The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) will meet from June 7-10—and one of the subjects attendees plan to discuss is women’s roles in church leadership. Down here in the Bible Belt of Southern Virginia, that topic is all but taking over my social media algorithms.
The debaters on one side claim that God will, or can, only call males into the role of pastor. Others believe that God has the power and authority to call anyone he so chooses to do any job he sees fit. I tend to fall in with the latter group.
Much of the current controversy has been spurred by Dr. R. Albert Mohler, a prominent American conservative within the evangelical movement and president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
However, the question of women in church leadership roles isn’t new and certainly isn’t unique to Southern Baptist circles. In fact, many Christian denominations and congregations bicker back and forth on biblical interpretation, cultural context, and whether the apostle Paul made blanket statements for all Christian churches forever or just to the congregations he addressed in specific letters.
I find great interest in those letters—and even more so, in what folks deem absolute and what they let slide.
A prime example of a verse used to dismiss women from church leadership, but is generally ignored in other areas, is found in the book of 1 Timothy. If you’ve got on rose-colored glasses, I’d gently suggest taking them off for this one.
How attached are you to this list of requirements?
In 1 Timothy 3:1-7, the apostle Paul gives a lengthy list of requirements for church leaders (elders, bishops).
To hold that position, they must be:
- above reproach
- the husband of one wife
- sober-minded
- self-controlled
- respectable
- hospitable
- able to teach
- not a drunkard
- not violent, but gentle
- not quarrelsome
- not a lover of money
- able to manage his own household well and keep his children submissive
- not a recent convert
- well thought of by outsiders
I can only assume that churches with clergy claiming to strictly adhere to every single bullet point found in those verses are perfect.
Otherwise, things like “husband to one wife” would exclude any man who’s never married—or those who’ve had a divorce, right? PEW Research found in a 2023-24 study that 66% of divorcees identified as Christian. That’s a pretty large swath of people to potentially disqualify over an action that has foundations for a biblical back-out.
What about guys who don’t have kids? They’re also disqualified from holding a leadership position in the church if the above requirements stand at face-value. And please don’t get me started on being above reproach because in Mark 10:18b, Jesus said, “No one is good—except God alone.”
What’s also interesting to me is that just below the requirement verses about elders come requirement verses about deacons (1 Timothy 3:8-13). There, we also see “husband to one wife,” yet, Phoebe is mentioned as a deacon in the Bible. Must’ve been a typo—as must be Junia, a woman whom Paul referred to as “outstanding among the apostles.”
Does God call women to share the Gospel?
There are a few Bible verses that—when taken out of context—seem to give credence to the idea of male dominance at the head of the church. But when we compare those verses to other stories in the Bible where women do have Gospel leadership roles, in my opinion, the “male only” concept falls apart.
In recent years here in the Southside, I’ve heard the argument that women “can” preach—so long as it’s to other women or children. The question I have: is that God’s standard or man’s? Let’s look at examples we can find in Scripture.
Jesus himself interacted with the world’s first Christian evangelist. Much to the shock of his disciples, Jesus wasn’t talking to a man at the well. He was speaking with a woman—who then went into her town and told people about him.
And no, the Bible doesn’t say she just told the women and the children. The story states that once she told folks, they came out of the town to meet Jesus—and that many of the Samaritans believed that he was the Messiah initially because of the woman’s testimony, and then more came to that conclusion after spending time with him.
We see another instance of women sharing the Gospel soon after Jesus rose from the dead. In fact, Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” were the first to learn of his resurrection. In that instance, we encounter Jesus himself directing the women in Matthew 28:10: “Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
Then, there’s Dorcas, a woman known for her charity in Joppa, whom the Bible references in Act 9:36 as a “disciple.”
And Priscilla, a prominent early Christian leader and missionary. She and her husband, Aquila, hosted church services in their home. The couple also ministered to Apollos, a great speaker who, in Acts 18:28, “proved from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah.” When Paul referred to the couple in Romas 16:3, he called them his “co-workers in Christ Jesus.”
Claiming that if God calls women to preach, it’s only to women and children? That’s a direct violation of the examples we see from Jesus himself, as well as throughout the New Testament. And I’ll take that as gospel over what folks in any manmade convention say any day.
Intrigued by this? Next time, I’ll delve into a historical and contextual account of 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35—an additional passage often used to undermine women—and what we can glean from researching it today. Write to me at amie@couriernewsroom.com to share your findings, questions, comments, and opinions.
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