AP

James Snare, convener for the committee, Women in Ministry and in the Presbyterian Church of Australia (WMPCA), recently published in AP a summary of the report which was received by the 2023 GAA. My understanding is that it has been circulated to all Presbyteries and Sessions for consideration, and so is open to discussion and debate. As such, it is a good opportunity for us all to sharpen our thinking on this important issue (See Prov. 27:17).

One of the blessings of the new covenant is the out pouring of God’s Spirit upon men and women in a more profound way than was previously experienced under the old covenant (e.g. Joel 2:28-29; Acts 2:17-18).[1] However, while there is an obvious equality that men and women have in Christ (Gal. 3:28), there remain important differences which are expressed in a complementary way to the glory of God.

It is understanding how our equality as persons but differences in function go together which is central to this issue. To borrow theological language used in discussions surrounding the Trinity, ontological equality does not mean economic equivalence.[2]

The Joy of Gospel Partnership

I must begin by acknowledging how much I have benefited from Christian women, especially my wife Angie, who served as a women’s worker in the church we were attending and has herself had a vibrant ministry for the past twenty-five years.

The congregation where I am currently serving as a teaching elder – Cornerstone Hobart – has a female evangelist who seeks to bring the Gospel to Chinese people living in Tasmania. By God’s grace, it is one of the most fruitful outreaches in our church.

Many of the older women in my church have been a special blessing to me through their constant prayers and personal encouragement. In the biblical sense of the term, I have many ‘mothers’ in Christ (Mark 10:30).

The session here regularly invites women to its meetings to talk about their respective ministries. We also have a number of women deacons (as well as our Board of Management) who care for the practical needs of the congregation.

Finally, congregational meetings give us a wonderful opportunity to listen to everyone in the congregation, male and female, young and old.

Accordingly, the suggested recommendations which the WMPCA report outlines are, in my view, both unnecessary and unhelpful in achieving their intended goal.

The Word vs the World

One of the greatest challenges we face as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ is having our minds transformed by the teaching of Scripture rather than being conformed to the current zeitgeist of the world. As James Snare rightly states: ‘We also need to be willing to examine our own practices in the light of the Scriptures to make sure that in every age we walk in the freedom the gospel gives us while still following God’s good ways.’

This is especially important because we live in a culture which has been profoundly re-shaped by feminism. As Rosaria Butterfield argues:

Feminism lies. It believes that grievances from patriarchy and not God’s design from creation make women distinct from men. Women are thus taught to believe that our bodies are vulnerable to abuse because patriarchy is dangerous. That’s a deceptive half-truth. Biblical patriarchy protects women by giving a wife a godly man as “head” to love and protect her; a daughter, a godly father; and a single woman, a church to protect her. In contrast, the world produces many “heads,” some of them tyrannical.[3]

This has impacted the church in all kinds of ways, both seen and unseen.

While the WMPCA report doesn’t rely on the popular terms ‘complementarian’ or ‘egalitarian,’ it promotes a position which tries to be a combination of both. For example, while wanting to acknowledge that the Bible consistently limits the ‘offices’ of leadership in the Old and New Testament to men, the report also champions a ‘functional’ role of leadership to include women. This can be seen by the expressions in the report such as: “men and women are called to lead in God’s church”, there being “other pictures of leadership” and “the many types of leadership exercised by women through the Old and New Testaments.” If everyone is a leader, in reality no one is.

The Myth of Mutual Submission

When it comes to a discussion of ‘headship’ and ‘submission’, the longer form of the report argues for mutual submission between a husband and wife.[4] However, somewhat surprisingly, the report fails to interact with the numerous reformed-evangelical scholars who argue differently. As Don Carson explained in a talk at the Katoomba Men’s Convention gave five reasons against interpreting submission in a reciprocal way:

I have to tell you frankly, that’s a false reading, demonstrably false. In my view it isn’t even arguable, though many argue it.

First, in the Greek text the verb “to submit” never has to do with mutual submission anywhere in the New Testament. It always has to do with submission in some kind of order, rank, or structure, without exception.

