Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep995: #995 - Women Prophets, Teachers, and Preachers, but not Elders: Dr. Gerry Breshears

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

Gerry holds to a view of women in leaders that’s sometimes considered “soft complementarian.” He believes women can serve in any position of leadership and teaching in the church, except for elders, since one of the criteria for being an elder (or overseer) is “a husband of one wife.” Gerry explains his view in this podcast episode.  Gerry has an MDiv from Denver Seminary and a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Fuller Seminary. He’s been teaching at Western Seminary since 1980 where he currently serves as a professor of theology. Gerry has been a mentor to thousands of Christian leaders around the globe.  https://www.westernseminary.edu/academics/faculty/gerry-breshears –––––– PROMOS Save 10% on courses with Kairos Classroom using code TITR at kairosclassroom.com! –––––– Sign up with Faithful Counseling today to save 10% off of your first month at the link:  faithfulcounseling.com/theology –––––– Save 30% at SeminaryNow.com by using code TITR –––––– Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review. www.theologyintheraw.com

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. Registration is open for next year's Exiles in Babylon conference. We're going to be talking about the future of the church, theology of disability in the church, multi-ethnic perspectives on American Christianity, and what will certainly be a fascinating dialogical debate or conversational debate surrounding Christian approaches to the problem of evil and suffering. All the information is on theologyintheraw.com. So go ahead and go there. We do have some spots, some early bird spots that at the time of recording, we're still open. They might be gone, but we have 200 early bird spots available at a discounted rate. And then after that, the price goes up. Again,

theologyintheraw.com, check it out. My guest today is Dr. Gary Brashears, who is a professor of theology at Western Seminary, where he's been since 1980. This dude has been teaching at seminary almost as long as I've been alive. He has an MDiv from Denver Seminary and a PhD in systematic theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. Gary has been a mentor to literally, I want to say thousands, maybe more, Christian leaders. This guy is just a discipling machine. And he also spoke at last year's Exiles in Babylon conference in that dialogical debate surrounding the nature of hell with Chris Date, which was a very fascinating conversation. So I want to have

Gary on to talk about his view of women in church leadership. He holds to a view where women can serve in all offices and positions in the church, including teaching and preaching. The only office that women are not able to serve in is the office of elder slash overseer. So it's an interesting position. There's, I think, a growing number of people who hold to this view. And so I wanted him to come on the show and explain it all to us. So that's what we do in this episode. So please welcome to the show for the first time. I can't believe this is the first time Gary's been on the show. But yeah, please welcome to the show, the one and only Dr. Gary Brashears.

I know a lot of people already know who you are. Those who maybe didn't know who you are that attended the Exiles in Babylon conference now know who you are. You are the one that I want to say cheated in that debate dialogue with. Cheated. You showed family pictures. You had the crowd like putty in your hands i was in the green room all of us back there were like oh he you you're winning the crowd right now yeah i mean i just want to give a picture of what goes on here that's so i should not show family pictures i got a great family you do have a great family

it was it was very well played um well i so i i um yeah i wanted to have you on to talk about not just you i mean the position that you have on women in leadership in the church it's a it's a view that i'm intrigued with i've known about for a while from a distance and but recently have been you know reading stuff by Blomberg and other people who seem to, I don't want to say champion, but have been more pretty well known in advocating for this view. So I was going to summarize your view, but you're here, so I'll just let you. How about you start summarizing what your view is, and then we'll dig down into whatever nitty gritty we want to pursue. Well, step one in where I'm at.

First, I just got to say right up front, I'm a egalitarian at heart. I know women, including your wife, Chris, and Dina Sternhoff at our church, who should be on an elder board, competent, godly, wise. So that's where I'm at. In my heart, I'm a egalitarian. The reason I'm not i believe that elders are married men and the reason i think that is first timothy three when it lays out the job description of an elder has a whole bunch of stuff none of which is controversial except

husband of one wife which means a married man. It talks about the kids. And many people who don't adopt my view say, well, that's something special in Ephesus, weird Artemis cult, cosmopolitan center, something cultural in Ephesus. The problem is in Titus chapter one, where Paul again lays out the qualifications of the elder, the job description, it's virtually identical, including the phrase, husband and one wife, a married man, and that's decreed. So if I think of things, you know, Ephesus is the cosmopolitan religious center of the world. I know, I think Seattle or San Francisco, the left coast. Crete is redneckville. ville it's urban it's not urban it's rural it's reactive cretans are all liars it says right there in the text this is not i mean they're opposite cultures so the idea it's something culture unique to ephesus fails because crete has exactly the same

thing okay and the other things there in the job description, none of them are controversial. You want a guy who's mature and such. So I think elders, I mean, the biblical view is elders should be husband and one wife, which is a married man. And then from that, the other thing that's kind of central in my view is I don't think elder is the highest job in the church. Elder is the team that guides and guards the life and teaching of the church. But there are other offices, evangelist, prophet, that are just as central to the life of the church as elders. They're just different jobs. And there are no gender restrictions on evangelist or prophet. And those are critically important in

the life of the church. We've adopted a hierarchical model too often that says there's a top job. And when women are allowed there, we correctly say, well, women can't be important in the church. That's just not true. There's lots of vital roles. We can dig down from that, but that's the foundation. Elders are married men, and that makes everybody happy. Because you mean they got to be married? Yep, that's what it says. I can't change the job description. So Jesus couldn't be an elder because he's not a married man.

