Does God Allow a Woman to be a Pastor/Preacher in the Church?

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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This may be one of those episodes that I get myself in more trouble than I may be able to handle.

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I sure hope not, but we're soon going to find out. Welcome to The Rap Report with Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

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This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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Okay, so there has been a lot of discussion, both when I was over in the

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Philippines dealing with this issue, and then recently with the

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Southern Baptist Convention. In the Southern Baptist Convention, there's been some discussion, and so we end up seeing that we have gotten to a point where there's a lot going on with the question, can a woman be a pastor or preacher?

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This is something that is not going to go away. We have to deal with this topic, and there's a lot of issues here in play.

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So whether you agree or do not agree with whether women can be pastors slash preachers, what

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I want you to do is consider something here. What I'd like you to do is consider listening to this entire podcast.

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Don't check out early. Do not think that you have an answer without fully researching everything there is to study.

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There's a lot of people who are acting out of emotion on this issue, and because of that, there's many people who are just checking out.

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They're not listening. They're not paying attention. They're really having a difficult time looking at what the scriptures actually say.

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Now, we have to examine this and try to do it without the emotion. What do I mean?

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Well, let me start with some of the excuses that I've heard over time.

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I've been dealing with this issue for a while, but I have collected a bunch of what

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I see as the arguments that many people make when you discuss this issue, especially if you have the nerve to go against culture.

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What we end up seeing is there's many different arguments that people make for women to be doing the role of pastor or preacher.

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We're going to go through at least all the texts that I've been given as an argument, and what

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I'd like us to do is go through these texts and examine them. Examine the ones that support women as pastors, support those that have women not as pastors, and let us evaluate what the scripture says without all of the emotion behind it.

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Now, let me be very clear. This is an emotional issue for many.

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Maybe someone has their family members or go to a church where a female is a pastor, or maybe you yourself are a female that's in a position of pastor, and because of that, there's going to clearly be an emotion if someone takes an opposite view, and you're going to want to react emotionally.

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This is not male versus female, men versus women. This is a question of what does the

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Bible say. What I want all of us to do is take a step back and examine what does

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God say on this issue, because quite frankly, it doesn't matter at all what

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I believe on the question of should women be pastors.

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Can women be preaching God's Word at a pulpit in a church?

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It doesn't matter what I believe. It really doesn't. In fact, it doesn't matter what you believe either.

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That may be hard to think about, but it doesn't. It only matters what God believes. That's what matters, and that's what we want to spend this podcast to do is examine that.

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So, these are the arguments I've been given. I'm going to say excuses, not scriptural arguments, but some of the more emotional responses

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I've seen online. It's all about equality. That was one quote, and is it really about equality?

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Actually, no, it's not about equality. This is not an issue of equality. This is an issue of roles and responsibilities.

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None of us have the same roles. Equality does not mean that we all have the same roles.

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Only one person can go to the White House as President of the United States because he has that role.

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It doesn't matter that he's equal with the rest of us. He's not in that role. He's not, and so if God has established different roles, we have to submit to God on that.

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That's the issue with that, but that's not an argument from Scripture, is it? Why do you think women are not smart enough to read, interpret, preach from their

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Bibles? I'm not saying that women are not smart enough. Actually, there's some women that are far better than many of the male pastors at pulpits.

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The question is not, are they better? It's not whether they're capable. It's whether God forbids it or not.

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That's really the question. If women aren't allowed to preach, they are victims and being oppressed and aren't allowed to serve

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God fully. Well, let's think about that and look at that excuse. Again, that's not a scriptural argument, and these are all things

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I've seen online from people that have responded this way, but when we look at that, if God forbids a woman to preach, then it is the best thing to do to let her know that, to stop her from doing that, because she'd be in sin if she's doing what

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God forbids, and God is never going to allow someone to do something he forbids them from doing.

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And so, that's why the question is, does God allow this? Can a woman do this?

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Well, the question is, does God allow a woman to do this? It's not her capability.

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Let's look at another one that I've seen. If a woman feels called to preach but is denied by the church, then the church is causing her to sin by not allowing her to be behind a pulpit.

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Again, I'm going to answer the same way I did before. The issue is, God is never going to call someone to do something that he forbids if he forbids it.

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And so, that is an argument I don't think valid, because the question again comes back to, does

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God forbid this or not? One of the only scriptural verses I really hear a lot given is out of Galatians 3 .28,

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which says, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for all are one in Jesus Christ.

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So, the argument goes like this. There is no male or female, no Jew or Greek. Aren't all genders allowed to be united and equal?

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The issue I see with that argument is one where we end up looking at this and saying, practice the rules of interpretation called hermeneutics, and what we see in Galatians chapter 3 is it is dealing with the topic of salvation.

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It is not dealing with the topic of roles that men and women have.

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It's not dealing with the issue of roles that people can play in the church. How do

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I know this? Well, very simply, it says there is neither slave nor free. This is

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Galatians, a very early book, many think maybe Paul's earliest book that he wrote.

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And yet, much later in this time, he writes Philemon, where he sends a slave back to his master.

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Well, if there is no more slave or free, then he shouldn't have had to do that.

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He shouldn't have written Philemon at all, instructing Philemon to care for his slave and sending a slave back to his master, being the right thing to do, because he would go to a verse he wrote years earlier.

