Category Archives: Authority and Leadership

Reimagining church without worldly hierarchy

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Usually I greatly appreciate what the well known Methodist Bible commentator Ben Witherington III (BW3) writes on his blog – although I don’t always have time to read his longer posts. But I have some serious issues with what he writes in his latest post, the first part of a review of Reimagining Church by Frank Viola.

I haven’t read Viola’s book, and more or less all I know about it comes from BW3’s review. Here BW3 writes quoting a key pasaage:

[Viola] describes very straightforwardly how he reimagines how the church ought to be– “organic in its construction; relational in its functioning; scriptural in its form (aha! it has a form); Christocentric in its operation; Trinitarian in its shape; communitarian in its lifestyle; nonelitist in its attitude; and nonsectarian in its expression.” (p. 26). Now that’s a tall order. Let’s see how he develops these ideas and blueprints for the 21rst century church.

While BW3 appreciates many of Viola’s ideas, he offers sharp criticism of some aspects of them, and especially of Viola’s suggestion that the church should not be hierarchical. BW3 writes:

I also have a problem with those who have a problem inherently with the notion of hierarchial leadership structures, because in fact such structures are Biblical not merely in the OT, but in the NT as well, as documents like the Pastoral Epistles and Acts make clear.

Much later in the review he returns to this issue, and roots it in the doctrine of the Trinity:

the blueprint Godhead provides us with a reason to expect that in the church there will be a hierarchial pattern of ordering things. … it will involve a leader and follower, shepherd and sheep, pastor and congregation, apostle and co-workers hierarchy— something Frank wants to avoid at all costs, seeing it as either inorganic or simply fallen human structures.

But surely BW3 gets this wrong. The Bible, in the Old Testament as well as the New, offers stinging criticism of worldly models of hierarchy. When the Israelites asked for a king, this was God’s response through Samuel:

Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plough his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you in that day.”

1 Samuel 8:10-18 (TNIV)

But, despite “you yourselves will become his slaves”, the people insisted on having a king, so God granted their request (8:19-22), not because hierarchical leadership was his plan but because he respected his people’s wishes. Even then, God had special requirements for the king of Israel, to keep him humble and not like the kings of the surrounding nations,

so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees 20 and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left.

Deuteronomy 17:19-20 (TNIV)

So it was really nothing new when Jesus gave his own teaching which effectively outlaws hierarchical structures among his disciples:

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Mark 10:42-45 (TNIV)

A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. 25 Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. 26 But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. 27 For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. …”

Luke 22:24-27 (TNIV)

Indeed Jesus didn’t just teach this, he also modelled it, in his life as well as in his death:

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. …”

John 13:12-17 (TNIV)

So, in the light of this fundamental teaching from God spoken out by Moses, Samuel and Jesus, what do we make of the evidence BW3 has in mind, that “hierarchial leadership structures … are Biblical … as documents like the Pastoral Epistles and Acts make clear”?

First, as always we have to be very careful about taking what we read about what happened in the New Testament church as normative. The early believers sometimes got things wrong, and were corrected for it. This means that we should always give priority to specific teaching of Jesus and the apostles over following examples recorded without explicit teaching to commend them.

Nevertheless, we must accept that the apostles did arrange (here I deliberately use a very generic word) that certain people would have leadership positions, such as being elders, in local churches, and Paul explicitly taught Titus to make similar arrangements (Titus 1:5). Since Paul called himself “a slave of Christ Jesus” (Romans 1:1, literally, Greek doulos), it is easy to infer here a hierarchy: Jesus > Paul > Titus > elders > ordinary church members.

But is this what the Bible really teaches? No, because Paul’s instructions must be understood in the light of the teaching of Jesus which I already quoted. And this was Paul’s understanding; in accordance with Jesus’ words “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant” Paul called himself a slave of Jesus but a servant (diakonos) of the church (Colossians 1:24-25, compare 1 Corinthians 3:5, also 2 Corinthians 4:5 which uses doulos), and he notes that even Jesus took the very nature of a slave (doulos) (Philippians 2:7). Peter appealed to elders to be “not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:3, TNIV).

