Biblical Teaching on Women in Ministry: Introduction

Leader:  Do you agree that He's holy?
Congregation: Yes, we all agree

Leader: Do you agree that He's worthy?
Congregation: Yes, we all agree

Leader: Do you agree that He's faithful and true?
Congregation: Yes, we all agree

Leader: Do you agree that He's powerful and mighty?
Congregation: Yes, we all agree

Together: Oh Lord, we agree in the power and strength of unity, that You're worthy, worthy of our praise

 http://www.gugalyrics.com/lyrics-1960352/tommy-walker-yes,-we-all-agree.html

As 1^st Corinthians 1:10-17 exhorts us to unity, we are reminded that differing workers who strive to reach people for the Gospel are fellow coworkers in our Goal, provided that they have the correct Gospel, as opposed to the Judiazers that Paul mentions in Galatians.  Yet, the differing parties in 1stCorinthians 1:10-17 were not primarily doctrinal divisions.  Though leniency is often given on certain applications, such as whether to celebrate the Lord’s day or meat sacrificed to idols, Paul reminds us in 1^st Timothy 4:16 that we need to guard our life and doctrine closely. Indeed, in 1^st Timothy 1:3-10 we are exhorted to command people to no longer teach false doctrines, which in that context was involving both questionable theoretical speculation on myths/genealogies as well as moral teaching.

And, to this end, we come to the topic of the Bible’s teaching of women in ministry.  But, why this topic?  Can we not discuss things which are more relevant to the issues we face today, such as:

• ·         Gambling often contributes to failed marriages
• ·         Drunkenness often results in wife abuse

Yes, these indeed are relevant issues that we face today.  But, sound doctrine is not merely on purely moral issues, but also covers many other areas. And an important topic, which is often not given due priority, is the Bible’s teaching on women in ministry.

As we begin this first of three blog entries on women in ministry, it is wise that perhaps we take a look back at the history of the doctrines of the Church.  Not long after the Bible was written, the church was fighting a heretic group called Gnosticism.  This group, initially led by Basilides and Valentinius, opposed the Church for well over a thousand years, even through the Albigensian Crusade of 1229 AD.  The Gnostics referred to themselves as Christians.  And, because of this, some may be tempted to consider Gnostics merely to be a counter Christian movement, where the Christian Church founded by the 12 Apostles of Jesus (Orthodoxy) was merely a conservative form of Christianity in opposition to the Gnostic liberal Christianity. 

Now, the word “Gospel” in Greek, is transliterated as “evangelical”. And, it is here where our common understanding of Evangelical comes from.  McDermott points out that this “Evangelical spirit” can be seen throughout church history, “from the early church and its fathers, through Augustine, Ambrose, Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas, and Pascal”.  The word “Evangelical” was later used to refer to Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, and George Whitfield and their followers.   By 1910, a number of Protestants had abandoned belief in the Bible and considered Jesus merely to be a moral teacher.  In contrast to the conservative form of Christianity as taught by Edwards, Wesley, and Whitfield, (Orthodoxy) these Protestants referred to themselves as liberal Christianity.

Bible-believing Christians who initially opposed them were called Fundamentalists because they held the Bible to be fundamental in our foundation of understanding, thus adopting the philosophical approach of Tertullian.  Bible-believing Christians which didn’t want to take a Tertullian approach began to refer to themselves as Evangelical, adopting instead an Augustinian or Aquinas approach. Yet, both Fundamentalists and Evangelicals were Bible-believing, holding that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was bodily resurrected to nullify the essential sinfulness of humanity through a necessary blood atonement (Orthodoxy). After WWII, Karl Barth , left the group which refers to itself as “liberal Christianity”( which holds to Jesus as merely a moral teacher) and moved very close to the ideas of Evangelicalism.  Barth’s group called itself Post-Liberal, or Neo-Orthodox. Barth’s group is not Evangelical (Orthodoxy) because they hold: 1. Though the Bible is important, it is not considered inspired, but instead is thought by them to be merely a record of inspired events. 2. Though Barth denied Universalism, Barth’s followers took Barth’s teaching to the logical conclusion of Universalism (the idea that all people go to heaven, regardless of being a Christian or not). Thus, some today, such as Dave Tomlinson and Brian McLaren would speak of a distinction between a “ConservativeEvangelical” (Orthodoxy) and their own view which holds to an unbiblical universalism, a view which one might call post or liberal Evangelical.

Thus, in discussion of this issue, it is more helpful instead of using categories such as “Conservative” vs. “Liberal”, to rather describe issues as Orthodox and Heretic as the Anglican G.K. Chesterton would say (G.K. Chesterton later converted to Catholicism and the question of whether today's Catholic church is in line with Orthodox Bible-believing belief can best be answered here). This study shall look into the Orthodox, Bible-believing teaching on Women in Ministry.