Category Archives: Gender and Leadership

Molly's paradigm shift

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Molly writes, in a post at Adventures of Mercy, about her move from a complementarian or patriarchal view of gender relationships to an egalitarian one. This has been a real and difficult change of outlook for her. In a comment on her own post she writes:

I cannot begin to tell you what it has been like for me…just like a death…but yet I have felt like the One stirring up the questions in my heart was not my own rebellion, but Jesus, and most of it coming straight from Scripture. I had been so trained to read Scripture from a patriarchal perspective that I was unable to see it any other way without Divine intervention. Well, it’s either Divine or I’m totally decieved, one or the other, which is something I pray for (for truth and not deception) daily!

Molly certainly has a good point here about “Divine intervention”.

Very often patterns of thinking about the teaching of the Bible become very deeply ingrained, and to change them requires what is technically called a paradigm shift. Sometimes people are able to make such paradigm shifts when presented with overwhelming evidence, but this is rather rare. Even in science, which is supposed to be objective, it is rare for established scholars to shift their personal paradigms to accept a completely new theory; the paradigm shifts which have occurred have more commonly been spread over decades, as the older generation has been gradually replaced by new scholars accepting the new theory.

But with theological understanding there is also a spiritual element. I think most of us would accept this when we consider the personal paradigm shift required for someone to become a Christian. For those with no Christian background this is one of the greatest paradigm shifts that could be made. And it is one which people are rarely persuaded to make by overwhelming logical arguments, although more commonly perhaps they are prompted to shift by evidence they see for themselves of God’s activity. But it is not without good reason that most Christians hold that this paradigm shift can only be made with the help of the Holy Spirit, whose work includes opening the unbeliever’s heart to God’s truth. As the apostle Paul wrote:

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

(2 Corinthians 4:3-4, TNIV)

But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

(2 Corinthians 3:16, TNIV)

Now the paradigm shift which Molly made is small compared with that of becoming a Christian. Nevertheless, I’m sure she is right to attribute it to “Divine intervention”. When “the god of this age” has lost complete control of someone to the true God, he tries every trick in the book to get back into their lives to deceive them and make them ineffective as Christians. Galatians 3:1 is surely a biblical example of this. I know that he has done this kind of thing in many ways in my own life; I am still struggling in some of these areas, and there may be others which I am not yet aware of.

It seems to me that one of Satan’s current strategies to deceive Christians and make them ineffective is… well, I won’t say complementarianism in general, but I will suggest that it is the strident complementarianism or patriarchalism which seems so strong in the USA at the moment, although not so much here in the UK except perhaps in circles connected with Adrian’s (currently dormant) blog.

This kind of stridency seems to go hand in hand with a lack of concern for people and how they will react. In this case, an insistence on patriarchy is surely causing many, men as well as women, to turn away from the Christian faith, potentially to their eternal ruin. But mention this to a strident complementarian, and the response is likely to be that God’s truth is more important than whether people are saved or not. Well, God’s truth is important, but there is no Christian obligation to present it in an unattractive way. I’m not suggesting that complementarians conceal their beliefs, but is there a good reason why they don’t stop being contentious about this issue and instead put their efforts into positive preaching about the great blessings in the Gospel?

In fact the not so good reason for this that I am discerning is that these people have fallen for Satan’s deceitful schemes. Indeed this seems to be part of his worldwide strategy for stirring up trouble by encouraging intolerant and angry fundamentalism among followers of every religion, including atheism. In this strategy 9/11 was a major success, not so much for the original attack as for the over-reaction which followed, including the invasion of Iraq which has simply encouraged all kinds of fundamentalism. But I am straying too far from the subject of this post!

So, how can people be encouraged to abandon strident complementarianism, or fundamentalism of any kind? It seems to me that presenting rational arguments to such people, as I have been doing here, at Better Bibles Blog, on Adrian’s blog etc, is about as effective as bashing my head against a brick wall. But maybe Molly’s paradigm shift shows us a better way. If, as she testifies, it took “Divine intervention” to change her from a complementarian to an egalitarian, then we should, instead of trying to win people by arguments, be praying that God will intervene in their lives and show them his truth. And at the same time we should allow him to intervene in our lives as well and show to us his truth, which may not be exactly what we have been trying to promote with our arguments.

Meanwhile, concerning the complementarian vision of male leadership, Corrie wrote this in a later comment on this same Adventures of Mercy post:

Christ, Himself, turned the leadership paradigm on its head when he told leaders not to be like the heathen but to be like Him, someone who gets on His knees to serve and not someone who expects to be served.

But this aspect of the Christian paradigm is so often ignored by those who believe that leadership is male, especially by men who seem to expect women to be their servants. If these men aspire to being leaders in the home or in the church, they should take to heart Jesus’ own words:

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)

Now it is surely another part of Satan’s strategy to pervert God’s originally designed concept of leadership into the kind of “lording it” which Jesus rejects here. Indeed this is a very ancient strategy which goes back at least to the time of Samuel (1 Samuel 8:11-18), and probably to the Fall. But this is an issue on which the Bible seems to be unanimous. So, rather than a head-on challenge on the basic complementarian position, it is perhaps a more productive strategy in countering strident complementarians to challenge them with this biblical view of leadership. Maybe men who realise that leadership in the family or in the church requires them to act as slaves, even to give up their lives, will no longer be so eager to claim this leadership for themselves and deny it to women!

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.

Helen Roseveare and Elizabeth Fry

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The debate stirred up by Adrian Warnock’s interview series with Dr Wayne Grudem continues. In a comment on a post which is a spin-off from the debate, Suzanne mentioned several women heroes of the faith, including Helen Roseveare and Elizabeth Fry. In a response, which Adrian may well not approve because it is off topic, I commented:

Suzanne, thank you for your list of women heroes. Helen Roseveare is one of mine. I remember, even though it was nearly 30 years ago, hearing her preach a powerful sermon on how we should let God make us into polished arrows for his service, based on Isaiah 49:2.Elizabeth Fry, by the way, is honoured on UK banknotes. I have her picture on a £5 banknote in my hand. In fact I think she is the only woman to be so honoured, apart from the Queen who is on the other side.

