Complementarianism vs Egalitarianism

Introduction to Church Life, Reading Assignment, and the Question of Gender Roles

Good evening, everyone. We are continuing on with our introduction to church life and ministry. This is class four, which means this is the halfway point of the class. We are at the halfway point, and tonight's agenda is very simple.

We are going to recap our previous lesson and our reading assignment. You all had the responsibility to read chapter four in the book. So, we are going to spend the lion's share of our time tonight on number two, which is discussing the difference between complementarianism and egalitarianism.

If you are not familiar with those terms, those are actually not terms I used in the book, so you'll want to be, we'll define them for you. The reason why I didn't use them in the book is not because they weren't around, but just because they have become, at least in my estimation, have become more common now than even they were when I was writing the book.

But they've been around for a long time. But you'll hear them being used a lot more now, at least I am. And then we're going to, number three just says examine relevant passages. We're actually going to look at some scripture tonight and go all the way to the original languages and talk about what it means and how to define the terms.

And so, I'm going to put a little bit up on the board for you guys to see. And then the last thing, after our break, is we're going to discuss the confusion of gender roles. And that sort of goes along with the whole lesson.

So this whole night tonight is on the subject of gender and the local church. So let's begin by recapping last week. Last week we looked at the offices in the local church. The offices, the only two offices that we are given explicit requirements for or explicit explanations of what you have to have or be able to do to do these things is the office of elder and deacon.

Somebody's about to knock on the door, I think. Boy. Wow. All right. Not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but I can see through a window. Shadow. Well, I saw him walk, his head walked by. Come on in, gentlemen.

So last week we talked about the elders and deacons, and then we talked about missionaries, both local and foreign. And we discussed other needed positions in the church. And is there any questions about last week?

Anything you went home and mulled over and you needed to ask a question about? Good. All right. All right. Well, let's now very quickly recap your reading assignment. You only had one chapter this week, which should be fairly easy enough for you guys to be able to get through.

And the question that this chapter asked was, does the Bible distinguish between the roles of men and women in the church? And tonight's lesson is going to center around the information contained in that chapter.

So I'm going to ask the question, are there any questions? But just know this, you may ask a question and I say, hold your question, because we may be going over it. So are there any questions that you got from the reading in this week's assignment?

Okay. Okay. Nothing else, though? No one else has any questions? Okay. Here's one thing, though, I want to, before we even move into the lesson, many of us automatically have an opinion on this subject.

Whether that opinion is biblically informed or not is yet to be seen, but most people have an opinion. Whether it's, like I said, it can be informed by where we grew up, by our, the way we were taught at home.

You know, there's all kinds of things that can inform our understanding of this particular subject. In fact, I'll give you a history story about that. There was a time in this church where there were female elders.

Now, this is, we're talking many years ago before I was ever the pastor here. But one of the ladies who was an elder, when she found out that I did not believe in female eldership, she told me, well, the only reason you believe that is because that's what your mother taught you, speaking actually of my stepmother.

And I said, no, I believe my position is biblically informed. But there is some truth to a lot of people just have opinions that they were brought up with and they don't have a biblically informed opinion.

So my hope tonight is that if you don't have a biblically informed opinion, you will when we leave. That we don't simply just take for granted whatever it is the church we grew up in. Because again, if you came from a Methodist church or if you came from an Episcopal church, then those churches affirmed female elders and deacons.

This church used to be part of the Disciples of Christ, which was a very liberal denomination theologically and biblically. And they affirmed female deacons pretty much across the board, or female elders rather.

So the idea that you might have grown up in that is certainly not beyond the pale because that's what I grew up in. And Bobby, of course, grew up in this church as well. So we had an opportunity to see it firsthand.

In fact, I'll tell you a secret, which is now going to be online, so there's no secret to it. My ordination certificate is signed by a lady because she was still an elder when I became ordained. No, it's not in all in void.

It's still my ordination certificate, but it's an interesting piece of history. It's a bit, huh? Yeah, certainly. Yeah. Yeah, it begins certainly an interesting conversation. So tonight we're going to discuss this subject, gender roles and the church, and we're going to look at complementarianism versus egalitarianism, and this is not just an opportunity to throw out big words, even though I do tend to like big words because I enjoy the English language and taking it apart.

