Theology in the Raw - Q&A on Women in Leadership and From Genesis to Junia

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

If you want to watch the full Exiles Conference on demand, you can get access to the whole thing—including all the breakout sessions—for just $49 here.In today’s episode, I’m working through some of the top upvoted questions from my conversation with Sandy Richter at Exiles 26 about women in leadership and my new book, From Genesis to Junia. If you haven’t listened to that conversation yet, I’d encourage you to go back and start there, since this episode really picks up where that one left off.Thanks so much for all the thoughtful questions—and sorry it took me a month to get to them. I’m grateful for how engaged you all were in this conversation, and I hope this follow-up is helpful.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology to Raw. This episode is a follow-up from the previous episode, which was a recording of a breakout session that I did with Dr. Sandy Richter at this year's Exiles and Babylon Conference where Sandy interviewed me about my book from Genesis to Junia. And we were supposed to address a bunch of questions sent in by the audience, but we ran out of time. So for this episode, I'm going to address all the top questions that came in during the breakout at the Exiles Conference. If you didn't listen to the previous episode, I'd I encourage you to do so. But most of the questions that I'll address in this episode,

they do sort of stand alone. So you should be able to follow along, even if he didn't listen to the previous episode. Okay, let's dive in. All right, the first question that came in during the breakout at the Exiles Conference, and these were voted on, by the way, too. So when I say I'm addressing the most popular questions, it's the audience that voted on which questions they wanted me and or Sandy to address.

And so the ones, yeah, I'm going to go in order from the ones that were most highly voted on. The first one, I think this one was tied for first. The first question is this. Can you have a complementarian view on marriage and an egalitarian view on women in leadership? Or are the two inextricably linked? And another question came in that was similar. It says, what difference, if any, do you see in scripture between women's role in ministry and women's role in? marriage. There are debates about this. I could probably begin by answering any question

under the sun by saying there's debates about this, but there are debates about this. Most people on both sides, you know, both egalitarian, complementarian, I think most people that I've read would say they are linked. Like it would be difficult to make an argument for like an egalitarian view of women in church leadership and have a complementarian view of marriage. And yeah, just another reminder that those terms are just not the best, but in lieu of better terms, that's what we got. Yeah, anyway, I say that because I just, as I said the word complementarian view of marriage, it's like, well, yeah, men and women complement each other.

Like, that's part of the design of being male and female. God created us differently. And those differences do complement each other. And we see that in marriage. So, yeah, so I don't, I think the term, the terms, as most people recognize or can be problematic. In any case, I do, I agree. I think they are probably linked. This is a question that I didn't spend a lot of time on.

in my book, I I mentioned it, I addressed it, I did talk a lot about the church being a household. And the line between the household and the church is pretty blurry. They met in homes.

The household provided the sort of structure of how church operated. It provided the structure of leadership for the church. and the church is called often, you know, a family, a household, the household of God, 1 Timothy 3, 5. So, yeah, I do think they are probably linked. I think it would be tough. And I'm not, again, until I study it further and really dig into people who have looked, you know, thoroughly at this question, analyze all sides of this specific debate. You know, I don't want to come down super dogmatically. But my sense is I think you're going to,

you're going to have the same for both. Either you're going to be complementarian in the home in the church or you're going to be egalitarian in both. So, you know, complementarians who agree with that will say, you know, this supports their view of male-only leadership or at least male-only eldership. We'll get to that in a second. You know, they'll point out, man in the, you know, in the marriage passages in Ephesians 5 and even in 1st Corinthians 11.3 isn't really a marriage passage, but in two places, Paul says the husband is the head of his wife, Ephesians 523 and 1st Corinthians 113. And the wife is told to submit to her husband. Ephesians 5, Klausians 3, and the husband is never told to submit to his wife. And so, complementarians will make an argument from the male authority in the home to male authority. authority in the church. And they would say, yeah, these are male-female relations in the home and the church should reflect each other. And since you have clear language of male authority in the home,

therefore you have some kind of male authority over women in the church. Egalitarians will obviously, you know, have many responses to that. In my book, I did, you know, again, I didn't, I didn't directly address this question. I do have a chapter on Ephesians 5, which is one of the main passages. It sits at the center of this debate. And what I wanted to do there is simply look at Paul's rhetoric of his household code in the context of this very familiar Greco-Roman literary. trope known today as the household codes. Paul was participating in a well-known literary genre,

you know, how the households should be run from all the way from Aristotle, all the way through the first century. Many Greco-Roman writers talked about how the household should be run, and they use similar language that Paul does. Or let me turn that around. Paul uses similar language that was familiar to the people's day. And, you know, he wasn't just kind of coming up with this. his own. He was sort of interacting with the way the household was believed to be run in the first century. And what we find when you compare Paul's code with other Greco-Roman codes is that he's sort of agreeing with some things, but he's also challenging certain things. There's a lot of really literary rhetorical ingenuity of what Paul's doing here. He's taking familiar concepts and then

kind of twisting them and turning them and reshaping them through the lens of the gospel. And so it's really difficult, I think, to understand what Paul's trying to do in Ephesians 5 without understanding the broader context of the Greco-Roman household code. So, I mean, you can go read my chapter. I did argue that I do think the Greek word Keffalae does mean, refer to some kind of authority. And I have lots of a very long paper on my website, Thealogynera.com, where I posted all, basically where I interact with every single use of this word in extra-biblical Greek literature

and in the Septuagint and in Paul and came to that conclusion. So I don't think, yeah, I just don't think it's sound exche-Jesus. And people disagree with me. Even people listening are going to be mad and disagree. But I just, look at all the evidence. I just was so not convinced that head, the metaphor of head means anything, something other than authority. You know, some people say it means like source. Like, you know, the woman is, you know, the man is the source of the woman.

