After discussing the New Testament church in last week’s posting, many readers are thinking, “Robert, you have not addressed the
‘Elephant in the Room’ in today’s evangelical church. What about the role of women in the church?” After exploring in some detail the women’s role in the family as her husband’s assistant in their task of ruling over the earth, I can’t leave our discussion of the church without looking at her role in assisting there as well.
The wife has a clearly defined job description in the biblical church, and it involves teaching, but not as today’s church generally practices. As Paul says: “Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to TEACH what is good, and so TRAIN THE YOUNG WOMEN to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled” (Titus 2:3-5).
So, Paul tells us that the venue for women to teach is exclusively with “young women,” as he makes clear in 1 Timothy 2:12: “ I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” This idea is anathema to much of the evangelical church today, but it appears to me that women in the New Testament church were not allowed to teach the assembly what they believed was authoritative, biblical truth. In other words, the women’s teaching role in the church is COMPLEMENTARY to her husband’s, but their roles are not INTERCHANGEABLE ! They teach different truths to different audiences.
The following idea may “soften the blow” of this culture-defying concept. “All” (no gender distinction) are encouraged to participate in the New Testament church in the Bible, but women always do so consistent with their biblical role as “helpers.” (Genesis 2:18). So, this admonition to women to “remain quiet,” refers, I believe, to authoritatively speaking, as if giving directions with a, “Thus saith the Lord.” approach. In so many words, women are forbidden to teach men biblical truth. They are free to interact in church—confessing sins, sharing victories, requesting prayer, and teaching other women. However, they are always participating as assistants who are under the authority of their husbands!
Our feminist-influenced culture has so altered the view of the role of women that those who preach this biblical truth are accused of being “male chauvinists” who want to “control women” with “toxic masculinity.”
We have seen that this could not be further from what the Bible teaches! Men are called to love their wives unconditionally, to lay down their own lives for them, always valuing their input, but making final decisions themselves! Remember, men are guided by two principals as they rule over the earth through their marriage—LOVE AND LEAD.
The Fall is the original source of our culture’s feminism. Satan deceived Eve into ignoring God’s clear instructions to not eat from the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and to decide for herself what’s best for her. However, an adult version of a “little child” as Eve was, didn’t have a clue “what’s best.” She was deceived and ate the fruit.
However, “Adam (who may have been observing Eve’s interaction with Satan) was NOT DECEIVED, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression” (1 Timothy 2:14) when she ate the fruit.
This story of the Fall is well known (Genesis 3:1-6). However an interesting fact is generally not emphasized. Even though Adam knew Eve was sinning by directly disobeying God when she ate of the fruit, he not only didn’t stop her, but he said “Yes, Dear” when she asked him to join her in her tasty snack, and he did so!
Interestingly, I do not believe the Fall occurred when Eve ate of the fruit, because “For as in Adam all die (not “in Eve”), even so in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). I believe when Adam yielded the leadership of his family to his wife, and thus to Satan because Eve was following him, and ADAM ATE OF THE FRUIT, mankind fell!
God finalized Adam’s and Eve’s Garden of Eden experience by announcing the results their sin would produce. After they were confronted and they confessed, God told them the results of their sin. “To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you” (Genesis 3:16).
The word for “desire” in this verse is used only three times in the Bible, the second time in the very next chapter in Genesis 4:7. There God is talking to Cain about his anger with his brother Abel. “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And ITS DESIRE IS FOR YOU, but you should rule over it.”
In these two verses, in consecutive chapters in Genesis, God is saying that one of the results of the Fall will be that sin’s desire to capture and rule over Cain will be the same as women’s desire to capture and rule over men! Furthermore, man will react to his “helper” (who was created to rule with him now trying to rule over him) with the controlling, overbearing, toxic masculinity with which they have always been accused!
This battle of the sexes in today’s evangelical church, this “elephant in the room,” is the perfect set-up by God to bring us all to His great plan for male/female relationships, as we rule over the earth. Today, women are winning in this culture war, due to the impact of a dying feminist movement, but men are waking up and beginning to learn to lead with firmness and compassion. As they do so, women will respond and begin to help them rule with insight and submission to their strong, loving leadership. The Lord’s Prayer is being answered: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).
