on women’s role in churches of Christ while accepting that there is no way to the Father but through Christ? Beware! This is bigger than a single issue. One’s attitude toward the inspiration and authority of scripture is the real, underlying issue!

Baptized Boys And Bible Class

Neal Pollard

1 Timothy 2:11-14 clearly states, “A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. 14 And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.” Herein, God through Paul limits the role of woman in the work and corporate function of the church. Therefore, she is not to have authority over the man–in whatever circumstance that applies (be it Bible class, worship, matters of organization, i.e., deacons, elders, preachers, etc., or in the home). The loud voices of feminism notwithstanding, God has clearly spoken. This matter is not cultural. It is a principle that goes all the way back to Eden.

However, an unfortunate conclusion drawn by some based on this text (and others, like 1 Corinthians 11:3 or 14:34, for example) is that a Christian woman cannot teach a baptized boy in a Bible class. There are several reasons why this conclusion is flawed.

First, it misses who is in included in 1 Timothy 2:12. The Greek word translated “man” is the verse specially means “man, husband, sir.” All males are not under consideration. The Greek has words for child, including “infant” or “half-grown child” (Mat. 2:21), “child,” “son” or “daughter” (Mat. 10:21), and “young man” (Mat. 17:18). None of those words is used in 1 Timothy 2:12. The Holy Spirit chose the specific word meaning “adult man.”  Boys eleven or twelve are not men!

Next, none practice this conviction in the home. If we believed 1 Timothy 2:12 taught that baptized boys were men, then we should also teach that their mothers can no longer instruct, admonish, or “be over” them as parents. If that adolescent son invites another baptized boy to spend the night, can this Christian mother “have authority” over the visiting boy? If this woman can teach her son the Bible at home, why can she not teach him in a Bible classroom at the building? In this case, what makes it wrong in the classroom would make it wrong at home. If not, why not?

Then, a baptized boy is nowhere else considered a man. He is not considered such to the military, the corporate world, at home, at school, to the DMV, or anywhere else. His status has changed in that, if he is truly accountable, he has gone from lost to saved. However, the water no more makes a boy a man than it makes a woman a man.

It is not sinful to personally hold the conviction that a Christian woman should not teach a baptized boy. It is not wrong for the elders, in their judgment, to have men teaching Bible classes where there are any baptized boys. Yet, we had better be careful not to bind an opinion as truth. When boys reach their teenage years and undergo the process of changing into men, it is wise to place Christian men over them in the classroom. At some point, he matures to the point of manhood and 1 Timothy 2:11-12 would forbid a woman to teach him. Yet, having a woman teach a baptized, prepubescent boy in a Bible class is not “questionable” or “unsafe.” He is still a boy in the classroom, just as he is anywhere outside of it.

Whose Voice Should Be Heard? Another Look At 1 Timothy 2:11-15

Neal Pollard

Paul averred that “all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17, NIV). Its source is God. Its value is exhaustive.  Its result is practical.  That is how the all-wise God intended it.

In the first letter to Timothy, Paul gives his thesis statement that all he wrote in the epistle was to give the young preacher knowledge of how the church was to conduct itself in various matters (1 Tim. 3:15).  One of several matters addressed in the letter was what role Christian women were to take in “the household of God” (the church) in matters of teaching and leadership.  We read about that in 1 Timothy 2:11-15.  Here is what we find:

  • The Christian woman must receive instruction with entire submissiveness (11).
  • The Christian woman is not allowed to teach or exercise authority over a man (12).
  • The Christian woman is to remain quiet (12).
  • There are biblical reasons for this, reasons that go all the way back to creation (13-14).
    • The order of creation (13)
    • The deception of the woman (14)
  • The Christian woman has an honored role to help the church thrive and grow (15).

What is remarkable is the lack of ambiguity regarding this teaching.  It is clear and straightforward.  No cultural issues or problems are stated to occasion these words.  One does not find contradictory instruction in another New Testament context to offset or clarify the words here. Perhaps it is the straightforwardness of the words that have chaffed many who appear desirous of bending truth to fit the culture.  Such bending is not limited to this issue, but as the culture regresses from truth more and more matters are getting reexamined in order to change truth to fit the culture.

We must understand that all such efforts, in effect, place human beings as the authority in place of God and Scripture.  It causes people to say, “You have read this, but I say unto you.”  The problem is that it is not our place to say that Scripture does not mean what it says.  That authority belongs to Christ, and He exerts that authority through the men who wrote down His will in the New Testament.  It is His voice and their voices that need to be heard.  Whoever they say should teach and lead is whose voices need to be heard.  Any other voice is speaking without the utterance of God (1 Pet. 4:11).