The Role of Women in Worship in the Old Testament

by Dr. Bruce Waltke

I. Introduction

In this lecture (1) I aim to offer a
broad survey of the role of women in the Bible, with particular emphasis on the
Old Testament, to help the Church appraise critically the impact feminism has
had upon it. I offer these theological reflections to encourage and to assist
the Church to retain what is good from the feminist legacy and to reject what is
bad.

Feminism has significantly impacted society at large, our churches
and our homes. Mary Kassian in her penetrating analysis of the feminist
perspective, which she once embraced, wrote:

"We encounter and interact with the feminist perspective daily on issues
such as gender roles, affirmative action, reproduction technology, abortion,
rape, abuse, day care and pay equity. Feminist ideology is also visible in the
Church. Many books and articles have been published that Scripture supports
undifferentiated roles for men and women. The ordination of women to
leadership offices is common place. Denominational women's task forces,
women's studies courses in seminaries, feminist theology, inclusive language,
revised inclusive lectionaries and feminist rituals are well accepted in many
denominations." (2)

It is this legacy as it applies to the Church which I aim to appraise in
order to sift the wheat from the chaff and thereby edify the
Church.

History of feminism. To provide a context for this
assessment I will avoid the briar-patch of defining feminism, which is not
essential for our purposes, but instead present Kassian's insightful analysis of
its history. Probably basing herself on Mary Daly's thesis that to exist humanly
is to name the self, to name the world, and to name God, (3) Kassian analyzes
its history into three periods roughly congruent with the nineteen sixties,
seventies, and eighties.

In the sixties feminism was called "women's
liberation," a time when feminists disallowed men to define their identity and
called upon women to define themselves. Kassian brings her discussion of this
decade to the conclusion:

"As the first decade of the women's movement ended, women all across the
continent began to claim the right to name and define themselves. By August
26, 1970, on the fiftieth anniversary of women's suffrage in America, 20,000
women marched proudly down New York's Fifth Avenue identifying themselves as
part of the women's liberation movement. Freedman summed up the tenor of the
movement, when at the conclusion of the march she blazed: 'In the religion of
my ancestors, there was a prayer that Jewish men said every morning. They
prayed, "Thank thee Lord, that I was not born a woman." Today all women are
going to be able to say, "Thank thee, Lord, that I was born a woman...."'
After tonight, the politics of this nation will never be the same again. There
is no way any man, woman or child can escape the nature of our revolution. (4)

According to Kassian, when in the seventies women took it in hand to define
the world (i.e., psychology, sociology, marriage and so forth) from their
perspective, the movement shifted from Women's Liberation to feminism. She
summarizes:

Women were different from men, but this fact was not a source of shame, but
rather a source of pride. Feminism taught that women aught to be proud of
their different bodies and their different perceptions. The 'male'
interpretations of the past were therefore boldly rejected and replaced with
interpretations reflecting a feminist definition of reality. The feminist view
was so widely accepted in some circles that it became the mode and norm for
truth. Women had not only claimed the right to name themselves, but also the
right to name and define the world around them. (5)

During the eighties feminism shifted to defining God. Kassian cites Rosemary
Radford Ruether as an example:

If we are to seek an image of God beyond patriarchy, certain basic
principles have to be acknowledged. First, we have to acknowledge the
principal that the male has no special priority in imaging God. Christian
theology has always recognized, theoretically, that all language for God is
analogical and metaphorical, not literal. No particular image can be regarded
as the exclusive image for God. Images for God must be drawn from the whole
range of human experience, from both genders and all social classes and
cultures. To take one image drawn from one gender and in one sociological
context (that of the ruling class) as normative for God is to legitimate this
gender and social group as the normative possessors of the image of God and
representatives of God on earth. This is idolatry. (6)

Kassian concludes:

The phenomena of inclusive language recognized and further served to
reinforce the paradigm offered by feminist theology. It, more than theological
rhetoric, brought the feminist debate to the level of the ordinary believer as
women's studies had done. Feminist theology was thereby translated from an
academic philosophy to the level of practical daily worship of the Christian
community. Feminists had named themselves and world, and now, through
inclusive language, they and their Christian communities began to name God. (7)

With that historical context I now turn to appraise by Scripture the impact
of the feminist perspective upon the church both positively and negatively. I
orginally entitled this lecture "The Role of Women in Worship" because from the
biblical perspective believers offer their entire lives as an act of worship to
him, even as Adam and Eve offered theirs in the Garden of Eden. However, for
most the term has the more restricted sense pertaining to
liturgy.

