The Whole Story: Women And The Gospel

Alright, we’re going to do some pretty heavy studying on some passages that are controversial on a woman’s role in the church.

Are you ready for that?

I want to start with this:

To reach a biblical position on any subject, we must make a decision based on the preponderance of evidence in Scripture — that is the whole of Scripture, not just one or two isolated passages.

We have to look for the preponderance of evidence on complex issues.

I’ll give you an example.

In 1 Peter 2:18, Peter writes:

Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.

Now, there are a couple other verses similar to this: Ephesians 6:5 and Colossians 3:22.

In the debates about slavery in the South over 150 years ago, Southern Christians would point to 1 Peter 2:18, and say, “It’s right there in the Bible. Slaves, obey your master. The Bible is pro-slavery.”

That was a real problem, because the Bible never says anywhere, “Slavery is a bad institution, so get rid of it.” That would have made the discussion much easier.

There were a lot of people who understood the Bible to be on the side of slavery.

But on the other hand, the great moral force behind abolition was overwhelmingly Christian.

Christians like William Wilburforce in England and Jonathan Blanchard in Chicago who devoted their lives to the cause of freedom. And they did it because of their Christian faith.

They believed that when you look at the whole of Scripture, it leads to the conclusion that all human beings should be free.

And they would appeal to the preponderance of evidence in Scripture.

Think about it like a giant scale. On one side of the scale, you could put verses like 1 Peter 2:18 that appear to be pro-slavery.

But then they’d say on the other side of the scale, there is so much Scripture.

Go back to Genesis 1 that says, “All human beings are created in the image of God.” We all carry that dignity.

Then look at the prophets — Isaiah and Amos and others — who burn with God’s hatred toward oppression and injustice.

Look at the Book of Acts where you see this radical equality in the new church.

Look at the Book of Philemon where Paul writes to Philemon: “Receive Onesimus back, not as a slave but as a dear brother.”

Look at Galatians 3:28 where Paul writes: “There is now neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Christians who fought for freedom said, “If you look at the preponderance of evidence in Scripture, if you take into account the whole text, then clearly slavery is NOT most consistent with God’s will for the human race.”

And of course, looking back on it now, we would say, “Of course that’s right.” No one would argue that the Bible supports a system of slavery.

Now, this brings us to the issue of a women’s role in the church because there’s no place where the Bible says, for example, “Patriarchy is a bad institution. Get rid of it.”

This is a complex discussion, and well-meaning, real bright Christians disagree about it.

But here’s one of the unique things about this discussion: Every church has to decide what their practice will be.

Every church has to decide, “Will we place restrictions on women exercising their gifts?”

There are a lot of other theological issues where Christians disagree — things about the end times and so on — that the church doesn’t have to take a formal position on.

And generally, you ought to know that as a church, we strive very much not to do that.

If there’s an issue where well meaning Christians disagree, we generally don’t take a formal stance on it one way or the other… unless it involves a practice where we must take a stance.

And this one is one of those where every church has to decide what its practice will be.

And we need to give rationale for that to the church.

Here’s what we believe as a church:

We believe when you take into account the whole of Scripture, the clear preponderance of evidence is that God’s plan for the human race is that it be a community of men and women where they share equally in the giftings of the Holy Spirit, the image of God, and the mission of the church.

Now, those who are opposed to this idea generally appeal to three passages:

1 Corinthians 11
1 Corinthians 14
1 Timothy 2

But what I want to suggest here is that you need to look at the preponderance of evidence in Scripture:

Look at God’s intent in creation when he made human beings in his own image, male and female, and gave them co-dominion, co-regency over creation.
Look at the loss of oneness that came in with the Fall and the beginning of inequality — “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
Look at the leadership roles of women like Deborah and Miriam in the Old Testament.
Look at the radical new attitude towards women that Jesus displayed.
Look at the role of women in the New Testament church.
Look at the passages about spiritual gifts where there is no mention of distinctions based on gender.
Look at a verse like Galatians 3:28.