I wonder, how would complementarians reconcile the powerful effect of Helen Roseveare’s sermon on my life for 30 years with their teaching on women preachers? Was I wrong or deceived to listen to her teaching, even though it was good biblical teaching? Should I forget it? Or is this perhaps more like Philippians 1:18, where Paul rejoices that Christ is preached even though some of the preachers had wrong motives? But one thing I am sure of, Roseveare’s motives were not wrong.

Adrian Warnock closes his blog to comments…

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…except apparently to those which agree with him and with Dr Grudem.

He outlines his new comment policy in what has now become a footnote to every posting on his blog:

Comments posted since 15 Dec 2006 have been approved by Adrian Warnock or an associate but do not necessarily reflect his opinion. Please be cautions of older comments and content on sites with links from or to this blog. …Comment moderation introduces a delay to discussion, and due to the volume of comments, many will be rejected. Writing a post on your own blog with a link to this page may be a good alternative.

Well, I am here taking up his last suggestion.

But what does his new policy mean in practice? I wrote a comment on part 7 of Adrian’s interview with Dr Wayne Grudem, actually before this new policy came into force (which means that it should have been approved because it met the policy in force at the time), which was rejected. I asked Adrian why, and submitted a revised comment, but this was also rejected. The comment was entirely on topic and of general interest, as Adrian appears to accept. And for once I was agreeing with and supporting Dr Grudem’s position. But it seems that Adrian will not allow me even to refer to the fact that Dr Grudem has rejected the positions which I hold on other issues.

Adrian’s blog has become one of the most respected in the Christian blogosphere. Does he now want to “castrate” it (see the PS below re such language), turning it into a forum for himself, Dr Grudem and others who agree with them to pat one another on the back? At least this kind of castration is reversible, although it needs to be reversed quickly if Adrian is not to lose his reputation as a good blogger.

Here is my comment on part 7 of the Grudem interview, in its original form as posted 12/14/2006 10:55:16 PM and then deleted:

Well, having been condemned by Grudem for being a “feminist” and again for not accepting that penal substitution is a complete description of the atonement, I am glad not to be condemned a third time for being in a paedo-baptist denomination, the Church of England!

But actually in fact the C of E in practice, and semi-officially at least in our diocese, recognises dual modes of baptism and allows them to continue in parallel. In my congregation, it is up to each family whether they want their child to be baptised as an infant; in practice most church members choose instead to have a dedication service, whereas it is outsiders who want a proper infant baptism! Adult believers are encouraged to come forward for baptism by immersion (in our church in a borrowed portable baptistry), or if they have already been baptised as an infant for “renewal of baptismal vows”, which comes to almost the same thing, usually immersion in the same water, but cannot be officially called baptism. Alternatively, some are baptised as believers at other churches, camps etc, as I was before there was a “renewal of baptismal vows” service; and no one complains as long as we don’t teach publicly that everyone should do the same. Indeed a friend of mine who was baptised in this way, and didn’t hide it, was recently accepted for ordination in the C of E. We are not allowed to teach that infant baptism is invalid, but we can opt out of it for ourselves. We cannot insist on believers’ baptism as a condition for church membership – but then most UK Baptists don’t either.

While this kind of compromise is certainly not ideal, it does seem to work in practice. Of course the C of E loves compromises, and this one is much more acceptable than some of the others!

Adrian rejected this, and I asked him why. I understand that there could be a problem with the word “condemned” in the first paragraph. I wrote the following to him in an e-mail (links added):

Well, what can I say? Would you prefer “damned”? As far as I can tell that is what Grudem is trying to say, about both “feminists” and Chalke supporters. Not exactly bridgebuilding! But I will leave Suzanne to complain about this. Grudem was not quite so explicit in what he actually wrote. He did say, completely without foundation, that “Chalke is denying the heart of the Gospel.” But he doesn’t quite say that Chalke is going to hell, and so he might not say the same about me.So how about “Well, having had my beliefs rejected by Grudem for being a “feminist” and again for not accepting that penal substitution is a complete description of the atonement, I am glad not to be rejected a third time for being in a paedo-baptist denomination, the Church of England!”? If I start the comment like that, will you accept it? Well, I’ll try it and see.

And the answer quickly came back: no, Adrian would not accept this. Why not? He gave me a rather unconvincing reason, which I will not publish because this was in a private e-mail. But it seems to me that the real point is that he doesn’t want any reference on his blog to any disagreement with Dr Grudem. He just wants to post Grudem’s propaganda without allowing for any proper discussion of its validity.

Adrian, if I have misrepresented you in any way, you are welcome to comment, but I will be convinced only if you open up your blog again to proper discussion of the issues you raise.

PS: Here is another comment I made, this time on part 5 of the Grudem interview and in response to Donna L. Carlaw’s comment on that post of 14 December, 2006 23:38, which Adrian has at least not yet accepted:

Donna wrote “a good help mate will see when her husband needs her gentle intervention. She can do that without further wounding him by castration.” Then she explained this with “I do believe that a woman can be a strong help mate without seeking to knock her husband out of the leadership role in the marriage. That is what I meant by “castration”, removing him from his God-given position because of his handicap.” (typo corrected)This is an example of one of the worst logical fallacies and methods of argument, labelling one’s opponent’s position with a highly pejorative label (like “castration”), when it has no connection at all with the literal meaning of that label, and implicitly arguing that the position is wrong because it bears that label.

Donna, how would you react if I wrote something like the following: “An egalitarian man does not rape his wife”, in a context implying that complementarian men do, and then explained this with “by ‘rape’ I mean ‘exercise a leadership position over'”? Of course I would not dream of using such language. Maybe some egalitarians have done so, but not in this discussion. Please let’s keep this kind of rabble rousing argument out of this blog.

“No need to apologize“, you think, Donna? On the contrary, every need, for your explanation has made your slur worse, rather than better. If your mother can take the lead over your invalid father “without making a man feel like less of a man“, without castrating him physically or presumably in the non-physical sense you have in mind, then why can’t the same happen in a marriage in which the couple agree on an egalitarian relationship? Note that I am not talking about a case where a wife “assumes authority” or “usurps authority” over her husband (something which Paul rightly did not allow, although he reserved “castrate” for the Judaising false teachers of Galatians 5:12) but where this relationship is agreed between the couple.