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So, years later, there's still free and slave. In fact, the interesting thing is many people think that Philemon, when we look at that, that the slave became a leader, a pastor in the church that his master was in.

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That's a strange relationship. But when it comes to salvation, it doesn't matter whether you're a

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Jew or a Greek, that was a major deal. Whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, both come to salvation the same way.

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Whether you're a slave or free, both come to salvation the same way. Whether you're male or female, both come to salvation the same way.

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That's what we end up seeing in that text there. So, that becomes the issue that we see in Galatians 3 .28.

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It's not dealing with the topic at hand. So, it is a misapplication of Scripture to apply that to something that it doesn't mean.

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If you give it a new meaning, you're taking it out of its context. That's called isolation, and that is violating the rules of interpretation.

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So, we shouldn't do that. So, Galatians 3 .28 doesn't fit. One of the arguments

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I've seen is, we're all a royal priesthood. So, if we're all priests, a woman can preach.

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Well, yes, we are in the sense of royal priesthood only because of a difference between Old Testament times and New Testament times.

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Ezekiel 36 makes it clear that what us, the Jewish people, were looking forward to was a time when we wouldn't need priests to tell us

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God's word anymore, but the Holy Spirit himself would indwell us so that we no longer need a man, a priest, to give us

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God's word. So, the fact when it says that we are a royal priesthood, it means that we as believers have the

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Holy Spirit indwelling us, and by indwelling us, we are priests. We are set apart now, and that's what makes us a priest.

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It doesn't mean we all have a right to preach. In fact, you still have in 1

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Timothy chapter 3 and in Titus, you have instructions and qualifications for pastors.

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That means not everyone's qualified. So, the fact that we're a royal priesthood doesn't mean that everyone is eligible, just because there's qualifications that limit it.

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All right, let's look at another one. Women will respond to the gospel presented in a way that can relate that men can't do it.

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Really? So, if that's the argument, then for generations after generations, how were women getting saved?

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Because it was men that were preaching the gospel, how were the women getting saved if it not by women preachers, by that argument?

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Because what we see in the scriptures, every place that we see someone preaching it is always a man, but yet we see women saved.

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We're going to look at a case of Lydia. Paul is preaching, Lydia gets saved. So, obviously, a man can preach in such a way that a woman can get saved.

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So, again, the argument doesn't fit with scripture. Paul was speaking to the culture in 1

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Timothy chapter 2, so it no longer applies to us. Well, I'm going to put that one off, because 1

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Timothy chapter 2 is one that we actually have to deal with in a lot of detail, because that is one, this argument comes up a lot, and we need to examine that.

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So, I'm going to put that off to later. How do you know God hasn't called some women to preach and gifted them with giftings?

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If God gifted a woman with preaching and called her to it, then why do you say she can't?

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Again, I'm going to go back to, if God says He forbids it, then

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He's never, ever going to call them to preach. He's never going to gift them to preach before men.

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And we're going to deal with the question, can women teach? Yes, they can.

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You know, I don't know a single person that says that a woman cannot teach.

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The question is, can she teach men in church? There's some questions, can she teach men outside of church?

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We'll get into those things. But the issue here is, if God forbids it, He's never going to call them.

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Women are just as good at public speaking as men are. Women can teach just as good as men.

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Well, those may be true, but again, it's not about capability, is it? I made that clear before. Some have said, who did

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Jesus first appear to at the tomb? Well, a woman. Thank goodness He didn't believe that a woman couldn't preach.

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Well, I don't agree with that. Why? Well, because He appeared to a woman doesn't mean a woman can preach.

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That's actually a logical fallacy because there's nothing about preaching when He appears to someone.

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I mean, if I come to my wife, it doesn't mean she can preach. There's no correlation there, okay?

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He never asked them to go and preach, so that becomes an issue. Let me read to you an email that I got, and I find this email very interesting.

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This is going to show you the harsh language that is given toward people that would take the position

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I do take, and what you end up seeing is you see a lot of emotion, and you see someone who, because of her position, is maybe not willing to see what is actually being said.

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Now, let me qualify. She's going to respond to a meme that I did not create being put in a group where I did not put it, okay?

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So, she's emailed, striving for eternity, getting very upset with us, and this is what she said, quote,

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I have a need. Please stop maligning women pastors in your memes.

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I have been called and ordained by God. I'm a conservative and pro -life, a pastor, a small congregation that no man would take because the salary is too low.

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Women were never maligned by our Lord. Now, your meme about not a pastor, not a church has stirred up a hornet's nest in the

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Facebook Calvinists, the group that chooses you, does not serve the body of Christ.

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What is gained? This diminishes what we should be our common efforts to combat

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Satan and reach the secular, God -hating populace. If the

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Spirit gives me gifts to preach and pastor, who are you to ignore that and criticize?

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May the peace of Christ and his truth be with you, Karen GC, unquote.

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Now, examining this, there's a lot of emotion. There was no scripture at all, but what is the argument?

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The argument is she felt called and ordained by God. Now, I don't see anywhere in scripture where it says

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Karen is ordained. Who ordained her? It was probably a bunch of men, maybe some men and women, but the reality is she feels it was ordained by God, but if scripture says that women are prohibited from that role, then it's not ordained by God.

