women in spiritual leadership

The book that I discussed in the last post uses women in spiritual leadership as a prime example of how to listen and discern the Bible as story.

Scot McKnight acknowledges that there are 2 main Biblical passages, by Paul, that speak about silencing women's voices in spiritual leadership. He also points out how the predominate societal culture for ages has NOT treated women as equal to men in value, giftings, and abilities. Then, he reminds the reader of the overarching Biblical narrative that God created humans to be one with Him and each other, as evidenced in the gift of marriage. Then, with the onset of sin, men and women began to fight to dominate each other. The purpose of the re-creative process is to restore the orignial oneness with God and each other including the equality oneness of men and women.

Scripture gives us glimpes throughout history, in both the old and New Testaments, of women in leadership and prominent roles in the story of God's work to redeem humanity (Miram, Deborah, Huldah, Esther, Mary, Phoebe, Junia, Priscilla). Scot explores that although these characters don't get much "space" in scripture, it really is profound the the level of recognition given to them if one pays attention to the stories (prophets, rulers, teachers, apostles). The profoundness of this recognition is further emphasized as you remember both the cultural views of women during these ancient times and the fact that Scripture was largely written by men.

He shows that the trend of these stories of women in scripture is in keeping with the trend of God's progressive work to redeem humanity back to oneness with each each other and Him, in spite of the persistent cultural work, through the ages, to repress women.

So then, what do we do with the 2 passages of Paul's where it seems like he's calling for a silencing women? We also have to remember that Paul made the profound statement that "in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ".

Scot suggests that those two passages are like "blue parakeets" (see the previous post) that seem to interupt the flow of the trend and story of Scripture. Thus, we need to look closer at the stories of these passages. If on greater examination, they fit with the overarching story, then great. If they're an unexplainable mystery of Paul's, then we have a choice. Are we going to listen to a couple of passages that go against the trend of scripture at face value for the basis of our doctrine and practice, or are we going to look at the larger picture and story of Scripture and let a mystery be a mystery? (I encourage you to read Scot's book to see his further explanations of those passages)

Here's a couple of concluding points on the topic from my perspective.

1. I find it ironic that Adventists (my Christian tribe) have such a hard time, generally speaking, with women in prominent spiritual leadership (i.e. ordination for pastoral ministry) when the person that they look to heavily for spiritual guidance (second only to the Bible) was a woman, Ellen G. White. How do they deal with that? I guess for some it has to do with the technicality that Ellen White is considered a prophet and scripture talks about women prophets and somehow the the distinction is made that prophets are different than ordained ministers. However, to my simple mind, prophets are on a higher plane that pastors. There was nothing silent about Ellen White in public gatherings. She was a preacher-plain and simple.

2. The church needs the voice of women (which it does actually have in many circles but doesn't always officially recognize)! For us to carry on dishonoring the gifts that God has blessed the church with in women spiritual leaders (by not ordaining [i.e. recognizing] ) is only shooting ourselves in the foot. What a beautiful day that will be when pastor's meetings are populated by a balance of women and men! We certainly recognize the extreme benefit of the balance of gender in the medical field. Let's have it in the spiritual too!