Role of Women in the Church

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

Thank you.

I'm Dylan Hampton, and with me are.

Michael Durham,.

David Kassin,.

And Andrew Hudson.

This week we have the privilege of one of our listeners sitting right next to us to ask his question that he sent in about a previous episode that we had put out a few weeks ago. David, do you mind asking your question?

No, not at all. Thanks for having me on. So a few episodes ago, we had addressed a question regarding should older women baptize younger women as spiritual mothers in the congregation? And we came to the, or you came to the conclusions that because of right order and issues of authority actually in a church service, that that was not biblical, was not a good idea, that it actually could be a violation of good order and discipline.

So the follow-up question was, does the Bible say anything about proper delegated authority to women to teach other women? What does the Bible have to say about the responsibilities that older women have in our church and in the body?

Older Women Teaching Younger Women in Titus 2

Good question. So we're going to turn our attention to Titus in Titus chapter two to give us some solid instruction. We're gonna begin in Titus two verse one. But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine, that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience.

The older women, likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things, that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet,.

Chaste,.

Homemakers,.

Good,.

Obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober minded in all things, showing yourself to be a pattern of good works in doctrine, showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you.

Exhort bond servants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well-pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.

So Paul is giving instructions to Titus, and he is saying, this is some of what you need to be concentrating on as you shepherd and pastor on the island of Crete. And Paul wants him to establish the churches.

He wants the churches to be healthy and to be strong. He wants to see a robust front of the kingdom of Christ there on that island. And that is going to be a challenge. As he says earlier in chapter one, verse 12, just a few verses earlier, one of them, a prophet of their own said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

Concerning which the very next thing Paul says is, this testimony is true. So he says, there's truth to this characterization. And so he says, therefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith.

So he says, you need to curtail the Cretan culture. This culture is not sacrosanct. The way that they live on this island is not good. You need to get in front of that and head them off and turn them into the direction of Christ.

Now, when he says, rebuke them sharply that they be sound in the faith, and that's going to be a parallel to what he says a little bit later on, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine. Sound doctrine is gonna be the basis for good deeds.

Sound doctrine is gonna be the basis for walking in righteousness, walking after the pattern of Christ. So he's telling Titus, you've got to preach sound doctrine. You need to rebuke them, get in front of them, stop them from heading off into these Cretan ways.

And so he has things to say specifically about older men, older women, younger women, younger men, and bond slaves. So this is not too far dissimilar from the instructions that we find in Colossians and Ephesians when he talks to husbands and wives and parents and children and slaves in those contexts as well.

It's not the only place this is addressed.

Exactly, exactly. And we have particular instructions to older women and they are not, you know, again, they're not too dissimilar from what he says to the other individuals. And even Titus, he says some of these same things, but that the older women are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things.

So there is a good role, a Christ-honoring effective role that the older women are to have. And if they're going to do well in this role, then they need to be reverent and careful with what kind of words come out of their mouth, what kind of topics that they talk about.

And they are not to be given to much wine.

So they're not gonna,.

They don't need to be addicted to anything or in dissimulation. But when he says teachers of good things, what will they be teaching? What are the good things that he has in mind? Well, given that, again, they live on the island of Crete and they have Cretan culture, what they're going to be teaching is not the bad things of Cretan culture, but the good things of Christ's culture.

And what does Jesus Christ want who is the image of the invisible God? What does he want as he is saving men and women? What does he want as he's redeeming and making a new creation? What does he want?

Well, they are to teach good things. Like what? Verse four, Titus 2 .4. That they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet,.

Chaste,.

Homemakers,.

Good,.

Obedient to their own husbands.

Why?

That the word of God may not be blasphemed. And so these are good things. This is a good aim. And if this is not happening in a church, then the church is not going to be healthy. Families are going to be struggling, suffering.

