Veracity

Fifth in a multipart series….

As a reminder, I would ask the reader to read the entire blog post series in sequence, starting with the first one hyperlinked here, before making a final judgment on what I am suggesting. You can always skim it over first, and come back to the tough parts later.

I must be honest. I do not relish having a debate over whether or not women should serve in certain positions of church leadership. I would much rather play guitar, eat gooey pizza, or binge-watch The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, for yet a third time!

The “women in ministry” debate among evangelicals has been around for as long as I have been a Christian, and I do not see any end in sight. Whole denominations and churches split over this issue. Some readers probably already know this, but for those of you who might be somewhat new to the discussion, there are several reasons why this debate continues to persist, without a clear resolution.

First, the most obvious is that the question of gender identity is such a hot button issue within the culture at large. As the cultural momentum continues, to essentially erase gender distinctions (think same-sex marriage, transgenderism, etc.), there is yet a counter-movement that reacts stiffly against it. I will address this in a future blog post in this series, but here, I want to highlight a few other factors that often get overlooked.

So, second, another reason why the “women in leadership” debate continues to persist is that there are just so many wonderful, godly people who line up on different sides in the debate, among our Christian leaders. I respect so many of them, and their devotion to Christ. I have been personally enriched in many ways by all of them. In particular, I am greatly thankful for the contributions of so many exceptional scholars, pastors, and teachers, coming from different perspectives.

On a personal level, I am forever indebted to various men and women, who helped to mentor me, when I was a young Christian as a college student, just as Timothy was indebted to the influence of his grandmother, Lois, and his mother, Eunice (2 Timothy 1:5 ESV).

Perhaps you have heard of some of the following people? Here is a sample of some scholars and/or pastors on the egalitarian side of the debate:

• N. T Wright, perhaps one of the most influential and widely read evangelical New Testament scholars in the world.
• Scot McKnight, New Testament scholar and the primary intellect behind the Jesus Creed blog, and a major voice behind Christians for Biblical Equality.
• Michael Bird, Australian Anglican evangelical theologian.
• Ben Witherington, Wesleyan New Testament scholar at Asbury Seminary.
• Marg Mowcko, Australian theologian and Bible teacher.
• Fleming Rutledge, Evangelical American Episcopal priest and writer.
• Gordon Fee, Pentecostal New Testament scholar.
• Craig Keener, Asbury Seminary New Testament professor, who writes really big Bible commentaries.
• Cynthia Westfall, McMaster Divinity professor and New Testament Greek wizard.

Here on the complementarian side of the debate:

• John Piper, Desiring God ministries founder; Minneapolis pastor and teacher.
• John MacArthur, Grace To You, Southern California pastor and teacher.
• Wayne Grudem, Phoenix Seminary theologian.
• Daniel Wallace, leading New Testament textual critic, who can crush the likes of Bart Ehrman with his little, textual critical pinky (metaphorically speaking, of course).
• Denny Burk, Boyce College theologian and blogger, and president of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
• Andreas Köstenberger, South Eastern Baptist Seminary scholar.
• Thomas Schreiner, Southern Baptist seminary exegetical mastermind, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound (an interview with Köstenberger and Schreiner)

And here is a list of folks who exist somewhere in the middle, leaning mostly complementarian, but with just a bit of egalitarian mixed in, to varying degrees:

• Andrew Wilson, British teaching pastor and writer.
• Darrell Bock, Dallas Seminary New Testament scholar, and host of “The Table” podcast.
• Kathy Keller, wife of pastor Tim Keller.
• Wendy Alsup, blogger and author.
• Aimee Byrd, blogger and author.
• Beth Moore, conference speaker, with that Southern twang.
• Jen Wilkin, speaker, author, and Bible teacher, at the Village Church, who uses her car key ring as nunchucks, when walking through parking lots at night.

A lot of the above folks are heavy weights, if you read their books. How can I, a mere mortal, contend with such people who know their Bibles backwards and forwards??

Thirdly, the amount of material on this topic is simply overwhelming. The sheer volume of studies representing both egalitarian and complementarian positions on women in leadership is staggering. Who has time to read them all?

Fourthly, this debate continues because the issues can get quite technical.

I mean REALLY TECHNICAL.

…. and it will make your head hurt.

Frankly, diving into the weeds on this requires more than just having a good Bible on hand. It helps to know New Testament Greek, and who in the world, in their right mind, has the time to learn that?!!!!!

Making Your Head Hurt

Here is just one example to blow your mind.

If your eyes start to glaze over, just skim down until the final section of the blog post, in a few paragraphs.

Have you ever heard of the term “textual criticism?” It sounds like a sophisticated term, and off-putting to some. But textual criticism does NOT mean being critical of the Bible, just to clarify that right up front.

