In the question whether women shall occupy the special offices in the church we have an issue that has proved itself to be charged with emotion, demanding on the church’s time and strength, and considerably disturbing to many. In this intense discussion with its many ramifications let us be very much aware of a single deeper issue. That deeper issue is simply this: Shall we be obedient to the Word of God? To my mind that issue is at the center of the question we have been debating for more than a decade.

Have I raised some hackles already? Probably so. Am I suggesting that people who differ with me on this issue are being disobedient to the Word of God? Not at all. I am satisfied that all of us want to be obedient to God’s Word. But the matter is not so simple. The problem is that we are no longer of one mind in our approach to the Bible. And so we have different ideas as to what obedience to the Bible means. In other words, different hermeneutical principles are at work among us.

The 1975 Biblical Decision

It had seemed clear to most of us that all we had to do was to address the question, What does the Bible say on this matter of women in office? With that simple question plainly in view our church made two important declarations at the Synod of 1975, namely,

1. “that the practice of excluding women from the ecclesiastical offices recognized in the Church Order be maintained unless compelling biblical grounds are advanced for changing that practice;” and 2. “that sufficient biblical grounds have not been advanced to warrant a departure from our present practice of excluding women from the ecclesiastical offices recognized in the Church Order.”

That was language the membership of the church understood. These declarations expressed the judgment of a majority of the church as they did a majority at the Synod. The situation has not changed. The Banner of January 23, 1984 plainly showed that a large majority of the church membership is opposed to opening these offices to women. I have spoken to many people in the church over the past several years about this matter, and almost always I hear the people of Christ’s church saying that they are opposed because they believe that God’s Word forbids it. That is the bottom line for them. What a precious treasure we have in this reservoir of devotion to God’s Word. Whatever complexities some may see in the interpretation of God’s Word, let the church be very, very careful in what it does with this precious treasure of loyalty to the Bible. That loyalty is the church’s greatest single asset after God’s great gifts of His Spirit, Word and grace in Christ.

“New Interpretations”

What complications are brought in by differing ways of interpreting what the Bible says? One of these is the idea that opening the offices to women is a proper development in the life of the Spirit-led church. This development, the argument goes, is the fruition of a process begun in the church of biblical days, especially the New Testament church. This process, wrestling with powerful and deeply entrenched cultural resistances and prejudices, is the realization of full equality of men and women in the church.

It is suggested that seeds of this latter-day fruition are found in such Bible texts as Galatians 3:28 and I Timothy 3:11. Considering these we don’t have to be overly concerned with Bible texts that seem clearly to limit the special offices in the church to men. The limiting texts represent an earlier expression of the mind of the Spirit. Let us, we are told, make sure that we are open to the leading of the Spirit today.

Obviously this approach is beset by all sorts of treacherous pitfalls. How does it square with Articles V and VII of the Confession of Faith? And when do we decide that the Spirit is leading the church beyond what the Bible teaches? Or contrary to what the Bible teaches? Is this the kind of thinking that prompted the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland to take a position on homosexuality that has been sharply criticized, also among us, as being based more on scientific, psychological and cultural considerations than it is on the Bible’s teaching? Is this the kind of thinking that led the Rotterdam-Delfts haven congregation of the GKN to do away with elders and deacons and to set up a consistory made up of representatives of congregational task forces?* Is this the kind of thinking that led this same church (with official approval) to baptize twin children of a lesbian couple?

“Cultural Conditioning”

Perhaps these lamentable developments in the Netherlands are to be related to another hermeneutical notion, which has appeared in the women in office debate and has obscured the meaning of obedience to God’s Word. We are told in The Banner of January 23, 1984 (p.7) that the restricted role Paul prescribed for women in worship services (in I Cor. 14:34 and I Tim. 2:12) was dictated by considerations that were “local, cultural, and therefore temporal.” In other words, these passages no longer apply to the church of today.

Let us take a careful look at this argument. In the first place it must be clearly understood that the case for the church’s longstanding practice of limiting the special offices to men does not depend on these much debated texts in the writings of the apostle Paul. As Paul himself indicates, the matter goes back to God’s original arrangement for men and women. In discussing propriety in worship Paul says in I Corinthians 11:3, “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” Then as he speaks of the proper decorum of women in worship shown by her covered head, Paul declares, “For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” In I Corinthians 14:34 Paul undergirds his instruction that women “are not allowed to speak” in the “congregations of the saints,” but “must be in submission,” by appealing to what the Law says, that is , the writings of the Old Testament, particularly the books of Moses. In I Timothy 2:12–13 Paul states, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” Then he adds, “For Adam was formed first, then Eve.”

