Latest / The Extra Mile Podcast / #12 - Should Women Lead in the Church?

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#12 - Should Women Lead in the Church? · The Extra Mile Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_02: Don't have this experience or sit where I do, but it's a dangerous conversation when you begin to deny the value of womanhood.
0:07
SPEAKER_02: And that's what I'm afraid some people do in this conversation is if we're talking about the roles of women, we don't do enough to talk about the equality of value and image, if nothing else.
0:17
SPEAKER_02: Which then leads women to question what is our place within the church as a whole.
0:26
SPEAKER_03: Hey, welcome everybody back to the Extra Mile Podcast where we take time to look and do a deeper dive into Sunday's message.
0:32
SPEAKER_03: But today we're gonna go in to go a different direction because I didn't preach this past Sunday and I wanted to tackle a topic that's pretty big in culture right now.
0:40
SPEAKER_03: It's been around for a long time, been around since the church was born, but really has gained traction um just recently.
0:47
SPEAKER_03: Probably you know what I'm talking about, and that is women in leadership.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
0:50
SPEAKER_03: So I want to welcome uh to the table Kate Brown.
0:52
SPEAKER_03: Kate Brown is our guest service director here at our Florence campus, a good friend of mine and my personal assistant.
0:57
SPEAKER_03: And so, who better to have around the table than a female while we have this conversation on women in leadership or ministry?
1:04
SPEAKER_03: So, real quick, give me some thoughts, maybe just off the top on this topic.
1:08
SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's funny that you would ask in this timing, especially.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: Had a dinner with a friend in ministry about this just a couple weeks ago, kind of lots of commentary, questions around what the SBC is doing in particular.
1:21
SPEAKER_02: But like you said, it's an age-old conversation, and unfortunately for us, it's a circular and imperfect one.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:27
SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of thoughts that can be given on either side of it.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: I'm interested to see where you're gonna head with your teaching on it.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, excited to discuss.
1:35
SPEAKER_03: We have a great, a lot of great females on our staff, a lot of very competent, um, strong leaders.
1:39
SPEAKER_03: I would include you in that.
1:41
SPEAKER_03: Um, and I'll just say out of the gate that we ordained our first uh female pastor this year, Pastor Naomi.
1:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and uh so just out of the gate, even though I like to joke around, I am very much pro-women.
1:51
SPEAKER_03: But the reason this conversation is getting gaining traction and I want to talk about it, is because as the pastor, people will send me messages on Facebook or catch me in the lobby and ask me this question, and it's bigger, a bigger question that I can answer in 10 seconds on a Sunday morning or in a quick response.
2:07
SPEAKER_03: And so if you have this question about women in leadership and ministry, lean into this and maybe we can help you and I together go on this journey and figure out what God's Word has to say.
2:15
SPEAKER_03: Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what culture says, it doesn't matter what a denomination says, it matters what God's Word says.
2:21
SPEAKER_03: But a strong denomination, in fact, the largest denomination, Protestant denomination in um denomination in our nation, I think in the world, yeah, uh, is the Southern Baptist Convention.
2:33
SPEAKER_03: And they recently put to a vote in their annual convention this idea that, hey, they finally wanted to make a strong, bold statement.
2:40
SPEAKER_03: Should we allow women to ministry?
2:42
SPEAKER_03: Their traditional response has been no.
2:44
SPEAKER_03: And they came back and the vote was over 70% that they voted no.
2:48
SPEAKER_03: So as a denomination, their official position is no women can hold the office of a pastor, and they've kind of added some titles, so you can't kind of find a backdoor into it.
2:58
SPEAKER_03: So overseer, pastor, bishop, right?
3:00
SPEAKER_03: Like all these titles, basically you can't do it.
3:03
SPEAKER_03: And the summation, the summation is this that no women or women can preach to any assembled congregation.
3:09
SPEAKER_03: So however you want to try to manipulate the title, at the end of the day, women, from their perspective, are not given biblical authority to preach to any congregation.
3:18
SPEAKER_03: Now it's funny they make the caveat just real quick that you can you can still teach kids, but Exactly.
3:23
SPEAKER_02: Well, and that's what I find so scary about it for existing pastoral women or as is defined in the amendment, women carrying pastoral official roles.
3:33
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't they don't have to have the title, they can just have the roller carry those responsibilities.
3:37
SPEAKER_02: It's no longer just a conversation of we don't ordain women or we won't hire any new women.
3:43
SPEAKER_02: You have to go back and have a conversation with your existing female leadership and say, what are we as a church going to do?
3:48
SPEAKER_02: Do we reevaluate your role, your authority here, or do we risk relegation from the convention?
3:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's it's crazy because if we lose women in ministry on any capacity, I mean, in the body of Christ, we're in trouble because half of the body of Christ is made up of females and we're in this thing together and in the roles that they carry, not just in kids' ministry, but on platforms in the front of the church as well as the back of the church.
4:10
SPEAKER_03: And I say that here because our kids' ministry is in the back.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:13
SPEAKER_03: We need everybody doing their part, walking in their anointing, operating in their gifting.
4:18
SPEAKER_03: And to me, titles don't really matter, right?
4:20
SPEAKER_03: But recognizing the function someone operates in, I think people need to be recognized.
4:24
SPEAKER_03: Now, I just want to clarify this is not a um feminist conversation.
4:28
SPEAKER_03: So I want to make sure I'm not taken out of context.
4:31
SPEAKER_03: I'm not for the feminist doctrine.
4:33
SPEAKER_03: I think that's going overboard the opposite direction.
4:35
SPEAKER_03: I'm trying to find balance in what does the word of God have to say?
4:38
SPEAKER_03: Let me just give you a couple things real quick.
