Category Archives: Gender and Leadership

The Scholarly and Fundamentalist Approaches to the Bible, Part 4: Exegesis of Titus 1:6

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After the introduction to this series which looked at Al Mohler’s change of mind, in part 2 I described the fundamentalist approach to the Bible, and in part 3 I started on the scholarly approach. This scholarly approach can be divided into exegesis (understanding the text) and application. In this part I will apply the principles of exegesis to Titus 1:6, and especially to the phrase sometimes translated “husband of one wife”. In the next part I will move on to how this may be applied in the modern world.

The first of the principles of exegesis which I outlined in part 3 is to get an overview of the whole document. For this I have just read the entire book of Titus, in my current favourite translation, TNIV. (At this point I am glad that I didn’t choose a verse from Acts as my example!) I can then look at the communication situation: the apostle Paul is writing to encourage and instruct his long term associate Titus, who he has left in charge of the Christian mission in Crete.

I then need to find a self-contained unit for exegesis. This is important because it avoids looking at a verse or two out of context. Clearly 1:6 is not a self-contained unit. It is in fact part of a unit 1:5-9 concerning appointment of elders, which is clearly separate from the preceding formal greeting, and is distinguished from what follows by an abrupt change of subject matter. I have read through this passage in the Greek and in the Good News Bible, the New Living Translation, and The Message (which leaves out “husband of one wife” completely!) I won’t attempt my own version of the passage, although that would help with the exegetical process.

There are a number of questions which could be formulated about this passage, such as the relationship between “overseer” (or “bishop”) in verse 7 and “elder” in verse 5. But for the purpose of this exercise I will concentrate on the one question: what did Paul mean by “husband of one wife”?

I was surprised to find “establish the text” so far down the list of principles which I summarised in part 3. I would in fact have preferred to do this at the beginning, or at least as soon as I had identified the passage. In this case, there are no textual variants which are relevant to “husband of one wife”.

The small section we are focusing on consists of just three words in Greek, μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἀνήρ mias gunaikos anēr, “(of) one woman/wife man/husband”. Perhaps two of these three words need word studies: ἀνήρ anēr (genitive ἀνδρός andros, as in “polyandry” and “androgynous”), meaning “man” or “husband”, and γυνή gunē (genitive γυναικός gunaikos, as in “gynaecology” and again “androgynous”), meaning “woman” or “wife”. At this point I will not do detailed word studies, but I will note that whereas ἀνήρ anēr most commonly means “man” as opposed to “woman”, it can also mean “human being” as opposed to “god” or “adult” as opposed to “youth”. This is clear from the Liddell-Scott-Jones lexicon of classical Greek: in this 19th century lexicon (the link is to a 1940 revision) the gloss for sense A.II, “man, opp. god“, was written at a time when “man” was used routinely in a gender generic sense. However, it does seem clear that in this case, where ἀνήρ anēr and γυνή gunē are used together, that the senses of the words being used here are “husband” and “wife”. But see what I write below about Deiss’ research into this phrase.

At this point I will skip the use of other reference books. While in general this is a good principle for exegesis, it is not so helpful in a case like this on which there is such controversy. As for relationships between words and between larger units, I will simply note that these three words form one item in a short list of complements of “anyone is”, within a conditional clause which appears to be laying down conditions for anyone to be appointed as an elder.

I now move on to looking at parallel passages using the same expression. As I noted in part 2, the same expression occurs in 1 Timothy 3:2,12, and a similar expression but with “husband” and “wife” reversed in 1 Timothy 5:9. In 1 Timothy 3:2 this expression is a similar condition for someone to be an overseer or “bishop”, and in 3:12 (where it occurs in the plural) it is a condition for deacons; the expression in 5:9 is a condition for a widow to be enrolled.

These parallel uses do tend to restrict how the expression can be understood. For example, 5:9 rules out a strictly present understanding: the widow must be someone who was “wife of one husband” before she became a widow, and so it is reasonable to argue that “husband of one wife” cannot exclude widowers from being elders, overseers or deacons.

More controversially, as I noted in part 2, according to Romans 16:1 the woman Phoebe was a deacon, and indeed the most natural interpretation of 1 Timothy 3:11 is also a reference to women deacons. In this case, “husband of one wife” in 3:12 cannot be understood as a rule applicable everywhere allowing only men to be deacons. And as the phrase surely has the same meaning in 3:2 and Titus 1:6 these verses cannot be understood as forbidding any women from being overseers or elders; for precisely the same condition is applied to all three, or two, types of Christian ministry.