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It's either people that say you are ordained, because actually, God doesn't have an ordination service to call people reverend.

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That is something designed by men. So, when we look at this, the question we have to realize is a lot of people don't think this through.

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So, now, there's some things that we see in these issues. I've given you a lot of the arguments that you hear, and by the way, let me say that I did respond to her and let her know

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I was a pastor making only $10 ,000 a year, very low. Maybe if she didn't take that position, maybe there would be a man to step up, or maybe the church should close so that they could go to a church where there would be a man preaching, but that's not the question that she actually thinks of and asks herself.

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The question we should be asking is, is this what God wants us to do? That's the only question here.

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It doesn't matter how I feel or you feel on the issue. It doesn't matter if a bunch of people agree with you on the issue.

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It doesn't matter. It only matters what God says. And again, I say, this is not a male versus female issue.

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So, what I would like to do is go through the many texts of scripture that we see here.

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Let us start with some of the examples that we end up seeing. Let's start with Chloe. We see Chloe in 1

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Corinthians 1, verse 11. And here it says, For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among my brothers.

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Now, Chloe's people, the word people is actually not in the Greek. The word is just Chloe's.

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And so, Chloe's what? Well, many people take this as Chloe's household. So what you see is that as people claim she was a church leader because it was in her house.

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Well, her house might have been used, as the verse states, but there's no mention of any leadership role.

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Any leadership that you see here is inserted or assumed. It could be that Chloe had the biggest house of anyone in the church.

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Maybe Chloe's house was the only one that would fit everybody. That's a possibility.

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But notice what's lacking in the text. There's nothing about a leadership position, there's nothing about her preaching, and there's nothing about her being a pastor.

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That is inserted into the text or assumed. Well, let's look at Priscilla.

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Now, Priscilla, there's many passages. We're not going to have time to read them all, but let me give you them. You can read

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Acts chapter 18. If you want to be specific, you could look at verses 1 -4 in Acts 18, 18 -21, and you could look at 24 -26.

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Those would be the specific ones, but read all of Acts 18. You could look at Romans 16, 3 -5, 1

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Corinthians 16, 19, 2 Corinthians 11, 9.

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You're not going to see her name there, but we'll deal with that. And then 2 Timothy 4 -19.

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So what you end up seeing here in each of these, first off, you end up seeing in Acts 18, here's

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Paul, he comes to Corinth, there is Priscilla and Aquila, and you end up seeing that they end up eventually leading

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Apollos to Christ. Now, one of the things we notice is everywhere where Priscilla is mentioned, so is her husband.

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She is never mentioned without her husband. There is no evidence that she ever taught

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Apollos, or anyone else for that matter. It could be that her husband did all of the talking.

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Now, we end up seeing that she's mentioned, but why do I bring up 2 Corinthians 11 -19?

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She's not mentioned. It says, and when I was with you and was in need,

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I did not burden anyone, for the brothers who had come from Macedonia supplied my need.

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Now, it's interesting because when we look this up, those brothers could have included, well,

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Priscilla's husband. So, he seemed to be involved, maybe, in that. But one of the things you don't see anywhere is

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Priscilla mentioned without her husband. Did her husband do all of the talking? It is possible from this text that she was completely silent and let him do all of the teaching.

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We don't know. So, to use this passage to insert or assume something that's not in the text, well, that wouldn't be a good thing to do, because I could just as easily say that those same texts that Priscilla was completely silent, because the text doesn't say that either.

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So, who's right? Well, the issue is you do not build a doctrine based on the silence of Scripture.

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Scripture doesn't say that Priscilla did all of the teaching or any of the teaching. It also doesn't say that Aquila did any of it either.

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So, we just don't know. So, that is not an argument that we can use. We can't look at Priscilla as an example.

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Well, let's move to the next one that many people give, and that is Juna. You see this in Romans 16 .7.

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Romans 16 .7, if we read that, it basically says,

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Greet Antichrist and Juna, my kinsmen and fellow prisoners.

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They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.

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So, we see about her, very much like Priscilla, she's mentioned with her husband, there's no mention of any role in the church.

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So, any use of this to build a doctrine that women can be pastors or preachers or have a leadership role in the church is inserted or assumed.

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It's something we do not see from the Scriptures. It's mentioned that she is a relation of Paul, but a relation doesn't make her a leader, even if Paul's a leader.

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Just because Donald Trump is the president doesn't mean his kids are leaders.

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Well, okay, in some cases his kids are, but they were appointed. But the fact is that relationship doesn't make her a leader.

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There's nothing in the Scripture that says she was a in the church. And so, we have to examine that and say,

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Scripture doesn't say. Well, let's move on to another one that many people look at is in Philippians 4, verses 2 and 3.

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And as we read this, it says, I greet Edodia and greet

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Seneca to agree in the yet I ask you also, true companion, help these women who have labored alongside with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of the fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.

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So, here what Paul mentions that these two women worked alongside him for the gospel, not preaching.

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Notice, he was clear about it when you read the context, they were working, laboring side by side in the gospel together.

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So, note that this is not about serving in a leadership role in the church, this was serving alongside in a gospel.

