Andrew Bartlett Responds to My Review of His Men and Women in Christ

In May, 2023, I wrote an extended book review of Andrew Bartlett’s, Men and Women in Christ: Fresh Light from the Biblical Texts.  Andrew is an author from “across the pond,” with a background as a barrister in the U.K., with expertise in international arbitration. He has written perhaps one of the most thorough books on the complementarian/egalitarian controversy, a divisive issue among evangelical Protestants today. Andrew Bartlett is articulate, and has written a blog post on Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog, hosted by Christianity Today magazine.

This is pretty rare, but Andrew discovered that I had written a pretty lengthy review of his book, and so he wrote a detailed rejoinder to address my criticisms. Let me tell you, Andrew is a really smart gentleman and a sharp writer. He presents some very good arguments. After all, he is a lawyer, so I confess to feel a bit intimidated.

But Andrew loves Jesus, and he is quite charitable as you will read. While we share a lot in common, we differ substantially on the topic of women serving as elders in a local church. In fairness, I also differ substantially with certain complementarians on the exact opposing side of Andrew’s position as well; that is, particularly those who tend to needlessly minimize the gifting and role of women in the life of the church.

Andrew Bartlett’s rejoinder is not a quick read, and I hope not to botch the formatting, but his attention to detail is important to engage for those who care about what the Bible teaches about men and women ministering together in the local church. I have offered to publish his critique of my review here on Veracity. I will refrain from commenting until the very end, after Andrew’s footnotes. So, if you see flames flying out of your phone or computer as you read this, just know that they are not harmful ( I am poking some fun here, though I know that this is an important issue for some).  

I am writing this just days after the October, 2023 horrific tragedy in Israel and Gaza unfolded. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it would appear that we have peoples who are irreconcilable with one another. Most sadly still, much of the conflict has theologically-ideological roots underneath, bound up with different perspectives on history, that perpetuate the conflict. Hopefully, this engagement among fellow Christians, Andrew and myself, will model what healthy disagreement should look like in the wild, wild world of the Internet.

If Andrew wants to respond to me again, I will go ahead and include at the end of this post his rejoinder to my rejoinder of his rejoinder to my book review of his book , and allow him to have the last word. This post is already very long as it is, but I want Andrew to have a chance to clear up any leftover points, if he chooses. Otherwise, I plan on focusing away from this topic in future blog posts towards other issues that in my view need to receive more attention. Until then, it is my privilege to present to you, a guest blog post from Andrew Bartlett, author of Men and Women in Christ: Fresh Light from the Biblical Texts:

UPDATE: November 1, 2023.  Andrew sent to me some “concluding words” to our on-going discussion about his book, in response to my rejoinder posted towards the end of this blog post. Since this blog post is already long enough, I decided to post Andrew’s “last word” in a separate blog post.

Part One: Introduction

After writing and publishing something, it is a great pleasure to discover that someone has actually read it. But Clarke Morledge has done more than read my book; he has written a long and detailed review.¹ I am deeply honored by the time and attention that he has been willing to give. I am also very grateful for the opportunity to respond, which Clarke has graciously offered to me.

This is a valuable learning exercise for me, because Clarke currently holds a different view from mine. He understands the Bible (especially 1 Timothy 2 – 3) to teach that only men should be church elders, and he links this with a particular understanding of male “headship” in marriage.

There are many points where I disagree with what Clarke has written in the review. They include mis-readings of what I wrote in my book, misunderstandings of what others have written, and interpretations of Scripture which I do not believe are supportable. Nonetheless it is clear that Clarke and I are firmly united in our objective, which is to seek a deeper understanding of Scripture for the purpose of following Jesus better. Importantly, we also agree that marriage, as depicted in Scripture, is a relationship that is mutual rather than hierarchical.

In this response I’ll address only some major topics, leaving the lesser matters to a separate communication which I’ll send to Clarke.

Here are the topics, with a quick summary of each:

(1) An overview of the disconnect between complementarian theology and Scripture

• Complementarianism is a Protestant evangelical phenomenon. In complementarian theology, it is acknowledged that men and women are equally human, equally in God’s image, equal in the sight of God; but, for no coherent reason, men are authoritative leaders, while women are followers under men’s authority.
• Complementarian interpretations go against the grain of Scripture in numerous respects. For this reason, while Catholic and Orthodox scholars seek to maintain male- only priesthood, they generally do not rely on complementarian interpretations of the Bible in order to do so.

(2) The reason for the non-Pauline content of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35

• These verses require women to be silent in an assembly. Application of the normal principles of textual criticism leads to the probable conclusion that Paul did not write these two verses; they were added into the text afterwards.

(3) The significance of Junia, Priscilla and 1 Corinthians 12:27-31

• The central complementarian idea that authoritative teaching and leadership in the church are reserved to men is out of step with Junia being an apostle. It is out of step with Priscilla teaching with authority. And it is out of step with 1 Cor 12:27-31, where Paul urges the Corinthians, who are both men and women, to desire the gifts of apostles, prophets and teachers.

(4) Understanding 1 Timothy 2 – 3 and the significance of church history.

• Neither 1 Timothy 2 nor 1 Timothy 3 provides clear justification for restricting eldership to men. The same is true of church history, rightly understood.

The first three topics can be explained relatively briefly, and are covered in this Part One. The fourth is longer and is the subject of Part Two.

(1) An overview of the disconnect between complementarian theology and Scripture

Through most of church history, the traditional reason advanced for maintaining male authority was women’s inherent inferiority to men in both rank and nature. That reason has been rightly rejected by Protestants, by Catholics, and by Orthodox, as being a culturally- derived misperception both of women and of Scripture.

It is now widely acknowledged that men and women are equally in God’s image, not lesser in any way, and that spiritual gifts (including gifts for leadership) are given to men and women without gender distinction. Many also agree that elders of the church are called not to be authoritarian leaders but to serve and to be examples of humility to the flock (1 Peter 5:1-5). The question is whether, despite all that, the Bible prohibits all women, however gifted, however humbly servant-hearted, from serving as elders of the church.

The central concern of evangelical, complementarian theology (a concern with which Clarke is rightly uncomfortable) is to maintain male authority over women, especially in marriage and in the church, despite the rejection of the traditional reason for it. In order to do so, complementarians have adopted new reasoning and new interpretations of Scripture.

Clarke says:

“… the problem with much of egalitarian theology is that it makes claims that are difficult to substantiate with the available evidence. While complementarian theology is regarded by some as objectionable, it is a much more modest claim, and therefore, is more easily defensible.” [Emphasis original]

I am puzzled by Clarke’s assessment that complementarian theology makes more modest claims than egalitarian. In that theology, men are the leaders, while women are followers under their authority. Once the rejection of women’s inherent inferiority has been fully grasped, complementarian theology appears implausible, because of the lack of rationale for the exclusion of women from church eldership. If women are not inherently inferior to men, why would God call only men into leadership? As far as I have been able to discover, no coherent reason is offered.²

Worse than that, such theology goes against the grain of Scripture. To expand what we have said above:

• Man and woman are both created in the image of God (Genesis 1).
• Man and woman are created to be co-rulers of God’s world (Genesis 1).
• There is nothing stated in Genesis 1 – 2 about man’s authority over woman. The woman is not inferior in rank or nature; on the contrary, she is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and in marriage the two become one flesh.
• Rule of man over woman is first mentioned in Genesis 3, where it is presented as an adverse consequence of human disobedience to God. Christ came to deliver us from those consequences.
• When people are made new in Christ, the divisions between men and women are overcome: Galatians 3:28 (in Christ there is not male and female). Discussing Galatians 3:28 and 1 Peter 3:7, respected complementarian scholar Tom Schreiner concedes: “The Bible does not teach … that men will somehow rule over women in heaven.” [Two Views on Women in Ministry, 276] But we cannot properly postpone the absence of men’s rule until some distant future, for Jesus teaches us to pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
•  In Old Testament history, as would be expected from Genesis 3, men are usually the rulers and leaders; yet God raises up a woman prophet (eg, Huldah) or puts a woman at the helm of Israel as the spiritual and civic leader (Deborah), showing that God affirms women’s capacity and authority to give direction to men in response to God’s call.
• In Jesus’s interactions with women, he treats them as equal human beings.
• Through his death and at his resurrection, Jesus overcomes the consequences of the disobedience, including the subjection and suspicion of women.³
• At Pentecost the Spirit is poured out on men and women alike.There is a lot of teaching about spiritual gifts in the New Testament. Without exception, it contains no distinction between men and women in regard to gifting for church leadership. Spiritual gifts do not come in pink and blue.
• In the New Testament, women are prominent participants in the churches – for example, Junia, Priscilla, Phoebe, Lydia, Nympha. (More on Junia and Priscilla in topic (3) below.)
• In light of the above, if there was to be a rule excluding women from local church eldership, it needed to be definitively stated and clearly communicated to the churches. There is no such statement in the NT. Even prominent complementarian scholars like Tom Schreiner and Douglas Moo acknowledge that, when read in Paul’s Greek, the qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 do not in themselves clearly exclude women. Yet, of all places, that is where such a rule absolutely should have been stated and made clear, if it existed. (More on 1 Timothy 3 in Part Two.)
• Complementarian scholars are reduced to relying mainly on 1 Timothy 2, which is visibly not directed to the general question who may be elders in the church. For lack of anything better, they rely on a supposed implication from verses that are not explicitly addressed to the proposition which they want to establish. Chapter 2 does not even mention elders or overseers. That is a red flag which points to the weakness of their position.

Their interpretations of 1 Timothy 2 usually rely on four points – (1) viewing the chapter as instructions for the public worship assemblies of the church, (2) translating the word authenteō in 2:12 as ‘exercise authority’, (3) interpreting 2:13-14 (concerning Adam and Eve) as an appeal to general truths about men and women, (4) constructing a concept of male ‘headship’ as God-ordained authority to rule over women in marriage and in the church.

Clarke rightly rejects point (4). For example, he agrees with me that, according to 1 Corinthians 7, as he puts it, “mutuality is the central characteristic of marital relations”. For more on the shortcomings of point (4) and related issues, see the endnote.⁴ We will see the severe problems in points (1)-(3) when we get to Part Two.

Since Clarke has a proper ecumenical concern about the divisions between Protestants, Roman Catholics and Orthodox, it is appropriate here to draw attention to wider recognition of the weakness of complementarian exegesis.

Our Roman Catholic brothers share with complementarian Protestants a commitment to maintain a certain kind of male leadership in the church. (Instead of applying it to elders and any higher office, they apply it to priests and any higher office.) They also share with complementarian Protestants the recognition that the traditional basis for male leadership (women’s inherent inferiority in rank and nature) is not defensible from the Bible. But Roman Catholic scholars can see that complementarian interpretations of the Bible do not provide satisfactory support for male leadership, so they do not rely on them.

Instead, the Catholics’ new defense depends upon a different theological construct. They say (to express it bluntly) only a person with male body-parts can represent Christ at the celebration of the Eucharist, so only a man can be a Christian priest. For anyone outside Catholic thought, this is a rather extraordinary idea, as if Jesus were qualified to be our Savior not by his full humanity and by his complete faithfulness to his Father (Heb 2:14-18) but by his male organs or male chromosomes. When women were persecuted for following Jesus, he affirmed that they represented him – see Acts 8:3; 9:1-5. So, if the celebrant at the Eucharist somehow represents Jesus Christ, one may wonder why Jesus would now decline to be represented by a faithful woman as celebrant.

The reason for relying on this theological construct is that Catholic exegetes have found themselves unable to defend male-only leadership directly from the Bible.

William Witt has observed that on this issue our Orthodox brothers are in an even more unsatisfactory position than the Catholics. The Orthodox share with Roman Catholics and complementarian Protestants a commitment to maintain a form of men’s leadership in the church, even though the traditional basis for it is now acknowledged to be indefensible. As with the Catholics, their exegetes recognize that restricting leadership to men cannot justifiably be defended directly from the Bible. So, in the absence of anything better, they have adopted the novel theological construct advanced by the Catholics. Unfortunately for them, that construct is inconsistent with the Orthodox theology of the Eucharist.⁵

When I did the research for my book, I was expecting to find much stronger arguments for Protestant complementarianism than I actually found. I was genuinely surprised to discover the weakness of the complementarian reasons for barring women from eldership in the church. I therefore do not share Clarke’s view that complementarianism is easily defensible.

(2) The reason for the non-Pauline content of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35

These two verses are notoriously problematic. At face value they contradict not only Paul’s instructions for women to pray and prophesy in 1 Corinthians 11 but also the main thrust of Paul’s teaching in chapters 12 to 14. Paul is addressing both men and women in the Corinthian church, encouraging everyone to use their speaking gifts in the assembly, in an orderly and loving way, to build others up.

In 14:26 and 29, as the context makes clear, those who speak in the worship assembly (bringing a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, an interpretation, or a prophecy) are both men and women. Verses 34-35 produce a severe clash, because they emphatically state three times, with differing forms of words but always with unqualified language, that women must be silent in the assembly.

Proposals for resolving this clash fall into two groups. The first group says that Paul did not mean what he actually wrote, but meant something much more limited.⁶ The second group says that v34-35 are not Paul’s own view but someone else’s.

Clarke opts for a proposal in the second group: the “quotation-refutation view”. That means: in verses 34-35 Paul is quoting opponents, whom he corrects in v36-40. That is a possible interpretation. I agree with Clarke that v34-35 do not express Paul’s own view.

However, in my book I conclude in favor of the other solution in the second group, the interpolation view:

• An early scribe added a comment into the margin, expressing his opinion that women should not speak at all in the assembly but should remain silent, and later scribes mistakenly inserted this comment into the text, in two different places (some after what we call v33, and some after what we call v40).

The reason why I conclude in favor of this view is because it best fits the totality of the evidence.

Clarke views it as “speculative, and rather inconsistent with how the discipline of textual criticism is normally practiced today”. With that statement I must express firm disagreement. When writing my book, it came as a considerable surprise to me that, applying the normal principles of textual criticism to the manuscript evidence, the probable conclusion was that the two verses were an interpolation.

The interpolation theory provides the only explanation of the manuscript evidence which meets the test of historical probability. Among other factors, it is supported by the corrected text in the margin of Codex Fuldensis, from which we may infer that Bishop Victor of Padua had available to him an earlier copy which lacked the disputed verses.

The interpolation view has been rejected by complementarian writers, especially since it was examined and dismissed by D.A. Carson in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Carson has a reputation for expertise in textual criticism. But his examination of the evidence is profoundly unsatisfactory. For example, he states that Codex Fuldensis ‘places the verses after verse 40, but also inserts them in the margin after verse 33’.⁷ That short statement contains three errors:

• (1) Codex Fuldensis does not put the disputed verses in two places; they are in one place only.
• (2) The main text does not place the disputed verses after verse 40; it places them after verse 33.
• (3) Most significantly, in the margin, the correction does not insert the disputed verses after verse 33; the correction omits them.

Bishop Victor decided to correct Codex Fuldensis, in accordance with the best evidence then available to him, by omitting verses 34-35.

Why is the quotation-refutation view, as held by Clarke, inadequate? After all, it has the merit of offering a simple explanation for the presence of words in v34-35 which are plainly contrary to Paul’s own teaching in the letter. It is inadequate because it does not provide a probable explanation for the manuscript evidence. It cannot explain why, supposedly, some early copyists moved the two verses from after v33 and placed them after v40 instead.

