Women learning and under authority

I Timothy 2:11-13 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do

not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be
silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve.
Let me introduce this subject with four words of appeal:
1] An appeal to the authority of Scripture. Let me read to you a quotation from
a famous living Christian speaker and writer. We need to repent of the
haughty way in which we sometimes stand in judgment upon Scripture and
must learn to sit under its judgment instead. If we come to Scripture with our
minds made up, expecting to hear from it only an echo of our own thoughts
and never the thunderclap of Gods, then indeed he will not speak to us and we
shall only be confirmed in our own prejudices. We must allow the Word of God
to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to
overthrow our patterns of thought and behaviour. The author of those
searching words is John Stott (in Authentic Christianity). So there is this
appeal to you to recognise the authority of this particular Scripture, and closely
allied to it is
2] An appeal to the truth of Scripture. The truth of the Bible is one. Anyone can
pick and mix candies from a mouth-watering counter in Woolworths choosing
their favourite flavours and discarding those they dont enjoy. But it is not
permitted to pick and choose the truths of the Bible. If you reject what the Bible
is saying in these verses, consequently other truths must also be discarded, for
example, the creation and fall of our first parents as described in Genesis 2 and
3, and the doctrine of Scripture, and ultimately, I believe, that it was a Son that
God had, and that he is Father. Many other truths are affected if you choose to
reject one truth of the Bible. The Scripture is not like a counter loaded with
chocolates and butterscotch and liquorice. You can take away from that
whatever you want but there is still a candy counter left. Scripture is like a ball.
If someone cuts a segment out of that then it is no longer of any use, except as
a memory of what once was there.
3] An appeal to the fact that the measure of the blessing of God upon a church
or an individual Christian hangs upon obedience to Gods will. Elisabeth
Elliot tells the story of her brother Tom at the age of three. Mother had allowed
the little boy to take paper bags she had been saving from the cupboard and
spread them on the floor of the kitchen. This was permitted on condition that
he put them all back when he had finished playing. One day his mother found
the bags all over the kitchen floor and Tommy was in the living room where his
father was playing the piano. When his mother called him back to the kitchen
to tidy up the paper bags there was a short silence. Then a little voice piped
up, But I want to sing Jesus loves me. His father said, You cant sing Jesus
loves me until youve obeyed. That is still true today for us all. We cannot
enjoy the Lords blessing on our lives in praise and worship while we are
defying him. Peter declares that God gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey
him (Acts 5:32).
4] An appeal to the clarity of Scripture. It does appear that whenever it teaches
us about Christian behaviour then the Bible is at its most clear. The Ten
Commandments are the most straightforward parts of the Bible, and there is no