Or Paul. Well, Paul was married. He's not currently married, but he's an apostle, not an elder. And Jesus is Messiah, not elder. You're right. Jesus could not be an elder in a church under that job description. Now, couldn't it, I mean, couldn't that, I mean, a husband, a one woman man is right. The kind of phrase, could that not mean like for those who are married, they need to be faithful to their wife or maybe they've never

been divorced or remarried or whatever like it's it's more the quality of the person not that's not what it says it's not what it says it says husband and one wife and that's the second list the person is blameless we ignore that one too not quarrel Yeah. Gosh, we'd get that in. Church would change a lot. But see, none of those are ifs. All those are qualifications. And there's a list about 10 in Ephesus and about 10 in Crete. And they're pretty much identical. Yeah. Yeah. And there's not an if in the bunch. The only if is anybody aspires to the office, they must be. And they list those 10 qualifications. There's no if there. I know it's argued, but there's no if. Is that what I said? Is that what other people will say? Like, it's not saying it's not an absolute statement. It's just well, often it said it's not gender specific, but in the phrase wife of one husband is used for widows later in First Timothy. And that, of course, is gender specific.

Right, right, right. Okay. Or whatever. I'm just going to try to find any pushback just because I like to do that. What about like in that culture, if somebody was an elder, meaning probably older, like I don't think they would have 25 year old. It specifically says not a new convert. Not a new convert. Yeah.

So in that culture, if somebody was age wise an elder, they would also have been married or at least they could have been widowed, I guess. But they would have been in that culture. They would have been married. Yes, but they would have been in that culture. They would have been married. So it was just kind of assumed. But in another culture where being an older single man is not unheard of at all, that that wouldn't apply. They wouldn't be qualified for being an elder. They could be qualified to be a prophet or a vandal or a number of other things.

What's the rationale? Is it that idea that they sort of demonstrated that they can manage their household and that's part of why would that be the rationale for saying doesn't give us the why and that's the key we ask what is the why and then discuss the why but he didn't talk about the why but when i go there i absolutely committed the idea that you learn a lot about things by being a family man and the church is a family that's a primary metaphor for the church. I think you learn a lot about dealing with messy stuff in family, and you bring those lessons into the family of the church.

So not just a married man, but a married man who has kids, right? That's, yeah, that would be the normal thing. And kids there are not necessarily bio kids. You can have kids in your household as well. But normally it would be bio kids because married with kids is God's normal design. Singleness is a fine thing to be, but it disqualifies you from being an elder. It doesn't disqualify you from being a prophet or evangelist or several other critically important things in the church. But it does disqualify you from being an elder. It doesn't disqualify you from being a prophet or evangelist or several other critically important things in the church, but it does disqualify you from being a... And because you don't have a hierarchical view

of these offices, then it's not like there's some top tier thing that's being withheld from single people or single people or women. I gotta think about that. Oh yeah, think about it a lot. I mean, there's commands that like, you know, treat your slave well.

But that's like, well, yeah, in that context, slavery was better than the culture. Doesn't mean it was just trying to think of an analogy that we wouldn't go with. If you have slavery, you got to do what he commands. If you don't have slavery and you have employees the principle still applies treat your employee well yeah and frankly in a lot of industries today employees are pretty close to slavery in the first century yeah all right well i'll let that one sit for a second then and so to be clear too when you say elder if i remember correctly um in Titus 1, uses elder and overseer interchangeably. So do you think these are the same kind of office?

Overseer, elder is basically two terms for the same thing? 1 Timothy 3 uses overseer. Titus uses elder. And overseer, I think. Used interchangeably in Acts 20. And then 1 Peter, he uses the term elder. Right. Okay. And some people say overseer is a higher office than elder, and I have trouble believing that. I think that's a later development

where a bishop, if you will, oversees a number of congregations. I don't think that's what he's saying for Timothy, but some people made that case that overseer is actually a denominational office, so to speak, and elders are the local church office. I don't think that's correct, but that would be somewhat defensible. Still, the qualifications are the same. So you would say overseer and elder again are synonyms for the same thing? Okay. Yeah.

The debate is pastor, is that the same thing? Yeah. Can you talk about that? Yeah. Yeah. Because in, well, my view is that elders must teach. No question. First Timothy is very clear about that.

And elders must pastor. First Peter is very clear about that. But there are teachers who are not elders. Nobody debates that. There are teachers, women, for example, and others who are teachers, but not elders. I think there are people who are pastors, that is, shepherd, soul care type people, who are not elders. All elders must be able to teach, but it means Sunday morning. It means teaching could be in small groups or something like that, personal mentoring.

And I think all elders must pastor as a function, but I think there are teachers and pastors who are not elders. And so teachers are equipping people with the work of ministry and pastors are equipping people with the work of ministry. That's Ephesians 4, 11, and 12. So in women, in your view, can be pastors and teachers, it's not elders. That's correct.

Okay. Then you've got the debate about, okay, if they're pastors, what can they do? And again, in my view, and I'll stand for my view, I'm not the only one who holds it, but I think it's right, is that the question when it comes to things like addressing the entire congregation on Sunday morning, what we call preaching, The question there is not male-female, from my view. The question is elder, not elder. And in many churches, only elders preach to the congregation. Now, whether you call them elders or what title you use, that lead office. But in other places, other churches, non-elders preach. Well, if non-elders preach on a Sunday morning, there's no reason why a woman couldn't because the question is elder, not elder, not woman, not elder, not woman.

So it's not a gender thing. It's an office thing in my judgment. And so no women elders or overseers, women can occupy any other office. They can teach. They can preach. And so you're basing that specifically on Titus 1, 1 Timothy 3, not 1 Timothy 2 or other passages. Like it's really the two elder criteria passages, say husband and one wife. So that rules out.

