Can women be Preachers?

More than once I have had people ask me if Paul should be removed from the Bible because he tells women to be silent at church. This does seem unreasonable and just plain odd, especially when most of us grew up with women as school teachers. But many defend this position rather loudly as a conservative doctrine. Anyone who opposes it is apparently just part of some liberal movement that will soon be teaching Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, homosexuality isn’t condemned in the Bible, or something like that.

First, ask yourself this question. Should Paul be casually discarded? Is Paul someone we want to throw out? Doesn’t Paul argue very effectively from the Old Testament that Jesus is really the promised Messiah of the Jews? Some respond to this by just throwing out the few passages where Paul tells women to be silent.   They claim that those were added later.  But that’s unreasonable, but we will have to discuss whether the New Testament has been altered over the years at another time.

The best place to start is the book of Ephesians, chapter five. Here Paul tells us this:

22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

It is clear from these verses that a woman is to submit to her husband as though He is God. In other words, she does what He says in a very serious sense. There is confusion about this passage primarily because we think of God as a Muslim Allah or a Jewish Yahweh when we read this passage. But this is a Christian passage and we should think of Jesus the Son and God the Father. For some reason, we tend to have this problem only with certain Bible passages. With that in mind, here is what Paul says next.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

We misunderstand this passage because we somehow ignore what it is saying. Paul is focusing here on one thing, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ for the sake of those He saves by dying for them. Because Paul speaks about this using many words, we fail to recognize this. When Jesus is there on the cross, who is submitting to who? God is submitting to us. God is letting us crucify Him, but is also saving us by doing so. We fail to realize that unlike Allah or the Jewish God, the Christian God submits to us. And of course before Paul even begins talking about this, the previous verse 21 tells us to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Some may want to dispute what I am saying here because the literal word “submit” doesn’t appear here. It doesn’t specifically say that the husband is supposed to submit to his wife. I am happy to agree to that objection. But I respond by saying that it does literally say that a husband is to let his wife crucify him. The scary thing about this passage is that it seems to imply that the husband is expected to put up with any and all abuse from the wife. If that is the case, then wives would have a serious authority over their husbands. She can do whatever she wants and he just suffers along with it.

Imagine what would happen if husbands obeyed this command from Paul, but then wives abused this privilege. Soon church meetings would have wives walking and even running all over their husbands. It makes sense that Paul would step in and have some other rules regarding this. This submission rule doesn’t apply to Paul, who actually never got married. So we find that Paul does come in and make rules limiting the actions of women in churches.  And that only makes perfect sense.

In first Corinthians fourteen, Paul says this.

As in all the churches of the saints, 34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. 35 If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

This passage seems to be saying that women are to be completely silent at church services. But Paul doesn’t mean that. In chapter 11, Paul gives special rules about how women are to pray publicly in church as well as prophesy in church. Women are expected to do this with a hat on covering their hair to signify their subjection to men. Men are to think of themselves as Christ dying for their wives.  Women are to think of their husbands as God worthy of obedience. Paul's view is that each partner is putting the other one first.  

So what is clear is that in chapter fourteen, Paul doesn’t literally mean that women aren’t allowed to speak at all. In fact Paul allows women to get messages directly from God to proclaim to the church. In chapter fourteen, Paul commands that one person should prophesy at a time so that everyone can hear.

In chapter fourteen, Paul explains what he means by women’s silence in greater detail that just telling them to be silent. He says that if they want to learn something, they should ask their husbands at home. Think of a situation where husbands will be expected to put up with abuse from wives. Now also remember that in Corinthians Paul is addressing a church where the worship services had turned into a chaotic mad house. Women could demand all sorts of things from their husbands. And the word that is translated as “ask” is also translated as “demand” in the Bible sometimes. So the verse could be translated as “let them demand of their husbands at home.” Many of the uses of this word in the New Testament occur when the Jewish leaders come to interrogate Jesus in a very demanding way.

We have a similar passage in first Timothy chapter 2. Here Paul says this:

11 Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.