And that, that, that, in the, all the other time, Paul uses this metaphor and reference to men and women and first, first, Corinthians 11, it could work. I think it's that, that source idea. could work because later on he does talk about, you know, the woman being created from the man and for the man. So you have some contextual clues there. I still don't think the idea of source without authority. I have a hard time taking that view. But in Ephesians 5, it just seems like, man, I think he's head means authority. But however, In any case, what's interesting is how he redefines what authority is. For Paul to say, man is ahead of the head of the woman.

That's just like saying water's wet in the first century. Oh, yeah, of course. So he's like acknowledging what was well known and just taken for granted and even kind of like a legal thing in the first century. So he's like, yeah, man's ahead of the woman. But here's what headship looks like. And then he talks about Jesus, but specifically the self-giving, sacrifice of Christ and then moves into commanding the husband to lay down his life for the woman.

And so I do think he more narrowly redefines what headship is in light of the self-giving sacrifice of Christ. So I don't, yeah. So I think he's, if we just say man's ahead of the woman, it means authority, case closed, man's of the authority. It's like, well, I just, I think that's a little, I think you're not diving too deeply into what Paul's trying to do in using this metaphor and playing with it and redefining it. And then, especially the latter half of Ephesians 5, he moves into a lot more language of mutuality. So it's almost like he meets his audience where they're at, moves him into a more mutuality view of male-female relations in the home. All that to say, on a purely exegetical level, it's hard to, I think it's

hard to get some kind of like comprehensive view of like male leadership in the home or you know or or even like full-blown you know dual authority or whatever like I just don't think ephesians five can fully answer that question once we pay attention to the specific rhetorical move Paul is trying to make you know that feeling when you're in bed trying to get comfortable and so you roll over and suddenly the sheets slip off the corner uh Now you have like a decision to make. Do I get up and fix the sheet or do I just crash and wake up stuck to the uncovered mattress? I've been there.

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Start building brain health into your everyday with Mosh bars. Thanks to Mosh for sponsoring this episode. All right, next question. I'm going to try to move a little faster here. That one took a while. This one might take a while too. Our church affirms and employees women as pastors, but restricts the elder role to men. Can you speak to the apparent theological inconsistency of that position? Yes, I have lots of thoughts on this. I'm going to put my headphones back on here. Yeah, where do I start? I've been working on a very, what's become a very long paper addressing this issue, specifically the soft complementary. view where women can serve as leaders and pastors and teachers under the authority of an all-male

elder board or all-male overseers. And yeah, I will release that on my Patreon site when it's done or when it's in some kind of rough draft form. I'm also presenting on this at the Evangelical Theological Society Annual Meeting in Denver in November. And there's also, at that meeting, also a session of lengthy, like a full three and a half hour session, reviewing my book from Genesis to Junior, where you have two people, two egalitarians, two complementarians discussing my book, and then I'll respond to those papers. So excited about that, kind of a little nervous, but it should be fun. Yeah, so what I'm going to say here is a very short snippet of something I have been,

I mean, I thought through my book, but I'm thinking further about it. And so I've got to keep my thoughts a little concise here. Yeah, I guess just to come about it and say, I think the distinction between pastor and elder is a modern one. I would say, and I'll just use a category of soft complementarianism. I think soft complementarianism and, you know, many friends in this camp, there's many of you listening who are, you know, in that camp. And in many ways, a soft complementarian view, I think is closer to, in many ways, closer to an egalitarian view than it is to a traditional or strong complementarian view.

I mean, moving from not allowing a woman to be a pastor, a teacher, or lead men in any way, to having women on stage and teaching and preaching and leading and being pastors, like that's moving from that, from A to B there, A to B, no one on stage to women on stage. Like that's a big move. And I think most strong complementarians would agree with me.

And they would say, yeah, soft complementarian is you basically have one foot in a door of, you know, egalitarianism. But one of my biggest problems with this view is that with soft complementarianism is that it assumes a leadership structure where, you know, male overseers, elders, you know, occupy the highest level of authority in the church, while other leadership. positions, including pastors, are under the authority of the elders. So there's some kind of like two-tiered leadership structure where, you know, male elders hold the ultimate authority and other leadership roles. Pastor, teacher, maybe deacon, prophet, I don't know, are under the authority of the elders. While, you know, this leadership structure is super common in many Protestant churches, I think it's questionable, actually unlikely, that the New Testament church held to the same kind of two-tiered leadership structure where elders occupy an

officer role that's distinct from and more authoritative than other leadership roles like pastor, teacher, prophet. And I did talk about this in chapter four in my book. And it's something that it's, it's, yeah, it's, I talk about it in chapter four, but it's, it's, I think, you know, that, that chapter could have been like four times longer. and obviously I wouldn't want, you know, a 200-page chapter in a book. So that's why I'm trying to really further tease out what I was trying to say there. So, yeah, the New Testament uses a wide range of leadership terminology in addition to the familiar terms like elder, overseer, pastor. You know, there's other leadership terms that the New Testament uses that aren't used today in the church.

like prostatists, proistemi is a pretty common leadership term, which means to lead or care for. Prostasis is kind of a noun form of that verb. It's used once, regard to Phoebe, by the way. Capiao, those who work hard in the Lord. Paul often uses this to describe people who are doing leadership things in the church. Diakana, servant. Every time Paul uses Diakana servant to describe a named ministry partner, a named person in the New Testament, he's referring to a leader.