The job description of elder is clear. What about the... 1 Timothy 2.12 is a problem passage for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we'll get to that in a second. Do you want to explain, do you have like a rationale? Or is it kind of like, if God doesn't explain why, then we can't really fill in the gaps? Or why would a woman, a married woman, be excluded from being an elder?

God does not explain why, and I'll just leave it to him. Seriously. Okay. The idea that women are more deceivable than men is ridiculous. I hang out with too many deceived men. It's historically true. Eve was deceived, but Adam created the greater sin because apparently he sinned with his eyes open.

Eve was deceived, and that apparently mitigates what she did i would say but adam did not was not deceived that means he walked into his eyes open so he committed the greater sin of the two so i mean paul does what's paul saying there then because it does say you know women not teach exercise authority over men for adam was created first and man wasn't deceived, but Eve was deceived. That's where people get the idea, right? That the reason why women can't serve as elders is because it's hard for you to say it because it's ridiculous, but, but, but at least I, there is a verse that could be face value. I mean, it's not like there's,

that's not a possible way to read that verse. When we talk about problem passages in Paul, of course, that's one of them, is Ephesians 13 and 14, 15, you know, woman will be saved by childbearing. I think that passage, it's, there's an article in there on childbearing, when you look in the Greek, women will be saved by the childbearing. I think that's kicking back to Genesis 3.15. Women are saved through the childbearing, that is the birth of Messiah. And I'm inclined to think what happened, and inclined would be an even too strong a word, that he's speaking there, well he is speaking

historically to Adam and Eve, that he's speaking there historically, he is speaking historically to Adam and Eve. But he apparently looking at a Genesis 3.16, where it says that a woman shall desire her husband, and the husband shall rule over the wife. And that's a place where you get a difference in the marriage relationship. That's the first time it's there. It's not back in the creation narrative. There's nothing about roles in marriage in the creation narrative that comes in Genesis 3. And apparently Paul's looking at that. But exactly how that applies to elder, you know, I just don't know, except there's some sort of parallel.

So it seems to me he's using that, I'm guessing he's using it against more the Artemis myth. Where that was the equivalent of what we today would be Wiccan, where the wise woman is a source of everything. And in that Artemis myth and contemporary Wiccan stuff, it's the wise woman who is a source of creation and the one who's the leader. And what he's saying is, well, that may be true in the Artemis myth. It's not true in the Genesis account.

So he's drawing on creation. Again, we're talking about 1 Timothy 2, 11 to 15. Well, yeah, 15 through 14 here. Yeah, yeah, 15 through 14 here. Yeah. And you're saying that he, in a sense, he's going back to the creation narrative to sort of correct some assumptions about the Artemis myth

that also had its own kind of creation narrative or whatever. And unfortunately, we only have one side of the telephone conversation here. And so in 1 Timothy 12, where I don't allow a woman to teach or have authority over a man, we get in all these fights about what the word authority means because it's a unique word. Okay, I want to skip that because it becomes a very negative word 300 years later.

Was it negative at that point? We just have data to know. But teach, we know what that means. Teach means teach. And the idea that teach means preach on Sunday morning is ridiculous in my not even slightly humble opinion. Teach means stuff that's happening as you're teaching them, you're doing mentoring, anything like that. Teaching is a very wide ranging word. And if you say it's teach

and have authority, those two together, I think are leading up to the elder office. If you say women can't teach, then can't teach men, then you have a real problem in things like Acts 18, where Priscilla and Aquila, it says they correct Apollos, and they're correcting doctrine. And the fact they do it together and privately, 1 Timothy doesn't say public teaching, it says teaching. And it doesn't say without your husband, it just says a woman can't teach. And that would be a contradictory passage to what Priscilla and Aquila do in Acts 18. And then you've got the office of prophet in 1 Corinthians 14, where women prophets comfort,

exhort, edify, encourage. And that would also seem to violate a literal, if I can use that term, reading of 1 Timothy 2.12. And it's a problem passage for me. I'll quickly say that. If I only did 1 Timothy 2.12, I would not have a woman teach men, period, in the church. But that's not the only passage in Scripture. If I fall following your logic, so because categorically teaching a woman teaching men, because that would contradict what Paul says elsewhere, that drives you back to 1 Timothy 2 to say, well, either Paul's contradicting himself or maybe there's something going on here in the background that is specific to this situation that Paul's talking about. And then we kind of construct based on historical evidence, a certain scenario that might make sense.

It'd be akin to that, but see what I'm looking at is a combination of words, the teach and have authority. Okay. They're either both positive or both negative. Right. Paul uses pairs of words constantly that are mutually defining. Let's be peaceful and quiet. You know, those those almost synonymous so teach and have authority would be both positive or both negative teach

is positive there's another word heterodox and that would be negative okay so whatever is teach and have authority that combination is used not the same words, in 1 Timothy 5 to talk about elders do. So again, I quickly admit that's a problem of passage, but I think the two together are talking about what elder office does. But again, it's a problem of passage for me. So in essence, you're saying Paul is saying women shouldn't be elders. That's correct. And I wish you had been clearer about it. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Is there something in Ephesus that Paul's writing to, like, do we have historical evidence there? I haven't done a lot of background research on, on Ephesus in particular, but like,

was it, was it, were they more, were women more prone in a sense to be elders in that context? And that's why Paul has to address it. We don't know sense to be elders in that context. And that's why Paul has to address. We don't know anything about the church in Ephesus. The only,

only stuff we have are the biblical letters in the first century. Okay. Uh, but we do know in the Artemis cult and the, some of the other goddess cults in the Greco, in the Greek world there, the women were very much involved in leadership there and almost uniquely involved in leadership so there's stuff there and you know a fair bit about the artemis cult