4:40
SPEAKER_03: So, again, the question to me is not titles, it's can women be in leadership?
4:45
SPEAKER_03: Can they preach specifically?
4:47
SPEAKER_03: That's I think really what it comes down to.
4:49
SPEAKER_03: Because again, the SBC is saying they cannot preach to any congregation, to any assembled congregation.
4:54
SPEAKER_03: So I want to ask the question can women preach?
4:56
SPEAKER_03: Can they preach the gospel?
4:58
SPEAKER_03: Um, regardless of, again, the title they have.
5:01
SPEAKER_03: And so this to me is not a conversation that we need to divide over, it's just a debate.
5:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there are the essentials of the gospel.
5:08
SPEAKER_03: Like Jesus is the Son of God.
5:10
SPEAKER_03: He was born of a virgin, he lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death, rose on the third day, seated at the right hand of the Father, sent us the Holy Spirit, and like eternity is ours based on the blood of Jesus, not our works.
5:21
SPEAKER_03: Like that in a summation is our creed.
5:24
SPEAKER_03: And um, so this is not something I think we need to divide over any more than tongues or how we do baptism, but it is a great, great debate.
5:32
SPEAKER_03: Um I'm just curious, Kate, as a woman, when you hear, as a strong woman, and when you hear a denomination, a large denomination, say, hey, you can't or your sisters in Christ can't do this.
5:42
SPEAKER_03: How does that make you feel?
5:44
SPEAKER_02: Like I said earlier, it's a circular conversation that goes around and around not just church leadership roles, but the roles of husband and wife, mother and father, what those roles look like in the home as well.
5:55
SPEAKER_02: So it's kind of hard for me to consider what that conversation looks like in my worth of other places.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: You know, traditional gender roles are changing in the house, wives are managing finances, and husbands have no idea about it.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: And if the goal of protection or if the goal of the male headship is protection of women, pastors, wives, whatever, then why are we focusing so much on this conversation about your title of pastoralship, your ability to preach and teach versus across the board, what are the responsibilities God's given you?
6:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
6:26
SPEAKER_03: You know, I a lot of women are offended by this.
6:28
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, I care about how women feel, but that's kind of a kind of a trigger question because at the end of the day, and I don't want to say your feelings don't matter, but when it comes to biblical things, we prioritize what does God's word teach over our feelings.
6:40
SPEAKER_03: So if we land at the place in God's word we believe teaches what's called complementarianism, which means women cannot hold those positions and they cannot preach, then it doesn't matter how you feel, that's what the word says.
6:52
SPEAKER_03: But if the word says what the other side is egalitarianism, that women are equal, that they share a common role, and they can preach the gospel.
7:00
SPEAKER_03: If that's where we land, then it doesn't matter how some people feel no, they shouldn't be allowed.
7:04
SPEAKER_03: Your feelings are secondary to what God's Word teaches.
7:07
SPEAKER_03: So let's jump into what God's Word teaches.
7:09
SPEAKER_03: There are two par two primary places in scripture that seem to say that women cannot preach.
7:15
SPEAKER_03: And we're familiar with these.
7:17
SPEAKER_03: Number one is uh 1 Corinthians 14, and it's a bold statement.
7:20
SPEAKER_03: Paul says, uh, women, keep silent.
7:23
SPEAKER_03: That's when I read it.
7:24
SPEAKER_03: That's how I hear him saying it.
7:25
SPEAKER_03: Women, women, be quiet.
7:26
SPEAKER_03: Keep silent in the church.
7:28
SPEAKER_03: So not everywhere, but in the context of the church, which would certainly apply to the pulpit or to the primary place that preaching happens, women keep silent in the church.
7:37
SPEAKER_03: So some people say, boom, right there it is.
7:39
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't say men keep silent, women keep silent.
7:43
SPEAKER_03: Um but it's funny when you go on, in fact, I want to read this this whole text.
7:47
SPEAKER_03: This is 1 Corinthians 14, 34, and 35.
7:50
SPEAKER_03: And it kind of gives away Paul what he means when he says this.
7:54
SPEAKER_03: He says women should keep silent during the church meetings.
7:57
SPEAKER_03: It's not proper for them to speak, they should be submissive, just as the law says.
8:02
SPEAKER_03: So if you stop right there in verse 34, it's like, so when you walk in the door, like you just just stop like you can't even be a greeter.
8:09
SPEAKER_03: Well, you can, but you got to be outside the door.
8:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's interesting you say that because when I've started studying this material and kind of getting handles on this conversation, I had the thought myself one time, I'm a host on a platform at faith church.
8:23
SPEAKER_02: Occasionally that means I'm teaching a scripture along with the point we're trying to make or the vision we're trying to cast.
8:28
SPEAKER_02: So does that mean where on the biblical scale am I officially no longer able to do that?
8:34
SPEAKER_02: Or am I egalitarian?
8:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, where where have we crossed the line?
8:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:38
SPEAKER_03: I mean, according to SBC, if we let you preach, but I mean, according to Paul, keep silent in the churches.
8:43
SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
8:43
SPEAKER_02: Any a far extreme.
8:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, any church gathering, like as soon as you walk in the door, like you can't say anything else.
8:49
SPEAKER_03: Is that what Paul means?
8:50
SPEAKER_03: Well, here's the next verse.
8:51
SPEAKER_03: He says, verse 35.
8:53
SPEAKER_03: He says, uh, if they have any questions, they should ask their husbands at home, for it is improper for women to speak in church meetings.
8:59
SPEAKER_03: So here's kind of the background and here's the context.
9:02
SPEAKER_03: Is at this time, the way a service was set up is men sat on one side of the church and women sat on the other.