moral maze. Often people plead that their personal inconsistencies in daily
living are due to inadequate guidance: if only Gods Word had been clearer
they say. But this passage, which has been read in your hearing, is
straightforward. Read it in any and every translation you can lay hold of, those
done by committees of scholars, or those translated by gifted individuals.
Immediately you are struck by the astonishing unanimity of all the translators
concerning the meaning of this text. They might be personally disagreeing with
what Paul said, but never about what he said. A woman should learn in
quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have
authority over a man; she must be silent (vv. 11&12). Someone has pointed
out that in the Prime Ministers recent speech about the forces of
conservatism in the Labour Party conference he did not use a main verb in no
less than 128 sentences. Now a main verb involves a clear commitment, and
makes ambiguity difficult. Take a verb out of sentences and you break the back
of meaning. Pauls sentences here, as everywhere, are full of verbs. His
meaning is unmistakable.
1] The New Testament Wants Women to Learn. (v.11)
A woman should learn in quietness and full submission, writes Paul. He is not
appealing to any custom, Jewish or Greek, nor to traditions, nor to his own
personal preferences. He says, Let a woman learn, and those words are in the
form of a command. He fully expects every Christian woman to be
characterised by a teachable spirit. She will go to a congregation where she
can learn, and that determines her choice of a place of worship. Just as this
governs a parents choice, when they have moved to a new town, of the church
they choose, it will be where their children can learn. Eric Alexander says, I
had a young student telephone me one evening from an English city where he
was at University. I have just travelled two and a half hours by bus to the
opposite side of the city, he said. I have been here for eight weeks and have
been around every church that I have been told about which is remotely
evangelical. I have heard some marvellous music. I have been under some
remarkably scintillating talks about current issues. I have listened to dialogue. I
have seen drama and dancing. I have been witness to all kinds of excellent
occasions of worship. But I am sitting back in this university residence this
evening asking, Will nobody in this city feed my soul?
That student had a longing to learn of his God and Saviour. Such a desire Paul
would see in all the women of the church. It is significant how un-rabbinic Paul
is being here. I mention that because he is often accused by critics of these
verses of being typically rabbinic in appealing to Adam and Eve. But the rabbis
did not require women to learn. The rabbinic schools were for boys only, though
the Old Testament had exhorted women as well as men to listen and learn:
Assemble the people men, women and children, and the aliens living in your
towns so that they can listen and learn (Deut. 31:12). So Paul does not write,
A man should learn because the culture placed a premium on men learning.
Women, dont lag behind the men in your knowledge of theology and Christian
truth, is Pauls emphasis.
Let the women seriously learn, that is, in silence. The truth Timothy is
preaching to them is so important that other distractions must be removed.
The preacher mustnt be in competition with musical instruments. He mustnt

be in competition with ostentatious clothing so that women are looking at one

anothers hair and gold and jewels and expensive dresses that is the context.
Learn in silence. Concentrate on your learning. Let the church make sure that
the acoustics are good, and that the lighting and heating assists this great
enterprise of being in the school of God, that the building is not too stuffy, or
the chairs too comfy (no danger of that with pews 130 years old), and pray that
the minister will be a gripping teacher. Then always remember that it is as if
God were teaching you by him.
So a woman should learn in quietness and full submission. If she finds herself
day-dreaming, or drifting away from the sermon, stop your wandering thoughts
at once, and come back to the teaching. Always keep coming back. There is a
great book on this very theme entitled A Remedy for Wandering Thoughts in
the Worship of God. Its author was Richard Steele. It was written in 1673 and
it is still in print (Sprinkle Publications, PO Box 1094, Harrisonburg, Virginia
22801). When the book first came out Steele entitled it, An Antidote Against
Distractions. How seriously our fathers viewed the vocation to learn in
quietness.
If anyone needs some aid to help their concentration then let them make notes
on what they have been learning. Women never honour God more than by
reverently listening to his Word with the full purpose of praising and obeying
him once they have seen what he has done and is doing, and what they are
called to do. That is why Paul adds the words with all submissiveness; we
quietly learn the ways of God to the end that we submit fully to them. You
understand? This full submission mentioned here is not to a man the preacher
but to the Word the women have learned.
2] The New Testament Does Not Want a Woman to Teach (v.12)
I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must
be silent (v.12) The setting for this command is the whole congregation
assembling itself together to be taught the Word of God, and the apostle is
concerned with the place of women there, not the place of wives in their
homes. If you take the prohibition superficially the rule seems to be quite
comprehensive, as if the apostle were forbidding women in every single
circumstance from teaching. Now we know that that is not the case. There is a
sense, for example, in which all the people of God are responsible for teaching
one another. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and
admonish one another with all wisdom (Colossians 3:16). Women must give a
reason for the hope that is in them to anyone who inquires. A woman of
Samaria invited everyone to come and meet the Lord. We also know that
women served with the apostles in the spread of the gospel (Romans
16:3,6,12). We remember that Priscilla is the first to be mentioned as speaking
to a preacher named Apollos along with her husband Aquila. They had invited
this man to their home in order to explain to him the way of God more
adequately, and she seems to have taken the lead (Acts 18:26). So the Bible
certainly does not forbid women in all circumstances from speaking and
teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ.
The apostle is talking about the conduct of men and women when they have
gathered together as a congregation to renew their commitment to God. It is in
that context that the word of God does not permit a woman to teach. She does

