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| Ministers ... er ... ministering. |
“actually we [Methodists] aren’t nearly as hung up on this as you guys are. The point
is ... regardless of how you can twist scripture ... women factually
were leaders in the apostolic church. Yes ... including pheobe [sic] and
more importantly lydia.
Not to mention Timothy’s own grandmother who paul credits.”
No scripture twisting required, but perhaps a little actual scripture reading would help.
Now, I take no issue at all with Nate’s statement that women in the apostolic church were “leaders” in an informal
sense (by example and reputation), but we need to understand what that meant to
the early church in practice. Nate doesn’t, since he uses the term synonymously with “female ministers” to
describe women who today are paid public teachers of men in some churches.
Here he could not be more wrong.
Grandma Takes the Pulpit
Let’s start with the most egregious example
Nate cites: Timothy’s grandmother. Here’s the sum total of everything Paul has
to say about her:
“I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.”
That’s it, that’s all. Grandma Lois, Paul
says, was a genuine believer. That tells us nothing about how her faith
manifested itself or how Lois served in her church, assuming she attended one (we don’t even know that for sure). Then there’s this:
“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”
Timothy was “acquainted with the sacred writings” from childhood. Some people reasonably infer that since his father was a Greek, it must have been his mother and/or grandmother that taught him. That doesn’t
make either one a “female minister”. It makes them a good mother and
grandmother.
In short, there is not a shred of evidence
that Timothy’s grandma ever opened her mouth in her local church, let alone
that she was a church “leader” in the sense the word is used in Hebrews (or by Nate).
Phoebe’s Famed Expository Gift
As with Grandma Lois, Phoebe gets a single
name check from the apostle Paul in the book of Romans:
“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.”
Here we learn that Phoebe served her church by being a patron. Vine’s says this of the Greek noun translated “patron”:
“Prostates was the title of a citizen in Athens, who had the responsibility of seeing to the welfare of resident aliens who were without civic rights. Among the Jews it signified a wealthy patron of the community.”
If we were to draw any conclusions about
Phoebe from this description, it would be that she was (i) well off
(though not necessarily; Paul could be using prostatis metaphorically), and (ii) hospitable. She cared for
others in need, and it is likely Paul had stayed with her at one point.
The Diakonos Red Herring
The fact that Phoebe is also called a “servant”
of the church (diakonos, sometimes
translated “deacon”) is a total red herring. That Greek noun (and its related
verb) occur 68 times in the New Testament, a mere six of which have anything
to do with formal, recognized local church responsibilities.
Far more often the word is used in a
generic sense and simply means one who serves or cares for another, often in
a rather menial way. In John, for instance, diakonos is used of the help that poured wine at the wedding at Cana; and in Matthew, of the angels who cared for the Lord Jesus in the wilderness
after his temptation; and in Acts, of those selected to “wait on tables”, a task which Luke sets in
direct contrast to “preaching the word of God”.
Now of course, teaching publicly in the
church is undeniably a form of
service, but it is not remotely the only kind possible. Other than calling her
a “patron”, Paul doesn’t tell us how Phoebe served; he doesn’t tell us that it
was formal, recognized service; he doesn’t tell us she served publicly; and he
certainly doesn’t tell us that she served vocally in church meetings. Above all,
he does not tell us that she taught Christian men anything at all.
Anyone using Phoebe as an example of a “female
minister” in the public teaching sense must infer it from zero evidence. Paul
does not say it.
Pastor Lydia, Thyatira’s Finest
Finally, we have Lydia, who according to Nate
is the very best example of a woman in public ministry:
“And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.’ And she prevailed upon us.”
Here we discover that after her baptism, Lydia
offered the apostle and his companions hospitality in her home, and that after
their brief time in jail, she did so again.
Not only was Lydia NOT a public teacher in a
first century church, but when Paul and his companions visited Philippi and met
her, there was not yet even a church established in that city! And later, when
Paul sends his letter to the Philippians, Lydia’s name does not even come up.
Perhaps she had returned to Thyatira by then. So while she was undeniably pivotal
to the work in Philippi in providing a place for the apostle and his friends to
stay, and in establishing a believing “beachhead” there, she doesn’t prove Nate’s
point at all.
Absolutely Terrible
Oddly enough, after attempting to
demonstrate that the apostolic church was full of female ministers, Nate
finishes this way:
“Do I think the church is better off without female ministers? Yes. Actually i do. 99 out of 100 female ministers I have met and heard are absolutely terrible.”
Now, I haven’t got Nate’s years of experience
sitting under the teaching of women “pastors” in Methodist churches. I can
count the women I’ve heard teach the Bible from a church platform in my life
on … er … no hands. So I’ll defer to his opinion, but I should
probably note that I’ve met and heard plenty of male “ministers” in my time whose
messages were also absolutely terrible. For that matter, I may well have
preached some.
The fact is, Christians do not decide whether a woman may teach the people of God when we come together on the basis of
our subjective analysis of her speaking ability or our even more subjective assessment
of whether the “Spirit is strong” in her.
Hopefully, we also don’t decide who may teach
the people of God on the basis of New Testament examples that have nothing to
do with the subject.
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