Women In Ministry Research Notes

1 Corinthians 11:16 — How clear can Paul be? "We have no such practice"!! Paul is saying that neither he nor the churches of God have any such practice of head coverings. He gave the explanation and summarized by stating the claim clearly. Case closed!

1 Corinthians 11:14 — Comments on the NET translation: Nature doesn't teach us that there is any difference or standard between the length of hair on a man or a woman. Both continue to grow unlike the hair on the arm or one's eyebrows. The translators got the negation in the wrong place—it should read, "Nature teaches you neither that it is disgraceful for a man to have long hair nor that hair is a woman's glory; rather, hair is given as a substitute for hair coverings" (see the ISV).

1 Corinthians 11:14 — Nature doesn't teach you that women have longer hair and men have shorter hair! Look at our arms. The hair stops growing. The same is for our eyebrows. But look at our heads. If neither men nor women cut their hair, both would keep growing the same. If we look at the Greek, we can read this literally as follows: "Not even nature teaches you that on the one hand if a man has long hair it is a dishonor to him, on the other hand if a woman has long hair it is her glory." The ISV in fact gives a proper interpretation given the context: 14 Nature itself teaches you neither that it is disgraceful for a man to have long hair 15 nor that hair is a woman's glory, for hair is given as a substitute for coverings. International standard version New Testament: version 1.1 (Print on Demand ed., 1 Co 11:14–15). (2000). The Learning Foundation.

Genesis 3:15 — The great battle lines are between the woman and the serpent—the man is not named in this battle! It's as if the man is cut out of the solution. Usually the seed is spoken of being from the man, but this seed is of the woman. Wow. God used the weak thing of His creation to defeat the enemy. Not only this, but there is the woman referred to that God is pursuing in the Old Testament and we see that she is ethnic Israel (correlate Re 12:1-6 with Ge 37:9-10). The serpent is after this woman too.

1 Corinthians 11:16 — What we discovered in this passage is teaching on making wise decisions, authority over one's own head, source or origin and our interdependent equality. Verse 16 ends by saying that the apostles and the churches of God do not have a practice of requiring head coverings. Christ is our covering, and because He is our sin bearer, we need no other covering!

"And the Lord God said, 'Behold the man was like one of us knowing good and evil, and now he might stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." Look at NKJV, YLT. The literal translation of Genesis 3:22 is: "Behold, the man was [not 'has become'] like one of us knowing good and evil." The meaning is "was like" and not necessarily "become like." The first couple wanted to be like God, which meant deciding for themselves what was good and evil. By sinning, humans lost the capacity to discern what was good and evil. Today we are totally dependent upon God's revelation to know what is good and evil. Moskala, J. (2013). The Trinity in the Old Testament. Perspective Digest, 18(3), 47.

FF Bruce believes kephale means source.

This proverb is what King Lemuel was taught by his mother. The word Oracle means oracle — a discourse kind of prophecy. It is also called a burden which is a punishment originating from God. Pr 31:1 This is amazing because it shows that a woman had this "burden" or "oracle" or prophesy and she taught it to her son. This means that it came through a woman as a prophesy. masśā' (maśśā'). n. masc. burden, oracle, pronouncement. A message of punishment from God. This noun refers to the pronouncement of punishment originating ultimately from God. It can identify an utterance directly from God against an individual, as in the case of the pronouncement of Ahab's coming demise, recalled by Jehu in 2 Ki 9:25. More often it is included in a sort of formulaic introduction to prophetic speech predicting Yahweh's punishment upon a city, nation, or people (e.g., Is 13:1; Is 15:1). Mathews, J. G. (2014). Cursing. In D. Mangum, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, & R. Hurst (Eds.), Lexham Theological Wordbook. Lexham Press.

God's judgment is based on Eve's testimony, not Adam's. It's as if He ignores Adam and listens to Eve!

Notice that the man doesn't blame the serpent, but the woman and God as the One who gave her to him. He doesn't even blame God for creating the tree! The parallel with v13 is Eve being connected with the serpent. What kind of shepherd is Adam if the one he is to protect he blames and overlooks the tempter?

Here the woman rightly lays the blame on the serpent and admits that she ate. Little does she know that Adam wasn't deceived and failed to protect her as she doesn't blame him. And she doesn't blame God for creating the tree. She also doesn't appear to be aware of any order of hierarchy or authority relationships between her and her husband. It is clear that Eve's loyalties are with God and not the serpent (unlike Adam who blames everyone but the serpent).