Those aren't big words. Those aren't big words. Yeah, it barely fits on the screen there. And so I'm going to give you the definitions of both very quickly, just back and forth. Well, I'll give you both the complementarian position in simple terms.

Before I read this in simple terms, this is the position that would see a distinction between men and women's roles in the church, that men and women are equal spiritually, but their roles are different and they are meant to complement each other, not exactly have the same roles.

So the idea of complement means to complete and to fulfill a role that is not the same. And we would think of Adam and Eve. When Eve was created, she was created not as Adam's mirror, but as his helper, as his counterpart, but not the exact same.

So the complementarian position, I'll read it to you now. The theological view that although men and women are created equal in their being and personhood, they are created to complement. And by the way, the word complement you'll notice is spelled not like you normally think of complement with an I, where if I said, you know, Jackie, your blouse looks nice or something.

That's a complement. That's saying something nice to someone. Complement with an E in the middle is to complete. That's the concept. So understand the distinction there. And they are created to complement each other via different roles and responsibilities as manifested in marriage, family life, religious leadership, and elsewhere.

So complementarianism would say that the roles of men and women are not just distinguishable within the church, but distinguishable even within the home and even the greater society, that there are different roles for men and women.

Let me throw this out there right now. We don't have to debate it, but just give you an example of how this would fit. There was a long time where we did not allow women in combat because we understood a distinction between men and women on the battlefield.

Women could serve, but they would serve in a role that was complementary to the men who were in battle. And it's only recently that those things have changed, and we've been willing. And even today, I think it's still this way, women are not subject to the same level of draft as men.

Men can be brought into the selective service, and women are not yet. There's all kinds of arguments that they should be. I disagree, but that's another conversation for another time. But the point is complementarianism is not just the church.

It sees men and women as different roles in the world as well. Remember I said there were three spheres of authority, the home, the church, and the state, that each of those would see a different relationship between men and women.

I'll read the rest of it. Complementarianism holds that God has created men and women equal in their essential dignity and human personhood, but different in complementary in function with male headship.

That's something we're going to talk about in a little while. Male headship in the home and in the church. And that's quoted from Theopedia. Again, I recommend Theopedia as a useful resource. All right, so that's complementarianism.

That's the position, and I will tip my hand. Of course, you probably already know this. That is the position I hold. That is the position our church teaches. That is the position I will support. However, in all fairness, I will try tonight to explain the opposite position in a fair way, not to simply demean or diminish, but to say, here are people that hold a different position.

I certainly disagree with this position, but I want to be fair to their position. So their position would be called egalitarianism, and here is what this says. The theological view that not only are all people equal before God in their personhood, but there are no gender-based limitations of what functions or roles each can fulfill in the home, the church, and society.

It is sometimes referred to as biblical equality. The term egalitarian is derived from the French word egal, meaning equal. Thus, it involves affirming, promoting, or believing in equal rights for all people.

It is the hermeneutical hypothesis based on interpretations of scripture that men and women are designed by their creator to have no gender-based limitations of what functions or roles each can fulfill in the home, the church, and the society.

Notice it's defined the same way. It's the home, the church, and the society. It has no distinctions. Now, in many ways, this is a relatively recent argument, because it really is not something we see in most of church history, this argument.

It's biblical. Huh? It's not biblical. Well, we'll get to that, and I agree, but we'll get to that. My point is it's also not historical. It's recent, because it follows the trends of history, and the trend of history is to move towards equality, which is actually not equality, but if you watch the trend of history, it is an erasure of gender distinctions.

That's where we are. We're no longer fighting for equality. We're fighting for an erasing of gender distinctions. We're going to talk about that later as well. That's really after the break. We're going to talk about how the world is not only confusing the distinction between the gender, but it's trying to erase it.

Ross, you had something to say? Yes. I'm listening. I think God sees us as we are, and who we are, even in our gender, is part of who we are, so I don't think that we'll be stripped of that in the sense of...

Now, moving again, we're in class. I have to be careful how I say things, but the new heaven and the new earth, we will have a relationship, men and women, that is not like now. The Bible says we're neither married.

We won't marry or be given in marriage in the new heaven, so the gender distinctions that exist now, I don't know, past judgment, but I know that at judgment we are who we are, so I can't see us... But I don't think that that necessarily is going to play a part unless we have in some way violated who we are.