So what are the models of leadership which are commended in the Bible? As we have seen, clearly not the hierarchical model as understood by “the kings of the Gentiles”, in which each person is in effect the slave of the one in authority over them. I find the following models (I don’t claim that this list is exhaustive):

  • Leader as steward or manager (oikonomos): This important model is obscured in many modern Bible translations, but the idea goes right back to the creation (Genesis 2:15) and is found in Jesus’ parables (Luke 12:42-46, 16:1-8) and in Paul’s instructions for overseers (Titus 1:7; also 1 Corinthians 4:1-2, 9:17, Ephesians 3:2,9, Colossians 1:25, 1 Timothy 1:4, 1 Peter 4:10). The point here is that leaders are commissioned by God to do his will, and have no independent authority to impose on the people entrusted to their care.
  • Leader as shepherd or pastor: This image also goes back to the Old Testament, with God as the shepherd of his people (Psalm 23:1) and human leaders also as shepherds who are held accountable by God (Ezekiel 34). In the New Testament Jesus is the chief shepherd (1 Peter 5:4, John 10:14) and elders in the church are shepherds (or “pastors”, the same word in Greek) of the flock that has been entrusted to them (1 Peter 5:2-3). This model is similar to that of the steward.
  • Leader as father or mother: This is a significant biblical model of leadership, and one which goes back to all eternity in that it is a Father and Son relationship, not one of master and slave, which is found in the Trinity. (This is the answer to BW3’s attempt to root hierarchical subordination in the Trinity; a son is not just in submission but he is also the heir to his father and so is or should be treated with respect and love by the father.) In the Old Testament authority was primarily through extended families known literally as “fathers’ houses” (Exodus 6:14, Numbers 1:2 etc, see KJV). The judge Deborah was called “a mother in Israel” (Judges 5:7). Paul made use of both of these metaphors: “Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you … For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children …” (1 Thessalonians 2:7-8,11), and he called Timothy and Titus not his servants but “my true son” (1 Timothy 1:2, Titus 1:4). Paul also saw the church as a family (patria) under one Father (pater), God (Ephesians 3:14-15) Nevertheless Jesus cautioned against human use of the title “Father”, along with “Rabbi” and “Teacher”, because of the way such titles are abused by “those who exalt themselves” (Matthew 23:8-12).
  • Leader as servant or slave: We have already looked at this one, so I will reiterate it simply by quoting Paul’s instructions for relationships between Christians which must include those between leaders and those they lead:

In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:5-8 (TNIV)

There really are people who don't allow women in secular authority

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In the discussion on my first post on Sarah Palin, some scepticism was expressed, especially by Jeremy Pierce, about whether John Piper actually holds the position that women should not be in authority over men in the secular sphere. I must admit that he is not completely explicit about this in the extract I quoted. But he certainly seems to be leaning strongly that way when it comes to matters of major authority such as a President would have.

After a couple of days when I had little time for blogging (and confused by Commentful’s failures to pick up comments on Complegalitarian, a problem with Blogger) I came back to the first post I made on this subject on Complegalitarian. This has now attracted 87 comments, most of which I have just read or skimmed. Among them the best answers to my original question have come from Molly Aley, formerly herself a rather extreme complementarian and now egalitarian – and also an Alaskan mother of five who has written Sarah Palin Rocks!

This comment by Molly links to a 2004 article from the influential Christian patriarchalist group Vision Forum which explicitly states, in a section heading, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Headship of Man Disqualifies a Woman for Civil Office”. Here is an extract:

Could it be that the man has headship only in the family and the church but not in the state? No, this could not be, lest you make God the author of confusion, and have Him violate in the state the very order He established at creation and has revealed in Holy Scripture! If one is going to argue for the acceptability of women bearing rule in the civil sphere, then to be consistent, he or she also needs to argue for the acceptability of women bearing rule in the family and the church.

Molly adds, and I agree:

I guess the one thing I do appreciate is that at least the patriarchy folks are consistant. If it’s not okay for women to rule in the home or in the church, why is it okay for them to rule in the government?

I think it’s a really fair question. I, for one, don’t understand how it is wrong for females to lead in the home or in the church, but okay in the civil sphere. I disagree (hotly) with Piper’s take, and with Vision Forum’s take, and yet I do appreciate the consistancy in the argument.