"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing" Firstly, we will note that Adam and Eve did not have children until after the fall. Second, their first was Cain when Adam was 130 years old. Therefore, it must have been 129 years that they lived in the garden before the fall. The same word is used here for pain as is used in Gen 3:17 which is translated as "toil". Perhaps the original intention was that Adam and Eve would have children spaced apart by long periods of time, but now she would have children much more frequently. What was infrequent 'toil' previously is now greatly increased because the spacing between children would be greatly reduced and she would have many children.

Adam doesn't answer this question.

No instruction Some of their number to whom we gave NO INSTRUCTION have disturbed you with their words unsettling your souls Acts 15:24 This could fit with women in ministry to whom the apostles gave no ruling to the women. The essentials for the Gentiles were: Acts 15:28-29 (NASB95) 28 "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: 29 that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell."

Bias and partiality Leaders are supposed to be without bias and partiality 1 Timothy 5:21

1 Timothy 2:12 — The problem is that the word αὐθεντέω (authenteō) is so rare that finding existing evidence of the verb is difficult. However the related roots give pause and the fact that the meaning of exercising authority he says was a later meaning used by the early church fathers.

God declares that women will prophesy as He will pour out His spirit on all.

This has several problems. First if the Son was determined to become man, this implies the Son in the Trinity was under the Father and under His determining or ordering. This makes the Word subordinate to the Father in the Trinity. That is heretical. Also he makes it seem that God has to be eternally a man in some way instead of taking on flesh because he can't change, then how come the Bible says that God is not a man? The idea is that God can take on flesh without it being a change of His nature.

Notes from Craig Keener Lecture: https://youtu.be/xyZr-K3STsU Some argue that the historic view of the Church forbids women's ordination. However, the church's 'historic' view isn't always right. Eg., often on justification by faith before Luther. Much of church history adopted pagan anti-Semitism. Which part of the church? Waldensians, a pre-Luther group that advocated justification by faith and returning to Scripture, welcomed both genders to minister. The historic reason given for rejecting women's ministry: Women were considered ontologically inferior to men. Some (thankfully not most) Medieval theologians even questioned whether women had souls.

Part of the problem is that different texts in the Bible seem to point in different directions. Some who oppose women's ministry see it as a part of a larger agenda to reject Scripture and conform the church to the world. But some eg, Wesleyan, Holiness and Pentecostal groups began affirming women's ministries in the 1800s—based on Scripture. Bible believing Christians on either side of the issue often read only certain texts while ignoring others.

Can we account for the different views within Paul's own writings? Possible ways to relate the two sides: Paul and the Bible contradict themselves (not a very evangelical option). Paul was against women's ministry in general, but allowed exceptions (in which case exceptions should be allowed today as well). Paul was for women's ministry in general but limited it for exceptional situations (cultural setting or otherwise). One other approach often taken today: Paul allowed some kinds of ministry but forbade others.

Most advocates of this approach allow women to: preach and teach, counsel, everything except be senior pastor. The problem is 1 Tim 2 doesn't say she can't be senior pastor — it says she has to be quiet in church and not teach. Besides: she can be an apostle or prophet but not pastor?!! Or have authority over all Israel and not be pastor?

Some may say that 1 Tim 2 restricts women from teaching behind a pulpit, but they didn't have pulpits in 1st century churches.

For Women's Ministry: Women prophets: Miriam, Huldah, Deborah, Isaiah's wife, Anna, Philip's daughters, Acts 2; 1 Cor 11. A woman judge (Deborah). A woman apostle (Junia). Women as Paul's fellow workers and "ministers." Against Women's Ministry: 1 Cor 14:34-35: women keep silent. 1 Tim 2:11-12: women keep silent. If the issue is decided simply by percentage of texts, it is those who oppose women's ministry who deny the Bible.

Eph 1:22-23 — Notice that Jesus is appointed to be the head over "everything" FOR the church. Not that He is head OVER the church, but over everything for the benefit of the church!! This is another point showing how Jesus being the head of the church doesn't mean that he is the authority over the church. The church is a special one who is given authority, not over each other, but over the power of sin and death and those who oppose the gospel.

NOTE: Luke 22:24-27 is very important in the context of this passage. I think source fits well with the description in Eph 5:22-25 also. As I was studying this, I noticed that the NASB showed "submit" as in "Wives, submit…" in italics, which means it wasn't in the original. I looked at the NET (New English Translation) notes and they highlighted that 3 MSS (manuscripts) don't have "submit" after wives in v22. These MSS are earlier than the others and are significant manuscripts, so this is likely the original reading.