right right because from greek studies not the details of organization and such but clearly women were the priestesses we know about the we more know more about delphi because it's more popular, which is a ways away from Ephesus, but it's the same. It's over in Greece, where Ephesus is Turkey, but they're very closely related to each other. Right. I just got done reading a couple different books on women in the Greco-Roman world. One by Lynn Kohik, which is very thorough, and another one, I have it somewhere. Cohick, which is very thorough. And another one, I have it somewhere anyway. And yeah, they, they, both books showed that in other cult-like religious practices in the ancient world, a lot of them, it was very common for women to occupy really strong authoritative roles. And so since Christianity was, it wasn't paganism, it was this other thing. And we have

examples of other kinds of religious things going on that converts to christianity it'd be easy for them to model their practices after kind of assumptions after some of these cults that's correct i think something like that is going on there that we don't know the details yeah and often you hear the thing well women were not allowed to do anything and in the religious when the Jewish world, that was largely true, but not in the Greco-Roman world. And even I just came across some archaeological evidence that you have. It's very rare, but a couple examples of women being described as leaders of the synagogue. Bernadette Bruton did some work. I have not read the book on something like that.

I was kind of shocked to see that. Again, very rare, but we have some examples even in Judaism of some women occupying leadership kind of roles. Now, my response there is when you talk about what Jews believed, remember, they were just as divided as Baptists are today. That's not to take Pentecostals into account. Okay. So women can occupy any position in the church except for elder preaching, teaching. So Sunday morning rationale, we're not quite sure why. Is it rooted in kind of the headship of man in 1 Timothy five and first Corinthians 11, three, you know,

you have, according to one reading, you know, male headship patterned after some kind of Trinitarian relationship where the son freely submits to the father. Um, and I'm not talking about eternal gag me with a spoon. Yeah.

That's not what you're saying. That's the Messiah. What's that? He uses the term Christ. That's not the eternal son. That's the Messiah. What's that? He uses the term Christ there, not son. The Messiah is submitted to the Father. Nobody doubts that. To make that a Trinitarian relationship is to misread the passage.

I'm talking about my good friend Bruce Ware, who takes that position. The eternal subordination. And I wasn't saying that. I was saying— Eternal functional subordination. So functional subordination, not eternal subordination and i wasn't saying that i was saying functional subordination so you so functional subordination not eternal subordination oh yeah bruce is not internal he's not a subordinationist so he's charged with that often oh he's not he's a funk no he's not a subordinationist he has a son and and father and spirit all full equal in essence but subordinate in function. Right. I don't agree with his view, but at least you don't misrepresent it.

Well, that's what I thought too, but people accuse him of being, what's the heresy? Aryan. It's subordination. Well, it's Aryanism. Right. Him and Wayne Grudem, right? That they say. And that's just, that's slander.

They're not, I mean, they're not. They affirm repeatedly full equality in the Trinity. Right, right. It's an equality of essence, a subordination of function. Now, again, I don't agree with it, but at least represent it correctly. Well, I think some people say like, well, I don't want to say names because I don't want to misrepresent them. But some recent books I read on it accused them of that. Well, I don't want to say names because I don't want to misrepresent them, but some recent books I read on it accused them of that.

But they seem to assume if somebody is submitting to somebody else, that must be ontological being inferior. I'm like, well, no, that's not the biblical view. Submission doesn't say because you're inferior, therefore you submit. That's correct. Yeah. I submit to Josh Matthews. He's the vice president dean at Western Seminary where I teach. I submit to him. I'm, what, probably 40 years older than he is, a lot more experienced and such, but I still submit to him. He's my boss. And so, yeah, that has nothing to do with essence. It has everything to do with role yeah that's some of let me so here when i read and this would be more of a critique of some egalitarians right when they talk about you know the complementarian view and women being subordinated and inferior and all this stuff

and like uh they're devalued and then they go to like creation and say look when both women and men are created in God's image. Therefore women should be able to serve in leadership. And it's like, well, that seems to assume a hierarchical view of leadership, that a leader is more powerful and more authoritative and more superior. I'm like, but that's a very secular view of leadership. Is that, and you know, sometimes they talk about submission the same way like a first century Greco-Roman person would, but it's not the way Christianity has kind of turned that vice into

a profound virtue. Am I right to kind of... There are too many egalitarians and too many complementarians that refute a caricature of the other view. Sure. And then assume because they refute a caricature of their view that makes their view right. Yeah. You just don't do that. The fact that I can refute somebody else's view, even if I'm successful, does not make my view correct. The burden of proof is always on me to show what view accounts for the most biblical data with the fewest difficulties. So to go back and say

that because women and men are equally in the image of God, nobody debates that. Well, almost nobody debates that. That doesn't mean there's not differences in roles in the home necessarily. I don't think those roles are outlined in Genesis 1 and 2, but you got some going on in Genesis 3, where your desire will be for your husband. And I think desire can either good or bad, and he shall rule over you. Rule can be either good or bad. I think the New Testament shows us how to do those things well. If you're in submission, you know, that means that you're expressing your desires,

your feelings, and deferring in judgment. If you're in authority, it doesn't mean giving commands to people. It means exemplifying, unifying, those kinds of things. But this idea of authority being I'm telling people what to do, Jesus and Paul or Peter both clearly refute that idea. We need to get away from this authority means to command in the Bible. Authority means to exemplify, to unify, to inspire, those kinds of things. And now going back to the kind of caricature, I would fully agree that functionally a lot of commentating contexts do have that kind of male superiority spirit

but that's not intrinsic to the view itself or for sure obviously it shouldn't be but functionally yeah i you can critique how the church has gotten off the rails all day long and i'd be with you because i've been in too many environments where you know i don't know if you've i've talked to a lot of uh female scholars like who you know go to ETS and they're constantly asking, so are you here with your husband? Lynn Kohik, I wanted to say, she's so humble, but I wanted to say, no, I write the textbooks that your husband is reading in seminary. Yeah, Lynn has some good sarcastic answers for things.