not have a call from God to be a preacher. She does not have the charisma,
that is, the gift of grace, to be set aside as a herald of the King of Kings. A
woman does not have the office of ministry. She does not have that special
authority that distinguishes one believer from other Christians, and makes
them preachers of the new covenant. Paul can say to Timothy, Until I come,
devote yourself the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.
Do not neglect your gift, (I Tim. 4:13&14). He could never say that to a
woman. The churchs officers are overseers and deacons. Both the elder and
the deacon must be the husband of one wife (I Tim.3:2 & 3:12), and so women
are disqualified.
The Bible does not forbid women exercising any kind of authority. Think of that
virtuous woman described in Proverbs 31 and the authority which she displays
in different spheres. She is a woman of authority and blessed by God. Women
are told in this epistle to manage their homes (I Tim.5:14). The authority
which is a no go area for women is strictly that which is found in the context of
services of worship and in ruling the local congregation. A woman may not and
can never teach authoritatively the whole gathered church. That function
belongs to the essence of the ministerial office. For every woman without
exception that is a total exclusion zone. God has made that perfectly clear in
Holy Scripture. If she claims to be a preacher she is in fact a usurper, just as
much as someone who masquerades as a doctor but has no medical training or
qualifications.
3.] Five Slogans are Hurled at this Truth.
We all are aware that large sections of the church question all this. The Church
of England has gone apace into ordaining women priests. Entering the new
Millenium there will shortly be two thousand of them in the Anglican Church. At
the last Assembly of the Baptist Union they spoke enthusiastically of their aim
of having over twenty-five per cent of their ministers as women. Other
denominations like the Church of Scotland, United Reformed Church and the
Methodists have also had women preachers for years. They oppose the plain
teaching of Scripture with cliche arguments, as if we have never thought of this
subject: let me tread on these five snakes.
ONE. That teaching is old-fashioned and reactionary. Certainly it is old
because it goes back to the men who were the eye-witnesses, friends and
officially appointed servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. Theological modernism
has deeply infected the Western church and undermined the professing
churchs trust in the authority of the Scriptures which those men wrote. If there
is no standard to tell us how to live in the love of Jesus then affection for him is
bound to grow lukewarm.
TWO. Society has changed since the time the Bible was completed. Of
course, there have been extraordinary technological and social changes this
century, and that makes some church-goers reserved about taking the
positions our fathers adopted on many issues. Women are encouraged to go
out to work, while men find it difficult to hold down a job. Our roles in church
and family are being challenged. The times they are a-changing true. But
we are convinced that the Word of the Lord endures for ever. Though it may be
difficult to work out every implication, the Scriptures were written as much with
the 21st century in mind as the first century.