9:07
SPEAKER_03: Uh, some people teach that there was a curtain between them.
9:10
SPEAKER_03: Some people say that's not true, but at the end of the day, they were segregated, female and male.
9:16
SPEAKER_03: And typically the gospel was preached, the gospel was preached in church settings in what was the most formal language.
9:21
SPEAKER_03: So whether it was Arabic or Hebrew, and a lot of times women were not educated in uh kind of the academic languages, they were just used to the common languages.
9:31
SPEAKER_03: So people are saying one of two things or both was happening that since women were sitting on one side and men on the other, that they were hearing a message preached in a language they didn't understand.
9:41
SPEAKER_03: So if you're sitting in church and a guy's up preaching in Ethiopian, yeah, how engaged are you gonna be?
9:47
SPEAKER_03: Right.
9:47
SPEAKER_03: And if you're sitting with your friends, your girlfriends, like, probably like you're gonna start talking about dresses you found on sale and shoes you like to wear.
9:55
SPEAKER_03: And so that's what oftentimes theologians are saying was happening.
9:59
SPEAKER_03: Basically, they would disengage because they didn't understand.
10:02
SPEAKER_03: So basically the pastor or the preacher would have to say, hey, women, right, keep silent.
10:06
SPEAKER_03: And that's what Paul's referencing.
10:08
SPEAKER_03: The second thing, and I think equally is true, and this is what the scripture actually points to, is because women couldn't understand, they would shout across the curtain or to the other side.
10:17
SPEAKER_03: Um, like Shauna, hey, Steve, like, hey, what does that mean?
10:21
SPEAKER_03: Right.
10:21
SPEAKER_03: Well, that was not the appropriate time for me to tell my wife what the preacher's saying.
10:25
SPEAKER_03: So, hey, when we get home, we can have that conversation.
10:28
SPEAKER_03: So it's not women, you can't be on the platform.
10:31
SPEAKER_03: It's in the context of women maybe not understanding what's preaching because it's in an academic language, in church is not the time to disengage and be a chatterbox, right?
10:41
SPEAKER_03: Nor is it the time to shout across the church and ask your husband as opinion.
10:44
SPEAKER_03: So to me, this one is is so it's so easy to discount that has nothing to do with the change.
10:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I've even heard the argument.
10:51
SPEAKER_02: I think early church tradition really speaks to this conversation as well.
10:55
SPEAKER_02: But what's interesting to me too is I've heard it said that that specific phrase, that verse, is potentially Paul being sarcastic, because in the near context, he's talking about various roles and giftings used in the church.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
11:08
SPEAKER_02: So he's talking about the structure of the roles and everything.
11:11
SPEAKER_02: He says this one line, which could be intended sarcastically, but then goes on to say, Did the word originate with you and you only?
11:18
SPEAKER_02: The next verse goes on to say, So brothers and sisters prophesy.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: So when you read the immediate context around that, that gives life to the conversation too.
11:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:27
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, I add to it, but if you go back to 1 Corinthians 11, he says a man dishonors his head if he covers his head while pri while praying and prophesying.
11:36
SPEAKER_03: So this is in the church.
11:37
SPEAKER_03: So men are praying and prophesying.
11:39
SPEAKER_03: Well, they're not the only ones.
11:40
SPEAKER_03: But a woman dishonors her head if she prays and prophesies without covering her head.
11:44
SPEAKER_03: So he's talking about the context of the church.
11:47
SPEAKER_03: So this keep silent in church obviously is not this end all be all, don't say anything.
11:52
SPEAKER_03: Women could pray, they could prophesy, and I'm just here to say they can preach.
11:56
SPEAKER_03: So the other one, the drop dead, and you probably know this one is second, is uh 1 Timothy 2.
12:02
SPEAKER_03: This is the primary verse that people point to who are complementarianism, who are against women preaching or standing in pulpits or teaching to any congregation.
12:11
SPEAKER_03: And here's what Paul says women should learn quietly and submissively.
12:16
SPEAKER_03: I do not let women teach men or have authority over them, let them listen quietly.
12:22
SPEAKER_03: So, wow, I mean, again, you read that.
12:24
SPEAKER_03: Now, this is Paul, he's writing to Timothy, a young pastor, and it seems pretty clear.
12:29
SPEAKER_03: Hey, women should keep quiet, which we just talked about that.
12:32
SPEAKER_03: Maybe it means something different than just silence and sitting, you know, doing nothing.
12:38
SPEAKER_03: But then he says this I don't I don't allow any any man to have authority over or any woman to have authority over any man.
12:45
SPEAKER_03: And this is again, this is to understand what the Bible says, we're reading a text that's 2,000 years old in a different culture and a different language.
12:54
SPEAKER_03: Now that doesn't mean we can't understand it, it just means we we have to use what's called the science of interpretation.
12:59
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
12:59
SPEAKER_03: And uh that's called the an e exegesis.
13:02
SPEAKER_03: We have to kind of break down the context, and this is gonna be big in a minute, but the context is what is the original language, what is the original history, what is what is the context of the verse in the context of the book, right?
13:13
SPEAKER_03: In the covenant, New Testament world, or in the context of the entire Bible.
13:16
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
13:17
SPEAKER_03: So it's easy to pull one thing out and make it say something that really probably was not intended.
13:21
SPEAKER_03: And I think, while it seems like Paul's saying, hey, be quiet and never have authority over man, which being on a platform preaching the gospel, that's a place of authority.
13:31
SPEAKER_03: He's saying, No, we don't, we don't let that happen.
13:33
SPEAKER_03: But maybe something more is going on if you look at the context.
13:36
SPEAKER_03: And yeah, you know, do you know where uh Timothy was a pastor at?