Now I have not come to any definite conclusion on the vexed issue of whether this phrase should be understood as “husband of one wife” in the sense of not being polygamous, or “faithful to his wife” as in TNIV; nor whether it should be understood as forbidding unmarried elders (although I have ruled out a prohibition on widowed elders). My own preference is for understanding the phrase as requiring the elder to avoid any kind of sexual activity outside a monogamous marriage. But I don’t claim to have justified this fully.

I have however cast serious doubt on whether this verse can be understood as restricting eldership to men. I have three strictly exegetical reasons for this, quite apart from the application issues which I will move on to in the next part. The first reason is as above, that the same condition is applied to deacons but there do seem to have been women deacons.

The second reason is that the point which Paul was making here was not about gender but about sexual activity. Paul may have assumed that Titus would appoint only men, as was perhaps culturally appropriate (compare 2:6 where his grounds for requiring women to “be subject to their husbands” is to be culturally sensitive, “so that no-one will malign the word of God” (TNIV)). But it is unlikely that he was intending to teach two separate things in this one three word phrase – that is not how language works. And the positive point which he was making is clearly related to sexual activity. Now there is some value in looking at the biblical authors’ presuppositions as well as at their direct teaching. But, as I will consider further when I look at application, it is dangerous to take the apostle’s presuppositions as normative for the church today.

My third reason for not interpreting this verse as prohibiting women elders is based on a something apparently written by the French biblical scholar Lucien Deiss. (Thanks to Ruud Vermeij for reminding me about this and providing some links.) In Think Again about Church Leaders (1 Timothy 2:8-3:16), page 87 of this online edition, Bruce Fleming writes, on 1 Timothy 3:2:

The second qualification in the list deals with the overseer’s married life. Careful research has shown that this qualification means that whether one is a husband or a wife it is important to be a “faithful spouse.” It requires that an overseer, if married, be faithful and be “a one-spouse kind of person.”According to Lucien Deiss (notes to the French Bible, the TOB, Edition Intégrale, p. 646, note a), this Greek phrase was used in Asia Minor, on both Jewish and pagan gravestone inscriptions, to designate a woman or a man, who was faithful to his or her spouse in a way characterized by “a particularly fervent conjugal love.”

When I read Deiss’ comment about how this phrase was used on ancient grave inscriptions in Turkey, where Paul and Timothy ministered, I confirmed it with him myself, reaching him by telephone in Vaucresson, France.

Some might find this insight into 1 Timothy 3:2 surprising because modern versions of the Bible translate this Greek phrase as – “husband of one wife” – making this qualification appear to be restricted to men only! Instead, rightly understood, this qualification is about faithfulness in marriage by a Christian spouse. It is not saying that oversight is “for men only.”

I regret that I have not been able to confirm what Deiss wrote or the inscriptions reported by him. But it does seem clear that this scholar has written this, and in a Bible edition, TOB, Edition Intégrale, produced jointly by the Société Biblique Française (French Bible Society) which should ensure proper scholarly standards.

I thus conclude that from an exegetical point of view (and quite apart from the issue of application today) it cannot be maintained that Paul was setting for Titus a condition that the elders he appointed must be male.

In part 5: Scholarly Application I will look at the scholarly principles of how this passage might be applied within the church today.

The Scholarly and Fundamentalist Approaches to the Bible, Part 3: Principles of Scholarly Exegesis

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I introduced this series with a look at how Al Mohler became a complementarian, and then in the second part I looked at “the husband of one wife” in Titus 1:6 (RSV) from the fundamentalist approach. I will now continue by looking at how to take a more scholarly approach to this phrase.

At this point I will remind you all that in the 1980s I studied theology to MA level at a school, London Bible College (now London School of Theology), which is committed to an evangelical position but also to a scholarly approach to the Bible. As such it is similar to Al Mohler’s Southern Baptist Theological Seminary referred to in Part 1 of this series – or at least to how that seminary was in the 1980s (Mohler also quotes a report that now “Baptist schools increasingly are being ‘forced to sacrifice their intellectual integrity to ensure the flow of funds,'” and I might wonder whether under Mohler’s presidency SBTS has been forced to abandon its former scholarly approach to gender issues and instead teach the intellectually flawed works of Grudem et al about this). Later I taught biblical exegesis at the European Training Programme of Wycliffe Bible Translators and SIL International. What I write here is based on what I learned at LBC and taught at ETP, as expanded by myself.

A proper scholarly approach to a Bible passage requires two distinct stages. The first, known as exegesis, is to understand what the original author was trying to say to his or her original audience. Only when this has been clearly established should the interpreter move on the next stage, application to a present day situation. In this part of the series I will look only at exegesis, and will move on to application in a future part.