Not that the term servant is necessarily a leadership term, but it's one of many ways in which Paul designates a leader. Co-worker. If you look at all the people Paul refers to as co-worker, you know, complimentarians will agree that all the men referred to as coworker. are leaders in the church, but as you might know, he uses the term coworker to also refer to a few women as well. So, you know, these and other leadership terms in the New Testament, they often overlap with other leadership terms. Different terms and phrases are used to describe the same kind of leadership role. And, you know, when it comes to Elder, this is something I did not know until I looked into it. So no fault or shame on people who don't really understand what Elder means

in the New Testament. We often look at Elder and we just think, oh, this is like a church office, a Christian leadership term in the church. But Elder is very common term in ancient Israel, early Judaism. The elders, it's always, you know, plural, what was a common way to refer to just older men

who by virtue of their age and dignity assumed a kind of leadership role in society. The term the elders was, you know, it's applied to many different. groups of leaders. It's like a collective rather than individual term. It's a matter of honor rather than office with the power based in the relationships that already existed. It wasn't like somebody like was appointed to being an elder in Jewish society. It's just like, yeah, when men grow old, they gain wisdom and maturity and dignity. And in that culture, you know, they're respected as informal leaders in society and community and ultimately in, you know, the synagogue and so on.

Older men, elders, played a similar role in Greco-Roman society as well. The term the elders is a lot less common in Greco-Roman society than it was in Judaism, but the underlying social patterns are very much similar to those of the Jewish world. Senior members of well-to-do families continue to have authority and influence throughout the Greco-Roman world. Unless, of course, I mean, there's exceptions to this. There are some younger people who do have authority. There are some older people who don't because they're, you know, they're drunkards or they're immoral or, you know, they don't have the character that should come with old age. It's not just, it's not absolute, you know, all older people have authority.

All younger people don't have authority. But that was kind of the norm. So all that's say, when the early church uses the term the elders, they weren't inventing like a the leadership office unique to Christianity, but they were rather adopting a leadership designation that was familiar to its cultural context. And we've seen this throughout the Book of Acts. If you look at the book of Acts,

you know, you see the elders referring to older men within Judaism. All throughout the early chapters of Acts, Acts chapter 4, verse 5, I think it's the first reference in 4-8, 423, 612, 22, 5. You see elders and scribes and high priests, and, you know, there's this kind of a collective turn to refer to, leaders in Judaism. And then Acts also starts to talk about

elders in the church. It first occurs in Acts 1130 and then in 1423, it talks about Paul and Barnabas, you know, establishing elders in the cities that they planted. You see it in the Jerusalem Council, reference to apostles and elders. There's no evidence that the meaning of the elders

and the role they played is substantively different when applied to the Christian church, the Jewish Christian church than what this phrase meant in Judaism. Yeah. So it's important to note that like, you know, the elders is it's one way to refer to older men who are leaders, but the same people could be referred to by other leadership terms. So, you know, the elders doesn't describe a leadership office or role that's like distinct from other leadership roles that are described by different terms and phrases.

So with regard to pastor, the verb poaimo, poyamo to shepherd or to pastor is another way to describe the work of leaders. It's applied specifically to the work of elders who oversee and shepherd the church, Acts 2028 and 1st Peter 5, 1 to 2. And the noun poyman, it's only used once, by the way, to refer to a spiritual gift connected with didascalaas teacher. So you have pastor teacher in Ephesians 411. So yeah, I don't think the New Testament sees pastor as some distinct leadership position. That's like different from being an elder. You know, if an elder is pastoring people, then they are a pastor. And if an old man is pastoring people, he would prefer to as an elder.

So elders existed in every church. are identified by the term elder, while other times they're simply identified by their leadership work. They're serving, they're leading, they're managing, they're hosting churches in their house, they're working hard and lower, they're co-working with Paul. You know, it's interesting that even though Acts 14 to 23 says that Paul and Barnabas had this practice of establishing elders and all these churches are planning, Paul only mentions elders in two of his 13 letters. And yet he frequently addresses older men who by virtue of their age and dignity were leaders in a church without using the term elder. You see this in First Thessalonians 5. I forget, 512, I think. First

Corinthians, 16, something, 14 to 16, I think. The household is Stephanus, you know. Whenever you see a, like a householder hosting a church in their home, they would be an elder, most likely. Which, you know, raises the question, what do you do when a woman is referred to as a householder hosting a church in her home? So to raise, you know, to raise a question, are women ever identified as elders? I think that's too narrow. I mean, for what it's worth, only two men in the New Testament are to identify as elders. Peter and 1st Peter 51 and John and 2nd John 1. So this doesn't mean they were the only two elders in the first century church.

