Service in the church according to God’s creational design
Increasingly in some complementarian circles it is stated that women may serve in the church in any way that an unordained man serves. This may seem plausible at first. Only men can be placed into the office of elder (1 Tim 3:2) or deacon (1 Tim 3:11), but there are a variety of ways that men and women are called to serve in the church that do not require them being ordained to those offices (Eph 4:12). It is most certainly true that unordained men and women are called to serve the Lord in the church. However, there is a categorical distinction in the kinds of service that are biblically sanctioned. Put succinctly: only men may serve in those aspects of church service that are connected to the ministry of the word (Acts 6:4). In this article, I will state four biblical reasons why the claim that women may do anything unordained men do in the church is false.
First, the apostle Paul states a categorical prohibition of women participating in the public teaching of the word of God in the setting of the public worship of God (1 Cor 14:33–35):
For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. 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.
The context of this prohibition is clearly public worship (1 Cor 14:26). It is certainly possible to read this text in a superficially literal fashion to prohibit women from even speaking in public worship. This is clearly impossible, for all of God’s people are to respond to God in song, among other things. Paul has in view public teaching authority, which is restricted to the elders of the church (thus to men). But we should note that Paul does not present a corresponding prohibition of unordained men speaking in this capacity in public worship.
Second, male authority in the church is grounded in God’s creational design. In 1 Timothy 2:12–14 Paul writes:
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.
It may be the case that the situation would be different in teaching children (Paul only addresses “authority over a man”), but this is yet another categorical prohibition of women participating in the public teaching ministry of the word of God. In what is (in our world) probably the most controversial thing Paul says about men and women he bases this prohibition on the fact that “Adam was formed first” (1 Tim 2:13), implying not just order in time, but order in authority (which is obvious in the creation account [Gen 3:16]), and the fact that “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Tim 2:14). Adam clearly succumbed to Satan’s temptation as well, but he was not the route through which Satan initially, and successfully, caused the first couple to fall into sin. Eve was. Paul is making a claim about the differences between men and women, even at creation. Men are created by God to be strong, to fight and contend when necessary (physically and verbally), and to provide and protect (1 Tim 5:8; 6:12; Jude 1:3). Women are created by God to nurture, to preserve harmony in the family, and to focus on the day-to-day well-being of the household (Titus 2:3–5; 1 Pet 3:1–6). These are virtues for men and women when employed rightly, but they can be corrupted into vices. Men can become abusive instead of being strong protectors. Women are vulnerable to being pulled by their nurturing instinct to seek peace and harmony when there must be battle. Paul is not disparaging women; he is not stating that they are unintelligent or unable to recognize error. But he is stating that their own feminine nature is liable to being twisted to tolerate error that must be decisively rejected. Adam certainly isn’t off the hook either: “sin came into the world through one man” (Rom 5:12). Adam is ultimately responsible for the Fall. Because he also refused to live according to God’s creational design, and fight manfully against Satan’s attack, the entire world was plunged into sin, death, condemnation, and misery (Rom 5:15–19).
One of the main takeaways of 1 Tim 2:12–14 is that there is a fundamental difference inherent in God’s design of men and women, and that this difference is central to the reason Paul prohibits women from exercising teaching authority over the men in the church. One of the real dangers in insisting that women in the church may do anything unordained men may do is that it makes God appear totally arbitrary when he assigns the authority of the ministry of God’s word only to men. The delegation of this authority corresponds with God’s creational design for men and women. We must insist on the goodness of this difference, or else we will not be able persuasively to maintain the distinction with regard to authority. It is simply not the case that men and women are equal in every capacity except authority. That we are tempted to accept that they are reveals that the influence of our egalitarian age is stronger than we think.
As with 1 Cor 14:33–35 there is no corresponding prohibition of men exercising the authority of the word in 1 Tim 2:12–14. This brings me to my third point. Another reason Paul never states that unordained men (men who are not elders) must “keep silent in the churches” and are forbidden from “exercis[ing] authority over a man” is this: only men may pursue eldership, and there must be a route in which they can pursue it. Paul says in 1 Tim 3:1 that if a man “aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.” There must be a way in which an unordained man can to pursue the office of elder. Men must be tested before entering into office (1 Tim 3:10; Titus 1:5–9; Acts 14:23; 15:22; Eph 4:7–11), which requires the elders of the church to determine whether those men have the requisite gifts and moral character to serve in that way. How will one know whether a man has those gifts if they are not employed first? This will include the public teaching of the word (1 Tim 3:2; Titus 1:9).
Finally, a major reason for much contemporary confusion about the role of men and women in the church has to do with a basic confusion about the nature of public worship. There is a widespread, yet unbiblical, separation of the preaching of the word of God in public worship from everything else that takes place in worship. But faithful biblical worship is not just the preaching of the word. It is also the reading of the Word, the praying of the word, the singing of the word, and the visible word given in the sacraments. Every aspect of the faithful biblical worship is centered on God’s word, even the most particular, like the call to worship or the benediction. We are not free as Christians to worship God in whatever way we see fit. Our worship must be in accordance with the Scriptures, and at the very least that means worship in which every facet is centered on God’s word. For all the reasons listed above and more, the ministry of the Word of God can only be carried out by men appointed to the appropriate office, or being tested in anticipation of entering into that office. Women are not, therefore, identical to unordained men, because God has decreed—in accordance with his perfect creational design for men and women—that only men can carry out that ministry. Blessing always (and only) comes when God’s people adhere to God’s purposes for his world.
Image Credit: Unsplash
