Baptist Women in Ministry http://www.bwim.info/index.php/welcome - see Resources
Carolyn Goodman Plampin http://home.netcom.com/~cplampin

If this were a traditional article on authority, I would go about it quite differently. I would talk about authority in the Old and New Testaments. I would talk about the use and abuse of authority and its close relation, power, in the Bible. I would have a section on the authority of Jesus, another on the authority of the church. I would discuss in what way the Bible is understood and believed to be authoritative. I would argue that, finally, when all is said and done, all authority belongs to God.

This is not, however, a traditional article on authority. This is an article on authority and the whole issue of women in ministry. In fact, I seriously doubt that I would be writing this article were there not those who believe, based on a particular way of interpreting the Bible, that they have the authority to prevent women from holding certain offices and performing certain functions in the church. It is true that they have the power to keep women from enjoying full privileges within the church. Whether they have the authority is another question.

It seems to me that our problems stem from different ways of viewing the Bible. All of us believe that the Bible is authoritative. Some of us, however, in our desire to affirm the uniqueness of the Bible have severed it from its historical development. In fact, some people are uncomfortable with the idea that the Bible has an historical element. It is impossible, however, to read all of the Bible and not realize that the written material that we call, Bible, developed within communities of faith - first in the nation of Israel, later in the early Christian church.

As the art of writing developed, the Israelites, under God's leadership, began to record in written form their religious history. We have some of what they wrote, but not all. From the Bible, we can see that they had additional material available: the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and Judah (2 Kings 14:28), the records of the prophets, Nathan and Gad, (I Chronicles 29:29), a book called, The Book of the Wars of the Lord (Numbers 21:14). Neither do we have a letter that Paul wrote that is mentioned in Colossians 4:16. We see that the body of religious literature available to them was larger than that which is available to us. We can also see from the many, many editorial notes (for instance, “in those days” or “until this day”, are two clues that material has been edited) that the possibility at least exists that older material might have been edited by later hands.

The upshot of the fact that the Bible developed, and did not drop from the sky fully formed, Is that it might at times reflect the mindset, attitude, theology of the communities in which it developed. If we embrace a theory of inspiration that claims, “If the Bible says it, God said it”, we buy, unnecessarily, a lot of problems for ourselves. God did not make every declarative statement that we find in the Bible. Even when it is clear that God did make a statement, we must ask certain questions about it in order to better understand God's intention. A good example of what I am talking about is Jesus' statement in Matthew 26:11, “For you will always have the poor with you ….” Taken at face value, one could say that Jesus is saying there is nothing any one can do to adequately deal with the problem of the poor because Jesus (i.e., God) said the poor would always be with us. A logical second step to take is to think that there is no use to try to eradicate poverty as it almost seems to be God's will that we always have the poor among us. If, however, we understand Jesus' statement in light of the Old Testament context from which it came (Deuteronomy 15:1-11, Leviticus 25, and other Old Testament passages that deal with the Jubilee), we see that, with this statement, Jesus was actually condemning his Jewish listeners. The Jews would always have the poor among them because they had been unwilling to practice the Jubilee that God had commanded them to practice in order to have economic justice. We see from this that any time we attempt to understand, or give an answer to, or interpret any declarative statement by God or Jesus, we do well to understand the statement in light of the whole Bible, not just standing alone.

Sometimes God did speak and give commands that God expected people to obey. Even with a command, however, we must decide if God intended that all people, in all places, at all times obey the commands, or only a certain people in a certain time and place. The dietary laws in the Old Testament, for instance, are good, clear examples of commands that God intended for only certain people in a certain time and place. God's rooftop visit to Peter in Acts 10: 9-16 makes it clear that these laws are canceled, making it possible for Jew and Gentile to eat together, which, of course, would have made it much easier for the Jews to be a witness to the Gentiles.