Why not? Because, if verses were moved, there needs to be an explanation for why that was done, an explanation that is historically probable. There would have to be a strong reason why a scribe was convinced that the text should be moved to a different place. But such a reason is lacking, in light of the historical facts that we know:

• In the ancient commentaries, written by people living in patriarchal societies where women were generally regarded as inherently inferior to men in both rank and nature, there are no strong expressions of concern over the meaning of the verses. For example, Origen saw nothing to be concerned about. He wrote, quoting v35: ‘“it is shameful for a woman to speak in church”, whatever she says, even if she says something excellent or holy, because it comes from the mouth of a woman.’ [Frag. 1 Cor. 74]. Nor do we find in the ancient commentaries any suggestion that the verses may belong in a different place.
•  Even more important, there is no other example anywhere in Paul’s letters of scribes taking it upon themselves to move a chunk of Paul’s argument like that, so as to re- order his argument. So, scribes would have needed a uniquely strong reason for interfering with the text in that way. No scholar has been able to find such a reason.

For a free resource with fuller discussion of the five main views on v34-35, see [this resource]. It contains a link and guide so that you can see the evidence of Codex Fuldensis for yourself online.

(3) The significance of Junia, Priscilla and 1 Corinthians 12:27-31

First, Junia.

In Romans 16:7, Paul sends greetings to Andronicus and Junia, who are “outstanding among the apostles” (NIV). In my book, I explain why this means what it says, despite a variety of attempts by complementarian scholars to say that Junia was not an apostle.

Clarke writes:

“Many complementarians have no problem believing Junia could have been a pioneering missionary (apostle) …”

That statement misses the real issue.

What complementarian scholars are worried about is that an apostle, from the nature of their calling, has God-given authority over the churches founded or built up by their ministry. For that reason, most complementarian scholars make elaborate arguments to try to show that Junia was not an apostle (instead, she was actually a man, or she was merely a courier, or she was merely “well-known to” the apostles). I consider those arguments in detail in chapter 14 of my book and find them to lack justification.

As Clarke rightly says, some complementarians accept that Paul does indeed commend Junia as an outstanding female apostle. But they try to overcome the difficulty by saying that, while she was indeed a missionary who was sent out to found or build up churches, possibly with an emphasis on ministering to women, she did not have authority over the churches that she founded or built up.

In so saying, they are inventing a meaning for the term ‘apostle’ that is unknown in the New Testament.

In the context of the Christian church and mission, and leaving aside false apostles, the New Testament refers to three kinds of apostles: (1) delegated couriers (as in 2 Cor 8:23; Phil 2:25), (2) the Twelve primary apostles, (3) a wider group of pioneering apostles (such as Barnabas and Silas). Junia falls into the third group. That means that, along with Andronicus, she would have had authority over the churches which she founded or built up. For fuller explanation, see [this link].

There is no example in the New Testament of the word ‘apostle’ meaning ‘a pioneering missionary without authority over churches’. If, as an apostle, Junia led and taught with authority in the churches that she founded or built up, what would the consequence be? Are we seriously to believe that Paul recognizes Junia as outstanding in her calling by God to be an apostle and thus lead and teach with authority, yet Paul also prohibits women from being elders in the local church? That doesn’t make sense to me.

Second, Priscilla.

Clarke goes part way to recognizing Priscilla’s significance. He writes:

“1 Timothy 2:12 restriction regarding women “teaching” is not absolute, as there are plenty of examples of women teaching in the New Testament (Priscilla being just one), and instructions for both men and women to teach (Colossians 3:16). The “teaching” restriction is particularly limited to the responsibility of elders; that is, making sure that what is taught in one generation is to properly pass down from one generation to the next, …. See Paul’s final instructions to the elders of Ephesus, after he had left the city, after ministering there for several years (Acts 20:17-38).”

What Clarke misses is that Priscilla taught with authority in Ephesus, fulfilling the function of a pastor or elder, passing on the apostolic teaching (Acts 18:26).

The context is important. A church-planting team of three had arrived in Ephesus (Paul, Priscilla, Aquila). Paul’s message received a favorable reception but he promptly resumed his travels, leaving only Priscilla and Aquila to teach and care for the new converts. The mighty orator Apollos arrived, preaching an incomplete gospel. Priscilla and Aquila corrected him. Why should he take any notice of anything that they said? Because they were Paul’s delegates, whom he had left in charge of the nascent church. As the first leaders of the new group of believers in Ephesus, they exercised their authority to correct Apollos.

Are we seriously to believe that Paul left Priscilla and Aquila in charge of the new church in Ephesus, to teach and lead with authority, yet Paul also prohibited women from being elders in the local church? That doesn’t make sense to me.

Third, 1 Corinthians 12:27-31.

In 1 Corinthians 12:31 Paul urges the Corinthian believers, who are both men and women, to eagerly desire the greater spiritual gifts. What are those “greater” gifts? Paul indicates them in 12:28 – first apostles, second prophets, third teachers.

Those are three forms of leadership which are open to women and which may readily involve leading men. Are we seriously to believe that Paul urges women to desire the higher gifts of being apostles, prophets and teachers, yet Paul also prohibits women from being elders in the local church? That doesn’t make sense to me.

As Clarke himself says: “Clearly, women had been involved in various forms of leadership in the New Testament, and Paul was actively supporting them.”

In Part Two of my response to Clarke’s review, we will go on to consider 1 Timothy 2 – 3……….

………….

PART TWO: Understanding 1 Timothy 2 – 3 and the significance of church history

Introduction

We’ll start with 1 Timothy 3 and then move to 1 Timothy 2.

1 Timothy 3:1-7 contains a list of qualifications for church elders or overseers (also stated, in a slightly shorter version, in Titus 1). I will explain why, contrary to Clarke’s view, the qualifications do not show a clear restriction of eldership to men.

This fact is widely understood and acknowledged, even on the complementarian side of the discussion. Prominent complementarian scholars Douglas Moo and Tom Schreiner agree that it is so. Even the Danvers Statement and the Grudem/Piper section of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood do not explicitly rely on the list as showing that elders must be male.⁸

We’ll look at five features of the list and then examine Clarke’s reasoning, before moving to 1 Timothy 2.

Five features of the list of qualifications for elders

Feature 1 – the use of ‘tis’

The passage begins: ‘If anyone (tis) desires to be an overseer …’

The word ‘tis’ is the indefinite pronoun. It is usually translated as ‘anyone’ or ‘someone’, and sometimes as ‘a certain person’. In regard to men and women, it is gender-neutral in meaning.

This use of tis is important. If Paul had meant to specify that only men could be elders, it would have been natural for him to have started with a word with a male meaning (as, ‘If a man desires to be an overseer …’).

Paul’s use of ‘tis’ is doubly important because of the context. If we look at Paul’s immediate lead-in to what he says here, in 2:8 Paul is talking about men, then in 2:9-15 Paul is talking mainly about women. Given this context, it would have been not only natural, but almost essential, for Paul to commence with a clear signal that he was switching to talking about men and only men, if that had been his intention. But he continues in 3:1 with ‘If anyone [tis] …’.

Thus, it sounds as if he is intentionally introducing the qualifications for eldership with a word that applies both to men and to women.

Similarly, part way through the list, in v 5, as if to re-emphasize the gender-neutrality of his intention, Paul uses tis again: ‘For if someone (tis) …’

Feature 2 – the idiom, ‘one-woman man’

The second qualification mentioned in v 2 is that an elder must be a mias gunaikos andra. This is a Greek idiom. Literally, it reads: ‘a one-woman man’. It refers to sexual chastity, that is, compliance with the Christian ethic of only engaging in sexual intercourse within the marriage of one man to one woman. It is not a requirement to be male and married. This will become clearer below.

Feature 3 – the convention of using male terms for mixed meaning

Where a Greek writer wishes to refer to both men and women, a standard way of doing so is to use an appropriate noun for males. For example, the Greek for ‘brothers’ (which differs in form from the Greek for ‘sisters’) can be used to refer either to men alone or to both men and women. The same is true of the Greek for ‘man’ (adult male), which is used in the expression ‘one-woman man’.⁹ So, here, Paul’s masculine expression ‘a one-woman man’ could either refer specifically to a man who is chaste or it could encompass also a woman who is chaste.¹⁰

The choice between the two meanings can only be made by attention to context.

What is the context that guides us here? It includes (a) the fact that Paul was talking mainly about women in 2:9-15, (b) the use of the gender-neutral word tis to introduce the list in 3:1, (c) the absence of a plain statement that only men may be elders or that women may not be, (d) the repetition of tis to continue the list in v 5, (e) the fact that the other sixteen desired qualities or behaviors in the list do not indicate any requirement of maleness but are all appropriate for both men and women, and (f) Paul’s avoidance of male pronouns and possessives, which I explain next.

Feature 4 – the apparently deliberate absence of male pronouns and possessives

There is an important difference between Paul’s Greek and those English translations which follow traditional renderings here. I’ll take ESV as an example. In these verses we read: ‘he … He … his … his … his …he … He … he … he … he … ’ (seven male pronouns and three male possessives). None of those is in Paul’s Greek. There are precisely zero male pronouns or possessives in this passage.

If one were back-translating the ESV of verses 4 and 5 into Greek, the expression ‘his own household’ (ESV) would become (rendering literally) ‘the own household of him’. But Paul’s choice of words here is ‘the own household’.

And ESV’s expression ‘keeping his children submissive’ would become (rendering literally) ‘having children of him in subjection’. But Paul’s choice of words here is ‘having children in subjection’.

It seems that Paul is actively avoiding male pronouns or possessives, because he is thinking of both male and female candidates for eldership.¹¹

Some modern translations accurately take into account the above features of the Greek text. The result is that there is no indication in those translations that an elder (or ‘supervisor’ or ‘church official’) must be male. For examples, see CEB and CEV.¹²

Feature 5 – the list is not legislative but indicative

What is the nature of the list that we are reading? We customarily describe it as a list of ‘qualifications’. But that description could be understood in different ways. We need to address the question whether the qualifications are legislative or merely indicative. In other words, is Paul meaning to lay down absolute requirements, which are compulsory, or is he giving indicators of the kind of people who are suitable for appointment?

Evidently, the crucial character qualities in verses 2-3 are not to be read in an absolute sense, since no candidate for eldership is ever 100% perfect in being ‘sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable … gentle’ (ESV). And the gift of being ‘able to teach’ (v 2) is a matter of degree.

Then what about the more circumstantial factors in verses 4-7? Being a recent convert is a contra-indication in this list (v 6). Yet in Acts 14:23 Paul appoints recent converts, as the situation demands (see 14:1-23). And the candidate should have a good reputation with ‘outsiders’ (v 7), yet outsiders did not always think highly of Jesus, or of Peter, Paul and other apostles. But that did not disqualify them from leadership of God’s people.

Through church history and still today, the list has been read as indicative of suitability. This is an urgent letter written by Paul to a close colleague, who would be expected to understand Paul’s intent and apply it sensibly. This passage is not a church constitution, setting out in a legal document a list of mandatory requirements for appointment to the eldership. I am not aware of any major church groupings, irrespective of whether they restrict women’s leadership, who read these qualifications as compulsory requirements.

Attempts to read the list as definitive (that is, as legislative) lead to absurdities, such as that neither Paul nor even Jesus would be fit to be a church elder. For more explanation, see the endnote.¹³

Thus, even if Paul had in mind an exclusively masculine sense for ‘one-woman man’, that would not rule out women of good character and able to teach, because it is only an indicator, not a legislative requirement.

Clarke’s five reasons

Clarke’s review does not comment on features 1, 4 or 5, but let’s now consider Clarke’s reasons for regarding the list as requiring males only.

As I understand him, he gives five reasons, two minor and three major. The major reasons raise some very interesting questions.

Minor:

(A) Scholars have not pointed to any example in Greek literature of ‘one-woman man’ being used generically to apply to both men and women. This is relevant to features 2 and 3 above.

(B) Paul’s concept of eldership is not about authority but about servanthood.

Major:

(C) The local church is meant to mirror God’s purposes for marriage and family, which requires elders to be father figures and therefore male.

(D) We should be guided by the practice of the post-apostolic church in prohibiting female elders.

(E) The interpretation of 1 Timothy 3 should be controlled by 1 Timothy 2; and 1 Timothy 2 is about male-only leadership in the public assembly.

I will address these in turn.

(A) Scholars have not pointed to any example in Greek literature of ‘one-woman man’ being used generically to apply to both men and women

Clarke writes:

“This may sound picky, but it would be very helpful if some scholar of the ancient Greek classics in these discussions could produce a literary text where “husband of one wife” was used in a non-gender specific manner …”

For an actual example of a native Greek speaker understanding this idiomatic expression generically, we can go to Chrysostom’s discussion of Paul’s qualifications for deacons. In the case of deacons, Chrysostom reads the qualification ‘one-woman men’ in 3:12 as applying both to male deacons and to female deacons. That is good evidence that this idiom is capable of being understood generically.¹⁴

It may be that Clarke does not really dissent on features 2 and 3, since he writes:

“… a “husband of one wife” designates the character of a person as being faithful, and not status, as in someone who had to be married.”

(B) Paul’s concept of eldership is not about authority but about servanthood

Under the heading “A Better Way to Reconstruct Paul’s Teaching in 1 Timothy 2 & 3, and Titus 1, On This Issue”, Clarke writes:

“First and foremost, Paul’s concept of being an “elder” in a local church is not some top-down, military-style authoritarianism. Rather, it is following the way of Jesus, that of being a servant, to equip and lift up others.”

I agree with this statement, but I do not understand how it helps to support Clarke’s interpretation. Is Clarke suggesting that women are unable to be servants? I assume he is not. If he is not making that suggestion, it is unclear how this idea of servant-eldership supports the rule that women should not be elders. A male-elders rule appears out of step with the idea of servant-eldership, since women are able to serve. Perhaps Clarke intends this as an introductory comment rather than a reason.

(C) The local church is meant to mirror God’s purposes for marriage and family, which requires elders to be fathers and therefore male

This major reason lies at the heart of Clarke’s position. In effect, it is Clarke’s substitute for the unsatisfactory concept of ruling male headship as a reason for male-only elders.

He writes:

“The local church is meant to mirror God’s purposes for marriage by actually being a family with both fathers and mothers. This aspect of being a “father” is particularly dear to Paul. Paul comes to the Corinthian church, not simply as a guide, but as a “father” (1 Corinthians 4:14-21). It would stand to reason that in Paul’s absence he would want “father figures” to stand out in the life of a local Christian community, which would explain the instructions given by Paul in 1 Timothy 2 and 3 [emphasis original]. This sense of family fits perfectly with the language of the gathered Christian community being described as “the household of God,” as Paul wraps up this entire passage (1 Timothy 3:15).”

This reasoning is severely problematic. It is speculative theology that clashes with Scripture, and it is illogical.

Let’s begin with the church as the household of God. To sustain his position, Clarke re-casts this metaphor in a way that conflicts with Scriptural usage. Scripture frequently characterizes the church as a family, but in the general usage of this metaphor it is God who is the father of the family. There is not even one example where the elders are viewed as the fathers of the church family. The church is God’s household, not the elders’ household.

In the case of the apostle Paul, he daringly (but appropriately) applies a ‘father’ metaphor to himself in 1 Cor 4, as part of an impassioned appeal. This is appropriate because it refers to his particular function, by God’s call, as the founding apostle of the Corinthian church. In similar vein, he makes an impassioned appeal to the Galatians, using a metaphor that casts him in the role of their mother (Galatians 4:19: ‘my children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth …’). Again, this refers to his particular function as the founding apostle of their church.