A better question is, are women ever described as carrying out the role and function of elders? that is, do we see any older, mature, prominent women exercising the kind of leadership ascribed to elders in the church? You don't need to be tagged with the term elder to be an elder in the first century church. So you have people, you know, and I talk about in my book, you know, Phoebe, Priscilla, Lydia, Jr., and several others that for all intensive purposes, we're functioning in a way similar, the same as we see elders. elders when they are described specifically. So to your question, no, I don't think the New Testament says that pastors and elders are distinct leadership roles. And, you know, and certainly,

the New Testament at all teaches that elders held some kind of like higher authority of the church over pastors, where women can be pastors, but not elders. I just think that that's a modern structure of church leadership. I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong. It's just you're, you know, we can have different titles and categories, I guess, than the New Testament. But yeah, Sorry, I think that distinction is a modern one. Next question. I am really struggling accepting the egalitarian position because it applies that the Holy Spirit let the Orthodox, Nestorian, Catholic, and Protestant churches be all wrong for 2,000 years. What does that say about God?

And another question came in that's similar. How do you reconcile your view on women and leadership with that of the church for almost all of Christian history? Yeah, I've gotten this question a lot. It's a good one. I'm not an expert on church history, but I am, I am, I am. studying this more. I've read several books and looked at some original text from the early church. And so I am looking more into a, so I don't want to give a definitive response to this because I'm not, I don't have the knowledge base to be able to do that. But I do have some thoughts, as always.

I guess my first thought is like the church held to a view of baptism in the Eucharist that is foreign to most Protestant churches today. But, you know, we, especially if you're Baptist don't seem to have much of a problem with that. Or you just say, yeah, I think they got that wrong for 1,500 plus years. Many leaders throughout church history, male leaders throughout church history, they held to a view of women in general that would make the strongest complementarians squirm in the seat. Their seat.

So, yeah, to me, even if it's true that there is, no evidence of any kind of egalitarianism in the church, that's not unimportant. That is, I would say that might be one of the strongest arguments for complementarianism. But even there, as several scholars have pointed out, the modern view of complementarianism is, it's different than what the early church held. The early church, the ones who forbade forbade, forbade women from serving in leadership, they did so because they believe that women were ontologically inferior to men. Complementarians today, I don't know any.

Maybe, maybe, ah, well, we'll let that sit for a second. Most complementarians, I know, the thoughtful ones would say, no, no, I'm not saying they're ontologically inferior. I'm saying Adam is great first. There's a created design for whatever reason God designed men to lead and women to follow, you know the arguments. But they're not going to say, yeah, women shouldn't teach because, 100% of women are just really terrible at teaching or women shouldn't lead because all women are more easily deceived than men and they're just intellectually inferior and emotional and not intellectual.

You know, like those kinds of arguments are at home and among most complementarians, at least not said out loud. But the early church, the ones that said women can't be doing these things, they would go on to make some pretty, give a pretty misogynistic and just scientifically inaccurate rationale for why women can't lead. So, so there's that. Also, you know, from what I am seen thus far, from the reading I've been doing, you know, the early church was a lot more, not just early church, but just the church, a lot more diverse and complex in the role that women played in leadership. You have, we have, there's several inscriptions that mentioned female elders using the term presbyteros or whatever the female form of that is. You have references

to female priests. You have, and then female martyrs. I don't know if you guys remember that episode I did a while back with Amy Hughes and Lynn Cohick. In fact, I would, for whoever asked this question, or if anybody is interested in it, please go back and listen to the episode, the Al Jara episode, I think it released in April or May. I think April. with Amy Hughes and Lynn Cohick, who are two scholars who have looked deeply into this. That was such a helpful conversation because they just said, first of all, early church history, the political, socio-cultural situation was so complex, going through massive changes, the fall of Rome and the rise of Christianity from a persecuted religion to now a state religion.

You know, like there's so many political, social things going on that you need to first understand before you can even venture to talk about why certain areas of the church had certain views on women in leadership. Female martyrs of which there are quite a few, they played a pretty significant theological role in the early church. So even if you say, and this isn't quite accurate, it, you know, women weren't, you know, overseas and elders or pastors in the early church. I was like, well, yeah, there were several other categories in different branches of the church that people were working with then. They didn't have a monolithic structure of leadership. And, you know, yeah, martyrs played a massive role in shaping the theological direction and

imagination of the church. And women played significant roles in other areas. So, yeah, a few books that I have been reading or I've read that I would recommend. Yeah, Cohic and Hughes, Christian women in the patristic world. Highly, highly recommend that. I just got Gary Macy's The Hidden History of Women's Ordination. I've been reading Taylor and Romilly. This is a more academic book of compiled essays, patterns of women's leadership in early Christianity. And then Karen Torgeson, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right, when women were priests. the first few chapters of that book in particular were really, really eye-opening. So, yeah, next question. Assuming that we can't be 100% certain about second and third-tier doctrinal issues,

isn't getting it wrong with complementarianism way more destructive in the long run than getting it wrong with egalitarianism. This is another thought that I've heard people say. And I don't know. I could totally see where this is coming from. And of course, you know, this, it would help my position as an egalitarian. But I don't know, to steal man a pushback, you know, one can say that promoting egalitarianism is diluting, if not just destroying God's created order where men and women have specific God design roles. And to disrupt this cuts against the grain of God's design for male-female relations.

So to say like one view to get, it's better to get, it's better to be egalitarian because getting it wrong is less destructive than getting complementarianism wrong. I could just see people arguing different sides of that. And so I don't know. I don't love this as an argument. It may be true. It may be true. But I personally just like to focus on what the text says and doesn't say rather than saying, you know, it's better to err on this side. than the other side.

Next question. Before your research, how did your marriage function? Did you ever use perceived authority to say no to your wife? Oh, you're going to, you're going to, I should have my wife come in here. Give some thoughts on this.