Hermeneutical issues and the method of criticism. Before looking
at specific texts, however, the hermeneutical question of how texts conditioned
by historical particularity can be normative for the contemporary Church must be
addressed.

The order of creation is normative. To transcend the
historically particular and culturally conditioned situation in which Scripture
is given and to find what is normative for the practice of the covenant people I
first examine the role of women before the Fall. The two creation accounts,
Genesis 1:1-2:3 and 2:4-25, represent God's design for men and women, husbands
and wives. The rest of Scripture recounts a sacred story that to a large extent
is moving toward the restoration of this ideal. (8) It treats this
charter for humanity as normative for the covenant community, though sometimes
concessions are made because of the hardness of the human heart (Matthew 19:8).
In the light of this ideal I will examine the rest of the Old Testament and, in
addition, note some of its continuities and discontinuities with the New
Testament.

The order of creation, which is set forth in these two
accounts, stands behind the order of redemption, which is represented in the
rest of Scripture. For example, the Fourth Commandment (Exodus 20:8-11) to
refrain from work on the Sabbath is based on the first creation account that God
ceased his own work on that day (2:2-3). The Seventh Commandment (Exodus 20:14)
to not commit adultery is founded on the institution of marriage in the Garden
of Eden according to the second account (Genesis 2:18-25). The Sixth Commandment
(Exodus 20:15) protects innocent life because every life is created in God's
image (Genesis 1:26-28; cf. 5:1-3; 9:6).

Moreover, our Lord aimed to
recapture for his Church the Creator's original intention for marriage (Matthew
19:1-9), and the Apostle Paul based on these accounts his arguments concerning
the roles of husbands and wives in the home and in the Church (1 Corinthians
11:3-12:1; 1 Timothy 2:12-15).

In sum, the Bible is a story of Paradise
lost in the first Adam and being regained in the Second. The Garden of Eden
symbolically represents the ideal culture that was lost and that Moses restored
in the old Israel through the law given at Sinai and that Christ restores more
perfectly in the new Israel through the law written on the heart.

Furthermore, the historically conditioned texts in the rest of the Old
Testament cannot be ruled out of hand as not normative practices of the Church
in its worship before God for at least three reasons.
God ordained Israel's
culture. First, God sovereignly ordained the culture in which he became
incarnate. The roles played by godly woman in ancient Israel are due to his
design, not to chance. The Sovereign God, not Lady Luck, is Israel's Lord. Since
his sovereignty extends even to assigning the pagans their gods and their
cultures (Deut 4:19), we may rightly suppose that the Sovereign did not hand
over to Chance either his representation of himself as Father, Son and Spirit,
or the form of government for the nation that he chose to bless the world by
embodying and disseminating his teaching (cf. Genesis 18:18-19).

Orthodox
theology cannot consent to Krister Stendal's comment, made while he was still
dean of Harvard Divinity School, that God's numerous and strong masculine
metaphors for himself is largely an accident. (9) According to him,
"the masculinity of God and of God-language, is a cultural and linguistic
accident, and I think one should also argue that the masculinity of Christ is in
the same order. To be sure, Jesus Christ was a male, but that may be no more
significant to his being than the fact that, presumably his eyes were brown."
(10) In truth,
however, the Bible, in contrast to other biographies, curiously does not mention
anything about our Lord's physical appearance apart from his masculinity,
suggesting it has theological relevance. His incarnation occurred at the right
time and in the right way according to God's own sovereign purposes (Gal.
4:2-4).