And I believe that the preponderance of evidence in Scripture is for the full participation of men and women in ministry.

Now, here’s the particular point I want to make here:

This is important because people sometimes speak as if the position that honors biblical authority is to say, “We’ll remain hierarchical — we’ll restrict women’s practice of their gifts, unless you can remove every reservation from every difficult passage. Unless every reservation is removed, we’ll stay hierarchical.”

And I just want to point out that for any given complex issue, that’s not a correct hermeneutic.

It dishonors the notion of the authority of the whole of Scripture.

The right interpretive approach is to say, “I will go with the preponderance of evidence of Scripture on a complex issue.”

Now today, I want to start by looking at roles that women played in the New Testament church.

Then we’ll get to some of the difficult passages.

I want to start with Acts 1:14.

After Jesus ascended, while the believers were waiting for Pentecost, we’re told that the disciples of Jesus would meet in an upper room.

Verse 14:

They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

Luke, the writer of Acts, wants us to know that women, as well as men, are part of this community waiting for the church to be born.

Then it’s born. The Holy Spirit is poured out at Pentecost.

And Peter gets up and makes one of the most important speeches in the history of the church.

And it’s fascinating what Old Testament reference he cites to interpret what’s going on.

Look at Acts 2:16 and 17.

Peter is explaining about what’s going on at Pentecost. He says:

This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.”

I think it’s a striking thing that out of all the texts in the Old Testament that Peter could reference, he mentions the promise that God would pour out his Spirit on all people, male and female, and that there would come a Spirit-inspired prophetic ministry that would include both men and women without regard to gender.

That would be the signature of the coming of the Holy Spirit.

And that could only happen by the power of the Holy Spirit. No other power could break down barriers like that.

And in fact, that’s exactly what happened — that evidence of the Spirit is reflected in the lives of women in the early church.

Acts 21:9 tells us about four women, four daughters of Philip, who prophesied. They had the ministry of prophecy.

I want to say a word or two about what prophecy involves.

Prophecy is a word that means to speak the authoritative word of God.

Now, I want to take a moment to describe it because some people take this position. They’ll say women can prophesy, but that doesn’t involve authoritative teaching — that prophesy was the lesser function.

But that’s not clear in what the writers of Scripture say about prophecy.

1 Corinthians 14:3 — Paul is writing about the ministry of prophecy.

But everyone who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort. Those who speak in a tongue edify themselves, but those who prophesy edify the church.

In other words to prophesy is to edify, build up the church.

Look at verse 6:

Now, brothers and sisters, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good will I be to you, unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction?

With those four terms — revelation, knowledge, prophecy, word of instruction — Paul is not making sharp distinctions.

There are some nuances attached to each one of these words, but they’re largely overlapping terms that have to do with the building up of the church.

Now look at 14:31:

For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged.

You can prophesy so that all will be taught or all may learn and be encouraged.

In other words, the result of prophecy is learning and instruction. There’s a teaching function to it.

And women were doing this for men and women in the church.

Another remarkable passage — Romans 16.

In Romans 16, Paul is writing to honor many people in the church, and in this passage — read through the whole chapter sometime — many of them are women.

He honors them using quite extraordinary language. We’ll read about just a couple of them.

Romans 16:1:

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant

Or deacon. It could be translated either way.

of the church in Cenchrea. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been a great help to many people, including me.

Now, these are remarkable words about a woman in those days.

This was the standard introduction for someone bearing a letter: “I commend to you the person. I ask you to receive this person in a way worthy of the saints.”

This was a standard introduction for someone bearing a letter so that most likely what this means is Phoebe was the one carrying this letter to the church at Rome.

And the custom of that day was that whoever was carrying the letter would be called on to explain anything in the letter that wasn’t clear to the people it was read to.

Now, if you’ve ever studied the Book of Romans, imagine being the one expected to answer the question: “What did Paul mean by that?”