For many Christians, the subject of discussing textual criticism, from a conservative evangelical perspective, is as about as exciting as watching paint dry. So what I am about to tell you might wake you up a bit.

New Testament textual criticism has to deal with the study of how we got the Greek New Testament text, that serves as the basis for all of our modern Bible translations. All of the original documents written by the Apostle Paul are completely lost to history. So all we have are copies that have been made over the past 19 centuries. Textual critics study the copies of these New Testament documents that remain in order to estimate, as best as we can, what the original wording was in all of the New Testament books, such as Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. The good news is that textual critics are very confident that we can faithfully reconstruct the original Greek New Testament, with a high degree of accuracy. Nevertheless, a few nagging problems still remain.

Here is what many textual critics are wrestling with today:

A growing number of textual critics now agree that the “women should keep silent in the churches” verses found in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 were not a part of the original letter written by Paul. The fact that the passage shows up in different places, in various ancient manuscripts, raises a type of suspicion not found in any other case within the New Testament. Should it be placed after verse 33, as most modern translations do, or after verse 40, as some other manuscripts have it? It might have been added in later by a copyist, in a margin, and unintentionally copied by later copyists.  In full disclosure, other scholars are not as convinced, believing that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is indeed authentic, but still recognize that this passage is at least a little weird. Most believe that even if 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is doubtful, there are enough other passages in the Bible that essentially teach the same thing. Nevertheless, future Bible translations may leave these verses in, only as a footnote, as more research is done on this passage.¹

So, women keeping silent at church. Well, what is that all about?

Furthermore, how do you interpret that, when compared to Paul’s statement, in the very same letter, “but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven” (1 Corinthians 11:5 ESV). When those women pray or prophesies, they are hardly keeping silent. So what gives?²

I better stop this for now, as it is making my head hurt.

… and I am not talking about the type of head hurt you get from a bicycle accident! (That’s an inside joke for some you).

OK, So What Do You Do About This Stalemate?

So, what is the point, in bringing all of this textual critical blah-blah-blah up? Well, it might be tempting to get discouraged by this state of affairs, with various Bible translations and scholars offering different readings and interpretations, that can make our heads hurt.³

But actually, studying these type of passages gives us a broader appreciation at just how deep a lot of the truth of Scripture goes, more than a casual read simply can give us. In other words, Bible study can be hard work, but it is worth it!

At the same time, it is very easy to get so lost in this stuff that we can easily get distracted from the more important things in the Christian life. My own heart is drawn to consider how we can best share the Gospel of Jesus with our friends, neighbors, and family members, who do not yet know him.

This is why, ultimately, I consider the issue of “women in church leadership” to be an “agree to disagree” issue. If we get too bogged down in debates, it can redirect us away from the vital task of making disciples of all of the nations (Matthew 18:16-20 ESV).

But unless you think this is just some clever, conflict-avoidance technique on my part, this does NOT mean that the issue of “women in church leadership” is somehow unimportant. While we are not dealing with heresy here, we are dealing with misguided thinking, at least somewhere, that can take us down the wrong path. If not handled properly, the question of how men and women serve together in the church can impinge upon how we actually go about making disciples of all of the nations, in a negative, destructive way, and that would be bad.

Really bad.

On the one hand, church history has shown how bad theology about women in the church has inflicted great harm, upon the cause of the Gospel. Women have been denied the opportunities of education, property rights, political rights, etc., as well as being subject to abuse, all under the rubric of bad theology at work in the church.

Yet at the same time, the role of gender in contemporary society is unraveling today, and the church is not immune. The church has the opportunity and obligation to demonstrate to an increasingly confused world, what it means to be truly male and female, but we are not always good at doing this. We owe it particularly to our young people in our churches, to protect them from harm, to care for them, so that they might know what it means to be men and women, and grow in maturity. So, it is vitally important that Christians get this right, for the sake of our witness to the truth of the Gospel.

For example, if we go to an extreme complementarian route, whereby we say, “women, your gifts are not welcomed here,” then it really becomes difficult to reach out to exceptionally gifted women in the name of Jesus. Likewise, if we go the extreme egalitarian route, and encourage really super-talented women to take on the roles that men can be serving in, and those men just become passive in response, it is like saying, “Men, you are not needed here. The women can handle it. Go ahead and play your golf game on Sunday mornings. The ladies have this covered.” That is not good when it comes to reaching out to men, in the name of Jesus.

In other words, if handled properly and well, our study of “women in church leadership” in the Bible, and our conversations with others, can actually free us up, to work together, even with other believers, with whom we disagree, for further ministry with those who so desperately need to hear about the love of Jesus.

If you are tempted to despair, please hang in the discussion. Next, we will consider some of the more unhelpful modes of thinking, that can present some barriers when having constructive conversations with others.