My intent is not to call you out, but to understand how men function in the space of ambiguity. Great question. Love this. I tend to be, I tend to be an open book. My wife tends to be a little more private,

So I'm going to try to respect her here and not maybe get so personal. And she's like, hey, a friend of mine heard of the podcast. And what were you saying about our marriage? So yeah, just to give some context, both of us grew up in and were nurtured her in a very strong complementarian context. Not just me, my wife. Like, yeah, she for many years would not be okay with a woman preaching. like she might even I don't walk out of a church

wouldn't walk out of a church but I mean she would be like oh yeah that's I'm not okay with that you know so it wasn't like I was a commentarian and like hey you need to be too you know like when we met she would you know she would be a strong commentarian not that she'd like studied it

she just there's just the world she grew up in this is the right view and so to go against that was to disobey God um over time I think we naturally yeah I don't know so in our con I would say yeah I strive to be you know, the leader in all areas while my wife strived to be, the submissive wife to my authority,

you know, but over time, I think we naturally started to operate more out of our natural and God-given gifts. So, for example, this is embarrassing, but like, you know, for the first 10-plus years of our marriage, like, I did the finances because I'm the leader. I'm the head, I'm the leader. Leaders do finances, apparently. And, man, it was a disaster. Like, I, I, I, I, I actually, you know, I did. I kept track of every dollar and penny we spent and here's what we're going to spend on this and here's what we're going to spend on that and everything. And it was so, it was just so overwhelming and I wasn't good at it.

And I remember I went through a busy season of speaking and stuff. And my wife said, let me, let me, why don't I take care of the finances, you know, since you're in such a busy season. I'm like, oh, thank you. And a part of me was like, is that okay? Like, you're a woman. Can you do finances? And it turns out she like crushes it with keeping track of all this stuff.

Way more organized than I am. Way more. And over time, I'm like, I don't know. Is there a verse that says like I need to be in charge of the finances and she just, you know, I just give her how much cash she's allowed or something, you know. And so there's many other areas where my wife just naturally is much better at doing than I am in the home. Or even things like vacations. Like I think if like coming up with a vacation idea was all my idea, I don't think we'd ever go on a vacation.

Because I'm like to focus on what's in front of me, you know. And my wife is great at saying, hey, we should go here this year. We should go here. Hey, we should plan a campby trip in three weeks to get the kids out in the mountains. You know, like she just is naturally good at thinking ahead of stuff like that. And, you know, I think there's a lot of mutuality here. Like I would, she would come up with that idea like, hey, we should go here for vacationing this summer. I'd like, oh, awesome.

Let me look into that. And I'm really good. and she loves this about me, but like doing a nitty gritty, like booking the Airbnb and like, hey, we should visit this, visit that, you know. So there's, yeah, a lot of mutuality and how we go about vacations. Buying a house. My wife crushes it. We've only bought in one house, actually, two houses. Then we sold it. And it was so overwhelming to me, but she just loves it. She loves all the details, you know, talking with the realtor and she understands all that. And she understands all that. She just like loves it.

And so obviously we, you know, we are both deciding should we buy this house or that house or whatever. But in terms of like taking lead on the process, she's way better at that. Meals, my wife is pretty much in charge. Parenting is very much shared. You know, there's areas that she excels as a mother to our kids. there's areas. A couple maybe that I could

might excel as a father, you know, and having the mother father dynamic is so he's so great. Obviously with parenting, but there's areas in parenting where even like I'll default the thoughts she has a decision she makes or,

you know, she has really strong intuition about what our kids is, I don't think so-and-so is doing well. Like I think we need to go talk to, you know, like, so it'd be hard to say like, yeah, I just, I think we just operated on a much more mutual level. And this is like before I wrote my book.

Okay. So, so yeah, I think we've grown to operate on a much more mutual level. If there's a conflict, we, you know, we talk it out. I don't, I don't pull like a tiebreaking card, you know, unless it's an, again, if it's a matter of gifting, if I have more wisdom in an area, if I have more thoughts on something, if I've done more research on something, then I'll say, yeah, I really think we should do this. And, but she's learned to say, like, yeah, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, more thoughtful in that area. So I'll default to you. But then there's other areas where I'll default to her because she's more knowledgeable, more skilled, has much more intuition in another area. Next question. How can the church heal the wounds left by the damage that is

continuing to be done by patriarchy and misogyny? This is a massive question. And I don't want to pretend that I have all the answers to this. Just, yeah, a few thoughts. Let me start here. Regardless of what a church believes about women and leadership, many women, many women have been viewed as less than in churches. They've been abused, overlooked, looked down upon, their voices has not been taken as seriously as men. Not in every context, but in many contexts. Even if churches are complementarian, there are many ways in which you can elevate and honor and learn from and empower women.

I think the church, again, regardless of, yeah, I think all these answers are going to be, regardless of whether you're complementarian or egalitarian, the church needs to call out misogyny, address it from the stage, address it behind closed doors, treat it as a sin. like adultery, theft, and misogyny. Complementarian churches can seek out ways to empower and learn from women, even if they don't allow women to be pastors or elders or whatever term they want to use. I remember when I was on a preaching team, I think I've told a story before, so I apologize if it's redundant.

