Women Pastors?

The Controversy - Women Pastors and Women in Church Leadership

This is more than just a simple who’s in charge argument.

The implications of the argument have other affects downstream.

Before coming to FBC, I was a pastor at a local church.

A Korean PCUSA church rented from us, using our church building on Sunday afternoons.

They were very Korean and very conservative.

There are 2 terms that should be introduced early on.

Egalitarian and complimentarian.

Egalitarian means that the sexes are equal not just in value, redemption, and creation, but also in roles.

What men are called to do, egalitarians believe, women are equally called to do.

The opposite term is complimentarian.

This means that the sexes compliment each other.

They fit each other.

They support each other.

They are equal in value, redemption, and creation.

Both sexes are the image of God.

But they have different roles to fill.

There are things that men can do that women can’t do.

There are things that women can do that men can’t do.

A man can’t have a baby.

Won’t happen.

Back to the Korean church that I knew.

They were a part of the PCUSA denomination.

The PCUSA is a very liberal Christian denomination.

They embrace and support the LGBTQ movement.

The LGBTQ movement is the logical conclusion to egalitarianism.

The Korean church that we knew was not liberal

They were very conservative morally and ethically.

They were opposed to the LGBTQ movement.

The more the PCUSA movement pressed in on them the more uncomfortable they felt.

They ended up leaving the PCUSA denomination, which was a challenge for them, and hurt them financially.

But they were and still are egalitarian in their ecclesiology.

I loved that church.

They were great folks.

But despite their good intentions, there egalitarian leanings are always going to be a problem for them.

That means when it came to church leadership, they did not see any difference in the roles.

Women could be elders.

Women could be pastors.

My opinion, is that while they are egalitarian, they will always be running from the LGBTQ movement because that is the end point for egalitarians.

It’s a denial of biblical roles.

As long as they are egalitarian, the gender and sexual revolution will always be at their doorstep.

This topic of women in church leadership and women preachers is something that all the major Christian denominations are facing.

This has rocked:

The United Methodists Denomination

The PCUSA - Presbyterian Church of United States of America

It has crept into the Southern Baptist Denomination as well.

Why is this controversial?

We live in a culture that is denying God’s natural law.

These are the laws that are built into nature.

We could even call this common sense.

Men and women are built differently.

Biologically we are different.

These differences do not mean less.

They mean different.

And these differences are intentional.

God built man and woman to fulfill one another.

It’s not just the secular culture which is compromising, it is the church as well.

God’s Word says one thing and people do almost the exact opposite.

The arguments

What are the arguments used to say women can be elders and preachers?

People think that:

There are no differences in the sexes

There is a replacement of God’s standards and qualifications for church leadership with man’s standards.

Basically reducing the qualifications to a desire to serve.

To affirm gender based roles is to reject people created in the image of God.

In other words if you say that someone isn’t qualified to be a pastor you are saying that they don’t matter in God’s kingdom.

This is a dangerous one, but people think that if God has called a woman to be a pastor or elder, therefore who are we to contradict that.

This is very subjective.

It means that God may say here are the qualifications, and then later change His mind.

Before diving into the arguments, let’s make sure we know what we affirm.

I am a complimentarian, but there are some who are in that camp who say things that are unhelpful and unbiblical.

There are people who are flat out sexist.

They say a woman’s place is in the kitchen.

That is not complimentarian, that’s just mean.

A difficult thing in theology and life is being careful of going beyond Scripture.

You are at a point in your life where you are shaping opinions.

You are learning big concepts and starting to solidify your thoughts.

We must be clear what Scripture says, and I won’t go any further.

We must be careful of putting cultural values, or political values, or values of a group above Scripture.

What must we affirm?

So let’s do a brief Bible study.

We will need our Bibles for this.

Women, like men, are created in the image of God.

Genesis 1:27

Genesis 5:1 reaffirms this.

This shows the value of women.

This hopefully should not have to be stated, but women and men hold equal value in the eyes of God.

For example, the murder of a woman is an attack upon the image of God.

The image of God is not limited to men only, but to all of mankind.

We also agree that women have had a very important role in redemptive history.

Genesis 3:15

Through seed of a woman

Biblical role of women

How do we see women in the Bible?

As you think about women in the Bible, what are the roles that we see.

Mothers

Many men brought curses upon people.

For example, it was Adam who sinned.

Because of His sin, all mankind fell.

He acted as our representative.

But in contrast, there were women who God used in preserving His line.

They became vessels for God to bring grace to His creation.

For example:

Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute who was spared from Jericho and grafted into the line of Jesus.

Ruth was a Moabite.

They were the enemies of Israel.

Ruth became the great great grandmother of David.

