A Product of My Time

There is an issue which has been distinctly troubling me for some time, and that is the whole debate over the roles of women in the church. I had laid this topic to rest some time ago, and now it's rearing its head again, and I find it's been taking up my thoughts. I've been doing a great deal of reading in the last few months (no surprise there) on Biblical topics (perhaps a little more surprising), and this one comes up more than you might think. Several writers for whom I have great respect are firm in their belief that women must not teach groups in which there are men, and may not be in leadership roles. I know the passages that this comes from, of course, but I also know that I still struggle with it! I suspect it has something to do with my being female...

Let me be clear--I have no taste for leadership myself, which is just as well because I'm not convinced anybody would follow me. I'm happy in my current roles and don't wish to change them. However, I am a teacher. Not to the large assembly in our church (which is very large indeed) but to other women and periodically to our small group, which contains both men and women. And I think that I'm not half bad at it. But I'd done so much reading on the subject that I was actually kind of unnerved--and certainly unfocused--this last week when I was leading the discussion, and fairly flubbed it. So you can tell this bothers me, and this may end up being a record-length post as a result. Sorry.

Things that make me think I should NOT be teaching: Paul said it, quite clearly, twice. There really isn't any other way to read those words except that women are to keep their traps shut in church. End of story. And no, I don't think that Paul was a misogynist, not at all, but his opinion on this is unmistakable. It's so easy to say that he was just a product of his time, and this is a cultural thing, and therefore we can ignore it. Up to a point, I do think that's true! On the other hand, it does open up a real slick path down some other slippery slopes. If you go with that, how do you draw the line and say this thing was just cultural but that thing is not? How do we know for a certainty which things were Paul's first century opinions and which things are actually from God? I'm not always comfortable making that distinction, especially over something which has such implications for what I personally do--I could be biased!

Things that make me think it's okay for me to be teaching: This list is, predictably, somewhat longer. For one, I do agree with Catherine Booth (of Salvation Army fame) that God gives gifts--even to women--to be used. I have been in leadership before, and been teaching for some time, and always get put in these positions because there is a need, and I'm able to fill it. I can see making a strong case for meeting the needs that arise if I have the skills and am asked to do so. So I have. And our small groups would suffer greatly if the women's voices were not heard. We have a fair amount of wisdom among the ladies, and I personally think God put it there.

From the cultural standpoint, Paul's prohibition in I Corinthians comes in the same letter as instructions about head coverings, or lack thereof. I don't think you could argue that those are not cultural issues, and largely passed by in non-muslim societies at this time. I have memories of seeing the Catholic neighbors wearing little tiny doilies on their heads as they went off to mass, and I somehow think that it's not exactly what Paul had in mind. It's not clear that anyone really knows what he meant with the comment about it being because of the angels, but I understand that women wore veils as a mark of their status of being married, showing their submission to one man in that relationship, and that makes sense. I guess my wedding ring serves the same function today perhaps. I do understand that the bulk of that portion of his letter to the Corinthians had to do with chaos in worship, but these days the chaos can come just as readily from the men!

And I just can't ignore Deborah. No matter how I vacillate in either direction, I keep coming back to Deborah, one of the judges of Israel. She won't be ignored! Deborah was a leader, even militarily, and was appointed by God for the task. We don't know what His justification for that outrageous appointment was, because He didn't say, but apparently Deb was the "best man for the job". There's also Aquila and his wife Priscilla pulling Apollos aside to teach him the way more accurately. Not just Aquila. Priscilla too. Is it possible that God still appoints women as He sees fit, giving them gifts and abilities to be used even in the instruction of men? I wouldn't want to be the one to tell God that He can't, that's for sure.

So I'm still pondering. I'm not willing to say that Paul was only speaking for that time in history when it came to this issue (it is included in Scripture, after all), although he most assuredly was correct about what was needed for that time and those circumstances, but at the same time I'm not willing to limit God on what He might decide to be doing in this day and age. I worry about starting down slippery slopes, because a great many people have proceeded me and made disasters that way in many areas. So what to do? I guess I'll keep reading, keep thinking, keep praying, and likely keep teaching until/unless I'm convinced otherwise, because there is a need, and I am able and have been requested to fill it for now. But I'm still troubled, because the one desire of my heart is to not be outside what God wants for me, as a wife and mother, but also as a teacher who desperately wants to handle accurately the Word of truth.

Love, Spud.