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Many Women Used By God In The Judea/Christian
Scriptures
Some notable women in the New Testament part of the Bible are Lydia, Dorcas, and Martha.
In the Old Testament or Hebrew-Aramaic scriptures Esther, Ruth and Naomi, Martha, Sarah were notable, and Judges
tells us that Deborah was a Judge, meaning she served, leading decisively, as did other Judges like Samson.
There is Eve, the mother of all living. There are Sarah, Abraham's conniving wife; Hannah,
the mother of Samuel; Jezebel, the foreign born wife of Ahab; Delilah, who wormed Samson's secret from him; Ruth
and Rahab: ancestresses of Jesus, and many others, such
as, Lydia, Phoebe, Priscilla: These were names
to reckon with in the formative days of early
Christianity, and well attested to in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles of Paul.
Prophesying, The Gifts & Teaching Exhibited
By Women
In the case of the newly formed Christian congregation, all women were given the same
"gifts" of the Spirit, relationship and usage by God, as equal servants.
"They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus,
and with his brothers." Acts 1:14
"In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will
prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy." Acts 2:17-18
Paul said let older respectable women be teachers of what is good.
"The older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much
wine, teachers of good things." Titus 2:3
All Christians, Male and Female, Ministers In
Equal Servitude
First century structuring was by autonomous cooperating house-churches rather than by
a top-down hierarchy such as Rome later forced onto believers until Protestantism renewed much of the lost Christian
freedoms. Being an overseer of God (bishop) or a deacon are not properly positions of power and control over others,
but simply an untitled condition of humble leadership, helpful service, an acknowledgment of fact by virtue of
deeds and attitudes. (Romans 4:15, 14:1-5, 1 Cor 10:23; 1 Timothy 3)
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ
Jesus." Galatians 3:28
"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." Ephesians 5:2
"For, brothers, you have been called unto liberty; only do not use your liberty for an occasion
to the flesh, but by love serve one another." Galatians 5:13
"Then Peter opened his mouth and said: "In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every
nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him." Acts 10:34-35
"The greatest among you will be your servant." Matthew 23:11
"Those with authority of the world and nations lord over their authority over others, this is not
the way among you, but whoever wants to become great among you must be your slave, just as the son of man came
not to wield authority but to be a slave to all and give his soul as a ransom in exchange for many." Matthew
20:25-27
Phoebe - A Deacon - (diakonos)
In Romans chapter 16 verse 1, St. Paul states, "I recommend to you our sister Phoebe
a minister - diakonos - of Cenchreae's congregation,"
and he asks that she be assisted because she defended many including himself (16:2). Though many bibles translate
this word as "minister," the Greek word used, diakonos, is the same as translated as "deacon," throughout Paul's letters, including the qualifications
outlined for leadership in 1 Timothy chapter 3.
"I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon (diakonos) of the church in Cenchrea. I
ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and to give her any help she may need from you,
for she has been a great help to many people, including me. Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ
Jesus." Romans 16:1-3
Romans chapter 16, shows Phoebe was both a fellow minister (servant), and also a deacon.
There are three Greek words used to describe Phoebe, adelphe,
"sister," diakonos, "deacon"
and prostatis, "patroness." These are
not terms of endearment or descriptions of qualities or attributes, but rather titles of functions and roles that
are ascribed to Phoebe by Paul. These titles have caused much discussion, and the second one, "deacon- diakonos" brings the most controversy. The Revised Standard
Version of the Bible translated diakonos as "deaconess," but most contemporary commentaries regard that a female
form of "deacon," is an incorrect translation, for the term "deaconess" implies a Greek word
not known to have been used in first century Greece, and it further attempts to slant the writing to support a
later usage in which a deaconess ministered almost exclusively to woman, rather than both men and women, and was
in a subordinate role to men, who were deacons. But such was not the case. Paul's clear use of the term "deacon"
in reference to Phoebe implies no such restrictions, but applies the term to her in the same way he applies it
to himself and to other colleagues in his ministry who preached and taught. Being described as the deacon of the
church, possibly in Cenchreae, Phoebe's function and title she bears, reflect what is equivalent to those of Paul
and his male colleagues.(5)
Many gifted authors and theologians have written scores of valuable and helpful information
on the early church leadership, such as Alexander Strauch in his book, Biblical
Eldership, yet they fail to address this issue, ignoring the designation given
to Phoebe, "diakonos," considering all
forms of female leadership to be violating the male leadership in the home and church.
Also, few note that Prisca, also called by her longer name Priscilla, along with her
husband Aquilla both risked their lives for Paul, maintained a church or house congregation in their private home
(Romans 16:3), and that she and Aquilla took in Apollos, already a capable teacher, and instructed him even more
correctly about God.
"And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures,
came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spoke and
taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue.
When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately."
Acts 18:26
Priscilla had a direct role in teaching a Jewish man named Apollos. We know that Pricilla
and Aquilla returned to Rome after the death of the Emperor Claudius, that they established a house/church in Rome,
and that their prominence as Christian leaders and colleagues of Paul was well known and well established.