I didn’t write what I could have done (but which would surely have guaranteed the rejection of this comment), that Dr Grudem also uses the kind of argument by attaching pejorative labels which I objected to Donna using. One of Grudem’s favourite pejorative labels is “feminist”, which is not as bad as “castrate”, but by arguing in this way at all he is encouraging others down the “slippery slope” into using labels like “castrate”. Actually I wouldn’t be surprised if someone finds that Grudem has also used “castrate” in this way, but I don’t have any evidence for this.

Well, if Adrian’s new policy introduced 22 minutes after Donna’s comment stops people making generalised slurs of this nature on egalitarian women, and refusing to apologise for them, then maybe the policy is not all bad. But if he allows comments like this to be made, he should allow replies to them – if he doesn’t apply his new policy to them retroactively by deleting them, as he did to the original version of my comment, as copied above, posted 43 minutes earlier and then deleted.

UPDATE: Adrian has now accepted an even further weakened version of my comment on part 7 of the Grudem interview. So the answer to the question I put to him in a private e-mail:

Or is your policy in fact that you will not allow any mention that anyone might disagree with Grudem?

must in fact be “No”.

I realised that the opening of my posting above, “…except apparently to those who agree with him and with Dr Grudem”, was grammatically confused as “those” appeared to refer back to comments rather than to people, but was then followed by “who”. I considered correcting this to “…except apparently to those made by people who agree…” But it now seems clear that in fact Adrian’s policy is not directed at individuals, but the content of their comments. So I have corrected this to “…except apparently to those which agree…”

Adrian Warnock censors those who find an error in Grudem's words

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Adrian Warnock has deleted from this post on his blog a number of comments, at least four by Suzanne McCarthy and two by myself. He has not informed me that he has done this. He has mentioned this in a comment addressed to Suzanne on a post at the Better Bibles Blog, where he writes:

I have removed some comments over at my place that I feel are off-topic. This is one of them

Fortunately I have a copy of these six comments still open in a browser window and so can restore them to public view on this blog.

I must agree with Adrian that some of Suzanne’s points, and my second comment which is in reply to those points, are somewhat off the immediate topic of Adrian’s post. So he has is acting reasonably by deleting those comments.

However, I have a very serious problem of principle with the fact that he has deleted both of the comments which point out an error of fact in his post. The error is in the words of Dr Wayne Grudem in part five of Adrian’s interview with him. These comments are of course entirely relevant to the post concerning which they were added as comments.

Adrian doesn’t seem to have a problem with being corrected himself. Indeed he was very gracious when I put him right about subordination within the Trinity in his recent post on the attributes of God. But it seems that he cannot take it when people find errors in what his favourite teachers have said. He wrote the following in a comment just before the ones he deleted:

O, and please be careful about being disrespectful to our guest around here. If I had Dr Grudem as a guest in my home and another guest was rude to him most likely I would ask that guest to leave.

Indeed it is right to be respectful to a guest – and to any guest, including any commenter on a blog, not just to those who have an academic position and a good reputation in certain circles. However, I do not consider it to be showing a lack of respect to politely point out errors of fact made by someone else. Indeed I would consider it disrespectful to avoid carefully correcting someone, to stop them perpetuating their error and potentially being even more embarrassed by public exposure. And I would certainly consider it disrespectful to the honoured guest, as well as to the person pointing out the error, to intervene in the discussion to prevent the guest from finding out about their error.

As for the particular issue in question here, since Adrian has not let me make the correction through a comment in his blog, I will have to make it more publicly, in a separate post from this one.

Here are the comments which Adrian deleted, unedited:

Suzanne McCarthy said…
On 1 Tim. 2:12 Dr. Grudem also takes a stand against the Tyndale – King James tradition.12But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.12Einem Weibe aber gestatte ich nicht, daß sie lehre, auch nicht, daß sie des Mannes Herr sei, sondern stille sei. LutherSo Dr. Grudem cannot teach from these Bibles, I have heard many times pastors tell me that they cannot teach from a certain text even though it is what was in the KJ or Luther Bible. Why is that? They need their own special version? They will not use a traditional and established Bible? 

I don’t know why the TNIV is “a highly suspect and novel translation”, it is simply an update of the King James translation in this case.

I challenge Dr. Grudem to go back to the King James Bible and teach from that.

12 December, 2006 08:14

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Suzanne McCarthy said…
And why is it alright to post on the internet against the TNIV and its translators? Why is that acceptable? Who are these people?Bruce Waltke
Gordon Fee
Ron Youngblood
Douglas Moo
RT Franceto name a few.It is my prayer that this rift in the Christian community be healed and that there will not be one group posting in public against another, going on radio against another, in front of non-Christians. 

I am so disturbed by this action on the part of the authors of the Statement of Concern against the TNIV. It is my desire that this provocation of disunity be dismantled. These people, these issues are personal to me. This statement has caused such personal grief, and for what, in what way is the ESV a perfect translation and the KJV, the TNIV and the Luther Bible is not?

There needs to be grace and healing and humility. Not this display of why the TNIV is suspect.

12 December, 2006 08:27

Suzanne McCarthy said…
Adrian,I need to address your misunderstanding regarding the generic ‘he’.Dr. Grudem claims,”Thus, in Hebrew and in Greek as well as in English, the usage “suggests a particular pattern of thought,” namely a picture using a male representative” and 

“But in typical contexts, singular masculine gender pronouns encourage a starting picture of a male, not just a totally faceless entity”

This implies to me that Dr. Grudem thinks that the pronoun creates male semantic meaning – a male image in the mind. Does it do this in Greek?

In Greek, the pronoun is αυτος meaning ‘the same one as has been mentioned’. And the grammatical ending is masculine.

In fact, no one has ever suggested that masculine grammatical endings create male semantic content, or a starting picture of a male in the the mind.

So I cannot understand this argument of Dr. Grudem’s. He may feel that this is true in English, but the Bible was not written in English. We have to deal with this.

Let me be clear – the Greek pronoun αυτος does not create a male image in the mind that encourages us to receive Christ in our hearts.

Let’s look at this verse.

Rev. 3:20

20Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

Why should we need the pronoun ‘him’ to create a starting picture of a male in a woman’s head. May not woman come to Christ untrammeled by the thought of a human male, not Christ himself, but the male who represents her in her relationship to Christ, as a picture in her head?

