Egalitarianism

Why I permit women to teach and exercise authority over men

In the church world in which I grew up, I only knew men as pastors, except of course for the occassional woman children’s ministry pastor. Over the years I maintained this traditional perspective on Christian leadership, although I gradually began to see more of the clear need for the vision and voice and leadership of women in the Church, whether or not they were technically permitted to be in the role of an elder/pastor.

Recently, I have shifted to an egalitarian (or mutualist) perspective, and affirm that women can and should be elders and pastors alongside men.

Here are a few axioms that have led to this shift:

1. The New Testament (NT) simultanously emphasizes 1) women in prophetic roles, 2) the preaching of Scripture as the culmination of prophecy, and 3) the authority of pastor/elder being the prophetic preaching of the Bible. These things together point toward a theology of a church with women as prophetic leaders teaching and leading from the Word.

2. The NT is crafted to highlight some of the following examples of strong women in leading and teaching roles:

   1. Junia as an Apostle (Rom 16:7).

   2. Phoebe as Paul’s representative delivering (and likely teaching/explaining) the theological Letter of Romans (Rom 16:1).

   3. Priscilla and Aquilla teaching Scripture to Apollos, with Priscilla typically being named first as the woman in the couple (Acts 18:2, 18:18, 18:26, Rom 16:3, 1 Cor 16:19, 2 Tim 4:19).

   4. Four prophetic daughters of Philip (Acts 21:8–9).

   5. Mary, Mother of John Mark, host of a house church at Antioch (Acts 12:12).

   6. Lydia, host of a house church in Philippi (Acts 16:11–15, 40).

   7. Nympha, host of a house church in Colossae (Col 4:15).

   8. I want to stress that “The NT is crafted to highlight…” The NT authors were concerned to include this thread of theological affirmation of women in key roles of leading and teaching across the NT. For instance, including three examples of women who were leading house churches, spanning the genres of Acts and epistles, emphasizes a theological pattern rather than a coincidental happenstance.

3. The qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 use no male pronouns, even though the Greek language has male pronouns available to Paul. Although the ESV and other translations make ample use of English male pronouns in these passages, Paul uses none of the corresponding Greek male pronouns, and intentionally uses the ambiguous τις (“anyone/whoever”) (1 Tim 3:1). The exception is the phrase “one-woman-man,” which is a prohibition for married men specifically; i.e. this qualification does not prohibit women from eldership any more than it prohibits a single-man from eldership.

4. Women, slaves, and Gentiles have a parallel trajectory into freedom, significance, and leadership in the NT People of God. Paul’s ministry and theology speaks to each of these groups:

   1. Romans 9-11 speaks to Gentiles, exhorting them to not push out or usurp the Jewish Israelites in their newfound role and prominence in the people of God; the inclusion of the Gentiles does not flatten the significance of the story of the Israelites.

   2. In Philemon, Paul sends Onesimus to Philemon, his master, exhorting him to not rebel and runaway, but to seek his freedom in the context of reconciliation. For an instance where a slave and a master both become a part of the Christian community, Paul wishes that these collaborate to seek for the freedom of the slave in the context of Christian reconciliation.

   3. And in 1 Timothy 2, Paul tells women to not “teach and exercise authority over men.” Actually, he tells them to not “teach and usurp the authority of men.” The word for “exercise authority” (αὐθεντέω) only occurs once in the NT, and elsewhere in Greek literature the word is used to denote a domineering (or even violent) tone. There are Greek words used all over the NT that indicate “have authority” in a general, neutral sense. Paul does not use those words; he uses αὐθεντέω. The Message’s translation does well: “I don’t let women take over and tell the men what to do.” What Paul prohibits women from doing in 1 Tim 2:12 is precisely the same thing that Paul is prohibiting Gentiles from doing in Romans 9-11.

5. The Father exercises authority and headship over the Son. This is often used by complementarians to justify the unique authority of men over women, and to exclude women from authority. The irony, however, is that the manifestation of the Father’s leadership and authority is to raise the Son up into co-authority with the Father. In the same way, men’s unique call of leadership ought to manifest itself in the raising up of women as co-leaders.

   1. As a footnote, this point does lead me to differ a bit from the approach of egalitarians/mutualists (although not with their conclusions). I still maintain that there is a unique role of men in authority and headship. Yet, I see that the biblical responsibility and result of such headship is precisely to raise up women into coequal leadership. This is the same as in marriage; men have a unique calling as head in the marriage, and yet the result and responsibility of this calling is to raise up the wife into coequal labor and leadership of the family.

   2. The Israelites had a unique role as the people of God. But was this to the exclusion of the nations? No. In fact, such an exclusion was their fundamental mistake. They were chosen as a kingdom of priests, so that the nations might be brought into relationship with God. Men are prone to the same mistake; their unique position in leadership (whether cultural or theological (I think it’s both)) ought not to exclude women from leadership, but rather to raise them up into leadership.

   3. I have never been satisfied with the way egilitarians flatten the headship passages. But I have come to discover that said flattening of male headship has robbed egalitarians of one of the key arguments for coequal female leadership, namely, that the result and responsibility of male headship is to raise up women into an equality of leadership.

I believe it is possible for complementarian churches to champion the voice of women in their culture and still maintain to a biblical conviction that elder/pastors ought to be men. However, I am convicted that the NT invites us to embrace a robust theology of a diverse and collaborative leadership in the Christian church.

All of this said, I am happy to join with both egalitarians and complementarians who are passionate about championing the voice and significance of women. Now is the time to set aside differences regarding the technicalities of eldership and fight against the common enemy of communities which utterly suppress women.