Side by Side

Passage

Philippians 4:2–3 ESV

I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.

Introduction

As I mentioned last week, the advantage of going through an entire book of the Bible is the fact that it forces us to look at topics that we might overlook. In light of women’s history month, I thought these next verses from the book of Philippians was quite relevant for us to look at this morning. As a man who had the gift of celibacy and the gift of apostleship, Paul does gives us an objective look at how men can relate with women on two important levels in the church, as friends and as co-laborers in the gospel. There are two questions that I want us to think about as we look at these verses.

1. Can men and women be good friends in Christ?

2. What is the role of women in Christian leadership?

The short answer to the first question is yes but it’s complicated and unless you have the gift of celibacy, you better tread carefully. And the reason why I thought of this question is that Paul clearly has a good relationship with Euodia and Syntyche. Gordon Fee, who is one of the best scholars of the NT, points out this very important fact regarding Paul’s epistles along with public letters in general during this time in history. In these type of letter, the writers usually do not name the names of those who they are trying to correct, critique, or argue with. This is very different from our modern culture where calling out someone by name is seen as offensive and hiding people’s names in anonymity is seen as protective. It’s acutally the reverse in the Ancient Middle East. Here is what Dr. Fee writes in his commentary on these verses.

Apart from greetings and the occasional mention of his co-workers or envoys, Paul rarely ever mentions anyone by name. But here he does, and not because Euodia and Syntyche are the “bad ones” who need to be singled out; precisely the opposite... That he names them at all is evidence of friendship, since one of the marks of “enmity” in polemical letters is that the enemies are left unnamed, thus denigrated by anonymity.

I thought about this for a bit and though it’s contrary to the way we think here, it does make a good deal of sense. As someone who preaches publically, there are a lot of things that I say on a weekly basis and there will be some people who think I am talking directly about them, which is rarely the case. However, there are matters in the church that need to be talked about on the pulpit and it’s usually an issue that many people are struggling with but if you feel like I am singling you out directly but simply leaving your name out, I think we can all see how that might be interpreted as something that you would do to your enemy and not your friend. In the same way, as letters that were meant to be read out loud publically to the entire church, the things that Paul writes would have had the same effect. People would have reacted in similar ways to the way we might react to a sermon that is preached. In fact, when a matter of sin becomes so grievious that a person needs to removed from the church, we see Paul using this polemical device in his other letters.

1 Corinthians 5:1–2 ESV

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

I’m fairly certain that Paul knew the name of the offending person and everyone in the church knew who he was talking about but by leaving him unnamed, Paul is reinforcing the idea that this man is acting as an enemy to their community and therefore needs to be removed. He is definitely not trying to protect his identity as the news of this sexual scandal has spread throughout the church. All of this to say, by identying these two sisters by name, he is actually drawing on years of friendship with the both of them as the basis for urging them to get along as they serve in the church together. And Paul does something here that most men would not do, and probably should not do, and that is get in the middle of their argument. I remember, some years ago, trying to get in between an argument that Mira and her long-time friend from childhood were having as we were driving in the car. It wasn’t a huge disagreement but I thought Mira was being a bit one-sided in her argument and so I tried to defend her friend who I’ve known for a long time and would consider to be a friend. But what happened when I tried to step in, totally took me by surprise. Instead of my wife getting mad at me for taking her friend’s side, her friend actually got angry and told me in the strongest of tones, “Stay out of this fight”. I thought she was my friend, but I guess not and she will remain unnamed in this message.

Remember I stated that remaining good friends in Christ across genders is possible but complicated but this is where Paul teaches us so much tact and wisdom in his relationship skills. Most likely we are not dealing with an issue of personal sin but it’s probably a sharp disagreement surrounding how to best conduct ministry. And unlike my mistake of taking a side in an argument between friends, Paul makes doubly sure through his communication that he is not taking anyone’s side but that he is asking both of them personally to put their differences aside. And we see that in the double use of the verb to address both of them individually. Look carefully at how he writes to them in the letter.

I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche...

