Can women be senior pastors?

If a denomination wants to hold to a “traditionalists” view of Kinder, Küche und Kirche for women, they need to know that it is not ancient tradition, and is actually not anywhere near the early church model, nor even up until the industrial revolution; this all comes from a Victorian era idea of what an ideal family life should look like. This, unfortunately, is the outcome of Aldous Huxley’s preaching of Darwin’s model of evolution; in which he taught that women are not as evolved as men, and that they need to be protected from the rough and tumble business life; their constitutions are not up to life outside the home. 

So as to the teaching of the Bible, someone who has done their homework, studying the history, context, archaeological finds, and has done the research, can take all of this scripture and with “proper handling” (see 2 Tim as well) use it for “teaching, reproof, for correction and training in righteousness.” But because we are faulty, fallen human beings, we want it to support our own thesis, or agenda, or denominational stance; because “we’ve always done it that way” more often than not.

Now that I’ve laid that ground work (stick with me here) on 19th and 20th century traditionalism (and we could go back to the 13th century, but I don’t want to write a whole book here!) let’s talk a bit about the late Roman empire of Paul’s day.

Christianity (or earlier just called “The Way”) was actually a splinter faction of an approved religion in the Roman Empire. Jews were protected from things that Roman citizens had to do i.e. sacrifice to the emperor, or serve in the army. This bunch of followers of “The Christ” were ignored by official Rome (see Acts 18:12ff) as beneath the dignity of the court as Gallio said (in 51 AD) “since it involves questions about words and names in your own law—settle the matter yourselves. I will not be a judge of such things.” So Rome at the beginning had no care for this Jewish question. They were only concerned with the Pax Romana.

Within the late Roman Empire, there were strict protocols in a “shame-honor” culture, and weighing heavily on that were a man’s social standing and the behavior of his wife. He could lose his benefactors if his wife “misbehaved” and brought shame to him. When you consider some of the senatorial “rants” against uppity women, who dared to walk around without a head-scarf (a senator divorced his wife for this infraction), and very few women had any protection for being accused of adultery, or if they did not produce an heir, their husband could get another wife, and let’s not even talk about the institutionalized slavery; women had a rough road.

Now, here’s this “new” religion, which says, in Paul’s earliest recorded letter “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28, written in 57 AD), well these new converts were astounded by those words, and like kids at recess with no teacher, went predictably nuts. If you read both 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, and the long lecture Paul gave to Timothy in Ephesus (1 Tim) slaves and women needed to be settled down, owners of slaves needed to see their recently converted persons as brothers and sisters and not property, because this religion was so different than anything anyone had heard of before.

Now the teaching in Ephesians about wives submitting to their husbands, is one of those instances of “cherry picking.” That verse needs to be put into its context, you cannot pull it out by itself, although that has been done since the “church fathers” from around 200 AD on.

That teaching actually starts in 4:18 with the teaching against a Dionysian debauchery (drunken celebrations to contact spirits) but to be filled with the Spirit of God. But even further we are to be submitted to each other, (5:21) [as] a wife to her husband. (5:22) There is no second Greek verb there. You are looking at a traditional break. The whole teaching is an analogy to teach how submitted we are to be to Christ: as dependent as a young bride (12 to 14 yrs old) to her 30 + year old husband would be in that day. We need to consider Jesus as our source and supply with the same type of dependence. Then Paul goes further to the larger picture of the whole church…and yes, the next line (v 24 b) states there “…so wives should submit to their husbands in everything” because women had no rights, voice or legal protection. But the next line is the most earth-shaking: “Husbands love (!) Your wives…” A Roman citizen, and new Christian has to LOVE his wife? Husbands didn’t love their wives, that was completely and utterly counter cultural as to be seen as crazy.

Next: the most hotly debated set of verses used to shut-up and shut down more women from ministry since after Paul’s death: “A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority (authentine) over a man…”

First, background of the set of house churches in Ephesus: Ephesus was the home of one of the “wonders of the world”, the Temple of Artemis. These young house churches converted many of the priestesses of Artemis. These women had been taught that only women lead, and men submit. So these women were trying to teach what they thought Christianity was, before they had even been fully trained. The Greek word used here (and the only time in the New Testament) is Authentine, which at that time meant to usurp authority, or even to be the mastermind of a crime; it was a marker word for something really wrong. If Paul had meant any teaching authority, he would have used the general word exousa which is also “authority” but what we would take to be normal leadership. These women as well, would still pray to Artemis for safe childbirth, rather than look to God for their help. If you read the whole book of 1Timothy, you will see, rather than some “fatherly advice” (the Pastoral letters…hmm) it is a supervisor explaining on no-uncertain-terms that Timothy has an out-of-control situation on his hands and to straighten out this mess. 

Now, if these churches were up-ending the cultural norms, by the behavior of their members, this would draw attention to them: which it eventually did under Nero, and after Nero had his moderate advisors killed was when the first persecution of Christians began, and when both Paul and Peter were executed (67-68AD.) After that Christianity was outlawed in the Roman Empire, but it wasn’t until later under other emperors that feeding the Christians to the lions came in vogue.

Article By: Alice E. Guinther. To Know more about Alice, click here.

Image Source: Newlife