THREE. All mankind are equal, and differences are not to be exploited but
minimised. Some forms of egalitarianism would play down any differences
between men and women. But without the most nightmare Frankenstein
surgery, it will always be women alone who will conceive and carry babies, and
nurse them at the breast. Much as some men would long to know the privilege
of another human life moving within them, that is to be an experience men will
never know. God has refused every single man that gift. But men alone may
beget children. God has made these profound differences between men and
women with all their consequences for the slow years of childrens maturation
during which they need the shelter of a family home. We simply cannot forget
about such things as masculinity and femininity in the name of equality and
concentrate on what it means to be persons, as we are being exhorted to do.
We do not understand the pleas for such peculiar selective forgetfulness.
There are differences between the sexes which go beyond the biological part of
our humanity. Sinful men have devalued one sex over their own, and that is a
result of the fall, but that does not mean that we must deny all differences
between men and women.
FOUR. Women are oppressed in vast areas of the world, and the evangelical
church is imposing more strictures on them by refusing to allow them to
preach. Certainly women are second class citizens in many places but the
answer to that is not to ordain them to gospel ministry. One answer is to cleave
to what is good and to oppose evil.
FIVE. Your church is a lecture hall and preaching station. Women, it is
suggested, would feminize Sunday services. That objection is like a pouting
child whining, Church is for grown-ups. I meet that grumble that we might
just as well this moment be sitting in a lecture hall in a number of ways. One
elementary step I take is that I wont use an overhead projector while I am
speaking. It would confirm that criticism. It would make preaching a lecture. I
also meet that objection by praying for the power of the Lord Jesus to be
present when we meet around the Word. I also meet it by saying this: the
morning service and the evening service both last about an hour and a quarter.
That means there are, every Sunday, twenty-one and a half hours without the
church officially gathered together, and six more empty days in the week. For
seven days every Christian is to exercise his or her gifts. During all that time
the church is united to Christ as his body and functioning as the fellowship of
the Spirit, the strong bearing the burdens of the weak, everyone giving a
reason for the hope that is in them, Christians loving their neighbours as
themselves and so on the whole package of Christian living in which women
are as 100% involved as the men. Choosing four or five men and women out of
a congregation of a thousand during the brief hour of worship and giving them
some public function to fulfil would do nothing at all to express the fact that the
Christian life is full time and women as well as men are devoted to it.
4] Why Women are to Not Called to be Preachers. (v 13).
It was not because these particular women in Ephesus were doing something
wrong. It was not because they were talking loudly in church. It was not
because they were trying to teach without the necessary gifts. It was not
because they were acting bossy. It was not because they were putting down
their husbands in public. It is not that God has granted to men certain

privileges simply because of their gender. It was for none of those reasons that
women are not to become pastors and ministers, nor for anything like those
reasons. Here is the first rationale for his views, For Adam was formed first,
then Eve (v.13).
In other words, what the apostle does in explaining why women are not called
to be preachers is to appeal to the first three chapters of the book of Genesis.
Paul makes no reference to the relatively ignorant and uneducated condition of
many women of his day. Paul makes no reference to the cultural offence it
might have caused in the ancient world to have had women preachers. His
case hinges almost entirely on the teaching of the opening chapters of the Old
Testament. In other words what we have before us is the issue of the authority
of the entire Bible. Here is the apostle Paul, the man the Lord Jesus himself
chose. This is the man guided and helped by God the Son. As his Saviour said,
Havent you readthat at the beginning the Creator made them male and
female (Matt. 19:4), and so his servant Paul here speaks of Adam and of Eve.
So what we find is that Paul turns to the authoritative Scriptures for the reason
why women are not called to headship in the church.
The apostle turns in particular to the account of creation. Within the first 80
verses of the Bible is the foundation to almost everything a Christian believes.
The whole of Scripture is written to address the events described in those first
three chapters of Genesis. Their importance is shown by the amount of
criticism directed towards them. Gary W. McHale points out, Creation versus
Evolution, the existence of Satan, the depravity of mankind are just a few of
the issues addressed in these verses that our modern culture disagrees with
(p.5, Adam and Eve Before the Fall, Canadian Christian Publications, 1994).
When the Son of God is asked about divorce in Matthew 19 Christ appeals to
these chapters, and he is God incarnate in whom are hid all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge. So it is natural for the apostle Paul when dealing with
the basis of role differences between men and women to appeal to this same
part of the God-breathed Scriptures. He does that not only here but in I
Corinthians 11, which again deals with propriety in worship. There the apostle
also refers to the opening chapters of Genesis, I Corinthians 11:8, For man did
not come from woman, but woman from man. What role did Adam and Eve
have when they came from the hands of their Creator? What was their
relationship before the fall? How would they treat one another before sin
messed everything up? Here is man without his ego and woman without her
fears in a paradisaic state as an example to Christians today.
Genesis one tells us that God created all things, and that his highest creation,
man, is unique. Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our
likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over
the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the
ground. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created
him; male and female he created them (Gen.1:26-27). So male and female
have an equal standing in terms of created status. There is not a hairs breadth
of difference between the image of God in woman and the image of God in
man. There are the two words employed, image and likeness. Image
emphasises man and womans close similarity to God, while likeness stresses
that this similarity is not exact. God and man are not indistinguishable. The

