The 7th chp (and chp 8 ) of Sarah Sumner’s Men and Women in the Church begins with this statement: “If Christian women have a tendency to pretend they are inferior, the opposite is true for Christian men” (81). This statement sets the assumption and the theme of the chp — that cracked Eikons mess up their genderedness (or sexuality). |inline
Last week I received a sensitive letter — a letter that made me more sensitive. Here’s the issue that the writer pressed into my mind: when we talk about “women in ministry” we need to understand that, regardless of what we think, there are women who genuinely think they have been called by God into a ministry and treating such a topic neutrally threatens their sense of vocation. Furthermore, |inline
Evidently, the African context is about the same as the North American context: some do and some don’t think women in teaching positions is a good idea. In the Africa Bible Commentary there is an essay on “The Role of Women in the Church.” It appears in the commentary on 1 Timothy 2:7-10 — which is an interesting placement. |inline
So when people call themselves “traditionalists” with respect to the role of women, esp in ministry, what do they mean? And, are there traditionalists today? Sarah Sumner’s book, Men and Women in the Church, chp. 3, discusses such questions with some interesting results. |inline
Any church that prohibits women from minstering in ways that women minister within the pages of the Bible, regardless of the text that church chooses to use in order to restrict women (usually 1 Cor 14:34-35 or 1 Tim 2:11-15), is unbiblical. Whatever restrictions are imposed, if they restrict women from doing what women did in the Bible — leading, co-teaching (Priscilla), prophesying, publicly praying, etc — is unbiblical. Another book I’ll be working through on this topic is Sarah Sumner, Men and Women in the Church. |inline
RT France’s last chp in Women in the Ministry of the Church deals with women who are examples of ministry in the Bible. It begins with the Old Testament: Miriam (Ex 15:20), Deborah (Judg 4:4-5), Huldah (2 Ki 22:12-20), Noadiah (Neh 6:14), along with others (Ezek 13:17ff; Joel 2:28-32), and the wise women (2 Sam 14:1-20; 20:16-22). |inline
In RT France’s Women in the Church’s Ministry, chp 3, France looks at the contested passages in Paul’s letters: 1 Cor 14:34-35 and 1 Tim 2:8-15. I’ve loaded the texts into this post to make life easier for us today. But, there are lots of disagreements and debates here so we’ll have to work at civility. |inline
In chp 2 of RT France, Women in the Church’s Ministry, the subject of authority is addressed. France contends that at the bottom of the discussion about the role of women in ministry among evangelicals in the Anglican communion was the issue of authority. |inline
Here is an encouraging letter from a woman who dwells with gifts among the Plymouth Brethren. She wrote this, and with her permission, I think we all need to read it: |inline
In 1992, on the 11th of November, the General Synod of the Church of England voted by a majority of more than 2 to 1 to ordain women to the priesthood in the Church of England. That vote raised considerable discussion among evangelical Anglicans. One who survived the debates to write about it all is the well-known evangelical NT scholar and theologian, R.T. France, in his exquisitely written, irenically shaped book Women in the Church’s Ministry. With your good behavior, I want to go through this book with you for the purpose of education and conversation. |inline
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