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What role did they have? Scripture doesn't say. Were they the ones preaching the gospel?

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Scripture doesn't say. Could it have been Clement, the man who is doing the preaching? Scripture doesn't say.

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So, again, as with the other verses, we end up seeing that there is no evidence here who taught whom.

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So, you don't know that any of the women here taught anyone. Any argument that they had some leadership role is again either inserted or assumed.

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It could just as easily be said that Clement did all of the teaching and not these two women.

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They could have been completely silent. And so, when you try to add to Scripture and build a doctrine, well, both sides can build the doctrine off of this and say women have to be absolutely silent, can't speak at all.

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That could be said because the Scripture, if you're inserting things, allows for both. So, the

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Scripture doesn't say. So, again, we do not build a doctrine and make the

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Scripture say something that it does not say. Well, there is another woman that we see in Scripture that many use, and that is

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Lydia. We see Lydia in Acts chapter 16 specifically, verses 13 to 15, and again in verse 40.

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Let me read those. And on the Sabbath day, we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer.

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And we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together.

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One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God.

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The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

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And after she was baptized and her household as well, she urged us saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the

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Lord, come to my house and stay. And she prevailed upon us.

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And verse 40 says, so they went out of the prison and visited Lydia. And when they had seen the brothers, they were encouraged and departed.

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Those are all the texts that refer to Lydia. Now, what we see in here is that Lydia was a new convert, not a leader.

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In fact, Scripture is clear that a new convert cannot be a pastor in 1 Timothy 3 .6.

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Therefore, once again, there's nothing from the text that states that Lydia was a leader, a pastor, or a preacher.

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She was a new believer and couldn't be in the role of any of those.

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Thus, once again, we see that to build a doctrine that women can be pastors or preachers from this text is to insert or assume that the

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Scripture says that when that's not what it says. I hope you're seeing the pattern with each one of these, but it's going to get a little bit more difficult.

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And I'm going to be fair with that and say there are some that are better arguments, and I've saved them for later.

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So let's look at Phoebe. Phoebe we see in Romans 16, verses 1 and 2.

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I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Caesarea, and that you may welcome her in the

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Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well.

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Now, notice Phoebe is mentioned. She's mentioned as a servant.

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That's going to be important, not a pastor. As a servant, she's not a preacher. She's a servant.

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This word in the Greek is deacon. It's the female version of deaconess. She's a deaconess.

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That could be a position or it could be a characteristic.

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It is true, I believe, that some deacons have also been pastors.

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Now, what do I mean by that? Well, there's people who are deacons that have become a pastor, or pastors that realize they should really be deacons, and there's some people who are pastors that are called deaconess, called servants, and we're going to get to that.

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Now, one of the things that we see here is that the pastor is in the position of oversight, of leadership.

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A servant is not. A deacon, properly understood, is a servant. They don't have a leadership position.

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The deacon, I believe, can be a male or a female because it's a servant role, not a leadership role.

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Now, that may be strange. That may be hard for some to hear because far too many churches give the title of deacon to people that then serve as a leader, and it's not to be.

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That's not a biblical model. Once you have that separation between pastor and deacon and realize that pastors are leaders and overseers, where the deacons are servants, that's what the word means, a waiter of tables, they're a servant, then

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I see no reason to say that a woman can't be a servant, and I would argue that's what 1

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Timothy 3 would say. Some disagree with that, but let's look at some of the arguments for why

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Phoebe is considered a pastor. Well, some have claimed that Timothy, who is a pastor, is also called a deacon, a deacon or servant.

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Deaconess is the word used for Timothy. Therefore, Phoebe is also a pastor.

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Well, this is time that we play one of our games on this show. Now it's time for Name That Fallacy.

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That's right. This is a fallacy. This is known as an association fallacy.

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An association fallacy is an informal inductive fallacy of the hasty generalization or red herring type, which asserts by irrelevant association that qualities of one thing are inherently qualities of another.

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So the way that this works out is A is a B, A is also a

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C, therefore all Bs are Cs. That's the way that we'd explain this.

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So the way we end up seeing this is just because something that has an intersection doesn't mean that they're true for all.

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So in this case, Timothy is a pastor, but he's also called a deaconess, a servant.

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And all pastors should be servants, by the way, but Timothy takes the title, a position of pastor, and yet he is also called a servant.

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Phoebe here is called a servant. The conclusion some make is that therefore,

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Phoebe must be a pastor. That's the fallacy. No, they're both servants.

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That's what they both are. Now, I would argue when we look at the text here, because it says a servant of the church, a deaconess of the church,

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I believe Phoebe was a deaconess of the church of Caesarea. So she was there as a servant in the role, in that position, where Timothy was in the position of pastor, but he also was someone who had the characteristics of a servant.

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That's how I would see that. Now some also will say, well, Phoebe is a pastor here because Paul is commissioning her to this church and he's sending her and they're there to take care of her needs because she's the pastor.

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Well, the text does not say that. It doesn't say it at all. And therefore, we can't look at this and say, well, that's true, because it's not what the text says.

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He does give them the instruction to care for her, to welcome her, to take care of what she needs.

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We don't know why, but we do know the purpose. He has the purpose clause. He says, for she has been a patron to many and myself as well.

