Paul lngeneri is Director of Education and Evangelism for the Seymour Christian Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Mich., for the last two and a half years and a Master of Church Education student at Calvin Seminary. He was born in the Boston area, grew up as n Roman Catholic and was led by a liberal college education into total relativism. He came to know and appreciate tbe authority of the Bible as God‘s Word as it led him out of this predicament into the knowledge of God and His Gospel. Now, disturbed by the way the authority of that Word is being ignored by recent movements and Synod decisions in our churches, he contributes this article.

In recent years those who have been against women holding leading and ruling offices such as elder and minister have been accused of being literalists, obscurantists, and legalists of the worst kind as they are inhibiting members of Christ’s church from exercising their gifts. These people are said to be pushing as Biblical norms directives which were relevant only for the New Testament cultural situation. Were this true, and I don‘t believe this is the case, they would of course be legalists. There is another kind of legalism however which is more subtle yet far more harmful to the well-being of the church. It‘s the ktnd of legalism that‘s always looking for a loophole to bypass the demands of the law of God.

The Pharisees were not legalistic so much because they made up extra rules but because they were experts at rationalizing their way around the demands of God‘s law and undercutting its principles. Edersheim notes their way of getting around the rabbinic law against going more than 1000 yards from home on the Sabbath. They deposited two days’ food supply at 1000 yard intervals before the Sabbath and thus established these spots as temporary homes. They would then be able to proceed 1000 yards from each point without technically transgressing what they affirmed as the law.

I see such legalistic wrangling in the exegesis of those who would have women take leading and ruling offices in the church. The Scriptures are affirmed as the Word of God while at the same time specious methods of reasoning and interpretation are used to undercut their authority and plain import. We might look at the article “Not ready yet?” by Nickolas Wolterstorff (6/78 Reformed Journal) as an example.

Evading What the Bible Says – The article begins with the observation that three study committees have concluded that there is no decisive Biblical evidence against opening all the offices of the church to women and that “these have done their best to find the evidence.” The ‘73 effort was not a search to find the evidence against opening these offices to women. The Synod of ’73 was not at all willing to accept the report and appointed another committee. This unwillingness must not be attributed to male bias or the weight of tradition but to some observations stated by the ’75 committee that the ’73 report (1) did not do justice to the different roles which the Bible assigns to men and women especially in the home and family and (2) used the Bible as a source of information on which to base sociological conclusions instead of as a Divine revelation.

Yet, after these strongly critical statements, even this “conservative” committee engaged in the same legalistic tactics of looking for loopholes—searching for reasons why we don’t have to be bound by what the Bible says. Three times they observed that, if followed literally, these passages might forbid a few things that some of our churches are already doing and so by this “method of interpretation” reached conclusions similar to those of the ’73 report. It has been aptly pointed out that a conclusion reached this way is more “a committee’s prejudice than the Bible‘s teaching.”

The ‘78 committee report, partially analyzed in THE OUTLOOK, May, 78, was frustrating to me because of its lack of exegetical argument pro and con for positions stated. In reading the report I could not see how the clear recommendations had come from the “some felt this way—some that” presentation and with this type of presentation the meaning of key passages was distorted or at least left unsettled. The three committees certainly did not engage in a strong effort to find the evidence against installing women. Van Groningen also mentions that this last report left out several crucial passages dealing with the headship principle and women in society.

Dr. Wolterstorff goes on to say in his article that the committee ignored two crucial ideas in favor of allowing women ruling participation. These are the “redemptive-historical pattern of Scripture which leads up to Christ’s radically liberating way of interacting with women” and Galatians 3:28.

In order to hold the first as a valid argument you have to believe that the Old Testament principle of male leadership was merely a sociological-historical product of male chauvinism and cultural conditioning and was not determined and assigned by God. What then happens to our high view of Old Testament Scripture? You have to blind your eyes to the fact that Jesus did not assign the office of apostle to even one woman despite His radically different way of dealing with them. It is significant that He acted against every Scribal and cultural aberration of the law with respect to women but never against the Old Testament principle of male leadership. Note too that, although the teachers of the day needed correction as they had perverted the idea of male leadership into the heresy that women are somehow less than men, Jesus’ radical corrections did not include any talk of action suggesting female leadership.

In order to believe that Galatians 3:28 should be decisive (in plain English that means it would essentially wipe out the Corinthians and Timothy passages, the headship principle, elder qualifications as husbands … as cultural) you must accept the idea that equality between men and women before Christ means identity of function, and this is just not so. King Uzziah in the Old Testament (II Chron. 26), certainly equal with the priests before God and as able as any of them to burn incense, was struck with leprosy for trying to usurp a function assigned to the priests alone. Ability to perform a task and equality before God were not the decisive factors in determining God-ordained function then or now.