So Paul underscores her authority and competence.

It’s a woman that’s going to have that role to explain this letter to the church at Rome.

Look down at verse seven at another remarkable woman.

I remember when I first learned about this verse how surprising this was to me.

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles.

Now, Andronicus is a male name; Junia is a female name.

This is woman who is counted as an apostle — They are outstanding among the apostles. If you want to read more on this, I highly recommend the book, “Junia is not alone,” by Scot McKnight.

You see, this means a woman had the title of apostle. That was the highest title that could be had.

Interestingly enough, this has bothered some translators so much that a few translations have changed the spelling from Junia to Junias, which would be a man’s name, a masculine ending.

But in all the best ancient manuscripts it’s a woman’s name.

So, we see scattered throughout the New Testament these glimpses of women where extraordinary things are happening in the church — very different from the kind of things happening in the culture.

Alright, what I want to do now is turn to the 3 passages that pose the greatest difficulty around allowing women full participation in the life and work of the church.

And I want to look real directly at them.

The first one is 1 Corinthians 11, starting with verse two.

And I’ll need to read all the way through this passage.

This is what Paul writes:

I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the traditions just as I passed them on to you. But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.

Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved.

For if a woman does not cover her head, she might as well have her hair cut off; but if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should cover her head.

A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels.

Everything clear so far?

We’ll come back to it. Let’s keep reading:

Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.

Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice—nor do the churches of God.

Okay, now very clearly, much of what Paul writes here relates to a cultural situation that we don’t know all about.

We have discovered through history and through archaeology some things, but we don’t know all about it.

But I want to make several key observations about this passage.

The first and most clear one is that Paul is expressly affirming public ministry for women.

Paul is saying that women must pray and prophesy — remember that means delivering God’s message to the congregation — in a public setting.

In our day, some people argue that they should only do this for other women but not for mixed groups.

But clearly from the context where Paul talks about the need to wear head coverings and so on, he is talking about a congregation with men and women in it.

This is the most striking single teaching in this text. It’s a whole new direction; a radical departure from the past.

You know, it used to be that when there was a Jewish community in a city, and they wanted to form a synagogue, there had to be ten men there. Women didn’t even count towards the synagogue.

There could be 90 women, but if there weren’t 10 men, they couldn’t have a legitimate synagogue.

This is a striking departure now. Paul is expressly affirming the public ministry, prophecy, and prayer — delivering God’s Word to the congregation — of women.

The second observation is that there is a huge debate about the meaning of the term “head.”

I’ll say a word or two about this.

The Greek word is the word “kephale.”

It’s the word that meant head, like the head of a body.

“Arkon” was a common word used by Paul to describe authority. He didn’t use that word.

So what does Paul mean by the word head?

In our language, in English, we most often use the word head metaphorically for being the boss or the one in charge.

In ancient Greek, Kephele wasn’t used that way.

Kephele was most often used to describe the source of something — like the head of a river. Or, literally, the head of a person.

And if that’s the case, then what Paul is saying here is that Christ in his incarnation came from the Father, that Adam was created by Christ, and that the woman came from the body of the man.

Now, there’s huge debates about this. Enormously long papers have been written on this.

But ultimately, my own opinion is — not a whole lot hinges on this debate, and here’s why:

Again, like in Ephesians 6:5 Paul says, “Slaves, obey your masters as unto the Lord.”

I believe that our best understanding of this is he’s not endorsing the system of slaves and masters as a permanent system. He’s simply acknowledging the way things are in his day.

I think it’s entirely possible that Paul could be acknowledging the cultural truth that they live in a society where husbands are over wives just as masters are over slaves, without saying in either case that that social system is the best expression of God’s will.

If you want to study more on this, I recommend reading Leon Morris’ commentary on 1 Corinthians.

Okay, so let’s move on.

In verse seven it says that woman is the glory or reflection of man.

Now, does that mean that she is lower than him?