The declarative statements that we find In the New Testament that seem to indicate that women cannot teach, have authority over a man, or speak in church (I Corinthians 14: 34-38, I Timothy 2: 11-15) present us several challenges. First we must decide if statements made by a follower of Jesus carry the same weight, or have the same authority, as statements made by Jesus. Asked that question apart from the issue of women and ministry, most Christians would say no. Why, then, we must ask, do the statements in this context become so “authoritative”? Next, we must decide if God, who has allowed the statements to remain in the Bible, intends that they be observed by all peoples, in all places, at all times. If we answer yes to that one, we have bought problems for ourselves, because then we must say that, in the New Testament, we have examples of women who are breaking God's commands by teaching, speaking and praying in church, and by having leadership roles within the church. It is to these examples of women in the New Testament that those who insist that women today do not have the same opportunities and privileges must give an answer, or an interpretation.

Why can we not say of the Bible what we know of life? People are different. Different people live life differently, see things differently, interpret the Bible differently. The same was obviously true for the people who wrote the Bible, and for the people who were living their lives at the time and whose experiences became part of the Biblical material. Theirs was a society almost completely oriented toward the male, and yet, some one wrote, under God's leadership, the first chapter of Genesis. If we had only Genesis one, it would be impossible to deny the equality of women under God. Man and woman were created in the same act of creation and given the same commandments, privileges, and responsibilities. One result of sin has been that the sexes have found it difficult to live as equals. This is one of the themes that Genesis two explores.

In the New Testament, we find much the same situation that we find in our churches today. Some churches were more open to women's leadership than were others, and the Bible reflects this. The Bible does not teach the subordination of women, rather it reflects that married women were asked to voluntarily submit themselves to the authority of their husbands in certain situations. We should not interpret this reflection of how things were in some situations to insist that the Bible teaches that every woman is to be subordinate to every man in every situation. This is a misrepresentation of what we find.

What do we find? What does the Bible reflect to us about the relationship of men and women during the time that Bible was coming into being? Isn't it something like the following: It was a man's world. The men were the priests and kings. Men had the vote and the power. With rare exceptions, a woman found her place in society through her relationship with a man in her life. There are in the Bible, however, a few examples in which a man seeks a woman out and submits himself to her leadership (authority?).

The most obvious example of this is the story we find of Deborah and Barak in Judges 4. In fact, Deborah so dominates this story that most Christians would not even be able to name the male general without looking up the story. Deborah is a prophetess. The men had the power to prevent her from being a priest. They could not stop her from being a prophetess, because the Spirit of God could not be controlled. The Spirit came to whom God chose. She is a prophetess and she is judging the people. She sent for Barak and he came. Then he insists that she go with him in battle, even though he is warned in advance that the outcome will not bring him glory. Through the Spirit, Deborah determined the strategy of the army. In the tribute to Deborah that we find in Judges 5 we see the recognition that Deborah was the true leader of the army that day.

In the 28th chapter of I Samuel, Saul seeks out a woman medium at Endor. In the 34th chapter of 2 Chronicles, those in power seek out a prophetess named Huldah.

In the 18th chapter of Acts, verse 24 and following, we read that Priscilla, along with Aquila, taught Apollo. Apparently, Apollo gladly received what both Aquila and Priscilla had to offer. It is a good thing that 2 Corinthians had not been written yet. It seems that Apollo did not know that a woman should not be teaching him.

I am the first to admit that the examples are few. That is fine. What is amazing is not that we have just a few examples, but that we have any at all, given the male domination of the day. What these examples say to us is that there was a place, even in that society, for a woman who was clearly being used by God. Even more remarkable is that men sought these women out and submitted to their authority. The most astonishing thing yet is that the stories, even a few, found their way into the written record and were not stricken by later editors.

These stories tell us all we need to know when we talk about authority and the issue of women and ministry. The question we must ask is: Is this woman being used by God to do God's work? If we answer yes, then we must say that the woman has the authority to do what she is doing, in which case it would be wrong to use misplaced power to prevent her from doing that which God is using her to do.

The Bible has much to say about power. One theme of the Bible is influence as power. Better said, influence is power. The Bible recognizes the tremendous impact of women upon society, although their influence is often used behind the scenes, so to speak. I believe the main reason we find such harsh condemnation in the Bible of the married woman who is an adulteress is that she has chosen to use her influence in the family and society for bad, rather than for good. The truth of the statement that influence is power is true for us today as well. Some may have the power to prevent us from fully exercising the gifts God has given us in the church, but no one has the power to prevent us from using our influence to work toward change for the future.

