The Complementarian Position is the Harder One to Hold
I have been following the posts and video debate of my fellow Advent Christians Catherine Rybicki, Luke Copeland and Robert Mayer concerning egalitarianism and complementarianism. By now I am sure all those who are regulars at Advent Christian Voices have no need for these terms to be defined or explained.
Of these two positions I do believe that the complementarian one is the harder of the two to hold. This is not because I think that there is no Biblical warrant for this view. In fact I think it is the only justifiably Biblical position. Rather, it is the more difficult or harder view to hold because it flies in the face of our secular culture. It is not a popular position. In fact it is often mocked and most certainly maligned and lampooned. Why would any professing Christian want to hold this view? It is madness! Those who hold this position are viewed as misogynistic weirdos who want to keep women “in their places.” They are caught up in a patriarchal time warp and are simply hungry for power and domination. It is not the right position to hold if one wants to be considered sane. It is a position that is an embarrassment for many evangelicals who see it as hamstringing the church in its ministry to the unbelieving world. So there is indeed a certain degree of pressure brought to bear against Christians who are complementarians. So, for such reasons as these it is indeed the harder position to hold.
Now, I do concede that there have been and are professing Christians who have held some form of complementarianism who have gone overboard. They have been abusive and misogynistic. They have been hungry for power and domination. To put it more boldly they have been jerks and at times dangerous ones at that. Yet, this does not in itself invalidate this position. When it comes to the matter of authority in leadership either in the marriage/family or local church the reality of sin must be constantly faced. I do believe that the Scriptures teach that there is to be authoritative leadership in both spheres. I would contend that in the Bible’s account of the fall (which is an historical account) part of the matrix of rebellion against God’s order and covenant commands was an abdication on Adam’s part of his authority. This unfortunately led to sin entering both personally and corporately into every area of human existence and enterprise. Ever since then there has been both a failure to exercise loving leadership in marriage, home and church and at times rank abuse of authority demonstrated by husbands and pastors. Yet, by the grace of God there have been marriages/families and churches in which complementarianism has proved to cultivate relational refuges and sanctuaries. How desperately we need the mercy and transforming grace of the Lord Jesus Christ!
However, it is a non sequitur to maintain that Christians who hold to complementarianism are by default being demeaning to women or stand in the way of their sisters in Christ reaching the full potential of their giftedness. The same kind of argument is made against those who want to hold to the Bible’s teaching on human sexuality as a gift being only safely exercised within the covenant of monogamous heterosexual marriage. Just by holding this view one is labeled a hater and a homophobe. Certainly, there are implications that rise from the complementarian position but rather than jump there (because some of what has been seen as implications of this position I would not endorse due to the simple fact that they are not warranted) I want to put my oar in the hermeneutical and exegetical waters of this disagreement.
Let me begin by dealing with a hermeneutical approach on this matter. It is held by my egalitarian brothers and sisters that in order to come to a clear understanding of what the Bible actually teaches on women in ministry and pastoral leadership we must first look to those texts that actually describe what women in the first century church were really doing in ministry. Those descriptive texts that point to the activity of Phoebe (Romans 15:1), Junia (Romans 16:7), Priscilla (Romans 16:3; Acts 18:2,16), Euodia and Syntyche (Philippians 4:2-3) and about women prophesying (Acts 2:17; 1 Corinthians 11:5) must take interpretive precedence over the prescriptive texts like 1 Timothy 2:9-11, 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 and 14:34-36 To me this would be like someone saying that in order to come to a clear understanding of what the Bible teaches about the person of Jesus Christ we first must look at those texts that describe Jesus as being human. So those texts that describe him as born of a woman, being hungry, sleeping, ignorant and being called a man take precedence over other texts that present him as the eternal Son of God. This will not do. All of these texts that bear on this issue must be weighed together. Most of them were written by the Apostle Paul. Paul was no looney being tossed about by intellectual waves or emotional winds. What might on the surface appear as a contradiction between these particular descriptive and prescriptive passages (as some have advocated) are most certainly not for Paul was not contradicting himself. This is a solid hermeneutical presupposition to maintain as one examines these texts as a total package.
