ROLE DISTINCTIONS WITHIN THE CHURCH

One Facebook respondent has posted links that argue that Paul’s teachings about women’s submission to men was just relative to certain churches and specific circumstances. I responded that this just doesn’t seem to be the case:

“Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. (1 Timothy 2:11-14)

Paul also provided his rationale against women leading men:

1.    Verse 13: The creation order

2.    Verse 14: The woman had been deceived, not the man.

Paul NEVER based his verdict on what was happening in the churches of his time.

I don’t like this teaching any more than you do. However, it is God’s Word. We therefore must conform ourselves to the Word rather than conforming the Word to our tastes and cultural preferences. This strategy might please the culture, but it cannot please God.

Elsewhere, Paul explicitly stated that this prohibition pertained to ALL of the churches, not just Jewish ones but also the Gentiles churches and in whatever culture:

·       …As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.  Or was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 14:33-37)

Nor did Paul claim that this teaching had anything to do with his own personal judgment. Instead, he wrote that this teaching was a “command of the Lord.”

What goes on in the Church will not remain in the Church. To suppose that women can lead adult men in the Church is also to suppose that wives can lead their husbands at home, once again, in opposition to the Word (Ephesians 5:24).