Prophets critique Israel's culture but not patriarchy.
Second, Israel's prophets, God's mouth, were iconoclasts, not traditionalists,
who called Israel into the dock for numerous injustices. Abraham Heschel in his
justly praised work, The Prophets, makes the point:

"They challenged the injustices of their culture. The prophet is an
iconoclast, challenging the apparently holy, revered and awesome, beliefs
cherished as certainties, institutions endowed with supreme sanctity. They
exposed the scandalous pretensions, they challenged kings, priests,
institutions and the temple." (11)

However, not one of these cultural revolutionaries regarded patriarchy as an
unjust or oppressive form of government. Quite the contrary. They interpreted
the rule by women as God's judgment against the sinful nation. Isaiah, for
example, ridicules it: "Children are their oppressors, and women rule over them"
(Isaiah 3:12). They inveighed instead against abuse of power that oppressed
women: "The women of my people you cast out from their pleasant homes" (Micah
2:9). They gave a voice for those too weak to have a voice, especially the
fatherless and widows: "They do not defend the fatherless, nor does the widow's
cause come before them" (Isaiah 1:23).

Practice of Christ Jesus
confirms patriarchy. Third, our Lord was a revolutionary in his age own with
regard to the role of women in worship. He amazed his disciples by conversing
with a woman because he violated the prejudice of both the Jews and the Romans
against women (John 4:27). The Son of God bestowed dignity upon this Samaritan
adulteress, "unclean" by Jewish standards, by revealing to her for the first
time that worship would now be directed toward the Father in heaven, not toward
"mecca-like" Jerusalem on earth (John 4:21-25). Moreover, our Lord entrusted
women to be the original witnesses to his resurrection, the cornerstone of the
Christian faith, though their testimony would have been discounted in a Roman
court (Luke 24:1-4). He rewarded the devotion of Mary of Magdala, out of whom he
had cast seven demons, by allowing her to be the first person to meet him after
his resurrection (Mark 16:9-10; John 20:14-18). His disciples refused to believe
Mary's report of the rist Lord. In fact, they dismissed it as an 'idle tale'
(Mark 16:11; Luke 24:11). Later, Jesus rebuked them for their unwillingness to
believer her (Mark16:14) Yet he implicitly confirmed the Old Testament
patriarchy by not appointing a woman as an apostle, though women followed him,
ministered to him, and were his close friends. It is nonsense to argue that the
counter-cultural Jesus appointed only male apostles because he was culturally
conditioned. Is it not plausible to think that had he intended to empower women
to have equality with men in leadership he would have called a woman to be an
apostle, either before or after the resurrection?

II. Forbidden Fruit

If Kassian's analysis of the history of feminism is accurate, those forms of
feminism which base their perspective about women, the world, and God on human
autonomy, apart from the Bible's teaching, is fundamentally flawed. Elsewhere I
have argued that an adequate epistemology must be based on revelation, not on
human reason, experience (e.g., so-called "callings") (12) , and/or
tradition (cf. Deuteronomy 8:3; Ezekiel 28:6, Ezekiel 15-17). (13)

This
truth is symbolically represented in the Second Account by God's prohibition not
to eat of the "tree of knowledge and good and evil." "The tree of knowledge of
good and evil" represents knowledge that is God's prerogative. As Christians we
know that the only accurate description of reality is that which is known to
God. He is the maker of reality and our only clear interpreter of it. Therefore
only the good Creator and moral Sovereign of the universe can legislate
inerrantly what promotes life and social well-being and what harms them. Our
first parents, by seizing this prerogative for themselves in order to become
equal with God, died spiritually and lost Paradise. To be sure eating the
forbidden fruit (i.e., living independently from God's revelation) appeared good
for food (i.e., of practical value), pleasant to the eye (i.e., having aesthetic
appeal), and desirable to make one wise (i.e., provided intellectual
gratification). The price, however, was too high. They lost a relationship both
with God, symbolized by hiding among the trees, and with one another, symbolized
by putting a barrier of clothing between them.

