Sermon from July 21, 2002

I would like to talk today and next Sunday about the role of women in the Church. I am especially interested in how we think about this matter. Not what we think, but how we think. These two sermons will, I hope, model for us a process that you can use as well as I can, and some ofyou better than I can.

It is safe to talk about this issue at this point in our church's life for three reasons. First, no conflict about the issue occupies our collective mind at present. I don't know that I would preach these two sermons differently, if it did occupy us, but it would certainly be received differently, and in any case it is good to be able to talk about potentially volatile issues when you don't have to.

Second, it is safe, because this congregation has demonstrated an ability to deal with potentially volatile issues with striking maturity and balanced judgment, even when we disagree with each other. That does not mean we are not vulnerable to destablizing conflict, but somehow (by God's grace, I would say) we seem determined to consider important issues and at the same time not let them polarize us.

Third, it is safe to preach these two sermons, because I don't feel any need to offer you the final answer to the questions we have to deal with. I had a lot of final answers twenty years ago that don't seem so final today. It is a great relief not to be God. The inner liberty I have makes giving these two sermons a blessing not a burden.

In presenting this issue I want to divide what we consider into four parts. First, I want to give you a sense of perspective on how the Church comes to consensus on the great doctrines of our faith. I hope that will give you, as it has given me, perspective on this particular issue.

Secont, I want us to consider most of the relevant biblical data. There is less data than we might like, but more than we might expect. Third, we need to think about the influence that culture has on how we understand the biblical data. This keeps us rooted in present realities but not confined to present realities. Finally, we need to consider precedents in church experience. At the end of eac section I will draw some conclusions that will help us in how we think about this matter. We begin with perspective on how the Church comes to consensus on the great doctrines of our faith.

In John 16:13 Jesus made this promise to His disciples, which applies to the Church down the ages. "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come."

I want to share with you one of the most cherished expressions of the Christian Faith. It comes from the Nicene Creed. It says this. "I believe ... in one Lord Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made."

Those words defined the Church's understanding of the nature of Jesus Christ. Preaching and theology came to be measured by their conformity to that understanding. That understanding spearates Christianity from the other two monotheistic religions, Islam and Judaism. When people ask if Muslims and Christians worship the same God, I believe every knowledgeable Muslim and Christian will say, "No, because Christians say God has a Son, and Muslims vigorously deny that."

Now here is the point. The Church forumlated the Nicene Creed 300 years after the Resurrection of Christ. Does that mean that Christians believed something different about Jesus all those years? No, but it does mean that for all those years no one had captured precisely the Church's understanding of who Jesus is. The Church worshiped and served Jesus Christ all those years without a precise expression of who the Church believes He is. That is not so strange, is it? People enjoyed good food long before they could explain the chemistry of digestion. If people had waited to eat until they could explain, they would never have eaten. If the Church waited to worship Christ until it had defined the nature of Christ, it would never have worshiped.

During those 300 years, some Christians offered explanations of who Jesus is that were not quite true. Some of those explanations were very persuasive. Until the Council of Nicea, where the words I read were adopted, one of those earlier explanations seemed sure to become the orthodoxy of the Church.

Again, my point is this. If it took 300 years for the Church to come to one mind about the central truth of our Faith, it should encourage us to be patient when we disagree about the role of women in the Church. Debate within the Church needs to go on a long time until the moment comes when the Church knows the mind of God.

The discussion about the role of women began in earnest in Protestant circles only about 40 years ago. It is just beginning to get off the ground in the Roman Catholic Church, and it has not begun at all in the Orthodox Churches or in the Coptic Church.

I could tell a similar story about other major doctrines of our faith. It was the fifth century before, under Augustine, the Church formulated powerfully the doctrine of sin and grace. It was the 12th century before Anselm of Canterbury formulated for the Church the doctrine of the Atonement that came to govern Catholic and (later) Protestant theology. It was the 15th century, before, under Luther and Calvin, the Church forumlated the doctrine of justification through faith in a way that bids fair to shape the entire Church's thinking.

It was the twentieth century, under the impact of Protestan missions and the Second Vatican Council, that discussions about the nature of the Church began in earnest — discussions that include ecumenism, the global Christian community, the authority of the Bishop of Rome, spiritual gifts, Christianity's relationship to non-Christian religions, and, of course, the role of women in the Church.

Looking back over two millennia, we can see how in the Church's theological understanding, Jesus' words have proved to be true. "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come." alright, now I'm really going this time So, what are some conclusions we can draw from this historical perspective?

Number one: A long perspective helps to take some (but certainly not all) of the emotion out of doctrinal disputes, and that facilitates Church unity. We don't have to have the final answer now. In fact, until the Church as a whole can speak its mind, we should be restrained about professing to have a final answer.