13:41
SPEAKER_03: He was he was a pastor in Ephesus.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
13:43
SPEAKER_03: And so Ephesus, what was happening in Ephesus at this time was it was the primary city where the goddess of Diana or the goddess of Artemis, whether you're Greek or Roman, was worshiped.
13:53
SPEAKER_03: There was a huge statue in the middle of the city, and it was a female-driven worship.
13:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there were no priests, there were only priestesses.
14:01
SPEAKER_03: So, what most people believe, most scholars believe, is that what Paul was saying is, hey, as the gospel moved into the city of Ephesus, which is where Paul is writing to Timothy, that women who were converting to Christ, who were walking away from worshiping this false idol, Diana or Artemis, they were coming into the church and they thought, hey, our role is still to be the primary voice.
14:25
SPEAKER_03: And what Paul was saying is, hey, I don't allow you to just come in and push men aside.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:29
SPEAKER_03: So for generations, men have pushed women aside.
14:34
SPEAKER_03: He's saying, we're not gonna allow the pendulum to swing to the other side.
14:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
14:37
SPEAKER_03: Women are not gonna usurp authority over men.
14:40
SPEAKER_03: You're not gonna push men aside.
14:42
SPEAKER_03: And we know the answer to that is found in Galatians 3.
14:44
SPEAKER_03: There's no longer male or female, there's no longer Jew or Gentile, there's no longer slave or free.
14:49
SPEAKER_03: So we are God has broken those gender roles down.
14:52
SPEAKER_03: Now, again, not that gender is not important.
14:54
SPEAKER_03: We were still made male and female, but in the context of the role of the church, man, that's just not what Paul's saying.
15:00
SPEAKER_03: He's saying in the context of this city, in the context of women having authority normally in their in operation to who they are, they just can't step into that same authority in the church.
15:11
SPEAKER_03: They have to find a different role and they just can't jump in and lead.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know.
15:16
SPEAKER_03: What's um when you hear that, when you hear like not to have authority, what's been your takeaway to this verse that's maybe different than maybe what I'm sharing or saying?
15:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think it's interesting that we're using these terms to talk about two specific camps, egalitarianism being fully equal in role.
15:34
SPEAKER_02: You can be pastoral, you can preach, you can do all these things, and complementarianism meaning that there is a submissive role.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: But there's also this special camp in the middle that seems to kind of be on the decline, and that's the special office role.
15:45
SPEAKER_02: Uh, women can have this authority so long as it's under male headship in some capacity.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: And then you have different camps that say, well, God never intended our creation order to be male headship, but at the fall and sin, that's when it happened.
16:00
SPEAKER_02: Then there's another camp that says, but with Christ finishing his work on the cross at resurrection from the time of the fall to the resurrection, that was when so many of these scriptures applied.
16:12
SPEAKER_02: But now we're free.
16:13
SPEAKER_02: Now Galatians 3 applies.
16:15
SPEAKER_02: So I'm curious to hear your timeline on where you think this kind of equality comes into play.
16:21
SPEAKER_02: Where have women been given authority in more biblically appropriate places?
16:26
SPEAKER_03: So really you already said it again.
16:29
SPEAKER_03: This conversation of can women preach again is not not really a gendered conversation.
16:35
SPEAKER_03: And but men were really put in an unhealthy authority and underneath basically the foot of the man, instead of out of his side the way he was created, part of the result of sin, according to Genesis 3, was hey, you're gonna have this desire to resist your husband, but he's gonna rule over you, he's gonna have dominion over you.
16:53
SPEAKER_03: Well, that's part of the curse.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:55
SPEAKER_03: Well, Galatians, where he quotes that there's no longer male nor female, actually quotes it, hey, Jesus was made a curse for you.
17:01
SPEAKER_03: Right.
17:02
SPEAKER_03: So that dominion of of men ruling over women in the context of the church family, that was that was broken through the power of the cross.
17:11
SPEAKER_03: The curse was broken through the cross.
17:13
SPEAKER_03: And so um, so I think it's in those places that we have new roles and we have a new I'm my identity's changed.
17:20
SPEAKER_03: I'm no longer just Steve Husky, I'm a child of God.
17:23
SPEAKER_03: Um, I I belong to the body of Christ.
17:26
SPEAKER_03: I operate as a pastor.
17:27
SPEAKER_03: So I have all these new functions and titles, and I think to lose sight of that um is so detrimental, including women.
17:34
SPEAKER_03: I think we're hurting the body by trying to rob women of their equality of who you are in Christ.
17:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:39
SPEAKER_03: Now, who you are as Kate, right, who you are in the Brown household, those are maybe different conversations, but who you are as a fellow member of the body of Christ, there's equality from where I stand.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:52
SPEAKER_03: Um, let me just go on and read this.
17:54
SPEAKER_03: So he he actually digs into going back.
17:56
SPEAKER_03: I go back to Genesis.
17:58
SPEAKER_03: Actually, Paul here goes back to Genesis.
18:00
SPEAKER_03: And some people would say, hey, when you talk about the context of the worship of Artemis or the worship of Diana, Paul doesn't mean that because he goes on and listen, listen to what he says in verse um, I think it's verse 12.
18:13
SPEAKER_03: He goes right on, he says, Let them listen quietly.
18:16
SPEAKER_03: For God made Adam first, and afterward he made Eve.
18:19
SPEAKER_03: It was not Adam who was deceived by Satan, the woman was deceived, and sin was the result.
18:24
SPEAKER_03: But women will women will be saved through childbearing, assuming they continue to live in faith, love, holiness, and modesty.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: Right.
18:30
SPEAKER_03: So some people say, see, it's not it's not the context of this false worship.