There's going to be difficulty. Now, the older men need to adhere to the instructions given to them in this text. The younger men need to adhere to the instructions given to them in this text. The relationships, the hierarchical relationships that we would still experience today in terms of those who are masters and those who are working for them, those who have the means of production and those who are simply trying to earn a paycheck.

Okay, all of these things are still important and relevant to our lives as Christians. But let's hone in here. What do you all see? What kind of teaching should be going on? And what kind of impact will this make?

Well, you'd actually said it, that the right doctrine produces right actions. It leads to the right deeds. These are in contrast to the creed and culture of laziness and drunkenness is actually addressed actually here in Titus 2.

But the idea is that you have a productive, right-ordered society where people do have their roles, but people are just that being productive, building homes, building culture, building society, as opposed to what was happening around them where you had decadence and things falling apart.

So Christ culture builds. And the contrast there in creed was that it would just degenerate and creates pain and misery.

There's a hierarchy here to this type of teaching too where it's generational. I assume that in creed, every man did what he sought was right in his own eyes. And here we have Paul exhorting Timothy and the elders to teach young men.

He has them exhorting the elder women to teach the younger women. So it's always a level of submission to the one whom you have been placed underneath. He's always exhorting elders to submit themselves to Christ as well.

And so it's always a hierarchical type of teaching as well. And that leads to generational change. Whereas people who are their own judge, that has generational effects as well.

You said submission. So you have younger women actually submitting to the authority of older women. So that would say that these older women actually have a delegated authority.

And they were teaching. What are they to teach? To teach good things, right? Not bad things, not to set forth a pattern or some sort of a promotion of bad things, which obviously we could list by contrast to what Paul says are good things.

But when it comes down to it, what if these older women, what if they say, well, this isn't the way that I was raised. This isn't what happened in my household. I don't have any context for this. That's okay.

Again, the basis on which you are teaching the younger women is not your experience, but good doctrine, sound doctrine. And this is why Paul is saying to Titus, get in front of this Cretan culture and stop it.

Rebuke them sharply, turn them around because they need good doctrine and things have got to change. Now, older women are gonna have some things that they need to say to younger women that Titus is not going to be able to say to them as well.

But he is going to be able to instruct the men who are to lead their wives in these things. And Titus is gonna be saying these things to the church. Now, what does it look like? What does it look like for a young woman to be discreet, to love her husband, to love her children?

What does it mean for her to be discreet, to be chaste, to be a homemaker, to be good, to be obedient to her own husband? What does that mean? Okay, well, that needs to be fleshed out. That needs to be taught.

That needs to be modeled. That needs to be discussed. And who's supposed to be teaching those good things to the younger women? The older women are. So in that sense, yes, the older women are going to have a teaching authority that they are entrusted with this stewardship to bless the younger women and give them instructions in these things.

So I think there's a lot here. I think there is vast interest here.

I think it's so expansive that this is the scripture warrant for a women's ministry, like a women's ministry proper. This is exactly what it should look like. It should be older women coming together with younger women doing these things.

In fact, around the household, we talk about how more things are caught than taught. This is an opportunity for these good things, which are being taught, to also be caught.

Yes, one of the observations that was made by Michael Green in his book about evangelism in the early church was how the gospel spread so often through the women who came to Christ, and that they would often, in these situations, they had a kind of village life in which they would all be down at the river together doing their laundry, or they would all be at the well together getting the water for the day, at the beginning of the day or the end of the day.

There was a constant encountering of one another. And through this, yes, you're right, things were getting caught as much as they were being taught. And there's opportunity here in this context where in the local church, the older women are to be admonishing, teaching the younger women, modeling things, showing them example.

Younger woman is perhaps complaining about her husband and being impatient with her children as she is very sloppily, lazily taking care of the laundry that day. And what is the responsibility of the older woman?

Right?

Come alongside. Admonish, teach, encourage, direct, right? That is the opportunity here. That's just a hypothetical scenario, and it doesn't have to be a negative scenario. Consider a young mother who is at her limits and doing everything she possibly can and can't understand and see what the good is, right?

