Theology in the Raw - 687: #687 - Can Women Serve in Positions of Leadership

Episode Date: August 17, 2018

On episode #687 Preston gives you a teaser of what is inside his Patreon membership. This teaser includes a clip where Preston shares his thoughts on women serving in positions of leadership in a local church context. To support Theology in the Raw for as little as $5/month and access this (and other) Patreon-only podcast(s), go to https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, Theology in the Raw listeners. The following is a short teaser episode of a Patreon-only podcast that I recorded on where I am at on the question of women leaders in the church. I wrestle with both sides of the debate. I get really raw. I get really personal. I hope you enjoy this teaser, and if you want access to this episode and other premium content, please go to patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Rock.

So that began to force me to kind of go back and think, you know, gosh, is the complementarian position correct? You know, and a big one for me is the question of why? This is a huge one for me. Why? Why can't women be leaders in the church? Is it because they're not smart enough? Well, that's just biologically and factually untrue. Is it because they're not, maybe more specifically, they're not discerning enough? And you do have the passage in 1 Timothy 2 that says says, you know, Eve was deceived, you know, not Adam. And so I heard people make the argument, you know, women are, you know, they're just as valuable as men, whatever, they have gifts, talents, but they do lack the discernment. And

men are more discerning than women. Let me say this, and this is a Patreon account, so it's not general public, so I can be, I can kind of think out loud and I hopefully I won't get tons of angry emails. Let's just assume for the sake of argument that when men were generally more discerning than women, like what if it was like a 60, 40, even 70, 30, and you do have sex differences. Okay. You have, you know, um, women are more agreeable than men. Men are more aggressive than women. Not every single man is more aggressive than every single woman. Not every woman is more agreeable than every single man. Men are taller than women, generally speaking. But there are some,

you know, women like in, you know, Holland that are taller than some men in Nepal. So it's not, it's not categorically true. It's generally true. And oftentimes these sex differences turn out to be about 60, 40, 70, 30. What if the discernment thing was a 60, 40, 70, 30 thing? What if 60% or 70% of men were generally more discerning than the average woman?

I'm not even sure how you'd measure that thing, but let's just for the sake of the argument say it's true. This still doesn't warrant ruling out women categorically. Because all you have to do is make discernment like a criterion for eldership or leadership, and then say, well, we're probably going to have about a 60-30, 60-40, 70-30 split, because that is generally how men and women are wired. That could be true. I'm not saying it is. I don't think it is.

I mean, you can send me the scientific study or actually send me about 15 scientific studies because you never just read one. You should read a whole bunch. So I'm just for the sake of the argument. But even if it was true, that still wouldn't warrant categorical exclusion of women from leadership. that still wouldn't warrant categorical exclusion of women from leadership.