18:35
SPEAKER_03: The context is this hierarchy's always been there.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:38
SPEAKER_03: And actually, I think Paul is saying exactly the opposite.
18:42
SPEAKER_03: And here's why.
18:42
SPEAKER_03: So Paul's not saying, hey, the hierarchy's always been there from Genesis, and we're reaffirming it.
18:46
SPEAKER_03: What he's saying is, uh, he says, let women uh let them listen quietly.
18:52
SPEAKER_03: Well, there are a lot of theologians.
18:53
SPEAKER_03: N.
18:53
SPEAKER_03: T.
18:54
SPEAKER_03: Wright is one, I'm a big fan of N.
18:55
SPEAKER_03: T.
18:55
SPEAKER_03: Wright.
18:56
SPEAKER_03: He says this term listen quietly was somebody who would go to basically get an education that in order to learn quietly, you can't be busy yourself with a lot of the normal day-to-day stuff.
19:06
SPEAKER_03: Right.
19:07
SPEAKER_03: It would be like you if you went off to get your master's degree or PhD.
19:10
SPEAKER_03: You're probably gonna have to set aside some of your role as a mother, as a wife.
19:14
SPEAKER_03: Why?
19:15
SPEAKER_03: Because you need time to dedicate to education.
19:18
SPEAKER_03: And he's saying that's what that's what Paul's saying is women need time to learn the gospel.
19:23
SPEAKER_03: In fact, he points back to, and his his reason is hey, look what happened.
19:28
SPEAKER_03: God taught Adam what trees he could eat from, not Eve.
19:31
SPEAKER_03: And because Eve was ignorant, she she ultimately ate from the tree, and then it was Adam who disobeyed.
19:36
SPEAKER_03: So his point is, hey, if you will allow them the latitude to learn and not just operate in the role traditionally of a woman, but step into the role of a man, step what traditionally was a man, then she can learn and she can teach too.
19:48
SPEAKER_03: So let her learn, let her sit at the feet.
19:50
SPEAKER_03: And a perfect example of this is Mary and Martha.
19:53
SPEAKER_03: Remember the story where Martha's up and man, she's out grinding in the kitchen and she's cooking eggs and grits and whatever they who knows what they back then.
20:01
SPEAKER_03: And and uh and she comes because Mary's sitting at the feet of Jesus.
20:06
SPEAKER_03: And Martha's like, Jesus, what what gives?
20:08
SPEAKER_03: Like, make her come and do what I'm doing.
20:11
SPEAKER_03: Right.
20:11
SPEAKER_03: And Jesus says, she's chosen the better part.
20:14
SPEAKER_03: She was sitting in the male place of the house at the feet of Jesus.
20:18
SPEAKER_03: Well, you sit at the feet of Jesus now, contrary to how we learn today, the goal of sitting at the feet of Jesus that Mary was doing was not to learn facts.
20:27
SPEAKER_03: It was for her to go and speak the way Jesus spoke.
20:29
SPEAKER_03: It was for her to learn so she can go communicate.
20:31
SPEAKER_03: So to me, Paul is not saying women shouldn't have a role of authority.
20:36
SPEAKER_03: He's saying they shouldn't just assume that role because they were in their previous idolatrous whatever.
20:42
SPEAKER_03: They can't just step in the church and lead.
20:44
SPEAKER_03: If they want to lead, if they're called to lead, then allow them time to quietly grow in that and then allow them to step into that space because we don't want a repeat of what happened in the garden.
20:53
SPEAKER_03: So to me, man, wow, it makes a lot of sense.
20:55
SPEAKER_02: In the context of specifically these verses from Paul, I've heard the quote that Jesus came to show us the world that's possible when it's led his way.
21:02
SPEAKER_02: And so there's all kinds of role reversals taking place like that.
21:05
SPEAKER_02: Mary and Martha, like the woman anointing him with oil.
21:09
SPEAKER_02: That was a role reserved for men to do to kings and men only to do to kings.
21:13
SPEAKER_02: So Jesus, the king, allowing a woman to anoint him, he's full of subtle cues like that of this is what's possible when you live in me.
21:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
21:22
SPEAKER_03: So so two big verses that seem to say women can't operate in that role, cannot preach the gospel.
21:28
SPEAKER_03: And um and again, I think if you dig down, I think some of those walls go down.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:34
SPEAKER_03: But to me, what really allows me to lean into women being pastors, women preaching, is the other side, is the greater context.
21:42
SPEAKER_03: So if you just look at First Timothy two and you just read First Corinthians 14, it might seem to say that, but again, we want to read the scripture in context.
21:50
SPEAKER_03: Right.
21:50
SPEAKER_03: And when you read the Bible in context, what you find is there's a practice that's happening that's contrary to what's preached.
21:57
SPEAKER_03: So it seems like Paul's saying women should be quiet.
22:00
SPEAKER_03: He's preaching, but that's not what the practice of the New Testament church was.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:03
SPEAKER_03: I gotta give you a couple of these real quick.
22:05
SPEAKER_03: These are so good.
22:06
SPEAKER_03: I have about five, and I think I'll just give you three.
22:09
SPEAKER_03: So, one, there's something called an antecedent.
22:11
SPEAKER_03: An antecedent.
22:12
SPEAKER_03: The first time I heard that verse or that word was my very first class when I went back to get my master's degree.
22:19
SPEAKER_03: And I had never heard of that word antecedent.
22:21
SPEAKER_03: And basically, what it means is something that happens in the Old Testament that foreshadows permission in the New Testament.
22:26
SPEAKER_03: In essence, it's like, hey, we're we're showing you this exception now because this is going to be part of the practice later.
22:32
SPEAKER_03: So women can't be in leadership.