So, let's say a person has denied what God made them. Okay. Now, another hand. Okay. Well, we're going to talk about later or not whether or not a woman can be a deacon. You might say an elder. Okay. I think that, again, I believe that a woman in the pulpit is outside of the will of God, and they're going to...

Yeah, and that... I mean that... Who said who? Was that... That should not surprise you. Huh? Okay. Yeah, I believe there's fully outside the will of God, how that's going to look on judgment day, how that's going to play out on judgment day, I don't know, but I certainly don't think that's where they should be.

Yes, sir. I know all scripture is in Scripture. Yes, sure.

But what does it mean when it says God is not a respecter of persons? But what does it mean? When I ask you what it means, you can't just repeat what it says. You got to tell me what it means. Okay. The Bible says God is not a respecter of persons, which means God does not choose based on anything that is in us.

God chooses according to His own counsel and will. So God doesn't choose you because you're prudy and you... He didn't choose because you're ugly. No offense, you're not. But I'm saying God doesn't choose like we do.

The phrase God is not a respecter of persons doesn't mean God doesn't make choices. It simply means God doesn't make choices based upon our... As it says with Jacob and Esau, I chose them before they were born to demonstrate the purpose of election.

That it was before they had done anything good or evil that my purpose in election might stand. See, when we make choices, we make choices based upon biases. You're black, you're white, you're ugly, you're not, whatever.

I didn't point at anybody. But we make choices all the time based on those things. That's not the way God chooses. So that's a very important... When people say God is not a respecter of persons, sometimes people think that means God doesn't choose people.

But that's not the case. It just means God doesn't choose the way we do. God is not a respecter. God's not going to choose the president because he's the president or choose somebody because they're rich or choose somebody because of whatever.

God chooses according to his own will. Or because of their gender. Yeah, he's certainly not going to choose somebody because of their gender. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yep. And good connection.

Absolutely. All right. So moving on to the next thing, because now that we've defined the two positions, I want to make something very clear. Often the question of complementarian versus egalitarian is reduced to this simple question.

Can a woman be an elder or a pastor? We've already sort of thrown that out. But there is more to it than that. If the question of tonight was, Can a woman be a pastor? I would just say, No, let's go home early.

Go down to McDonald's and have a Big Mac. Because we'd be done too quickly. That's not the only answer that we're seeking to give tonight. What we are seeking to answer with the question of complementarianism versus egalitarianism is the question of, Why is there a distinction?

And what does the distinction apply to? Because it's not just to the pastor and the elder of the church. But as I said, it has application throughout the church, within the home, and I would say even in the greater societal role.

So, moving on. Complementarianism is about recognizing the concept of headship. The Greek word for the head is the word kephalae. And in its literal sense, it means a physical head. When somebody got their head cut off, when they were decapitated, their kephalae was removed.

It was the word used in capital punishment. Kephalae, to have your head removed. In its figurative sense, the word means master or lord. Like if you say, Jesus is the head of the church. He's the master.

He's the lord of the church, right? So, in a physical sense, it's head. And in its literal sense, it's head. In its figurative sense, it's master or lord. And this begins, again, with recognizing Christ as the head of the church.

But it also recognizes Adam as the head of the human race. Adam had a very specific role in humanity. And it wasn't just that he was the father of us all, because he is the father of us all. He is the ancestor of every man and woman.

But he was also the head, not just the source, which we're going to talk about in a minute, because head can mean source. But he was also the head in responsibility. We call this federal headship. You guys have heard me talk about federal headship before.

What does federal mean? Nope, nope. Federal means representative. Think about our government, right? We vote for people to represent us in the government. That's what we call it. But that's what we're supposed to do, right?

We're supposed to vote so that our senators will go and represent our opinions and our desires before Congress and before the Senate and all those things, our congressmen, our senators. That's the form of federal or representative government.

Adam, when he was acting as the first human being, he was not just acting on his own, but he was acting as the head, the representative of all of us. And I've heard people say, well, I didn't vote for Adam.

Well, God didn't ask you to. God doesn't need your vote, and he doesn't require your vote. God chose the absolute best representative for humanity. And you say, but he messed up. Yeah? Well, tell me you wouldn't have.

