Thinking to Believe

Was Phoebe a deacon, and if so, does that inveigh against Complementarianism? I argue that Phoebe was a deacon, and that women can be deacons, but this has nothing to do with whether women can be elders/pastors/teachers.

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Now that I have established my argument for Complemenatarianism, I am turning my attention to various objections raised by Egalitarians against this view. In this episode I address four objections:

1. Galatians 3:28 requires that we make no distinction between men and women in the kingdom of God. 

2. Paul speaks of women as laboring with him in the gospel, and thus women can e ministers.

3. Paul speaks of churches in the house of different women. This implies that they were pastors in these house churches. 

4. Priscilla is an example of a teacher in the Bible. 

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Does the Bible teach male headship? Yes. I examine Genesis 3:16 where God told Eve "your desire will be to your husband, and he will rule over you." I argue that it refers to the woman's desire to exercise authority over her husband rather than submit to his authority. I also make the case that female submission to male headship was not introduced in Gen 3:16, but part of creation order in Genesis 2. 

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I look at what the NT has to say regarding headship, submission, and authority, focusing on texts like 1 Cor 11 and Eph 5.

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Does the Bible teach male headship? Yes. I examine Genesis 3:16 where God told Eve "your desire will be to your husband, and he will rule over you." I argue that it refers to the woman's desire to exercise authority over her husband rather than submit to his authority. I also make the case that female submission to male headship was not introduced in Gen 3:16, but part of creation order in Genesis 2. 

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I explore the last two possible interpretations of 1 Cor 14:34-35, namely the view that Paul is prohibiting women from engaging in theological discussion/debate in the church, and the view that Paul is prohibiting women from engaging in the judgment of prophetic utterances. 

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I explored two more possible interpretations of 1 Cor 14:34-35: (1) the cultural/circumstantial view; (2) the absolute silence view.

I argued that the cultural/circumstantial views cannot explain all that we see in the text, and we would have to believe that Paul prohibits all women from speaking due to the sins of a few. We would also have to ignore Paul’s rationale for this. He said it was shameful, and it is the teaching of the Law. 

The silence view takes “silence” very literally, but ignores the fact that Paul does not prohibit women from speaking in church in the forms of prayer and prophecy. Silence does refer to the cessation of speaking, but it normally refers to speaking about a particular topic or in a very specific context. It does not have a broad application that would silence women in all things for the duration of a church assembly. 

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After dealing with possible understandings of Paul's reference to "the Law," I examined two interpretations of 1 Cor 14:34-35: (1) The interpolation view which holds that these verses are not Pauline, but were added to the text by a scribe early in the text's history; (2) The quote and refute view which holds that verses 34-35 reflect the Corinthians' point of view, not Paul's. 

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Did an extended recap of what I covered for 1 Tim 2, and then began my discussion of 1 Cor 14:33-35. I concluded:

1. Paul's teaching pertains to public worship.

2. "As in all the churches of the saints" in 33b is the start of the sentence that continues in v.34, and thus it's clear that Paul is not talking about a local circumstance but a universal church practice. 

3. Paul is likely referring to men and women in general, not husbands and wives in particular. 

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I focus on Paul's second reason for prohibiting a woman from teaching or exercising authority over a man, namely the fact that it was Eve - not Adam - who was deceived by the devil. 

While Eve was the first to sinn, Adam was held responsible for the fall of mankind because of his headship role, showing that headship and submission were part of creation, not a result of the fall. 

I argue against the notion that Adam improperly communicated God's command to Eve, as well as the idea that Adam stood in silence as the devil tempted Eve. 

Finally, I argue that Paul's point is not that women are more easily deceived than men, but that Eve's deception has enduring consequences for all men. 

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