In another comment Molly quotes Voddie Baucham, who, according to Molly, is “featured on Focus on the Family and other fairly mainline ministries and a much lauded pastor/speaker in the SBC (and also works with Vision Forum)”. Lin also links to the same post. Baucham writes:

I believe Paul’s admonition should lead us to reject any notion of a wife and mother taking on the level of responsibility that Mrs. Palin is seeking. …

Mrs. Palin is not even supposed to be the head of her own household (Eph. 5:22ff; Col. 3:18; Titus 2:5; 1 Peter 3:1-7), let alone the State of Alaska, or the United States Senate (The VP oversees the Senate). …

In an effort to win the pro-family political argument, we are sacrificing the pro-family biblical argument. In essence, the message being sent to women by conservative Christians backing McCain/Palin is, “It’s ok to sacrifice your family on the altar of your career; just don’t have an abortion.” How pro-family is that?

Another quote taken by Molly from The Backwater Report:

Sarah Palin seemingly has many of the right convictions but according to God’s word she is not the man for the job of Vice President and Christians who take Scripture seriously would be hard pressed to justify a vote for her.

First, Scripture teaches that God’s created order disallows a woman as civil magistrate. …

Second, Scripture explicitly teaches that one qualification for civil magistrate is maleness. …

So even if Piper is not quite explicit on this issue, some significant Christians are explicit, and consistent, in their “complementarianism”, which, as ASBO Jesus suggests, is sometimes a nice way of saying misogyny.

Caesaropapism, a dangerous path for the Church of England

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In a previous post I mentioned how the GAFCON process seemed to be straying into the error of Donatism. Meanwhile it is somewhat ironic to find that another group of conservative Anglicans, this time only in the Church of England, are falling into the error of the opponents of Donatism, Caesaropapism, the teaching that the secular authorities have authority over the church.

One of the first historical examples of Caesaropapism was when the emperor Constantine banished the Donatists in Carthage. But actually, if this account is accurate, it was the Donatists who first appealed to the imperial commissioners to overrule the decision of the church council, only to have the emperor also find against them and enforce his findings.

Ruth Gledhill writes today, in The Times and on her blog (see my comment), of what could easily turn into a similar situation. The opponents of women bishops she writes about are not the same people as the organisers of GAFCON, but they are certainly linked. And it is these opponents who are apparently appealing to the state over the head of the church. She writes, in The Times:

The letter’s signatories – who represent 10 per cent of practising clergy and hundreds of retired priests – will accept women bishops only if they have a legal right to separate havens within the Church.

Now it is not entirely clear from the actual letter that the signatories really meant that the only safeguard they would accept would be a law enacted by Parliament, but that seems to be Ruth’s understanding of the situation. The signatories do write with approval of the safeguard they currently have in the 1993 legislation on ordination of women to the priesthood, as

the framework which has allowed us to continue to live and work in a church which has taken the decision to allow women to be ordained, but which has also made room for us, and honoured our beliefs and convictions.

And now they are requesting a similar framework for a future with women bishops, as

provision which offers us real ecclesial integrity and security.

Implicitly if not explicitly, what they are demanding is new legislation, with a threat to leave the Church of England if their demands are not met. That is to say, they are demanding Caesaropapism, that the state extends its authority over the church.

These people had better be careful, as they might find, as the Donatists did, that their appeal to the state backfires on them. The current British government is not likely to be sympathetic to any request from the church to institutionalise gender discrimination, as this would be seen from their secular viewpoint. If the government is wise, it will take the attitude of Gallio the Roman proconsul, who told the Christians and Jews to sort out their own problems without involving the state, Acts 18:12-17. But the current government, one of the most anti-clerical in British history, cannot necessarily be trusted to show this wisdom. If it is asked to intervene in this matter, it may well choose to do so not in the way requested but according to its own principles. If it does that, we can expect to see legislation removing the exemption of the church from discrimination legislation. That would imply that it is forced to appoint women, gays, lesbians, and perhaps even adherents of other religions to all church positions without discrimination. This is surely not what the opponents of women bishops want. But if they want to minimise the danger of this, they should avoid tempting the state to intervene.