Number two: We must hear from the whole Church on this issue. In their impatience to render a final verdict churches in Europe and North America have made a lot of pronouncements about the role of women without any consultation with the churches of Asia, Africa and South America. We have behaved in typical ugly American fashion, as if all theological wisdom resides in North America and Western Europe. Our nation may be the only political and military superpower, but that does not guarantee the finality of Western theological wisdom. We must be patient and courteous to the Church on other continents, if for no other reason than their suffering for the Gospel. They may have something decisive to say about the role of women in the Church.

With some historical perspective under our belt, we need to look at the biblical data that is relevant to our topic. In order to be helpful I will take you through one text after the other with short comments on each. I will begin with those texts that suggest a smaller role for women in the Church, and then we will read those texts that suggest a larger role for women in the Church. We are not at liberty to ignore any of these texts.

We being in 1 Corinthians 14:34-37. As in all the congregations of the saints, 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. Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command. These statements here give power to these verses in contemporary discussion.

First is the statement that women should remain silent in the churches. If you take the Bible seriously, you can't just blow that off as irrelevant. The second statement adds to the seriousness with which this practice was observed in the early church. The apostle says at the beginning of verse 34 that this rule of silence was observed in all the congregations of the saints. In other words we are not faced with an isolated example but with broad-based, universal experience. The third statement has special force.

The apostle says in verse 37, If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command. For a community that prays, "May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," the Lord's command will carry special force.

The next passage comes in Acts 6:1-3. In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, "It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them." This time, notice two matters that bear on our discussion.

First, when the apostles sought help in rectifying an unintentional injustice toward a group of women in the Church, they asked the congregation to choose seven men from among you ... and they would turn this responsibility over to them. As the following verses report, the congregation did exactly what the apostles asked them to do.

Second, it is important to note that this choice of men was not to apostolic or even what we might call pastoral status. Baptist churches have often viewed Acts 6 as the origin of deacons in church life. It seems significant that the apostles of the Church should have asked for men to fulfill that role.

Closely related to Acts 6 is 1 Timothy 3:1-12. Here the apostle lays out qualifications for two offices in the Church: overseers and deacons. In the New Testament overseers are sometimes called elders. The terms are interchangeable.

In 1 Timothy 3 both offices appear to be open to only to men. We say that, because in verse 2, as one of the qualifications of overseers, it says that this person must be the husband of but one wife. In verse 11 he says of deacons that in the same way, their wives are to be women worthy of respect.

Now let's look on the other side of the matter, and let's begin with 1 Corinthians 11:4-5. Remember, this is the same letter in which the Apostle Paul said women were to keep silent in the church. These verses say, Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head.

In chapter 14 prophesying takes place in the congregation. The apostle exalts it as a most important contribution to the life of the Church. Here in chapter eleven he does not seem to blink at the idea that women might be prophesying to the congregation or praying before the congregation. We have to ask what is going on that he should give out within the same letter what appear to be contradictory signals.

Here is another example from the earliest days of the Church. Acts 21:8-9 talk about one of the seven men in Acts 6, whom the Church chose to minister to the widows. His name was Philip. Here is what those verses say. Leaving the next day, we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the Seven. He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied.

Here in the earliest days of the church was a man, who stood in a place of high public esteem in the church, and whose four daughters seem to have had a gift, which the Apostle Paul esteemed as most important for the building up the Church of Christ. Acts 21 offers no criticism of those women; it merely reports the fact, as if it just takes their prophesying for granted.

Finally, we come to the New Testatment text that, more than any other, has served to justify an egalitarian understanding of the role of women in the Church. That text is Galatians 3:28, and this is what it says. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Just for the moment, let's lay aside the reference to male and female. We will come back to it shortly. Let's consider the other pairs in that verse: Jew and Gree, and slave and free. One represented the great religious division of that world, Jew and Greek; and the other represented the great economic division of that world: slave and free.

The apostle says that in Christ Jesus those divisions no longer hold in the Church. The factors that kept Jew and Greek apart, and the factors that kept slave and free apart have been overcome. They sit down at the Lord's Supper as brothers and sisters, and neither is superior to the other. That really happened in those first churches.

The reference to male and female refers to a division in the creation which the Creator pur there. But, in the same way the apostle says that the factors that kept male and female apart have been overcome. They sit down at the Lord's Supper as brothers and sisters, and neither is superior to the other.

I hope you can see from the three examples I have given on each side of this discussion why Christians have found it hard to agree on this matter. You can make a strong case on both sides. The influence of cultural factors will play a major role in the on-going discussion, and I will have a lot to weigh about that next week.

In the meantime I hope you will read and reread for yourselves these passages that we have identified today. I hope you will join me in being patient as we try to sort through the difficulties of this issue that are raised by Scripture itself. It is an exciting and potentially fruitful discussion. Let's govern it with love and patient passion for the truth.