She's an amazing woman. I'm very glad for her to be around. Oh, man. Or Sandy Victor. I mean, it cracks me up some of the stuff they have heard at ETS or these conferences. So I agree that there has been

an aberration of what I would say is a biblical view of commentarianism, if indeed that is what the scripture teaches. So female prophets, we have clearly in 1 Corinthians 11, 5, Paul says, when you're prophesying, cover your heads.

You have examples of female prophets and acts. In the Old Testament. Old Testament, too. Yeah. So would that be... The question of women or prophets, it's not even a debatable point. It's absolutely clear in Scripture. And Tom Schreiner admits on this podcast and in other places that that is, in his his mind the biggest hurdle against his complementarian view um because he has to say that prophets aren't doing anything teaching on a sunday

morning or something some equivalent um so what would you yeah what would be i mean what would a teaching pastor be could in the umbrella of prophecy or is prophecy something very again the guy the person that's teaching on sunday morning to the whole congregation the question is not male female it's elder non-elder right in many churches only elders preach on sunday morning okay then a woman would not do it but if you have non-elders preach on sund morning, then there's no reason why a woman couldn't do it, assuming that she wanted to and was gifted and called and that sort of thing. Okay. So my example church is here locally, a Bridgetown church that I've worked with since before

its founding. They have this view, and they've had a male elder view about a male teacher male teachers only teachers of can be the teachers can only be male right male elders only elders can be male but there can be teachers anything uh and so they have bethany is one of the people who teaches, preaches on Sunday morning from time to time, as do other non-elders preach on Sunday morning from time to time as the topic and such is relevant. And I think they do it quite well. What relationship do the household codes and the man being head of the wife? A few questions here. One, how do you interpret the Greek word decafale there?

Do you see it as authority or source? And what relevance does Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, 1 Peter 3 have with this women in church leadership ministry question? Are they similar? I think there's a parallel because the family and the church, the church is a family. That metaphor is used constantly. And I think there is a parallel between those two.

And I do think there's a different role in the home. But what I do when I look at the marriage customs, I say, what is the actual command? The husband is never, ever commanded to man up and beheaded in the home. That's not the command. The command is to love your wife by giving up your privileges, to love your wife by nurturing and cherishing her. So men, focus on what the Bible commands you to do. Don't focus on what the Bible describes to the woman,

where it says there, for the husband is head of the wife, not head of the home. It does say that, but it says to the the husband's head of the wife, not head of the home. It does say that, but it says to the woman as a base thing. So for you to take that as a command, I got a man up and take control of my home. You're violating what scripture says. What says love by giving up your privileges for your sake of your wife and family is Christ gave his privileges to become Messiah.

Yeah. Do you see there's a different role between love and submit, I would say. Okay. So those are, you would say, a man is, how do you unpack the metaphor of being a head, head of the wife? Oh, if you look in Ephesians, Ephesians 1, right at the end of the chapter, it talks about Christ being head over the demonic powers. That's an authority. Without question, you go back and look at Septuagint, Kephle is

commonly used for an authority role. It's also used in Ephesians 4, and to achieve the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, who is head and head there is used as nurturing leader. The word source that's so often applied there in the use of kephale, the kephale of a river is not the end of the river where the river goes into the ocean. It's where the river

begins up in the Rocky Mountains. the ocean it's where the river begins up in the rocky mountains so if i think of the columbia river the kefale of the river is up in the canadian rockies it's not at astoria where the river runs in because we think of source sorry i said exactly backward the kefale is astoria not the Mountain. It's not the spring or reservoir where the river begins. It's the end of the river, not the beginning of the river. So the use of kephale in Ephesians 4, you're saying, is better understood as source? Christ is ahead of the body? I would say as nurturing.

Okay. So you say source, you're into this thing because we think well the woman comes from the man and that's actually not the way kathle is used okay uh the the and what's happened there and the thing that's a problem is people say it never means authority it means source that's just and that's just ridiculous yeah that seems so forced clearly carries authority in many cases including ephesians and the exact meaning of source, I think there's a nurturing thing there in Ephesians 4, which is the key meaning there in Ephesians in the context. So in Ephesians 5.23, how would you render that then? Authority or nurture? I think at that point, the year to submit means I think there is a leadership role for the husband.

And submission does not mean do what you're told and smile. That's the caricature. My example of submission is what you see with Jesus in the garden. And he's in the garden. And the first thing he does, my soul is anguished unto death. He is pouring out his feelings to his father and to his friends. Then he says, take this cup from me. He's giving his desires to his father and to his friends. And then he says, not my will, but your will be done. That's giving his trust. So submission,

whether it's me to Josh Matthews or on a marriage, is submission means give your feelings, your desires, and your trust to the one who's in this leadership role. That's not do what you're told and smile. That's a caricature of biblical, just like Bible turns authority upside down, it turns submission upside down. Right, right, right. And so what about when people say that passage really begins in 521 with mutual submission and there is no verb, the verbs being filled in there implied, it's submit to one another in love, wives to your husbands. So do you think that, what do you think about the argument that... Keep reading. What are the next two examples? Of what? Yeah, slave or children and then slaves. of what yeah slave or children and children to parents right is that mutual submission nobody argues those are mutual submission right i don't think it is in in husbands wives everybody is in submission to somebody there's nobody who's without accountability