Again we have to ask whether this approach does not conflict with our Confession of Faith. When we wholeheartedly accept this Confession as our own we are committing ourselves to “believing without any doubt all things contained in them,” that is, the books of the Bible; and these books, “these only,” are for the “regulation, foundation, and confirmation of our faith” (Article V). How can certain parts of these scriptures serve our faith in these ways if they don’t apply to us because we say they are “local, cultural and therefore temporal?” The Scripture itself gives us warrant to exempt ourselves from obedience to certain teachings in the Bible, such as those calling for circumcision or animal sacrifices. In these instances our freedom from these demands is given us by God’s Word itself in the liberating work of Jesus Christ as it is taught in this Word. I know of no such exemption from the main thrust of the passages in Paul’s writings which we are discussing.

It is obvious that if we do not recognize a consistent line of teaching in the Bible that women do not have an official role in the ministry and rule of the church, the passages in Paul’s writings which bar them will be troublesome for us. On the other hand, our problems with these admittedly difficult passages are much less severe if we see that the apostle was giving expression to a consistent line of teaching that existed from the very beginning—from Genesis 1–3, to Proverbs 31 (portrayal of the ideal woman who is remarkably free to do many things, but who does not sit in the gate where her husband sits with the elders managing the affairs of the church-city), to the example of Jesus himself (in appointing the apostles), to the early church (in appointing the seven), to the teaching and practice of the apostles (as in I Timothy 3). Then we can still allow for cultural, temporal and even local factors in the Pauline passages in question (and in others) without giving up their real thrust, a thrust fully in harmony with the rest of Paul’s writings and with the Scripture as a whole. As the Holy Spirit inspired the human authors to write the Scriptures, he did not wrest them out of the historical and cultural settings in which they wrote. Paul spoke from within a social structure that strongly disapproved of any suggestion of immodesty on the part of women as they appeared in public (see I Tim. 2:9).

He used the sharp words “disgrace” (I Cor. 11:6) and “disgraceful” (1 Cor. 14:35) in writing to the church at Corinth in which there was a spirit of proud worldliness and disorderliness.

An illustration of cultural conditioning is found in Paul’s admonition to slaves in Colossians 3:22–25. Is this passage to be dismissed as irrelevant today because in our culture we no longer have slaves? Not at all. The real thrust of the passage remains even though this cultural and temporal factor is present. Those who labor for others, for the slave masters of old or for employers of today, must do so as Christians, as slaves of Christ (Eph. 6:6). “Whatever you do,” says the apostle to all of us, “work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” A recital of a number of texts is hardly needed to show that this real thrust of the passage is fully consonant with the Spirit’s instruction elsewhere in Scripture.

Return to Biblical Confession

A final word concerning the hermeneutical innovations we have been discussing appears in the plain language of our Confession of Faith, Article VII. There the salient hermeneutical principle of the sufficiency of Scripture is confessed. “For since it is forbidden to add unto or take away anything from the Word of God, it does thereby evidently appear that the doctrine thereof is most perfect and complete in all respects. Neither may we consider any writings of men, however holy these men may have been, of equal value with those divine Scriptures, nor ought we to consider custom, or the great multitude, or antiquity, or succession of times and persons, or councils, decrees or statutes, as of equal value with the truth of God, since the truth is above all . . . .” I assume we may understand “councils” to include synods and assemblies. And in the words “custom . . . or succession of times and persons” we see reference to cultural value, movement and change.

We must be obedient to this blessed Word of truth. May we be fully aware of what such obedience means today as current hermeneutical notions threaten to rob the church of its sure guide. The Spirit of truth, we have been wisely taught, always leads the church in and through His written Word, never beyond, away from or contrary to that sure Word of the living God.

     

Notes *The RES newsletter, the source of this report, also stated that the president of this consistory was a woman.

Dear Rev. De Jong:

I feel that I owe you an explanation of the history of the accompanying article. The article was submitted to The Banner but was rejected. On January 30, 1984 I addressed a letter to the Board of Publications of the Christian Reformed Church protesting the loading of the January 23 issue of The Banner with material exclusively attacking the historic position of the church on the matter of women in office. In response the Board sent me through its secretary a gracious communication assuring me that at the meeting of the Board “the editor indicated that responsible articles taking the opposite position will not be rejected.”

This encouraged me to write the article and to submit it to The Banner. The article was returned to me with a letter from the editor informing me that the article would not be published. I shall leave it to the judgment of the readers to decide whether the article can be called “responsible.”

Sincerely,

Edward Heerema Cape Coral, Florida