Biblical feminists
acknowledge the authority of the Bible, but they tend, I suggest, to interpret
Scripture in a way that favors their social agenda, viz: the equality of women
in authority and leadership. Regarding their zeal to ordain women leaders, we
need to ask, are they projecting their system upon the Bible, as a better
system, and thereby inflicting their own will for power against God's design?
Until the twentieth century the Church universally understood Scriptures to
teach male rulership in the Church, (14) but I observe
that many evangelical churches, certainly not all, have overthrown that heritage
on the superficial basis that scholars are divided on the issue. The truth is
scholars are divided on most theological issues, including the Bible's
trustworthiness. On that basis no doctrine is safe, and the more liberal
perspective must prevail. Like the Bereans, we need to examine "every day" the
Scriptures for ourselves to see what is the truth. Thistelton, citing Robert
Morgan, rightly advised pastors to be on guard that "some disagreements about
what the Bible means stem not from obscurities in the texts, but from
conflicting aims of the interpreters." (15)

III. Marriage and Motherhood

Feminism is also flawed in tending to give priority to fulfillment in careers
outside of the home over against fulfillment in childbearing within the marriage
structure. Recently I counselled a female student who felt guilty in wanting to
marry and bear children because her church wanted her to remain single and
minister to its needs.

According to the first creation account God
created humanity as male and female (Genesis 1:26-28; cf. Matthew 19:4),
whereupon he blessed them (i.e., filled them with potency to reproduce life and
to triumph over enemies (cf. Genesis 22:17) and commanded them to be fruitful
and multiply. He intended that they procreate his image and similitude (cf.
Genesis 5:1-3), thereby affording the opportunity to as many people as possible
to sit at his banquet table of life. Humanity is grounded in being male and
female, an immutably fixed, natural reality. Feminism in its desire for freedom
and power depreciates this fundamental design. "Grace," as Pope John Paul II
noted in his remarks to Roman Catholic bishops, "never casts nature aside or
cancels it [nature] out, but rather perfects it and ennobles it." (16)

In the
second creation account God gives Adam his bride and thereby institutes
marriage, defining them now as husband and wife. By instituting marriage in the
Garden of Eden, God represents marriage as an ideal and holy state, an act of
worship (Hebrews 13:4). Recall the Church restores the Garden. Therefore,
believers commit themselves in marriage to one another in the presence of God.
Marriage is the only social institution that precedes the Fall, and the homes
established through marriage provide the foundation stones for society. After
the Fall God instituted the State to protect society from criminals and the
Church to promote a new community of love in a world of hating and being hated
(Titus 3:3).

The Gift of the Bride story emphasizes the goodness of
marriage. The Lord's statement that Adam's singleness "is not good" (2:18) is
highly emphatic. Instead of saying "it is lacking in goodness," a normal Hebrew
way of saying that a situation is less than ideal, he emphatically calls it in
effect "bad." This account, with no trace of male chauvinism, ends with the coda
that the man leaves his parents to cling to his wife (2:24).

The rest of
the Old Testament also defines marriage as a holy and an ideal state. The most
holy people in the Old Testament were married. The High Priest, who alone could
enter once a year with awe and trembling into God's presence in the Most Holy
Place, was married. He had to marry a virgin, not a widow or divorcee, to
guarantee that the successor to his high and holy office was Aaron's offspring
(Leviticus 21:13-15), not because a formerly married woman was discarded as used
property. In fact, the Old Testament looks with compassion on both (Malachi
2:13-16, 3:6).
The Nazirite, the most holy person in the Old Testament by
choice, not by birth as in the case of the high priest, likewise was married
(see Numbers 6:1-21). By definition he or she was "separated" to God, but
Nazirites never fasted sexually. They showed their separation to the Creator by
not cutting their hair, just as an orchard was set apart to God by not pruning
it and an altar dedicated to God was not made of cut stones. They symbolized
their separation from earthly pleasures by not eating the fruit of the vine that
cheers both gods and people (Judges 9:13), and they showed they belonged to the
God of life by a total separation from death. However, they did not show their
separation to God by celibacy. Marriage was part of their consecration, worship,
and holiness.

Paul, however, elevates singleness for "gifted"
individuals to an even higher state (1 Corinthians 7). His design, however, is
not to favor women's careers outside the home over motherhood within it but
partially to enable them to be fully devoted to Christ without distraction. He
teaches as normative behavior that older women teach younger women "to love
their husbands and be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their
husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God" (Titus 2:4-5).