Indeed, if someone came to my door I would say, “Please let whoever is knocking come in and I will give them tea.”

I would not say “Please let whoever is knocking come in and I will give him tea.” I think not. I will welcome a woman as easily as a man.

I discussed this with Dr. Packer and he agrees on this – the generic ‘they’ is perfectly standard.

12 December, 2006 08:53

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Suzanne McCarthy said…
Arian,Does is only matter to you how masculine sounding the words are, or do you care about something being true?Think of the women who reported that Christ was risen. Wasn’t that truth? Can you not open up to something more than masculinity? 

12 December, 2006 09:05

…
 


Peter Kirk said…

I am sorry to have to report yet another factual error in what Dr Grudem says. In fact I see that Suzanne has already spotted this, but I repeat it here because some may not take such a point from a woman or may not read all of her comments – and because I drafted what follows before reading Suzanne’s comments.Grudem writes: “in 1 Timothy 2:12 the TNIV adopts a highly suspect and novel translation … It reads, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man”“. But this is not a novel translation at all, for as with Matthew 5:9 Grudem seems to have ignored KJV. Look at the KJV rendering of 1 Timothy 2:12: “I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man”. Of course “usurp authority” is not precisely the same wording as “assume authority”, but the meaning in the context must be the same. Grudem continued: “If churches adopt this translation, the debate over women’s roles in the church will be over, because women pastors and elders can just say, “I’m not assuming authority on my own initiative; it was given to me by the other pastors and elders.” Therefore any woman could be a pastor or elder so long as she does not take it upon herself to “assume authority.”” Well, for over 300 years most churches adopted KJV, but despite Grudem’s argument here this did not stop the debate over women’s roles in the church. So what is the real difference between TNIV and KJV here?Grudem also writes: “I don’t think a pastor can give a woman “permission” to do Bible teaching before the church, because the Bible says not to do that.” But actually what the Bible passage in question says is that Paul himself does not give women this kind of permission, in the churches over which he had authority. So this seems to leave open the possibility that other church leaders could and did give this permission. There is a long and complex hermeneutical procedure which needs to be followed, including such issues as how far our churches today are under Paul’s apostolic authority and whether individual examples should ever be taken to be normative, before we can translate Paul’s example into a command for churches today. This process seems to have been ignored in this whole discussion, at least on the blogs I have been reading. I hope Grudem has addressed this issue in his book. 

12 December, 2006 14:55

Peter Kirk said…
Suzanne, you shouldn’t call Adrain “Arian”. You may disagree with him, but I don’t think he is guilty of this particular heresy!You quote Grudem as claiming concerning generic “he” “Thus, in Hebrew and in Greek as well as in English, the usage “suggests a particular pattern of thought,” namely a picture using a male representative”.Here we need to distinguish carefully between linguistic and theological issues. It is true that in many languages, including Hebrew and Greek, and in some mostly older varieties of English, a grammatically masculine pronoun can refer to or “represent” all humans, male and female. But this is not true of all language, especially those like Persian and Turkic languages which have no gender distinctions in pronouns; it is also not true of the form of “gender neutral” English used in many parts of the English speaking world. It is thus of necessity a language specific issue, which has no significance outside the structures of specific languages. Thus it is something which cannot does not need to be preserved in a translation into a gender neutral language. The problem with this comes when Grudem attempts to recharacterise this as a theological issue and then insist that language specific distinctions are preserved even in languages which do not and cannot make these distinctions. 

12 December, 2006 15:07

Women in Ministry: Stan Gundry could change

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I have just come across an interesting piece by Stan Gundry, entitled Women in Ministry: Can we change? In it Gundry tells how, with the help of his wife Pat, he moved from believing that women should be entirely submissive and silent in church to an egalitarian position on this issue. He is by the way Senior Vice President and Editor-in-Chief, Publishing Group at Zondervan Corporation, who publish the TNIV Bible.

Thanks to Codepoke for this link.

Codepoke has also written about 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, one of the most difficult biblical passages for egalitarians. Wayne Leman has also written about this passage at the Better Bibles Blog, and created a storm of controversy in the comments. Both Codepoke and Wayne argue that this passage was not written by Paul, but is a quotation from the letter which the Corinthians had sent to Paul. Well, I discussed such quotations in 1 Corinthians in part 3 of my recent series on Paul, Sex and Marriage, and I didn’t list 14:34-35 as such a quotation. But it now seems to me quite likely, but not certain, that these verses, which contradict what Paul writes elsewhere, are a quotation from the Corinthians’ letter and so should not be understood as Paul’s teaching.

The non-negotiables of the faith, including gender distinctions?

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Adrian Warnock has been reporting on the Desiring God 2006 conference, entitled “Above All Earthly Powers: The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World”.

Now let me first say that I have a lot of respect for the ministry of Desiring God and its leader John Piper. They are doing a great work by emphasising the importance for Christians of desiring God and seeking “a passion for the supremacy of God in all things”. I also greatly appreciate Piper’s support for exercise of the gifts of the Spirit in a properly balanced way.

But Piper is not as careful as he should be at distinguishing between biblical standards and the cultural norms of conservative America. I am not the only one to suggest this. For example, Suzanne McCarthy has referred to a list of roles which Piper considers as suitable for women. I commented as follows on her posting:

Are these rules supposed to be Christian and derived from the Bible? It sounds to me as if they come from a 19th century manual of etiquette. That doesn’t make them necessarily wrong, but nor does it make them right. Piper, Grudem and friends need to distinguish between Christian values and old-fashioned conservative cultural ones. A good course in cross-cultural evangelism, or some in depth first hand experience of a very different culture, would do them a world of good.

and also:

I just read the first half sentence of Piper’s book, and I think this gives the real key to his thinking. That first half sentence is “When I was a boy growing up in Greenville, South Carolina“. It was in that conservative environment, around 50 years ago (according to Wikipedia he was born in 1946, actually in Tennessee), that his cultural values were formed. In the second paragraph we learn that they attended a Southern Baptist church, and that of course further explains the formation of his cultural values. He goes on to describe supposed differences between men and women which he claims “go to the root of our personhood“, but which it seems to me are at least very largely conditioned by the specific cultural and religious context in which Piper grew up. …To summarise, Piper is making the mistake which I am afraid is so common among Americans, especially conservative ones but not only Christians, of simply assuming that their own cultural values are objectively and absolutely right, … There is a woeful failure to understand the distinction between cultural norms and absolute morality.