Second, the expression “one another” in verse 21 (“Submit to one another …”), though it can be perfectly reciprocal, it may or may not be depending on the context. For example, in Revelation, chapter 6, verse 4, in one of those searing apocalyptic judgments we’re told another fiery red horse came. “Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other.” It’s the same expression … slay one another.

Now this does not mean that all of these men who slay one another shoot at precisely the same moment so the slaying is reciprocal. What it means is there’s a slaughter, and this one is killing that one, that one is killing this one, this one’s killing that one, and so forth. Whoever has the upper hand at the moment kills the other one. In other words, one another in the original language does not necessarily mean perfect reciprocity. That depends on the context. My dad used to say, “A text without a context becomes a pretext for a proof text.”

Third, it’s very important to understand the flow in the preceding verses…Verse 21 in the NIV starts a new paragraph. It doesn’t in the original; it’s just a participle tacked onto the rest of them. Part of what it means, then, to be filled with the Spirit is to have an attitude of submission to one another. Then that submission is unpacked in what is sometimes called a household code or a household table. Now in particular, Paul says, let me show you what this submission looks like.

Fourth, one must also recognize the force of “head” and the sweep of the argument in verses 23 and 24. Despite the efforts of some to make head mean something like source, it has been shown again and again and again that when head is in the singular in first-century Greek, and used metaphorically as here, what it means is to exercise some kind of authority over another. That surely is made plentifully clear by verse 24, which is exceedingly sweeping. ‘Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.’

Finally, when you look at other passages in the New Testament that lay out household rules of conduct, it’s very interesting that occasionally wives are told to love their husbands; they are always told to submit to them. Men are always told to love their wives. They are never told to submit to them. Those are just the facts.

In summary, wives are told to be submit to their husbands in Scripture (Col. 3:18; 1 Pet. 3:1-6) but husbands are never instructed to submit to their wives. A strange omission indeed if mutual submission were true. More recently, Kevin DeYoung has also argued for the same conclusion:

The word for submission (hypotasso) is never used in the New Testament as a generic love and respect for others. The word hypotasso occurs thirty-seven times in the New Testament outside of Ephesians 5:21, always with reference to a relationship where one party has authority over another….Nowhere in in the New Testament does hypostasso refer to the reciprocal virtues of patience, kindness, and humility. It is always for one party or person or thing lining up under the authority of another.[5]

While there is an extended explanation of what the woman being a man’s ‘helper’ means, as well as the ‘primacy’ of the man over the woman, there is a noticeable absence of any discussion regarding the nature of male ‘headship’. In particular, does the term mean ‘source’ or ‘authority over’? This is a strange omission, especially considering the subject of the debate.[6]

The longer form of the report does correctly state that a man should not ‘rule’ over his wife, and the wife should be aware of a negative ‘desire’ to usurp her husband—and that both of these sinful responses are a result of the fall[7]—the impression that it nonetheless gives is that submission to a husband’s headship is primarily negative and that they should exercise dominion together in an egalitarian way.

However, sociologists have observed that this only leads to higher rates of domestic violence. As Bradford Wilcox, professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia, argues in his book, Soft Patriarchs, New Men (Chicago University Press, 2004):

Contrary to the assertions of feminists, many family scholars, and public critics, these men [complementarian] cannot be fairly described as “abusive” and “authoritarian” family men wedded to “stereotypical forms of masculinity.” They outpace mainline Protestant [egalitarian] and unaffiliated family men in their emotional and practical dedication to their children and wives and in their commitment to familism [a family-centred spirituality], and they are the least likely to physically abuse their wives.

Selective Use of Scripture

The WMPCA report is also highly selective in its use of Scripture, leaving out of the discussion key passages which would challenge the view which they are presenting. For instance, the report states:

‘…we ought not deny the many types of leadership exercised by women through the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, Moses’ sister Miriam was called a leader of Israel alongside her brother (Micah 6:4). She was also called a prophetess (Exodus 15:20) and she led the people in the worship of God (Exodus 15:1-3). Deborah was a prophetess and judge speaking God’s word and leading (or ‘judging’) Israel (Judges 4:4). Huldah was a prophetess who declared God’s judgment on Judah (2 Kings 22).’