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He's saying that because she has taken care of the needs of others, provided for them, so they should provide for her, not because she's a pastor.

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Paul gives us the reason he gave that instruction. This is one of the things I see so often missed when people argue this.

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They ignore Paul's purpose clauses. Here he gives the purpose, why he gives this instruction.

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The reason is because she has provided and cared for many others. So let us look at the last woman that we have, and I will admit this is going to be the most difficult one that we have, and it is

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Deborah. Deborah we see in Judges 4 and 5. Now you can specifically look at Judges 4, 4 -10, and verse 14, and then

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Judges 5, 1 -15. I'm not going to take the time to read that. I encourage you to read that in its context in one sitting, read both chapters.

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But Deborah is called a prophetess. Now Scripture also states that she was a judge of Israel.

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So people came to her to pass judgment on civil, not religious matters.

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Verse 6, because remember at this time you had the Levites who would have been dealing with the civil, sorry, the religious matters.

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So the judge was not a religious figure but a civil figure.

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Verse 6 states that she summoned Barak. That's a strong word, but the word in Greek means to call or to appoint.

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However, as we continue reading and look at the context, it is clear that it was the

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Lord who commanded Barak, not Deborah. So it seems that it was known that God called

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Barak to lead the army, and she calls him to do what God commanded him to do as a civil role.

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Barak could have been a man very much like Jonah. He knew what was commanded of him to do, but he didn't want to do it.

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He could have been afraid. He could have been a man that had some fear, and he didn't want to go. It seems so because we see in Judges 4 -8, he doesn't want to go to war without Deborah the judge on his side.

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In other words, he wants her to be with him. Maybe he needs her there for strengthening.

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We don't know because the scripture doesn't say why he asked her to go.

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But what is important from the text is to note, first off, that going to war was seen as a religious activity, not a civil one.

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So when Barak would not go to war without Deborah, we end up seeing that she states that this is a judgment on Barak, that he wants this woman to go with her.

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She says that because of this request of his, he will not get the glory that a general of the army would get for winning the battle.

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Instead, because he wants a woman to go with him, the judgment that she says is from the

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Lord, that the Lord will sell the commander of the opposing army into the hand of a woman, which is what happened when this battle went on, and the commander fled.

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He fled into a tent, and a woman ended up killing him. Therefore, she clearly does not favor a woman involved in the leading of a religious battle.

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She calls it a judgment. And now, is there more text we can look at? Well, let's look at Judges chapter 5, and you see that the song of Deborah and Barak, we end up seeing that it's clear that Deborah separates herself from the leaders that went to war, as she does not include herself in verse 1.

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In verses 7 to 9, it's even more separated that she separates herself from the leaders, referring to herself as the mother of Israel in verse 7, and then she says her heart goes out to the commanders of Israel.

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She's not including herself. That's in verse 9. So, in conclusion, Deborah was not functioning in a religious responsibility and activity.

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She was acting in the role of a civil one as judge. She was called a prophetess.

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But when we look at Exodus 7, 1 to 4, we see what a prophet was.

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A prophet, at the time of Moses, was someone who would speak as God, speak for God.

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That's what Aaron was doing when Moses refused to speak in Exodus 7. And so, what we end up seeing is that a prophetess had a different seeming function than it did in the age of the prophets many years later after the kings.

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This is another logical fallacy that many people do, is to think that just because a word has a meaning in one period of time, that it always has the same meaning.

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That's a fallacy of equivocation to take a word that has the same word that could have different meanings and assume it's the same.

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In fact, at the time of Moses, it was one who would speak as God. And when you sat as judge in a civil position, you were giving a judgment for God.

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You were speaking, saying, this is the judgment, but in a civil way, not religious.

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Why do I keep making that distinction? In her civil role, she spoke for God as a judge.

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And that's important to note, because when we speak of women being pastors or preachers or in leadership in a church, that is a religious responsibility, not a civil responsibility.

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That's an activity that we have to understand. Therefore, a man may be able to work in a secular job for a woman because she's not acting in a position where she is having the authority in a religious way.

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You see, that's why this focuses on the question of, is it in a church? You see, in a civil way, a woman,

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I think, can lead according to what this text seems to be saying, but not in a religious manner.

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That's the distinction that this text seems to build. So again, this is not dealing with the church at all.

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It's not dealing with a religious activity at all. Therefore, can we make this distinction that Deborah was a pastor?

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No, you can't. You can't say anything like that. In fact, what we end up seeing is that if you try to build the doctrine that women can be in leadership in a church, notice what

40:31

I said there, not in a civil way, but in a church, the only way to do that is to assert or assume what's not there in the text.

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Now, you know, a quote from John Calvin is this. John Calvin had said that when you twist God's word, you no longer have

40:47

God's word but man's word. And this would include when people build doctrines based on things that are not stated in scripture.

40:57

So, when people insert or assume a leadership role or a preaching role or a pastor role for women in these passages where there's no mention of anything like that, you no longer have

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God's word but your own that you attribute to God. And you could be wrong.

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Now, I want to take a look at a passage many of us may not think of because many of us may not realize something that we see in play here.