God
elevates godly mothers to the highest status after the Fall. In sovereign grace
he changed the fallen woman's affection against Satan and by so much toward
himself (Genesis 3:15). By his promise to give this new woman a triumphant,
though suffering, offspring, he implicitly assigned this new woman the role of
bearing the seed that would destroy the Serpent, the Adversary of God and
humanity. The quintessential expression of that seed is Christ who defeated
Satan on the cross, but the mandate finds its fulfillment in every covenant
child: "The God of peace," says the Apostle to the Church at Rome, "will soon
crush Satan under your feet" (Romans 16:20). In response to the promise to give
the woman seed to defeat Satan, believing Adam named his wife Eve, "because she
would become the mother of all the living" (Genesis 3:20). Every Christian
mother by being in Christ bears his holy children (1 Corinthians 7:14; cf.
Isaiah 53:10). If a woman has suffered any loss of leadership through her
creation (1 Timothy 2:12--13; cf. Genesis 2:18-25) and her historical guilt in
connection with the Fall (1 Timothy 2:14; cf. Genesis 3:1-14), says the
Apostle-if I understand him correctly-she will be saved from that loss through
bearing children in Christ, if the children continue in the faith, love, and
holiness with propriety (Genesis 3:15; 1 Timothy 2:15). In short, the Apostle is
saying, "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world." Pastors need to hold
before the women of their churches Mary's response to the angel's announcement
that she would be with child: "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you
have said." Mary models for Christian women a most important aspect of woman in
worship and ministry.

IV. The Equality of Men and Women

Most debated issues have the heuristic value of enabling one to see truth in
a new way. Feminism, as the history sketched above shows, has had the heuristic
value of reasserting the equality of women with men. Unfortunately, as has been
documented many times, both the synagogue and the Church have not only failed to
proclaim this glad truth but have shouted it down. It is black mark in sacred
history.

The error, however, lies in the interpreters of Scripture, not
in the Holy Bible itself. In the First Creation Account both men and women are
created in God's image. An image of the deity in the ancient Near East, as D. J.
A. Clines has shown, entailed dominion. (17) He cites a
cuneiform text dated about 675 B.C.: "It was said to Esarhaddon [the Assyrian
king], 'A free man is as the shadow of god, the slave is as the shadow of a free
man, but the he is like unto the very image of god.'" (18) God crowned men
and women as queens to rule over his entire creation, including the mysterious
serpent who "was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made"
(Genesis 3:1). Together, as his image, they share this derivative authority to
be culture makers.

The Second Account reinforces this equality and
clarifies it. When the Lord says, "I will make for Adam a helper suitable to
him," he means, he will form a woman who is equal to and adequate for the man.
She stands opposite him in her sexual differentiation and equal with him in her
personhood and dignity. Adam's repose to her formation from his own body are a
human being's only words preserved from before the Fall. Untouched by envy
and/or a desire to dominate and control her, he celebrates with admiration her
equality with him in elevated poetry, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of
my flesh." At the same time he recognizes her sexual differentiation from him:
"She shall be called 'woman' for she was taken out of man" (Genesis 2:23).

The rest of the Old Testament reinforces woman's equality in nature and
in dignity with men. Let me cite a few of many illustrations to make the point.
After Sarah over-reacted to the arrogance of her maidservant, Hagar, and had
driven her out of the house, the angel of the LORD found the run-away at a well.
He said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai...." The modern reader misses the significance
of that address. This is the only instance in all of the many thousands of
ancient Near Eastern texts where a deity, or his messenger, calls a woman by
name and thereby invests her with exalted dignity. Hagar is the Old Testament
counterpart to the Samaritan woman (see John 4). Both were women, both were not
of Abraham's family, and both were sinners, yet God treated both with
compassion, gave them special revelations and bestowed on them unconventional
dignity.
In the Old Testament women were called to be "prophetesses," God's
mouth in the world, on an equal footing with prophets. Miriam (ca. 1400 B.C.)
(Exodus 15:20f) was the first of several who are named, including Deborah
(Judges 4:4-7), Isaiah's wife (725 B.C.) (Isaiah 8:3), Huldah (640 B.C.) (2
Kings 22:13-20), and the false prophetess, Noadiah (ca. 450 B.C.) (Nehemiah
6:14). Joel (2:28) predicts that in the last days the LORD will fulfill Moses's
prayer that all the Lord's people, men and women alike, become prophets (Numbers
11:29). At Pentecost the Holy Spirit was given to both men and women, young and
old alike, to enable them to proclaim boldly the triumphant news, Jesus is Lord
of all, and to build his Church.