I think we all realize that this is not the usual way to write something like this. We would typically use the verb one time to address both parties but it seems Paul understands the sensitive nature of this situation and he is making sure that he doesn’t create more conflict between them. Furthermore, we see that Paul is not only careful to remain neutral in their argument but he is also willing to offer practical help to the both of them in the form of another close friend that he trusts. We don’t know the identity of this true companion, maybe it’s a another sister at the church, possibly Lydia who was the first convert in Philippi and started the church in her home. It’s possible that Paul thought that he would not be the best person to help resolve this disagreement and so he brings another friend into the mix but whoever, this might be, he seems confident that his person can be a good mediator. I think in our day and age, remaining neutral not only means not taking any sides but offering no help. That’s a very lonely place to be for everyone involved. We all tend to struggle in asking for help but from what I’ve observed, it’s harder for women to ask for help because you want to be perceived as strong, independent, capable, and not needing the help of anyone especially not the help of any man. And I don’t think is something that is limited to our day and age, it’s incredibly difficult to ask for help especially across the gender lines. We don’t know what kind of wierd expectations there are or what the true intention of the help is and so we try to stay clear of that and we view each other with suspicion. But if men and women are going to be good friends in Christ, we need to learn how to give appropriate help to one another that’s free of ulterior motives and pure in our intentions. As I said, this is possible but definintely not easy. I do beleive that one place where we can grow these friendships between men and women and learn to trust each other and support one another is in the context of Christian ministry. It’s very evident that Paul’s relationship with these women developed as they worked side by side for the sake of the gospel. He includes them as fellow workers alongside prominent leaders like Clement who would go onto to become one of the first Apostolic fathers of the church. These women worked closely as co-laborers with some of the most important leaders in the global church of that time. That is something that we cannot refute from this passage, that much is clear.

This leads us to our second question, “What is the role of women in Christian leadership?” And if you are wondering about the connection betweent the two questions, the different answers that we are hearing in popular books and podcasts has brought more tension, more suspicion, and greater division between men and women in the church. In just the past year, the debate about the role of women in Christian ministry has become heated between evangelical Christians and those who consider themselves more progressive in their Christian views. At the center of this renewed conflict has been a book by Kristin Kobes du Mez entitled, Jesus and John Wayne and the subtitle is a very good summary about the main thesis of the book which is “How white evangelicals corrupted a faith and fractured a nation.” I haven’t read the whole book because to be honest some of it seems overly biased and that is coming from someone that is neither a white evangelical nor in strong agreement with the complementarian views on women in Christian ministry.

My main contention with the book is that as a scholar and professor at a Christian university, she should have been more objective especially in a time when Christians across the theological spectrum need to come together in unity. To categorically place all of the blame for our nations problems at the feet of white evangelicals seems to be an overreach and detrimental to the spread of the gospel. The fact that this book has become so popular and is a New York Times best seller only adds fuel to the fire that has led to so much division and the on-going deconstruction of the Christian faith by many. This book only serves to turn more and more women away from the Christian faith or at the least to become distrusting of all Christian male leadership. To be fair, there are some good points in the book such as the dangers created by the alliance between evangelical Christianity and the political right as well as the corruption of cultural Chrisitanity. But where the book begins to veer off into more of a revisionist history is her take on Billy Graham’s role in starting a male-dominated, mysoginistic, politically dangerous form of Christianity. By putting into question, one of the most beloved leaders of the evangelical movement, someone who has never had any scandal or allegations of abuse attached to him and who was universally loved by all those who knew him, it appears that she is trying to invalidate everythiing that has to do with American Christianity, even those things that were good. Never does she mention, the hundreds of thousands of people who came to faith in Christ because of Billy Graham’s ministry and his faithfulness to the gospel, preaching to over 200 million people around the world in his lifetime. It would appear those things don’t really matter at all in evaluating a leader’s legacy because he held a different theological view on the role of women in the home and church.

For your reference, it’s important more and more to become familiar with this subject because the notion that American evangelical Christianity has been used to subjugate women is gaining a great deal of traction in both secular and progressive Christian circles of thought and we need to be aware of the issues.

Two terms that you will hear regularly in this debate are the words complementarian versus egalatarian.