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Now, there's two things. As we look at Genesis 1 -3, you see federal headship throughout, and that is very strong in some of the texts that we see, specifically 1

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Timothy 2. There is a headship thing that we'll get to later. But there's one thing I see throughout this, and maybe you heard this when you heard some of the excuses people make.

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I want to go back to Genesis 3 because what we see in Genesis 3 with Satan is he tempts

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Eve by saying one thing. There's one tree she can't take of.

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Instead of focusing on all the things that a woman can do in the church, so many of these people want to focus on the one thing

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God forbids and make that as if that's the whole thing. But that's nothing new.

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This goes all the way back to the garden. Genesis 3 -1, now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the

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Lord had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree of the garden?

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And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the tree in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die.

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Now notice how Satan worded that. There's all of these trees in the garden, but what does he say?

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You shall not eat of any tree. You see, there's only one that they can't do, but Satan makes it as if that's the whole thing.

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What you heard in a lot of those excuses that people make is that there's one thing God forbids, and they make it as if you forbid that, you're forbidding them of all.

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You are oppressing all women if you don't let them do just this one thing. In fact,

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Beth Moore made the analogy or the argument, it seems, that she believes that because women are not allowed to preach at pulpits, therefore that's why there's sexual abuse in the

43:32

Southern Baptist Church. Wow, is that a stretch. And all those people on Twitter that got upset with me,

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I, at least on Twitter, made the distinction between the abuse that goes on in a pulpit when a woman preaches and the abuse that happens sexually.

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I said those are not the same abuses, but they are both abuses. Well, Beth Moore went further than me, so for all those people that attacked me on Twitter, would you please call out

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Beth Moore now and tell her she needs to repent, because she did what I did not. What's up everyone, this is

44:03

James Watkins, host of the Five Solas Podcast and founder of Five Solas Ministries. Be sure to check out our podcast that releases every

44:10

Thursday on your favorite podcasting app, as we discuss Christian doctrine and dive into the Reformed theological distinctives and their continued relevance for the church and world today.

44:20

Grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, scripture alone, to the glory of God alone.

44:27

Join us each episode as we discuss the truths of these foundational rallying cries of the Protestant Reformers and how this material helps challenge and direct the current church in its life of worship and witness.

44:38

Visit us online at www .fivesolasministries .com. That's www, the number five, solasministries .com.

44:47

To learn more information about the ministry and to also check out our awesome Five Solas lineup of t -shirts and gospel tracks.

44:54

And as always, may all that you do be done to the glory of God. Solely, Deo, Gloria.

45:01

Let us go now to some of the passages. Now, I want you to notice that I've spent most of the time here giving the case, the arguments that many make for the position.

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They either make emotional arguments, I believe, or they make arguments that have nothing to do with the question at hand.

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Does God allow a woman to pastor or preach to men?

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That is the question that we are looking to answer. And none of those texts that we looked at, that people use, answered it.

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And so for that reason, let's take a look at what we see in 1 Timothy chapter 2, verses 12 to 14.

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This is actually the strongest text for it. We're going to look at a similar passage in 1

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Corinthians 14, 34 to 35. But first, we're going to start here in Timothy.

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This is the strongest passage. Now, as I said, we would address this, and many people say that this has to do with a cultural issue.

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Now, are there some cultural issues here? Yes, there are. Let's have no bones about it.

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Paul does give some cultural things—the braiding of hair with gold and pearls. Women don't do that anymore.

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That must have been a thing that was done back then. But you know what? That wasn't the purpose. That wasn't even mentioned as a major issue, because that was mentioned in a whole list of things on how women can adorn themselves to be seen by men versus to be modest.

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That was what was in question there. It's the issue of the modesty. So as we look at this now, let us look at what he says.

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In verse 12, he says, I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man.

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Now, many people will say this is Paul, not Jesus. That argument has a very big problem.

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When you say this is Paul's feelings, Paul's instruction, not God's instruction, well, this is written in a letter of instruction, of commands from Paul to Timothy on how to instruct the church.

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So this is instructional on how things should be conducted in church. Notice I'm saying that, because now what are we dealing with?

47:20

We're dealing with a religious responsibility and activity. Therefore, because of that, we must deal with this as what religious rules would be.

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So this is not civil. This is in the realm of religious. As we look at this religious area, we see that he says that he doesn't permit it.

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So is it Paul doing it? Well, this is an instructional letter. Therefore, we have to remember that God wrote this.

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God is the author of all of scripture. And if you take my class on biblical hermeneutics, how to interpret the

47:58

Bible, you have us out to one of your churches, and we teach our Bible Interpretation Made Easy seminar.

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One of the things I'm going to talk about is that there's different genres or types of literature, and with each type of literature has rules.

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If you have a historical narrative, that is going to be 100 % accurate to what actually does happen.

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But it doesn't mean that God commends it or condemns it unless scripture says so.

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So there's things that happen. We don't know why they happened. We just know they did happen in a historical narrative.

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That's not the case with instructional literature. Instructional literature is purposed to be instructional, and this is instructional.

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So it is written by God, a command by an apostle to a pastor on how to conduct things in the church.

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Therefore, this does apply to us because it is Jesus saying it because he's

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God. The Holy Spirit wrote this, and he instructed

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Paul to write this. So this instruction comes from God, not just Paul.