okay and the holy spirit gives us the power to be in submission even when you disagree. And he gives three examples of what authority and submission looks like. And the first example is a marriage. The husband has his leadership role by loving, by giving up his privileges for his wife and family, and by nurturing and cherishing so they feel nurtured and cherished. And the wife submits and respects. And then slaves and masters. and then children and parents it's not mutual submission i mean it just doesn't work keep reading yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean that's that there's parts of me that it kind of feels a little abrasive especially in 2022 um but it's like i want to make sure i understand what the text is saying first and then i'm the one that has a deal with it,

whatever. But like, yeah, I, I had the mutual submission. Husbands are never commanded to submit to your wives, right? That is unique to the wife,

husband relationship there. It is interesting though, that husbands love your wives and certainly wives are also to love their husbands. Sure. He's, he's addressing what's hard to do. I think. Yeah. though, that husbands love your wives, and certainly wives are also to love their husbands. Sure. He's addressing what's hard to do, I think. Yeah. For a husband to love your wife as Christ loves the church means give up your privilege for the sake of your wife and children, or an elder to love the church by giving up your privileges to

serve and nurture and cherish the people you're responsible for in the church. Those are the same kinds of leadership role. It seems to me, I think there is a parallel between elders and husbands there. Okay. Okay. So there is a, some kind of relationship between Ephesians five. Okay.

Okay. And again, rationale, you don't, it's just like, I'm not sure why God gave that unique command to women and not to, uh, husbands.

God didn't explain. Okay. I mean, I want to know. And he didn't explain. Okay. I'll trust you. The one thing is, and this is something I came across years ago, is when I read Ephesians 5 in light of other very similar passages in the Greco-Roman world all the way back to Aristotle. in light of other very similar passages in the Greco-Roman world, all the way back to Aristotle.

And Paul's modeling what he's saying off of these other household codes in the Roman world is a very familiar genre, but man, he guts this thing from the inside out. You would never have that kind of mutual, let's just say mutual giving up of yourself. Even if you say the word submission is only given to wives there, there is a profound giving up of yourself mutually, which you do not find anywhere in the Greco-Roman world in these household codes. And see, coming back to the church, it's the same thing. The leadership role of elder is a giving, equipping, exemplifying, serving kind of thing. It's not a privilege and authority to tell people what to do thing. Right. And the problem is we bring that model into our discussions of women in leadership.

We assume authority means telling people what to do. And that just messes things up from day one. You're saying only men can tell people what to do? I'm saying nobody gets to tell people what to do in that kind of cold authoritarian way. What you're doing is you're taking on a responsibility. We just installed three elders in our church on Sunday, and because I'm the eldest elder, I get to lead this process. And we handed these three men, married men, a towel that they hung on their arm to simplify that you're going to be washing

really dirty feet and it's going to be awful. And then a glass and they drank the symbol of the Holy Spirit. I wish it were wine, but in our case, it was grape juice. And they drank it deeply because that implies you need the power of the Holy Spirit to serve in this kind of way. See, it's about responsibility. It's not telling people what to do. It's joining a team. It's not me being the boss. So I want to come back to that biblical picture of leadership is at least as important as who gets to be there. And I do think it's married men.

Right. Apostles. Is there any relevance to the fact that there's the original, at least 12 apostles were all men? That is really interesting, isn't it? There are women disciples. There are no women apostles. Yeah. If Jesus were egalitarian, he would have had women apostles, I think, but I can't bank too much on that. Well, and some people would say,

well, he certainly pushed culture, you know, pretty as far as he can go, but he's still, that would have been too much, like too much at that time. Nah,

garbage. Well, I think it's quite propulsion culture. Yeah. And having women disciples at the level he did having mary magdalene anoint his feet with you know he was that would not have stopped him if he really thought that women should be an equal role in leadership i think yeah i can't build much out of that because there explains the why and apostles and elders are

different offices okay but it's interesting to me that there are no men among the 12 but then they'll have the same women yeah you'll have the same people to turn around and say well junia is an apostle i'm like wait a minute so paul has more paul has more guts than jesus does and pushing apostles not limited to men yeah with the i think the capital a apostles are men because that's the ones that jesus did yeah and And then Paul coming out of that. But the apostle in terms of empowered messenger, I have no problem at all with that being a woman. Okay. And Junior probably is one of those.

Okay. So there's some debate about that. So, yeah. And some people say that, you know, the 12, because the 12 apostles clearly are being modeled on the 12 tribes and the 12 tribes come from 12 sons. But I, I, I can see that. But again,

the new Testament and Jesus, they don't have any problem kind of taking a, an image in the old Testament and flipping it around too and playing with Jesus. Yeah. I think if he smuggled in a few women apostles, I think that would have fit the kind of like trajectory of scripture. I don't think he's,

he's, he's handcuffed to the 12 male tribe heads. He's not, in my judgment. But thinking of the same thing happening again, married men as a role for elder in the two job descriptions come from two entirely different

cultures. And I don't like it, but okay, that's the job description. And the thing is to come as close to the job description as possible. I was talking with a guy from inner city of Philadelphia a while back and we're talking and we're asking, okay, now how do you do church in inner city? I mean, this is extreme poverty, very violent area and that kind of stuff. And it was very interesting. I mean, he was very wise.

And we were listening to him, and I said, well, what does leadership in a church look like? He said, well, I'm a pastor, but I'm part of a team of four elders. It's me and three women. I said, wait a minute. I thought you said you're a complementarian. He says, I am. But you said you got three women elders. Yep.