Not necessarily.

The exact same expression is used in the Old Testament to say, “Saul is the glory of Israel,” where it’s a phrase of honor.

Now likewise, in verses eight and nine where he talks about woman being made for the sake of man, it does not imply lower status or function.

I think it’s similar to the term “helper” in Genesis.

Woman was made for the sake of man so the two of them together could experience community which man could not have experienced on his own.

In verses 11 and 12, Paul gets to his ultimate point. Take a look at it again, verse 11:

Nevertheless, in the Lord

In the church that is being formed

woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.

Paul’s ultimate point here is the interdependence of men and women expressed now in public ministry for both.

Another observation about this passage has to do with the significance of the head coverings. What’s that about?

Well, the short answer is they faced, I think, a cultural situation that does not exist in our day.

The patron saint of Corinth was Aphrodite — the goddess of love.

Temple prostitution was part of the history of that city.

An uncovered head, most likely, was one of the ways that prostitutes identified themselves.

So most likely, these instructions about headcoverings come from Paul’s desire that Christian worship be very sharply distinguished from this kind of sexual promiscuity that was associated with pagan worship in Corinth.

He wanted to make sure everyone was real clear about the difference.

It doesn’t mean women should always wear head coverings. That was something related to a particular culture.

Paul was talking about head coverings because he wanted them to be a reminder that women have dignity, and they should be treated with respect.

And he wanted for everyone to be real clear that Christian women are not to be like the wild women in pagan worship, that their contributions are not to be slighted, and the head covering was to be a reminder of their authority — their new authority in the Lord — to prophesy and to pray.

Take a look at verse 10.

It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels.

Now this one is a bit obscure – what do the angels have to do with this?

There are a lot of theories we don’t have time to get into.

A side note here — just a word to the wise in general… and it has to do with the problem of translations.

Because translators, especially if you get a paraphrase — a paraphrase is a version of the Bible where they didn’t take it from the original language. They put it into words of someone who was taking it from other English language Bibles.

Translators, and especially paraphrasers, often kind of make their own interpretation and it gets influenced by their own point of view.

I’ll give you a classic example of this.

Here’s the literal rendering of 1 Corinthians 11:10. This is word for word from the Greek text:

Because of this, a woman ought to have authority upon the head because of the angels.

Now again, the angels part is somewhat obscure, but the quite clear meaning is that the head covering is to be a sign of the woman’s authority to be engaged in public ministry now.

Take a look at the paraphrase called Living Letters:

So a woman should wear a head covering on her head as a sign that she is under a man’s authority, a fact for all the angels to notice and rejoice in.

You see how far away that is from the literal rendering of the text?

And, of course, the danger of this is people read that paraphrase, and they think that’s what Paul said. It’s not what Paul said.

Now, that’s not to make a negative comment on any particular paraphrase or translation… because I think most translators and paraphrasers are very sincerely motivated and a lot smarter than I am.

But it is to say that you do need to be careful.

And in studying a complex issue like this one it’s good to read a number of translations to try to get at the clearest meaning of especially disputed texts like this one.

Alright, that’s the first text, 1 Corinthians 11.

Now, let’s look at 1 Corinthians 14:34 and 35.

Paul writes:

Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

The obvious problem that this raises is how do you reconcile this text with what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11 just a couple paragraphs earlier, where he says women should prophesy and pray out loud in church?

Now, there are a couple different positions on this.

Some people say, “You don’t reconcile them. They just contradict each other.”

But part of our belief as a church is we believe in the authority of Scripture. Therefore, we believe that Paul was not contradicting himself — that solution is not acceptable.

Another group of people would say that in the earlier passage, 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul talks about women having public ministry, he wasn’t referring to being in church, kind of like being in here on a Sunday morning, but in small groups or something.

The difficulty with that is being in church was different in the early church than it is in our day. They didn’t have auditoriums or buildings like this.