First, it is exegetically inaccurate to claim that Scripture describes Miriam as being a ‘leader’ of Israel. Micah 6:4 doesn’t say that Miriam led Israel but that it was God who brought them out of Egypt. As Wayne Grudem points out, “The NIV, alone among translations, says, ‘I brought you up out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam.” But the translation “to lead you” is a very free interpretative paraphrase of the Hebrew text, which literally says, “I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam” (ESV; also NASB, RSV, NRSV, NKVJ, KJV).”[8] Grudem further argues:

“But doesn’t the expression, “I sent before you Moses, Aaron and Miriam,” show that Miriam led Israel? Not really. The verse recalls that when Moses was leading the people of Israel, he was accompanied by his brother Aaron and his sister Miriam, so the three of them went “before” (Hebrew lepaneka; Septuagint pro prosopou sou)the people of Israel. But that does not imply that Miriam had a leadership role (for nothing else in the Bible specifies this)…”[9]

Second, the WMPCA assumes that the prophetic ministries of Miriam, Deborah and Huldah were public, when a careful reading of Scripture reveals that they were not. Instead, as Grudem once again explains, women prophets always prophesied privately or prophesied to women.

It is significant that Miriam prophesied to the women of Israel:

Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. And Miriam sang to them:

“Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;

The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea” (Exodus 15:20-21).

Rather than prophesying publicly, Deborah sent for Barak and gave a prophecy privately to him: “She sent and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali and said to him, ‘Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you, “Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor” (Judges 4:6).

And Huldah the prophetess gave her prophecy privately to a small group of five messengers from the king: “So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess…and they talked with her” (2 Kings 22:14).

Women were able to prophesy in the Old Testament…but in the Old Testament they always prophesied privately or to women. And prophecy consists of delivering messages from God to His people. It is different from teaching God’s people and different from ruling God’s people, neither of which women did with God’s blessing in the Old or the New Testament.[10]

Third, the WMPCA report fails to consider how the rare occasions of women leading the people of Israel (e.g. Deborah) actually functioned not as an example to be followed but a rebuke to the nation as a whole. For instance, the prophet Isaiah writes: “Youths oppress my people, women rule over them” (Isaiah 3:12).[11] As John Calvin concludes:

If anyone challenges this ruling by citing the case of Deborah and other women of whom we are told that God at one time appointed them to govern the people, the obvious answer is that God’s extraordinary acts do not annul the ordinary rules by which He wishes us to be bound. Thus, if at some time women held the office of prophets and teachers and were led to do so by God’s Spirit, He who is above all law might do this, but being an extraordinary case, it does not conflict with the constant and accustomed rule.[12]

Making Descriptive Passages Prescriptive

Another significant exegetical misstep the WMPCA report makes is taking descriptive passages of Scripture and using them in a prescriptive manner. There are numerous examples of this. For instance, the report states:

• That “women were the first to proclaim that he had risen from the dead” (Mark 16:7). However, the next verse states that “they said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid” (Mark 16:8).

• That Phoebe delivered Paul’s letter of Romans “and likely read it to the church”. However, this is pure conjecture and an argument from silence.

• That Junia “is specifically listed as being ‘outstanding among the apostles’”. While the report earlier affirms that the office of ruling and teaching be limited to men, this statement muddies the waters as to whether the committee truly believes that to be so. While there is considerable debate regarding the meaning of Romans 16:7, the office of apostleship clearly did not include women.[13]

What is strangely lacking in the WMPCA report is any detailed discussion or application on passages in the New Testament which do define the roles of men and women. In particular, 1 Corinthians 11:2-16; 14:33-35; 1 Timothy 2:11-15 and Titus 2:3-5. What’s more, when passages are referenced—such as 1 Corinthians 11 and 14—the conclusion is merely assumed without taking into consideration the exegetical nuance of the debate, especially those which disagree with their conclusions.[14]

The Challenge to Presbyterian Polity

Significantly, the WMPCA report recommends that “all sessions consider how best, within their local context to engage with women in key decisions of Church leadership”. They further suggest that this could include:

• Sessions setting up a women’s advisory group whom they talk to about specific issues.

• Inviting key women of their church to Session meetings for a discussion that would inform its decision making.

