Women in Church, another discussion

An interesting debate was developing elsewhere on the worldwide web concerning the place of women in the church.  As always, Paul becomes a stumbling block in these discussions.  Very often, I find that we attempt to rationalize passages that say things that we don’t like.  I certainly don’t like Paul’s commentaries on the roles of women.  But as you know, I am a firm advocate of the Five Solas, and this includes Sola Scriptura.  Therefore, in applying a hermeneutic to interpret a passage, it must be consistently applied.  The following is a comment from that debate elsewhere about which I will be commenting.

This is where the understanding of the customs of the day MUST get into our Bible interpretation. It was both Jewish and Gentile custom (just like slavery, which the Bible does not condone and yet made clear allowances for in Paul's letters and the Law of Moses) for women to sit separately from their husbands in synagogues (Jews) and for women to be prohibited from the learning experience by-and-large (Sparta was virtually the only "liberated" culture among the Gentiles, allowing an agoge educational experience for women). The Jewish rabbinic tradition forbade women from even owning a copy of the Torah. The tradition actually said, "It would be better for the Torah to be burned, than to fall into the hands of a woman." Further still, Paul's use of the "Adam and Eve" example in the 1 Ti. 2 passage sets the learning/speaking experience for women in the context of marriage, not a woman's interaction with the Church. The 1 Co. passage instructs the Church on order in prophesying, how a woman should wear a head cover (which was a custom of the day), and then makes the emphatic statement in v. 16: "But if anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such CUSTOM, NOR DO THE CHURCHES OF GOD!" HELLO. Titus 2:1-5 has no ammunition at all for this fallacious doctrine that paralyzes church ministry in tradition that nullifies the Word of God. (Mk. 7:13)

In the discussion mentioned above, the following assertion was made.  We must understand the customs of the day in order to properly interpret passages of the Bible.  I must say at the outset, that this sets a very dangerous precedent that the reformers would absolutely pummel with abuse.  The mantra of the reformers is that scripture interprets scripture.  Never do they allow culture of that day or ours to have a higher authority over scripture than scripture itself.  The authority of scripture must remain sacrosanct.  Therefore, from the outset, we can assume that I will have grave reservations about the line of reasoning that followed.

The next assertion, which was presented as a parenthetical, was slipped in equating Paul’s view of women with Paul’s view of slavery.  First of all, this is preposterous.  Paul never condones the Roman practice of slavery, nor does he endorse it.  To be quite sure, the Roman practice of slavery was vastly different from the American version centuries later that was evil through and through.  The image of slavery is used throughout the New Testament in discussion of our active obedience to Christ in response to the gift of faith in the redeeming work of Jesus on the Cross.  You cannot understand the Gospel properly without dealing with these images and the cultural bias that we bring to the passages.  In the sense that we need to understand slavery in the context of slavery in first century Roman culture, the original assertion was correct.  However, the application of that assertion was wide of the mark.

The commentary went on to compare the Roman practice of slavery with the rabbinical law that dealt with men and women in synagogues.  This is problematic on many levels, apples and oranges leaps to mind.  Rabbinical Law is enscripturated.  Slavery was a social practice of the culture of the time.  The idea that because slavery was a practice that Moses and Paul did not condemn means that any aspect of rabbinical law that we deem obsolete can be disregarded is a very poor, and false, logical construct.  We have ample reason to disregard the whole of rabbinical law save the moral law from Jesus, and I will use this approach to deal with Moses.  But this is scripture interpreting scripture.  Jesus tells us that the rabbinical law is fulfilled in Him, and the New Covenant of Christ requires only the moral law as he summarizes.  Paul certainly reinforces this point in his Epistle to the Galatians.  Jesus does not deal with slavery either, by the way.  He really doesn’t need to address it, when you think about it.  The Gospel handles slavery without specifically calling it out.

The next assertion is that the 1 Timothy 2 passage is in the context of marriage.  Really?  Verse 8 says “in every place” as clearly as I can imagine.  Paul talks specifically about husbands and wives in at least two other places, Ephesians and Colossians, so why would he be so vague about his meaning here?  I’m afraid Paul’s statement is regrettably far more broad in this instance.  Paul asserts exactly that women should not teach men in church in exactly this place in 1 Timothy.  While we can argue that he states that he desires this behavior, what is unfortunate is that we now have this in scripture and it is unavoidable. 

This issue of head covering in 1 Corinthians 11 is argued quite a bit more strongly than just as a custom of the day.  Paul gives theological argument for this behavior and practice.  While one can perhaps argue that long hair on a woman is a sufficient head cover, I do not understand leaping to the notion that the meaning of verse 16 is that everything that Paul has stated in the first 15 verses he just brushes away with a word.  Here is a great place to point out that head coverings in that day in Greece signified marriage for the woman.  Therefore, actually, this passage IS about married women.  What Paul is saying in verse 16 is that no other church outside of Corinth practices differently than what he has just spelled out in the first 15 verses.  This is exactly the opposite from what was asserted.

Finally, I would state that the assertion made concerning Titus 2 is just flat wrong.  Paul says that older women should be teaching younger women how to do a lot of things in the household that end with being submissive to their husband.  That is a pile of ammunition to this fight.

Now, I want to conclude with two points.  The first is this: if you come to a theological discussion with me with mere assertions and poorly constructed logic, I will not ignore your error.  The second is this: I don’t like what Paul says, but Peter calls Paul’s words the gospel.  What am I to do?  I can choose to not like it all that I want, but there it is.

The only sound argument made in all of this against Paul is not about tradition, but about only the moral law remaining in the New Covenant, and that both men and women are now Baptized in the New Covenant rather than just men being circumcised in the Abrahamic Covenant.  But that argument was not made.

--Ogre--