All churches were house churches. So what he talks about in 1 Corinthians 11 is the church gathered — a group of people gathered. They’re the church.

My own belief is — and it’s certainly not original with me — I think Paul here is addressing a particular situation.

You see, women today are able to learn. Women were not able to learn in the first century.

And so what probably was going on is there was disorderly worship and learning in the Corinthian church — that’s actually the context of the entire chapter 14.

What is most likely going on is that learning was happening, but women were asking questions that were disrupting the learning experience for everyone.

They didn’t know background or context to things that were being taught, so they would just turn and ask things right in the middle of the teaching.

Now imagine how disruptive it would be to you if all through this messages, half the people in this room were turning to someone else saying, “What does he mean by that?”

It would be a lot harder to follow than it already is, which is enough of a challenge as it is, right?

If that kind of disorder were going on, it would be impossible to learn.

So I think Paul is saying, “They must stop disrupting and ask these questions at home.”

That’s why he writes what he does in verse 35.

The second problem is what does Paul mean when he says, “They must be silent as the Law says”?

Nowhere in the Old Testament is there a law or a writing that says, “Women must be silent.”

Most likely Paul is referring to the general Old Testament teaching that worshipers and learners should be silent and submissive before God — that that’s the appropriate posture of learning.

Okay, so most likely this passage is referring to what happens in a new day when learning is taking place for women, but it’s disruptive.

Alright, third passage, 1 Timothy 2:9. Paul writes this:

I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.

For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing — if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

Now Paul gives a number of commands in this passage, and the question is how do we apply them?

Take a look again at verse nine:

I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes,

Just take a look around this room for a minute at the women who are here.

Any braided hair?
Any gold jewelry?
Any expensive clothing?

Paul says no braided hair, no gold, no pearls, no expensive clothes.

More than a day’s wage in those days would have been maybe the equivalent of $30 or $40 in our day.

So just to put it into context, expensive clothing would be a pair of jeans that are more than a days wage, or more than $40.

I won’t to ask for a show of hands, but how many of you are in violation of that?

Why? Why are you disobeying these commands?

Well, there’s another real key hermeneutical point here, and that is — we must distinguish between universal principles (that which applies in all times, in all places) and local principles that have to do with a particular situation or culture.

We must distinguish between that which is universal and that which is restrictive.

Just to make sure you have those categories straight, I’ll give you a test.

I’ll run through a few different commands in Scripture. I’ll ask you to say out loud — this is audience participation here — is that command universal or is it restrictive?

Okay, here we go:

Love your neighbor as yourself. Universal or restrictive?

Universal.

1 Corinthians 7:1, “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.”

Are you really that unsure? I’m amazed we have any kids in our Kids Ministry.

That would be restrictive.

Micah 6:8, “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.”

Universal or restrictive?

Universal.

1 Timothy 5:23, “Take a little wine for your stomach.”

Are you just being stubborn?

Restrictive would be the answer we’re looking for there.

Okay, there’s universal principles and then local applications.

And here’s the deal: It’s not always easy to tell which is which. It’s not an easy thing.

And real smart people pray and work real hard to try to distinguish that.

So I don’t want to make it sound like it’s easy. It’s not.

That’s why very sincere Christians disagree sometimes over issues like this one.

But my point here is we have to apply cultural sensitivity to verses 9 through 15.

You can’t just blindly pick and choose and say, “Well, that verse doesn’t apply today, but that verse does apply today,” for no particular reason.

And again, when people do that, they’ve used the Bible to support all kinds of different things.

So, let’s walk through this.

The first striking feature that I want to point out in verse 11 in this text is that Paul literally says: “Let a woman learn.”

Learn is a verb, and it’s in the form of the imperative.

There were different Greek moods for verbs:

the indicative was simply a statement of fact
the imperative was a command

It says something must happen, make it be so.

That’s the form that Paul uses here of learn. Paul doesn’t just say women can be allowed to learn now. Paul is stating a command: “Women must learn.”