But Paul’s use of male and female parental metaphors, to refer to his foundational function as apostle to those churches, does not provide a justification for applying the ‘father’ metaphor to local church elders, in a way that Scripture never does, in order to prohibit women from eldership.

Clarke’s unbiblical metaphor, which casts elders as father figures in God’s household, doesn’t even work on its own terms. It is illogical:

• If, contrary to Scriptural usage, in exact accordance with Clarke’s view, we ought to think of male church elders as parents, then all non-elders are children, so one ends up with a motherless family. That does not reflect God’s intention for the family. Clarke himself asserts:
  “The local church needs both fathers and mothers, working together, to model what God intended family to be and function.” [emphasis original]
• But if the church needs both fathers and mothers, and if, contrary to Scriptural usage, we ought to think of church elders as parents and church members as their children, modelled on a human family, it would follow that there should be both male and female elders. Families need both fathers and mothers as parents.

In Endnote 1, Clarke says that disagreement with his argument

“… demonstrates a narrow reading of Paul, an ahistorical understanding of early church history, and a lack of Christian imagination in appreciating the sacramental character of eldership as connecting the doctrine of marriage (and family) with a doctrine of the church.”

His rhetoric is enjoyable to read but the reasoning is unsound, in each of its three points.

On the first point, if a ‘narrow reading’ is a reading that sticks closely to the text, I plead guilty. To do otherwise is a methodological error for anyone who is seeking a deeper understanding of Scripture for the purpose of following Jesus better.

In regard to ‘an ahistorical understanding of early church history’, Clarke needs a more nuanced historical analysis, which I offer in point (D) below.

On the third point, if ‘a lack of Christian imagination’ means rejecting unbiblical speculation, again I plead guilty. We really should not depart from Scripture in the way that Clarke does here, even when the departure is cloaked in theological language about ‘the sacramental character of eldership’.

The core of Clarke’s view of eldership as ‘sacramental’ is expressed in the following passage of his review:

“The local church needs both fathers and mothers, working together, to model what God intended family to be and function. [emphasis original] Marriage is ultimately a mystery, which is the very essence of what sacrament is trying to demonstrate through various practices in the church, including baptism and the Lord’s Supper, just as a start. We actually get the English word “sacrament” from the Latin word “sacramentum,” which is translated from the Greek, “mysterion.” It is not a coincidence that Paul uses the terminology of mystery/sacrament in Ephesians 5:32, to express the relationship between Christ and the church, and the relationship between husband and wife. The life of a Christian family is deeply connected to the life of the local church.

Just as we need physical, concrete reminders regarding our membership in Christ’s body (baptism) and thankfulness and gratitude for Christ’s atoning work on the cross (the Lord’s Supper), so we also need a reminder that the church is meant to be an expression of family, …”

This is a novel approach, for eldership is neither a sacrament as understood by Protestants nor a sacrament as understood by Roman Catholics.

Clarke’s explanation fails for the reasons that I have already given. In Scripture, the church does indeed function as a family, but it is God who is the parent, never male elders. And if one were looking for human parents for the church, as in the case of a human family, Clarke’s reasoning would require that there be both men and women elders.

The explanation also fails because there is no basis in Scripture for regarding eldership as a sacrament in the theological sense. Moreover, in his reasoning Clarke confuses the theological meaning of ‘sacrament’ with the meaning of the Greek word ‘mysterion’ used in the New Testament.

The theological meaning was defined by Augustine as ‘an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace’. That is the meaning which in theological discussions is applied to baptism and the Lord’s Supper.¹⁵

But Greek mysterion in the New Testament does not carry that theological meaning. Neither baptism nor the Lord’s Supper is described as a mysterion. Sometimes mysterion refers simply to a secret or a mystery (which in some cases is the meaning of a symbol). Often, it refers to God’s great plan of salvation in Christ, or a particular aspect of it (Romans 11:25; 16:25; 1 Corinthians 2:1; 4:1; 15:51; Ephesians 1:9; 3:9; 6:19; Colossians 1:26-27; 2:2; 4:3; 1 Timothy 3:9, 16; Revelation 10:7).

Clarke refers to Ephesians 5:32, where Paul uses the term mysterion. Paul there states that the mysterion of man and wife becoming one flesh is great, and that he is speaking of (the union of) Christ and the church. That has no bearing on eldership, which is not in view. Paul is not saying anything about the relationship between elders and other church members in Ephesians 5:32.

(D) We should be guided by the official practice of the post-apostolic church in prohibiting female elders

Clarke writes:

“… my main criticism of Andrew Bartlett’s leaning towards egalitarianism with respect to church office is that it suffers from a kind of wishful thinking regarding how we would have wanted the history of early Christianity to look like. Andrew might push back on me here, but I think I can stand my ground.”

I will happily take up Clarke’s kind invitation to push back.

The relative shortage of women elders in the early centuries weighs heavily with Clarke. This is understandable, but it is a mistake. When judiciously assessed, this factor should have little weight.

As to the historical facts, Clarke cites the conclusion of a study by historians Madigan and Osiek:

“… Conciliar or episcopal prohibitions exist alongside evidence of exactly the practice they are prohibiting, and often the evidence for the continuing existence of practices postdates the prohibitions. It does seem that in some times and places, there were women presbyters in the Church, even in “orthodox” circles, in both East and West, but most clearly in the West. Exactly what they did remains unclear….”

This convenient summary tells us two important things: (1) the official view in orthodox circles was that women should not be presbyters (elders); (2) despite that official view, some orthodox churches continued to appoint women as elders.

Point (1) – the official orthodox position – was expressed in formal prohibitions issued by Councils and by bishops. Point (2) – what happened in practice – was the very reason why those conciliar or episcopal prohibitions were issued.

This leads on to the question. What is the explanation for that tension between official position and actual practice? Why did a small minority of orthodox churches keep on appointing women presbyters?

We have to remember that both the majority and the minority lived in the same strongly patriarchal culture, where women’s leadership was unusual and generally frowned upon. In that setting, what was the explanation for the counter-cultural behavior of the minority? What drove their out-of-step behavior?

There is an obvious answer. They received the Holy Spirit and his gifts and they received the teaching that is in the writings which we call the New Testament; both in their own experience and in those writings, they saw that the Holy Spirit gave spiritual gifts to women, including leadership gifts. That’s why they were unpersuaded by the official view, and kept on flouting it.

Clarke writes:

“… the evidence from early church history is that the early Christians restricted the office of elder/overseer to qualified men only, based on an appeal to New Testament Scripture.”

And:

For if Andrew’s argument is indeed correct, one wonders why no one in the early church was able to see this. Instead, the early church understood the qualifications to be an elder in the local church to include being male. As a result, Andrew’s argument on this point comes across as stretching the evidence he musters together in service of his overall argument to the breaking point.

I agree that the understanding held by the official majority was as Clarke says. So, we have to ask a second question: who was correctly interpreting Scripture, the official majority or the dissenting minority?

I agree that the understanding held by the official majority was as Clarke says. So, we have to ask a second question: who was correctly interpreting Scripture, the official majority or the dissenting minority?

To answer that question, we need to recall what the official majority view was based on.

It was based on interpreting Scripture through the lens of the culturally-derived and unbiblical view that women were innately inferior to men both in rank and in nature, and should therefore be confined to lesser tasks, in the private rather than the public sphere.

William Witt, after referring to the writings of Origen, Tertullian and Chrysostom, summarizes the traditional argument against women’s ordination:

“… women cannot be ordained to church office because they are less intelligent, emotionally unstable, more susceptible to temptation, and therefore are necessarily subordinate to and may not exercise authority over men. Moreover, the restriction is not simply a restriction from church office, but a restriction of women exercising authority over men in any public sphere whatsoever.”¹⁶

If Clarke agreed with that distorted view of women, it would make sense for him to rely on post-apostolic interpretations of 1 Timothy 2-3, in support of a ban on women elders. But he does not agree with it. And though Origen says that women must be silent because it is shameful for any woman, however gifted, to speak in an assembly, Clarke disagrees, on the basis that Origen misunderstood Scripture on that point (see Part One). Clarke is not being consistent when he gives weight to the post-apostolic prohibition of women elders.

The essence of Clarke’s historical analysis is captured in the sentence in his review where he writes:

“It hardly makes sense to say that the Christian faith was both a liberating message to the Greco-Roman world for women, that drew thousands and thousands of women into its orbit, while simultaneously reinforcing a misogynistic worldview that belittled women.”

That is a reasonable and thoughtful point to make. But it is mistaken. Two points arise.

First, it does not grapple with the real issue. The early church fathers, having grown up with a negative view of women derived from pagan patriarchal culture, misread the Scriptural teaching about women. For those who thought in that way, it seemed obvious that women should not hold positions that involved exercising authority over men. They read 1 Timothy 2:14 as a reference to women’s well-known gullibility and women’s well-known inability to resist temptation, in contrast with men’s abilities(!). That was enough to confirm their view that women should not in any circumstances exercise authority over men.

But pretty much everyone (including Clarke himself) agrees that the fathers misread Scripture on that point. Given their faulty understanding and faulty reasoning, why should we give weight to their understanding of 1 Timothy 2 – 3 as prohibiting women from eldership?

Second, in the real world there was no contradiction between the fathers’ “liberating message to the Greco-Roman world for women” and their “misogynistic worldview that belittled women”. That is because in historical reality there are two different comparisons here, which need to be kept distinct. One is a comparison with a more accurate understanding of Scripture; the other is a comparison with the Greco-Roman world:

• Compared with how the Bible is now more accurately understood, the church fathers held a worldview that belittled women. Few commentators today would write that it is always shameful for a woman to speak in public simply because she is a woman (Origen), that it is woman who is the devil’s gateway (Tertullian), that a man’s beard is the token of his superior nature (Clement of Alexandria), that woman is of small intelligence (Augustine), or that, if the important matters of life were turned over to a woman, she would go quite mad (Chrysostom).
  However-
• Compared with the general outlook in the Greco-Roman world the Christian faith as taught and practiced was wonderfully liberating for women, even though distorted by cultural patriarchalism. In the new fellowships of Christian believers, women were treated as valuable human beings. Female babies were no longer exposed to die simply because they were female. Female slaves were no longer to be used sexually at the master’s whim. Husbands were commanded to love their wives self-sacrificially and to be sexually faithful to them. Women were taught the Scriptures alongside men. They were valued as sisters in Christ.

So, compared with the pagan people around them, the early fathers were doughty champions of women. But compared with Scripture, where women are as much in God’s image as men, the early fathers held a diminished view of women.

Since the official practice of the post-apostolic church in appointing only men as elders was founded on a culturally-driven misunderstanding of Scripture, we have good reason not to take that practice, or the exegesis that supported it, as a sound guide. Logically, it should be given little weight.

As an example, consider Chrysostom’s exposition of the qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3:1-7. He expounds those qualifications at some length in his Homily 10 on 1 Timothy. But, for anyone looking for light on whether Paul’s words permit women to be elders, his exposition is of limited value. He does not discuss whether a woman could be appointed as an elder, for he simply assumes throughout that all elders are men. That means that he does not address the exegetical questions concerning 1 Timothy 3:1-7, which we have discussed above.

(E) The interpretation of 1 Timothy 3 should be controlled by 1 Timothy 2; and 1 Timothy 2 is about male-only leadership in the public assembly.

Clarke says:

“1 Timothy 3:14-15 also identifies the context for the letter, at the conclusion of the most controversial chapters 2 and 3, which pertains to how Christians are to gather together in community for worship,” [emphasis added]

Before heading into the details of 1 Timothy 2, let’s first notice that it simply cannot be right that Paul is writing about the public worship assembly in chapter 3.

It is true that 3:15 uses the expression “that you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God”. But the word “you” is singular (in Greek), because this letter is addressed to Timothy (see 1:2). These are Paul’s instructions to Timothy concerning how he should behave in the Ephesian church, in case Paul’s return is delayed (3:14-15). And the instructions that fill the whole of 3:1-13 are Paul’s guidance for Timothy to help him select elders and deacons. Those are certainly not instructions for how believers ought to behave in a worship assembly.

Clarke’s view is like taking instructions to a choir director for selecting singers and saying that they are instructions to a choir for performing an oratorio.

Then what about chapter 2? Despite the agreement of many commentators that chapter 2 is about the public assembly, on sober analysis that view does not fare any better. We will see this in our next section, where we examine 1 Timothy 2.

1 Timothy 2

Clarke’s discussion covers seven key points where he disagrees with or criticizes what I have written. I will address them in the following order:

• (1) The subject-matter of 1 Timothy chapter 2: is it the public worship assembly?
• (2) The significance of how 1 Timothy 2 was understood in the post-apostolic church
• (3) The significance of how the letter is understood by non-believing and progressive scholars
• (4) The connection between 1 Timothy 2 and 3
• (5) The meaning of 1 Timothy 2:12
• (6) The historical background in Ephesus
• (7) Interpreting 1 Timothy 2:13-14: is Paul relying on general truths drawn from the Genesis story or is he using the Genesis story as an illustration?

(1) The subject-matter of 1 Timothy chapter 2: is it the public worship assembly?

This is an important issue, because it has a bearing on the fundamental question whether Paul’s restriction on a woman in v12 is local and temporary or of wide and enduring application.

Clarke agrees with me that Paul generally encourages women to teach in the church, and he cites numerous Scriptures which show that to be the case. The restriction in 1 Timothy 2:12 must therefore be intended to be limited in some way which makes it consistent with what Paul teaches elsewhere.

An obvious solution is that the restriction is intended to be local and temporary, responding to some particular situation in Ephesus at the time. That is the essence of egalitarian views on it.

But complementarians insist that the restriction is permanent, and applicable in every church. If so, some other limitation must be found in order to make it consistent with Paul’s teaching elsewhere. Clarke’s view of the limitation is this: Paul is concerned only with a particular kind of teaching. As far as I understand, Clarke’s proposal is that Paul is referring to teaching that is delivered by male elders, typically in the public worship assembly, passing on the faith from one generation to the next.

In chapter 2, Paul does not say that he is concerned with teaching of this particular kind. I have therefore not found Clarke’s position altogether easy to understand. The argument seems to be that the subject-matter of chapter 2 is the public worship assembly, and from this (taken together with chapter 3) we should infer that Paul is concerned with that particular kind of teaching.

So, how does Clarke show that chapter 2 is about the public worship assembly?

There is no express mention of the public worship assembly in chapter 2. So, Clarke’s view that chapter 2 is about the public worship assembly can only be established by drawing inferences from what Paul writes.

We have already seen that chapter 3 is certainly not about the public worship assembly, so, taking the two chapters together cannot assist this part of Clarke’s argument.

1 Timothy 2 commences with some instructions for prayer. Referring to 2:1-2, Clarke says:

“Paul urges believers to offer prayer for all people, including government leaders, which suggests a local worship context.”

But how does it suggest that? Why should we imagine that Paul intended the believers to pray only during gathered worship? That is not what Paul says here. Nor is it consistent with Paul’s teaching elsewhere, such as Ephesians 6:18 (‘pray … on all occasions’) and 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (‘pray continually’).

There are further instructions in 1 Timothy 2:8 for how men are to pray. Clarke suggests that these are directed to “a public worship context”.