22:34
SPEAKER_03: Well, nobody told Miriam that.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:37
SPEAKER_03: Who is Miriam?
22:38
SPEAKER_03: Miriam, the uh the sister of Moses.
22:41
SPEAKER_03: And in Micah chapter 6, verse 4, God tells the nation of Israel, I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.
22:49
SPEAKER_03: The book of Exodus calls Miriam a prophetess.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:52
SPEAKER_03: She's not the only one.
22:54
SPEAKER_03: Again, so here's a woman in leadership.
22:55
SPEAKER_03: There's this woman.
22:56
SPEAKER_03: Her name is Deborah.
22:57
SPEAKER_03: She's a judge.
22:58
SPEAKER_03: She's a ruler over the nation of Israel.
23:01
SPEAKER_03: Well, if God doesn't use women in leadership, nope he forgot to tell Deborah.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
23:05
SPEAKER_03: And the Bible says again, she was a judge over the nation of Israel and she was a prophetess.
23:10
SPEAKER_03: So all of a sudden you pull back and you are like, well, wait a minute.
23:13
SPEAKER_03: If God doesn't use women in leadership and doesn't allow them to have authority because, you know, men are greater, well, there's, and some might say, well, there's only two.
23:22
SPEAKER_03: The Bible says it takes two or three witnesses to establish something.
23:25
SPEAKER_03: So there's two in the Old Testament that clearly teach that women can and did operate in authority over not just groups of people, not just other women, but the entire nation of Israel.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: Right.
23:39
SPEAKER_03: Um and to me, this is probably the the place maybe we should have started, but I wanted to lay a foundation is is the resurrection.
23:50
SPEAKER_03: When you think about the resurrection in the context of the church, how important to you is the resurrection?
23:55
SPEAKER_03: To you personally, to you scripturally, how important do you think it should be to us, the idea of the resurrection of Jesus?
24:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's the penultimate confirmation that Jesus is who he said he is.
24:05
SPEAKER_02: Every promise he made, every healing, every miracle is for nothing if he did not finish that work and say, I will rise again in three days.
24:13
SPEAKER_02: And he did it.
24:14
SPEAKER_02: You know, so it's the confirming work that he is everything he promised to be.
24:17
SPEAKER_03: And that's, man, what a great answer.
24:19
SPEAKER_03: And that's what Paul says.
24:20
SPEAKER_03: Paul says, hey, without the resurrection, man, our faith is in vain.
24:23
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't matter that Jesus died if he didn't raise from the dead.
24:26
SPEAKER_03: So it is the foundation of the of our faith, and it is the foundation of what we preach.
24:31
SPEAKER_03: We preach the gospel.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:33
SPEAKER_03: Now we can talk about how to parent and we can talk about how to have spiritual warfare, but it all comes back to the resurrection.
24:39
SPEAKER_03: And why that is important is because the first preacher of the resurrection, anybody want to take a guess?
24:44
SPEAKER_03: It is come on.
24:45
SPEAKER_03: I need a drum roll.
24:46
SPEAKER_03: We need sound effects for this.
24:48
SPEAKER_03: The first preacher of the gospel was a woman.
24:51
SPEAKER_03: It was two women.
24:51
SPEAKER_03: It was Mary and Martha.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:53
SPEAKER_03: Well, why didn't Jesus tell Mary and Martha, hey, go get the boys and tell the boys I have an assignment for them?
24:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:59
SPEAKER_03: No, God entrusted the gospel.
25:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:02
SPEAKER_03: The foundation of the message we preach, and the foundation of the message is the resurrection.
25:06
SPEAKER_03: He told women to go, go tell, go tell your brothers.
25:10
SPEAKER_03: And so to me, Jesus is someone forgot to tell Jesus that women shouldn't be able to preach because they're unreliable witnesses.
25:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, that was so the reason that women couldn't testify to anything.
25:20
SPEAKER_02: So his choice to choose, Mary specifically speaks volumes.
25:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
25:24
SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, and just to kind of wrap this in a greater context, the Great Commission, um, Matthew 28 tells us Jesus told his disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel, um, teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you, baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and law I'm with you always.
25:44
SPEAKER_03: So some people say, well, maybe Jesus was only talking to the to the apostles.
25:48
SPEAKER_03: Well, we know that's not true because when you go back to Acts chapter 1, he says, Hey, before you go try to fulfill the Great Commission, you need the Holy Spirit.
25:56
SPEAKER_03: And 120 was in the upper room.
25:58
SPEAKER_03: And let me, you know, they weren't all men.
26:01
SPEAKER_03: We know Mary, the mother of Jesus, was one of the ones in the upper room.
26:05
SPEAKER_03: So the very first preacher of the gospel was a woman, was two women.
26:10
SPEAKER_03: All women still are commanded to go preach the gospel, to go teach these things.
26:16
SPEAKER_03: So why would God tell us in one one, hey Kate, go preach, go tell people?
26:21
SPEAKER_03: But hey, wait a minute, no, you need to keep silent in the church.
26:24
SPEAKER_03: I mean, those contradictions just to me, they don't add up and they don't make sense.
26:29
SPEAKER_03: And in the upper room, so Jesus said, I'm commanding you to go teach and preach, but before you go, you need the Holy Spirit.
26:34
SPEAKER_03: And when the Holy Spirit fell, yeah, it was a fulfillment of Joel 2.28.
26:39
SPEAKER_03: And here it is, Joel 2.28.
26:41
SPEAKER_03: It says, Then after doing all these things, Jesus, the uh the word says, I will pour out my spirit upon all people.
26:48
SPEAKER_03: Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
26:51
SPEAKER_03: Your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.
26:54
SPEAKER_03: In those days I will pour out my spirit on your servants, men and women alike.