However, you will need your seat belt for the next blog post. We will be going for quite a ride. Stay tuned for more to come in this series….

Notes:

^{1. The vast majority of issues regarding textual criticism in the New Testament are indeed minor. The most significant textual critical issues involve our understand of the ending of the Gospel of Mark, and the story of the woman caught in adultery. Does the original ending to the Gospel of Mark, include the story about the handling of snakes, or was that ending added later (Mark 16:9-20 ESV)? Was the story about Jesus writing on the ground and urging the woman caught in adultery, to go and sin no more, part of the original Gospel story, or was that added in later (John 7:53-8:11 ESV)? The status of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 ranks far lower in terms of controversy, but it probably holds the number three slot, as being questionable. ↩}

^{2. Due to the odd contrast between Paul affirming women speaking in church, through prayer and prophesy, along with the textual critical issues involved, it seems sensible not to put too weight on 1 Corinthians as being determinative, regarding how to resolve the “women in ministry” conundrum. Nevertheless, responsible biblical exegesis requires that we try our best to understand 1 Corinthians here. A common way of understanding 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is that Paul’s warning to women to keep silent, is not an absolute command, as this would conflict with the statement just a few chapters earlier, in 1 Corinthians 11:5 , whereby women are encouraged to pray in the worship service, just making sure that they are veiled when doing so. The significance of veiling women is a subject large enough for a blog post of its own. But the point here is that Paul’s warning to keep silent is meant in the context of maintaining order during the worship service, as a large part of 1 Corinthians 14 is about maintaining proper order in worship, in general, as when to speak and when to stay silent, regardless of whether the speaker is a woman or not. …. Back some 20 or 30 years ago, the more popular interpretation was to look at verses 34-35 as kind of a slogan that was going around the Corinthian church, for which Paul seeks to rebuke in verses 36-38, “Or was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.” The first interpretation discussed is to be preferred (see a future blog post for Cynthia Long Westfall’s approach, that I find most persuasive). ↩}

^{3. In addition to largely staying away from 1 Corinthians 14, and Ephesians 5, as well, I am not going to address the really tough stuff, like how the relations between male and female reflect the internal relations with the Triune Godhead, between the Father and the Son (see this blog post on the Eternal Subordination of the Son controversy, by Wendy Alsup and Hannah Anderson, for my views). This series will be long enough without having to plumb the depths of the ontological nature of the Trinity. Furthermore, I will not try to tackle William Webb’s “trajectory” argument, that contends that while the New Testament does not explicitly affirm women eldership, it offers the trajectory of where the church should go, as it has gone with the issue of slavery. Perhaps I will address these important topics in other blog posts at a later time.↩}

Fourth in a multipart series….

Should women be elders in a local church? This can be a really explosive question in any evangelical church, that upholds the Bible as the authoritative Word of God. The problem is when it comes to difficult texts, like 1 Timothy 3:1-7, interpreting the specifics of the passage is not always clear cut.

Consider the first couple of verses in this passage:

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,… (1 Timothy 3:1-2 ESV)

For the sake of this discussion, let us set aside the debate over what an “overseer” is, and assume that this means “elder,” among other things, and just focus on one particular phrase, that generates so much controversy within the church today.¹ The English Standard Version (ESV) translation of the Bible carries forward the old phrase from the venerable King James Version (KJV), “the husband of one wife.”

For a number of Christians, they may not even know where 1 Timothy is, in their Bibles, so this passage could be very new to them. Yet for many other Christians, the implications of this phrase are obvious. Only men can be elders. Just “read the Bible” and the answer is as plain as day. We should get back to work, and stop reading these silly little Internet blogs.

But what exactly does “the husband of one wife” mean?

As with all matters related to biblical interpretation, context is king. But determining the precise context can be complex at times. Several factors come into play when discerning the context for a particular portion of Scripture:

• How relevant is the available evidence in determining the particular context?
• How important is that evidence? How much weight should it be given?
• How much evidence are we dealing with? Have we considered all of the available evidence?

This one little phrase, “the husband of one wife,” is impacted by all of the above contextual factors.

Any number of possible interpretations of this phrase have been offered, suggesting that (1) unmarried, (2) widowed, (3) polygamist, (4) divorced, and/or (5) remarried men, as well as (6) women in general, are thereby prohibited from the church office of elder. But consider the first disqualification, namely that of being unmarried. Does this even make sense?

The available evidence indicates that neither the Apostle Paul, the traditionally understood author of the letter, nor Timothy, the recipient of this letter, were married. In other words, if “the husband of one wife” requires one to be married, this would exclude both Paul and Timothy from being elders in Timothy’s community.