Now, this is a revolutionary thing in that day — that this is in the imperative form.

Remember, this is against the background in which women were virtually uneducated.

There was a rabbinic saying in ancient times that read, “Better for the Book of the Law — better for the Torah — to be burned than to be taught to a woman.”

And Paul here is commanding that women should learn, should be taught.

So you see the thought of a woman teaching in that day would be almost non-existent because in the vast majority of cases, women were not even allowed to become educated.

Paul is saying, “This is to stop in the church.”

Then he goes on to describe how women should learn: in all quietness and submission.

And the question here is to whom? Quietness and submission to whom?

One answer is husband. That’s one theory, submission to their husbands.

But Paul doesn’t say this… and it would leave out unmarried women.

I think probably Paul is saying here that women should have an appropriate attitude of a learner to one’s teacher and to the subject matter — she ought to be submissive to the one who’s teaching and to the subject matter.

Now in verse 12 Paul says:

I permit no woman to teach or have authority over a man.

A couple observations here:

First of all, Paul does not use the imperative here.

He does not say, “Don’t permit a woman to teach,” not like he uses the command to say, “Allow a woman to learn.”

He says, “I do not permit,” and it’s in the present tense.

It is possible — it is certainly not certain — but it is possible that it could be translated, “I am not currently permitting.”

That’s one of the ways that the present tense is used — to talk about a current condition.

In this case, Paul’s point would be that women must learn before they can teach.

And they haven’t learned yet so, of course, they can’t teach yet.

Paul goes on to say:

or have authority over a man.

He uses those two verbs in parallelism where they’re set side by side to help define each other.

Now, he doesn’t use the usual word for authority in the New Testament.

He uses a Greek word, “authentein,” that is used only one time in the whole New Testament. This is the only time it’s used.

And this is another word where there’s a lot of debate, but it seems to carry the idea of trying to dominate or control.

Now, some argue that it doesn’t carry that idea. Some argue that it does.

But if it does, then most likely Paul is not permanently forbidding women teachers, rather he is warning that women at Ephesus are not to use their newfound status as learners to try to usurp the teacher’s place — trying to correct and so on — before they even understand what it is they’re trying to learn.

“Authentein” probably helps to show what Paul warns against — not just teaching, but teaching that seeks to dominate and control.

Now, in verses 13 and 14, Paul appeals to the creation account.

And this is important because some say that since he appeals to Adam and Eve, it’s not just a cultural issue — the command is universal because he connects it to creation, to Adam and Eve.

But Paul is not saying here that women are more to blame than men so that all women will be limited in function.

For instance, in Romans 5 Paul says that sin entered the world not through a woman, but through a man.

So he talks about the creation in fairly flexible ways.

I think he’s using what happened in Eden here as an example of what he’s guarding against, not as a proof text of why women should never teach.

He’s saying that the woman in the garden had not received firsthand teaching about the prohibition of the tree from God, which Adam had.

Adam had firsthand teaching, therefore she was more vulnerable because she hadn’t received that.

Likewise, there were women in Ephesus who had not yet learned about the faith. They hadn’t received direct teaching, therefore, they were not yet ready to become teachers yet: “I’m not currently permitting.”

There is a universal principle here, and that is — no one should aspire to teach when they haven’t yet learned.

Finally, in this text, verse 15, and this is again a fairly obscure verse:

But women will be saved through childbearing — if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

Now what does he mean by that?

There are several different theories, and no one is sure.

It could be that the childbearing reference is a reference to Mary’s childbearing — the birth of Christ.

Some people would say what he’s saying here is that women ought to be fulfilling a domestic role.

But, of course, the difficulty with that interpretation is what about single women, those who don’t bear children?

And doesn’t that become kind of a works-righteousness? — You earn your way to salvation by bearing children and so on.

It could be that what he’s saying here, or another way this could be translated is, “Women will be brought safely through childbearing.”

And it could be that this is part of the curse being overturned. That’s another theory about it.