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Paul may be the one to write it, but it doesn't mean that this is

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Paul's opinion because once you start doing that, you've left the sufficiency of scripture.

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You're allowing your culture to interpret scripture instead of looking at the way scripture should be interpreted, and it has always been interpreted by rules.

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Once you start violating those rules and jumping away from the rules of interpretation, you can make scripture say anything, and oh boy do the cults do that.

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Many people try to make the scripture say things it doesn't. We all know that. Maybe some of you think

49:42

I'm doing that. The question is, am I violating the rules of scripture? Because I'm pointing out where others are.

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So what we see here is he says, I do not permit a woman to teach. The word for teach is the idea of a general instruction.

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This is not the issue of preaching here. This is a general instruction, okay?

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It's from the word dedicate, and therefore this would include teaching, it would include preaching, it's just a general instruction, or exercise authority.

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Now this word for authority is a forceful authority. She has to have some control. Preaching, I always hear people say, preaching is authoritative.

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The issue I have is not with the authority with the woman's role, it's with the teaching. She can't instruct a man.

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She must remain quiet. Where? Where must she remain quiet? In church. These are instructions for church.

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It doesn't mean she has to remain absolutely silent, but what's the context?

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Teaching and exercising authority. So she should remain silent in those ways, okay?

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It doesn't mean she's submissive to all men, not saying that at all because the text doesn't say that. But again, we see a purpose clause that so many people want to ignore.

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They want to try to say that these women were being very loud and bolsterous in church, and Paul's telling them they have to stay quiet.

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Where does it say that in the text? It doesn't. People say, well, we study the history.

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Well, it is good to study history because sometimes that plays into things. You've already seen that in my evaluation of some of the texts.

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But in verse 13, Paul tells us why. He gives us the purpose clause. So he says,

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I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over man, rather she is to remain silent for.

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That's the purpose. Now we get the purpose for this instruction. For Adam was formed first, then

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Eve. Adam and Eve go all the way back to creation. This is the creation order. This gets us back to Genesis 1 through 3 with this headship issue.

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The reason for this instruction in the church is because God formed

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Adam first as the federal head. You want the proof that he's the federal head? Who ate of the fruit first?

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Eve. When did the curse of sin occur? When Eve ate of the fruit? No, when

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Adam ate of the fruit. That's when the curse took effect, and that is because of the headship issue.

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So for Adam was formed first, then Eve. That brings us to the creation order. Verse 14, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

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So again, we see Adam, and then it's the woman. There is a definite article for woman there.

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It's not just any woman. It's the woman who's the woman for Adam, Eve. This goes in the sin order.

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Again, this is far closer to us when Paul's writing this than to Adam and Eve.

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It's 2 ,000 years from us, 4 ,000 from Adam and Eve. This is based in the creation order, and this is based in the sin order.

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That's what God says is purpose for this instruction. This instruction has to do with the federal headship that God has ordained, that God has put in place.

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So God here forbids a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man in the church.

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Now, I understand that there's some people that feel that this headship issue should carry on, and therefore a man shouldn't work for women in the workplace.

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That may be a position you hold, but again, I don't know that the scripture supports that, but you can make the case that it seems to be the pattern.

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I agree. It does seem to be the pattern with everybody but maybe Deborah, and that becomes an issue.

53:48

And women giving instruction to men outside of the church, well, that seems to be an issue when

53:53

Jesus at the tomb instructs the women to go and instruct the disciples to do something.

53:59

And because of that, you have to say, okay, if the women can give instruction, then they must be able to give instruction, but not inside the church.

54:09

Notice the difference. Now, we look at 1 Corinthians 14, starting in verse 33.

54:17

For God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.

54:24

The women should keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted.

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That's what it says. They're not permitted to speak but should be in submission, as the law also says, for there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home.

54:50

For it is a shameful thing for a woman to speak in church.

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Notice again, this is dealing with church services, right? So, I want to point that out because he says that this is for all the churches.

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Now, they say that this is some cultural issue, but we see this twice in Scripture, once we have a purpose clause from Paul that tells us why it is, and that reason has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with headship.

55:16

It has everything to do with creation order, Adam formed first, then Eve, and the sin first, and then

55:22

Adam. That's what this is based in. Here, Paul says it's the law that you shouldn't do these things in church.

55:30

We would have to take more time to evaluate whether these things could be done outside of church, but this is what is in church.

55:36

So, can a woman, does God allow women to be in a role of teaching men in the church?

55:43

Well, I would say that these two verses make it very clear the answer is no. No, he doesn't.

55:49

Can a woman be pastor? Well, if she can't teach, she can't be a pastor. But more so, what you end up seeing in 1

55:55

Timothy 3, in verse 2, we end up seeing in the qualifications, the overseer must be, above reproach, the husband of one wife.

56:06

A woman cannot be the husband of one wife. Yes, I know that nowadays a man can say he's a woman, a woman says he's a man, it doesn't matter.

56:16

We're talking biological here in the text of Scripture. We not only see this here in 1

56:22

Timothy 3, but we also see this in Titus 1, verse 6, where it says if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children, well, how could this apply to a woman?

56:41

It can't. It doesn't. That's the thing we end up seeing. There is a case that could be made when you look at 1

56:50

Timothy 3, you end up seeing him giving instruction for how the men are to behave, the qualifications for pastor.