But what is the basis for that suggestion? It is problematic. (1) If Paul means specifically ‘when you gather for public worship’, why does he hide his meaning by saying ‘in every place’, instead? (2) Are we supposed to believe that Paul was simply assuming that men would pray together specifically during public worship and not on other occasions? That is unrealistic. There is nothing in chapter 2 or anywhere else to support it.¹⁷

In 2:9 Paul gives instructions for wealthy women to dress decently. Clarke is presumably asking us to believe that the wealthy women’s indecent, fashionable clothes, alluded to in 2:9, were worn in the Christian worship assemblies. But isn’t it more likely that the settings in which rich women wore such indecent clothes were elite social occasions, such as dinner parties or symposia?

In 2:10 Paul says the misbehaving wealthy women should adorn themselves with good works.

Clarke says it is “strange” that I conclude that Paul “is mainly thinking of the good works that women do, or should do, away from the assembly.” He asks:

On what basis does Andrew conclude this? Where is the evidence to show that Paul is “mainly thinking” of a non-worship gathering context?”

The evidence is straightforward.

First, good works, from their very nature, are mainly done elsewhere than in the worship assembly. To feed the hungry, to provide drink for the thirsty, to give hospitality to strangers, to clothe the naked, to care for the sick, to visit the prisoners, to uphold justice, and so on – all such things by their nature are done out where the need is, not in the worship assembly.

Second, Paul goes on to mention in 5:10 some specific examples of the good works that he has in mind for the women to do – to bring up children, to show hospitality, to wash the feet of the Lord’s people, and to help those in trouble. Those works, by their nature, will generally not be done in a worship assembly. In 5:14 he adds marrying, bearing children, and ruling their households. Again, those are hardly activities for every Sunday worship assembly! There is no realistic possibility that, when Paul mentions these good works to be done by women, he is thinking specifically of how to behave in the worship assembly.

Then in 2:12 Paul restricts something that “a woman” does to “a man”. Why should we think that a restriction worded in this way applies specifically in the worship assembly? Are we supposed to imagine that the Ephesians held public worship assemblies where a woman taught one man on his own or did something else to one man on his own? That is entirely unrealistic. If Paul means that no woman should teach men in the assembly, why does he not simply say so? If that were Paul’s intent, why is ‘a man’ singular? It sounds like Paul is restricting something done by a woman to one man, not to an assembly, and still less to a mixed assembly of men and women.

And what about the childbearing of 2:15? Are we supposed to imagine that the childbearing takes place in the worship assembly? That is not reasonable.

And when Paul indicates in 2:15 that women should ‘continue in faith, love and holiness, with modesty’, where will that take place? Those are qualities and behaviors for the whole of life, not specifically for the public worship assembly.

In sum, in the whole of chapter 2 there is no mention of the public worship assembly, nor is there mention of an activity which occurs only during public worship. And activities are mentioned that certainly occur outside public worship, such as good works and childbearing. So, we should conclude with confidence that chapter 2 is not about the conduct of public worship.

I think Clarke sees the force of these points, for his position wavers in the course of the review, so that in one place he writes:

I would concur with Andrew Bartlett that the context of 1 Timothy 2:11-15, and in 1 Timothy 3, is not strictly about the actual public gathering for worship.

That removes a major plank of the theory that Paul’s restriction in 2:12 applies to official teaching by male elders.

(2) The significance of how 1 Timothy 2 was understood in the post-apostolic church

Despite the multiple pointers that chapter 2 is not about the public assemblies of the church in Ephesus, Clarke nonetheless protests:

… if Andrew’s point is correct, it begs the question as to why the early church did not see it.

That is a good question to raise. It is not difficult to answer.

Clarke has rightly acknowledged that early church fathers held a wrong and unbiblical view of women, as being innately inferior to men, and that they “erred by allowing the paterfamilias ethic of the Greco-Roman world to overly influence how they read the Bible”.

As we might expect, ancient readings of 1 Timothy 2 were vitiated by that error. If women were inherently inferior to men in rank and in nature, it was self-evident that they were unfit to lead and teach in the church. Whether Paul was talking about worship assemblies in chapter 2 was a matter of little interest. It made no difference. Since women were inferior, they were unfit to lead and teach in any public setting.

So, for example, when Chrysostom discusses 1 Timothy 2:11-14, his reasoning is based on his view of women as weak and fickle, in contrast to men:

“The woman taught once, and ruined all. On this account therefore he saith, let her not teach. But what is it to other women, that she suffered this? It certainly concerns them; for the sex is weak and fickle, and he is speaking of the sex collectively. For he says not Eve, but ‘the woman,’ which is the common name of the whole sex, not her proper name.” (Homily 9 on 1 Timothy)

It is women’s inherently inferior nature which Chrysostom sees as justifying a general rule against women’s public, official teaching.

We cannot take the post-apostolic understanding of chapter 2 as a reliable guide.

(3) The significance of how the letter is understood by non-believing and progressive scholars

Clarke makes three related points about the views of non-believing and progressive scholars:

First, he writes:

“To me, it is quite telling that I have yet to run across any non-believing biblical scholar (or progressive Christian scholar) who finds the evangelical egalitarian arguments concerning 1 Timothy and Titus to be convincing”. [emphasis original]

Second:

“Many such scholars go onto further conclude that the pseudepigraphic and misogynistic author of 1 Timothy and Titus is reframing the authentic, egalitarian Paul, and thereby distorting the real Paul’s message, to make “Paul” sound more palatable to a patriarchal Greco-Roman culture. While I do not share a misogynistic reading of 1 Timothy and Titus, nor do I reject Pauline authorship of the pastoral letters, I do say that the unbelieving and progressive Christian scholars have a valid point to make.”

Third:

“Andrew purposely never engages with such critical arguments that seek to question Pauline authorship of the pastoral letters, which I view is a serious, serious shortcoming of his book.” [emphasis original]

As regards the question of authorship, I wrote in the Preface of my book (note 2):

“… I proceed on the basis of Paul’s authorship of Ephesians, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. In my view the arguments against authenticity depend upon mistaken presuppositions and faulty reasoning. The experience of writing the present book has strengthened my conviction that the same voice speaks in 1 Corinthians, Colossians, Ephesians and the three Pastoral Epistles.”

To say more about the question of authorship would have been foreign to the purpose of my book, which was to address the disagreement among Bible-believing Christians concerning what the Bible teaches about men and women, and to help people understand and apply its teaching.

It should be remembered that there were people who were much better placed than contemporary scholars to judge whether Paul wrote 1 Timothy – namely, those in the early church who decided that it should be accepted as a genuine Pauline letter. They were close to Paul in time, in native language, in geography and in culture, and they may have had access to informal sources of knowledge about the provenance of the letter.

As regards the views of non-believing or progressive scholars, I affirm as a general proposition that there is often much to be learned from considering their contributions with care and respect. But in this instance, I believe Clarke is not correctly evaluating the significance of their views. Such scholars are generally content to take for granted the traditional interpretation of what the writer of 1 Timothy meant. They are seldom interested in arguments that Paul, or the author of 1 Timothy, had a high view of women and has been misunderstood as a misogynist. A misogynist author is a convenient fall-guy. He fits into and reinforces their world- view, which involves standing in judgment on Scripture and rejecting its authority.

Here, Clarke is trying to ride two horses at once: a highly uncomfortable procedure, especially when the horses are running in different directions.

Clarke believes that scholars who reject the authority of the Bible and who reject Paul’s authorship of 1 Timothy are wrong; they have a defective understanding of the Bible and a defective understanding of 1 Timothy. But at the same time Clarke wants to give serious weight to their understanding of 1 Timothy. That is not a coherent position for Clarke to take. He has already told us that their views are unreliable and wrong. Clarke cannot continue to ride both horses. He must choose one or the other. The self-contradiction is fatal to his argument.

(4) The connection between 1 Timothy 2 and 3

Clarke raises a concern that, if 1 Timothy 2 is not about the public worship assemblies of the church, then there is no adequate explanation of “why Paul launches into a discussion about the qualifications for church office in 1 Timothy 3”. And he claims that, for me to reach my conclusion,

Andrew has to somehow divorce 1 Timothy 3 from the context given in 1 Timothy 2:8-15, [emphasis original]

But that is a major misunderstanding of my reasoning. On the contrary, chapters 1 and 2 of 1 Timothy flow naturally into chapter 3, as I explain in my book. Briefly, there are certain people teaching falsely in the church, whom Timothy must correct (1:3). We learn later that they are young, wealthy widows (chapter 5). They want to be recognized as teachers (1:7). But if they are to be enlisted in God’s service, they need to follow Paul’s example of repentance (1:12-16; 2:7). These women who are misbehaving need to learn quietly and to do good works, and are not permitted to teach and lead a man astray, like Eve did (2:9-14). But they can be saved through the Childbearing (the gift of Christ to the world) if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control (2:15). Eldership is a good work (3:1), which is open to anyone (tis – man or woman), and it seems replacements are needed for Hymenaeus and Alexander (1:19-20), but there are qualifications to meet, in order to be suitable for appointment as a teaching elder (3:2-7). Likewise, with deacons (3:8-13). The message is that the women who aspire to be teachers cannot be appointed to any recognized position unless and until their changed lives show that they meet the qualifications. So, as Paul urges later in the letter, Timothy must not act with partiality (influenced by the women’s powerful position as wealthy people), he must not appoint anyone hastily, and he must keep himself pure (uninfluenced by the women’s allurements) (5:21-22).

(5) The meaning of 1 Timothy 2:12

Verse 12 is the central text for justifying complementarian restrictions on women’s service in the church.

Are the words ouk epitrepō in v12 best translated into English as ‘I do not permit’ or as ‘I am not permitting’? ‘I do not permit’ tends to imply a general practice, whereas ‘I am not permitting’ tends to imply a temporary measure (‘I am not permitting it now, but in other circumstances I may permit it’).

The verb epitrepō is in the present tense. Clarke believes that the translation ‘I do not permit’, with its implication of a general rule, is to be preferred on the ground that it more accurately reflects Greek grammar. He writes:

Unless there is a clear contextual reason for limiting the time scope of the Greek present tense, translators should not violate this grammatical rule that the Greek present tense is timeless in principle. [Emphasis original]

He adds in an endnote:

The rules of Greek grammar … indicate instead that the timelessness of the Greek present tense must be assumed, unless clear contextual clues suggest otherwise.

But there is no such grammatical rule, and no basis for such an assumption. As a matter purely of grammar, the Greek phrase can be translated either way with equal readiness. The grammar on its own provides no clue whether the more correct rendering into English is ‘I do not permit’ or ‘I am not permitting’. Only attention to the context can determine which translation is a better rendition of Paul’s meaning. For further explanation of the applicable Greek grammar, see the endnote.¹⁸

‘I do not permit’ or ‘I am not permitting’ is a strange choice of words if Paul is intending to state a general rule for all churches in all times. The Bible is a big library of books – translated into English, it’s over 3⁄4 million words. And there are plenty of rules and instructions in there. But there is not even one example in the Bible of someone laying down a general and enduring rule with the words: ‘I do not permit’ or ‘I am not permitting’.

Another translation issue in v12 is the correct rendering of authenteō. Clarke asks:

“Why are these Ephesian church women not permitted to “exercise authority” (ESV translation of authenteo) over men specifically? If they are false teachers, should they also not be permitted to have authority over other women newly coming into the church as well?”

I agree that this makes no sense.

The ESV translation of authenteō as ‘exercise authority’ is a main plank of the complementarian interpretation of verse 12. But it is a broken plank. It is not supported by the historical, linguistic evidence. Paul was writing in the first century AD. Scholars have scoured a thousand years of Greek literature from 700 BC to 300 AD without finding a clear example of authenteō meaning ‘exercise authority’. That appears to be a later meaning, which Paul could not have known. I lay out the evidence in Appendix 3 of my book.¹⁹

At this point in his instructions Paul is not concerned with whom the wealthy, misbehaving women may teach in the assembly, if they gain recognition as teachers (ie, they would teach men and women). He is concerned with what they may do imminently, in advance of such recognition. They are young widows, on the lookout for a man (5:6, 11). Such a woman may lead a man astray, one to one. She may overpower (authenteō) him with her false teaching.

Consider this question, to which no answer has yet been offered from the complementarian side of the discussion, so far as I’m aware:

• If Paul is really talking about who should ‘exercise authority’ over men, instead of using one of the regular Greek words for authority (as he does everywhere else that he mentions authority), why does he use this unusual word authenteō?

This verb is rare in all of surviving Greek literature up to Paul’s time and for several centuries after. Other than Paul’s use here, there are just five definite, known uses of this verb up to and including the 3rd century AD. To get a sense of proportion: in surviving Greek literature the regular word for authority (exousia) occurs between 1,000 and 2,000 times.

At first sight, Paul’s choice to use this word is simply weird, because it is so very unusual. Paul was a skilled communicator. Someone who wants to communicate effectively, and be understood, doesn’t choose to use a rare word, without explaining it, unless there is some special circumstance which means that they know it will ring a bell with their audience.

Here is where ancient astrology comes in.

Two of the five examples of this word use the same grammatical construction as Paul in v12 – that is, the object of the verb authenteō is a person (or is regarded as a person), and is in the genitive case. Both of those two examples are in astrological writings.

With that in mind, let’s consider the practical context. Everyone who has read Acts 19 knows about the false religion of the goddess Artemis, and her great temple in Ephesus, and the riot which went on for hours, and the chant of the crowd: ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!’

If you look online at statues of Artemis of Ephesus which existed in Paul’s time, you will see that she has the astrological signs of the Zodiac around her neck. The idea was that Artemis, being a daughter of Zeus, was lord over the cosmic powers.

Paul chooses this rare word, authenteō, because he knows it will ring a bell with the misbehaving women, when Timothy uses Paul’s letter for correcting them.

The use of this rare word, with a grammatical construction which in the relevant time period has been found only in astrological lore, is a strong pointer that Paul is addressing a particular, local situation, where certain wealthy women are under the influence of false teaching which includes astrology.

In astrology, Saturn overpowers (authenteō) Mercury and the moon, making people lovers of the body, dictatorial, lovers of property, avaricious, amassing treasure. That sounds rather like the wealthy Ephesian women who live for pleasure (5:6), and who care for their bodies by having their hair braided and adorning their bodies with displays of their wealth (2:9).

(6) The historical background in Ephesus

Under the heading ‘Reconstructing the Central Argument of Andrew Bartlett’s Men and Women in Christ’, Clarke takes issue with my historical understanding of what was going on in the Ephesian church, which Timothy was charged to correct. He considers that my understanding-

“is inconsistent with what we know about the cult of Artemis, from evidence unearthed in Ephesus and in the literature”.

This part of Clarke’s review reveals that he has been misled by a widely held misunderstanding of the cult of Artemis. The mistaken idea is that the followers of Artemis held to strict virginity, since Artemis was herself a virgin goddess. Accordingly, Clarke thinks that, if the misbehaving women were influenced by the Artemis cult, they would have been pursuing virginity, not pursuing men.

Yes, it is true that Artemis was held to be a virgin goddess. In the words of the title of Sandra Glahn’s new book, Artemis was ‘Nobody’s Mother’. But it is not correct that her devotees necessarily pursued virginity. While extensive evidence cited in Glahn’s book demonstrates that Artemis’s priestesses and cult leaders – those holding office within the cult – were probably sexually inactive, her other devotees were not. Widespread devotion to Artemis was fueled by the belief in her midwifery skills – that she would keep women safe during childbirth. (Hence Paul’s allusion in 2:15.) If devotees were pursuing virginity, those skills would necessarily be irrelevant.²⁰

Clarke thinks that my book presents the “female false teachers in Ephesus” as “bent on dominating and sexually exploiting men”. He fills this out in a subsequent comment added below the review, after he listened to Preston Sprinkle interview me:

“… the logic of Bartlett’s view simply does not work. To think that Paul was only rebuking a group of Ephesian women from trying to sexually dominate men, due to influence from the Artemis cult, is non-sensical. Artemis was a virgin. Artemis was not about promoting the sexual domination of men by women. That makes no sense at all. Even Sandra Glahn’s research shows that Bartlett’s view is not right.”