Again, the role of the older woman to come alongside, show the younger woman the value of what's happening and encourage her in what she is doing.

Those older women are who are going to see that because my wife is fond of saying that I have the emotional depth of a puddle. I mean, sometimes I just don't see things unless they're right on the surface.

And she is very intuitive. She sees things that I don't. Older women are going to notice as long as they're looking for it. That means, older women, you have to be involved. You have to be observant. You have to be looking for these areas where you can help because you are gonna notice when this young mother or this young wife or this young single gal is having a rough time because you've been there.

You've seen that. You can help walk them out of it or come alongside them and walk with them through that and show them the way through. That's an area where you can serve that I, as a man, as a middle-aged man, I'm just not equipped for it.

So in the instructions that are given, you have a focus. A young woman is to love her husband and she is to love her children. Now, the older women are to admonish the young woman to do this. What does that tell us?

It goes against the grain to make this observation, but it does not come intuitively. It is not automatic. There is a proclivity. There is an instinct, but that doesn't mean that that is exactly what it's supposed to look like, right?

So what does it mean to love a husband? The older woman is to admonish the young woman what that means. The young woman is to love her children, okay? Well, in what way? What does that look like? The older women are to admonish them to do that in a good way, in a good way.

In this, under this heading of loving husbands and loving children, the young women are to be discreet and chaste, okay? So there's gonna be connections between this and loving a husband. And they're to be homemakers, those who keep a house, those, and again, if you wanna look at how expansive that can become, you read Proverbs 31, okay?

This is going to be a small but fledgling economy.

For sure.

There is a lot that can happen there, and it can be very expansive, but good. I love the broadness of this term, even in its simplicity. Teach them, you know, good. And so one of these things that happen is that when older women and younger women get together, they like to share all kinds of things with each other about how to do good, how to make things that are good, how to spread things that are good.

And this is a proper kind of ministry. Obedient to their own husbands. And it's very clear, to their own husbands, okay? Not to somebody else, but to their own husbands. Now, often this is looked at somewhat negative, given our current culture of despising marriage, and despising roles, and despising hierarchy,.

And so on and so forth.

Paul acknowledges this in other places. There is a propensity for women to become obedient to others, to put herself under the authority of someone else. For instance, Eve put herself under the authority of the teaching ministry of Satan, right?

That's a problem. But to teach women to be obedient, or to be submissive to their own husbands, women who are subjected to, and subjecting themselves to those who are not their husbands, all right, are putting themselves under the lordship and authority of dozens of other authorities.

How many other masters, right?

Exactly. And the result is disastrous. It's incredibly enslaving. In the name of trying to go and try to find freedom, I'm gonna listen to all these others, rather than my own husband. And it's actually very enslaving and legalistic.

And then the outcome, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. So what an important role older women have, and younger women have in the church, that they would be informed by sound doctrine, and admonishing, and encouraging, and exhorting these things, so that in the life of the church, as the pillar and ground of the truth, and the light of the world, and the salt of the earth, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

There is a lot to be taught here. There is a lot of opportunity here. And it should be encouraged and promoted in the church.

Well, that's why teaching doctrine is so important. You have Paul teaching Titus. Titus saying, men, teach your families. But these women, these older women, have to have solid knowledge themselves. That's why we encourage women to read the Bible for themselves and learn.

You're not just getting it in snippets. That's a caricature. It's no. We need older women to know the Bible for themselves, so that they can teach as well. So they can teach younger women, younger women can teach their children, and so forth.

That's how that generational doctrine is passed down. So that what? The word of God may not be blasphemed. So, yes, we want our women educated. Yes, we want them literate. Yes, we want them being able to teach, so that then they can also spot unsound doctrine.

The word of God may not be blasphemed. That's an importance for women to be able to do that, if they're gonna properly teach young women.

You have the bookends of sound doctrine, verse one, that the word of God may not be blasphemed, in verse five. Again, this is not something where in the authority by which the older women are teaching is some kind of experience, or what they can recall.

