What Hillary Clinton's Possible Presidency Means for the Gospel (Part 2)

...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.

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.          

** in such places I recommend we keep approving culturally relevant male leadership 

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Picture Cited:  Hillary Clinton