...And it's within this context of 1 Timothy 2 that Paul brings up
another really controversial issue.
It’s controversial, yet totally relevant in light of the other
most popular presidential candidate at this time – namely the first likely
female president of the United States – the highly polemic Hillary Clinton.
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| Future President? |
…See, it's in the midst of this same
argument of how God desires all people to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth (v.4), that Paul then gives certain stipulations with
regards to church order concerning both men and women (but primarily women).
And as a matter of fact, what Paul says
in verse 12 of 1 Timothy chapter 2 is, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over
a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.”
…I bring up the observation that Paul
explains this within the same passage where he talks about our proper response
towards worldly governments, because it is my persuasion that both earnest prayer
for all those who are in high positions of authority, as well as with church order – both these things have in view one common desired result,
and that is: “that we may live peaceful and quiet lives, godly and dignified in
every way” (v.2).
Once again, the reason why we as
Christians are not to create huge political uprisings with the hopes of
ousting terrible rulers; is because the gospel of Jesus Christ is more
important.
And why is that?
...Because Jesus rose again, and because earthly
governments are temporal, but salvation is eternal.
…And so yeah, I mean, for sure we want to pray for
our rulers and vote for the best possible candidates (or maybe even run for office ourselves) – but if we’re
going to fight for something, let it be about the gospel – not about the Benghazi scandals or Hillary’s suspicious emails…
And it’s precisely by not revolting over potentially terrible rulers, that I believe we
are in a better position to share the good news to the whole world… Because as
far as I’m concerned, the media is loaded with all kinds of bad news about bad people; but I want to be about sharing the good news concerning
the best person ever – the person of Jesus Christ who died for our sins but
rose again on the third day.
You know what I mean?
…But let me get back to what I think Paul is talking about concerning the role of
women within the church.
...Just like Paul keeps the liberty that we have in Christ over earthly governments in check by saying that we should still pray for our authorities – so also, I believe that he wanted to keep women’s
liberties in check concerning their roles in the church by saying that they
should not teach or exercise authority over men.
…Well why not? Isn’t it true that in
Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female but we
are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28)?
Yeah, you bet it’s true – but to the world
in Paul’s time it wasn’t. And that’s why I think that Paul didn’t want to make
a huge deal out of it, but rather wanted to keep the church functioning under
the same incorrect parameters as the world was, with the express purpose of not
creating a bad image of disorderly conduct, but rather remaining relevant to
the world around it so that it would be more effective in proclaiming the
gospel.
Once again, the resurrection of Christ is
more important than both politics and human rights – it’s revolutionary enough because of the outstanding fact that Jesus rose again from the dead.
Paul didn’t sense a tremendous need in
defending women’s rights (history itself would take care
of that); rather his main priority was the gospel, and preaching it in such a way that
the world around him at the very time and place that he was doing so would
understand it. Therefore, he even exhorted the churches to maintain a male dominated
leadership structure with the main purpose (I believe), of adorning the doctrine
of God our Savior (Titus 2:10) so that more people would understand it and
believe it...
I mean don’t you think that in the Greco-Roman
world in the first century A.D. a woman preacher would be looked down upon with disdain?
I think so, and so because of this Paul
instituted various codes of conduct to thus keep the gospel of Christ
attractive, even if that meant he must do so at the expense of both women and
slaves. *
But what about now?
Well clearly right now women are tremendously
more regarded as capable in leading other men as before, to such an extent that
the very president of the US may likely be a woman... And so don’t you think that
it’s also time we reconsider our stance towards woman leadership in the church as
well?
…I know a lot of people who don’t (and some of you may be reading this right now), but I just want to say that even though I greatly applaud your reverence
towards the Word of God (I revere it tremendously too) – I just think that you should
dig a little deeper in considering certain passages in light of eternity…
At the end of the day I think that there’s
a lot of people in America and elsewhere (though not everywhere**) that would
be more willing to listen to (and hopefully believe) the gospel if they knew we
as Christians endorsed women teaching it, and so
shouldn’t that be more important to us even above and beyond our preferences
concerning what a woman should or shouldn’t do?
I honestly don’t know if Hillary
will or will not win the upcoming election, and truthfully I’m not
too worried about it either (that really isn’t my or the church’s problem) ...
What I am worried about is that the church of Christ may be losing its relevance to
an ever-progressive world (when the gospel of Christ is actually the most
relevant thing ever! I mean the very definition of the gospel is that God
became relevant to mankind by being born in the likeness of man), and yet instead of
adorning the gospel with love and equality, we’re often smothering it with
animosity and disdain.
* the example of how Paul taught
Christians to have proper attitudes within slavery while still recognizing a different
dimension in which the practice is un-Godlike, I consider as being one of the strongest
arguments to prove my point. The logic goes like this: In Christ slavery makes
no sense, therefore Christians who are free should accept Christians that are
slaves as brothers (Philemon v.16). But to the world – Paul himself was even
willing to make himself a slave to others so that by all possible means he
might save some (1 Corinthians 9:19). In the same way, among Christians there
should be no distinction between the privileges that men or women have over each
other (unless it implies the effectiveness of the gospel), because in Christ we
are equally his children (and I view the opportunity of teaching both men and
women in the church setting as a God given privilege, especially since that’s
what churches are willing to invest their money in) ... And so anyway – in the world
however (or in the world in the time of Paul, better said) – people who didn’t
have Christ didn’t understand that men and women are in fact equal before God,
and so Paul wasn’t going to try to subvert the system – his priority was for
the world to hear and understand the gospel first, and so he endorsed male
leadership to the express exclusion of women… Now that the world sees
women leadership as being legitimate however – it’s like the world is more
closely aligned (in that sense) to the Kingdom principle of equality.
Therefore, since having women display their equality in relation to the
privileges we have before God by even teaching before the whole congregation,
and since in North America and many other parts of the world doing so would
actually help the gospel – it is my belief that this practice in many places
should now be endorsed.
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Picture Cited: Hillary Clinton
