SM

Excerpted from “Boundaries Without Bonds: How to Keep Headship from Being HardshipTools” by James W. Andrews http://www.cbmw.org/Journal/Vol-7-No-1/Boundaries-Without-Bonds

“…I grant it seems strange on the face of it to put any kind of a ceiling on women’s ministry in the local church. However what troubles at first glance makes more sense on second thought. Consider these things: …..

4) For all their remarkable attributes, the Bible suggests females are inherently more susceptible to spiritual deception than males.

This conclusion always stirs a hornet’s nest, but the quarrel is not with me. The Apostle Paul cites Eve as the archetypal female who in her seduction exemplified this vulnerability. That fact in itself is an all-sufficient reason to disqualify women as church leaders inasmuch as doctrinal integrity is crucial to the preservation of the faith.

Was it by accident the cunning Serpent approached Eve rather than Adam? Did not Paul say Adam himself was not deceived (he simply rebelled) but Eve indeed was?[19] Does this susceptibility presuppose some original imperfection in the female makeup? Hardly. Rather, it illustrates God never intended one size to fit all.

In life the qualities that suit us for one role are often the very traits that disqualify us for another. That phenomenon is not a manufacturing defect; that is just a design difference…”

If susceptibility to deception disqualifies women from certain ministries in the church, from a hierarchialist perspective, how does this susceptibility qualify them for their domestic role? This is a serious question.