But when I was on the preaching team at Cornerstone Church after Francis Chan left, it was a complimentary church, all men, get together on Tuesdays. And whoever's preaching that Sunday, we're like, all right, here's the direction I'm going, here's the illustrations I'm going to use. my outline and we'd all kind of critique. And then one of the pastors there said, I think it'd be good to have a woman in this meeting. And we're like, is that okay? I'm like, yeah, I think I mean, she's not a pastor, not on stage, not teaching, not preaching, not elderly. But she can offer wisdom in a meeting about how this sermon should go. And so we brought in a super thoughtful woman.

and she gave some of the most insightful feedback that prevented us men from saying some really, really foolish and stupid things. So embarrassing that I'm not going to share it with you. But, I mean, I was like, I remember thinking like, oh, my word, how did I go this foreign ministry without asking a woman? Hey, here's an illustration I'm going to use. Hey, here's how I'm going to say this. What do you think about this? How might this land with women in the audience? And it was incredibly helpful.

And but yeah, and egalitarian churches, by the way, are not free from misogyny. Every female pastor I've talked to you, serves in egalitarian churches says they still face lots of misogyny. So just being egalitarian on paper or in practice doesn't mean that your church too

doesn't need to heal the wounds left by and the damage done by patriarchy and misogyny. If you've been listening to Theology Norah for a while, you know that I care about serious biblical scholarship. And that's one reason why I really appreciate the new living translation. I found one of the biggest misconceptions about the NLT is that because it's so understandable and enjoyable to read, it must be less scholarly.

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So next question is, as a woman in seminary, how could I prepare myself to enter environments where people do not believe women can be in leadership? The reason why I needed to get my phone was because I didn't feel like I'm the best person to answer this question. And so there's actually three questions that I was like, ooh, I don't know if I shouldn't manisplain here. how about I asked Sandy Richter what she thinks. So I texted Sandy and she was on a flight or in Uber or something, going to a speaking engagement. And I said, hey, do you have a second? Can you give you your thoughts on some of these questions that came in? So yeah. So Sandy texted her thoughts on this question and a couple others. So here's what Sandy says. I would say that the best preparation is to be very clear on who you work.

for. If you think that your goal is to gain the approval of all the folk you work with or work for, you'll wind up insecure and defensive. If you know that the only person who you are truly trying to please is God, you'll do much better. In addition, be good at what you do, really good. To quote, Secretary of State Madeline Albright, there is no space in this world for mediocre women. To quote, Peter, if you do poorly, expect to be criticized. We need to be able to be confident in your performance. Know that often you will have to train your co-workers how to treat you. They've perhaps never worked with a woman before.

So be prepared to draw appropriate boundaries and enforce them kindly. So that's what Sandy says about this question. And yeah, I don't think I have anything to add to that. Next question. Could you describe what you think is the strongest argument for a complementarian reading of scripture, even if you don't agree with it. Love this question. Love it. Every sound thinker should be able to steal man the view they disagree with. If somebody can't do it, then they probably haven't thought through the issue very well. Or, and this, not,

no, if the shoe fits kind of thing. Or they might be understudied and insecure about their view because they think that holding to this view, require, and to not acknowledge the strength of any counter view to this to this issue. So yeah, I think it's really good to be able to steal man the view who disagree with. For me, First Timothy 2, 12 and 13. I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man for Adam was created first, not for the man was created first, not the woman and the woman was deceived, not the man. So the whole complementary argument that Paul grounds his prohibition, women teaching and exercising authority or more specifically

authenticaining a man. Greek word oftentimes. That's key to this argument. He says, why? Because Adam is formed first. And so whatever we think about the logic there,

that is what Paul says. He roots his command in the created order. Also, that's one argument. Another, and if you read my book, you know that I have lots of countering thoughts to that argument. Another argument is, you know, 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 2, where you have a list of qualifications

for elder and overseer seems to assume that elders and overseers are men. You know, one of the qualifications is that they must be a one woman man. If women could be elders and overseers, then why would you have such a gender-specific qualification? And also, thirdly, you know, almost all the leaders in early church are men. You have 12 apostles. And when Judas defected, they chose a man in Acts chapter 1. Yeah, Paul and Barnardus, Timothy, Titus, Silas, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

When you read the New Testament, a lot of men doing leadership stuff. And the few women who might be leaders, you know, these are disputed. Yeah, Priscilla. Well, did she teach Apollus? Well, the word teach isn't there. It says she, you know, explained the way of God more accurately. She didn't really teach him and it was private. There's no evidence that she was, like, teaching in a church context.

Phoebe, did she carry the letter? Okay, maybe, but okay, she's called a servant, but that's not a leader. She's a servant. The idea of like being a deacon isn't even in place yet. And even so, deacons aren't leaders or servants. Junia, is she an apostle? What kind of apostle? It's one verse. I think we're squeezing too much out of this one verse. Nympha, Lydia, Apvia, you know, all these women are just, they're not. playing they're not they just kind of it's like a verse here verse here and you're kind of reading stuff into you know why and how they're leaders in the church um they're hardly even you know priscilla's mentioned a lot okay but all these other women they're only mentioned like in one verse or Lydia you know in in a chapter so yeah so i think those are the strongest arguments for a from my vantage point for a complementarian reading of scripture um again i discuss all that in my book um What would you say to women who grew up in a complementarian context, who have since they call to pastoral ministry and are starting to understand the biblical theological basis for egalitarianism, but are still struggling to be confident in their call? This is another one where I wanted Sandy to address this. So here's what Sandy says.