Joseph who was a male descendant of Jesus was not the actual Davidic descendant to be in the line of Jesus.

It was Mary who was the descendant of David who was in the lineage of Jesus.

In the public market place - Proverbs 31:10-31

Historically, families had businesses and women were involved in that business.

Many times a home would have a living quarters in the second story, while the first story was where business was conducted.

We must also acknowledge that there were women leaders in the Bible.

They confronted leaders

Deborah - Judges 4:4

Bathsheba - 1 Kings 1:16–17

Esther boldly confronted Xerses - Esther 5:1-2

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the events of Esther, but there was a plot to kill all the Jews in Persia.

Esther went uninvited before the king, which could have resulted in her death.

In the New Testament, within the church we see women involved in the life of the church.

Phoebe - Romans 16:1-2

Euodia & Syntyche - Philippians 4:2-3

Mary & Martha - Luke 10:38-42

Some of the first Evangelists were women.

They went to the tomb and found it empty and they ran back to the disciples to tell the Good news - Luke 24:1-9

Gifted

The gifts are for women as well.

Teachers in the church - Titus 3:3-5

Redeemed

This shouldn’t be news but women are part of the church - Acts 2:17, Galatians 3:28

This means that the Son of God laid down his life for men and women.

What does this mean:

Women can have jobs

Women can leave the house.

Women are a part of society.

Women can be bold.

Be careful of allowing our conservative American values to become equivalent to biblical values.

One of the big, culture changing things of Christianity is that it affirmed women and lifted them up from lowly places that society through them into.

Biblical Offices and their Qualifications

Now let’s look at what the biblical qualifications for offices in the church.

We will again need our Bibles out for this.

Elders

I Timothy 3:1-9

A man

There is a moral standard

Leader at home

Above reproach

Titus 1:5-9

A man

There is a testing and doctrinal standard

Preachers

I Timothy 2:11–12

In the congregational setting, men are called to teach

Pastors

Synonymous with Elders

Not really a third office, but another word to describe elders.

By the way, each of these passages are regarding the church.

This means that they are not to be used for the world around us.

There is no secular equivalent to elders, pastors or preachers.

What does this mean when a church has a woman as an elder, preacher or pastor?

Allow for discussion.

Who chooses pastors and preachers?

How do people become pastors?

There is a wrong approach to becoming a pastor.

The wrong approach

My undergrad experience

You go to a Christian school

Get a degree.

They graduate and get hired in a church.

My MDIV experience

You go to a seminary

I found many men at seminary were not called to ministry.

They were book smart, but didn’t know people.

They were not gifted to preach.

The wrong approach is You decide I will be a pastor.

What’s wrong with this approach?

It’s devoid of the church.

It’s devoid of the Holy Spirit.

The Biblical approach:

They fit the biblical qualifications that we have already seen.

There is a desire - 1 Timothy 3:1

The Holy Spirit makes people elders - Acts 20:28

They are taught - Titus 1

They are somehow tested I Timothy 3:10

Paul was tested Galatians 1:18 describes him being trained for years.

Later in Galatians 2:2 he was brought to the church in Jerusalem and tested.

This can be a painful and difficult lesson to learn.

Especially in our churches that call for people to be involved and to serve.

There is an emphasis to serve.

There is an emphasis to study your Bible.

The thought of ministry enters the mind, only to hit a roadblock.

Some of you know my past.

I was a pastor for 25 years.

I was ordained.

I was called.

I left my church.

Now I’m here.

Am I still a pastor?

That was a hard question to answer for a long time.

It’s all I knew.

But the answer is no, I’m not.

I don’t have a flock to shepherd.

I don’t get to make myself a pastor.

In a sense it’s through the church that the Spirit calls and appoints people to Elders.

Part of submitting to God is not forcing our desires into His plan.

In fact it’s learning to be content with where He has placed you.

It’s recognizing His sovereignty over your own life.

1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”

This means as you consider your life recognize when He says this is for you and this is not for you.

I realize this is about women in ministry, but it’s equally true for men.

All people must fit the qualifications for ministry, which pertain to men and women.

Just because someone is not called to ministry does not mean they are less in the kingdom of God.

So what do you do if you find yourself at a church with a female pastor?

Know this:

It says something about their beliefs.

It says what they believe about Scripture.

It says what they believe about submitting to His qualifications.

Their rebellion shows a lack of trust in God’s redemptive love.

They accuse God of not loving them unless He loves them by their standards.

In reality it’s faithlessness.

1 John 4:10 says, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

It’s kind of like a child who tells his parents they need to feed him ice cream or else they don’t love him.

What should you do if you find yourself in one of these churches?

Run away.