Fully appreciating those scriptures that forbid females to preach, I still very much profit spiritually from virtually all of the contemporary female preachers whom I watch on T.V. In doing so, am I breaking the law of God? Is this law (I Corinthians 14:35) in harmony with the needs of contemporary believers and the socio-cultural conditions in which we live? Is the Bible out of sync on this issue? If it is, how can this be so if he word of God is divine and infallible? This concerns me chiefly because I’m catching flack from my fellow Baptists! I personally find it ludicrous in this day and time to forbid female preaching. God knows His churches and His followers want and need all the inspiration, teaching, and hope that is available. ~ S. C. Surratt, (An Unhappy Independent Baptist) Winston-Salem, NC
It is true, of course, that the New Testament prohibits females from teaching or preaching under circumstances where they thereby subject males to them.
“Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church” (1 Corinthians 14:34-35).
“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence” (1 Timothy 2:11-12).
There are occasions when women may publicly address female audiences (e.g., lectures) where, because males are not present, they are not prohibited from preaching. There are other instances in which a woman may teach privately, though men may be present (Acts 18:26), when she does not violate Scripture, since the other members of the religious discussion do not subject themselves to her. This would be comparable to any religious discussion or Bible class where a woman is not the teacher to whom all other participants are subject. In one sense, a woman teaches publicly, even in the assembly, with divine permission when she sings songs (Colossians 3:16). However, women are forbidden by inspired Scripture to preach in the presence of men.
Yet, women are not the least inferior to men intellectually and certainly not spiritually. It is no wonder, then, that many men and women benefit from the teaching afforded them by women who are students of God’s Word (e.g., children in the home or Bible classes, family members in the home including husbands and grown sons, men and women in Bible studies where no one is subject to another because there is no teacher as such, men and women in Bible classes where all class participants are amendable to a class teacher, written materials). However, it remains that God assigned differing roles in the church for men and women. Women are forbidden by inspired Scripture to preach in the presence of men.
Watching a woman preach on television, in my opinion, does not afford a circumstance where the viewer is obligated or subjected to the speaker; the viewer, man or woman, can change the channel or turn the television off at will. The woman, though, that proposes to “preach” to the public, including men, goes beyond the role in religion that God assigned her.
So-called “socio-cultural conditions” were never the criteria by which respective male and female roles in the New Testament were implemented. The relationship of the female role to the male role (i.e., women subject to men) pertains to the origin of each gender and the supportive role of woman at creation.
“For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man” (1 Corinthians 11:8-9).
Further, the order of creation affects the respective roles of men and women. “For Adam was first formed, then Eve” (1 Timothy 2:13). Additionally, woman, represented shortly after creation by Eve, was deceived, leading her to sin. “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (1 Timothy 2:14). Eve was not only deceived, but she was the first human to sin. (Adam sinned as a result of his devotion to Eve and his failure to lead as God intended. Scripture, naturally, does not excuse Adam in his sin.)
The reasons given in God’s inspired Word for the respective roles of men and women in the church predate the development of “socio-cultural conditions.” Therefore, social and cultural considerations are irrelevant to the God-ordained roles of men and women in religion. The New Testament plainly assigns differing roles for men and women in the church and nothing in Scripture or since by any means mitigates, alters or changes in the least what God caused to be inscribed upon the pages of inspiration regarding this topic.
If God had granted me the option of assigning roles to men and women in religion, I, too, probably would make some changes. From a practical perspective, I cannot see the harm in allowing women greater freedom in religion, such as preaching or teaching publicly to audiences in which men are present. However, God did not ask for any human’s advice in this or any other matter on which he legislated in the Bible. If God’s Word can be understood clearly regarding the respective roles of men and women in the church (and it can), if God means what he says (and he does; Uzzah, 1 Chronicles 13:9-10) and if mankind will be judged by the written Word (and he will; John 12:48; Revelation 20:12), no one dare change the doctrine of the New Testament at all (Revelation 22:18-19).
The fact that many males may not rise to the occasion to be teachers and preachers is a sad commentary on men, but that human failure does not negate God’s law respecting the roles of men and women in the church. The fact that many males may not rise to the occasion to be the husbands and fathers in the home that they should be is a sad commentary on men, but that human failure does not, for instance, make a wife into a husband or make a mother into a father. The home needs both male and female roles to be the coordinated home that God designed it to be. Likewise, the church needs both male and female roles to be the coordinated church that God designed it to be.
The real question is one of authority. To whom shall we turn for authority in religion to make the laws by which the church will conduct itself ¾ God or mankind? The period of the Judges was characterized by a general failure to recognize the authority of God. “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). The apostle Paul, though, cautioned in the New Testament that each of us must seek, for our own spiritual welfare, the authority of Jesus Christ. “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him” (Colossians 3:17). After all, Jesus said that he possessed all authority. “. . . All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18, ASV).