The best way forward here is surely for the church to make its own binding and enforceable rules about such matters. Regrettably these signatories don’t seem to trust the General Synod to make its own rules and enforce them, but insist instead that the state does it for them. It is a sad day when Gordon Brown is considered a more trustworthy church leader than Rowan Williams.

Who has the right to test interpretations of Scripture?

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James Spinti has drawn my attention to what is called in German the Sitzerrecht and in Latin the lex sedentium. In the title of Alan Knox’s post which James quotes this is translated into English as “the rights of the one seated”, but in James’ post title it aptly becomes “The What?”

The point however is a simple one. The idea comes from 1 Corinthians 14:29-31, in which Paul effectively directs that in a church meeting someone who is sitting down, if they have a prophetic revelation, can stop the person who is standing and speaking and take over from them. By the time of the Reformation this was certainly not taken as a licence to interrupt a preacher, but it was understood by the early Reformers as, in Alan’s words,

a principle that teaches that all believers have the ability to understand Scripture and to weigh what another says concerning Scripture, even if that “other” is a teacher or preacher.

However, in Alan’s words as quoted by James,

Sometime during the 1500’s the magisterial reformers abandoned the idea of Sitzerrecht – that all believers have the right and duty to test teachers and determine the meaning of Scripture together – and embraced the principle that only a “technically qualified theological expert” could properly interpret Scripture for a gathered group of believers.

Here “the magisterial reformers” is a deliberate contrast with the early Anabaptists, who in general maintained “the idea of Sitzerrecht“.

Jim West was spurred to respond by James’ suggestion that Zwingli was wrong to abandon this principle. Perhaps Jim can clarify whether Zwingli abandoned it in response to persistent questioning by his Anabaptist opponents, replacing it by an appeal to his own authority. (No, Jim, I won’t say that he persecuted the Anabaptists, as doubtless you know better on this point than Wikipedia and the Catholic Encyclopedia.) Jim writes:

The ’spiritualists’ [i.e. the Anabaptists] were in need of refutation so Zwingli and the other Reformers rightly pointed out that interpretation of Scripture REQUIRED training- and based it on the well known verse which states: ‘Study to show yourself approved…’ That one verse broke the back of the ‘enthusiasts’ then, and I must say, does now too. Individual ‘interpretation’ without valid expertise leads to nothing but the most ridiculous heresy, such as we find in the likes of Todd Bentley …

The fallacy here is the assumption that Zwingli and the other “magisterial” Reformers had training which the Anabaptists lacked. This is probably not true of early Anabaptist leaders like Conrad Grebel, who had six years of university education followed by several years of private study with Zwingli, George Blaurock who studied at the University of Leipzig, and Felix Manz who was also an educated man. Zwingli, older than these three, was also educated, but nevertheless it is written of him that

Like many of his contemporaries, Zwingli went to work for the Church having studied little theology.

So, when Zwingli fell out with Grebel and Manz, his position became the official policy in Zurich surely not because of any greater theological education, but because of his seniority and his official position as pastor of the Grossmünster, and perhaps because his views were more acceptable to the political authorities in Zurich. In other words, he prevailed because of ecclesiastical and political power, not because of academic theological arguments. And the political authorities enforced Zwingli’s victory by drowning Manz and expelling the other Anabaptists.

So how do we apply this principle today, to cases like that of Todd Bentley who Jim brings into this? As I do support “the rights of the one seated”, I accept that any believer has the right to express their opinion about Todd and to judge his teachings and practices according to Scripture. But I do also see some limits to this, as I previously wrote about here. First, if it actually comes to making accusations of wrongdoing, Paul lays down the principle

Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses.

1 Timothy 5:19 (TNIV)

So proper evidence is needed to support any accusation. Paul also gives this instruction:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

Ephesians 4:29 (TNIV)

These principles of course apply equally to those with theological education and to those without it, and should perhaps rule out condemnations based on ignorance like this one.