Check this out: "…(v21) and be subject to one another in awe of Christ, (v22) wives to your own husbands as to the Lord, (v23) for the husband is the source of the wife, as Christ also is the source of the church, He Himself the Saviour of the body."

Doesn't that make more sense? Look how Paul is describing mutual submission to one another and then continuing to elaborate on how that should look in the marital relationship as a corrective to the cultural norms of the day. We need to remember that the Epistles are often correcting specific things that are happening which sometimes we can only understand from the historical context.

We know that the culture was already quite pre-disposed to subduing the wife in marital relationships. Women were meant to propagate the husband's name and were treated more like property than equals. What is the likely outcome of such subjection of the wife is a slave-master-like obedience. Paul seems to actually be saying here that instead of obeying like a slave, the wife should submit to her husband in a more biblical manner, thus calling her out of her 'pit' so to speak. The most revolutionary part of Paul's words would be the fact that he says all are to submit to one another, and that most definitely includes husbands submitting to their wives!

And again, as we saw in 1 Cor 11, Paul elaborates the basis for the marital relationship, this time for the Ephesians as well: "for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself the saviour of the body." In other words, because the husband is the source of the wife (just like Christ is the source of the church) and therefore she his equal, they should be mutually submitting to one another in love.

Continuing… "[For] as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives [ought to be] to their husbands in everything" (v24). The NASB adds "ought to be" (italics) which actually makes it sound like Paul is commanding the wives to submit and is not in line with how what he says is actually freeing them from cultural slave-master relationship. In other words, in everything the wives should be willingly submissive out of love and not as a slave to a master!

And finally, v25: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her…" Does this mean that women don't need to be sacrificial in their love for their husbands? Of course not! In fact, they are the ones sacrificing everything in first-century culture.

The conclusion is most certainly an equality in loving submission one to another in the whole body, and especially in marital relationships. It is a corrective to the master-slave marital relationships which were typical in the first century. The 'new man' should be one who treats his wife as his own flesh, as his equal, not as his inferior.

We know that each one of us who are in the body of Christ have one Lord, so we know for sure that the submission of the wife is not to one who is her second lord. Secondly verse 23 emphasizes the source of the woman. The term head is also used of source. I.e. the headwaters is the source of the river. Adam was created first. Eve was not created from dirt but from a part of the body of Adam. She was created by God through the source of the man. This emphasizes her equality not an authority over her.

So follow verse 23 seeing it as source. The man is the source of the woman as Christ is the source of the church. Jesus is also the source of salvation as He is the Savior of the body.

Now look carefully at verse 24. Paul starts this verse with a "but" which is a logical contrastive/adversative. The adversative conjunction is used to express contrast between the immediate clause and the one preceding it. The contrast is that although the man is the source of the woman, the church which includes man and woman are subject to Christ. The woman is not made subject to the man but to Christ. Then notice in verse 24 "so also" is an emphatic conjunction. So also the wives to their husbands.

If you see this as being written about the equality of men and women in Christ, and especially applicable to women who are being freed from being under the authoritarian rule of their husbands. Yet, although she has only one Lord, she is being told that she too needs to be a part of the mutual submission. While she was forced to submit before because he could divorce her at will, she now becomes equal with him and equally in the place of willing submission for his benefit for the sake of Christ.

This is all tied to the idea that she is equal because she came through him, and she is free in Christ, but in Christ she becomes like Him by willing giving up her full freedom to benefit him by her gifts, love and service.

It could be a bitter pill for women who had been forced into submission all their lives, and having experienced freedom in Christ, are now being emphatically told that they too must be a part of being like Christ by willingly submitting (as one another's) to their husbands. If they understand that throughout Ephesians 5, Paul is telling them as well as the rest of the body of Christ to be imitators of God (verse 1), learn what is pleasing to the Lord (verse 10), understand what the will of the Lord is (verse 17), she is also to be a part of the mutual submission that nourishes and cherishes and respects her husband (verse 33).

Does this make sense? Paul is emphasizing the willing submission of a woman who is now free. A willing submission after the system of forced submission. Paul affirms that they are equal in the body of Christ, but should not see their freedom in Christ as a way to shirk the will of Christ that we love and serve one another for His sake. And that includes wives to husbands. All connected to verse 21 "to one another in the fear of Christ".