"One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira,
who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. When she and the members of
her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. "If you consider me a believer in the Lord,"
she said, "come and stay at my house." And she persuaded us." Acts 16:14-15
We know her to be a devout Jew, as she is described as a "worshipper of God,:"
and as she is worshiping on the Sabbath with other women outside the gate of the city and at the riverside, we
can suppose that there were not enough men within the city to form a proper synagogue. As women could not be the
founders of synagogues, what is impossible for Lydia as a devout Jewish woman becomes possible for her upon her
conversion to the religion of Paul, and she is described as the founding member of the Christian community, which
begins to meet in her house. Lydia behaves contrary to the social customs of the day. A Jewish woman, even as substantial
a woman as was Lydia, ordinarily did not engage in theological discourse with men, and certainly not with strange
men. Lydia has a conversation with Paul, and responds in that encounter by receiving baptism; and then she opens
her household to Paul and his colleagues, a rather gutsy enterprise. As the first European convert of Paul and
the founder of her own house/church, Lydia is taken seriously by the author of Acts, and is mean to be taken seriously
by all who read about her; and in her house/church we can assume that she did more than merely provide refreshments
and sit at the apostles feet, (5)
The Hard Texts By Apostle Paul
"For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. 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." 1 Corinthians 14:34-35
"A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have
authority over a man; she must be silent." 1 Timothy 2:11-12
Peter Golmes relates:
"Reading scripture," is not as simple as most Protestants would like to believe. Reading is a
transaction, and by no means neutral transaction. A text does not simply "say what it says," despite
the rational good intentions of a sensible reader like Alice in Wonderland. We read more like Humpty-Dumpty than
we would care to admit, for in reading it is a matter not only of what is written there but what we expect
to find
there, what we bring to the text, and what we take away from it. Reading, then is hardly a clinical or neutral affair.
There is that bewildering batter of text, context, subtext, and pre-text with which we must contend, which we in
fact do automatically and subconsciously. The scanning of these interests is so automatic and instantaneous that
we are as unaware of it as we are unaware of the infinite
number of physical motions and electrical impulses that it takes for us to turn the handle of a doorknob. When that simple action is reduced to slow motion and
recorded,
or when we find that some injury or ailment makes it difficult or impossible to do, then, and perhaps, only then,
do we realize the complexity that is camouflaged by the apparent natural ease with which we have performed the
function before we were required to take notice of it.
Reading is such a function, and particularly the reading of scripture. The reading of contentious or
difficult passages involves both an encounter with the text and extra-textual consciousness by which we are
enable to make sense and reconcile the foreign and contrary with the
familiar and accepted. The context, as opposed
to the historical and literary context of the text itself, I call the culture or climate of interpretation. For
most readers of scripture, or of anything else, this is the only context that counts. The very notion, for example,
of "hard passages" in a discussion of women and the Bible does not necessarily presuppose that there
is a "problem" with the biblical context, although there may be. The problem that makes these passages
hard is that what there may be. The problem that makes these passages hard is that what they appear to say is at
odds with what we now think. In other words, the text is out of sync with our climate of culture of interpretation.
Thus, in order to make sense of what the text says, it must in some sense be made to conform to our climate of
interpretation. With all due respect to the pieties addressed to the mind of scripture and to its context, as in
most things our context is the only one that really counts.
Remember how our temperance friends "read" those accounts of the scriptural us of wine, which
clearly did not coincide with the morel content of their contemporary climate of interpretation? It was scripture
that was made to conform. In the matter of slavery, each side adapted the context and content of the biblical writings
on slavery to suit the moral purposes to their won contemporary climate of interpretation and that battle was settled
not by an exegetical consensus but by might of arms.
The reading of scripture in the debates about the role of women in the church today tell us as much,
if not more, about the climate of interpretation within which we are willing to undertake the reading in the first
place as it tells us about the content, context and "clear meaning of scripture."
For those for whom the writings in Corinthians and in Timothy are not hard, and who take them as normative
practice for the church in all places and at all times, the problem is no problem. Why? Because the texts as they
read them, and the climate of interpretation within which they read them are not in conflict-at least, they do
not believe them to be. The pope is not anxious to know if scripture and his reading of scripture are at odds on
the matter of women priests. He has said over and over again that the question of the ordination of women to the
priesthood is settled by the fact that Jesus did not call women to serve as his disciples. The practice and principle
of scripture in the mind of the pope are consistent with his reading and interpretation of it. In this view he
is joined by many conservative Protestants, with what is called a high view of scripture." (1)
Loopholes or Options?