Now I accept the importance of a properly nuanced theological study and discussion of the teachings and practices of a new Christian movement like Todd’s. The only one I have seen of this particular movement is the one by Dr Gary Greig which I discussed yesterday, which James Spinti has endorsed. So, Jim West, should I accept this at face value because it was written by someone with a PhD in theology? Somehow I don’t think you would say that I should. Well, I will give Jim the benefit of the doubt by assuming that his condemnation of “Lakeland-ianity” was based not on prejudice and third hand reports as it might appear but on his own proper theological study which he has chosen not to publish. Now I, as a mere MA in theology, am no doubt quite unqualified to evaluate the studies which the learned Dr West and Dr Greig have produced. But their conclusions are apparently diametrically opposite: one concludes

I wholeheartedly encourage you to support what God is obviously doing through the Lakeland outpouring.

and the other

Now it’s up to the adherents of Lakeland-ism to abandon the heresy and return to the truth.

They can’t both be right. So it is clear that possession of a doctorate in theology is no guarantee of knowing the truth in such matters.

So how do I decide which position to follow? I could of course look to those in ecclesiastical authority over me – in my case a vicar who has been to Lakeland and supports it with some reservations, as summarised by his friend Dave Faulkner. And indeed I do greatly respect my vicar’s views and would not go against them in public. But I don’t follow his authority uncritically, and reserve the option to confront him privately if I ever think he goes seriously wrong, and in an extreme case to leave his congregation.

For when it comes down to it I believe that this is an issue between me and God. As I wrote in a comment on Jim’s blog,

it is not the human brain but the divine Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth.

Jim is of course right that this does not solve the problem in any objective way, for

the One Spirit can’t lead to Two Truths. So being ‘led by the spirit’ isn’t determinative either, since anyone can make that claim.

Indeed. In the end I can only say that subjectively, as a matter between myself and God if I have allowed him to guide me, I believe that I can be sure of my own position. I cannot prove it to others, I can only leave it in their hands as a matter between them and God.

And on this particular issue I have to say that I am sure that, in general terms if not necessarily in every detail, Dr West is wrong and Dr Greig is right.

The Bible overthrows the hierarchical worldview

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Molly Aley at the Complegalitarian blog offers a robust (and award-winning) criticism of CBMW’s claims about the doctrine of eternal subordinationism in the Trinity. In her own comment there she describes how at Bible college she was taught a strongly hierarchical worldview, which she has now rejected, which linked subordinationism within the Trinity with a strong concept of non-mutual authority in church and home.

Nick Norelli may reject this kind of link, but it was clearly made at Molly’s patriarchal Bible college, as well as by the moderate complementarians of CBMW and the egalitarian Kevin Giles. Molly shows that the link goes beyond 1 Corinthians 11:3 on which I disagreed with Nick, to encompass fundamental issues of one’s worldview, in which there is a clear division between hierarchical and egalitarian presuppositions.

My contention is that the Bible deliberately rejects the dominant hierarchical worldview of the ancient world and teaches a fundamentally egalitarian viewpoint. This criticism of hierarchy undermines the basis of both patriarchy and complementarianism in gender relations as well as of the eternal subordinationism in the Trinity.

Continue reading →

Driscoll's God: only metaphorically Father?

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Wayne, Henry and I myself have all had a few things to say about Mark Driscoll’s article Theological reasons for why Mars Hill preaches out of the ESV. But I want to express my agreement with him on part of what he writes, near the end:

Theologically speaking, God does not have a biological gender because God is Spirit, without physical anatomy (John 4:24), and is therefore not a man (Numbers 23:19). In using the word “He,” the Bible is not saying that God is merely a man, but rather that God is a unique person who reveals Himself with terms such as “Father” when speaking about Himself. … we acknowledge that Scripture does infrequently refer to God in terms that are more feminine in nature, such as a hen who cares for her chicks (Matthew 23:37). Nonetheless, such language is both infrequent and metaphorical because God is no more a woman than God is a chicken.

This is a good argument (although of course the word “He” is in translations rather than the original). But since, as Driscoll agrees, God is not a man, God is no more a man than God is a chicken. Therefore we must say that masculine language about God, just like feminine language about him, is metaphorical. Thus, by Driscoll’s own argument, God is only metaphorically Father. Indeed, Driscoll seems to confirm that this is his view with the following:

John Calvin said that God uses terms such as “Father” to speak to us in baby talk, much like a parent uses words that their young child can understand in order to effectively communicate with them.