That comment is wide of the mark. It is right that I have drawn attention to Paul’s concerns about women’s decency and propriety in 2:9, 15, about women living for pleasure in 5:6 and about their sensual desires leading them away from Christ in 5:11, but I did not write anything in my book or say anything in the interview about sexual domination of men by women. Leading a sexual partner astray, into false teaching, is not sexual domination. I believe that the view in my book is fully consistent with Sandra Glahn’s research on the cult of Artemis.

Clarke has another reservation about the relevance of the cult of Artemis to understanding Paul’s letter. He thinks that, if my analysis were correct, there should be a direct reference by Paul to Artemis, or else some other early church record or Ephesian inscriptions to confirm it.

But in Paul’s letter there are many choices of words which are allusions to Artemis, to magic and to astrology. For example, it would be a brave commentator who argued that the similarity between the belief in Artemis’s deliverance of women in childbearing and Paul’s language in 2:15 was a random coincidence, unconnected with the religious milieu of Ephesus.

The exact number of allusions depends on what one counts as a single allusion, and on whether to include some of those that are less clear, but a fair estimate is around 20. That is a very high number for such a short letter. And to support my analysis we need only a few of them.²¹

In English versions, the troublesome women are traditionally described in 5:13 as ‘gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not’. In my book, I have shown why that description would be better translated as ‘talkers of nonsense and magicians, saying what they should not’. The same verse also alludes to astrology’s ‘idle house’.

Moreover, as we have seen, the connection with astrology provides a cogent explanation for Paul’s choice of the very unusual verb authenteō in 2:12, an otherwise strange choice for which complementarian scholars have no explanation to offer.²²

(7) Interpreting 1 Timothy 2:13-14: is Paul relying on general truths drawn from the Genesis story or is he using the Genesis story as an illustration?

Complementarians claim that Paul’s restriction on women in 2:12 is not merely local and temporary but is of general and enduring application because his supporting reasoning in v13- 14 relies on general, transcultural truths from the Genesis story. But is that correct? Or do v13- 14 provide a supporting illustration that is apt for the particular local situation that concerns him?
Verses 13-14 say (literally):

‘[13] for Adam was formed first, then Eve, [14] and Adam was not deceived, but the woman having been deceived came into transgression.’

These words are connected to v12 by the conjunction gar, meaning ‘for’, introducing supporting material for what has just been said in v12, so we should try to make sense of v13- 14 together as supporting v12.

We have already noted Chrysostom’s exposition: Paul intends to forbid all women to teach because, unlike men, they are weak and fickle. From Chrysostom’s time until quite recently, it was commonplace for commentators to explain that Paul is here reasoning from the general truth that women are more gullible than men.

But this traditional interpretation, which depends upon supposed general qualities of men and women, makes Paul’s reasoning foolish, as Clarke readily agrees. For Paul knows full well that Adam sinned also (compare Romans 5:12-14). If, as Paul says, Adam was not deceived, then it follows that he sinned deliberately. As expressed by Wayne Grudem, Paul indicates:

“… that Eve was convinced to believe something false, and she sinned as a result, but that Adam knew it was wrong, and went ahead and sinned intentionally.”²³

If Paul is referring to general qualities of men and women that can be inferred from the Genesis story, then we should infer that women are gullible and men are rebellious. Would being led and taught in the church by someone with a tendency to deliberate rebellion be a real improvement on being led and taught by someone with a tendency to being deceived? The foolishness of such an idea confirms that the traditional interpretation must be wrong.

Moreover, if Paul really believed that women were more gullible than men, why did he instruct women to teach other women (as in Titus 2:3)? On the hypothesis of women’s special gullibility, women should neither receive teaching from a woman nor teach anyone.
As Clarke recognizes, nearly all commentators now rightly reject the traditional interpretation.

But that creates a challenge. A new explanation of Paul’s reasoning is needed.

For v13, the usual complementarian explanation is that Paul understands the Genesis story to imply that men were created to have authority over women. That is immediately problematic, because of the lack of historical support for authenteō in v12 as meaning ‘exercise authority’. If that verb means something on the lines of ‘overpower’ or ‘dominate’ or ‘domineer’, then that undermines the complementarian explanation of v13.²⁴

And there is a bigger problem. Having rejected the traditional interpretation, how should we reinterpret the intent of v14? If Paul is not referring to a general truth of women’s greater gullibility, then what is the general truth about men and women that Paul has in mind, which makes sense of his stated reasoning, including v14?

At this point the complementarian case stumbles. If complementarians insist that Paul is laying down a general and enduring prohibition of women’s teaching in v11-12, then it is very difficult to make sense of what Paul gives us in v13-14 as support for such a prohibition. It is not enough to make a controversial claim about what v13 supposedly implies. A proper explanation should deal with the whole of Paul’s reasoning in v13-14.

Here’s the nub of the problem: if Paul were referring to general truths about the created nature of men and women, drawn from the Genesis story, in order to uphold men’s teaching authority, his reasoning would be unconvincing, for Eve’s deception is accompanied by Adam’s deliberate sin, which does not sensibly support an insistence on men’s teaching authority.²⁵

The difficulty of making sense of Paul’s reasoning as supporting a general restriction on women is candidly acknowledged by prominent complementarian scholars.

Douglas Moo:

“These verses [13-14] offer assertions about both the creation and the fall, but it is not clear how they support the commands in vv. 11-12.”²⁶

Ray Ortlund:

“… Paul in 1 Timothy 2:14 cites the woman’s deception as warrant for male headship to be translated from the home into the church … Please note that I am not interpreting the logic of the apostle in his making this connection, which logic I am not satisfied that I clearly understand.”²⁷

Tom Schreiner:

“What, then, is the point of 1 Timothy 2:14? Let me acknowledge at the outset the difficulty of the verse.”²⁸

And Craig Blomberg effectively gives up, trying instead to argue that v14 is not part of Paul’s rationale at all.²⁹

Complementarians’ attempts at solving the difficulty vary. All of them have been doubted by fellow complementarians. The most widely-adopted complementarian theory of what Paul has in mind is that women by nature are less likely than men to take a firm stand on doctrinal matters. According to Grudem and others, women generally have a more relational disposition than men, so are less inclined than men to draw firm lines on doctrine and are more inclined to preserve relationships.³⁰ But that is really quite hopeless as an explanation of Paul’s reasoning. What happens in the Genesis story to which Paul is referring? Adam prioritizes what his wife says above obedience to God’s command (Gen 3:17) and fails to take a firm stand! Paul was not stupid. No intelligent person would choose that particular story to make a point that men are better than women at prioritizing sound teaching over relationships.³¹

The impossibility of interpreting Paul’s reasoning as depending on differing characteristics of men and women drives some complementarians to advance a different theory: Paul is thinking that things go wrong when men don’t lead. Adam should have stepped up as leader and should have intervened to prevent the temptation.³² But this idea is an assertion rather than an interpretation, for it is not indicated in Genesis, where God’s stated concern with Adam’s behaviour is that Adam, because he listened to his wife, disobeyed God’s command – not that Adam failed to intervene (Gen 3:11-12, 17). Nor is the idea indicated in 1 Timothy 2:12-14. Paul’s reasoning is nothing like: “for Adam was formed first, then Eve, but Adam failed to intervene when the woman was being deceived”. And if Paul’s point were about a need for proactive male leadership, why does he not say in v12 that men should step up to leadership over women? He gives no indication to that effect; instead, he stipulates a negative – a restriction on what a woman may do to a man.

Clarke bravely takes up the challenge of finding a coherent re-interpretation of v13-14. According to him, Paul’s reasoning in 2:13-14 is “restating male headship in a sense of preeminence.” He adds:

“This would be consistent with the growing consensus among scholars
that kephale (‘head’) means preeminence, with respect to Paul’s understanding of what it means to be male and female.”

I acknowledge in my book that a metaphorical usage of kephalē to refer to prominence or preeminence is sometimes found in Greek literature. But Clarke’s proposal really won’t do, for at least five reasons:

First, there is no mention of kephalē or of any concept of ‘headship’ in 1 Timothy.

Second, even in 1 Corinthians 11 and Ephesians 5, there are solid reasons for rejecting the
supposed metaphorical meaning of kephalē as indicating preeminence:

• In 1 Corinthians 11:3 it doesn’t fit. The three statements in verse 3 are not set out in an order of eminence, and there is no reasoning in 11:4-16 which uses an idea that God is preeminent or prominent over Christ. And if Paul thought that men were preeminent over women, being held in higher honor than women, that is a situation which he would more likely want to work against, rather than reinforce (see the very next chapter – 1 Corinthians 12:22-25).
• Similarly, in Ephesians 5 it simply doesn’t work with the text that we have. It is not how Paul explains his head metaphor when applied to the husband: see 5:23, where Paul explains it not as preeminence but as “savior”. In this passage, to be head is to provide life-giving nourishment, as in 4:15-16 and 5:29. And none of the instructions to the husband in 5:25-35a involves being more eminent than the wife. On the contrary, they are about loving, self-sacrificial service.

Third, the idea of men’s preeminence is unsatisfying as an explanation of 1 Timothy 2:13. Paul’s explicit point in v13 is about timing, not eminence. While it might be possible to interpret prior timing as implying eminence, there is no solid reason to do so. We could adapt the well-known quotation from Calvin, which both I and Clarke cite in relation to this passage, by substituting the concept of eminence for the concept of rank. That is, woman being second in order of creation is hardly an argument for her lesser eminence, for John the Baptist was before Christ in order of time, and yet was greatly inferior in eminence.

Fourth, and importantly, the idea of men’s preeminence does not make sense of v14. It has no apparent connection with Eve’s deception.

Fifth, even if women were of lesser eminence than men, that would not provide a coherent reason for restricting their use of teaching gifts given by the Holy Spirit for the benefit of the whole body of the church.

So, notwithstanding Clarke’s contribution, the challenge of v13-14 remains unresolved for complementarians.

At this point Clarke has misunderstood the nature of my argument in a crucial respect. He says:

“… as Andrew continues his argument, it is apparent that Paul’s appeal to creation in verses 13-14 are largely irrelevant to the case he is trying to make. This is a bit odd since the argument from creations appears to be central to the entire passage.” [emphasis original]

That is not a correct analysis of my book. The real disagreement here is not over the relevance of the Adam and Eve story; it is a disagreement about the nature of Paul’s appeal to it.

Clarke writes:

“Andrew suggests that the reference to Adam and Eve, in the singular, in 1 Timothy 2:13-14, “is not set in anything even remotely analogous to a public assembly of the church, nor is there anything in the story that indicates its application specifically to public worship” (p.305).

I would like to ask, “What keeps Paul from trying to link the doctrine of creation to order in public worship?”

But that is not the right question. Of course, Paul could make an argument that something in the creation story was relevant to the conduct of public worship if he wished. The right questions are whether he is actually doing so, and what is his train of thought. The idea that Paul is making an appeal to the differing natures of men and women as created by God runs into the sand, because Paul is well aware that Adam also sinned; and there is no support in the texts for the alternative idea that Adam’s relevant sin was his failure to intervene.

In a sense, that negative conclusion is all we need to know. Verses 13-14 do not make sense as reasoning for a general rule based on general truths about men and women. So, we may legitimately understand v12 as a temporary and local restriction, leaving women generally free to exercise their God-given gifts for the health and growth of the body of Christ. It is then consistent with Paul’s teaching and practice elsewhere (see Part One of my response to Clarke’s review).

But we can go beyond a purely negative conclusion.

It is not hard to see v13-14 as Paul’s chosen illustration, apt for the specific situation in Ephesus. For Paul, use of Old Testament illustrations was a normal teaching method (1 Cor 10:1-14). He had used part of this particular illustration before: see 2 Cor 11:3, where he uses Eve’s deception as a warning to his readers.

We may be less than 100% sure of precisely how Paul’s illustration in v13-14 applies to the specific situation in Ephesus, partly because his reasoning is brief and partly because we do not have the knowledge of Ephesus that Timothy had. But we can consider what is probable.

The men who had been teaching falsely – Hymenaeus and Alexander – have been excluded by Paul (1:19-20), and Timothy has been instructed to deal with certain people who are still promoting the false teaching (1:3). There are multiple indications that those people are women (too many to put here – please see my book). The men who remain are so far unaffected by it. Paul doesn’t want a woman who has been deceived by the false teaching to teach and overpower a man, as Eve, deceived by Satan’s false teaching, taught and overpowered Adam.

On this basis, Paul’s point regarding Adam being formed first is that Adam did not go astray when he was still on his own, but when Eve came along she was deceived and transgressed, with the further consequences for both of them that Paul and Timothy both know and which do not need to be spelled out. In Paul’s mind, the men who have not gone astray correspond to Adam; the misbehaving women correspond to Eve; he doesn’t want the Adam and Eve scenario to be repeated in Ephesus. He’s not permitting a woman to lead a man astray with the forbidden fruit of false knowledge.

It may be objected that ‘Adam was formed first’ is a somewhat indirect way of alluding to the situation of the men who are still on the straight path and have not yet been affected by the false teaching. But there may be a simple explanation for that particular mode of expression, arising from the religious milieu of Ephesus. Sandra Glahn has suggested that it alludes to the Artemis myth, in which Artemis was born first, before her twin brother Apollo. Paul’s choice of words highlights a contrast; in the biblical story the order is the other way round from the Artemis myth (first Adam, then Eve). Adam was formed first, but Eve fell first. So, the reference to Genesis 2 is a rebuke to the unjustified pride of wealthy, deceived Ephesian women who would teach and overpower a man. Artemis was worshipped in Ephesus as a female ‘lord’. But Paul is not permitting a deceived woman to lord it over a man.

Complementarians protest that Eve did not teach Adam falsely:

“Neither Genesis nor Paul suggests that Eve taught Adam.”³³

“Eve did not teach … Adam, but she simply “gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate” (Genesis 3:6).”³⁴

But what does the text say? God says that Adam listened to the voice of his wife, and ate (3:17). She taught him to eat the forbidden fruit, both by her example (3:6) and by her words (3:17). That is like the scenario that Paul is not permitting in Ephesus. Paul’s illustration is apt.³⁵

Conclusion

Clarke rightly rejects the concept of male ‘headship’ as God-ordained authority to rule over women.

As we have seen, the three remaining planks in the interpretation of 1 Timothy 2 as supporting a rule of male-only eldership all run into problems (viewing the chapter as instructions for the public worship assemblies of the church; translating the word authenteō in 2:12 as ‘exercise authority’; interpreting 2:13-14 as an appeal to general truths about men and women).

Clarke’s alternative attempt to justify male eldership as a sacramental ordinance is unpersuasive. And his reasons for reading 1 Timothy 3 as mandating male eldership are not satisfactory.

While I believe that I have correctly set out in my book the historical situation in Ephesus that Paul was addressing, there is a sense in which the details do not matter. The central question is whether, despite the wealth of scriptural teaching about women being fully in God’s image and gifted for service as men are, Paul is laying down a general rule that restricts women’s participation and their use of their God-given gifts. On close engagement with Scripture, we find that this interpretation faces so many severe difficulties that it is not realistically sustainable. That is what we need to know, to work together as men and women in God’s church, in a way that will please our wonderful Lord and bless the world that belongs to him.