Huldah is a most remarkable prophetess
with regard to the question of women's roles in worship and ministry. During the
reformation of Josiah, his workmen, who were repairing the temple, found the
Book of the Law, which King Manasseh had neglected during the previous
generation. Josiah directed five leaders to inquire of the LORD about the book.
They went directly to the married prophetess to verify the book, not to her
famous contemporaries, Jeremiah and Zephaniah. Clarence Vos in his doctoral
dissertation on our topic comments:

"That officials from the royal court went to a prophetess relatively
unknown with so important a matter is strong indication that in this period of
Israel's history there is little if any prejudice against a woman's offering
of prophecy. If she had received the gift of prophecy, her words were to be
given the same authority as those of men." (19)

Women and men were also equal in prayer. Covenant women prayed directly to
God without the priestly mediation of their husbands. For example, when carnal
Jacob defaulted in his responsibility to pray for his barren wife (Gen 30:1-2),
in contrast to his godly forefathers who prayed for their children and wives
(cf. 24:7, 12-15; 25:21), Rachel petitioned God directly, and he listened to her
and opened her womb (30:22-24). Barren Hannah also sought dignity and worth
through child-bearing. She too went directly to God in prayer, independently
from her husband, Elkanah, and the high priest, Eli, both of whom were
insensitive to her need. In fact, when challenged by Eli, she spoke up and
defended her right (1 Samuel 1:15-16). She named her boy, "Asked of God," and
dedicated him to the LORD with the prayer that he would introduce kingship into
Israel (1 Samuel 2:10B). Hannah's prayer turned Israel around from the nadir of
its spiritual history and political misfortune and started it on its upward
ascent to its glory under David. A mother's prayer saved Israel and ruled it.

In addition to these prophetesses other women also received direct
revelations from God. When Rebekah felt the twins struggling in her womb, she
asked the LORD, "why is this happening to me?," a question written large across
the page of history. The LORD revealed to her Jacob's triumph over Esau. Isaac,
however, gave priority to his sensual appetite over God's revelation, set
himself against his wife, and made the holy family dysfunctional (Genesis
25:22-23, 28; 27:1-40). When King Jeroboam wanted a revelation from God he sent
his disguised wife to the prophet Ahijah, who entrusted God's word to her, and
she in turn mediated it to her husband (1 Kings 14:1-18).
Woman sang and
danced in worship, expressions of the acme of life. Miriam and Deborah composed
the two oldest pieces of literature preserved in the Bible, which are regarded
by scholars as literary masterpieces (Exodus 15 and Judges 5). Women celebrated
before the LORD with singing, dancing, and tambourines (e.g., 1 Samuel 18:6;
Psalm 68:25), but they were not a part of the temple choir.

Mothers
stood on equal footing with fathers in teaching children: "She speaks with
wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue" (Proverbs 31:26). Israel's
sages were also cultural revolutionaries with regard to the role of women
teaching in the home. The father's command to the son, "do not forsake your
mother's teaching" (Proverb 1:8), seems unexceptional to the modern reader.
However, nowhere else in the wisdom literature of the ancient Near East, from
the Euphrates to the Nile, is the mother mentioned as a teacher. In order for
the mother to teach Israel's inherited wisdom, she herself had first to be
taught, suggesting that "son" in the Book of Proverbs is inclusivistic, not
gender specific.

Women in the Old Testament offered sacrifices and gifts
along with men (cf. Leviticus 12:6). The laws for ceremonial cleansing in
connection with bodily emissions were essentially the same for both sexes
(Leviticus 15). Women as well as men consecrated themselves to God as Nazirites
(Numbers 6:2). Sarah, when wronged by her female servant and by the apathy of
her husband to the injustice inflicted upon her, appealed to God for justice,
but she did not issue an ultimatum to Abraham that either Hagar goes or she goes
(Genesis 16:5).