It seems to me that one final word needs to said concerning authority. I feel safe in saying that probably every Southern Baptist believes the Bible is authoritative. We believe in the authority of the church. We believe that all authority, ultimately, belongs to God. What we usually do not go on to say (and with good cause, because usually it is not necessary to say it), is that we have no objective proofs for affirming the authority of God. Any statement we make about God is a faith statement. We believe--or have faith--that there is a God. The non-believer believes --or has faith--that there is not a God. Neither can prove the other to be right or wrong. We believe that God in some way was involved in the production and preservation of the Bible. We believe that God “speaks” to us through the Bible in ways that are not true of other books--even other religious books. We cannot prove that this is true. To “know” in our hearts is quite subjective authority indeed.

Because we believe the Bible is authoritative for us we attempt to understand it as we read it. Some passages are easier to understand than others. Sometimes we must interpret passages. To say that we interpret a passage means that we don't know for sure exactly what the passage means, that we are giving the best explanation that we can give with the information we have been given. The point is an interpretation is just that--an interpretation. It is not indisputable proof that this is what the Biblical writer was trying to say.

What I am trying to say is that interpretations are not objective proofs. Interpretations are more like hypotheses that work best as we wait for more information to become available. It seems to me, given that interpretations of certain passage are quite subjective and have changed with time and will quite likely change again, a better way to go at understanding God, authority, and women would be to start with what we believe we know about God. A good question to ask would be: Do we really believe that God created one sex superior to the other? Do we really believe that God's intention was that any human being would rule over any other human being? Wasn't God's intention that God would rule over all human beings, who are equal under God? Would we be willing to say that the United States, “with liberty and justice for all”, takes a firmer stand for equality than God?

Somehow we know (subjective proof, to be sure) that equality is God's ideal. The author of Genesis one believed it. Jesus believed it. Paul believed it when he wrote Galatians 3:28. If in Paul's later writings it sounds as though he backed down from his stand on equality, the thing to do is find out why he did that, and not throw out equality under God as the ideal.

Some have suggested that the Bible teaches equality under God and separate but equal roles in the home and in the church. One problem with this interpretation is that the roles are never equal. The roles for women somehow usually turn out to be the roles that most of the men did not want. Another problem with this interpretation is that this is not what the New Testament presents for determining roles within the church. In the church, God, through the Spirit, endows each Christian with a gift to be used in the building up of the church. Nowhere In the New Testament do we find it spelled out that the Spirit will give certain gifts only to men and other gifts only to women. The New Testament criteria for possession of a gift is to simply ask: Does the person have the gift of_______? The presence of the gift was the validation that the Spirit had endowed that person with that gift. Why can we not use that criteria in our churches today? If a woman has the gifts of preaching and pastoring, why can we not believe that God has given her those gifts as surely as God has given another woman or man the gift of a beautiful voice? Whatever “authority” we have as individual Christians is simply the “authority” to use the gifts that God has given us. None of us has any “authority” to prevent other Christians from exercising the gifts that God has given them.

Study guide for Authority and Women in Ministry

1. For Sheri, it is very important to distinguish between authority and power. Why is that?
2. Why is it so important to take seriously the historical development of the Bible?
3. Can you think of examples of other universal commandments in the Bible? Of others that were not universals? Why is it so important to take with a grain of salt statements like, “If the Bible says it, God says it.”
4. Why is it crucial to understand that the prohibitions against women that we find in the New Testament come from the followers of Jesus and not from Jesus?
5. In what ways does it “free us up” to understand that the people in the Bible were probably not too different from us?
6. What do the stories of Deborah and Huldah say to us as women today?
7. How do you personally use your power of influence? What changes might you make in the way you use your influence?
8. Why is it disconcerting to speak of subjective rather than objective proofs of God and authority?
9. What gifts has God given you to be used in the church?

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