56:59

You see qualifications for a male deacon. Then you see qualifications for a female deacon. Again, they're servants, they're not leaders, and so you have them under the leadership of the overseers, the pastors, the leaders of the church.

57:14

They're carrying out the day -to -day operations that the pastors are overseeing. The pastors have qualifications that only a man can do, but not so with the deacons, and so that separation seems to make it quite clear.

57:30

So with all of this, let me ask the question, why does it matter? Why does it matter?

57:36

Well, I think it matters for some several very important reasons. One, allowing women into pulpits is and has always been seen throughout history as the stepping stone to allow all kinds of practices that God forbids, such as homosexuals at the pulpits.

57:58

This is always the first one. Why? Because it's the chipping away. It's the chipping away.

58:03

Why? Because what this does, when you come to the conclusion that when you look at these texts where it says

58:09

God forbids these things, and we say God allows these things, the only way that that is done is when we, instead of interpreting

58:19

Scripture by the rules, we interpret them by culture. And when we allow culture to interpret

58:24

Scripture instead of the rules that God has laid out, what we have now done is taken a step away from God's Word to man's

58:34

Word. And man's Word is faulty. God's Word is not. Our job as theologians, as Christians, is to study

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God's Word, to rightly divide it, to know what the authorial intent was. What did the mean by what he wrote?

58:51

That's what we must do. When we try to give the author a new meaning in a 21st century thinking and apply that to someone in a first century or even before that in Moses's time or the judge's time, you're doing things that are not the right way to interpret.

59:12

You're breaking the rules of interpretation. Furthermore, you're doing something else.

59:18

You're showing that you believe in a lack of sufficiencies of the Scriptures. You don't believe the

59:24

Scriptures are sufficient to answer the questions. We need culture to answer.

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We need critical race theory to answer. We need intersectionality to answer. No, God has spoken.

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We human beings do not need to add to God's Word. God has spoken on this issue.

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We do a disservice to our sisters when we allow them to stand up at a pulpit and preach to men or to claim to be a pastor.

59:59

It is a shameful thing to sin against God. And I know many are going to be upset with me because you know women who may be far better than me to communicate

01:00:12

God's Word. I don't dispute that. The issue is not what

01:00:17

I believe. The issue is what God calls sin. And once you make the step to say that women can be pastors, something

01:00:25

God calls a sin, then how can you say homosexuality is wrong? How can you say lying is wrong?

01:00:32

How can you say anything is wrong? If God has said that He forbids a woman to preach to men in church or to be pastors, then

01:00:44

God forbids it. And God will never call a woman to a position of pastor because He forbids such a thing.

01:00:52

So please, I plead with you sisters, those of you, because I am not saying you're not saved.

01:01:00

There are women, I believe, who have been deceived and they stand behind pulpits and they want to teach

01:01:08

God's Word to His children. They have all the good intentions, but please submit to God's Word, not to man's reasoning, not to our emotions.

01:01:21

I plead with you because there is nothing more important than obedience to God for you and for me.

01:01:30

You might be far more moral in so many other ways than me, but you preach at a pulpit as a woman, at church.

01:01:39

Well, guess what? It doesn't matter that you're more moral than me in every other way. It's still a sin.

01:01:46

So you're more moral, but it's still disobedience. Do you love your

01:01:51

Savior enough to submit to His Word, even if it hurts you, even if it goes against your emotions, even if it goes against culture, even if it means you're going to be looked at as being mean and so wrong to women and oppressing women?

01:02:12

I know that's how many people view me. I don't care because it's not about me.

01:02:20

I'm not holding this view because I think that I should have some authority over women or suppress them in any way.

01:02:30

Jesus did not suppress women, clearly. He lifted them up in a position that the Jews of the time did not.

01:02:37

But He didn't say they can be pastors and preach at pulpits in a church services, did they?

01:02:44

No. He says He forbids that. So we must submit to Scripture.

01:02:50

That's why this is so important. It's so important because the sufficiency of the

01:02:56

Scriptures are at stake. I really hope that this was clear.

01:03:02

I hope that you see that this is not something that is just some man's opinion of women trying to oppress them.

01:03:10

No. This is what Scripture says, so I plead that people would submit and be obedient to God.

01:03:17

Not to me. You're not submitting to me. You're submitting to God and His Word.

01:03:24

That's who we must be obedient to. And so that's my plea for you if you're holding to the position that women can hold to a position of pastor or preacher.

01:03:39

Does God forbid a woman to be a pastor and a preacher in a church service?

01:03:45

Absolutely. The Scripture is clear. It's not a cultural issue. It's a creation issue.

01:03:52

I would plead with you that you may turn from believing the anything else.

01:04:00

I know this is a message that a lot don't like, but may you think about what

01:04:05

I've said. Because it is an important issue because so many are being led astray by the falsehood of the culture that only wants to use this as a stepping stone to undermine all of Christianity as best it can.

01:04:24

Don't be a tool of the enemy. Stand up for God's Word regardless of how that might make others look at you, how it may make you feel, or even if it means you have to quit your position in a church.

01:04:46

Until next week, may you strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.

01:04:54

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