27:01
SPEAKER_03: So women receive the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
27:05
SPEAKER_03: Why?
27:05
SPEAKER_03: To go out and have the power to preach the gospel the same way that Jesus commanded in the Great Commission of Matthew 28, the same way he used the very first woman to testify about the greatest moment in history.
27:16
SPEAKER_03: Boom, case closed.
27:18
SPEAKER_03: I should have gone to the SBC convention.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: Maybe so.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they wouldn't have voted three to one then.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it'd be like two to two.
27:25
SPEAKER_03: You know.
27:26
SPEAKER_03: It's um again, it's a big conversation, and maybe we're oversimplifying it.
27:30
SPEAKER_03: But I think again, when you just look at to me, what I want people to hear is just context.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:35
SPEAKER_03: If all you hear is women keep silent, women learn silently.
27:38
SPEAKER_03: Right.
27:39
SPEAKER_03: Women shouldn't have us shouldn't ascerp authority over a man.
27:42
SPEAKER_03: Like it seems like case closed, but when you get a 30,000-foot view, when you get the context of language, the context of history, what was happening, and the context of covenant, I think it just starts to break down.
27:54
SPEAKER_03: I'll give you one more is Romans chapter 16.
27:58
SPEAKER_03: Now, there are some script there are some scriptures that I think are are boring, especially when I was a new Christian.
28:04
SPEAKER_03: Reading genealogies, it's like, you know, especially I my the first Bible I read was King James, Begat.
28:09
SPEAKER_03: I don't even know what Begat means.
28:12
SPEAKER_03: But people, the genealogies that you find in Genesis, that you find in the Gospels, um, and then you find in places like Timothy and Romans these lists of names.
28:23
SPEAKER_03: And you get, if you're trying to read through the Bible in a year, you get to Romans 16, you're like, what?
28:27
SPEAKER_03: This is not helpful at all.
28:29
SPEAKER_03: What are all these names for?
28:30
SPEAKER_03: Well, this is so powerful in the conversation of can women preach?
28:35
SPEAKER_03: Can they hold the office?
28:37
SPEAKER_03: And you have Paul himself who wrote 1 Timothy, who wrote 1 Corinthians 14, who make people make him say women can't preach and can't hold this office.
28:46
SPEAKER_03: Here's what he says he calls out two women by name in this list of women or list of people in Romans 16.
28:53
SPEAKER_03: He calls out Junia, who is an apostle.
28:56
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
28:57
SPEAKER_03: To me, the apostle was the greatest office of authority you could hold in the church.
29:01
SPEAKER_03: They were the ones who witnessed Jesus.
29:03
SPEAKER_03: Paul himself was an apostle.
29:06
SPEAKER_03: So if women can't hold offices of authority over men, why was there a woman in the New Testament church that herself she was an apostle?
29:16
SPEAKER_03: And then secondly, there's a woman whose name is Phoebe.
29:19
SPEAKER_03: Phoebe was um a businesswoman, she herself was traveling to Rome.
29:23
SPEAKER_03: So she's taking the gospel, the book of Romans, the greatest, to me, one of the greatest books in the entire Bible.
29:31
SPEAKER_03: Man, it is the exegesis of the gospel and Jesus and what he did for all of us who are sinners to make all of us righteous.
29:38
SPEAKER_03: She was the one who delivered the book of Romans.
29:41
SPEAKER_03: Well, what does that mean?
29:42
SPEAKER_03: Well, a couple things.
29:43
SPEAKER_03: One, Paul calls her a deaconess.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
29:46
SPEAKER_03: So she is in a place of authority.
29:48
SPEAKER_03: Number two, not only is does she deliver the book of Romans, but being a person who delivers the book of Romans means that she read it because not everybody could read.
29:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
29:57
SPEAKER_03: So she, when she got to Rome, she got the church together and she stood up and read this.
30:00
SPEAKER_03: Well, that's that's teaching.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:03
SPEAKER_03: And if anybody said, uh, excuse me, Miss Phoebe, I have a question.
30:06
SPEAKER_03: It was her role to communicate what Paul communicated to her.
30:10
SPEAKER_03: So she didn't just carry it, she read it and she just didn't read it, but she communicated it and preached the book of Romans.
30:16
SPEAKER_01: Wow, yeah.
30:17
SPEAKER_03: You know, gosh, I don't know.
30:18
SPEAKER_03: What does this do for you as a woman?
30:19
SPEAKER_03: Is it you fired up or what I find?
30:21
SPEAKER_02: I love hearing the context of it.
30:23
SPEAKER_02: And it's not, we always argue for a plain and simple reading of scripture, is the valid reading of scripture, but there is clearly nothing that is humanly plain and simple about this.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: It takes discernment, it takes working through the word with God, the context, proper exegesis, all the things that you said.
30:41
SPEAKER_02: And I would just, if I can have a second, I really want to kind of issue a thanks and a challenge as the woman in this scenario, because you don't have this experience or sit where I do.
30:51
SPEAKER_02: But it's a dangerous conversation when you begin to deny the value of womanhood.
30:56
SPEAKER_02: And that's what I'm afraid some people do in this conversation is if we're talking about the roles of women, we don't do enough to talk about the equality of value and image, if nothing else, which then leads women to question what is our place within the church as a whole.
31:10
SPEAKER_02: And I've heard it said for every pastor who wants to get up and talk about male headship and the significance of it.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: I also want them to turn around and emphasize the protection of the male, what that looks like for a woman.
31:22
SPEAKER_02: That the husband is supposed to love the wife as God loves the church.
31:25
SPEAKER_02: And that's the highest charge a person can be given.