And there's why he's your best representative, is he represents us perfectly. He's the one God chose. And headship, in that sense, is not just about authority, but it is about responsibility. When Adam sinned, he sinned on behalf of all of his children.

He represented us in his failure. And therefore, complementarianism sees the difference between Adam. By the way, Adam and Eve both sinned. In fact, Eve sinned first by taking of the fruit of the tree, eating, and then giving to her husband.

One might even claim it was her fault. That's certainly what Adam claimed. Huh? Well, that's right. And we're going to get there. But the point is, one could make the argument, at least tacitly, that she bears more responsibility because she was the one who was deceived or whatever.

But the text never does that. If you go through the biblical text, what does it always say? Adam. We sinned in Adam. Adam was the representative. Adam was the head. Adam was the one with the responsibility.

That's why they call Christ the second Adam. That's right.

He did what the first Adam couldn't do. So the point in all this is complementarianism is based not just on whether or not somebody's a pastor. It's based on an understanding of the role of man and woman as it was in the created order.

God gave Adam a specific role in the created order that was different than Eve. And that role has not been abrogated, has not been shifted or changed. The role of the man as head continues. That one statement would get me disinvited from many a barbecue.

And certainly would. Then I get to stay home and I'm happy. Yeah, I like that. But, you know, that one statement that God placed into the man a role of authority and responsibility that he did not place in the woman is very, very unpopular, but is also very biblical, at least from my opinion.

Again, that's the complementarianism is about recognizing headship, recognizing both authority and responsibility. Now let's look at egalitarianism. Egalitarianism does not deny that the word headship is there.

I mean, they can't deny the scripture, which says husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church, you know, and that he's the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. The Bible clearly says these things.

You use that language. But they say, but headship, according to the egalitarians, does not mean authority, but simply means the source of something. Like you say, the head of a river is the source of that.

You know, like a spring is at the head of the river and that gives the source. Adam was the head of the human race. Therefore, he was the source of the human race. And so they interpret headship not in view of authority and responsibility, but they interpret it in view of simply being the source of something.

And it removes, in many ways, the idea of authority and responsibility. This position advocates for the full inclusion of women in church leadership and for mutuality in marriage. I spent a little time in my preparation for this class reading some of the arguments for this position.

And one of the things I kept coming across was the idea of co-leadership in marriage. That there is no authority exercised by the man in the marriage, but that the man and woman are co-leaders in the marriage.

And neither one nor the other has any effectual authority. They call that co-leadership. The Junia Project is a group which seeks to promote this understanding, interpreting Romans 16, 7 as a woman apostle.

There's a woman there named Junia, and they interpret her to be a female apostle. And they even have, if you go to the website, the Junia Project, they even have a place that you can go on the website to find an egalitarian church in your area.

So you can put in your zip code, put in your city, and you can find an egalitarian church in your area. Well, that's there because that's what they're about. I didn't look. But I did do this. I did get a quote from them.

This is a rather long quote. I know you won't be able to read it probably from where you are. But again, you'll get the notes. Everybody got the notes last week, right? And they're on the website, too.

If you don't get them, you can always go to sgfcjacks .org slash academy. And the notes are there. If you need them. This is what the Junia Project says. Listen closely to this. Again, I am not putting words in their mouth.

This is literally just cut and paste from their website. Throughout church history, the, quote, Christ as head of the church, quote, metaphor has been misinterpreted, misunderstood, and misapplied. As we look to Jesus as our model for headship, do we see Jesus ever having final say in making decisions?

I just had to stop. Because I'm, you know, I just imagine being in class. I've been in many classes where I was where you are sitting in class. And if I were in a class and there were a person standing where I'm standing and they said this, I'm quoting someone else.

But if they said that, I would just be, yeah, I mean, I would break my own arm, throwing my hand up and say, of course, there are times when Jesus makes an authoritative proclamation based on himself being the head.

We'll get to those in a minute. But just the just the question of was there ever a time do we see Jesus having final say in making decisions? All the time. So the answer to that is yes. But going on, it says, does Jesus ever pull out a trump card and impose his will or make people comply?

Now, that is a bit of a different question. You could debate back and forth whether Jesus ever forced anyone to comply in that regard. But he did say to his apostles, if you love me, you'll you'll keep my commandments, you do what I tell you to do.