Let me state that I affirm all that Paul is saying in those “descriptive texts.” Women are able to prophesy and pray in the church. Phoebe may have been a deacon. Priscilla along with her husband Aquila did take Apollos aside and teach him. Euodia and Syntyche did labor side by side with Paul in the Gospel. While there is some debate over the gender of Junia I can go so far as to say in some capacity she and her husband were apostles. ( It is interesting that Aquila’s name ends in an “a'' which was customarily the ending in Latin for a woman’s name but Priscilla is said to be his wife so we know that he was in fact a man. His name means “eagle” and could be, given the context, either masculine or feminine.) I want to give just weight to all these descriptive passages. I will even bring them with me as I look at the prescriptive texts from the Apostle Paul. They must throw light on the prescriptive passages and the prescriptive passages must throw light on the descriptive texts, without removing either as they have timeless and universal bearing for Christians and the church.
Since there has already been some ink spilt and positions taken on one particular text and that is 1 Timothy 2:9-11 let me turn there. I will use the King James Version since that is viewed affirmingly by some egalitarians.
In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; 10 But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. 11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. 12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. 15 Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. (1 Tim. 2:9-15 KJV)
I want to address whether this text was meant to apply only locally with reference to the church in Ephesus and hence only for a limited time or whether it is to have timeless (at least in our inter-Advent era) and universal import for the church. Before I get to the particulars on that question, I want to focus a bit on the historical and cultural context of the passage. Often egalitarians stress that the false teaching that Paul identifies in this letter to Timothy was being advocated by women. They were no doubt wealthy and hence influential women (the reference to women wearing gold and pearls and dressed in costly garments) in Ephesus. The egalitarian argument goes that it was these women that Paul was addressing, not women in general. In fact some stress has been made on the shift in number from women in verses 9-10 to the singular woman in verses 11-12 continuing with a particular focus on Eve in verses 13-15. However Paul brings the plural back into focus at the end of verse 15 with the feminine pronoun “they.” The point that is made is that Paul must have had a particular woman in view. In verse 11 the KJV adds the definite article: “let the woman learn,” but there is not an article in the Greek or even the Latin text. I would stress rather that the singular woman would indicate that a general principle is being considered. This prohibition would therefore apply to every woman, not just one or a few.
While it is important to seek to understand the cultural and historical context by exploring extra Biblical sources, one needs to be very careful in how they are weighed. They indeed can provide some needed perspective on Biblical texts. Nevertheless, the claims that there were wealthy and influential women taking control in Ephesus and teaching false doctrine seeking to dominate others in the church there cannot be definitively substantiated.
Further support for the egalitarian position is found in the infinitive verb authenteîn which the KJV translates “to usurp authority over” the subject being “the man.” (Although the KJV again adds a definite article - “the man” - that is not found in the Greek text). It is rightly pointed out that this verb is an hapax legomena, which is a technical way of describing a word that only occurs once in the Greek New Testament. Much is made of this by also pressing the point that it is not one of the usual words used for governing or ruling. While all this is true, the question remains what does authenteîn mean. Most egalitarians interpret it in the sense of domineer. Indeed this is how it was defined in the second edition of A Greek-English Lexicon of the The New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Yet in the third edition known as BDAG, which was thoroughly and painstakingly revised by Frederick W. Danker the word is defined as “to assume a stance of independent authority, give orders to, dictate to.” The word carries no inherent negative notion of grasping or usurping authority or exercising it in a harsh manner. What Paul is forbidding is that a woman assume authority in the church in a leadership/teaching capacity. The vast majority of English translations translate authenteîn as “to assume authority over a man” (NIV) or “to exercise authority over a man” (ESV, NET, NAS) and “have authority over a man” (NLT, CSB).
What about the way the KJV translates authenteîn? (This is also the translation in the Geneva Bible “neither to vsurpe authoritie ouer the man.”) Certainly, these translators took the word to have negative and harsh notions of domination. Egalitarians stress that it is this kind of abusive authority that Paul is forbidding a woman from exercising and not the authority that is inherent in the pastoral ministry of leading and teaching the church. What Paul is therefore forbidding women would be what he also would forbid men from doing: from wielding abusive and overly domineering authority in the church. According to the egalitarian interpretation Paul is not therefore forbidding women from pastoral ministry. Yet, I question if that is what the translators of the GNV or the KJV meant. Certainly, in the 16th and 17th centuries the church had no problem holding to a complementary understanding of the roles of men and women in marriage/home and church. I would surmise that the notion of women “usurping authority” for those translators simply meant that women were forbidden from taking on the authority given to the husband and to men called to pastoral leadership. For a woman to attempt to do this would itself be a usurpation of the kind of authority not granted to women.
