Issue 10, Jul 2008
A dear friend wrote to me after last month’s article saying, “This topic ought to keep you busy for the next two years.” I agree. There is much to be said. This month I will pick up where I left off as I wrote in the final paragraph,
The fact that the NT apostles did recognize that God revealed His Word through women, is not a question of dispute. The ordering of their speaking was, however, a great concern (
1 Corinthians 11). This did not make them holders of the Apostolic office, public spokesmen for Christ, e.g. public ministers or pastors. That is where the issue still resides. We dare not deny that God may still reveal insights to His Word and will through women who may be thus called prophets. This does not make them eligible to be called to the Apostolic office, that office through which the Christ, the Bridegroom, nurtures and nourishes his Bride, the church.
“I don’t think your last paragraph can be your final word,” my friend continued. And indeed it cannot be. For the next couple months I will continue the discussion, based in large part upon a very important monograph written by Dr. William Weinrich of Concordia Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, “It is Not Given to Women to Teach – A Lex in Search of a Ratio.”*
For two millennia the Christian church authorized only men to function in the public office of Word and sacraments. We know it today as the pastoral office. Some traditions call it the priestly office. That designation clouds the issue, especially since all baptized—male and female—are members of the priestly family of Jesus Christ,
1 Peter 2:9. In that connection it is important to note that the Greek word translated as priest is presbyteros, a word often translated as elder. It is not the same word—and office—as that to which Peter refers in his letter. In the New Testament, however, it does refer to what is often called the pastoral or ministerial office. So it may be also called the priestly office by simply transliterating the word presbyteros.
The designation of men as presbyters, i.e. priests or elders, was the unbroken practice of the church, except for some heretical or marginal groups. Interestingly, those folks justified the practice of ordaining women pastors on the basis of Galatians 3:26-29, where the Apostle Paul writes,
“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
That particular passage is still surfaced today by most groups who seek to justify the practice of women serving in the role of public teachers and pastors in the life of the church. I’ll come back to that a bit later.
The church did not prohibit women from entering the public office based upon some notion of the natural or created inferiority of women in either intellect or virtue. I know, I know. I can hear some of you saying, “Hold on there, buddy. That was not so.” And it was not—in all cases. In many ancient societies, women were seen as inferior versions of men, useful primarily as bearers and nurturers of men’s children. Much could be written about those most unfortunate views, views that influenced the church in some instances. Such views survive to our day in some circles.
What seems to happen within the first few centuries is that whatever limited activities women might have had in the beginning begin to get curtailed as you have the development of a hierarchy of clergy members with bishops, presbyters and deacons, and it's pretty firmly established that women should not be either bishops or priests. Many church fathers write about this. So that women tend to get excluded from those functions, [though] they do have some roles, [such] as joining a group called the widows or deaconesses in the fourth century. We have good evidence of an order of deaconesses, but they are excluded from the priesthood.
This practice of excluding women from the public office (she calls it the priesthood) was not based upon some law to enforce female inferiority. Nor was it based upon some idea that women were not bearers of the image of God or receivers of the benefits and blessings of Christ’s work upon the cross. Instead if was based upon three major points in the biblical narrative:
1) In the Old Covenant priests of God (holders of the public office) were always men, never women. Even the prophetesses I wrote about in last month’s article did not speak in the public assemblies.
2) Our Lord Jesus appointed men as his apostles. Even Mary, who gave birth in her womb to the omnipotent Son of God did not receive the task of baptizing him.
When the church appealed to the Bible and to the practice of the Apostles, she did so based upon a very fundamental belief that Jesus is the Creator of all things. He is the Word of God who became flesh and tented among us (
John 1). His light has shined in the hearts of his people, calling them out of darkness. In this revelation we also have God’s will revealed in the events and orderings of God’s people. In turn, the Bible testifies to those events and orderings. As the Creator of all things, Jesus did what agrees with the will and plan of his Father. In him all creation is being made new. In mankind the image of God is being renewed. In us humans this new life is typified and represented also in the public ministry.
In today’s culture there is a strong movement toward what is called egalitarianism. This is a word borrowed from the French. It refers to the idea that all mankind, both male and female, are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities in all things. Influenced by this culture, some church teachers no longer view the Scriptures as the story of God acting according to His will and intent. Instead, the stories of the patriarchs are seen as examples of sinful men, dominating males who opposed the will of the God who created them. They did so by forbidding women to occupy the priesthood, that public office in which the will of God was taught, that office that led the people of God in worship. This view of Holy Scripture is quite different from that embraced by the early Fathers and teachers of the church as well as that of the Lutherans who made their original confession of faith in the sixteenth century.
The point again is quite simple and plain. There have been women saints, martyrs, prophets, missionaries, monastics and secular rulers across the centuries. There has, however, never been a woman who held the public office of pastor or bishop. Today, however, the church has bowed before the unrelenting pressure of the surrounding culture and has made a leap that is both dangerous and not well considered.
There remains a deeper question that I will pursue next month. What really is behind the Apostle Paul’s forbidding women to teach publicly? What is the way of God in this world? What is the rationale, the set of reasons for this practice of reserving to a Christian man the office of Word and Sacraments? We must look for a biblical theology, a Word of God based upon his revealed Word. We look for what is; not for what we personally want to believe ought to be. We must avoid speculating. Rather we will do what we can to lay bare the boundaries, the natural features and outline of Paul’s own words.
Please find Dr. Weinrich’s essay in Church and Ministry Today: Three Confessional Lutheran Essays. The Luther Academy, St. Louis, Mo. 2001.