That is like Paul telling Timothy, “You need elders in your church, that you are leading, Timothy. But all of your elders must be married. So, you need to go and find another job.”

This is absurd. On this basis, and this basis alone, the contextual evidence shows that this purely literalistic reading of “the husband of one wife” is not very convincing.

What then, does “the husband of one wife” really mean? It would appear to reflect more of an idiomatic expression, and indeed, a more strictly literal rendering of the original Greek gives us the word-for-word phrase “one woman man.”

Well, what does being a “one woman man” mean?

Ah, welcome to the interesting world of biblical interpretation!

The problem is that the letter to Timothy does not give us any further specific details into what constitutes a “one woman man.” However, evangelical Bible scholars offer us a range of interpretive solutions. The most common solution suggests that a “one woman man” is more about the character of the person; namely, one who would be faithful to their spouse, whether married or not. At the very least, only those who have a good, reputable character are eligible for the office of elder. Paul is concerned about a person’s character, and not their marital status.

But does a “one woman man” imply more than that? Specifically, does it imply gender; namely, to be male?

The disagreement among evangelical Bible scholars is significant on this point. The situation is further complicated by the fact that there are no male-specific pronouns in this passage, that would add clarity. In fact, there are no pronouns at all in the passage, in the original New Testament Greek. Gasp!!!

Many of our most popular English Bible translations do not necessarily help us.

For example, the ESV translation (above) assumes that the one who “desires a noble task” as an “overseer” is a “he.” But no “he” is found in the original Greek. The male pronoun is assumed on the basis that a “one woman man” is, in fact, specifically a male. 

A more ambiguous translation, that reflects a non-gender-specific understanding, is found in the following Contemporary English Version (CEV) translation:

It is true that anyone who desires to be a church official wants to be something worthwhile. That’s why officials must have a good reputation and be faithful in marriage. They must be self-controlled, sensible, well-behaved, friendly to strangers, and able to teach. (1 Timothy 3:1-2 CEV)

Notice that there is no pronoun here, not even an implied one. A “one woman man” has the genderless meaning of one “faithful in marriage.” For readers of the CEV, both men and women might qualify as “church officials,” which would include “elders.”²

So, considering the contextual issues present in these verses, how relevant is the fact that there is no gender-specific pronoun found in the original Greek text? How significant is this point of evidence? How much more evidence does one need to consider before making a well-informed judgment on the matter of gender here? (HINT: the evidence addressed here merely scratches the surface, and I am trying to keep this blog post short).

Traditionally, a “one woman man” has been assumed to be male, having the full weight of nearly 2,000 years of Christian history behind it, but does the contextual evidence cited thus far bear the weight to overthrow the traditional reading? The difficulty in answering these questions reveals just how hard it is to determine context with absolute certainty. In other words, the supposed plain interpretation of Scripture is not completely obvious, based on what I have presented here.

Those who favor a more traditional interpretation of “one woman man,” as being specifically male, are generally understood to be complementarian; that is, those who, in the context of church governance, believe that only males can be elders. In general, those who reject the traditional view, of maleness being implied by a “one woman man,” are understood to be egalitarian. Egalitarians would then believe that the office of elder should be open to both men and women. There are a number of other nuanced variations that could be considered, but this distinction between complementarian and egalitarian readings of 1 Timothy 3:1-2 holds for the most part.

The Tribal Divide in the Evangelical Church

As you should be able to tell so far, this complementarian vs. egalitarian issue is not some question to be discussed only by seminary graduates, far removed from the concerns of your everyday plumbers, carpenters, nurses, elementary school teachers, exhausted mothers of young children with part time or full time jobs, dads unable to figure out how to make enough money, to feed their family, etc.

This impacts anyone who goes out to buy a Bible at your local Barnes and Noble bookstore.

If you pick up a copy of the ESV translation, for your daily Bible reading, you might be more swayed to consider the complementarian view. If you pick up a copy of the CEV translation, you might be more swayed to consider the egalitarian view. In other words, our English Bible translations have become quite tribal in character, and that does not bode well for the health of the church.

Given the complexities of interpretation and Bible translation, how do we as Christians go about adjudicating between these conflicting views? The first step to take is to have a measure of humility, with respect to Scripture, and among those with whom we disagree.