Now I have no problem at all with the statement that God is only metaphorically Father. But I wonder how acceptable this position would be among the Reformed theologians and preachers with whom Driscoll keeps company. For the implication of this being only a metaphor is that it is not an attribute of God, not a part of his actual being, but only a convenient way of talking about him. The Trinity is no longer “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”, but “One who is like a father, One who is like a son, and …”. How acceptable is that kind of reformulation?

Also, if there is no essential way in which God is male or masculine, there is also no way in which human males resemble him more closely than human females do. Indeed this is clear from Genesis 1:27, from the very words “male and female” which (as Henry points out) Driscoll wrongly accuses some translations of omitting.

At this point Driscoll’s position is completely opposite to that of Philip Lancaster, author of Family Man, Family Leader, as quoted at Adventures of Mercy (see also here and here, thanks again to Henry for these links, which I found only as I was well into writing this post):

God is masculine. He is not feminine. He is not an androgyny, a mixture of masculine and feminine.

Lancaster seems to base his generally complementarian teaching about the family on this position. Well, at least he is consistent, but his position does not seem to be the theologically orthodox one, at least if the following from Wikipedia (quoted here) is reliable:

Christianity does not regard the omnipotent God as being male, God the Father is genderless

Driscoll, however, is orthodox on this point:

God does not have a biological gender

but his logic is faulty. In the same article he writes:

Scripture states that God made us “male and female” (for example, Genesis 1:27). Consequently, in God’s created order, there is both equality between men and women (because both are His image-bearers) and distinction (because men and women have differing roles).

Indeed this equality is a consequence of this scripture. But the distinction is not a consequence. Indeed, while “differing roles” may not be contradicted by a shared image of God (and differing gender roles in reproduction are indisputable), the kind of view which Lancaster has, in which leadership is a male attribute, is certainly contradicted by Genesis 1:27.

The previously mentioned Wikipedia article also quotes the radical feminist Mary Daly:

If God is male, then the male is God.

Lancaster’s arguments seem to confirm this. I am glad that Driscoll avoids going down this wrong road. But I fear for some of his complementarian friends. Lancaster already seems to have moved into ideas contradicted by Scripture and rejected as unorthodox. But it seems that these wrong ideas are the only ones logically compatible with complementarianism. So will other complementarians follow? Driscoll manages to be orthodox and a complementarian only because he doesn’t notice that this is a contradiction at the heart of his theology.

Is 1 Timothy 2:8-15 ignored?

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Adrian Warnock has posted an overview of 1 Timothy in which he writes:

Gender issues are addressed in 1 Tim 2:8-15. I realise that good people differ on the interpretation of this passage – what exactly is “teach or exercise authority”? But, the key question is – do we in any sense feel these words apply to us today? It is those who want to totally ignore them that do irreparable damage to their view of the Bible.

I am not sure if Adrian intends to suggest that egalitarians, those who allow women to take any role in the church, want to totally ignore 1 Timothy 2:8-15 (this link should give the TNIV reading). I agree with him that this would not be right.

However, there is plenty in this passage which I as an egalitarian would not want to ignore. Let’s look first at verse 8 (TNIV):

Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing.

This is clearly addressed to men, males. But I am sure that no one would teach that it is OK for women to pray with “anger or disputing”. Paul addresses this verse to men, and not to women, presumably because this was a problem among men, in general or in the specific context of Timothy’s church. And indeed in churches today men tend to be more angry and disputatious than women, for all kinds of biological and cultural reasons.

So then with the instructions for women in verses 9-12. We don’t have to assume that these instructions applied only to women and not at all to men, but rather that they were perceived as especially relevant to women, at least in the particular setting for this letter, the church in Ephesus. It seems likely that in this cosmopolitan and liberal city some Christian women were dressing immodestly and expensively, whereas others (or perhaps the same ones) were showing themselves to be unteachable and trying to put themselves forward as teachers. Therefore Paul writes verses 9-11 to correct these specific wrong attitudes.

It is of course the duty of all Christians, men and women, to “learn in quietness and full submission” (v.11, TNIV) to those who are the appointed teachers in the church, and not to “assume authority” (v.12, TNIV) or “teach… in a domineering way” (v.12, TNIV margin). Paul addresses these points to women not because they don’t apply to men, but because there was a particular problem with certain women on these issues. There may be similar problems with unteachable and self-promoting women, or men, today, and this passage can be applied to them.