I pay tribute to Clarke’s wide reading, his independence of thought, and his irenic disposition. I am very grateful to him for his review. I have an impression that, like me and like many others, he is on a continual journey of discovery. His thoughtful review has helped me to engage more closely with Scripture on some points and I hope that my response may help him in a similar way.

 

Notes:

^{1. 27,000 words! My response is substantially shorter. ↩}

^{2. A few writers have referred to differences in aptitude between men and women – on average men are more such-and-such while women are more so-and-so. But such differences do not provide a coherent reason. At best, they would provide an explanation for more men than women being authoritative leaders; they do not provide an explanation for banning the (supposed) minority of suitable women from authoritative leadership. ↩}

^{3. As Terran Williams and I wrote :
“… what is the first word to come out of the Risen Lord’s mouth? It is, ‘Woman …’ (John 20:15). John’s narrative tells us that Jesus was raised on ‘the first day of the week’, pointing to the first day of the new creation (20:1). Rising from death, Jesus re-enacts and brings to fulfilment the story of Adam who awakens from his deep garden-sleep to find Eve, whom he delights in and calls ‘Woman’, then later ‘Eve … the mother of the living’. And so Mary Magdalene, in this moment of déjà vu, represents the church of the living in the era of the new creation – and especially women who are to be celebrated as heralds, bringing the life-giving word of Jesus and his resurrection. Why ‘especially women’? Because it was a woman who, in the garden of the first creation, taught the serpent’s deadly message to Adam. But Jesus’s resurrection conquers the curse. So now, in the garden of the empty tomb and of new creation, the disobedience is reversed. In faithful obedience to Jesus’ word, Eve’s joyful daughter is chosen to carry God’s life-giving message to the sorrowing sons of Adam (20:17). And a new world breaks into the midst of this old and broken one – bringing with it the glorious possibility of women standing shoulder to shoulder with men on the frontlines of the mission and rule of God (compare Genesis 1:26-28). The honor of being the first witness and herald of the resurrection takes away the shame of being the first to disobey. By giving this honor to a woman, the Risen Lord signals the undoing of the curse. By this affirming and prophetic action, he shows that woman is a trusted partner, enlisted in God’s mission to bless and renew the world.” ↩}

^{4. Complementarian scholars derive ruling male headship from various passages of Scripture. They see it in 1 Corinthians 11, even though that passage states no restriction on the scope of women’s ministry and the only express mention of authority is the authority of a woman over her own head (11:10, see the Greek, not the tendentious ‘translation’ in ESV). From Genesis 2, they argue that male authority over women is implied at creation, even though it is not stated. And from Ephesians 5, they argue that husbands should exercise authority over wives, even though there is no instruction to that effect in that passage, or indeed anywhere in the Bible, and Paul’s actual instruction to husbands is to humbly love and serve their wives. Meanwhile, they regularly ignore 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul speaks in plain terms of husband and wife, who are ‘one flesh’, having mutual authority, the one over the other, and instructs that decisions be made jointly, by mutual consent, on the important marital matters of frequency of sexual intercourse and of joint prayer. Some commentators point additionally to the male Levitical priests in the Old Testament and to the male Twelve primary apostles in the New Testament, but these special cases do not materially alter the overall picture. Certainly, the Levitical priests were male. But they were from one branch of one family only, and their special function looked forward to its fulfilment in Jesus, who is unique. In the NT, priesthood belongs to Jesus Christ, and he makes all his people into priests, irrespective of both gender and ancestry (eg, 1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 1:6; 5:10). One of the gains of the Reformation was the recovery of the priesthood of all believers. The primary apostles chosen by Jesus were male for the same reason that they were Jewish and for the same reason that there were twelve of them. They had a temporary symbolic purpose (recalling the twelve patriarchs), showing that Jesus was reconstituting Israel (re-founding God’s people) around himself. This explanation is standard evangelical theology. Jesus nowhere says that future church leaders must be Jewish or male or must be appointed in groups of twelve. After Pentecost, church leadership was not limited on the model of the twelve primary apostles. ↩}

^{5. In the RC view, at the Eucharist the priest speaks the words of institution in the name and person of Christ, whereas in the Orthodox view, Christ is made present through the priest’s prayer invoking the presence of the Holy Spirit. The RC and Orthodox positions are documented and discussed by William G. Witt in Icons of Christ: A Biblical and Systematic Theology for Women’s Ordination. ↩}

^{6. One of the proposals in the first group is that v34-35 are directed only to banning women from weighing prophecies. But this proposal is in conflict with the express words and cannot viably be squared with the context. In 14:29, Paul says “Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said” (NIV, emphasis added). Who are “the others”, who are to do the weighing? In context, the most natural reading is that they are the other prophets. Conceivably, they could be the other people present in the assembly. Either way, “the others”, who should weigh the prophecies, are both men and women. So, this proposal fails. Clarke rightly rejects the ‘weighing-prophecies’ view of v34-35. Surprisingly, he also describes it as “a perfectly acceptable interpretation”. But it is not acceptable, because it is not consistent with the text. ↩}

^{7. Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, 1991 printing, p134; 2021 printing, p 181. ↩}

^{8. For source references, see chapter 15 of Men and Women in Christ, footnotes 16, 17 and 21.↩}

^{9. The primary meaning of anēr is a male adult, but in Acts 17:22 Paul uses the plural expression andres athēnaioi (‘men of Athens’) to address a mixed audience at the Areopagus, for in verse 34 Luke reports that a woman named Damaris was among the andres (‘men’, plural of anēr) who believed Paul’s message. The same word anēr is used gender-neutrally in the singular in James 1:8, 12, 20 (for the gender-neutral context, see 1:5 tis – anyone – and 1:7 anthrōpos – human being). ↩}

^{10. English-speaking Bible readers sometimes struggle to comprehend this convention of using language that has a primarily male meaning in order to refer to both men and women. So, perhaps an example from a modern language may help to make it clear. In France, if we have a group of five male friends, we refer to them as ils (‘they’, masculine) and as amis (‘friends’, masculine). If we have a group of five female friends, we refer to them using different words: elles (‘they’, feminine) and amies (‘female friends’). But if we have a group of friends consisting of five men and five women, the correct way of referring to them is as ils (‘they’, masculine) and as amis (‘friends’, masculine). The use of the male terms does not tell the reader whether the friends are all males or are a mixed group. Only clues in the context can answer that question. The Greek of the Bible works in a similar way. ↩}

^{11. This is not the only example of Paul choosing his words to make inclusivity clearer: see his addition of ‘and daughters’ to his Old Testament citation at 2 Corinthians 6:18. ↩}

^{12. Both of these translations may readily be consulted on the Bible Gateway website. ↩}

^{13. Consider verse 4: ‘They should manage their own household well—they should see that their children are obedient …’ (CEB). If we read this as definitive, a person with only one child cannot qualify (because the word ‘children’ is plural, in Greek as in English). Nor could an unmarried person qualify, if they follow the Christian sexual ethic, because they will be childless. Yet in 1 Corinthians 7 Paul emphasizes how an unmarried person can give priority to the Lord’s affairs because of their freedom from responsibilities as a spouse. And what if they do not have a household to manage, because they are living with a senior relative, or with a friend, or have been engaged in itinerant ministry? Such a person also would not qualify. On such a reading, Paul himself would not qualify, nor even the Chief Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ. Similarly, if ‘one-woman man’ (v2) were a definitive requirement to be male and married, neither Jesus nor Paul would have the qualities required for eldership. Some may wonder, then, why Paul uses in v 2 the Greek word ‘dei’. This is regularly translated as ‘it is necessary’, but the degree of compulsion which it connotes is variable. An example may help. The same word is used in John 4:4, where John writes that it was necessary for Jesus to go through Samaria. Just possibly this could allude to a sense of divine compulsion, although there is no indication of that in the text; rather, it appears to be simply a way of saying that Samaria was en route between Judea and Galilee. In a literal sense, it wasn’t ‘necessary’ for Jesus to go through Samaria, because Jesus could have travelled via the Jordan valley instead, as some Jews did in order to avoid Samaria; but the more direct route was via Samaria. ↩}

^{14. In Homily 11 on 1 Timothy, Chrysostom explains 1 Tim 3:11 as referring to women deacons. He then moves on to 1 Tim 3:12, and cites Paul’s words “Διάκονοι ἔστωσαν μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἄνδρες” (“Let deacons be one- woman men”). He next explains: “Ταῦτα καὶ περὶ γυναικῶν διακόνων ἁρμόττει εἰρῆσθαι” (“These things also fittingly refer to women deacons.”) That is, he indicates that the qualification “one-woman men” applies to women as to men. I wonder if Clarke may have been misled by the 19th century English translation of Chrysostom by Schaff, freely available online, which is unclear at this point in Homily 11. ↩}

^{15. That meaning is a development from the much earlier usage of Tertullian, who applied the Latin word ‘sacramentum’ to baptism. The sacramentum was a soldier’s oath of allegiance on joining the army. In the same way, Tertullian saw baptism as the new believer’s oath of allegiance to Christ. (Sacramentum also had other meanings in legal contexts, not relevant to this discussion.) ↩}

^{16. Witt, Icons of Christ, 23.↩}

^{17. Additionally, this could be an instruction either for men’s behavior during mixed meetings or for men’s behavior when only men meet. If the latter, that would suggest occasions other than public worship. That is because in public worship men and women prayed together (see 1 Corinthians 11 and Chrysostom, Homily 73 on Matthew 23:14). ↩}

^{18. Tenses in Greek may, but don’t always, indicate both ‘time’ (past, present, future) and ‘aspect’ (what kind of action). Quite often, aspect is the more important element and the time element is negligible. In principle, there are different kinds of aspect – the aspect may be a continuous process, a repeated or habitual action or process, a completed action or process, or the beginning of an action or process. Some Greek tenses can express some of these aspects; but with some verb forms, the aspect is undefined. In the Greek present tense, aspect is undefined. In English we have a choice of saying ‘I do not permit’ (present simple) or ‘I am not permitting’ (present continuous). That choice does not exist in Greek in the present tense. Since aspect is undefined in the present tense, we can only infer the aspect from examining the context.Clarke provides a link to an article by Mounce, who is learned in New Testament Greek. Having looked at the link, I see that Mounce confirms this orthodox view. Mounce says: “Grammarians unanimously agree that the present tense views an action from inside the action “without beginning or end in view” (Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 103). It says nothing about the completion of the event but only that from the speaker’s point of view it is an ongoing process. To say that the present tense implicitly teaches there is an end to the action is simply wrong.” I agree. But this explanation could have been more clearly expressed. Mounce is not intending to convey that the Greek present tense is timeless in principle, or that timelessness must be assumed unless the context clearly shows otherwise. What Mounce (correctly) means is: you simply can’t tell from the use of the present tense whether an end to the action is in sight or not. You can only get that from the context. In his point (3), Mounce more helpfully puts it like this: “While the use of the present tense does not require that a statement be true in the future, neither is there anything in the tense that requires it to be true only in the present but not later.”  In other words, with the present tense in Greek, the aspect is undefined, so has to be determined solely from the context. There is no default position one way or the other. However, it should be noted that in this article Mounce has misunderstood and therefore misrepresented Payne’s argument. Payne knows Greek grammar as well as Mounce. Payne does not mean that ouk epitrepō (‘I am not permitting’) is likely limited in time because that is how the present tense works in Greek. Such an argument would indeed be wrong. Payne’s argument is that, with that particular verb (epitrepō, because of its meaning and usage), and considering also the context, it is limited in time. (It’s covered in more detail in pp319-325 of Payne’s big book, Man and Woman, One in Christ.) Clarke also cites an article by Andrew Wilson. In that article, Wilson correctly represents Payne’s argument: “There have of course been scholars (Fee, Bilezikian, Payne), especially a generation ago, who have argued that Paul’s instruction was limited to the present situation, even if they are in a minority; but this is not because they think there is a grammatical obligation to translate the Greek verb with a present continuous.” Strangely, though, Wilson seems entirely unaware of the weakness – widely acknowledged by his fellow- complementarians – of relying on ‘one-woman man’ in 1 Timothy 3:2 as indicating a requirement that all elders be male. And Wilson cites egalitarians Towner and Wright, who acknowledge the masculine language of the qualifications, without appearing to understand that they are referring to this language as used in accordance with Greek assumptions or linguistic convention. Neither Towner nor Wright believes that Paul taught that elders must be male. Wright says: “Paul refers to the bishop throughout as a man. My reading of the rest of the New Testament inclines me to think that this is more because that’s how Greek grammar normally refers to both genders together, and because in the very early days of the church the leaders of most communities were probably men. I don’t see it as debarring women from this particular ministry and vocation.” (Paul for Everyone, emphases added) ↩}

^{19. I would add, it seems likely that the later meaning ‘exercise authority’ arose from patriarchal interpretations of v12. ↩}

^{20. This historical picture may help explain some of the seeming tensions in what Paul says in his letter. On the one hand, there are false teachers forbidding marriage (4:3), which might imply that they were also teaching sexual abstinence. That may correspond with the insistence on virginity for the leaders of the Artemis cult. But ordinary devotees of Artemis did not adhere to virginity. Paul is concerned about the women’s sensual desires overcoming their devotion to Christ (5:11, NIV). (But notice also that Paul describes the false teachers as hypocritical liars (4:2), so some of them may have been advocating sexual abstinence for others while indulging in sexual license themselves.) ↩}

^{21. Some of them are gathered together in my book in chapter 12 under the heading ‘The historical context) (p242 of the hard copy): “There are numerous implied cross-links between the text of 1 Timothy and the known religious life of Ephesus. God the Saviour (1:1; 2:3–4) and Jesus the Lord (1:2, 12; compare 1:15) stand in contrast to Artemis, who was acclaimed by her devotees as Saviour (sōteira) and Lord (kuria). Deacons are required to hold to the mystery of the faith (3:9), not to the mysteries of Artemis and other pagan deities who were worshipped in Ephesus. Ephesians loudly claimed that Artemis was megas (‘great’ – Acts 19:27–28, 34– 35), but Paul affirms that Jesus Christ, who embodied the mystery of godliness, is megas (1 Tim. 3:16). The believers are the congregation of ‘a living god’ (3:15) not of a lifeless idol. In 4:7–10 there is an implied contrast of true godliness with false teachings and devotion to Artemis (‘we have put our hope in a living god, who is a saviour of all people’).” ↩}

^{22. Note also that Clarke’s argument is essentially an argument from silence. Such arguments are in their nature very weak, because they make arbitrary demands about what an historical writer should have said. Philosopher Lydia McGrew explains this well, with vivid examples (The Eye of the Beholder, 274-275). Two contemporary Romans who describe the eruption of Vesuvius fail to mention the destruction of Pompeii. Grafton’s highly regarded English Chronicles discusses the reign of King John, but never mentions Magna Carta. Marco Polo’s descriptions of China make no mention of the Great Wall. Ulysses S. Grant, who led the Union armies to victory in the American Civil War, never mentions in his memoirs the Emancipation Proclamation. One factor in some such cases is that writers may take for granted what their audience already knows. That is probably a factor in what Paul writes to Timothy. Timothy was there. He knew the full situation. He didn’t need to be told explicitly everything that he already knew. ↩}

^{23. Grudem, Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth: an analysis of 118 disputed questions (IVP, 2004), 70. ↩}

^{24. It is fair to mention also, on the other side of the discussion, that many egalitarian scholars have struggled to give a satisfactory explanation of Paul’s reasoning in v13. I believe that is usually because they are handicapped by the widespread misapprehension that the subject-matter of chapter 2 is the public worship assembly.↩}