What’s going on here should be even more obvious. Furthermore, most Bible translations will make a note to tell you the passage can be translated like this, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to usurp authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” Given what we know about men putting up with abuse from their wives, this makes perfect sense. Paul, on the other hand, doesn’t have to submit to this. Again, Paul doesn’t mean that women literally aren’t allowed to speak a word. He gave rules for how women are to speak. When he gave those rules, he made it clear that they are to be submissive to husbands as they speak. If we understand that the Christian duty of the husband is to put up with abuse from the wife, then it makes perfect sense that when the wife speaks she must make an extra effort not to abuse her privileges. So Paul is commanding women along these lines. When Paul tells women to keep quiet, he makes it clear by adding more about what he means. He explains that he means usurping authority over a man or demanding answers of them. By understanding the general Christian view of marriage roles, these difficult passages begin to make perfect sense.

But what is clear is that women can address the church. They can lead the congregation in prayer to God and they can give the congregation a message from God. In first Corinthians fourteen, Paul even tells us that the congregation is expected to listen to the words of any prophets to see if it’s really a message from God.  Think about this.  The Bible has so much to say about false prophets. 

Thinking about that, let's move on.  It is perhaps wisest to study the other side. Those people who say that women are banned from being preachers,what about them?  How do they address this? This is where things, I am sad to say, get silly. People who defend the “no women preachers” position are aware that Paul gives rules for how women are to speak in church. They are okay with women speaking to, addressing, and basically giving a speech to the congregation. So the obvious question is this. If women can do that, then why can’t they preach? What is the difference between giving a speech to the church and preaching to the church? As far as the literal meaning of the word “preach” goes, it literally means nothing other than giving a speech. So get ready to hear how the people against female pastors argue. They say women aren’t allowed to teach. That seems ridiculous when most of us grew up with women as teachers. So what sort of meaning do they find in the word “teach?”

This is where the whole issue begins to get scary. I am not kidding. They argue that “teach” means authoritative speaking. In other words, women can speak, they just can’t speak from authority. Yes, an image of the pope immediately comes to my mind. Since when am I expected to listen to a person and agree with that man just because he speaks from a position of authority? Honestly, this whole thing bothers me.  The Bible is filled with warnings to watch out for false teachers and false prophets!  If someone can be a false teacher, then I can’t accept what he says just because he has some official position or title, given to him by other men.  He is just a guy who is given a platform to say something, and I have to weigh what he says.  And in that case, there is literally no difference between women speaking and women teaching is there? The whole thing bothers me. These guys literally claim that the person who speaks from the main pulpit of a congregation on Sunday has some sort of authoritative speaking position. But a woman who speaks on say, Monday night, from some smaller room is just a person with something to say that we have agreed to listen to. This is so ridiculous.

So then we come to the question of official positions. The Bible does speak on these positions as overseers and deacons. But the word “deacon” really means “servant.” So if they translated it into English it would just say overseers and servants. It’s clear that the deacons really do the ministry of the church and serve in various positions. Of course the overseer is a person with more authority. But it’s clear that no one has some sort of supernatural authority over what the orthodox doctrine is. If that was the case, then all of the passages that tell us to watch out for false teachers would suddenly become meaningless. But there is plenty of other stuff to oversee at church than just doctrine. The church has to have all sorts of stuff organized for it to function.

Many argue based on how Paul tells Timothy the requirements for overseers and deacons. These requirements don’t say that it has to be a man. It says that it has to be a husband of just one wife who runs his house well. So people take this to imply that Paul also meant it would only be men. That is really just an assumption, but it isn’t a totally unreasonable one. Nevertheless, there is a problem with it. Romans chapter sixteen is also written by Paul. Here Paul mentions a woman named Phoebe. He complements her and calls her a deacon. In other words, Paul’s words about deacons being the husbands of one wife cannot possibly be interpreted to mean that a woman cannot also be a deacon. Paul was probably writing to Timothy because certain men wanted to serve in the position and Paul was giving a specific response. Since the same wording is used for overseers, then Paul cannot be thought of as excluding women from that role either.

In earlier years Baptist churches actually had female deacons, called deaconesses. I had a great Aunt who was one. To be honest, she was really a leader of that church for years and those were some of the years when that church was doing really well. Perhaps someone could make a case that women just aren’t prone to want leadership roles. Leadership roles tend to force you into tough decision making positions that make people dislike you. But there are some women who have been exceptional leaders in history. Margaret Thatcher teamed up with Ronald Reagan to end the cold war. Queen Elizabeth was one of England’s greatest monarchs. Her leadership brought in England’s golden age. And it really was due to her wise decisions.  So kids, do what your mama told you!