Here's a good example. Very often, older women may be tempted to kind of just rely on their own experience to inform younger women, their own set of experiences, to inform younger women about all of these good things.

The challenge with that is that in the grace of God, older women have forgotten a lot of the burdens of younger women.

They look back at it in a histrionic way, where it doesn't hold that I'm in it, and rather you're looking back in hindsight with rose-tinted glasses, right?

Yeah, and this is something that, I don't think it's unique to my wife, but going through the throes of having lots of young children and trying to get through day by day, week by week, and then coming to church, and then hearing things from older women, they expect things from young women.

That is not really possible, right?

But what I'm hearing there is the older women aren't there during the week either. Like in the text here, this is what I was gonna ask just a second ago. We have a culture where you're spending many hours of your day with all of these people all the time.

Now, we have an obstacle of a lot of times distance. We live 30 to 45 minutes away from the church, well, a decent amount of us, 30 to 45 minutes away from each other, and gas prices are not coming way, way down.

We also have a hustle and bustle type of a lifestyle just to keep up with rising costs, so we're taking on other jobs, we're taking on other responsibilities. There are obstacles to these older women to actually be with these women to teach them now, and I'm not laying that out as an excuse in any way where this is still a responsibility of theirs, but how do we do that now?

Yeah, so two things. One is, that's what I was trying to say, is older women are not supposed to instruct the younger women based on what they can remember and what they experienced. And hearken back, well, in my day, because that's not going to fly for a variety of reasons.

This is why their instructions to the younger women about loving husband, loving children, so on and so forth, must be based out of the scriptures, based on sound doctrine, not out of experience. Now, experience can be illustrative.

You can use experience as an illustration, but it's not going to be your authority, basis of your authority. So that's one thing. Because the word of God speaks to all of human existence and thus transcends all of these handicaps that we experience in our modern society.

We also have some advantages in our modern society. In other words, I was just observing throughout this last week how abundant the communication is and can be between the women of the church. There is a lot of communication going on.

Now, how that is used could be very profitable given the context of Titus. Okay, yes, you're right. We don't live in a village setting like Nazareth, which was a one well town, right? We are scattered and we gather here regularly, but yet we're not in each other's homes, in each other's front yards in one village, like the context we're reading here about Crete.

However, given our particular modern setting, the application here is not to reduce a women's ministry to some 1955 model of we're going to have an hour meeting at 4 .30 on Sunday afternoon, right? And let's please not elect people to president and vice president and treasurer.

Please, let's not do that. Let's not have a charter. Let's avoid having meetings. Let's instead recognize the blessings of the roles that we read here and let's just engage in it, right? Let's just go for it.

Is there something to be said that the distant communication is lacking over and against a physically being there though?

Sure, yeah, I'm not saying it's like, it's not a full fledged substitution, but it is an observation that there is something of an advantage versus a different context when there would not even be those opportunities.

But it would bring blessing if everybody, if the people involved would have the right mindset. If an older woman would be in the home of a younger woman, living life with her for a day, being with her, encouraging her, and then walking away and kind of now having been through this, I know how to pray for her.

I know some things that I can share with her now,.

So on and so forth.

And sometimes that might be better than asking her how she can be prayed for because sometimes she doesn't know. I don't know sometimes what I need to be prayed for. And if an older man can come alongside me, watch what's happening, see where I'm failing with my sons, and pray for me in such a way that the Lord blesses it, I think that's kind of what I'm trying to get at is I can unknowingly not give the full truth about my current issues or my current problems at home, especially from a distance.

It's way easier to type up a lie, but when you physically are there, you can't really hide a lot of those behavioral cues.

Yeah, so there needs to be the right Christian mindset in this, okay, to think about not putting ourselves first, but think of each other's interests as more important than our own. There has to be a lot of humility here and a lot of love going on for this to happen.