An Erroneous Claim – Furthermore the article states that there are only two passages which speak to the issue at hand and these only indirectly. There are only two if, of course, you dismiss the lessons of the Old and New Testament as merely cultural manifestations of male domination, water down Scripture to say that the only authority in the church is that of service, ignore altogether Ephesians 5:24, and make the crucial determination that headship in marriage has nothing to say about and will not be affected by women ruling in the church.

Some have done this in an effort to appeal to our more egalitarian culture. But we cannot “dispose” of these principles without weakening our position on Scripture’s absolutes and authority. Such a weakening appeals to people of our culture mired in relativistic humanism.

I Corinthians 11 Does Not Cancel I Corinthians 14 – Looking then at I Corinthians 14:33–35, Dr. Wolterstorff reasons that I Corinthians 11:5 says women can pray and prophesy in the assemblies so the passage in question cannot be taken to mean women must keep silence in the churches. Even if we grant that I Corinthians 11:5 is speaking of public worship (some don’t and find it reasonable to say “in the presence of and to the edification of others but not in the official gathering”), we must first note that women wore a mark of submission and that this mark was based on the headship principle God-Christ-man-woman (vs. 3). So if they prophesied and prayed somehow the idea of submission still had to be maintained today. Here the last committee observed that “the prophetic phenomenon, ie., the reception of immediate revelation, gradually disappeared at an early paint in the church’s development” (p. 363, 78 Agenda). What has replaced it?—essentially the sermon. Can we say that a woman can preach, exhort, teach authoritatively over men in public worship and somehow still bear a mark of submission? I think not.

But suppose we say the Greek words aner and gyne are not to be taken here as man, woman but only as husband, wife. Would this restricted (husband-wife rather than man-woman) headship principle not have effect on the function of all women, single and married, in worship? Would we hear Paul saying, “You single women can function on the same basis as the men, you are equal and there is a leveling out of all differences here as no man is your head . . . but if you get married then you will be restricted and may only function in worship in a way that does not conflict with the headship principle of marriage . . . . And you married women can function on the same basis as the men here if, e.g., your husbands are home sick, because then you wouldn’t be conflicting with the headship principle of marriage?” Is this our idea of headship in marriage and how it would affect male-female functioning in worship? Did not all women somehow bear a “mark of submission”?

Secondly, note how Paul puts a strong statement of equality in the middle of his argument (vss. 11, 12). It reads like Galatians 3:28 . . . men and women are equal and interdependent. This refutes the idea that since women are to function differently in some respects, they therefore must be inferior to men. But right after this strong statement of equality Paul goes back (vss. 13 ff.) to the concept of the mark of submission.

Though some feel that his additional grounds come more from the cultural situation of his day than from anything inherent in nature, this in no way throws out the normative principle of vs. 3 and the fact that it affects women’s functioning in ecclesiastical assemblies. Nor can one appeal to these grounds (vs. 13 ff.) as showing that Paul handles the issue of women‘s functioning as he does slavery, not wishing to “rock the boat.” Paul tells slaves that in Christ they are free (Gal. 3:28), and if they can gain their physical freedom they should (1 Cor. 7:21). On the other hand though Paul speaks of male-female equality in Christ (the same Gal. 3:28) and demonstrates this by his action with and praise of women, he not only does not telI women to seek their “freedom” from the principle of headship and its effects on ecclesiastical functioning, but he uses every argument to buttress the stance that this principle is normative for all time and does and should affect women‘s functioning in ecclesiastical assemblies. Far from dismissing I Corinthians 14, I Corinthians 11 supports it!

The import of I Corinthians 14:33ff. is further distorted and weakened by the statement that it only relates to good order, i.e., women who (might have) been seated separate from men (as was the synagogue custom) shouldn‘t have questioned their husbands across the aisle and since we don‘t separate sexes now that‘s no longer a problem, therefore this passage doesn’t relate much to our situation and “that leaves I Timothy 2:12 and the case (against women in leading and ruling offices) is beginning to look pretty precarious.”

But it’s not that easy to dismiss I Corinthians 14:33 ff., and especially its relation to I Corinthians 11:5. Herman Ridderbos, the distinguished New Testament interpreter, summarized his discussion this way, “It seems difficult to escape the conclusion, however, that to ‘keep silence in the church’ means the same thing as the words in I Corinthians 14:28 ‘to be silent in the meeting of the church.’ One is to think of this praying and prophesying of the women (I Cor. 11:5) as restricted to pneumatic utterances outside the official gathering” . . . (Paul, p. 462).