Gordon Fee has defined exegesis as follows:

Exegesis… answers the question, What did the Biblical author mean? It has to do both with what he said (the content itself), and why he said it at any given point (the literary context). Furthermore, exegesis is primarily concerned with intentionality: What did the author intend his original readers to understand? (New Testament Exegesis, p.21)

The essential steps in doing exegesis are first to identify the problems, then to find out the facts about these problems, then to make the right choices. The following step by step procedure for exegesis is adapted from Fee’s New Testament Exegesis:

1. Get an overview of the whole document: survey the literary setting of the passage.

2. Examine the communication situation: survey the historical setting of the whole document:

  • Who is the author?
  • Who are the recipients?
  • What is the relationship between them?
  • Where did the recipients live?
  • What historical situation occasioned this writing?

3. Examine the validity of treating the passage as a unit: try to be sure that the passage you have chosen for exegesis is a genuine, self-contained unit.

4. Study and compare different translations of the passage; in particular compare a fairly literal translation (or the original text itself), with a meaning-based modern translation. Look at other translations to see if there are any major differences of interpretation. Comparing translations in this way will alert you to places in the text where it is possible to interpret the meaning in more than one way, or to further implications or nuances of meaning, which might otherwise be overlooked. Try to re-express the meaning of the passage in your own words.

5. Formulate questions listing the points that need to be investigated. This should include a listing of points where the meaning is unclear to you and of any alternative interpretations.

6. Establish the text: are there any alternative textual readings in the passage which affect the meaning of the text? If so, examine the evidence in support of each alternative reading.

7. Identify words for which word studies need to be made and make these word studies, using help from lexicon, concordance and commentaries.

8. Use the bible itself and commentaries and other reference books to look for help in answering the questions you have listed. Through studying commentaries you may also be alerted to further questions that need to be considered.

9. Analyse relationships between words and between larger units, such as clauses, sentences, paragraphs.

10. Study other passages of scripture which may be relevant because

  • they give teaching on the same topic, or
  • (for the Gospels, Kings/Chronicles etc.) they are parallel passages, or
  • they use similar words or expressions and may throw light on the meaning of that expression.

11. Make a decision on those points where alternative interpretations are possible.

12. Make a new version of the passage in your own language expressing the meaning clearly and explicitly.

As this part is already getting rather long, I will leave it here, and in part 4: Exegesis of Titus 1:6 apply these principles to that verse.

The Scholarly and Fundamentalist Approaches to the Bible, Part 2: The Fundamentalist Approach

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In Part 1 of this series I looked at how Al Mohler became a complementarian, and in doing so apparently rejected the scholarly arguments which were dominant at his seminary on the basis of a fundamentalist appeal to “the clear teaching of Scripture“.

In this part I will look at the fundamentalist approach to studying the Bible, and prepare the way for describing what I see as the proper scholarly approach. I will do this in the context of what must have been one of the Bible passages which Mohler studied before becoming complementarian. On this blog I have previously looked at 1 Timothy 2:8-15, and so on this occasion I will look at another passage, in fact just a short phrase, which is translated very literally “the husband of one wife” in RSV, but less literally “faithful to his wife” in TNIV. This phrase is found in Titus 1:6, where it refers to elders, and in 1 Timothy 3:2,12 referring to “bishops” or overseers and to deacons respectively. As Lingamish notes in his original discussion of this phrase, in 1 Timothy 5:9 there is an opposite phrase translated “the wife of one husband” in RSV and “faithful to her husband” in TNIV. I will concentrate on Titus 1:6 because it is here that the phrase is applied to elders or presbyters, and most Christian traditions seem to understand modern pastors or priests as in some equivalent to biblical elders.

So let’s start by looking at Titus 1:6 from the fundamentalist approach to the Bible. On this approach, it is indeed a simple matter. This verse gives some conditions for anyone to be appointed as an elder, and one of these is that an elder must be “the husband of one wife“. As a husband must be male, the implication is very simple: elders must be male. And, from the same approach to 1 Timothy 3:2,12, “bishops” and deacons must also be male. I am sure that it was in passages like this that Carl Henry found “the clear teaching of Scripture” about which he challenged Al Mohler.

It is interesting, however, that not many traditions also take the position, equally clear from this verse on this method of interpretation, that “bishops”, elders and deacons must be married. It is also interesting that this interpretation when applied to deacons contradicts another Bible passage, Romans 16:1, where Paul writes approvingly of Phoebe, a woman deacon. Yes, “deacon” (TNIV) is the correct translation here, not “deaconess” (RSV), nor “servant” (NIV, ESV), for she is described with the same grammatically masculine Greek word used for “deacon” in 1 Timothy.