A young woman has to be okay with an older woman coming into her home and seeing how things actually happen, right, and then not trying to put on a front where I don't have any problems and everything always runs smoothly, I have every, you know, even my baseboards are polished kind of mentality, right?

So that's the instinct, but that's not what needs to happen. There needs to be an openness of the younger woman to receive instruction and encouragement from the older woman. And the older woman needs to, again, with all kindness and compassion and seeking to edify and build up the younger woman, admonish her towards the things that are good.

When this doesn't happen, when this doesn't happen, you know, the result is impoverishing to the church, right? Because the blessings that could be there for Christian families are not happening, but they need to be happening and they should be happening through the ministry of the church.

And that's the call. I mean, that is the call to older women. So they're listening and we call on you to fill that role. And that's what we need. You said your experience isn't normative, that's the word of God, his doctrine is normative, but this letter, Paul is specifically calling out older women for their experience and knowledge to help model that.

So sound doctrine, that's the content of what you're teaching and you need to be there, you need to come alongside and we need you. Older women, we need you to do this.

You know, just think about the list of things that we have here. I think a lot of these things are rare and valuable gems that are not often encountered in our culture today.

Amen.

Loving husbands, loving children, discretion, chastity, homemaking, good, being obedient to their own husbands.

That sounds like an opposite world, honestly, to what we hear in modern media culture.

When's the last time a young, have you heard a young woman being encouraged in these things?

It was on the radio, I think.

Right.

I go to graduations, I listen, whatever kind of media that you're encountering, if it's videos online or it's social media postings or whatever, even in the church, even in the church, as older folks in the church address young women in the church, even young women not yet married.

Are any of these things being encouraged? Are these things the things that are being valued? I'm not hearing it. I'm hearing, what do you wanna be when you grow up? You can be anything. You need to go out and have a career.

You need to get six years of post-secondary education. You need to have, and you need to go have a career. You need to go do great things. And you know what? You need a 20, 30-year career and a full family.

You can have it all, right?

Work for the man and not your man.

Well, when you read this, when you read this, these things that are listed are not valued. They're not valued. They're not promoted. They're not applauded. And the church is the pillar in the ground of the truth.

We are to be promoting these things. We are to be applauding these things. We are to be saying these things are good. Now, older women need to admonish younger women about the value of these things, okay?

If it doesn't happen, if that encouragement and that admonishment doesn't happen, what do we risk? We risk the word of God being blasphemed, right? Now, the question comes down to do we believe the text?

Do we believe the scripture? Do we believe that God put these things in here because he knows the value of them, that these are best, these are the things that should be promoted? I think so. I think that that just needs to be emphasized.

The word in the text here for teaching good things, in other places, it's translated beauty. These are beautiful things. All right, if you were to look at the analogy of scripture in 1 Peter 3, I'll just read in verses one through six.

This is a great corollary. Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands. We heard that. Then, even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives. When they obey, observe your chaste conduct.

Chaste, right? We already heard that. Yep, accompanied by fear. Do not let your adornment be merely outward, or beauty, right? Arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel. Rather, let it be the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.

For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters you are, if you do good, and are not afraid with any terror.

That is, how many people hear that and think, calling your husband Lord? That's a very precious thing in the sight of God. It is a huge difference. And like you said, if we believe it, then we should do it.

Yeah, and again, I know the concerns are, you know, it's like, well, we don't live in that time period anymore. These are, you know, ancient customs that do not translate to, you know, our culture. These are culturally bound issues.

It's interesting to me that we don't say the same thing about the older men, you know, being sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, and being patient. That's not, well, that's culturally bound, you know.

That's not how older men are to be received today. And, you know, younger men to be sober-minded, you know, that should not be put upon young men today. That's not our culture today. I don't hear the same, why not?

This is a litmus test of, you know.

Spot the knot, right?

Yeah, well, exactly. And we need to trust in the sufficiency and the authority of the scriptures. Because the Father is speaking of the Son through the Spirit throughout all of the text, and the Son is the image of God.