31:28
SPEAKER_02: But instead, we have women cowering in fear for it.
31:30
SPEAKER_02: So a thanks to you as a pastor, you do such a good job walking that tightrope, navigating the balance of what males are called to, what the equality of different positions and roles means, regardless what we're called to do positionally in Christ.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: But just a challenge to men having this conversation, to other pastors, to people navigating these conversations and what the roles will look like moving forward.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: Let's not mistake the role of authority for the value of a person made in the image of Christ.
31:59
SPEAKER_03: Well, I appreciate that.
32:00
SPEAKER_03: I uh, you know, at the end of the day, I just want to do what the word tells me to do.
32:03
SPEAKER_03: Again, not what not what culture says, not what's comfortable, not what's easy.
32:06
SPEAKER_03: And again, I think there are some verses that make it look that women look, make it look like women shouldn't be in these roles, but I think there's lots of practice that we see in the Old Testament and the New that actually that's the opposite that happened.
32:17
SPEAKER_03: Women carried the roles of deaconesses, prophets, prophets, um, apostles.
32:22
SPEAKER_03: And so I think that pretty much sums it up.
32:24
SPEAKER_03: But I want to give just one more.
32:26
SPEAKER_03: This will be a conversation I have in a message in a few weeks, but um, when the gospel began to spread and people began to convert to Christianity, there were lots of myths and legends surrounding like what do they do when they get together?
32:38
SPEAKER_03: Some people began to believe that they were cannibals because they were taking the blood and the body of Christ.
32:43
SPEAKER_03: And so there's a story of this guy, his name is Pliny the Younger.
32:47
SPEAKER_03: You should look into him.
32:48
SPEAKER_03: He wrote about 300 letters.
32:49
SPEAKER_03: We still have about 200 of them.
32:51
SPEAKER_03: Tacitus, the Roman historian, he records some of the things that this guy wrote.
32:55
SPEAKER_03: He was what we would think in our government structure, where Trajan, who was the Roman emperor, was kind of president of over Rome.
33:03
SPEAKER_03: This guy, Pliny the Younger, was a senator.
33:06
SPEAKER_03: And he took it upon himself in communication with Trajan, hey, I'm gonna sneak into a church meeting and I'm gonna find out what they're really up to.
33:13
SPEAKER_03: And I'm not gonna share all the details, I'm gonna save that for a message, but I just want to pull out one line, a letter he wrote to Trajan.
33:19
SPEAKER_03: This is a line out of the letter that he said.
33:21
SPEAKER_03: He said, This, he said, he said, I believe it all more necessary to find out the truth.
33:25
SPEAKER_03: Like, hey, what's going on here?
33:27
SPEAKER_03: We found out the truth from two slave women whom they call deaconesses, even by torture.
33:33
SPEAKER_03: So once he slid into one of the meetings and didn't feel like he he felt like they knew he was coming, so they hit some of their practices.
33:39
SPEAKER_03: So he arrested two women and tortured them to get the truth out of them.
33:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:43
SPEAKER_03: But what I want you to hear is he recognizes that in the early church, this is around 110 BC.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
33:50
SPEAKER_03: Um, he says they they called them, the church called them deaconesses, and they were slaves.
33:55
SPEAKER_03: So typically slaves were secondary citizens, and women were secondary citizens.
34:00
SPEAKER_03: But the gospel elevated them from both, that they were equal, they were leaders in the church, they were deacons or deaconesses.
34:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:08
SPEAKER_03: So not only does the Bible teach it, but people who were outside of the church recognize that women carried leadership roles, and I think we need to quit getting away from them, and we need to get back to women finding the role in the body of Christ.
34:20
SPEAKER_03: We can only be whole if we're operating together in every purpose, every person and their gift and their function and their anointing.
34:27
SPEAKER_03: Only then can we do what God's called us to do.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
34:30
SPEAKER_03: So listen, if you're watching this and maybe you've heard someone tell you as a female that you don't have a role, you don't have a place, I believe that God's word overrides that.
34:38
SPEAKER_03: I believe his spirit is with you.
34:40
SPEAKER_03: He wants to anoint you and use you in powerful ways.
34:42
SPEAKER_03: And so let's get past the voices of people.
34:44
SPEAKER_03: And I think that's true for all of us.
34:46
SPEAKER_03: I think we're limited by the way people see us.
34:48
SPEAKER_03: We need to get into the way God sees us and be all that he's called us to be.
34:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
34:52
SPEAKER_03: Well, Kate, I'm gonna give you a final word if you got something for us.
34:54
SPEAKER_03: You got a final sentence to close this out, maybe a challenge for women who are hearing this from your side.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm grateful for the conversation.
35:01
SPEAKER_02: It brings a lot of relief because there are conversations we can have that don't necessarily always apply to who we are inherently and the things we can't change about ourselves.
35:10
SPEAKER_02: Women cannot change the fact that we are women.
35:12
SPEAKER_02: So we have to grapple with what does God say about us?
35:16
SPEAKER_02: What does God say about the giftings that He put within us and how we're able to walk those out.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: So conversations like these are so encouraging.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: Uh, definitely, if you're listening, seek truth, seek biblical truth, not culture opinions, not feelings, not that kind of thing.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: But at the end of the day, pray for God to know your heart and you to discern what he's speaking and what he has spoken for all of time that's true today.
35:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
35:39
SPEAKER_03: Listen, thanks for joining us for the extra mile.
35:41
SPEAKER_03: I hope you lean into this and have a conversation with those around you.
35:44
SPEAKER_03: Let's continue to grow into all that God has for us.
35:46
SPEAKER_03: And we hope to see you this Sunday at Faith Church.
35:48
SPEAKER_03: Thanks, Kate.