So there is a certain sense in which he said, I'm the head. But moving on, for example, does Jesus ever impose his desire for a person to avoid sin, repent, pray, serve at church, tithe or live in a certain way?

Yeah, he's going to do that at judgment. And he's going to really impose his will hard. Huh? Yeah, exactly. He imposed his will. I mean, he was whapping them with a whip and throwing their tables over.

Yeah, he has authority and he's making that. So this is the last sentence on the board. For that reason, we do not agree that marriage, excuse me, we do not agree with marriage views where the husband has final say in making decisions or figuratively speaking, has a male gender trump card, end quote.

So basically what they've done is they've neutered Christ. I mean, haven't they? And they've said Christ does not exercise any sense of authority. And therefore, no man should ever exercise any sense of authority because Christ was not really exercising any authority in his ministry.

Therefore, no man should exercise authority. It's again, I'm trying to be fair. Thank you. But golly, I mean. Yeah. And here's the thing. What was the disciples favorite title for Jesus? Lord, Lord, which means you in charge, you to Lord.

I mean, where are we in the Passover? I'll go untie that. Yeah, Lord. Exactly. So my question then to respond to the Junia website, did Jesus ever make commands as Lord head of the church? Yeah. Like all the time.

That's my answer. He did it all the time. He literally said, if you love me, you keep my commandments. He commanded people to repent, to follow him, go and sin no more. These are these are in the imperative.

By the way, if you're just for linguistics, there's imperative and indicative. Indicative is what is imperative is what should be or what must be. So if I say you're sitting there, that's an indicative.

But if I say sit down, that's an imperative. And I'm picking on you, but I don't mean to. The point is, there's a difference. And Christ certainly told people to do things. And it wasn't optional. It wasn't do this, maybe it was do this and live.

Meaning if you don't do it, you're going to forfeit eternal life. I mean, this is this is it. So just the whole concept that they're trying to get to, to me, just comes across as very superficial, very unwilling to be honest with the text and finding things that are just not there.

Complementarianism affirms the role of male headship within the church and family. Christ is the ultimate head of the church and the home. Men in the role of elders function as shepherds or overseers in the local church.

Men in the role of fathers and husbands function as shepherds or overseers in the home. And while women should never be mistreated or discounted in either place, they do not equally share in authority or responsibility.

That's the difference between complementarianism and egalitarianism is while they would never be mistreated, they do not share in the same positions of authority or responsibility. Now, one of the things that I have come in to contact with over the years, because I've held this position for a long time, I've held this position to the point of of literal people shouting at me because of this.

This is not I'm not exaggerating. I mean, people just so upset about the teaching on this position. Got emails, got a very, very ugly letter years ago about it. Handwritten letter that I was an awful person and that I had done damage to women and things like that.

So it's very sexist, you know, hater of women, all these things, which are completely unfair, untrue. But these are so people take this seriously. But I do want to address the what ifs, because this is a question that often comes up, even in the mind of people who take a complementarian position, people will have the what if scenario.

And here are some of the what ifs. What if the man is an unbeliever? What if the man is an unfit leader? What if the man abandons his duty to lead? These are three very common questions. But as you notice in the bottom I put there, these tend to apply in the home more than the church.

And they demonstrated why having a relationship with the local church is so vital, because none of those three apply in the church. Because if a man's an unbeliever, he's not going to be an elder. If a man's an unfit leader, he's not going to remain an elder.

And if he's abandoning his duty, he's not going to remain an elder. So none of these really apply within the church. But I hear these all the time in the home. And again, as I said, this applies more than just to the church.

And the question, well, what if my husband is an unbeliever? What does Peter say to the women who are married to unbelievers? I'm sorry, go ahead. Love them and to be a godly example to them, right? But not to usurp their authority.

To submit and to humbly submit to them. Now, here's the question people say, well, what if he's telling me to do something sinful? Well, the same rules apply as would apply to the government. We're told to submit to the government, but the government commands us to do something that's sinful.

Then we don't have to comply. And so if a woman came to me, she says, my husband is wanting me to do something that is violating my Christian conscience. I would say in that sense, you lovingly submit in every area, but not that one.