^{25. Some hold that ‘Adam was not deceived’ means only that Eve was deceived first and Adam was deceived subsequently. But if Adam was deceived, that would provide no justification for complementarian ideas about men’s teaching authority. ↩}

^{26. Cited in Men and Women in Christ, in chapter 11, in the section headed ‘Difficulties for all’, with reference given at footnote 14. ↩}

^{27. Cited in Men and Women in Christ, in chapter 11, in the section headed ‘Some difficulties for complementarian interpretations’, in footnote 31.↩}

^{28. Two Views on Women in Ministry (2005), 314. ↩}

^{29. Two Views on Women in Ministry, 171-172. Blomberg’s argument was first published some 35 years ago, but his fellow complementarians have not found it convincing. The objections to it from Mounce and from Schreiner may be seen in summary at p315 of the same book, n99. ↩}

^{30. Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth, 72-73.↩}

^{31. There is also the further difficulty that, if we are talking about differing tendencies in men and women, there will be some women who are sufficiently different from the average that they would be entirely suitable as elders. Wayne Grudem asserts: “…men tend to be more aggressive and to gravitate toward positions of leadership and dominance, and women tend to be more relational and to gravitate toward community and cooperation. … In the same way, it seems that 1 Timothy 2:14 is saying that men are better suited for the task of governing and of safeguarding the doctrine of the church.” But then he concedes, “This does not mean that women could not do this task, and do it well, at least in certain cases.” [emphasis original] Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth, 72-73. So, this explanation does not provide rational support for a complete ban on women’s governing or teaching in the church; it would support only that there is a smaller proportion of suitable women than of suitable men. (And it is troubling that Grudem has in mind the tendency of fallen men to aggression and dominance as an appropriate illustration to support his idea that men are better qualified for church leadership.)↩}

^{32. Schreiner, in Women in the Church: An Interpretation and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9-15, 3rd edn, 215. ↩}

^{33. Schreiner, Women in the Church, 3rd edn, 211.↩}

^{34. Grudem, Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth, 70.↩}

^{35. There is much more to be said about 1 Timothy 2 and the arguments surrounding its interpretation. I discuss it in chapters 11-13 and Appendices 3-6 of my book.↩}

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^{Clarke’s Rejoinder to Andrew’s Rejoinder ↩}

Andrew Bartlett has written a thoughtful, long response to my review of his book. Critics of my position on the hyper-complementarian side, on the far opposite pole from Andrew Bartlett, rarely dialogue with me in such depth, so I am grateful that Andrew dives so deeply and carefully into this discussion. If you have read his response, you will realize that Andrew Bartlett has done his homework!  I warmly appreciate his engagement, but I also want to keep my own rejoinder here as short as possible.

I do not feel the need to answer Andrew point-by-point as I believe I have already addressed his concerns elsewhere, either in my review of his book, or in other Veracity blog posts, which I will reference here below. However inviting it would be, I will need to beg off and write something separately to address what I have not commented on at a future point in time. Instead, I would like to offer some clarifications, comment on important details that I did not pick up on when reading his book, and even admit corrections where Andrew has pointed out my errors. Despite our disagreements, his studied analysis of Scripture has helped me to better think through my own position. I can happily say and agree that Andrew’s response has helped me to engage more closely with Scripture.

Defining the Terms, and Ecumenical Efforts Towards Reconciliation

Broadly speaking, much of the problem in this discussion comes down to the definition of terms.

This is clearly true based on pushback I have received from certain hyper-complementarians who reject my view, for example,  about the relationship between pastors and elders. The standard complementarian position sees a direct equivalence between being a “pastor” and being an “elder.” In contrast, I see Scripture saying that whereas all elders must be pastors, not all pastors are elders. My view allows for women as pastors, just not as elders. The distinction is bound up in how Scripture defines each of these terms. Alternatively, an egalitarian position, which Andrew Bartlett affirms, suffers from the same type of problem, just in another direction.

First, Andrew states that “Complementarianism is a Protestant evangelical phenomenon…..Catholic and Orthodox scholars seek to maintain male-only priesthood, they generally do not rely on complementarian interpretations of the Bible in order to do so.”

It would appear that Andrew has misunderstood the thrust of my argument, as the point I am making is to show that the 2,000 year old practice of having a male-only presbyteriate (“elders”) goes back to the early church, based on how the early church read Scripture and practiced their faith. This approach focuses on a broadly sacramental theology, seeking to transcend the differences between the three Great Traditions on this aspect of doctrine, and avoid as much as possible championing one tradition over another. Oddly, Andrew rejects my sacramental approach to eldership as novel, despite the long history of sacramental theology within various liturgical traditions. Need I remind Andrew that Roman Catholicism has long had a sacrament of Holy Orders, which extends to presbyterial/elder functions?

I grant that one could easily argue that Protestantism versus the older traditions, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox, have different theological associations of what it means to be an “elder,” or “presbyter.” The English word “priest” is simply a contraction of the Greek word “presbyter,” but defining what is an elder is not completely easy. So, the issue comes down to what is the exact function of “presbyter”, which in my view, is a very restrictive one.

In his extraordinarily helpful essay on a theology of eldership, U.K. pastor Andrew Wilson defines an “elder/presbyter” as a guardian, someone who is trusted to keep others from harm. Unlike certain deficient concepts of “eldership,” which emphasize vision-casting, strategic design and staff management, the primary task of elders is to shepherd God’s flock.  I think this is pretty good and honors the intended purpose which Paul had in mind in 1 Timothy, and at their best, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox communities, see it this way as well.

The ultimate problem with Andrew Bartlett’s view on this point is that by having women in the presbyteriate this makes efforts towards ecumenical reconciliation impossible. Instead of healing the divide between Protestants and others, egalitarianism only amplifies the divide. Andrew’s thesis works against church unity in the most universal sense possible, whereas I want to work towards it.

If Only Qualified-Men Should Serve as Elders, Can Women Still Be Leaders in Other Ways? YES!

Andrew Bartlett appears to misunderstand my argument by stating that in complementarian theology, “men are the leaders, while women are followers under their authority.” To clarify, this view represents a particular extreme brand of complementarian theology, but not the more moderate view for which I am arguing.

For example, I have argued that in the later era of the early church, there was a divergence of thought which wrongly began to deny women the office of deacon, which went against the early apostolic era practice of having women serve as deacons. To be a deacon is to be a leader in the church, but a deacon is not an elder. A patriarchy mindset did overtake the Christian movement, but in contrast to Andrew, this developed later and not earlier. Furthermore, I give plenty of positive examples of where women function as leaders in my review of Andrew’s book, which Andrew does not seem to recognize in his rejoinder.

On top of that, Andrew and I differ over the understanding of “headship” as found in Paul’s teachings, particularly in Ephesians 5:23. Hyper-complementarians view male headship mostly in terms of “authority.” Andrew views male headship in terms of man as “source.” I take a third way between the two, in that headship is about “preeminence,” as in being at the “head of a line,” as opposed to the alternatives, being the “head of an army,” or “head of a river,” respectively. Aside from my review of Andrew’s book, see my arguments regarding headship as preeminence here.

Women Silence in the Churches, and What is an Apostle

As to 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, I have already been dinged by a textual critical scholar for saying that Andrew’s interpolation view of this passage is “speculative, and rather inconsistent with how the discipline of textual criticism is normally practiced today.” I probably should find a better way of saying that, so I stand admonished. Nevertheless, my primary point still stands in that there are numerous scholars, including egalitarian ones. who do not find the interpolation view of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 to be persuasive on the basis of certain textual criticism arguments. Arguments for interpolation as Andrew advocates for are fraught with difficulties. See my post on  1 Corinthians 14:34-35  more in-depth here.

Andrew’s criticism of my treatment of Junia comes down again to the problem of definition. What is an “apostle?” Scripture has two conceptual understandings, whereby a “large A” apostle is someone like Paul, who actually saw the risen Lord and received authoritative revelation from Jesus. A “small a” apostle is similar to the seventy-two who were sent out by Jesus who were given a measure of authority by Jesus (see Luke 10:1), despite Andrew’s misguided assertion that this is “inventing a meaning for the term ‘apostle’ that is unknown in the New Testament.” These were missionaries, as they were “sent” out (Greek, apostellō). There is no reason to think that Junia would not have fit within that category, and by virtue of that designation, she carried a kind of authority. But there is no evidence to suggest that Junia was an apostle as in the “capital A” sense that Paul was, and appropriately, Andrew agrees with me here. Yet to return to the main point, while Junia was an apostle, this does not make her a presbyter/elder. A presbyter/elder is someone who is entrusted with passing on apostolic teaching from one generation to the next. But this in no way precludes a missionary like Junia from “exercising authority” in any other manner in establishing Christian communities. That is simply what church planters do, but this does not necessarily imply eldership. Apparently I must not have made this argument clear enough in my review of Andrew’s book. Look here for a more detailed exposition of my view.

How the Early Church Worshipped, in Contrast to the Pagans

With reference to early church history, Andrew seeks to explain why the official early church orthodox position prohibited women presbyters, when a small minority of orthodox churches at times did appoint women presbyters. A response to two points of Andrew’s answer need to be made:

(1) Andrew says that the latter minority of the church was able to recognize the Holy Spirit’s gifting of women to become presbyters. While offering an admirable answer, the problem remains is that this fails to account for the rise of women presbyters in heretical movements, ranging from Gnosticism, to Montanism, to Arianism. The line between orthodoxy and heterodoxy in the early church period was not always easy to maintain, which explains why certain church councils were held to resolve disputes. Defenders of orthodoxy were always concerned about heresy creeping into orthodox communities, along with practices unique in those heretical groups, as orthodox churches were not immune from this type of influence. So it should not be surprising to understand why the practice in heterodox communities of having women serve as presbyters was so alarming in orthodox circles.

(2) Andrew also states that “women’s leadership was unusual and generally frowned upon” in the Greco-Roman patriarchal culture. In the larger cultural context, Andrew is correct about the pervasive influence of the Greco-Roman pater familias which marginalized women. But this was simply not true when it came to pagan worship practices.

In Greco-Roman religion, women served alongside men as priests quite frequently. Even other egalitarian scholars recognize the importance of women serving as priests in the Artemis cult in Ephesus. If the cultural pressures were so influential as Andrew asserts in orthodox circles, you would expect women presbyters to be more frequent in early orthodox Christian communities, not less. Having a male-only presbyteriate served as a contrast to the surrounding pagan religious practices, as opposed to some compromise with the culture. Yet we see female presbyters active in heterodox groups quite frequently, when such groups often followed patterns set by their pagan neighbors. Granted, certain patriarchal attitudes did creep in and distort the reasons why the orthodox majority kept to a male-only prebyteriate, but this does not necessarily mean that the male-only prebyteriate practice itself violated Scripture as Andrew proposes. For more on how historically orthodox Christian worship practices differed from their pagan neighbors, listen to this talk given by the Roman Catholic scholar, Peter Kreeft.

Every Egalitarian’s Greatest Stumbling Block to Conquer: 1 Timothy

As with any egalitarian treatment of the topic, the greatest stumbling block comes in handling 1 Timothy 2-3, and to a lesser extent, Titus 1. The reason why this is so is because aside from one passing reference in Philippians, the only place in the Pauline writings where the apostle addresses the qualifications for elders are in those two books. If we did not have 1 Timothy and Titus within the canon of New Testament Scripture, there would be effectively little difference between Andrew Bartlett and I.

Titus lacks the greater substance than what we find in 1 Timothy, so it is best to focus on 1 Timothy. Essentially, in his rejoinder, Andrew Bartlett wants to drive a wedge between 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Timothy 3, at least in a particular way, as though the two passages do not carry with them the same, sustained level of argument. On the contrary, 1 Timothy 3:1-13 fleshes out what Paul is trying to get at in 1 Timothy 2:11-15, to make it practical in what he means; that is, qualified men are to serve as elders (1 Timothy 3:1-7), versus what he does not mean; that is, with deacons things are different in that both qualified men and women are to serve as deacons (1 Timothy 3:8-13).

Andrew breaks it down differently, suggesting that Paul already rebuked the male false teachers, Hymenaeus and Alexander (1 Timothy 1:19-20), then addresses the need to deal with the unnamed female false teachers (1 Timothy 2:11-15), which Andrew connects with the women Paul is addressing chapters later in 1 Timothy 5. After that, Paul breaks away from his negative critique to launch into a new positive expression to announce the indicative qualifications for elders and deacons (1 Timothy 3:1-13), which he sees as being open to both male and female. This is a very different way of showing how chapters 2 and 3 relate one another, compared to my argument which sees a different yet stronger connection between chapters 2 and 3.

Again, I would just urge readers to go back and read my review of Andrew’s book which addresses nearly every point Andrew pushes back on in his rejoinder. But I will add this example: Andrew asserts that Paul’s use of the indefinite pronoun (tis) in 1 Timothy 3:1 signals that Paul is shifting topic to show how both men and women may serve as elders. But this only makes sense if you drive a wedge between 1 Timothy chapters 2 and 3, in the manner in which Andrew does. If Paul is making an admittedly blanket statement in 1 Timothy 2:11-12, about how women are not to lead men, it would make sense for Paul to explain himself and flesh out with more precision how men and women are to lead differently in the local church.

Therefore, it would make sense contextually that Paul’s use of the phrase “husband of one wife” implied that an elder/overseer of the local church would be male, as opposed to being a non-gender specific reference. Even other egalitarian scholars recognize these elders as being all men in the early church, but Andrew dismisses this as being descriptive and not prescriptive. In discussing the qualifications of these male elders, Paul’s main focus is on character and not status. For example, the issue is not the elder’s parental status, as in “do you have children?,” but rather it is about  possessing reputable characteristics for enabling good parenting if and when children come into the picture.

Furthermore, this view is consistent with Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 11:3 and Ephesians 5:23 where Paul is thinking about male “headship” in terms of “preeminence,” a third way between the extremes of “headship” as either “authority” or “source.”  See previous Veracity post footnote for more detail.

For another example, Andrew asserts that the context for 1 Timothy 2-3 is not primarily in the realm of public worship, despite what we read in 1 Timothy 3:14-15, where Paul speaks of the “the household of God,” where people gather together in Christian community. Andrew oddly sees these verses as instruction directed towards Timothy alone, in which Andrew novelly suggests that “how one ought to behave in the household of God” with respect to believers more broadly is not in view (compare with translations like the NIV, CSB, CEV, NET, and NLT, which all disagree with Andrew).

Furthermore, Andrew says my “position wavers” as I defend the standard view that 1 Timothy 2-3 suggests a context for public worship, as we read in 1 Timothy 3:14, where Paul speaks of the gathered Christian community as “the household of God.” I acknowledge that women are encouraged to perform “good works” (1 Timothy 2:10), and of course, the practice of performing “good works” is not exclusive to a corporate worship context. Apparently, I must not have been clear enough in my review, so I simply offer that the context of 1 Timothy 2-3 is focused on the corporate worship context, but not exclusively.  This is not Andrew’s view, but hopefully it better explains my position and where it differs from Andrew’s.