One thing I would say is that we all struggle with our callings. So that business of knowing who you work for still applies. but I'd still say start small. What do you see in front of you that needs to get done? Start doing it, asking God to equip and empower you while you do it. One step at a time builds confidence, skill, and the ability to hear from the Holy Spirit. And one step will lead to another. If you take no steps, it will be very hard for God to direct you. Great thoughts from Sandy.

And here's another question that came in that Sandy is also going to address. Is there any way for me as a woman to bring this discussion into my church without being perceived as a threat. Here's what Sandy says. That is going to be, that is going to depend a lot of where you are. Has your church already pursued this discussion and is set in their posture? That will cause conflict. Or are they just launching the conversation?

If the latter, I go to someone in leadership with whom you, you've got a solid relationship with and ask for the conversation. Perhaps a small group, perhaps a focus group. If it's helpful, Sandy says, I have a three-part video series on her website, 20 minutes each, that would help a small group walk through the issues. Sandy Richter.org. Check it out. And Sandy says this. Okay, she's saying this. Obviously, Preston's book would be a good place to start. These conversations are about doctrine, culture, and relationships, and all of those have to be addressed to move forward.

And very often, doctrine really isn't the determining factor. And yeah, I would, I would affirm everything Sandy says here. especially just to reiterate. Like if a church has studied this issue, they're pretty committed to a complementarian view. It's not like they're like, oh, we don't really know what we believe. We're just kind of complementarian by default. But they, you know, they've thought through it.

I don't, to expect the church to kind of march into the pastor's office and say, you need to change your view. Not that you're saying they're going to march in. But, you know, like, if you were a leader of a church and you've thought through an issue and you've landed on a, an issue, whatever that issue is. If somebody comes to you from congregation and says, I think you're really wrong about this issue, let's, I think you should change your view. Like, that's just not, this is not the way to go about it. It's not, I doubt they're going to

change, you know, if they've really thought through and settled it. So I do agree with Sandy, like if they're kind of open to having the conversation or they haven't really studied it or they're in the process of thinking through it, you know, I think those can be fertile grounds for a fruitful conversation. Next question. What would you say to those who say that because you don't know what it is like to be told that you can't speak in church? In other words, you're not a woman, that you shouldn't be speaking on this issue. Should women be leading the charge on this issue? I haven't, I've heard from a ton of women regarding my book or podcasts I've spoken, addressed this issue.

I've never heard anybody say this, but, um, uh, I've heard people, okay, I have heard people like bemoan the fact that women have been writing on this for years. And because of my man, people will listen to me, which I don't know if that's, it could be true in some cases. But there's many men who have written on an egalitarian view and there's still many commentarians who aren't convinced. It's not like I'm the first man to come along, you know, argue for that. So, yeah, in any case, I'd say as a biblical scholar, my job is to study, understand, and teach what the Bible says about whatever issue I'm studying, regardless of whether I can personally identify with the people that the issue is about. I mean, for those of you who know me, I'm a straight man who's been talking about same-sex sexuality for over. decades. So I'm used, yeah, I'm, I'm kind of used to, I have heard a lot in those spaces.

I'm also a modern Western person trying to tell people what ancient Middle Eastern people believed and wrote. I mean, just one could say that only Middle Eastern scholars should write on the Bible because they're the only ones that can resonate with the actual people who wrote the Bible. Almost every scholar who's written on slavery in the Bible is not experienced slavery. Some have ancestry that goes back to slavery. Or, you know, should only divorce people write on what the Bible says about divorce? Should only Jewish people write on what the Bible says about Jewish people? You know, it goes on and on and on and on.

So I don't, I don't know. I just don't, I don't know if, yeah, I don't know how to offer a convincing argument. I just, I don't take that approach. I don't know any scholar who does. I mean, biblical scholars or study what the Bible says about whatever they want to know what the Bible says about. You know, so yeah. Next question. Tom Shriner wrote a critique on the gospel coalition and you wrote a response.

Are you and him still dialoguing outside of the public eye? Was there a professional fallout in complementarian circles? From my vantage point, no, I don't. think there was any, I don't know, I don't think there was a professional, I haven't felt a professional fallout from complementarian circles because I've never had like a complimentarian church specific focus or ministry. I mean, a lot of people who listen to this podcast are complementarian, a lot of them are egalitarian. Some are unsure. I speak at churches that are both complementarian or egalitarian, you know, so, and no one has ever said, you know, what's your view on, on women in

ministry. So regarding Tom, you know, we haven't talked a lot offline prior to the book here and there. So we haven't talked since our exchange. But again, I have zero hard feelings about this critique. That's just part of being in this field. You write a book and you're going to get critiqued. And sometimes people you know and like and are friends with will critique you. And that's good. Like, you want that. So I still respect him as a scholar and would have no problem hanging out with him, grab her lunch at ETS or whatever. So from my vantage point, there's been no follow out.

I don't know on his end. From what I know about Tom, I don't think so. Again, he's got friends on different sides of this issue. In your book, this is the last question. This might be the last question. Oh, no, I might have one more.

Let's see. No, this is the last one. Okay, last question. In your... Oh, where to go? Shoot. In your book, you spent a lot of time

unpacking First Corinthians, 11 and even poke fun at some of the odd phrases, but you never seriously address the statement because of the angels. What is your best understanding of what Paul is getting at? Because of the angels, Paul says. Women, for this reason, a woman has authority on the head because of the angels is the most literal way you can interpret the Greek there. What in the world is going on there? It seems like Paul is referencing something about the angels that was self-evident to his audience because he doesn't feel the need to explain it to them. I mean, he assumes they know what you're talking about. So there's been at least four views proposed here.