While it may appear that loopholes are the answers to those who would look at the hard
texts here and hope to find other then the status quo, in realty not the case. Rather than being loopholes four
valid options are presented from a technical study of Arthur Rowe, (3) summarized by Peter J. Gomes. (2)
| Option 1. |
Paul writes as a man in a man's world. |
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The roles of men and women of the first century society were prescribed by the circumstances of that society,
where, with very rare exceptions, women were subordinate to men. In the three worlds of which Paul was a citizen,
the Jewish, the Greek, and the Roman, women's societal roles were dictated by the subordination principle. His
teachings on women, therefore, while reflecting the moral attitudes of the time, are no more relevant to an age
where those moral attitudes no longer apply, . for instance, first-century standards of dress, of social etiquette,
or of dietary rules. Paul was a social conservative and submitted himself to the authority of the Roman state and
required Christians to do such. Only in his theology, anticipating a new world to come, was he radical. So his
social conservativeness reflected the social assumptions of his age. |
| Option 2. |
Paul announcing these hard passages as permanent principles of behavior,
normative rules for the organization of the church. |
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Paul does not apply one role better than another, but does give rules of organization of men and women in
the church. He appeals to the model and order of creation. The man is made first, and the woman second, not
inferior, but different by order of precedence and by function. Harmony is assured when that order is understood
and the different functions in the relationship are appreciated and affirmed. |
| Option 3. |
Written to apply to particular troublesome situations in the places to
which the letters were addressed. |
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While we do
not know the extent of the problems that were occurring or provokes Paul, we can infer that women
were party to some contentiousness in these churches. Paul appeals to these troubles in those places. These instructions
are situation-oriented and are not mean to be normative and they in now way, apply or inhibit the work of the Lydias,
the Phoebes and the Priscillas, and they do not negate the "equality principle" of Galatians 3:28 and
Ephesians 5:2 and the "mutual servitude" of Matthew 20:25-27, where all distinctions are leveled in Christ
in baptism and all are equal slaves, serving one another. |
| Option 4. |
These texts are not from Paul but from marginal notes later moved to the
text itself by a copyist. |
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This theory, supported apparently by the earliest manuscripts, is that the instructions about women are
to be found in the margins of the manuscript and not in the text itself, as this style can be found in the Jewish
Talmud and other ancient unscriptural writings. And that they appear in their present places in the manuscripts
by virtue of a later editorial decision on the part of a copyist. |
| Option 5. |
We must seek principles of interpretation that allow for the cultural presuppositions
both of Paul and the reader in making sense of these texts. |
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If we expect to find women in a subordinate cultural position in Pauline times, we read that condition as
normative in reading the text, and if in our own climate of interpretation we understand the subordination to be
biblical, we are not surprised to find it there and affirm its presence and its application to our own time as
well. If one has not interest concerning the role of women in New Testament times, or now, for that matter, and
if one does not see these hard passages as essentially inconsistent with the larger picture of the gospel as found
in the New Testament, then the problem is not a problem. (2) |
From a brief review of these options we might conclude that rather than
loopholes or ways out of a sticky situation, they are in fact variously related efforts to get into, and behind
and admittedly beyond, the texts. Women who might be expected willingly to toss out the offending passages, in
much the same way as Thomas Jefferson edited out of "his" bible all these Pauline passages not consistent
with his view of the ethical and moral teachings of Jesus, have by and large done no such thing and have fought
for the Bible, hard passages and all, and for the right to
interpret them within and against the context of the
larger principles for which Paul writes and which his own experience with women co-workers amplifies. (4)
Malcolm O. Tolbert concludes that one of our most fundamental mistakes in the reading
of scripture, particularly the New Testament, is to assume that the structures and the systems it describes are
as sacred and authoritative as the principles it affirms. Not only is this wrong, it is idolatrous, even blasphemous,
to use the word of God to affirm and maintain human privilege. It was wrong in the interpretation that God approved
and encouraged chattel slavery, it was wrong in the maintenance of a climate in which the persecution of the Jews
could be regarded as biblical, and it is wrong, unequivocally wrong, in imposing first-century social standards
on the participation of women in the life of the church simply to preserve the abstraction of the authority of
scripture and the preservation of a status quo favorable to those already in power. (4)
Tolbert writes:
"I do not understand the pattern of male dominance reflected in the Bible
as an expression of the will of God. It is rather the reflection of the culture in which Jews and Christians as
well as pagans lived. I am governed rather by the insights found in various key texts which make it possible of
the Christian to criticize the structures of society and the Church. These passages Mark 10:43 and Galatians 3:28,
emphasize the ideals of servant hood and mutuality in relationships rather than the ascendancy of any one person
or group of persons over others." (6)
Two Types of Biblical Scholarship Among Women
Peter J. Gomes relates: Dianne Bergard's article, "Women
in the Bible: Friends or Foes?" divides the biblical scholarship of women
into two types
| 1. |
Revisionists |
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They contend that the Bible has not only outgrown its usefulness, but is, in fact, detrimental to the development
of women - and men for that matter. They often seek to reconstruct history as it should have been
remembered, not as it has been remembered. The point of view is no doubt, destructive and
therefore irrelevant. |
| 2. |
Reformists |
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The reformer on the other hand, while equally opposed to patriarchy, "maintain that the message of the
Bible is itself intrinsically liberating." To get that biblical message and its liberating truth depends,
or course depends on how the Bible is to be read. |
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