Everything in the text, everything in the Bible speaks to the human existence. This is how God wants us to know him through his Son. Here's what he wants for us and how we live. We're made in God's image, made for his word.

And this is good. This is to be promoted. This is wholesome. And Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. Kind of sounds like Americans.

Ew.

Therefore, rebuke them sharply that they be sound in the faith. Right, we need sound doctrine and we need a transformation into Christ's culture.

Amen.

Yep. Well, I think we've nailed that down pretty good for this episode. We are gonna move on to our segment where we will suggest content, books, podcasts, any sort of content creation that we've consumed over the last few weeks and we find profitable and edifying, and we'll recommend them to you.

Michael, we'll start with you.

Recommended Books and Podcasts on Law, Covenant Theology, and New Covenant Theology

Yeah, so a good book I would recommend is by Matthew E. Ferris. That's F-E-R-R-I-S is his last name. And the title is If One Uses It Lawfully. And the subtitle is The Law of Moses and the Christian Life.

So it's very well done. It's very readable and very encouraging. His main contention is just kind of agreeing with Paul about the law is good if one uses it lawfully and understanding it's being fulfilled in Christ and how following Christ leads us into a righteousness that is greater than anything produced under the old covenant.

In that same vein, I recently read a book called One Greater Than Moses by Heather Kendall. Actually, Michael, you had loaned me that. Thank you. It is a really interesting history of new covenant theology in America.

Put the caveat on it that I think that sometimes this author who's a librarian and a mathematician, actually, by trade, she finds some of these ideas that the new covenant is new. She finds it in ancient church.

She finds it in the medieval church. She finds it in the Reformation. And, well, you're gonna see that if they call it new. I think where the real value of the book is in 20th century America in the Baptist and Reformed Baptist circles where this new covenant theology actually came from, how it contrasts with the more classic covenant theology, let's say, the Westminster formulation.

It references some of the guys who were quote-unquote Reformed Baptists and Sovereign Grace Baptists, if you understand the distinction. And it's just that in the 80s, 90s, and then early 2000s, I lived on the East Coast back when I was in the Air Force, and I was in the middle of all of this, and I didn't realize what it was.

So looking back, this book goes up to about 2014. So I found it to be helpful, and it gave some clarity to some of the names, Ernie Reisinger and John Reisinger, and some of these guys, like Walter Chantry and others who were very great writers, great men of God.

And some of the distinctions that they would draw between, some people would say that's a little scholastic there. That's you're drawing some really careful distinctions. You really shouldn't be dividing over that kind of stuff.

Maybe there's some value to it, but I found the history to be very, very helpful. In contrast to this, there's a podcast called Modern Marrow Men out of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary, who they are traditional covenantalist septarians.

And they like Richard Barcellos, who wrote Getting the Garden Right. So in contrast to this, they have done a couple of takedowns of quote-unquote new covenant theology. So if you're gonna read this book and learn about new covenant theology, I would recommend see what the other side has to say as well.

What are the critiques? I like to listen and read people that I disagree with. I'm more on the progressive covenantal side personally, but I do like to hear what some of the people that I respect out of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary, Modern Marrow Men, a great podcast who dealt with some of the things regarding new covenant theology.

And it's good to see how they analyze each other. And I think they do it with respect.

All right, Andrew.

Recently, I've been doing some word studies, just they're intriguing. The Bible is intriguing.

Really?

It really is. So I was talking with my wife about devotionals. I think devotionals have their place in the life of believers. Sometimes when you engage with the text itself, you come away with, oh, wait a second, what?

And so you go through this haunt of searching through the scriptures, not letting someone else form your view of what this topic just meant. Because you just read it for yourself in the context, you were just reading through it like maybe on your Bible reading plan.

So concepts that have come up recently like the veil and what it means to be a disciple, I would be remiss if I didn't mention how helpful Biblehub .com is for me with having hyperlinked Greek text with occurrences and translations, the lexicon.