Plus de pensées sur les rôles des femmes dans l'église

Au lieu de poursuivre la discussion que commencé dans la section commentaires de mon poteau précédent sur le rôle des femmes dans la conduite, j'ai décidé d'ajouter un nouveau poteau.

Je suis pas du tout convaincu que Scripture interdit s'exercer de la conduite ou l'enseignement des hommes par des femmes. Ce n'est pas tellement que je suis tout à fait convaincu que Scripture enseigne une position égalitaire. Il est plus que je ne suis pas convaincu de la position complentarian. Donné cette réalité, j'errerais plutôt du côté de la grace et de la liberté. Et on dise la vérité, je suis beaucoup une égalitaire au coeur. Et puisque je ne me sens pas comme s'il est contre Scripture ou mes convictions à être un égalitaire, je cours heureusement avec lui.

Néanmoins, je voudrais s'engager dans un peu d'exégèse. Je ne suis pas un disciple-loin de bible de -mais me permets d'aborder un des passages plus difficiles dans le nouveau testament pour des positions égalitaires. En fait, la plupart des passages semblent assez facilement pour que la foule égalitaire adresse, à une exception : 1 Timothy 2:11 - 15…

Laissez une femme apprendre tranquillement avec tout le submissiveness. Je ne permets pas à une femme d'enseigner ou exercer l'autorité au-dessus d'un homme ; plutôt, elle doit rester tranquille. Pour Adam a été formé d'abord, puis la veille ; et Adam n'a pas été trompé, mais la femme a été trompée et est devenue un transgressor. Pourtant elle sera sauvée à travers grossesse-s ils continuent dans la foi et l'amour et la sainteté, avec le sang-froid.

Voici le mon lu sur ce passage. The “submissiveness” here doesn’t seem to be “submissiveness” to men, but submissiveness to God or to the assembly. Being unsubmissive, then, doesn’t mean that they had the audacity to lead men or the audacity to speak up. Being unsubmissive means that they were not yielding appropriately to Christ and/or the assembly.

Paul cannot mean that women cannot teach in a broad sense–it must be a very specific sense of teaching (since there are examples in Scripture of women teaching in different senses. I agree that there are cases when women cannot teach. I simply don’t think there is a universal principle here. I also don’t think that women, by default, should be kept from leadership or teaching roles. But the key to understanding this particular situation is that Paul contrasts “teaching and having authority over men” with remaining quiet. Clearly, women are not always to remain silent, since elsewhere in the Pauline canon Paul instructs women in the proper way of prophesying and whatnot.

So, then, this is a particular case when women are to be quiet, rather than in teaching or exercising authority. Why is it that we make this a universal teaching, when it is clearly a particular instance in which we cannot see all the issues readily within the text?

You might say “Mark, you cannot so easily dismiss the complementarian reading of this text, for this teaching is rooted in the creation order!” Fair enough. And it is this reality that renders this the most problematic passage to the egalitarian. However, this passage only makes the point that women should be submissive…and since the earlier use of this word doesn’t seem to refer to male-female relations, then this doesn’t seem to argue for a gender hierarchy, but for women to be submissive.

This is hardly an original thought, but given all of this, I cannot help but think that the situation of that ancient congregation involved a group of women acting in a way that was not appropriate. I do not think that the inappropriate situation was that women were merely teaching men and acting in an eldering capacity. The situation was that unsubmissive women (in my earlier sense of the word) were teaching and having authority. Instead, they should learn from their mother Eve, who was deceived. The implication is that these particular women are being deceived. This seems like a valid interpretation. After all, in 2 Cor 11:3 Paul uses Eve as an example of anyone who is deceived.

The reason this passage is interpreted the way it is by complementarians is that they seem to assume that what Paul means by “submissive” is “submissive to men” and that the reference to Adam and Eve is meant to demonstrate a universal status for men and women. Instead, I think that submission is meant in a broader sense and that the reference to Adam and Eve is an admonition to eschew deception. These particular women are being inappropriate in their manner of teaching and having authority and as a result, Paul instructs the women to be quiet.

for further reading . . .

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