And that's the same way if a person came and said, the government's telling me I can't come to church. Well, you come to church and take the consequences, but you come to church. And the same thing would apply if a man was telling his wife not to come to church.

But there is a little nuance there. If I would say this, if a woman came to me, she said, my husband doesn't want me to come to church. There may be a conversation about what's the situation and what's going on.

And there may be a time where she submits to that for a season out of love and respect for him, but not perpetually. Again, I'm just trying to be fair. There would be a conversation. You can't perpetually forsake the assembly, but maybe you come on Wednesday nights.

Maybe he wants you to be with him on Sunday morning, whatever. Let's figure out a way to make this work because we don't want it to end in divorce. That's the goal. We don't want this to end in divorce if it doesn't have to.

So as a pastor, honestly, I've dealt with many of these things. And a lot of times we've had members here whose wives or husbands weren't believers. And I have to help them try to stay in their marriage, not just abandon their fidelity to their marriage, even though their husband or wife isn't a believer.

So there's things that we have to discuss and work that out. But if he said, no, you can't worship Jesus. Yeah, well, you can't tell me not to do that because Christ is the head over you. You're the head in the home, but he's the head over the world, right?

So if the man is an unbeliever, right away, the first thing is that it wouldn't automatically be that you would disrespect him, right? He still has a position in the home. What if he's an unfit leader?

This one is a little trickier because there are times when there might be a man who is dangerous. Maybe he's a drunkard or a swindler or an addict of some kind, and there's some danger in being under his authority.

Or maybe he's mentally unfit, and you have to deal with that. So there are times where you have to... This is why I said this at the end. This demonstrates why having a relationship with the local church is vital.

Because if a woman is married to a man who's unfit or an unbeliever or abandons his duty, the church's responsibility is to come around her and love her in her condition, and to be that for her which she doesn't have at home.

That make sense? Right? He's not going to pray with her. Well, then we pray with her. He's not going to lead her in devotions. Well, we women in the church gather with her and help her to grow, right?

This is all what the church is supposed to do. But it doesn't mean that he doesn't have a position. Here's the thing, and it goes back to what you talked about, Ross. One day he's going to be judged. One day he's going to face God.

I'm going to tell you guys, if you're married, if you have a wife, one day you are going to face God. And one of the things you're going to give to God is an account for how you husbanded your bride. The word husband, to care for.

Husbandman, somebody who cares for that person. Who takes care of them, right? And you're going to be responsible for that. So, yes, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah, I don't marry believers to unbelievers. In fact, I've got a form that I give for people who want to be married.

And it's got all the rules for me to participate. These are the things that people have to be willing to do. One, if you're living together, you've got to stop if I'm going to participate. If you're living in sin, you've got to repent for me to participate.

And this is the thing. And if one of you is a believer and one's not, then I'm not going to participate because I can't affirm that. But I have done weddings for two unbelievers because they're in the same spiritual condition.

And I use it as an opportunity to share the gospel with them and share the gospel with everybody who's at the wedding. But yeah, generally what we see is two unbelievers and then one of them gets saved.

You guys ever see the movie about Lee Strobel? Yeah. Remember, the whole movie is predicated on the fact that his wife got saved and he wanted to talk her out of it. And he spent all that time trying to talk her out.

And she loved him and remained in the home and through it all, prayed for him and with the church, prayed for him. And God brought him to faith. Doesn't always happen that way. Sometimes somebody comes to faith and the other person bolts.

I've seen that happen. Seeing the person come to faith, they love Jesus. And the other person just, they're gone. And that's what the local church is. The local church would be there for that person, love that person, encourage that person in their now single and potentially needy position because maybe now they're without part of their income or whatever.

All those things. So when people say, well, what if this? What if that? I say, there's a lot of bad situations and there's a lot of nuances and conversations that we would have. But it doesn't violate the principle of male headship, doesn't violate the principles of submission in the home.

We just have to look at each situation as, well, what does this look like in this home? And I will say this, what it looks like in my home may look different than in somebody else's home. And what I mean by that is my wife and I have a wonderful relationship.

There's no issues. I can honestly say I have no issues with her as far as submission and respect and love. And she's very supportive of me and I try to be a good shepherd to her. And that's probably the greatest joy of my life is my wife.