Let me start with a fact most people don’t realize: Christianity has done more to empower women than any other religion or philosophy in history. The New Testament was easily the most feminist text in the ancient world. It just takes a little historical context to see it.
Paul was saying something revolutionary when he said God “predestined us to be adopted as sons” (Ephesians 1:5). You might feel the need to mentally add “sons and daughters” when you read that, but you need to understand what it meant to be a son in that culture. It meant that you could receive an inheritance from your dad. Daughters couldn’t. So Paul’s saying it’s not just males who get to be sons. God predestined us all — males and females — to be his sons with the full rights and privileges that come with the title.
Even more, Paul said in his letter to Timothy (then a pastor at the church in Ephesus), “A woman is to learn quietly with full submission.” (1 Timothy 2:11). Now, I know your eyes went straight to the last few words: “quietly with full submission.” That’s what you think this verse is all about. It’s not. You totally skipped over the first few words. A woman is to learn. To learn and grow and make progress!
Women in that day just didn’t do that. Especially Jewish women. As one scholar said, “Some rabbis of the day believed that the men come to learn, but the women just come to hear. Other rabbis believed that it would be better for the words of the Bible to be burned than if they were taught to a woman.”
There are many cultures today that still operate the same way, as you’ve seen in the news. Girls’ schools are bombed in different parts of the world because people in that culture are so opposed to women learning, they’d rather see a girl die than learn.
So what Paul proposed was radically liberating for women. And he went even further than that in his letter to Titus. He said in Titus 1, “Older women are to teach what is good, so that they may encourage the young women.”
That’s one of the most female-empowering sentences you’ll find anywhere in ancient literature. In the ancient world, women didn’t teach anything. They just waited around for a man to tell them what to do. But Paul elevated women, saying, “You don’t just have to sit around and wait for someone to tell you what to do. You can learn and grow and teach others!”
With that in mind, at Harbor Church we want to see women thrive in life and ministry. We love to see women take on many different roles of leadership, and currently the majority of our ministry-leaders are female. We equate ministry-leaders to the biblical role of deacon. We see that role as open to both men and women since Paul lists unique qualifications for male and female deacons in 1 Timothy 3:8-13.**
There’s only one role in the church that is reserved for men: the office of elder (1 Tim 3:1-7). As Paul says just before he lists the qualifications for elders, “I do not allow a woman to teach or to have authority over a man” (1 Tim 2:12). A good way to interpret this is, “I do not allow a woman to teach in a way that has authority over a man.” That’s why we have women teach in many different capacities at Harbor (including groups of men and women), but not preach at the Sunday morning gathering. We see that as an authoritative time, so we reserve that preaching slot for elders and men who are in the process of becoming elders.
The issue is authority, and that’s because God designed us with certain roles to fill in the home and the church.
As Paul instructed married couples, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. … Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her … This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:22-32).
The mystery of marriage is profound, and what’s so profound is that marriage is a picture of the gospel. When husbands love their wives like Christ loved the church, and give themselves up for their wives, they’re showing the world what the sacrificial love of Christ looks like. When wives submit to their husbands like the church submits to Christ, they’re showing the world how we should respect Christ.
If that’s how God designed gender roles in our individual families, we shouldn’t expect it to be any different in our church family. The church is a family of families. The Bible has nothing to say about women’s roles in the world. Paul never says a woman can’t be a CEO or the President of the United States. He’s only talking about life in the Christian family and church family.
That’s why we believe the role of elder is reserved for males. Not because men are any stronger, smarter, or more skilled than women. If that’s how we chose elders, most of the women I know would beat most of the men I know, hands down. It’s only because this is how God wants to show the world a picture of the way Jesus relates to his people, and the way we relate to him.
When we as men and women fulfill our God-given roles in the family and church, we’re a living picture of the gospel!
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** Some translations use the word “wives” in verse 11, but we think this is an incorrect translation. The Greek word is gynaikas, which simply means “women.” It would be strange for Paul to list qualifications for deacons’ wives and not for elders’ wives, so it seems clear that Paul is addressing deacons who happen to be women.