Tag Archives: Women

The Bible, Culture and Gender Roles

8 Replies

Bible by fireplaceAll right, let’s get back to the discussion of gender roles in the church. Thanks for the discussion last time; special thanks to those who recruited others to join the conversation.

One big issue that has to be dealt with is the Bible’s relationship with its historical and cultural context, especially when it comes to gender roles. It’s hard to deny that the Bible paints a male-dominated picture of the world. You find the occasional queen, prophetess, and female judge, but overwhelmingly, it’s a man’s world. So, in such a testosterone-laden context, was the Bible merely a product of that society or did it help shape it?

It’s the question I asked before: did the Law prohibit pork because the Jews didn’t eat it or did the Jews refrain from pork because the Law prohibited it? Did the Mosaic Law establish a system of male leadership because of the society the Hebrews lived in or did the Law seek to shape the Israelites into the society he wanted?

More specifically for us Christians, when Jesus chose only men to be among the Twelve, was that a concession to society or an example for the church? When Paul told Timothy and Titus to appoint men as elders, was that merely a reflection of the world Paul knew or was that an inspired directive? (we can also ask if that was only for Ephesus and Crete or if other churches followed that practice)

I’d like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

graphic from CreationSwap.com

Gender roles: You’ve got homework!

6 Replies

I’m going to be away from the blog next week. I want to continue discussing gender and the church. Let me throw out some questions for you to solve between now and then:

  • What do we do with the fact that a patriarchal system is not only portrayed but is actively taught in the Bible?
  • What do we do with the exceptional women of the Bible, like Deborah, Huldah, Philip’s daughters, and Junia?
  • What do we do with the weight of history and tradition and their teaching about women?
  • What about the fact that history has been proven wrong at times, as in the case of slavery?
  • How do we deal with the passages that seem to limit women’s activity in the church?
  • How do we deal with the concept of Spiritual giftedness, with gifts being given to both sexes?
  • Is God’s call based on ability? Does not being chosen by God for a task mean that one is inept for that task?
  • How do we balance the home and the church? What does biblical teaching about motherhood, male headship, and raising children have to say about this topic?
  • How does biblical teaching for the first century apply to the twenty-first century?
  • How does teaching addressed to a home church setting speak to modern assemblies?

That should be enough to hold you. I want 5-7 pages, typed (no computers), double-spaced with a one inch margin. Sources should be quoted in Turabian format. Footnotes, not endnotes.

No, seriously… feel free to throw out more questions or to take a stab at answering some of these.

My understanding of gender roles in the church

31 Replies

Bathroom-gender-signOK, cards on the table. I usually prefer to present evidence then draw conclusions. And I still plan to do that. But let me tell you where I am right now on the question of what women can and can’t do in the church.

I believe that there are differences in the Bible between what God has set out for men to do and what God has set out for women to do. As Paul Smith expressed it, I recognize that my views qualify me as a “chauvinistic, knuckle-dragging troglodyte.” I recognize my position is definitely not cool, topples me from the pedestal of wild-eyed progressive, and is deeply troubling to some. (fortunately, few of them read my blog)

I’m open to discussing how those different roles are played out. I even think they will be expressed differently from culture to culture. But I believe that God has tasked men with the responsibility of leading the church in a way that he has not given that responsibility to women.

I plan to come back to this and discuss it further. I’ll be away from the Internet some the next week or so. After that, I’ll try and get more specific about my understanding. I’ll also wrestle with as many of the underlying issues as I can.

But for now, I wanted to tell you where I am. My request/suggestion is that commenters state their current understanding. If you want to give justification for your position, fine. But let’s save the full-out debate for a later date.

Women, men, and what the church is supposed to be focused on

4 Replies

02forangeOne thing that worries me about the many church controversies, including the role of women, is the battlefield of choice. We spend an awful lot of time talking about what goes on during the worship assembly. That’s worrisome to me because it’s directly opposite of what we see in the New Testament. The New Testament spends very little time talking about what goes on when Christians get together; why is that our main focus?

I’ve already argued that I think one of the great mistakes of the modern church is its obsession with the weekly assembly. (See the series starting here) It’s definitely the modern church that has made this mistake, for our assembly is a shrine to modernism. From the time consciousness to the focus on study, the assemblies that most of us grew up with (especially those of us from churches of Christ) are steeped in the traditions of modernism, much more than biblical tradition. That’s one reason we’re struggling to get postmoderns interested in being a part!

One reason we don’t find more information in the Bible about what women can and can’t do in assemblies is the fact that the Bible doesn’t talk much about our assemblies! It’s a bit like wondering what the New Testament teaches about food preparation; you’re not going to find much there.

Years ago, my friend Bill Richardson was talking with a group of people who were frustrated at the lack of change in their congregation. He said to them, “Maybe you’ve done all you can right now with improving worship; why don’t you focus on other things in the church that need improvement?” He says they looked at him like he was from Mars. What else is there besides the worship assembly?

As long as we stay focused on what we can sing, how we can sing, who can preach, and how shall we take the Lord’s Supper, we’ll always be off balance. We’ll always be “majoring in minors,” as the old saying goes. Look at the people whose lives are dedicated to service, those who are focused on evangelism, the ones whose ministries do more outside the building than inside the building. Few of them are obsessed with the “big issues” that rock churches.

Just an observation. I want to talk some more about women and the church, but you need to know that I think most of the conversation is focused on all the wrong things.

1 Timothy 2:8-10 (addendum)

Leave a reply

This post merely adds to the previous one, so if you haven’t read it, please do so. In the spirit of this blog in general and the last post in particular, it’s time for me to say that I think I was wrong about something. I think that I was misreading 1 Timothy 2:9. I accused most of the Western world of misreading that verse, but now I think it was me. If you haven’t read the comments on that post, please do so, especially the ones by Bob Bliss. He and I want to study this passage further, but my initial impression is that I was wrong.

I still feel, however, that we’ve read too much into what Paul is saying. His statement that he wants men to pray does not mean that he doesn’t want women to pray. When he says that older women should teach younger women in Titus 2, that doesn’t mean men can’t teach younger women. Paul wants the men in Ephesus to get together and pray, lifting holy hands (why don’t we bind that part of the verse?), without fighting. They apparently have a problem with that, and he wants it to change.

All right, citizens… back to your lives. I just thought I shouldn’t leave these things to the comment section.