Ordination of Women?

I've been preaching a series of sermons on issues and questions that people often ask me about as we sit together over coffee.  Those are often times that I speak to the uniqueness of the Gospel of Grace and how that plays out in the ministry of Christ Covenant as well as matters of real life.

This past Sunday - January 16, 2011 - I addressed the question of women in positions of ministry leadership, which for me as a Presbyterian means Elder or pastor. 
Often, when I share my own conviction that those positions are indeed open to women, I find that it may be the first time a person has heard that view taken by someone who, like me, acknowledges that "the Holy Spirit speaking in the Bible is the supreme judge of all religious controversies." (Westminster Confession of Faith, 1:10).  I am only too aware that in most church cultures, this question has become a sort of shorthand test for a pastor/teacher's faithfulness.  Some assume that to open leadership to women means that a person must necessarily not take the Bible authoritatively and so cannot be trusted on other matters. As I said Sunday, I don't think that is the case.  I went on to look at a few of the passages that have convinced me of that.  I won't rehash the sermon, but I do want to add access to a few of the resources that I could only mention briefly.  Click here if you would like access to the sermon.


Beyond Sex Roles by Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian was an important book for my thinking on this subject.  He aims to gather every passage in the Bible that could relate to the question of women in leadership, carefully analyze them and then let them speak together with an answer.  It is detailed and requires careful study with an open Bible, but is certainly within reach of any lay person who would invest the time.  Click here for an Amazon.com link.


I realized that most of the Bible passages that influenced my conviction on women in leadership were actually passages on male/female relationships and womanhood in general.  Essentially, the Bible shaped my thinking on those issues in new ways, and that change in turn influenced my thoughts on women in leadership.

An important discovery in this vein came from my study of the word "helper" as used in Genesis 2:18.  The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”  Of 21 times that the Hebrew root word is used in the Old Testament, 14 refer directly to the LORD as Israel's helper.  My perspective on marriage in particular was changed when I saw my wife as helper to me in the same way that the LORD was a helper to Israel.  Click here to download a printable file of all those verses.  Meditating through them had a profound impact on me.

I also became convicted of the weakness of a particular verse often used against women in church leadership: I Timothy 2:12.  "I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man," Paul writes.  Unfortunately, we really do not have a good sense of what the key word in this passage - translated "assume authority" in the NIV - means in it's original Greek.  The Blue Letter Bible - click here - gives you access to a number of study tools that helped make this point for me.  As I said in the sermon, this is the only time the Greek word is used in the entire New Testament, and its use in other writing was rare as well.  I have no doubt that Timothy and the church in Ephesus, to whom Paul was writing, understand Paul's message clearly.  I'm not convinced that we can be as certain.  And in these moments, I always let the clearer portions of scripture guide my understanding of the less clear ones, rather than the other way around. (WCF 1:9)

Like the sermon, this post is far too brief to dig deeply into all the passages and issues related to women in ministry leadership.  I'm glad to make these four resources easily available as anyone considers things for themselves.  Even better, I'd love to sit down over coffee with anyone interested in talking more.  Just click here to email me and see what we can set up.