Now, one last comment on this passage.

The alternative explanation, if you want to say that Paul is limiting women here in this passage universally, then you’re left saying that Paul is saying that because Eve was deceived, women are to be subordinate.

This would be odd because Paul’s clear teaching in the New Testament is that all humanity, male and female, have equally participated in the Fall, and therefore all can be fully redeemed.

Now, I’d like us to look at one final passage.

Galatians 3:28.

And this is quite a remarkable statement Paul makes.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

There was a prayer in Paul’s day. It’s found in several different sources in the ancient world — that every morning Jewish males would wake up and pray, “Blessed art Thou, Oh God, for you did not make me a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.”

This was a prayer that would get prayed.

Paul himself probably was brought up to say that prayer.

It’s no accident that Galatians 3:28 is worded the way it is.

And it’s set against a very dramatic backdrop.

Why would Jewish males pray that prayer?

A scholar named F. F. Bruce points out —

“It wasn’t to discourage those groups. It wasn’t meant to be unkind. Jewish males would say that because if they weren’t Jewish males, free, they could not participate fully in the community of faith.”

Around the temple there was the Court of Gentiles. If you were a Gentile, you couldn’t go past that.

There was the Court of Women. If you were a woman, you couldn’t go past that.

Now some people say this verse relates only to salvation. Paul is only saying that each one of these groups can be saved.

But even in the Old Testament times, everyone knew that all those groups could be saved. That wasn’t a new idea.

What was a new idea was that God was creating a new church where all could participate freely, and that old prayer was not valid anymore. — “There is neither Jew nor Gentile.”

And, of course, there were huge debates in the early church about the distinction between Jews and Gentiles and if it ought to hold up in the church.

Many thought that to be Jewish was still superior.

The 12 disciples, for example, were Jewish, and it could be argued that that was God’s way of saying the leadership of the church would be Jewish, that those who were Jewish were on top.

But Paul says no. Old ethnic divisions are torn down.

When they came to Christ, people were still Jewish or Gentile, but those distinctions are irrelevant now to their participation in the life of the church.

And then Paul says, “Neither slave nor free.”

And that was a huge debate of the church for 1,800 years plus.

People would point to the Scripture and say, “Slaves, obey the masters.”

But Paul is saying, “No. In Christ those old class distinctions are irrelevant to participation in the church.”

Then he has this staggering third pair, “Neither male nor female.”

When someone is in Christ, whether they’re male or female is no longer the most important thing about them. They still remain male and female, but that distinction is irrelevant to their full participation in the life of the church.

The old prayer isn’t valid anymore. God’s plan is for his people to know oneness.

I want to say one last thing for today.

Many Christians, as you know, disagree on this issue. It’s quite controversial.

Many wonderful Christians and many wonderful churches take different positions… and I want to honor them. A lot of churches have a different stance than ours… and I want to honor them.

But I want to say this — I’m incredibly grateful to be at this church.

I look at our church, and I think of where it would be if it were not a community of men and women working and serving together.

I think of Ashley Lewis, who leads our Kids Ministry, or Lisa Herrington who leads our Compassion Ministry, or Michelle Enriquez who leads our Student Ministries, or Teena Jacob who leads our Prayer Ministry, or a number of our current or former Board members who are women. I’m so glad we get to benefit from the gift of leadership that they bring.

I have three children who received Jesus Christ as their Savior in this church. They’ve gotten baptized in this church.

I’m so grateful that I and my family get to benefit from the gifts of many women leaders in this church.

And those are just a few women that I have close contact with.

There are hundreds of others, so many of you in this room, so many of you who are women who serve with all the gifts that God has given you.

We wouldn’t be who we are if you didn’t do that.

I know there’s a lot of great churches around. But I’m so grateful to be a part of this one where in Christ there is no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. But we’re all one in Christ Jesus.

Alight, let’s pray as the worship team comes to lead us in a closing song.