There's a close job description. My most mature man is two weeks out of rehab. You know, you come as close as you can. But now in my church, we have no trouble having qualified married men. But I found a church where that wasn't possible. I would come as close as possible. What I can't do is change a job description. possible i would come as close as possible what i can't do is change your job description so do you think there could be some cultural situations where there would be exceptions that

you could have female in that case okay yes yes but you don't change your job description okay and you come as close as possible to the job description because i'll say right up front there ain't no such thing as a qualified elder. You look at that list. I'm too dang quarrelsome to fit on any other team, but I've been an elder for like 40 years. Okay. What about first Corinthians 14? The women, the women keep silent passage. Any thoughts on that? That's a weird passage. Everybody, everybody, everybody agrees that that's something weird because 1 Corinthians 11 is talking about women praying and prophesying. The idea that women can't talk in the church, there's something going on there.

And I mean, the one idea is Don Carson says that that's judging of prophets and only elders can do that so it'd only be men. I don't think that's correct, but Tom is a pretty wise guy. I actually think that maybe Sam Storms has it better for a woman to bear down publicly on a man who's not her husband is embarrassing in a public context and maybe just lighten up. The other thing is Cindy Westfall, another good friend of mine, suggests this is chatty women, that they're just chattering all the time. I mean, we don't know what it is, but clearly that's something going on unique in Corinth. This is not a command for women to be silent in the church because it'd be a direct contradiction to 1 Corinthians 11. Right, right.

And earlier in the chapter, where prophets speak powerfully and prophets are women. And in that, this is, in my reading on women in the Greco-Roman world, they said it was really common, a common assumption that if a woman spoke over her husband,

spoke over another man, that that was seen as so shameful and almost even like the people would assume you're sexually promiscuous to like non silent women were viewed as being sex. So, so there's certain cultural things going on there that it'd be like saying, telling women, you know, don't, you know, you're in Saudi Arabia, women do not wear blue jeans. You know, it's, you know, you're in Saudi Arabia, women do not wear blue jeans. You know, it's like, well, there's certain cultural reasons that some signals that would send in that culture.

Um, but it wasn't like an absolute kind of statement. Um, that's the argument Sam storms make. Okay. And I, that's probably the best explanation. There's something in the Greco culture for a woman to do whatever you're describing there was just not okay. Right. So don't in that context context but it clearly is not universal and he says go ask your husband so i mean it's it's not all women anyway it's just married women something weird is going on there is yeah yeah everybody agrees if you try to make that a general thing it's not and i agree that

like but that's that that it's a problem passage for anybody, except maybe the super far strict, hardcore commentarians that were women literally do not open their mouths. I've been around Pete. I was, I have a friend who was a part of a church where women were not allowed to speak in the gathered assemblies of Plymouth Brethren. Oh yeah. And in their, in their gathering where they sit before the Lord, women aren't allowed to speak, Only men.

I went to a brethren church in Aberdeen. It was kind of a post brethren, but some of the old school people there explained to me the hardcore brethren churches that they were raised in. Yeah. Women do not open their mouth during a gathering. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. That's, that's crazy. What other questions do I have? I mean, there's so much out there. Have you, have you, did you spend a season of your career really digging into this? And what was that like?

Yeah, I've been on the steering committee for, we used to call it Evangelicals in Gender at Evangelical Theological Society. We changed it to Evangelicals in Women now. I've been on that steering committee since it formed oh wow back in the 90s okay and i just cycled off with some an old man now but still active and working with the folk there in uh so that's been a discussion we've been having i've read widely okay i've talked to a lot of different people from just about every camp yeah and it's been a long time in scripture yeah i i've kind of quit reading some of the current stuff. Like so much stuff in politics, it's polarizing now. And there's a new movement that I'm really unhappy with that in the name of Jesus are describing men as toxic masculinity.

And I just think that's helpful in the same way there's a far right that's saying all women the egalitarians all of them are and they become caricatures of each other and i just know let's be respectful read the best of the other view talk to people live name them don't argue with them over social media kind of thing yeah We've got to be respectful in this discussion. Right. Yeah, I don't think it's helpful for people on both sides to say the egalitarian view is a departure from scripture. It's all basically a result of feminism and vice versa. You know, all commentarians are patriarchal, are authoritarian,

all this stuff. They say it's intrinsic to the view itself. And I just don't see that. You're dealing with a fringe on both sides. Don't deal with the character. Read the best representation of other views. Talk to them live. Name them.

And this argument by caricature is not helpful to anybody. It's against the word of Jesus. Stop it. Yeah. Who do you think are some of the best representations on each side? You've mentioned a few. Yeah. Well, egalitarian. I mean, Millard Erickson, you know, former president of Evangelical Theological Society. He's egalitarian, very wise. Cindy Westfall teaches up in Toronto. Amazing woman, good scholar. Her Paul on gender book, I think, I don't agree with stuff. I mean, she told me, read my book, it'll kick you over the edge. Well, I read her book, it didn't kick me over the edge,

but she's still a great scholar. Lynn Koek, you mentioned her, she's a good scholar in these areas. Keener, Keener, whatever you mean, Keener. Yeah, Craig Keener, outstanding. Craig is just, again, former president of Evangelical Theological Society. You can't say they're loose on Scripture. Goodness, they're leaders in Scripture. From the male teacher view, I think Tom Schreiner is really good. Bruce Ware is really good.

Oh, what are some other names? I'm not coming off the top of my head. Andres Kostenberger is another one. He's a Midwestern now. There are good spokespeople. I don't have a woman's name in my head. Beth Moore was a male teacher. I think she moved over to male elder now. I don't know her at all, but I had one of her close associates in a class of mine a while back, and she said, absolutely, Beth is a male teacher.