In explaining 1 Timothy 2:11-15, Andrew wants to find Paul opposing women overpowering men, presumably in marriages (???), due to the influence of the Artemis cult, associated with astrology. Andrew’s case would be stronger if Paul had explicitly mentioned the astrological factor or Artemis worship in 1 Timothy, but let us go with his proposal for the sake of his argument. Nevertheless, the evidence shows that Artemis was a virgin, and encouraged virginity and not marriage. Andrew’s response to my critique is to say that the false teachers of Artemis might have been preaching sexual abstinence, while hypocritically indulging in sexual license themselves. After additional pushback to Andrew, he responds by saying that nothing in his book says anything “about sexual domination of men by women. Leading a sexual partner astray, into false teaching, is not sexual domination.”

A Complicated Solution for 1 Timothy: Does It All Work?

It is eye-opening, but it is also a complicated solution for which Andrew is advocating. Then there is Andrew’s argument that the Greek present tense in 1 Timothy 2:12 should be read in a temporal or localized way as “I am not now permitting a woman to teach, etc…..”, as opposed to a more traditional, universal way as “I do not permit a woman to teach, etc…..” Andrew even states that  “‘I am not permitting’ tends to imply a temporary measure (‘I am not permitting it now, but in other circumstances I may permit it’)”.

The word authenteō, which is normally translated as “exercise authority,” Andrew suggests is better translated as to “overpower,” which indeed is a possibility. However, when you combine everything together, you arrive at a dilemma. This might suggest that Paul is only temporarily not permitting a woman to teach and overpower a man. In other words, “I am not permitting it now, but in other circumstances I may permit a woman to teach or overpower a man, leading that man into false teachings.”

I can guarantee you that this is not what Andrew means to suggest in his thesis. But this is the problem when you take two different ideas, which stand at odds with one another, in order to try to challenge yet a third different idea. It is the rough equivalent of trying to throw different chunks of mud at a wall, in hopes that something might actually stick. If I were Andrew, I would drop his weaker “I am not now permitting” critique and focus on the stronger points of his thesis.

As noted, Andrew’s ultimate solution in order to arrive at clarity is complex, and I have a hard time making sense of it as a whole. His strongest point attacks the greatest weakness in my view, in that a complementarian reading has a difficult time trying to see how Paul’s appeal to the order of creation in 1 Timothy 2:13-15 justifies his command in 1 Timothy 2:11-12. I take a fairly minimal approach, suggesting that Paul is emphasizing the differences between men and women. Adam and Eve are equally created by God, but Adam came before Eve, thus showing a particular order in creation. Adam and Eve both sinned, but Adam sinned knowing full well what was going on, while Eve was deceived, illustrating that Adam and Eve sinned differently. Yet Paul offers a word of hope for women in that the Messiah came through the offspring of Eve, thus enabling our salvation. Andrew is not won over to my reading. But is Andrew’s alternative solution really that satisfactory?

Nevertheless, I have to hand it to him on one particular point. He argues that in 1 TImothy 2:11-15 there are women who are teaching and overpowering men, and leading these men into false teachings. Paul’s appeal to creation is really about giving an illustration that such behavior is wrong, in that it wrongly follows the example of Eve teaching Adam something falsely. Where does Eve teach Adam in Genesis? In Genesis 3:17, God utters a curse because Adam “listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it.’”

I have to admit that this is a clever reading of the text, and quite possible. Alas, the one major difficulty is that Adam’s “listen[ing” to the voice of [his] wife” does not necessarily mean that Eve was teaching Adam. Not once in Genesis 3 does Eve engage in direct conversation with Adam. Eve is only conversing with the serpent. Adam is “listen[ing]” to Eve in that he is overhearing the conversation with the serpent. But to Andrew Bartlett, this overheard conversation, and Eve’s subsequent actions are equivalent to Eve’s “teaching” Adam. Would Paul really have this understanding of  Eve “teaching” Adam in mind? Eve is setting a bad example, but does that really mean that she is “teaching” Adam? If anything, the glaring reality which can be ascertained indirectly from the text is the silence of Adam, where Adam could have spoken up to correct Eve, but he said and did nothing. I will let the reader be the judge of Andrew’s proposed reading.

I can not categorically reject Andrew Bartlett’s thesis, as that would not be fair. Andrew is making an argument in good faith, and several details of evidence used to support his view are worth serious consideration. But there are a lot of exegetical moves here. If you can connect all of the dots together in your mind, then I would say knock yourself out. Other egalitarian arguments, like from Sandra Glahn, surveyed in another Veracity post, make a better case for the Artemis cult explaining Paul’s teaching in 1 Timothy 2, even if in the end such arguments prove unpersuasive. Sandra Glahn does have a new book out, as Andrew mentioned, so perhaps that will help me try to connect the dots Andrew wants to draw out, and I hope to read Glahn’s book as it was only publicly released shortly before publishing this blog post.

Still Having Concerns About Interpretive Method

I need to offer a clarification, while still offering a strong pushback to how the Greek present tense is used in a passage like 1 Timothy 2:12.  My argument was originally overstated when I wrote that “Unless there is a clear contextual reason for limiting the time scope of the Greek present tense, translators should not violate this grammatical rule that the Greek present tense is timeless in principle.”  I have since amended the original wording to say, “An interpreter should not merely assume the Greek present tense to be indicating a temporal or localized action.  There should be clear contextual reasoning for limiting the time scope of the Greek present tense. Otherwise, you risk suggesting that the teaching of the New Testament has very little for us today.”

I stand corrected by Andrew in that there is no technical rule to assume the Greek present tense to be timeless/localized in principle. Sometimes the context for a verse lacks sufficient clarity for us to determine definitively if the scope is in a temporal and/or localized sense, versus a scope which is timeless and universal. But to assume up front a temporal or localized sense of the Greek present tense without sufficient contextual evidence is an invitation to abuse Greek grammar. The exercise of Paul’s apostolic authority in writing his letters should provide sufficient contextual reasoning more broadly to assume that Paul’s use of the present tense stipulates a universal, timeless character to it, by default. Contextual evidence is otherwise needed to indicate a localized or temporal situation. If not, the interpreter of Scripture can be led into great hermeneutical mischief, thus leading to improper application for today’s Christian.

Andrew is greatly puzzled by my position on this point and appears to be emphatically opposed to it. This puzzles me!  Oddly, I find very little to disagree with in his footnote (#18) at all regarding  the fact that “in the Greek present tense, aspect is undefined.” My concerns are indeed about grammar, but upon more reflection, my greater concern is about interpretive method.

Perhaps Andrew’s assumption is that we can always definitively determine the temporal/localized versus univeralized sense of the Greek from the context, what Andrew describes appropriately as “aspect.” I am just not optimistic that we can do that in every instance. Furthermore, not all contextually based arguments when they can be supposedly identified are convincing. For if they were, we would have far fewer academic commentaries on the Bible in print which draw diverse conclusions. Part of my argument is found here, but anyone who has studied progressive and secular-minded critical scholarship of the New Testament as much as I have will readily appreciate the problem.

Situating Evangelical Egalitarian Arguments for 1 Timothy Within the Larger Conversation

In short, Andrew goes to great lengths to defend his reading of 1 Timothy, but the exegetical moves he tries to make are more problematic than he makes it sound. I have yet to find a single non-evangelical critical scholar who finds any egalitarian reading, like that proposed by Andrew Bartlett,  of 1 Timothy to be persuasive. Andrew sees this as being of no real consequence and therefore not relevant, mainly because he is writing for an evangelical audience. But I think he is naive here.

No such non-evangelical critical scholar finds a local or temporary situation associated specifically with Ephesus or Artemis to be in the mind of the 1 Timothy author, however appealing it may sound. Simply put, every non-evangelical critical scholar I have studied and personally asked reads 1 Timothy as not permitting women to serve as elders. 

The reason why this perspective is significant is because such critical scholars have no “skin in the game,” as they do not have any investment in trying to defend apostolic authority and Pauline authorship with respect to 1 Timothy.  Whether 1 Timothy allows for women to serve as elders, or requires qualified men to serve as elders, is of no concern to such scholars, as 1 Timothy as a text lacks genuine Pauline authority.

Such scholars typically go on and make  unwarranted conclusions which dismiss the pastoral letters as non-Pauline and hopelessly misogynistic, conclusions both of which are unfortunate. In contrast, I agree with Andrew Barlett that Paul actually did write 1 Timothy and Titus, most likely through the authority given by Paul to an amanuensis. Furthermore, I do not see it possible for these letters to be inherently misogynistic as this would conflict with the broadly egalitarian perspective expounded by Paul in his other letters, which is another point where Andrew and I happily agree. Where Andrew and I differ is in terms of how the message of 1 Timothy regarding male/female fits in with Paul’s other teachings on the subject. My position is more easily defensible than Andrew’s since it is more in-line with the dominant scholarly consensus, without bending to misogynistic tropes that needlessly accompany certain scholarly judgments at times.

This is not about trying to “ride two horses at once” as Andrew charges me with doing. In an upcoming Veracity blog post series, I intend to show just how significant the issues like that of “women in ministry” are related to the more weighty questions of authorship of 1 Timothy, etc.. I hope to provide a better answer to those challenges without making some “last ditch” attempt to try to “save” Paul, which is the typical charge levied against evangelical egalitarians like Andrew Bartlett by non-evangelical and secular critical scholars.

The apostle Paul’s greatest concern in 1 Timothy and Titus is to make sure that his churches continue on in upholding the apostolic teaching he established, as Paul’s ministry was coming to an end, and yet he specifically directs the office of elder (and not deacon) to be for a qualified male, in order to exercise a fatherly spiritual influence in the church, in helping to model what a Christian family should look like. This in no way was meant to exclude women from leading in other forms of Christian ministry. I would simply refer readers to go back to look at my interaction with Andrew’s book in order to determine which case is the more compelling.

Recovering a Theology of Fatherhood for Eldership

The linking of “fatherhood” with eldership has a long history in Christian tradition. This explains why so many older liturgical traditions refer to a presbyter/elder as “father.” Yet Andrew seems intent on rejecting this as non-Scriptural. Perhaps Andrew’s antipathy towards this stems back to an old Protestant critique of medieval Catholicism, citing Jesus’ statement in Matthew 23:9 to “call no man ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.” Without diving too deeply into this anti-Catholic polemic, it should be sufficient to say that such an interpretation can lead to an absurdity: Is Jesus really saying that we should never call our earthly fathers “fathers?” Hardly.

Like other authors who lean towards the egalitarian side of this debate, Andrew Bartlett acknowledges that indeed men and women are not fully interchangeable. Male and female are different. In the realm of marriage, Andrew is unconvinced by a number of egalitarian readings of Scripture, and he even acknowledges that there is a certain asymmetry with respect to how husbands and wives relate to one another.

But in the realm of the local church, there seems to be little substance in Andrew’s book or rejoinder that fleshes out what those differences between male and female actually look like. Andrew is content to say that men and women should serve as elders. But if that is the case, then how exactly does the celebration of male and female as equal yet non-interchangeable really take shape and find some expression?

The Confusion of Competence

Andrew’s reading of 1 Timothy seems predicated on the idea that the only grounds for a complementarian theology of a male-only presbyteriate is based on an appeal to male competency; that is, women can not do the job, but men can, so men are preferred. The egalitarian answer Andrew seems to support is straight-forward: Women are competent to be elders in a local church, so why not affirm this?

However, the hermeneutical flaw in this type of argument should be obvious, but it might be worth reviewing why this is problematic. First, while there are certainly hyper-complementarians who believe that women are not competent to serve as elders, I do not know of any reputable complementarian thinker I respect who accepts this reasoning today. The old adage of “women are more easily deceived” than men has been thoroughly debunked as being a fallacious way of reading 1 Timothy 2:14. Andrew suggests that the most widely-adopted complementarian theory for explaining 1 Timothy 2-3 is that “women by nature are less likely than men to take a firm stand on doctrinal matters.” This is a view expressed by some, but it is emphatically not my view.

But the more pressing concern is that this egalitarian hermeneutical strategy carries with it too many affinities with attempts to revise the biblical teaching on marriage as being between one man and one woman. Is a same-sex couple not “competent” to love one another as well as in traditional heterosexual marriage? There is no indication that Scripture would preclude same-sex marriage simply on the basis of a lack of “compentency.” Furthermore, I know of several same-sex couples who show generous and faithful love to one another, in such a competent manner that more than a few heterosexual couples I know might do well to emulate. But competency is not the issue. Instead, it has to deal with appreciating God’s plan to distinguish between male and female, as created in God’s image, with marriage between one man and one woman as the best expression of God’s plan.

Let me be absolutely clear: There is no logical demand that proponents of egalitarian theology fall down a slippery slope towards accepting same-sex marriage. So, I am not criticizing or accusing Andrew Bartlett on this particular point. However, the fact remains that some others do fall down such a slippery slope, and they employ the same type of egalitarian hermeneutic to make the case for revising 2,000 years of Christian teaching on marriage.

Whew!! Ready to land the plane!! Finally! Just a few concluding thoughts….

To sum up again my position, as there were places in Andrew’s rejoinder where he missed the tenor and sometimes the substance of what I understand Scripture to say: The church needs both spiritual fathers and spiritual mothers. Yet the New Testament teaches us that these spiritual fathers need to be called out in a special way as “elders,” a way that is not necessary for spiritual mothers. We live in a day and age where fatherhood is continually minimized, dismissed as unnecessary, and even demonized by some, so we need a good theology of eldership now more than ever. A robust theology of eldership should not diminish spiritual motherhood, but should by all means encourage it.

The three Great Traditions, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant all affirm this. Stephen De Young, an Eastern Orthodox elder/presbyter/priest in Louisiana, has some helpful thoughts here:

“[Women] do not lead in the Christian community by attempting to mimic spiritual fatherhood, or fill a role to which men are called.  Far greater than this, women disciples offer a unique ministry, a unique form of leadership in spiritual motherhood, and a different set of gifts grounded in their womanhood.  In his creating work, God blessed both man and woman, and called both man and woman very good.  As men find their fulfillment in spiritual fatherhood, in priesthood [or as presbyters], women find their fulfillment in spiritual motherhood.  And so, manhood and womanhood, rather than being done away with in Christ, are both made beautiful and glorified in him.”

I would think that De Young’s thinking is something which all three Great Traditions can embrace, and I invite evangelical egalitarians to consider this theological vision as well.

The church has the opportunity and responsibility to demonstrate the true value of godly, servant fatherhood, while also differentiating this from godly, servant motherhood. Having spiritual fathers and mothers in the local church is a sacramental expression that ties the organization of the local church, as a family of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, to the Christian institution of marriage, between a man and a woman.

We should also remember that all in the body of Christ are called to service within the local church, through the priesthood of all believers, and not get hung up on the qualified-male character of eldership. Sadly however, this issue does divide churches. Yet you do not need an army of “elders” in the local church, but you do need enough to properly shepherd God’s flock. Furthermore, it must be said if a male elder does not listen to his wife, or other women in his local church, to receive her advice, input, and rebuke, then that man is unqualified to be an elder, and should be removed and replaced by another man who does. That being said, we also need the whole community of believers, male and female, to be ministers to one another and to be witnesses to those who have yet made that step to follow Jesus.

Despite our differences, I value our fellowship in Christ that I have together with Andrew, and we both share a commitment to the high authority of Scripture. There is a lot of common ground between us. What makes this conversation so difficult is that in several ways I really wish that what Andrew Bartlett is arguing for with his egalitarian perspective were true. But wishful thinking, in and of itself, is not enough. Evidence is required to establish that egalitarianism as Andrew presents it is true, and in my estimation, despite the best of intentions, his case falls short. Instead, it is best to trust the wisdom of God, as presented in the Scriptures, even when we do not completely understand it, and trust that even in the mystery that God has true, beautiful, and good purposes in mind for men and women in marriage and in the local church.