So, I was really interested to see that Desiring God was taking on the issue of relating to a postmodern world whose cultural norms are very different from those of the conservative South in which Piper grew up.

And what do I find? I am basing this mainly on Adrian’s rather brief summaries of others’ reports, but these are the points which some have considered significant. I have also looked at some of Tim Challies‘ more detailed first hand reports.

The controversial preacher Mark Driscoll spoke about: (as summarised by Adrian, condensing a report by Ricky Alcantar):

Nine issues to contend for:

1) The Bible.

2) The sovereignty of God.

3) The virgin birth of Jesus Christ.

4) We must argue against pelagianism, a denial of original sin.

5) We must contend for penal substitutionary atonement.

6) The exclusivity of Jesus.

7) We must contend for male and female roles.

8) We must contend for hell.

9) We must contend that kingdom is priority over culture.

John Piper, in comments on Driscoll’s talk, spoke as follows about these nine issues (as reported by Josh Harris and quoted by Adrian):

He referenced a point Driscoll had made in his talk about the importance of holding certain unchanging truths in our left hand that are the non-negotiables of the faith while being willing to contextualize and differ on secondary issues and stylistically (these are “right hand” issues).

In principle Piper is making an excellent point here on relating to postmodern culture. But I find it very interesting that what Piper affirms as “the non-negotiables of the faith” are apparently these particular nine points listed originally by Driscoll. Most of these nine points I can accept as important and non-negotiable (although I would want to ask for clarification about point 4, and I would argue that penal substitutionary atonement is only one among several good biblical models of the atonement). But this list is revealing both for what it includes and for what it omits.

For example, it omits any mention of several things which are clearly taught and commanded in the New Testament as norms for all believers, such as baptism and the Lord’s Supper. I refer not to the details of how these are to be administered and what they mean, but their very existence. If such things are not listed as non-negotiables, does that imply that they are secondary issues on which we can differ and which we can abandon for the sake of “contextualisation”, in other words in order to make our Christian faith more palatable to, for example, a postmodern generation? Or are they simply additional non-negotiables, thus implying that this list nine points is to be consider as incomplete?

But my main point here is the inclusion in this list of one item, “7) We must contend for male and female roles”, which seems to me totally out of place here. Tim Challies‘ version of this is “6) We must contend for gender distinctions”, but he actually lists this before “7) We must contend for the exclusivity of Christ”, as if gender roles more important than the exclusivity of Christ! Well, what exactly are the “male and female roles” or “gender distinctions” which we must contend for? Ricky Alcantar’s report says a little more here:

7) We must contend for male and female roleswe’re different. Male elders are to govern. We do not endorse homosexuality.

If Driscoll and Piper’s main point is that Christians should oppose homosexual practice and same-sex “marriage”, I would not disagree with them. But I would wonder why opposing these is listed as a “non-negotiable of the faith” when there is no mention of opposition to any other sins, such as heterosexual sex outside marriage, or greed, or pride. Why is homosexuality considered to be a much worse sin than these others? Is there really a biblical basis for this, or is this a case where (despite “non-negotiable” 9) cultural values are being put before kingdom values?

But it seems that what Driscoll and Piper largely have in mind is gender distinctions in the church, that “Male elders are to govern.” Now it is well known to regular readers here and at Better Bibles Blog that I differ from Piper, and implicitly also from Driscoll, on such issues and on the principles of interpretation of Bible passages which are alleged to teach this. I won’t repeat those arguments here, but will restrict my comments to wondering why they make such a big thing out of this. After all, there are in fact only a very few passages in the New Testament which teach about such gender roles. There is probably more teaching which favours slavery, but I don’t see “We must contend for slavery” among the non-negotiables! It might well have been on similar lists in the early 19th century, but anyone looking at such a list today would recognise how dependent it was on cultural norms which have now been abandoned.

There are many issues which are given far more prominence in the Bible than gender roles but have been omitted from this list of non-negotiables. For example, Paul devotes two long chapters of 1 Corinthians to spiritual gifts, and commands elsewhere

Do not put out the Spirit’s fire. 20 Do not treat prophecies with contempt 21 but test them all; hold on to what is good, 22 reject whatever is harmful.

(1 Thessalonians 5:19-22, TNIV)

But Driscoll and Piper do not list acceptance of spiritual gifts including prophecy as a non-negotiable. Why not? Piper accepts these gifts himself, but maybe he is afraid of upsetting a large part of his audience, cessationists who disagree on this, by stressing their importance. But he doesn’t seem afraid of upsetting those who reject his approach to gender issues. Or is it because he accepts that cessationist arguments are strong enough that this should be considered a legitimate area for disagreement among Christians? Well, the cessationist arguments, largely an indefensible interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13:10, seem to me much weaker than the arguments for alternative interpretations of passages on gender roles in the church. So why can’t Piper and friends accept that here too there is a legitimate area for disagreement among Christians?

It seems to me that Driscoll and Piper are picking and choosing among biblical commands, and not to find issues which really are central to the Christian faith and should really be considered non-negotiable. Instead they have selected a list of points which fit with their personal presuppositions about what is central to the faith, based on their culture as much as on the Bible. Their approach on such matters seems to be similar to that of the scribes and Pharisees of Mark 7, who no doubt justified their teachings from Scripture, but of whom Jesus said:

You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.

(Mark 7:8, TNIV)

So, what should we do? I nearly finished this post here, but decided that this was too negative. I would challenge Driscoll and Piper (if they would listen to me!), and others who might agree with them, to go back to the drawing board and reexamine what really are the central non-negotiables of the Christian faith, the points which are not culturally relative and which are also central to the Good News of Christ. And these are the things which I would recommend them to concentrate on in their preaching to a postmodern generation. Then there will be other things which they will also hold as non-negotiable in principle but in practice might allow to take a less prominent position; here I might include baptism, the Lord’s Supper, spiritual gifts, and (from Driscoll’s original list) the virgin birth and hell. Finally, I would remind them to base their contextualisation on Paul’s biblical model:

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

(1 Corinthians 9:19-23, TNIV)

Deborah and a woman from Bethlehem

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I usually agree with my blogger friend Lingamish, and I regret that I will not have time to meet him in person when he passes through London next week on his way back to Mozambique.