She's a woman who should not teach men. And I said, but men come to her consciously. She said, that's fine, but she's teaching women. If men horn in, that's their problem, not hers. I think she's changed changed but she's still complementarian yeah for male elder view you know i there craig blomberg and his two views and women in ministry is there tim and kathy keller are there they've been there since 1989 at least oh they that they'll hold the same view that you do? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

I don't know whether Keller would have women preaching on Sunday morning, but they expressed in an article they wrote in 1989 about elders being men and offices being open to any gender. Okay. And they've continued to promote that quietly. And they're going against PCA denominational norms when they do that, which is really interesting. So they would say women can teach on a Sunday morning? No, I don't know that. I don't know if they'd say women can preach. They would say that elder is the office limited to males and that women can teach men, say, in a Sunday school class or something.

I don't know if they would have them teaching on Sunday morning. Of course, they're retired now. Do you find it interesting that even the phrase teaching and preaching, biblically, as far as I understand, the Greek word for preaching, karuso, really has to do with almost announcing the gospel, kind of evangelism. Absolutely. And didaskale, didaskale ask a lay, did ask a lay.

Did ask a or did ask go to ask go the, the, to teach that. That's really the instructing the congregation for lack of other terms. That's the word. But when we describe that as pre preaching, it's almost like we flipped it around. We think preaching is kind of the Sunday morning thing. That's really just anybody, regardless of gender, should be able to tell people who Jesus is. Exactly. That's caruso-ing.

That's preaching. Yeah. This is one of those many places where the biblical word and the English word do not have the same meaning. Right. And there are a lot of places like that. The word grace in English means, come on, show me a little grace. You may pass on sin. That is never the meaning of scripture. Grace is help given to the needy. But yeah, preaching, we make that Sunday morning thing. And when in

scripture, that's what the women do when they come back and tell the disciples he's risen. Well, that's proclaiming, that's Caruso. Right, right, right. What about the – there's all these arguments, I guess, more on the egalitarian side of like, you know, clearly you have women owning homes. Lydia in – and then you have Acts 12, Mary, John Mark's mother, I believe, and others. John Marks' mother, I believe, and others. And in that culture, the homeowner was kind of the authority over whoever was in her home. Am I representing that argument well first? That's the argument you're making.

I don't buy the argument, though. Why? Or what's the evidence they give for that? The fact that somebody owns a home and is host to the home does not mean they're the boss in the home, so to speak. That's what I always thought. But are they assuming that or is there some evidence? My judgment is they're over-arguing their case. Okay. And they're assuming that because the woman is the patron of the home,

therefore she's the authoritative leader of the home kind of thing. And I think you're over-arguing the case. Another kind of argument that And I just, I think you're over-arguing the case. Another kind of, an argument that comes with some assumptions, and I need to dig into the history is, you know, Phoebe, the letter carrier of Rome and letter carriers, not only represented the author of the letter, but sometimes they would explain, you know, the letter to the recipients. Again, that's not in scripture. You're trying to bring in background that's squishy at best. Really?

It's just not there. The fact that she is, well, first of all, it doesn't say she's the one who carried the letter. She's the first one mentioned. She's a deacon. But it doesn't say she carried the letter to Rome. She's just the first one listed there. listed there. And even if she did carry the letter, that wouldn't make her the authoritative explainer of the letter. I mean, just you're pushing it too hard, it seems to me. Okay. I just don't think the case stands very well. You got to make a better case than that. Yeah. And then you have, you know, all throughout the gospels, women being valued or even like Mary Magdalene, you you know going and this is another one that i just didn't didn't really seem convincing and i talked to i think beth allison bar about it that um you know mary magdalene in church history is considered the apostle to the

apostles because she's the one that carried the good news but i'm like that just doesn't that that doesn't mean she's an elder that doesn't't, yeah, exactly. Like you can draw that. Because I mean, you can take the most, I use the example off the top of my head. Like if you're in a really conservative Baptist church and super commentarian and some secretaries of the church, female secretaries were downtown and all of a sudden the Pope shows up

and then they go back to the church and say, hey, I want to let you know that the Pope is here. We should go, no one's going to say, be silent, woman. Who are you to preach at us? It's like they're just carrying information. That doesn't seem to parallel teaching on a Sunday morning or whatever, however we want to frame it. See, again, from my view, the key thing is the office of elder. It's not value or voice.

Women's value is unquestioned in Scripture. Women's voice, in my judgment, is unquestioned in the New Testament especially. That women's voice is critically important. It's critically important. Just as the voice of other non-elders is critically important in life and decision-making in the church. That doesn't mean they carry the responsibility of the office of elder. To me, that's the key difference. Okay, one more.

You might have already said it, but I always like to ask people, what do you think is the best argument against your view? Like what's the one? Oh, 1 Timothy 2.12. Yeah, okay. Without a doubt. I mean, that's the killer to my view. It's a strong argument against. The other would be that the tradition of the church throughout the whole history of the church is the authoritative leadership of the church, with some exceptions has been men.

view. On the egalitarian side, the best argument against my view, it seems to me, is the idea that I'm making elder a unique office and I'm discounting the fact that women prophets, women apostles, if Jesus couldn't be an elder, like how high qualification do you make? I mean, those are good arguments. They really are. I don't think they're persuasive, but they're, they're strong arguments. It's not like I win the case dead cold. I don't. Good and godly people connect the dots in different ways, but whatever you do, you come out. Don't make men toxic and don't make women second rate citizens. That, that's good. That's good.

That's good. Good one to end on there, Gary. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Yep. Yeah. Appreciate it. You've given us a lot to think about as I'm really wrestling through all this. Well, if you go to my website, brashears.net, I've got a link on there to women in leadership and there's a whole bunch more resources there

if you want to go further great great awesome I'll put the link in the show notes so yeah okay all right take care of friend thanks friend This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.