Yet it also bears taking a closer look at why the complementarian vs. egalitarian division exists, even among our leading Bible scholars, in seminaries and leading churches. Stay tuned, and look forward to the next blog post!³

Notes:

^{1. Some traditions treat “overseer” and “elder” differently. In the oldest traditions, an “elder” has been understood to be the priest or pastor in a local church. An “overseer” would be a bishop, someone who looks over the affairs of several churches, led by those local elders. However, most Protestants today tend towards treating “overseer” and “elder” as one in the same. For the sake of the discussion, I will follow this interpretation. ↩}

^{2. Most translations follow the ESV here, but there are other popular translations that differ. The 2011 Common English Bible (CEB) does the same thing as the CEV, in 1 Timothy 3:1-2, rejecting the male personal pronouns found in the ESV and substituting non-gender specific language in their place. When translations like the CEB do this type of thing, I find it useful for doing comparative study, but it is also quite distressing, as it just shows how tribal Bible translation has become. Sad. ↩}

^{3. Note that the NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) renders the controversial phrase in 1 Timothy 3:2 as “married only once.” That is pretty well out of step with other Bible translations. The issues involved in understanding the meaning of “husband of one wife,” or “one woman man,” are exceedingly complex. For a helpful blog discussion from a complementarian point of view, consider this essay by Randy Alcorn (Alcorn concludes that “husband of one wife” is a man who is not a polygamist). For a helpful blog discussion from an egalitarian point of view, consider the work of Australian Margaret Mowczko. In my reading, by far, the most common understanding of a “one woman man,” as held by egalitarians, is that Paul was mostly concerned about marital infidelity among the men of Ephesus, as opposed to the women of Ephesus, who were generally not prone to polyamorous activity. Decisive in my mind is the comparison with what we read in 1 Timothy 5:9, which describes a “widow,” most definitely a woman, as one who is the “wife of one husband,” or in the more plain sense of being “a one man woman.”  If you compare this with Paul’s reference in 1 Timothy 3:2, a “husband of one wife,” then the weight of the evidence is in favor of the complementarian view, that Paul has a male overseer in view, in 1 Timothy 3 (see comment section below, for references). ↩}

Third in a multipart series.

Should women serve as deacons in a church? I wish this was an easy question to handle, but apparently not.

Let us set aside the question about elders and pastors, in this blog post.

Not all Christians agree about deacons.

The word deacon is a transliteration into English of the Greek word diakonos, which simply means “servant.” In a sense, all Christians are called to be “servants.” But there is also a sense in the New Testament whereby a “servant,” or deacon, constitutes a particular office of the church. And this is where the controversy exists.

Some believe women can be deacons. Many other Christians do not.

I will lay out the case for the former, and try to address the concerns of the latter, as I respectfully disagree with it.

If you look at the ESV translation of 1 Timothy 3:8-12, you get a sense of where the conflicting interpretations are:

(8) Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. (9) They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. (10) And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. (11) Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. (12) Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well.

This is one of the two passages in the Bible that directly address the issue of deacons. In general, the word “deacons,” in our English translations is assumed to be male. But then we get to verse 11, that speaks of “their wives.”

The ESV translators have inserted the word “their,” which is not in the original Greek text, in order to make the sentence flow better. But if you have an ESV translation with footnotes, you will find an alternative translation of “women.” If this latter translation is correct, then this would indicate that Paul has in mind the idea that deacons can be either male or female.

As evidence for the latter view, the word “likewise,” when followed by the alternative “women,” as in “women likewise must be dignified….”  indicates that Paul is continuing to list the types of people who could serve as deacons, before returning back to the qualifications of male deacons in verse 12. But the choice of “their wives,” in the main body of the ESV translation, is actually a particular interpretation of the data, that is not favored by other translations, like the NIV, which by default, indicates women deacons (wives is in the NIV footnote).

In the same way, the women are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything ( 1 Timothy 3:11 NIV).

Elsewhere in 1 Timothy, Paul gives us the qualifications of male elders, but he never addresses the issue of elder’s wives. That being the case, it is unlikely that Paul has deacons’ wives in mind in 1 Timothy 3:11. Rather, this more likely indicates that these were women deacons (some speak of “deaconesses,” but that is just a made-up English word referring to women deacons. “Deacon” in English is actually gender neutral).

Those two pieces of evidence alone are not necessarily sufficient to convince everyone. But there is more.

The other passage that directly addresses the issue is Romans 16:1-2:

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well. (ESV).

Here is where we get the English direct translation of the Greek word diakonos, which would be “servant.” Contrast this with the NIV, that has deacon, instead. Both “servant” and “deacon” mean the same thing. The question here is, what kind of deacon or servant are we talking about?

We get our clue with the word “commend” that Paul uses to address Phoebe, who is a woman. For Paul to “commend” is simply more than just, “Hey, Phoebe is a swell gal.”  As the context of the passage indicates, Paul is urging the church in Rome to give Phoebe a place of honor, singling her out for special treatment. This would suggest that Phoebe occupies some official position, with respect to Paul, which is consistent with the office of “deacon.”

Perhaps that still does not persuade the student of Scripture. Some believe that Phoebe still was not a deacon in any “official” sense. In other words, Paul is indeed commending Phoebe to the Romans, but doing so in a non-commendable manner? I suppose?