But I do have to disagree with one part of his recent posting on misogyny in the book of Judges, specifically his assessment of the role of Deborah. He quotes from my comment about her place in the book:

Indeed this “misogynist” book in fact gives one of the strongest biblical examples about a woman in leadership.

I was rather taken aback by his response to this:

Even the story of Deborah in Judges 4 & 5 is given not to show a woman in a positive leadership role but rather to shame the man who abdicated his responsibility. I’m not against women in leadership, but I don’t think you should look to the story of Deborah to show a positive role model.

Now it would come as no surprise to hear such teaching in some church circles. It is an embarrassment to those who have strong views about leadership being inherently male that the woman Deborah was clearly leading the people of Israel. But I can see no justification for treating her as a secondary character or a negative model in this picture. As I commented on Lingamish’s blog:

I don’t think you are fair to Deborah to treat her simply as a minor character in the story of Barak. From a literary viewpoint she is the main character in the story, in both chapters 4 and 5. She, not Barak, was the judge with the authority to command even Barak in God’s name, 4:4-6. Those who downplay her part in the story to a mere foil for Barak are more guilty of misogyny than the author of this part of Judges.

I hope it is not fair to suggest that Lingamish himself is guilty of misogyny, but I would claim that, if not, he is uncritically accepting an interpretation of this passage by misogynists.

This is how I would interpret this passage:

All of the judges in the book of Judges should be understood as positive role models for us to the extent that they took up God’s call to lead his people, and by following his leading defeated their enemies. But many of them are also presented as flawed individuals, with faults which are clearly pointed out. While it is an encouragement to us that God can use even imperfect people, the judges’ faults are clearly not for us to copy.

Deborah is the judge in her time, the divinely called leader of Israel. She is also a prophet (4:4) and “a mother in Israel” (5:7). I note that there is no justification in the Hebrew for the distinction between “became Israel’s judge” (3:10 TNIV, of Othniel) and “was leading Israel” (4:4 TNIV, of Deborah); in each case a verb “judge, lead” is used with “Israel” as the object. But the distinction is not gender-based, for oddly enough Othniel is the only individual called a “judge” in the book of Judges, in both NIV and TNIV. So there is no justification in the text for considering Deborah to be anything less than a full member of the succession of “judges” after whom the book is named.

The relationship between Deborah and Barak seems to have been that of political leader and appointed army commander, like that between King David and Joab. The ancient tradition was that the political leader personally led the troops into battle; indeed this was still common practice in Europe into the early modern period. In 2 Samuel 11:1, however, we read that David sent Joab off to fight his battles while he himself remained in Jerusalem, presumably busy with affairs of state as well as with his affair with Bathsheba. The often rebellious Joab doesn’t seem to have complained on this occasion at being given his freedom.

In the rather similar position in Judges 4:6-9, Deborah clearly has the right to give orders to Barak in God’s name, but she is reluctant to go into battle herself. We don’t know why: maybe she thought this was not a woman’s place, or maybe she had other work to do. But Barak refused to go into battle without the divinely appointed leader of the nation. Again we don’t know why, but it certainly wasn’t out of misogyny!

It is frequently alleged that Barak should have been the judge but that he refused the job and so Deborah had to do it. But that is not what the text says. It says that she was already the judge before there is any mention of Barak. And, while Deborah as a prophet speaks in the name of God, Barak does not; he is simply a soldier who follows God’s guidance as relayed to him by Deborah and wins a battle (4:14-15). Maybe this is the key to Barak’s reluctance: he knew that he needed God’s help in this battle and he wanted the prophet Deborah to be on hand to pass on God’s tactical guidance. But he need not have worried, for it was not him but God who routed Sisera and his army (4:15).

But there is certainly some truth in the suggestion that God uses women in leadership when they are willing to serve in this way but men are not – and when they are allowed to. The following story is taken from Light Force by Brother Andrew, about which I recently posted. It concerns a middle-aged Arab woman from the modern town of Bethlehem, who is already a Bible college graduate. This event took place in 1996 (p.200):

Nawal Qumsieh was ready and eager to go into ministry. But where? And how? At a seminar in Bethlehem, Nawal responded to the challenge. ‘If anyone wants to dedicate his life to ministry for Jesus,’ the guest speaker intoned, ‘now is the time to come forward!’ The man stepped back from the podium and bowed his head in prayer. Nawal slipped out of her seat and hurried to the front of the room. Out of some fifty in attendance, she was the only one to answer the call.

The speaker opened his eyes and looked around the room, then down at Nawal. He shook his head and said quietly so only Nawal could hear, ‘Go back to your seat, please. Women cannot help in this society. We need men.’

Again the speaker challenged the audience. ‘We need men to stand up for Christ in this culture. Will you come forward? Will you be part of the solution?’

Fighting back tears, Nawal walked slowly back to her seat. She felt like she’d been hit in her heart by a rubber bullet. Not one man took her place in the front. Now weeping, she prayed, ‘Lord, who will minister to my people?’

And within her heart, she immediately sensed the answer: ‘I am calling you to be in ministry.’

A little later in the book (pp.225-228) we find Nawal ministering in healing prayer and evangelism.

This happened in Bethlehem, but could it happen in your church, here in the west? Maybe it would be done a bit more subtly, but is the message going out that some classes of people, such as women or maybe less educated or ethnic minority people, are not really wanted for God’s service?

Jesus said to his disciples,

“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

(Matthew 9:37-38, TNIV)

And he said the following just as a woman was bringing many people to meet him:

“… 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now those who reap draw their wages, even now they harvest the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

(John 4:35-38, TNIV)

Yes, the workers are few. Sometimes the only workers available are women, but even when men do come forward there are rarely enough of them. And there is still a plentiful harvest: people who are going to a lost eternity unless they are reached with the gospel message. So let’s not discourage any believers who God is calling to take a part in bringing in his harvest. Let’s not reject them just because of their gender, or anything else, but let’s encourage them all to find their place in God’s work.

In the lands of the Bible God has been able to use women in his service, from the time of Deborah up to today when he is using women like Nawal. If he can use women even in the strongly patriarchal cultures of ancient Israel and modern Palestine, surely he can use them also in our own western cultures.