• Choosing to appoint key women in their church to a ‘co-worker’ position and giving them the privileges of an associate while Session sits.

While the sentiment behind these proposals might seem noble, they raise a number of problems:

First, any “women’s advisory group” in the life of local congregation would be a female version of session, albeit without the power or authority to make any decisions. This is tokenistic at best. What woman would only want to advise a session, Presbytery, State or even a national Assembly? Alternatively, which one of these bodies would have the courage to ignore their advice so as not to appear misogynistic?

Second, the deeper problem with these proposals is they misunderstand the nature of Christian leadership. Elders are not elected to represent the views and interests of various groups of people in the congregation. They are appointed as Christ’s under-shepherds to represent Him. To care and tend to the flock for whom they will be held accountable. Accordingly, men are not represented by male elders.

Third, to formally ‘associate’ someone to a session, who is not ordained to a similar office, is problematic. This is done with people who hold a similar position in another church court. While the WMPCA wants to uphold male eldership, it is advocating a position which will have the effect of paving the way for women to be ordained as well. Ideas always have consequences. And the suggestion of associating a woman to the session will have the effect practically of normalising a situation which is abnormal to Presbyterian polity.

Fourth, the implement a committee to advise session is pastorally problematic. How will these women be selected? Will the congregation be able to decide who is and is not part of the committee? By whom will it be led and how long will such appointments be for? What if some of them are unsuitable due to their character or doctrine? As can be quickly seen, there are a plethora of problems with adopting such an approach.

Fifth, this is simply not needed. We already have good structures in place to hear from women and unordained men in the congregation. We don’t need to add another structure to our polity but to submit to what the Word of God teaches in this regard.[15] Any session might regularly invite women to its meetings to discuss a particular issue, and godly elders will always seek to know and understand the condition of Christ’s sheep (Ezekiel 34; 1 Peter 5:1-4).

Conclusion

All believers want to work together in harmony for the glory of God. The impact of feminism on the church is greater than the WMPCA report recognises. What is needed is not shared power as the world advocates but obedience to the will of God as revealed in the Scriptures.

– Mark Powell

[1] For a good examination of this subject see James Hamilton, God’s Indwelling Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Old and New Testaments (Broadman and Holman, 2006).

[2] Significantly, this was a theological aspect of the paper which was surprisingly missing. For a survey of the issues see One God in Three Persons: Unity of Essence, Distinction of Persons, Implications for Life (Crossway, 2015).

[3] See Rosaria Butterfield, Five Lies of our Anti-Christian Age (Crossway, 2023), 188.

[4] See White Book, page 125-26.

[5] Kevin DeYoung, Men and Women in the Church: A Short, Biblical & Practical Introduction (Crossway, 2021).

[6] Wayne Grudem, “Does Kephalh (“Head”) Mean “Source” Or “Authority Over” in Greek Literature? A Survey of 2,336 Examples,” Trinity Journal No. 6.1 (Spring 1985), 38-59.

[7] Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15 (Word, 1987), ‘Though woman was created to be man’s companion, she is told that her desire for independence will conflict with his demand for submission. Under the curse, those who were created to be one flesh will find themselves tearing each other apart.’ 89.

[8] Wayne Grudem, Evangelical Feminism & Biblical Truth (Multnomah, 2004), page 144, footnote 26.

[9] Grudem, Evangelical Feminism & Biblical Truth, 144.

[10] Grudem, Evangelical Feminism & Biblical Truth, 138.

[11] Grudem, Evangelical Feminism & Biblical Truth, 134-140.

[12] John Calvin, Commentary on 2 Corinthians and Timothy, Titus and Philemon (Paternoster, 1964), 217.

[13] Grudem, Evangelical Feminism & Biblical Truth, 223-227.

[14] See John Calvin’s commentary, The First Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians (Eerdmans, 1960), 306; James Greenbury, “1 Corinthians 14:34-35: Evaluation of Prophecy Revisited” JETS 51/4 (December, 2008), 721-31.

[15] For excellent presentation of this topic see Murray Capill, The Elder-Led Church: How an Eldership Team Shepherds a Health Flock (Presbyterian & Reformed, 2024).