This illustrates the weakness of the fundamentalist approach to Scripture. It can be highly selective; an interpreter can choose to give great importance to small phrases, even the tiniest grammatical details, which support the position which he or (more rarely!) she supports, while ignoring the main teaching point of the passage in question. It can also be highly ingenious in finding excuses to dismiss other passages which seem to be contradictory – while rejecting similar attempts to dismiss the original interpretation as “deny[ing] the clear teaching of Scripture“. In the case of Romans 16:1, the ingenious attempt to dismiss “the clear teaching of Scripture” that Phoebe was a deacon has even been written into several Bible translations. A further weakness of fundamentalist Bible interpretation, not seen so clearly in this example, is that fundamentalists often take verses entirely out of their original context.

In fact, it is possible to support almost any position on any issue of current controversy in the church with this kind of interpretation of Scripture. (Yes, I could even put together an argument for gay bishops if I wanted to!) An interpreter can take a verse of two out of context, selectively latch on to small points within those verses, and use them as support for any teaching they might choose to promote. They then use their ingenuity to reinterpret any verses which might seem to contradict their position. And when anyone tries to disagree with them, they resort to ad hominem arguments like “how … could [you] possibly deny the clear teaching of Scripture on this question[?]“, sometimes even hinting that someone who doesn’t accept their argument might not be saved.

I wish this were a caricature of fundamentalists, but unfortunately I have seen far too many arguments which are just like this, not just on the blogosphere but even in works which people like Mohler claim to be scholarly.

In part 3: Principles of Scholarly Exegesis I will, by way of contrast, start to look at the proper scholarly way of interpreting the phrase in Titus 1:6.

The Scholarly and Fundamentalist Approaches to the Bible, Part 1: Introduction

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I was led to write about this topic because Adrian Warnock linked to an article by Al Mohler explaining how he came to became a complementarian (i.e. someone who believes that God has given men and women different but complementary roles in the church and in the family) and an opponent of women pastors. While Mohler, a leading Southern Baptist, is not well known here in England (I had not heard of him until about a month ago), he has been described as the “reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U.S.” – and put this description in his own personal profile! He also serves on the council of The Council on (so-called) Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, the leading group promoting the complementarian position.

Mohler notes that at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, when he was a student there in the 1980s (he is now its President),

the only position given public prominence in this question was avidly pro-women as pastors. Furthermore, I encountered no scholarly argument for the restriction of the teaching office to men in any seminary forum or format. That argument was simply absent.

He then writes that he changed his mind on this issue as a result of

a comment made to me in personal conversation with Dr. Carl F. H. Henry in the mid-1980s. Walking across the campus, Dr. Henry simply stopped me in my tracks and asked me how, as one who affirms the inerrancy of the Bible, I could possibly deny the clear teaching of Scripture on this question.

I have a serious problem with the implications of Henry’s question. To anyone who has studied this kind of issue in any depth, it is clear that the teaching of the Bible on this is not at all clear. I suspect that Henry had in mind a small number of proof texts which could be called upon, often out of context, to prove for example that women could not be pastors. That is the typical approach of biblical fundamentalists to answering this kind of question. The trouble is, this is not how the Bible should be used.

To give credit to Mohler, he did not simply accept Henry’s position on the basis of a few proof texts. I’m sure he had been taught better than that by the scholars at his seminary. He writes:

I launched myself on a massive research project, reading everything I could get on both sides.

Nevertheless, I can’t help suspecting that the reason why at the seminary he “encountered no scholarly argument for the restriction of the teaching office to men” is that there are no such scholarly arguments, that is to say, no arguments which don’t quickly fall when subjected to proper scholarly scrutiny. Of course Mohler wouldn’t agree, for he writes:

there just wasn’t much written in defense of the complementarian position. Egalitarianism reigned in the literature. … Thankfully, with the rise of groups like CBMW and the influence of scholarly books by Wayne Grudem, John Piper, Mary Kassian, and so many others, this is no longer the case. The complementarian position is now very well served by a body of scholarly literature, for which we should be thankful.

But I have examined some of this “body of scholarly literature”, what has been written on this subject by Grudem and his collaborators, and I cannot accept that it is truly scholarly. Books like The Gender Neutral Bible Controversy, by Vern Poythress and Wayne Grudem, are full of elementary misunderstandings of Greek and linguistics, and show every sign of being an attempt to put a scholarly dress on to an argument which is in fact based on fundamenalist proof texting. Instead such issues need to be examined with a proper scholarly approach.

So, what is the difference between the scholarly and fundamentalist approaches to the Bible? Having whetted your appetites, I hope, I will leave that for part 2 of this series: The Fundamentalist Approach (see also part 3: Principles of Scholarly Exegesis; part 4: Exegesis of Titus 1:6; part 5: Scholarly Application; part 6: Conclusions).

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.