divine image is rooted in all that it took to make Eve a woman and Adam a
man, in such aspects of their personhood as their intellectual, emotional, and
moral likeness to God. No other created being has this image. Woman and man
share equally in the dignity of creation and in the fundamental privileges of the
covenant of grace. Both could walk with the Lord in the garden, and know his
fellowship and love. Eve knew God and understood what God required of her.
She could love, worship and obey her Maker. When she was involved in those
activities she was most fully a human being.
Genesis two gives the details of how God created mankind. The opening
chapter has shown the uniqueness and equality of man and woman, and this
second chapter balances the equality with an order, or a role relationship,
between man and woman. So there is parity and also distinction between the
created roles of man and woman. Let us consider the main differences:1] Man and woman were created at different times.
The apostle refers to that in our text Adam was formed first, then Eve. In
verse 7 of the second chapter God forms man and it is not until verse 21 that
God creates woman. In the time between those two verses man was able to
name the group of creatures which God the good shepherd brought to man.
Many details of origins and the life of our first parents are hidden from us, but
not this chronology of their creation. The Holy Spirit wanted us to know this,
and it is not without meaning. So Paul builds his argument upon the order of
creation, and, in his next phrase it will be on the order of the fall. Eve was
created second and she fell first, therefore women are under some restriction.
That is Pauls argument, and it is only worth considering because it is true. The
late Dr Paul Jewett thought the apostle was wrong here. How did he know? We
note that the apostle in his letter to the Ephesians quotes this same section of
Genesis 2 as the basis of husbands loving their wives. We believe that Paul was
right there too. The verse in Genesis 2 that describes man being formed from
the dust of the earth (v. 7) is referred to in fifteen other places in the Bible. The
reference to God breathing life into man is referred to twelve times. All those
references cant be to Jewish myths. The second main difference:2. Man and woman were created from different materials.
Adam was created from the dust of the ground, while the woman was created
from the rib of the man (everywhere else in the Bible the word translated rib
is translated side). Gary W. McHale says, There was a difference in how the
two genders came about. Man is created from the dust of the earth, which links
him to the world, while the woman is created from his side, which links her to
the man. It is this difference that is the basis of the Apostle Pauls argument in
I Corinthians 11:12, For as woman came from man, so also man is born of
woman. But everything comes from God. The way in which man and woman
were created determines the role differences they are to play.
The good Shepherd brings Eve to Adam and presents her to him, and he bursts
into doxology: This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be
called woman, for she was taken out of man (Gen. 2:23). The woman is part
of him, equal in the created order, in the same divine image as himself. She is
utterly different from all the beasts which he has seen and named. There might
be some bonding between a show-jumper and his horse, a shepherd and his