Further, look at the repetition and strength of the phrases Paul uses—“should keep silent,” “not permitted to speak,” “should be subordinate,” “shameful to speak”—all in two verses. Is all this necessary just to get across a simple good order rule on speaking across the aisle? Doesn‘t it appear closer to the truth that women‘s questionings were only part of the issue dealt with here by Paul?

Consider the strength of the supports used, the practice of all the churches (33b) the law (34b)—possibly Genesis 3:16 dealing with inferences of women‘s subordination from creation and the fall, and this capped off by Paul’s statement that what he has written is “a command of the Lord.”

Changing Culture Doesn’t Annul God’s Commandment – Considering the application of the headship principle to I Corinthians 14 and that passage then to our own situation, the ’78 committee makes this statement (p. 367, Agenda 78): “Cultural circumstances determined how a principle was applied to a specific situation. Today we must ascertain Our own cultural circumstances and then proceed to apply the Biblical principle to those circumstances.”

Is this accurate? Is this reasoning going to help us apply the headship principle and the passage in question to our own situation? Did Paul take the normative headship principle, look at his cultural situation, and then see that (cult. sit.) as the determining factor in his application of the principle? Didn‘t Paul rather state “the command of the Lord” as the determining factor in how he applied the principle? No matter what you say about the type of argument or the supports used, the Lord inspired Paul’s writing here and commanded him to apply the headship principle in this manner. But if we see the culture as the determining factor here, as the ’73 committee did, of all Old Testament headship, then we can throw out most of our Divine revelation as cultural and only rely on man‘s “enlightened” common sense.

The Effort to Nullify I Timothy 2 – The article’s examination of I Timothy 2:8–15 is a masterpiece of “technical loopholism.” It is stated that, “We men have allowed all the injunctions but one in this passage to drift into cultural oblivion.” This kind of reasoning was examined in THE OUTLOOK (4/78) where Rev. Jelle Tuininga observed that principles like these “remain in force today, but in a different form. The form changes, the norm abides.” Is it not obvious in I Timothy 2 that praying without anger or quarreling is a norm for today although lifting holy hands is cultural? Is it not further apparent that women should adorn themselves today modestly . . . and be characterized by good deeds and that the wearing of braids, gold, etc., implied something about the wearer in Paul’s day which they don‘t today? These injunctions have not at all slipped into oblivion and it is inconsistent for someone who speaks of examining the historical-cultural context in other passages to deal this way with I Timothy 2.

It is then argued that only if the passage says Paul does not permit women to have authority over men rather than wives not being permitted to have authority over husbands, is the passage relevant to excluding women from leading and ruling offices. But as was shown before in our discussion of I Corinthians 11:5, the headship principle, whether referring to husband-wife or man-woman, affects and is affected by the ecclesiastical functioning of women. It will be a big mistake to assume that women can take leading and ruling positions in the church and not violate the headship principle of marriage which we hold.

In Our Churches Deacons Also Rule – Much more can be said about the strong enduring supports Paul uses for his inspired proclamation in I Timothy 2 and more can be said against the legalistic “loopholism” used to support the concept of women in leading and ruling offices, but I want to address a related serious situation largely unknown to our people.

Synod of 78 accepted the minority report which leaves churches free to have women serve as deacons provided their work is distinguished from that of elders. The partial grounds stated are that there will be no violation of the headship principle as long as the office of deacon is expressed in. tenns of assistance and service. The problem is that it isn’t expressed only in terms either in our Church Order or in our church practice!

Article 35a of the Church Order states that “in every church there shall be a council composed of the office bearers (ministers, elders, and deacons). The council (ministers, elders, and deacons) is responsible for the general government of the church.” [See also Belgic Confession, Article 30–Editor].

In many churches the full council, not just the consistory, makes major church policy decisions even when these have nothing to do with “assistance and service.” Also in small churches where there are fewer than four elders, the Church Order states deacons may meet together with the elders—separate elders and deacons meetings being deemed unnecessary. Though the work of elders is distinguished generally from that of deacons, the deacons do exercise the authority of sharing in the general government of the church and in a small church can exercise even more authority.

The main historical reason for this sharing of government, which does not appear anywhere in Scripture, seems to be “a fear of the oligarchical evils experienced in the church of Rome” with a few controlling the entire church. So in small churches it was considered advisable to meet together and not have separate meetings heeding the admonition of Proverbs 11:14 . . . “in a multitude of counselors there is safety.”