As for verses 13-15, I accept that it is rather difficult to find an application of these in the church today. Part of the problem is that no one really understands what is really meant by what TNIV renders as “be saved through childbearing” (v.15). But I think we need to understand these verses as a message to the particular women who were causing the problem addressed in verses 11-12. If so, this is one of many passages in the Bible which all evangelical Christians accept as applicable today without being able to see exactly how they are applicable.

Now I accept that there are real issues about the interpretation of verse 12, and whether the egalitarian understandings of this verse can be defended. See for example this recent discussion, in which I took part, and my previous posting on this. The main problem concerns the meaning of the very rare Greek verb αὐθεντεῖν authentein, translated “have authority” or “assume authority”, or perhaps “domineer”. Egalitarians tend to interpret αὐθεντεῖν authentein as a very negative word, as it certainly could sometimes be in Greek. But it is quite wrong to suggest that egalitarians are simply ignoring this passage.

1 Timothy 2:12: Authority or Domination?

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I don’t intend this blog to become a place for debating subjects like the role of women in church. There are plenty of other places where such subjects are discussed. But I would like to record here a response which I made to a posting on Justin Taylor’s blog, on The Meaning of “Authority” in 1 Tim 2:12. Justin quoted me as writing, in a comment on an earlier posting of his:

The problem here is that in 1 Timothy 2:12 the Greek word αὐθεντεῖν is not correctly translated ‘exercise authority’. Its exact meaning is debatable, but it clearly seems to imply some kind of usurpation of proper authority, and perhaps a domineering attitude which is not at all Christian.

Justin continued:

One of the problems in the blogosphere is that comments can be made like this (without argumentation or links to argumentation) and people can assume that this is based on solid scholarship, when in fact it isn’t. The best scholarly work on this shows it to be false.

He continued by quoting from an article by Andreas Köstenberger in an attempt to prove his point that αὐθεντεῖν authentein means “exercise authority”.

I replied:

One of the problems with the blogosphere is that people like you, Justin, can assert that a particular work is “the best scholarly work” and accuse others of not basing their arguments on sound scholarship, without any requirement to prove their points. And they believe you because they are already predisposed in your favour.

I am sure that Köstenberger et al’s work is excellent scholarship. But that by no means implies that they have the last word on this subject. IH Marshall’s scholarship also has a very high reputation, but, according to the review of Köstenberger’s work on Amazon by Alan S. Bandy, “Marshall’s commentary on the Pastorals (1999) … argued for a negative sense of both “teaching” and “exercising authority”” in 1 Timothy 2:12.

As for Baldwin’s research into contemporary use of αὐθεντεῖν, while I can accept that neither of the two allegedly attested occurrences certainly mean “domineer”, the simple fact is that neither of them certainly means “exercise authority” in a positive sense either. The example from Philodemus does not in fact clearly read αὐθεντεῖν at all, for the text has been conjecturally reconstructed, and one translator seems to have understood it as more like “domineer” than “exercise [proper] authority”. Baldwin doesn’t give enough context to the 27 BC quote to determine whether there are any negative connotations. The 2nd century AD Attic lexicon’s “to have independent jurisdiction” may be the best guide to how Paul used the word, and this would of course be a misuse of authority in a Christian setting. The only other occurrence within several centuries of Paul’s time (leaving aside Ptolemy’s astronomical speculations), that in Hippolytus, can also be translated in a positive or a negative sense. 4th century and later occurrences are irrelevant in my opinion. Well, you say that Köstenberger accepts that Baldwin’s study “falls short of absolute proof“. That sounds to me like a very British understatement!

So, Justin, while like Denny I accept that the meaning of αὐθεντεῖν is controversial as well as debatable, it is quite clear that my interpretation is based on solid scholarship, that of IH Marshall among others. Of course solid scholars can differ, and they do here. But the implication is of course that no one can with confidence interpret this verse as forbidding women from all leadership positions in the church, still less imply (as certain recent statements seem to) that those who do not enforce such a ban are heretics and worse than unbelievers.