Examining 1 Timothy, Chapter 2
What does the Bible say about female leadership in the church?
9 Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or expensive apparel, 10 but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. 11 A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. 12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. 13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. 14 And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a wrongdoer. 15 But women will be preserved through childbirth—if they continue in faith, love, and sanctity, with moderation. - 1 Timothy 2: 9-15
First off, this is not intended as an article to bash women having leadership positions in the church. I would actually like to specifically address verses 9 and 10, and then move on to some other topics. So, here we go…
Societally we have left behind the days of verses 9 and 10 (and even more so verse 11, if I’m being sincere in my analysis of this scripture) being guiding words for our women, and even our girls. “Proper clothing” and “modestly and discreetly” don’t mean women shouldn’t make an effort to look nice. I don’t think Paul was suggesting burlap sacks for the ladies of the church; but the intent and meaning was, as is explained in verse 10, to make Godliness and service to the Lord be the thing that people saw in you and noticed about you. That’s not something that’s praised or glorified in modern society. Honestly, not amongst the men of the church either. We are a flash and pazazz, “look at me” culture. The church is not immune to that societal trend either. But shouldn’t the acts of the church be the thing that people see and are drawn to? Not the “braided hair and gold or pearls or expensive apparel.” There are multiple references to the church being the bride to Christ’s bridegroom. Should the church be adorning itself with flashy buildings, lights and signs, and all of the pazazz of the world? Or should it be making its claim to Godliness through the works and deeds it does for the community around it? These two lines don’t just apply to women and overdoing gussy apparel. It applies to us as the whole body of the church.
Now to address the tweet itself and the idea of women leading in the church. I tend to side with the Southern Baptist Conference on this topic. For those unfamiliar (or who didn’t listen to the podcast episode I did for this Substack on the matter), the SBC allows women to teach women’s Sunday school classes and Bible studies. It allows women to act in support roles to the church leadership. It allows women to carry out a number of very important functions within the church. But they do not allow women to serve as the leading or primary teaching pastor for a church. That role is reserved for a man, as far as the Southern Baptists are concerned. There have been a number of very prominent churches removed from the Conference for violating this. And this is not strictly based on 1 Timothy 2 & 3, as is implied by the tweet above. It is also taken from Ephesians, 1 Corinthians, and 1 Peter, where discussion of the man’s role as head of the family, head of the household, are put in comparison to Christ’s role as head of the church and how leadership is to be organized. It does not exclude women from having prominent roles in the church, it merely arranges the hierarchy of leadership as it has been established throughout the Bible.
In fact, nothing about this is meant to diminish female influence and importance in the Bible or in the modern church. There are plenty of stories about strong females who played key roles in God’s kingdom and in the church throughout both the Old and New Testaments. But this takes me to the real meat of this article, which is the twisting of scripture that is more common in modern society than even the flashiness mentioned previously. I tend to be slightly confrontational on Twitter (for those who know me well, me being confrontational may not come as a big surprise…and I highly suggest you DO NOT follow me on Twitter because that’s basically my schtick), so I responded to the above mentioned tweet questioning if there were any scriptural references that could be provided as the aforementioned “evidence.” The only response that got me was a couple of people telling me that Beth Allison Barr had written a book on the topic and that I should read the book. (Despite constant requests, there were never any scriptural references given by anyone responding to me, just “go read the book” over and over again…) Well, in lieu of reading the book, I chose to check out her Substack, where she has a number of pieces on this topic. The only references to scripture I was able to find in any of the multiple pieces (all of which make frequent refence to the book) was Romans 16 and Colossians 4:15.
If you aren’t familiar with either of these scriptures, both are at the end of Paul’s letters sending greetings to a number of named persons within the communities. In Romans the women she makes reference to who he specifically sends greetings to are “Phoebe, who is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea,” as well as Prisca, Mary, Julia, and a number of others. In Colossians he specifically calls out greetings to “Nympha and the church that is in her house.” That’s it. These are the only scriptural references I can find from Beth Allison Barr that would back women having leadership and teaching positions in the church. And to be perfectly fair, the gravity she gives these verses in her Substack pieces would sincerely lead you to believe that Paul had ordained every one of them to priesthood and sent them out as head missionaries for Christ’s cause. But that’s both intellectually and strictly scripturally dishonest. I strongly suggest reading those scriptures and see if I’m just missing something. Taking scripture and removing context or adding non-existent meaning is a common form of attacking traditional, Biblical Christian values these days. Whether it be to subvert the religion (not saying that’s what Beth Allison Barr aims to do, but seeing the blatant mischaracterization of scripture, it’s hard to view it in other terms, whether she did it deliberately or not), or to outright attack Christians for holding a no longer socially acceptable position on topics of morality.
Every scripture quoted in that tweet is a cherry-picked Old Testament line that is completely removed from the context both of the time and situation it was written in, and from the context of the rest of the book/chapter that it is a part of. The purpose is to paint Christianity as hypocritical and give the impression that denying drag queens access to children is somehow unchristian. (Luckily, and somewhat impressively, most of the replies to that actually point out that what the drag queens are reading isn’t the issue, as well as many people proclaiming the fact that they are not Christian and still agree that drag queens shouldn’t be allowed access to children, while also acknowledging that these are very cherry-picked passages that are taken out of context. It truly fascinates me when the non-Christians do my job for me before I even have an opportunity) This cherry-picking has also been used in the justification and support/promotion of a homosexual agenda. There was a list of the “homosexuality affirming scriptures” that circulated a number of years ago, specifically around the time the Presbyterian Church was moving to allow the conducting of gay marriages and the Supreme Court was making a decision on Obergefell v Hodges. I don’t have the list handy, but suffice it to say every one of those was a line that was completely removed from context, or had meaning added to it that did not exist either scripturally or historically.
This is a major problem. And what makes it such a problem is the fact that many people who call themselves Christians don’t actually have the Biblical knowledge to know when a line has been cherry-picked, to be able to see where something is being twisted or misquoted, or to know that the extra meaning or explanation being given to a particular verse or passage is not based on anything factual or scriptural. Societally no one reads any more! It’s the primary reason I started doing a podcast/video show instead of writing…because I figured out a 10 minute video would get more eyeballs than a 500 word piece. We, as Christians, have to be better than that. We have to know the content and the context of the very thing we claim to know and believe without fail. We have to be ready to call out mischaracterizations of the text as wrong, and be able to back that up and show why they are wrong. And then to show what is actually right. Sharpen your mind and prepare your wit. The enemy knows the scriptures better than most of your allies. And he will use it to twist and contort the truth to make the world conform to what he wants it to become. It is our job to be conformed to God’s will, and by that to transform this earth in to His creation, that all may be saved by knowing the Truth that He gave us. But to do that, we HAVE TO KNOW IT. Time to break out the Bibles and get to studying.
Which leads me to a large part of what I had actually intended to do with this Substack, which is not just focus on cultural issues but also do some Bible study. So if there are any books or scripture you’d like me to cover in-particular, feel free to leave some comments. Also, be sure to check out The Empty Tomb which I’m doing with Ben Pangie, which the video can be found on Rumble1 or the audio can be found on Ben's Substack2 The Madman's Well, which I highly recommend. We've done a couple topical episodes, and will also be moving in to more Bible study specific shows going forward as well. So stay tuned for all of the different content I'll be putting out. I intended for 2023 to be a year where I really dialed things up on content creation, and I think it's starting off well!