However, we also have evidence from church history to consider. Near the end of the first century or early second century, we have a letter in Latin addressed to the emperor in Rome, describing Christian women who were “ministers” in Bithynia, which is a good Latin, plural equivalent of the Greek word “diakonos.” This would indicate that the early church, within about 50-70 years after these New Testament letters were written, had women serving as deacons in the churches.

Imagine that.

This would mean that the early church considered having women as deacons, as consistent with the teaching of the New Testament.

Now, critics of this view would suggest that only men can serve as deacons, because they carry the same type of spiritual authority as elders, or overseers, do. While this is hypothetically possible, you have to come up with a lot of explaining to do, in order for this particular interpretation to work.

Consider the heavy lifting involved:

First, it assumes that deacons do carry an elder-like type of spiritual authority. But this would suggest that deacons are kind of like “junior-elders,” or something like that, for which we have no substantial evidence for support. This effectively renders the distinction between elder and deacon as fairly meaningless.

You would also have to explain why Paul mentions the qualifications of deacons’ wives, and then totally neglect the description of elders’ wives (see 1 Timothy 3:1-12). Did Paul just forget? Or run out of papyrus? Probably not, but let us keep going with that.

Then you would have to suppose that Paul was somehow not being clear when he describes Phoebe as being a deacon. On top that, you would have to suggest that 50-70 years after these New Testament documents were written, the early church had by then completely misunderstood what Paul was talking about, when it came to the office of deacon.

If you can make all of these various assumptions hold together, with super-glue, then sure, you can go ahead and have a male-only deaconship in your church. If that sounds convincing to you, then well…. okay.

But it all seems pretty sketchy to me.

Nevertheless, I know of several churches that believe that only men can be deacons. I surely understand why such churches would go this route, as it can be defended from Scripture, in a sense. OK, I might sound a little snarky, so apologies go out to my “male-only deacon” friends, but this is my point: If you are going to resort to these type of arguments to restrict the office of deacon to men, you probably should not be surprised if egalitarians, who argue FOR women as elders, use the same type of complex, multi-assumption arguments, to make their case.

Such male-only diaconate churches are simply using the title of “deacon,” but in reality, the “deacons” are functioning in the role of “elder.” So, churches that have both “elders” and “deacons” exercising spiritual authority essentially have a two-tiered system of “elders,” the primary elders and the junior-elders, the latter whom are called “deacons.”

Calling someone a deacon does not make that person a deacon (read my post linked here, if something I am saying in the current post is confusing).

Likewise, there are often things that elders do that should properly be in the domain of the deacons. This follows the example set in Acts 6, whereby the apostles sought to delegate certain functions to servants; that is, deacons, that would otherwise distract the elders from their primary task, that of spiritually shepherding the community of faith, through the propagation of sound doctrine and the application of church discipline. The elders need not be micro-managing the details of the welcome team ministry, hovering over the operations of the floral guild, or managing the logistics for the short-term mission trips.

The service ministry performed by deacons is just as important as the functions performed by elders. But we should be careful not to saddle the elders with tasks that can easily be handled by the deacons.

Egalitarians will shrug their shoulders, as to much of what I am saying here, but some complementarians need to think long and hard about how they view deacons.

Some might be drawn to conclude that a firm stance against women as deacons must be held in order to dissuade Christians from accepting women as elders. But the difficulties concerning the teaching about deacons are NOT the same as the teaching about elders.

For example, we have no examples of women serving as elders in the New Testament, unlike Phoebe was for deacon. Furthermore, we have no clear, substantial evidence in the early church, just following the New Testament era, that women served as elders there, unlike the positive evidence we have for women deacons in the early church.

Confusing the office of “elder” and “deacon” does not help in this discussion. Granted, those who believe in a male-only diaconate do not necessarily marginalize women. Women can serve in other ways. There is a consistent, biblical interpretation supporting a male-only diaconate, so I do not intend to be disrespectful at all. But it sure makes the situation more confusing than it really needs to be. At the risk of stepping on someone’s toes, I must state that the male-only view of deacons is simply not convincing.

If a church wants to “hold the line” against encroaching feminism in the church, restricting the office of deacon to men only is an unstable line to hold, and unnecessarily restrictive. It is much better to allow the weight of the biblical and historical evidence to stand, and to encourage both men and women to serve as deacons in a local church.

For a scholarly argument for women as deacons, read Tom Schreiner’s essay. For a scholarly argument against women as deacons, read Guy Waters’ essay.

An introduction to a multi-part series.

Here I go. Stepping into the quagmire.

Perhaps one of the most difficult “agree to disagree” type of issues facing the evangelical church today is that of whether or not women should serve as elders, deacons, and/or pastors. Passions run high as Christians debate how to interpret certain biblical passages.