The first view, or a first view, is that Paul is referring to angels that were in attendance at the worship services. This is fairly popular. And here I'm just going off. I just dug up some of my old notes on this passage where I have all the scholars who hold the different views. So this is the great Mornah Hooker, Judith Gundry Volf, Richard Hayes, and several others here. So one scholar, I forget who this is, says this probably refers to the concept that angels watched over and even participated with God's people at worship, in part, to ensure proper decorum. angels would have been offended at seeing women disrespect their husbands at worship services. And you do have references in Qumran literature,

a sect of a Jewish sect that lived by the Dead Sea. Well, one group lived by the Dead Sea. And you do have references in Qumran literature that does mention kind of angels at their gatherings. So there is some Jewish parallels to this view. Another view is that this refers to angels as guardians of the created order. Guardians of the created order. And so probably the logic is women should wear a head covering. And again, there's so many different views on what that even means.

But whatever it means, you know, we need to guard the created order because of the angels. Why? Because angels were guardians of the created order. You have, again, Jewish references in Philo and also a reference in some of the Targums that were writing on Genesis 1, 26, that give some parallels to this. A third view that I think has some probably the, some merit, lesting that Paul's referring to lusting angels. This comes from Craig Keener. It had become a very common belief that many angels had fallen into. sin long ago by lusting after beautiful women. On this view, Paul would be saying, by leaving your

hair open to public view, you are inciting not only men, but also angels to lust. That might sound a little weird, but you do have Old Testament and Jewish parallels to this. Of course, Genesis 6, sons of God had sex with women. And so we got the Nephilim, at least according to one view. I think that's pretty correct. And you have, uh, allusions to this in 2.4 and Jude 6, 1st Peter 3, some Jewish literature, 1st Enoch 16, 2, 2, 2nd, 6th, 14, and other passages. And it was, if you look at some Greco-Roman references to head coverings or veils or even a woman's hair, it was seen as, sexually provocative, a woman's hair. And even in cultures today, where women veil or cover their heads, you know, the exposure of hair is, it would be a parallel to like, you know, showing too much cleavage

or something in a Western culture. So, yeah, so put a head covering on, in other words, cover your hair. Why? Well, because of the angels. Because, you know, angels could be lusting after you. And you don't want them to do something bad like they did in Genesis 6. Okay, so I actually leaned toward this fourth view. It's a minority view. And that is that angels here refer to human messengers. And this was very well argued by Bruce Winter in a couple of his books after Paul left Corinth and Roman women. Alan Padgett also talks about this. Jerome Worthview O'Connor, Cynthia Thompson.

So you may think, wait, what? We're not even talking about angels. We're talking about humans here. Well, you know, the Greek word Angolas is used of human messengers in several passages in both the New Testament and in Judaism. We have in Matthew 1110, Luke 724, 952. James 2 25, Josephus, possibly even Revelation 2 and 3, the seven churches there. And what Winter argues, it's really fascinating. He argues that human messengers, you had in the Roman culture this time,

you know, agents of the state that would be sent to survey the behavior and decorum of women. And he actually cites references to ancient Gunai Kanamoi. So Gunai, you know, women, Kanamoi, Namas, law, like people who enforced laws regarding women. These humans, almost like police. They were people sent out from the state to police a woman's attire. And since, this is what Winter says, since Christian gatherings were rather public, and since women were violating Roman social codes by not wearing a veil or head covering, as respectable married women should do, Paul feared that a messenger could alert the authorities

of what was going on in the house churches. And in 1st Corinthians 14, you do have the mention of, of the idioté inquirers is how the NIV translates it, visiting churches. You know, if somebody comes into the gathering, you know, and sees that we're all acting like madman, you know, what are they going to do? So we have such evidence, we have evidence of such messengers and Epictetus. And I don't think I'm going to look up at Epictetus as discourses or whatever, but there's references there to these people sent out to police a woman's attire.

So, yeah, the cat, so the, okay, so, oh, sorry, let me give one more quote here from Bruce Winter. For this reason, Paul says the wife is under obligation to wear the sign of her marriage as she prays and prophesies because of what its absence signal to the inquisitive outsiders. She portrayed herself as the promiscuous woman, Roman, wife. and unashamed adulterous if she was married and didn't have a head covering. So the strongest counter argument to this is while the Greek word Angolas can be used of human people, Paul never uses it to refer to human messengers. There is one reference in Galatians 414 that might come close, but I think that that is a pretty big counter argument.

But it does fit what I think is going on in the passage with regard, the meaning. of head coverings. I think Bruce Winter is spot on there. So anyway, that's the view I lean towards. If it's not that one, I think the Lusty Angels view has the most historical credibility to it. At the end of the day, I don't think it drastically affects your argument, which is why I didn't really deal with it in my book. And at the end of the day, at the end of another day, I don't think anybody can be super confident. We're going on kind of nothing in the context. which kind of piece together stuff from the historical context. All right, I'll stop there.

Thanks so much for listening. Again, if you want to purchase the entire exiles conference, you can head over to Theologyinthorah.com or all the videos are available, including this breakout. But you got this one for free if you listened to the last episode. So anyway, we'll see you next time with Theology and Ra.