The Scholarly and Fundamentalist Approaches to the Bible, Part 6: Conclusions

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At last I am bringing this series (part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4; part 5) to a conclusion.

In part 1 I looked at how Al Mohler rejected the scholarly position on women’s leadership in the church apparently because he was persuaded by a fundamentalist appeal to “the clear teaching of Scripture“, on a matter where the biblical teaching, if properly understood, is in fact far from clear. In part 2 I looked further at this fundamentalist approach to Scripture, and showed how this method is fundamentally flawed and could in fact be used to give supposedly biblical support to almost any teaching.

In parts 3, 4 and 5 I looked at the scholarly approach to understanding and applying the Bible, as taught at evangelical Bible schools. By using this approach I explained why the Bible, at least at Titus 1:6, should not in fact be taken as prohibiting women elders.

Now it should be clear that I have a lot more sympathy with the scholarly approach to the Bible than I do with the fundamentalist one. But I also have some serious reservations about the scholarly approach.

I mentioned in part 5 how the cessationist position, that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are no longer in operation, can be used to negate any applicability today of any biblical command. But ironically the whole scholarly approach to the Bible is based on cessationist assumptions, and usually the fundamentalist approach also is, because both ignore the role of the Holy Spirit in interpreting and applying Scripture. (Some interpreters follow the fundamentalist approach and claim to do so under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; this is likely to be even more dangerous than attributing a fundamentalist interpretation to one’s own intelligence.) Even Gordon Fee, who is not a cessationist, carefully avoids any suggestion, in chapters 3 and 4 of How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, that the Holy Spirit has any part in the exegesis or application of the New Testament letters. Presumably this is because any appeal to the Holy Spirit would immediately lead to his book being rejected by the scholarly establishment as well as by cessationist readers.

Nevertheless, I strongly recommend How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth; the link at this point is to the current edition at Amazon.co.uk.

But, whereas scholars and fundamentalists ignore the role of the Holy Spirit in interpreting Scripture, the Bible itself teaches that this is the key to how it can be understood today. It is clear from the gospels that neither the scribes and Pharisees for all their scholarship, nor Jesus’ disciples before the Resurrection despite having Jesus with them for three years, had a clue about how to interpret the Old Testament Scriptures properly. It was only after the Resurrection, for example on the Emmaus Road (Luke 24:13-35), that the Scriptures started to open up to the disciples. But Jesus promised that “when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13, TNIV). Fifty days later the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4), and the apostles seem to have been filled immediately not only with boldness but also with a completely new level of understanding and application of the Old Testament Scriptures. In a similar vein, Paul taught:

7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:

    “What no eye has seen,
    what no ear has heard,
    and what no human mind has conceived—
    these things God has prepared for those who love him” —

10 for God has revealed them to us by his Spirit.

1 Corinthians 2:7-10 (TNIV©)

Now I recognise that there is some validity in the cessationist counter-argument that John 16:13 was spoken to the 11 apostles, some of whom under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote the New Testament books; and that what was unclear before Pentecost was the Old Testament, which has now been made clear to Christian believers through the New Testament which is clear.

But can the Bible, even the basic Gospel message, really be understood today apart from the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Paul did not teach this, but he wrote:

3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

2 Corinthians 4:3-4 (TNIV©)

Thus he implies that the same veil which prevented the Israelites from understanding the Law of Moses (3:13-16) prevents unbelievers from understanding the Gospel. But, Paul taught, only the Holy Spirit can take away this veil and reveal the meaning of the Scriptures to those who come to believe:

The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 2:14 (TNIV©)

But concerning those who thought that they could understand the things of God through their own studies apart from the illumination of the Holy Spirit, Paul wrote:

18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:

    “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
    the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

20 Where are the wise? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

1 Corinthians 1:18-21 (TNIV©)

So where does this leave us? Does it imply that each individual Christian can claim the authority of the Holy Spirit for their own interpretation of Scripture, however invalid it may be from a scholarly viewpoint? Surely not! Does it imply that the church can interpret and apply the Scriptures under the guidance of the Spirit? In principle, I would say “yes”, but unfortunately the actions of church leaders through the centuries show that there is no guarantee that the church, in any form visible on earth, is in fact being guided by the Spirit.

It seems to me that the scholarly approach does have value in providing an exegetical and hermeneutical framework within which to evaluate any claim to guidance by the Spirit. Thus I would reject any such claim if it contradicted the teaching of Scripture as discovered by the scholarly approach. There is also a lot of room within the hermeneutical approach taken by Fee, and described in part 5 of this series, for the Holy Spirit to guide the church and individual believers. This is particularly true of matters which may be culturally relative.

To apply this to the issue of women in leadership in the church and Titus 1:6, I would come to the following tentative conclusions. Paul may well have expected Titus to appoint only men as elders, within the specific cultural situation in Crete. But he did not lay down a clear teaching for every situation that only men could be elders. This is therefore a matter on which believers and churches need to rely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And on such matters this guidance is not necessarily the same for all. I would thus accept it as valid for any one church or church grouping to decide to accept or reject women elders, or pastors or priests, as guided by the Holy Spirit within their specific cultural context. But churches and individuals should not claim that their decision on this is absolutely morally binding on all people or churches for all time. They should certainly not allow this to be a barrier to fellowship with Christian brothers and sisters who have taken a different position on this matter.

The Scholarly and Fundamentalist Approaches to the Bible, Part 5: Scholarly Application

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I introduced this series by looking at Al Mohler’s change of mind. In part 2 I described the fundamentalist approach to the Bible, and in part 3 and part 4 I looked at the first of the two main stages of the scholarly approach, exegesis. In this part I am moving on to the second main stage, application.

I will start by continuing the quotation which I started in part 4 from Think Again about Church Leaders (1 Timothy 2:8-3:16) by Bruce Fleming, now from p.88 and concerning “husband of one wife” in 1 Timothy 3:2:

The instructions in the Bible apply to all people in all
cultures. However, in my work as a missionary
professor I came across three different, distinct and
mutually exclusive interpretations of this phrase in 3:2:

In the United States I heard:

No divorced and remarried man may be an
overseer – one may have only “one wife.”