Nevertheless, there are Christians for whom the whole discussion seems pointless, and already settled. Why is this even an “agree to disagree” issue? After all, the Bible is clear on the matter. Some can cite their prooftext, and simply move on.

The objective of this series is to show that while the Bible is clear on many things, the varieties of Scriptural interpretation among godly, Bible-loving believers on this issue actually runs the gamut. It is a lot more difficult than you think to gain a clear idea as to whether or not women can serve as elders, deacons, and/or pastors.

At the same time, getting this issue right is of utmost importance. The consequences of getting this wrong are arguably highly significant, and for some, downright scary, if handled incorrectly. The question of “women in ministry” requires concentrated effort to read and study the Bible, and be in conversation with one another. Trusting in the work of Holy Spirit is crucial. Prayer is paramount. Avoiding extremes is difficult, but necessary. In the words of Robertson McQuilkin, “It seems easier to go to a consistent extreme than to stay at the center of biblical tension.”

I will keep this blog page updated as the series moves along. First, here are the additional blog posts in this series::

• Can Women Serve as Elders, Deacons, or Pastors?
• An Easy Question? Should Women Serve as Deacons?
• What are the Qualifications of an Elder? A “Husband of One Wife?”
• Why the Debate Over “Women in Ministry” is at a Stalemate…. and What to Do About It
• Lame Complementarian and Egalitarian Biblical Arguments
• On the Outsourcing of Women’s Ministry
• #MeToo and the Church: The Abuse of Women, 1 Peter 3:7, Egalitarian vs. Complementarian Solutions?
• Who was Mary Magdalene?
• The 1 Timothy 2:12 Conundrum: I Do Not PERMIT a Woman….
• The 1 Timothy 2:12 Conundrum: I Do Not Permit a Woman to TEACH…..
• The 1 Timothy 2:12 Conundrum: I Do Not Permit a Woman to … (????) AUTHORITY….
• So, What’s the Deal With This Women “Will Be Saved Through Childbearing” Stuff, Anyway?
• Is Evangelicalism On A Slippery Slope Regarding Gender?
• Resolving the Question of Women in Church Leadership: Who Bears the Burden of Proof?
• The Mystery That Church Eldership Reminds Us Of?
• A Modest Proposal to Make Peace Between Complementarians and Egalitarians
• Resources on the Complementarian vs. Egalitarian Discussion
• An Interdenominational Church Asks: What Are the Core Doctrines of the Faith?
• The Church Needs Both Fathers and Mothers: A Plea for Unity and Truth

The above linked blog posts make up the original series that I wrote back in 2019. Also, I will note some previous Veracity blog posts that address particular background issues related to the topic:

• • Deborah’s Dance: Women in Church Leadership? How having men and women in church ministry together is like a dance.
  • Aimee Semple McPherson: Disappearing Woman Evangelist. I served as a worship leader, while in college, alongside the wife of the pastor, in a denomination founded by a woman evangelist.
  • To The Least of These: Phoebe Palmer. The remarkable story of an often neglected woman from church history.
  • Your Desire Shall Be For Your Husband. The story of the 19th century female missionary, Katharine Bushnell, and how Genesis 3:16 has been variously interpreted and reinterpreted in church history. This explains why all complementarians are not all the same.
  • A Year of Biblical Doubting #2. A look at the thought and life of Rachel Held Evans, one of today’s most influential, progressive Christian women bloggers, popular among many young people today. Contrast Rachel’s message with that of Mary Kassian, a woman’s conference speaker, who will “kick your rear end,” in the opposite direction.
  • Statements: Is “Social Justice” a Gospel Issue? A statement signed by some 10,000 conservative pastors and teachers, in 2018, calling upon evangelical Christians to reject the infiltration of ideologies, like feminism, into the church.
  • Jordan Peterson’s Lessons for Christians. Why is it that an atheistic, Canadian clinical psychologist is addressing the crisis of masculinity, while the church remains relatively unheard on the issue?
  • Can “Charismatic” and “Liturgical” Christians Worship Together? How we structure the corporate worship life of the church has a bearing on issues pertaining to women in ministry.
  • What is an “Elder” of the Church? Elusive and often confusing terms, like “elder,” “pastor,” and “deacon” are a major part of why the conversation about “women in ministry” can be so disconcerting to the average church go-er.
  • Augustine on Learning How to “Agree to Disagree” Well. On the posture a believer should have when discussing difficult topics with other believers.