For the sake of argument let’s say that the complementarians are correct in their understanding of authenteîn this still doesn’t address another main contention of our egalitarian brothers and sisters. That other contention is that the tense of the main verb epitrépō points to a local and limited application of Paul’s prohibition - “I do not permit a woman.” The verb is in the present tense and it is argued that this means that Paul for the sake of complying with the societal and cultural norms of the day, so no offense would be given to the advance of the Gospel among Jews and Gentiles, was only temporarily prohibiting the women of the church in Ephesus from leading and teaching the men in the church. Paul never meant for this to be either a universal or timeless prohibition. If this is the correct interpretation of this passage then it does not really matter if the complementarians position on the infinitive authenteîn is the correct one. It is simply a moot point and the case is closed.
Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s ACGC put together a committee to study and produce a position paper on “Women and Men in Ministry.” That paper was entitled: Women and Men in Ministry - A Biblical View from an Advent Christian Perspective. I was not privy to the details but the paper that claimed to be a Biblical view from an Advent Christian perspective was basically an egalitarian document. (I do know that there were complementarian scholars in our ranks back then but I do not know if they were contacted or invited to join this committee looking into this issue). In the position paper Rev. Gerald Aulis in his contribution entitled: Women in the Church: What Says the Scriptures exegetes 1 Timothy 2:12 in this manner: “In the Greek text, the Apostle uses the present-active-indicative tense for the verb. Thus the text should actually read, “I am not presently permitting a woman to teach or have authority over a man” (page 34). This understanding of the verb with its negation, “I do not permit” is claimed by egalitarians to prove that Paul, who was ever sensitive to the present customs of the Jewish and Gentile cultures, only intended to restrict women from leadership in the church for a time.
Rev. Aulis goes on to state: “Paul’s great respect for the customs of his culture and their value in preserving the fabric of society leads us to a basic principle. That principle is, “Social customs can be accepted and practiced when they do not modify or hinder, but rather assist in the realization of the Christian faith and its proclamation. The corollary is equally true, ‘Customs and practices are to be ignored and rejected when they nullify or inhibit any Christian from realizing or exercising any prerogative or privilege extended to them in Christ” (page 34-35).
Rev. Aulis finds further support for this from Paul’s use of the words custom, synḗtheia, in 1 Corinthians 11:16 and traditions, paradósis in 1 Corinthians 11:2 but for some reasons sees them as societal norms rather that normative church practices. However this is not the case for Paul is writing about the customs and traditions of the first century church and not of the Greco-Roman or Jewish world.
Dan Wallace in his Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics - An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament points out that the use of the present tense here is not descriptive but rather gnomic or timeless. For it to be only describing a period of time there would need to be some temporal indicator like the Greek words árti (now, at the present time) or nŷn (now). Likewise if this was to be done with other passages where a present tense verb of command is used it would lead to some rather capricious and ludicrous interpretation. For example Wallace points to the use of present tense command in Ephesians 5:18 where Paul commands his readers not to be drunk with wine but to be filled with the Holy Spirit. If that verse were to be translated the way the egalitarians do 1 Timothy 2:12 it would read something like this: “Do not for the moment be filled with wine, but be filled at the present time by the Spirit” with the implication that such a moral code might change in the future?” Wallace goes on to write: “The normal use of the present tense in didactic literature, especially when introducing an exhortation, is not descriptive, but a general precept that has gnomic implications.” This means that the exhortation has no temporal limitation but is universal in its application. (Wallace: page 525).
There are two other reasons in the text and in this epistle that negate this command of Paul’s from being limited by location or time. His use of the word gár “for” in verse 13 roots this entire passage (command and all) in the creation and the fall. Here are the two universal reasons that within the context of the gathered church community a woman is not to teach or to exercise authority over a man. “For Adam was created first then Eve and Adam was not deceived but the woman being deceived became a transgressor” (my translation). For the sake of time (this is getting a bit long for a post) I won’t elaborate on this but simply state that this requires that Paul’s injunction here be understood as universal and timeless.
