Paul and Women in the Church: Transcending Culture into the Kingdom

One of my recent assignments was to study what Paul teaches in his letters concerning women in the church. This is no small issue. Women are increasingly using their gifts in leadership ministries and the wall of opposition we are faced with is tall. It doesn’t help that the New Testament seems to be so contradictory. In Romans Paul commends several women who are leaders in the church. In 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy he writes that women should not even be allowed to speak in church. How are we supposed to interpret these Scriptures? And, if we believe that the Bible transcends history and culture, how are we to apply Paul’s words to the church today? Scholars are still divided on this issue, but I read some commentaries on the passages where Paul speaks to women in the church that offered some new and interesting insights. If you want to read farther, Willard Swartley's book Sabbath, Slavery, War & Women is a good resource.

Galatians 3:28
In this verse Paul distinctly writes that in Christ the social and spiritual norms of worldly culture no longer apply. In reading the Gospels, we can clearly see how Jesus worked to change the social structures that oppressed his culture in his time, not just bring an eschatological spirituality. Thus, the church is called to live out this new order of equality in the world as it shares in Christ's work of redemption.

Romans 16:1-16
Many believe in this passage Paul does not necessarily speak to women in leadership in the church, just women who serve in the church. An analysis of the Greek linguistics is important in translating this text.
• Phoebe: Paul uses the word diakonon, an unofficial word denoting someone who serves the church, but a masculine noun that he also used to describe himself, Apollos, Tychicus, Timothy, and even Christ. Paul also names her as a prostatis, a benefactor who would have provided financial support and housing for Paul and other missionaries like him, possibly even representing them to the courts. She would have been a wealthy woman of some influence. One can imagine that she most likely held considerable authority, even over men.
• Prisca: Paul obviously believed she played an important role in the church and for an unknown reason wants the church to know she and Aquila risked their lives for him. It is interesting, though the reason is not known, that Paul names her before her husband. She hosted a congregation in their home, and she and Aquila worked with Paul to spread the Gospel.
• Junia: Many Bible translations have changed this name to the masculine form, Junias. The earliest copies of Romans, however, clearly speak of a woman. The translation of her name is important to know because Paul also names Junia as “prominent among the apostles”. Not merely a friend of the apostles, but one of them. Junia would have been a missionary alongside her husband, spreading the Gospel and forming churches like Paul and Peter.
• The other women that Paul names are titled saints or workers of the church. The word that Paul used here for “work” is one he often used when speaking about preaching and teaching.

1 Corinthians 11:2-16
• The Greek term for “head” that Paul uses here is “source” or “origin”, not “holding authority over” as it is often translated. This still denotes inequality.
• Paul uses the argument of nature here, a popular debate tactic in Hellenistic culture and Jewish rabbinic thought. The inequality that Paul expresses here could easily be accounted to his history and the thought processes he's learned. Paul Jewett makes note that this passage is Paul writing from human influence, as his arguments are “incompatible with (a) the biblical narratives of Man's creation, (b) the revelation which is given us in the life of Jesus, and (c) Paul's [own] fundamental statement of Christian liberty in the Epistle to the Galatians.”
• In the Hellenistic era wearing a head covering was a sign of femininity, much like wearing a dress is today. Not wearing a head covering, or having cut or unkempt hair, was a signal that the woman was “available” and could be propositioned, like prostitutes or unmarried women.
• Women in the church often saw themselves free of the social norms and apparently were not wearing their coverings in church. Paul was calling them to continue to maintain self-control. You can imagine what might happen in the church if it became fairly common for women to come to church dressed as prostitutes.
• Paul writes that “just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman”, implying mutuality, if not equality, between men and women in the church.