sheepdog, but these are the dimmest of echoes of the relationship of a

husband and wife. The mysterious chemistry between man and the animals
comes from the fact that both have been created by God from the dust of the
ground. But man and woman are made in the image of God and fashioned in
such a way that in marriage the two become one.
Gary W. McHale asks, Is there any importance in the fact that woman came
from his rib? I mean other than being flesh of his flesh. Why not from the feet
which could mean one beneath him or one to walk all over, as many men have
misunderstood it? Why not from the head meaning one who shared in the
decision process, equal in mental abilities or one who shares in authority?
Since God does everything for a reason is there any reason that the woman
was created from his side? As Thomas Aquinas states, God did not make the
wo man out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled
upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be
protected, and near his heart to be beloved (Adam and Eve Before the Fall
p.22). You cannot reconcile the Biblical account of the creation of Eve with
theistic evolution. Eve was created by a sheer supernatural intervention of God.
3. Man and woman were created for different reasons.
Eve was created because it was not good for the man to be alone. But man was
not absolutely alone because there were the animals, and more important
there was God. Adam had a pure loving intimate relationship with the Lord
untrammelled by sin. Yet this Lord still says that it is not good for man to be by
himself. What value then God and Adam must place upon Eve.
The woman was created to be Adams helpmeet, or helpmate, or helper. The
word is actually used as a term for God himself in a number of places. O God
our help in ages past, we continue to sing because we have been the constant
beneficiaries of his assistance. Yet God designates Eve to become Adams
helper. A woman writer, Mary A. Kassian, opens up the subject so helpfully. She
writes:
The Hebrew word for helper is a powerful one. It is usually used in a concrete
sense to designate the assistant rather than the assistance given. Most other
times when this particular word is used in the Old Testament, it refers to God
being our helper. It usually refers to divine aid or assistance. To infer that the
woman was to be a helper akin to God may be overstating the case. However,
in the creation of female, we see that a doormat or servant-slave was certainly
not what God had in mind. God intended to make a counterpart for a man, a
vital helper for him, perhaps in much the same sense as God is a helper. More
importantly, we can observe that the helper or man was made suitable
corresponding to, or like him, neither inferior nor superior. The woman
corresponds to the man in that she, like him, is made in Gods image
(Woman, Creation, and the Fall, Mary A. Kassian, Crossway Books, 1990,
p.18).
So Eve was under Adams headship she helped him. The Lord Jesus Christ put
himself under the authority of Pontius Pilate. God had given Pilate that
authority, as God gives it to the powers that are ordained by him civil
magistrates and rulers. We pray for all in authority. Elders in the church who
rule well should receive double honour. Adam was not sinning by taking the

help Eve delighted to give him. The Lord Jesus himself submitted to God when
he lived in this world. There was no sin in God himself exercising authority over
the man Christ Jesus. Both authority and submission are ordained by God.
Adam demonstrates the authority he has by naming all the animals that God
has brought to him. Who named your baby? Who named the new house you
have bought? Who named the book you wrote? Who named the puppy you
purchased? Who named the cure you discovered for the disease? The answer is
the people in authority in each case. You didnt stop a stranger and asks him to
suggest a name he likes for your new baby. Parents name their children. In
Genesis 1 God names creation by calling them day, night, heavens, earth,
sky. In Genesis 2 Adam names the animals, and then he names the woman.
First in Genesis 2:23 naming her woman which means she was taken out of
man and then in Genesis 3:20 Adam names her Eve because she would
become the mother of all the living.
God could have done it differently if he intended identification in the roles of
men and women. God could have made the woman first, or God could have
named the animals, or God could have asked them both to name the animals
together, or to share together the work of the garden. Mary Kassian says, If
the woman and man were meant to have identical roles, God would have
named the woman, just as he had named the man. In giving Adam the
responsibility to name the woman, a hierarchical relationship between Adam
and the woman is established from the very outset. This in no way belittles the
woman or assigns to her a lesser role. It simply reflects the difference between
the roles that God has assigned to each (Mary Kassian, Woman, Creation and
the Fall, Crossway, 1990, p.19).
The apostle Paul is appealing to the relationship between man and woman
before the fall. He says, For Adam was formed first, then Eve. This is how God
wanted mankind to function if sin had never occurred. Living in the light of this
is the happiest, most suitable and convenient way for man and woman to
relate to one another. Male headship did not come in because of the fall of
man. It is not a by-product of the Fall but a consequence of how and when God
created us. It is found in creation. And God said Very good! when he looked at
the male authority he had created and the woman helpmeet he had provided,
both made in the image of God and equal before him. This is the pattern Christ
is always returning people to. When the Lord Jesus redeems a family, saves a
wife and then her husband, he restores this Adam and Eve pre-fall relationship
in their home every single time. Everything that is bullyish and authoritarian
and domineering in the man the Lord Jesus begins to remove, and everything
that is rebellious and coquettish in the woman he also removes. But he
sanctifies a mans headship and the role of the woman as his helper. That is the
divine programme for a blessed marriage.
C.S.Lewis says, I am not married myself, but as far as I can see, even a
woman who wants to be the head of her own house does not usually admire
the same state of things when she finds it going on next door. There must be
something unnatural about the rule of wives over husbands, because the wives
themselves are half ashamed of it and despise the husbands whom they rule
(Mere Christianity).