The main tenents of complementarianism is that:

1. Men and women are created equal in the image of God

2. Men and wome have different but equally important roles in marriage, family, and church.

3. Men are then called to be the spiritual leaders of the family and church.

4. Only men should hold certain positions of church leadership that exercises authority over men.

The main tenents of egalatarianism starts in the same place:

1. Men and women are created equal in the image of God

2. There are no differences in role capabilities between men and women.

3. Roles should be ability based and men and women should mutually submit to one another.

4. There are no gender restrictions for roles that men and women can fulfill in the family and church.

To be as objective as I can, there are verses from the Bible that seemingly support both positions. The verses that seem more instructive or corrective appear to favor a complementarian reading but if you read the descriptive verses of the early church, it favors the egalatarian postion. As you just read, both views begin at the same starting point and then move in divergent directions from there. How far they move away from this starting point to their extremes determines whether or not they are remain within biblical norms. The dangers found at the extremes of a complementarian view are well known, you have abuses of power based on a legalistic reading of Scripture that leads to a strict hierarchy that can silence the voices of women. That is patently unjust and instead of the gospel being the end purpose of the church and men and women working side by side towards that goal, it becomes more about who has the power to do the ministry. This is the stigma that the evangelical church is currently fighting. (One experience I had at a conference deeply troubled me about the dangers of etreme complementarianism)

But the dangers of egalatarianism taken to it’s extremes is actually not much better if not worse. Egalatarians can quickly end up in bed with progressive liberals and instead of the gospel being the central focus, equality becomes the end goal. And at this extreme, the actual fruitfulness of the gospel is not valid unless everyone has an opportunity to make an equal contribution to it. In that sense, egalatarianism does have some common roots to the social philosophy that drives the end purpose of the liberal agenda such as the emphasis on ending all social, political, and economic inequalities. For that reason, progressive liberalism advertises itself as the defender of the rights of women, minorities, and the marginalized and many Christian egalatarians jump on this band wagon not realizing that for all of its promises, progressive liberalism falls well short of their stated goals. Protecting women goes beyond the rights of the educated, successful, strong women that we see on a normal basis in a congregation like ours. What about the young, the poor, and the vulnerable? Becasue progressive liberalism has no moral voice it has very little power to undo the greatest threat to the well-being of women today. What is that threat? It is the aftereffects and the unintended consequence of the sexual revolution. Progressive liberals will never attack the sexual revolution because it is what set a generation free from the constraints of Christianity but they’ll also never own the fact that the sexual revolution produced men like Jeffrey Epstein, Hugh Hefner, and countless others who either exploited women to get rich or used their riches to exploit women. If white evangelicalism is guilty of the subjugation of women then progressive liberalism is at least indirectly guilty of their exploitation.

Conclusion

In comparison to all these problems tha we have in our society today, the early church was remarkably different in the way men and women related to one another. There are certainly some passages that seem confusing because they seem to suggest a very hierarchical gender structure for the church but when you balance that with the biblical record for how ministry was actually conducted , there is do doubt that men and women worked side by side, partners in the gospel. Not only do we have the verses that we read today, we have passages like Romans 16 where Paul is giving personal greetings to the prominent leaders of the church, the list of names can be broken down to 15 women and 18 men.

Romans 16:1 ESV

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae,

Romans 16:3 ESV

Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus,

Romans 16:7 ESV

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.

Some of the names of note are Prisca, who is described as a fellow worker, Phoebe who was a deacon in the church at Cenchreae. There is also Junia, who historically has been accepted as a women apostle. If you have a study bible, you might have a footnote that says “or Junias” which is convenient because by adding an S, it turns Junia into a male name Junias. It can be argued that an S was simply left out during the transcribing but that would be an argument of convenience because that reading would go against most rules of textual criticism. All the scholars that study the earliest manuscripts know that the name Junia is what is found in the earliest and most reliable of the NT manuscripts. In fact, that S doesn’t even show up until you get to manuscripts from the the 12 century. But proof of the acceptance of Junia as a female apostle is seen as early as the writings of John Chrysostom in the mid 370s. In his messages on the book of Romans, he says this about Junia:

To be an apostle is something great. But to be outstanding among the apostles— just think what a wonderful song of praise that is! They were outstanding on the basis of their works and virtuous actions. Indeed, how great the wisdom of this woman must have been that she was even deemed worthy of the title of apostle.

So you might be asking yourself, so pastor, are you an egalatarian or complementarian because I’m confused? if you have been in the AMI family of churches, you know that my answer is yes. And this isn’t to confuse you but to say I agree with the Scriptures and not just one verse over another but I want to be as faithful as possible to the full counsel of God. Among our churches, we like to call it the radical middle and at the core is a desire to follow the spirituality of the early church. In the way they lived, loved, and related one another, they followed in the footsteps of their Savior who gave them an example of how to treat everyone irrespecive of gender with dignity, respect, and love for the sake of the gospel, If we are to ever have a world where men and women relate to one another with that same dignity and honor, it will only be through Christ and the power of his gospel.