Unordered thoughts on women's ministry.

I picked up the following book from our church library a couple of months ago- Women in the Church’s Ministry: A test-case for biblical hermeneutics by R.T. France. Never heard of France but apparently he is Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.

The book combines a series of lectures given by France that are primarily concerned with the debate amongst Evangelicals on the ordination of women and provides an exegesis and hermeneutic of 1 Corinthians 14:34-15 and 1 Timothy 2:8-15 that is in favour of female authority, particularly preaching, in the church.

The first reading slightly swayed me, but the second time round just confused me. I’m not convinced that women should be allowed to preach just yet, but I am convinced that hermeneutics certainly is a human and inexact science.

Why is it that, in 1 Timothy for example, we will hold so firmly to the command that women shall not teach, yet the other instructions i.e. men lifting hands up in prayer and women refraining from braiding their hair or wearing gold or pearls or expensive clothes, do not seem so relevant to us? Also, how does this command square with 1 Corinthians 11:5 – And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonours her head- it is just as though her head were shaved. Two things here:
1) Why isn’t the command to worship with our heads covered enforced?
2) This passage refers to women prophesying and does not condemn it. Is prophesying not a public act, exercised over a mixed congregation? Does it not involve teaching?

The exegesis of 1 Timothy further stresses the importance of recognising the situation of the church in Ephesus at the time of writing and that it was a unique one. Perhaps the command not to teach applies only to them. Here’s a quote from Gordon Fee: “It is hard to deny that this text prohibits women teaching men in the Ephesian church; but it is the unique text in the New Testament, and as we have seen, its reason for being is not to correct the rest of the New Testament, but to correct a very ad hoc problem in Ephesus.” Interesting.

France makes another interesting argument: Evangelicals have been consistently changing their minds and re-evaluating their biblical principles. Examples cited include the abolition of the slave trade (never condemned in the Bible yet an 18th century Christian might have been able to argue that the emancipation of slaves was a product of the secular liberal agenda which it was the duty of all faithful Christians to resist in the name of the biblical worldview), to the acceptance by the Jewish church that Gentiles have indeed been offered the gift of salvation, which at the time would have seemed an extremely liberal conclusion to arrive at and which might have been seen to fly in the face of Scripture. The point of this illustration: "...in the ongoing work of God it is sometimes permissible, indeed necessary, for his people to change their minds. What this example illustrates is also that when such a change of mind takes place, it is not necessarily a matter of abandoning the authoritative teaching of the bible in favour of a secular agenda, but more likely a matter of discovering that there is more in the Bible than we had realised, that those strands of biblical teaching and practice on which we have been accustomed to rely in relation to a given issue may not be the only aspects of biblical revelation which are relevant to it. We may be faced, as the Jerusalem Christians were faced, with the uncomfortable task of deciding which of apparently competing streams of biblical thought should take precedence in the new situation in which we find ourselves."

And here my conservatism shines. Seriously? If we took that approach, where would we draw the line? Anything could become permissible by that reasoning. I said the argument was interesting, not that it was good.

I do have one more thought, an example that relates to me. Our minister does not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over men in our church. But I think I may be able to come up with one example: my role as a member of our Parish Council. The Parish Council is an authoritative body, it makes executive decisions concerning all members of the Parish. Do I not, therefore, exercise authority over the men of our congregation? I really don’t see how you could explain away that one, Pete. Yes, I am a member of this council under your authority but if we follow the ‘plain meaning’ of 1 Timothy, my role contravenes your biblical position. Yet if you allow that to stand, how then can you disallow a woman to preach under your authority? What is the difference?

Looking forward to discussing this :p

I sound like Obama with all this talk of change.

Thank goodness we are on a break because I'm struggling to put any effort into anything that isn't ministry.

On Monday night over 50 people gathered at our little church in Bossley Park and every single person was a young ministry leader from the South-West of Sydney. I still can't quite believe it happened. Only God could have pulled us all together and he certainly pulled me through it because I was having kittens over every little detail. For years I have heard from Peter Lin that something needs to change in the South-West, that we need to start smashing the idea that ministry cannot survive here, that we are not strategic enough. Not to mention the fact that nobody wants to live here if they can help it, Christians included.

WELL SCREW THAT.

Hello? God is sovereign. He is in control. He is watching over His people. So why shy away from an area, as though it could be impossible for God to use you and see His saving work done? How could those before me have had so little faith? Enough. God is moving, wherever you are in Sydney, but I'm going to say that the most exciting place to be in right now is the South-West.

Finally people are starting to share this vision and I thank God for Pete. He convicted every person in the room, made the needs of the South-West more real than ever before and we're getting a response. I am full of anticipation but am laying it all at His feet. If God chooses to use this movement, He will. If this is not the means then something else will reveal itself.

No matter what, I am desperate to see God glorified here, to make the most of the opportunities he has placed before us and they are boundless. If this one generation stuck it out so much could happen, so much could change.

Who are you calling unstrategic?

The future I never expected.

It is very easy to resent living in Fairfield. I have done so ever since I realised that the further West you go, the more 'disadvantaged' people are perceived to be. Even though I've come to terms with the fact that I am a 'Westie' and have more or less embraced it, a part of me still cringes when I tell people where I'm from. I just assume that they think the worst and let's face it, they probably do.

International Studies was a dream come true: a year overseas in France. You couldn't get much further away from Fairfield than that and like everyone else, I really just wanted to get out. Money, success, a life worth living was not synonymous with Fairfield. My heart was so blind.

It amazes me how much God has changed the way I view the city that he has placed me in. Two years ago I would never have professed to love Fairfield. I wouldn't have bothered. Suddenly, I can't imagine being anywhere else in Sydney. Almost weekly I think about moving out, about trying to find the means to do so but the idea immediately floats back out of my mind as I remember that I need to be serving here.

I would love to be closer to UNSW. Words cannot express what it would mean for me to be able to get to uni in half an hour. Not to mention the fact that so much more is happening on the other side of Strathfield, I'd be able to go back to Oaktree with ease, I'd have independence, all of these wonderful things... (yes, I know I would have bills to pay but can we just ignore all that for a minute?)

But Fairfield is where I'm needed so Fairfield is where I'm going to stay. Goodness knows how this is going to affect the rest of my life's decisions: career, a relationship, but the words 'this life is just a bus stop' come back to me and things are put into perspective once again. It's so nice to just trust God and to live by faith rather than worry about idiotic things like socio-economic status. I was born and raised in Fairfield city (apart from a year stint in New Zealand when I was 4), so I'm basically screwed even if I happened to have some kind of prodigious talent.

I wish that the Christians in the Eastern suburbs would see the need here. People are so comfortable in their white anglo circles. People are so ready to go to deepest darkest Africa but would flinch at the idea of moving to Cabramatta. If I wasn't in Sydney I'd leave the country for, I don't know, Yemen (99% muslim population) but I don't need to get on a plane to find a cross-cultural mission field. I live in one.

Fairfield is far away, dull, and er, kind of unsafe but there are hundreds of thousands of people here who don't know Jesus. While everything and everyone else is telling me that the grass is greener on the other side (of the Harbour Bridge), my heart is exactly where it should be - committed to loving a broken city.