UPDATE 2023: Below is a list of other blog posts published after that initial series came out in the spring of 2019:

• • UPDATE MAY, 2019. Rachel Held Evans Reflections (& Warren Wiersbe, Bonhoeffer, and the Crisis of “Big Tent” Evangelicalism).  Advocate for evangelical egalitarianism, Rachel Held Evans, died within a few weeks of my finishing this blog series, shortly after Warren Wiersbe, an evangelical stalwart, and a very conciliatory complementarian Bible teacher, also died. I thought it to be appropriate to tie up the “women in ministry” blog series, with a few concluding thoughts.
  • UPDATE October, 2019: I read a great book on the topic of “What is a Christian Conscience?,” that gave me some helpful ideas about the issue of women eldership.
  • UPDATE November, 2019: Upon reflecting on a well-publicized incident, whereby Pastor John MacArthur urged popular woman’s Bible study teacher Beth Moore to “go home,” I thought I would look at another way of addressing this issue: Do We Still Have Apostles Today, in the Church?
  • UPDATE April, 2020: Some Christians have a rather cavalier attitude towards the Apostle Paul’s prohibition against extravagant dress, or the wearing of jewelry, in 1 Timothy 2, as though the Apostle’s instructions were merely addressing a particular cultural situation. A look at the broader Scriptural context shows that Paul is instead making a particular cultural application of a timeless principle: Does the Bible Teach Women Should Never Wear Braided Hair of Jewelry?
  • UPDATE March, 2021: Should women keep silent in the churches? I Corinthians 14 says that, but what does it mean? It may not mean what you think.
  • UPDATE July, 2021: A post with a brief argument as to how the question of women eldership relates to church growth. Is the church a business or a family?
  • UPDATE August, 2021: A review of Beth Allison Barr’s provocative The Making of Biblical Womanhood. The evangelical movement needs to move on from the older complementarian/egalitarian debate, and seriously reconsider how, in the practice of Christian worship, to express the truth of being created in the image of God, both male and female, in an age where gender is reduced to being merely a social construct.
  • UPDATE March, 2022: Did Paul Really Write Ephesians and Colossians? … (and Why Women Should Care).  A bit of a rabbit trail, but an important one, as the complementarian/egalitarian debate has raised serious questions about the authorship of some of Paul’s letters.
  • UPDATE June, 2022. A Complementarian Vision? Kevin DeYoung on Men and Women in the Church.  I review Kevin DeYoung’s book, which is representative of why might be called a “hard complementarian” position regarding how women should lead in a local church.
  • UPDATE May, 2022: Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women: Lucy Peppiatt on Men, Women… and Family? I read Kevin DeYoung’s book alongside Lucy Peppiatt’s book, which representative of an “egalitarian” position regarding how women should lead in a local church. I finished reading Peppiatt’s book after reading Kevin DeYoung’s book, but finished writing the Peppiatt review before the DeYoung review.
  • UPDATE March, 2023: Embracing Complementarianism: A Review.  My review of a moderate or somewhat “soft complementarian” perspective regarding how women should lead in a local church, by Graham Beyond and Jane Tooher.
  • UPDATE May, 2023: Men and Women in Christ, by Andrew Bartlett. An Extended Review. This lengthy review encapsulates about four years of research into the complementarian/egalitarian debate, thus reflecting the most up-to-date articulation of how the Bible should be read regarding this controversy.
  • UPDATE June, 2023: What About Head Coverings in 1 Corinthians11? — The New Testament’s Weirdest Passage? This is the lead article for the summer 2023 blog series, all about head coverings!!
  • UPDATE November, 2023: Andrew Bartlett responds to my book review of his book Men and Women in Christ, and I offer a rejoinder to his response.  Then Andrew Bartlett offers a “last word” on our conversation.  This is a very interesting, in-depth, and engaging dialogue!!

By the end of the original blog series in 2019, you will get an idea of where I am coming from. So, if you are going to read any of these blog posts, please READ ALL OF THEM IN THE INTIAL SERIES BEFORE making a final judgment on what I am saying (I do welcome your comments below). The punch line will come in the last one or two posts, but to get the full sense of it, you should read all of the preceding posts in the series…. and, yes, you might want to keep your Bible handy, as I will be going to God’s Word quite often (or you can just follow the hyperlinks in the blog posts, instead).

The blog posts that came out since 2019 (linked above) have helped me to refine my thinking. I stopped blogging in-depth about this topic in 2023.  I might make a few additional blog posts in the future, as there are newer books to come out that address this topic that does not seem to go away, from both the complementarian and egalitarian sides of the discussion. It just seems like this debate will never end, and life is too short to keep focusing on this.

I will say up front, that in giving my view, I could be wrong. Utterly wrong. Or more likely, perhaps a few points wrong, here and there. My perspective has shifted over the years, and it could shift again. But what I do hope is that folks can take this seriously, and treat it is an important perspective in the ongoing discussion. It is a plea for unity, but it is also a plea to pursue truth, and never abandon the pursuit of truth.