The second reason that what Paul writes as an Apostle of Jesus Christ here is not limited by location and time is the purpose of why he is writing to Timothy. “These things I write to you hoping to come to you soon. But if I am delayed, you might know how people are to conduct themselves in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth” (my translation). How can this mean anything else but that Paul understood his letter to Timothy as a directive for the church. Paul is not writing merely as an individual believer stating his personal opinions. He makes it very clear that he is writing as an Apostle of Jesus Christ. Paul was one of the foundational Apostles of the Christian church. He bore revelatory authority. Jesus Christ the Lord of the church was teaching the church through Paul and the original band that he commissioned in Acts, who had been with him throughout his earthly ministry. So, Paul gives Apostolic direction on how men and women are to conduct themselves in God’s household. This is why I am convinced that this discussion must take into consideration Biblical marriage and a passage like Ephesians 5:21-33 and the roles of the husband and wife in the marriage and in the home (or household). For the local church is analogous to the Christian home where a Biblical and godly form of patriarchy (authority of a father) is to exist.
Now, briefly back to those descriptive texts on women in Gospel ministry. I do think that they teach that women were actively engaged in Gospel ministry. Many were part of apostolic teams or bans that proclaimed the Gospel and cared for the poor. These were committed and faithful sisters in Christ who loved him and were passionate for the Gospel. They sacrificed as much as any man. Within the gathered church communities they prayed and prophesied as God enabled them. Paul lauds Euodia and Syntyche “who have labored side by side with me in the Gospel.” There were husband and wife apostolic teams (missionaries) who were sent out by the church like the Jew named Aquila and his wife Priscilla who took Apollos aside privately and explained to him the way of God more accurately. I am not as certain about how to translate Romans 16:7 regarding Andronicus and Junia. Either they were outstanding apostles or they were well regarded by the Apostles. It is not definitive that Junia was a woman or a man. What is clear was that they were relatives of Paul and were Christians before he was. If they were indeed a married couple they were on par with the likes of Priscilla and Aquila.
Yet, right alongside these clear texts I have to maintain that in the Christian home and in the local Christian church male servant leadership was the expected norm. In none of the above texts are the ministries of elders/pastors being described. The prescriptive texts do not cancel the descriptive texts and the descriptive texts do not cancel the prescriptive texts. They both have universal implications. The descriptive texts give us clear examples of the types of Gospel ministry in which first century women were engaged. The realm of their ministries was expansive. They used their gifts to the fullest. The only restriction was in the household of the local church where certain men were called to serve as steward teacher/leaders. This is the theological position that I believe to which the Scriptures compels one to arrive without limiting any of the pertinent texts.
To my egalitarian brothers and sisters in Christ I put this question to you with all humility, knowing that I am a sinner saved by grace and that the noetic effects of sin still rattle around in my mind. Is it possible to any degree that it is the subtle and at times not-so-subtle force of the culture at large that presses you in your hermeneutic and exegesis of the Bible’s prescriptive and descriptive texts on women and men in Gospel ministry? I grieve over the reality that many who have held and even hold to some form of complementarianism have used it to justify the mistreatment of women and have abused their authority. Those who have authority in the home or the church are under the greater authority of God and will have to give an account. To abuse husbandly and pastoral authority is a sin and requires the church to exercise rebuke and discipline and maybe in many cases require civil prosecution. However, with all the sad failures by those who have held and advocated for male headship in the home and in the church, those sinful and heart-breaking messes do not invalidate the Bible’s teaching on the essential equality of men and women and the distinction of roles in the marriage/home and in the local church.
Is there not a danger from another quarter and that is the moral relativism of our culture putting pressure on us in our reading and exegeting of the Bible, God’s inspired, inerrant and infallible Word? Certainly, Christians are under great pressure in light of the sexual revolution and the rank disregard of human biology and gender to get with the times or face being on the wrong side of history. So this is why I contend that the complementary position is the harder of the two to hold. May this dialogue continue among us. Much is at stake.