In France I heard:

Bachelors may not be overseers because they
are not “husbands” and do not have “one wife.”

In Africa I heard:

No polygamist may be an overseer because
one must have only “one wife,” not many.

When the original meaning of verse 2 is understood
as a comment on being a “faithful spouse,” it applies to
all marriage situations wherever one may live. Single
persons may be overseers. If married, either husbands
or wives may be overseers, but in married life they must
be a “faithful spouse.”

This is a good illustration of how the same exegesis of a passage, as meaning literally “husband of one wife”, can lead to different applications. Fleming seems to consider that his alternative exegesis, “faithful spouse”, solves the application issue. Well, maybe it does in this particular case, but the problem is not solved in principle.

Study of the principles of how a Bible passage (or any other text) may be applied today is known as hermeneutics. And this is a very complex field of study. All I can do here is to outline some of the issues which relate to Titus 1:6 and its near parallel 1 Timothy 3:2.

The first thing which needs to be established is whether the text has any kind of authority today. Christians accept the New Testament as in some sense the foundation document of the church, but there are many different views on how far it is authoritative today. I take the evangelical position that what is explicitly taught in the Bible is authoritative for Christians today, and that anything in it which is intended to be a normative or binding rule for Christians should be obeyed – although I would not take the stronger position that the Bible is inerrant on all matters of fact. Some scholars argue (and with some good reasons) that the Pastoral Letters (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) were not in fact written by the Apostle Paul and so should be seen as less authoritative than other parts of the New Testament. While I would not be dogmatic about authorship, I accept these books as part of the Bible and so authoritative regardless of authorship. Where in this series I write “Paul”, this should be understood as “Paul or whoever actually wrote this letter”.

It is then necessary to establish whether the rules laid down in these letters are to be understood as normative for the church today. At this point I need to lay to rest one argument. Christians who hold the cessationist position, that the gifts of the Spirit ceased to operate in the church at the end of the apostolic period or when the canon of the Bible was closed, apparently argue that certain commands of the apostle Paul, such as “eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy” (1 Corinthians 14:1, TNIV) and “be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues” (1 Corinthians 14:39, TNIV) no longer apply to the church today. Concerning these passages, Adrian Warnock writes to cessationists:

Why, on the one hand, are we at liberty to ignore Paul’s clear commands to the Corinthians … when, on the other hand, we are expected to accept all of his other commands to local churches as applying to us today? If these two commands do not apply to us, which other of Paul’s commands also do not apply? How are we then meant to decide which of Paul’s commands we are going to obey and which we are going to ignore?

Perhaps someone could argue that Paul didn’t allow women elders while spiritual gifts were in operation, because they were not equipped to direct these gifts, but there is no reason to continue this prohibition in the post-apostolic era. With this kind of argument cessationism can be used to negate any biblical command. But, as I am not a cessationist, I will assume that there is no time limit on any biblical command.

But there is a more difficult issue here. Should Paul’s instructions to Timothy and Titus about elders and overseers be understood as applicable only to the recipients’ specific situations, in Ephesus and Crete respectively? Here the issue becomes very complex. Paul’s original intention in writing may have been only for the specific situations. But the letters were preserved by the church and incorporated into the Bible on the understanding that this was authoritative teaching for all situations, not just the specific one which Paul addressed.

At this point I turn again to Gordon Fee, and to chapter 4 of the excellent book which he wrote together with Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (the link is to the edition which I have, which is not the latest). Fee sets out two rules for proper hermeneutics, in the context of the New Testament letters:

a text cannot mean what it never could have meant to its author or his or her readers (p.64).

Whenever we share comparable particulars (i.e., similar specific life situations) with the first-century setting, God’s Word to us is the same as his Word to them (p.65).

Fee warns that we must be very careful with extending applications into areas beyond comparable contexts. But he does accept that even where there is no directly comparable modern context there may be a principle which can be applied to

genuinely comparable situations (p.68).

Fee then turns to the problem of cultural relativity. He notes that some Christians do not seem to recognise cultural relativity but

argue for a wholesale adoption of first-century culture as the divine norm (p.71).

My own take on this is that whereas many Muslims take this approach, with the 7th century Arabian culture of Mohammed as the norm, in practice the culture which Christians take as normative is something from the 19th or early 20th century, which they read back into the New Testament. As an example, I would cite John Piper’s Vision of Biblical Complementarity, discussed on the Better Bibles Blog; it seems to me that Piper is not so much Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood as recovering Victorian manhood and womanhood. But my position is the same as Fee’s, that

there is no such thing as a divinely ordained culture… the recognition of a degree of cultural relativity is a valid hermeneutical procedure (p.71).

Fee notes that there are basic lists of sins concerning which the New Testament witness is consistent and unambiguous, and that these prohibitions should be considered applicable to all. But in other matters such as women’s ministry and the retention of wealth there is more variation, and this suggests that these are cultural rather than moral matters. He also writes that

The degree to which a New Testament writer agrees with a cultural situation in which there is only one option increases the possibility of the cultural relativity of such a position (p.73).

Thus slavery is accepted in the Bible because it was accepted by all in the cultural context, but this does not imply that it is normative for Christians.

On these principles Fee argues that the prohibition on women teaching in 1 Timothy 2:11-12 may be culturally relative and so applicable only to Timothy’s specific situation (p.75).

But I think it would be much harder for him to argue the same about “husband of one wife” in Titus 1:6 and 1 Timothy 3:2,12. For this condition for church leadership is repeated in several places in relation to differently named church offices and without any restriction to specific contexts. So I would conclude that this phrase is applicable to church leaders today, and without restriction to specific named offices. But it can only be applied today in accordance with its meaning as determined by good exegesis.

As I have previously concluded, Paul’s teaching at this point is not about the gender of church leaders but about their sexual activity. Titus 1:6 did not mean to Paul or Titus that women must not be elders, so it cannot mean the same to us today. What it does mean today is what it meant to Titus, that married male elders must be faithful to their wives – and by extension to genuinely comparable situations, it may also mean that married female elders must be faithful to their husbands, and that single and widowed elders must be celibate. At least, this is the conclusion to which I am led by the scholarly approach to the Bible.

This concludes my discussion of this scholarly approach, but I do have some more, possibly surprising, things to say about approaches to the Bible in part 6: Conclusions.