1 Corinthians 14:34-36
• An analysis of the Greek text and the original copies show that this passage may have been inserted by a scribe or copier of the text and was not originally written by Paul. If these two verses were removed from the text, the writing would continue to flow seamlessly.
• This argument contradicts Paul's earlier address to women in the Corinthian church. In that passage he acknowledges that women are permitted to speak in the church, he only admonishes them to wear head coverings when they do so.
• This command that Paul writes is addressed to “the churches”, rather than just the Corinthian church, which seems unusual for a letter addressed to a specific church.
• Appealing to “the Law” as he does in verse 34 is uncharacteristic of Paul.
• In that time it was not appropriate for women, particularly married women, to speak in public independent of their husbands, and doing so was a breach of their marriage vow.
• A pagan cult worshiping Bacchus was very prevalent in Corinth and was popular among women. It was also a very ecstatic worship. Paul would have probably been appropriately speaking in these verses if the women of the Corinthian church were worshiping in the same ways common in this cult.

1 Timothy 2:11-15
• Scholars have now come to the conclusion that Paul most likely did not write the pastoral epistles of 1 and 2 Timothy, and would not be responsible for this command. Part of their reasoning for this conclusion is that this text is nearly identical to 1 Corinthians 14: 34-36.
• Earlier in the 1 Timothy letter the author warns against false teachers bringing heresy into the Ephesian church. These male teachers often targeted women, who were then more accessible and more susceptible because they were not trained in the Scriptures. Thus, the women in the church could have been speaking these false teachings and leading others astray.
• The words “quietness and subordination” denote a readiness to accept teaching and direction, not necessarily being mute in the church.
• The verb form for “permit” is in the present tense, indicating that the author was instructing women to learn the Scriptures well before they would be allowed to teach or speak to the church.
• The term “have authority” probably means to be overbearing, or to “seize authority”, not that women were to not hold authority at all in the church.
• The author was not necessarily disallowing women from ever speaking or teaching in the church. Rather, he was wisely instructing them to be trained and directed in the Scriptures before they taught.

The church needs to acknowledge that Scripture is written by humans, copied by humans, translated by humans, and read by humans all in different cultures and value systems. Need I also say that most of these have been males? The letters of Paul are not always entirely relevant to the church today, and they are still subject to biases and prejudices that are not theologically correct. For example, Paul often the argument from the creation account that women came from men. Using rules of nature, or what seemed to be rules of nature, was a popular argumentative method in the era Paul was writing. Today Paul's argument doesn't hold much water, especially considering that the creation story is essentially a myth. We really don't know how humans originally came to be. The church must found its practices on the teachings of Jesus, not solely on Paul. Richard B. Hays, in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, wisely speaks to the problem of interpreting what Paul was saying to the first century church and applying his words truthfully to the church today. “Our hermeneutical responsibility is to recognize these tensions where they exist and to make theologically informed judgments about how the different texts speak to our situation.” As Paul's words in Galatians proclaim, the church is called to transcend the social norms of culture and live in the new order which Christ began.

So the question remains, what does this mean for women in the church today? Paul's letters still contain important truths that are relevant to the church today, even those texts that do not affirm women in ministry. Paul breaks down the gender roles implied by society in Galatians. The church today still has far to go in abolishing the oppression of women. Paul takes great measures to encourage and affirm the work of women alongside his affirmation of male church leaders in his letter to the Romans. So too should the church today be affirming of all ministers, male or female. In 1 Corinthians Paul calls the congregation to maintain self-control and hold its leaders accountable, a calling no less relevant today, of all the church's leaders. Finally, as the author of 1 Timothy instructs, women should be taught and directed in Scripture with the same opportunity as men are taught. Women should have equal opportunity to not only learn in the local congregation setting, but to learn in the university and seminary setting as well. Women are created by God just as men. They have the same gifts and are just as able to receive a calling from God to minister to the church. Paul specifically names women who were missionaries, church founders, teachers, preachers, deacons, pastors and apostles. God calls all the redeemed to preach, to teach, to spread the gospel, to care for the congregation, to join in his work to redeem the world. Paul's commands to women to be silent are no longer relevant to contemporary culture. Yet his calling to transcend cultural oppressions and to be transformed into the Kingdom of God echoes through the centuries to speak just as loudly to the church today.

This makes me wonder how is the Church causing oppression in other ways because of the ideologies and influences from our culture? How is the Church using words written by humans, raising them up as infallible, and justifying the destruction of the Kingdom? It's time the Church looks past the words written in our Holy Bibles to the truth revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Can I get an Amen!?!