When God grants to a couple children then the woman has the larger and more
important role. Obeying God does not mean that the woman in every area of
life is a second class person. Because the woman bears and nurtures children
God has created her psychologically for the task. Because God has created
man to replenish, subdue the earth and till the ground then he is created
psychologically for that task. Womans task in ruling is smaller than mans, and
mans task in reproduction is not as great as womans, but they are both united
in this work, and in each of them one has a primary role and the other has a
secondary role.
So both man and woman are equal before God, created in his image, but with
different role distinctions. They dont have the same rule, and they dont have
the same task in being fruitful and multiplying, but each complements the
other. The Bible says, Enjoy the difference. Or as the French say, Viva la
difference! A man will help and serve a woman differently from the way a
woman helps and serves a man. We are meeting constant attacks on the
difference between male and female. Genesis one and two declare that God
created two distinct types of people, masculine and feminine, with different
roles and abilities for the propagation and nourishment of the human race.
When homosexual men use a surrogate mother to give birth to a child, when
entertainers walk and sing so that you are not sure whether they are young
men or young women, when women sports reporters demand to enter mens
changing rooms after the match, then sexual distinctions are being destroyed.
We believe that there is a complementary differentiation designed by God for
our joy and peace. We are not traditionalists because we are willing to allow the
Scriptures to change any traditions we have received from our fathers. We are
not hierarchicalists because we believe man and woman are equal in
redemptive privilege and in mutual interdependence. We believe that what is
at stake in the attempt to make women full-time preachers is part of a much
bigger onslaught on the nature of God himself, and the very fabric of the life of
his creatures in his creation. God wills the holiness of his people and that this
message of the structure of man woman relationship is part of the good news
we have to bring to the world. The Bible makes it clear that men should take
primary responsibility for leadership in the home and that, in the church, the
primary teaching and governing leadership should be given by spiritual gifted
men. That is an expression of the mercy and wisdom of God in making it so
plain what men and women are, and what their different callings are to be. God
has been very specific as to what is good for us all.
The issue of the church saying no to womens leadership in the church is
essential for the very existence of Christianity. What we are meeting today is
another religion calling itself Christianity. One of the books I was reading this
past week was J.David Pawsons Leadership is Male (Highland Books, 1988).
The Foreword to it is written by Elisabeth Elliot, and it is generally a sensible
book. David Pawson quotes a highly critical review of an earlier edition of the
book by the bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway, in the Church Times in
which he says, In searching the Scriptures Mr Pawson can find only patriarchy
or male leadership as the model for relationship between the sexes, and he is
absolutely right. Thats what the Bible says, along with a lot of other stuff we
have long since discarded. Mr Pawsons difficulty is tragic. He is a good and
kindly man and a fine Christian leader, but he is absolutely hung up on a

fundamentalist method of scriptural interpretation. It makes him consistent, or

as consistent as Scripture; but he believes in doing what he thinks the Bible
tells him to do (p.100). David Pawson took all that as a back-handed
compliment, apart from the perjorative fundamentalist.
Then this past week in the Times (Wednesday 3 November) there was a large
headline, Bishop Wants Church to Pray to God the Mother. Richard Harries of
Oxford, is trying again to have a written prayer accepted in the Church of
England new service book for the Lords Supper which addresses God as the
Mother who gathers her children together. The Methodists already have written
prayers which speak of God the Mother, and now there are bishops who want
this to be officially part of the Church of Englands liturgy. The rejection of the
biblical revelation of the roles of man and woman is ultimately followed by a
rejection of the biblical revelation of God as the exclusive heavenly Father of
his people.
7th November 1999 GEOFF THOMAS