The role of women in ministry in the New Testament is
better known. Luke takes pains to stress the important role that woman played on
Paul's second missionary journey when he established the church in Macedonia and
Achaia (cf. Acts 16:13; 17:4, 12, 34; 18:2). The Apostle had a vision of a man
of Macedonia begging him to come and help him (16:9), but when he arrived he
found women in prayer who became his first converts (vv. 11-15). Phoebe,
Prisc(illa), Junia, Euodia, Syntyche are celebrated as "minister" (diakonos),
"co-worker" (sunergos), and "missionary" (apostolos).
The mutual submission
of men and women to one another is unique to the New Testament. However, their
equality before God in their nature, spiritual gifts, and prayer is found in
both testaments. It is a dramatic irony that feminists, who malign the Old
Testament for its patriarchialism, opened my eyes to this truth.

The
question of the role of woman in worship is not whether women should participate
in ministry-they obviously should-but whether they should rule the Church. We
now turn to that question.

IV. Male Priority in Government

Feminist, however, universally reject the patriarchal religion of the Bible.
Nevertheless, male authority in the home and in the Church is founded on the
order of creation and reinforced in the order of redemption.

God
established a patriarchy by creating Adam first and the woman to help the man
(Genesis 2:18, cited above). As Paul noted in a passage dealing with the role of
men and women, one which demands its own study: "For man did not come from
woman, but woman from man, neither was man created for woman, but woman for man"
(1 Corinthians 11:8-9). Presumably, God designed patriarchy as his ideal form of
government. Had he intended democracy he could just as easily have formed Eve
and Adam at the same time and have said, "it is not good for the man or woman to
be alone, I will make them to be helpers suitable to each other." If he wanted a
matriarchy, he would have formed Eve first and created the husband to be a
suitable helper to his wife. However, he created a patriarchy in which the
husband has authority.

God prepares the husband for leadership before
giving him his bride by having Adam name the living creatures (Genesis 2:19-20).
In the ancient Near East, as today, naming is a form of leadership. For example,
when the Israelites conquered Transjordan, they asserted their authority by
renaming the rebuilt cities (Numbers 32:38), and Pharaoh Neco asserted his rule
over Eliakim by renaming him Jehoiakim (2 Kings 23:34). After the Lord gave Adam
his bride, Adam tactfully used the passive form of construction, presumably not
to dominate, to give her generic name: "she shall be called woman..." (Genesis
2:23b) (21). After the Fall, he calls out her personal name, "Eve" (Genesis
3:20). In the rest of the Old Testament both parents name the children. (20)

As a
result of the Fall and God's judgment upon them, the woman desires to rule her
husband, and he seeks to dominate her (Genesis 3:16B) (21) The solution to
this tragic power struggle that divides the home is the new creation in Christ,
in which the husband humbles himself and in love serves his wife, and the wife
submits herself to him in faithful obedience in everything.

The rest of
Scripture sustains patriarchy, not democracy or matriarchy.

God, who is
over all, represents himself by masculine names and titles, not feminine. He
identifies himself as Father, Son and Spirit, not Parent, Child and Spirit, or
Mother, Daughter and Spirit. Jesus taught his Church to address God as "Father"
(Luke 4:2) and to baptize nations "in the name of Father, and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19). God's titles, are King, not Queen; Lord, not
Mistress. (22)
God, not mortals, has the right to name himself. Its inexcusable hubris on the
part of mortals to change the images by which the eternal God chooses to
represent himself. We cannot change his name or titles without committing
idolatry for we will have re-imaged him in a way other than the metaphors and
the incarnation by which he revealed himself. representations and incarnation
are inseparable from his being. Moreover, in contrast to male imagery, one
cannot introduce feminine imagery without introducing sexual connotations. In
Hebrew grammar the masculine form is inclusivistic (i.e., with reference to
animate beings it can be used of male and female), but the feminine form is
marked (i.e., with reference to animate beings only the female is in view). (23)

In the
mystery of Godhead, in which the three persons are both one and equal, the Son
obeys the Father, and the Spirit obeys both. Paradoxically Jesus says both that
"I and the Father are one" (John 10:28) and "the Father is greater than I."
Jesus veiled his own glory to follow the path of humble obedience (Philippians
2:6-11). The idea that hierarchy is an evil that can be transcended is a failed
Marxist notion, not biblical teaching.

Although God gave Israel
prophetesses, he did not give them priestesses in contrast to other religions in
the ancient Near East. Recall it was the priests duty to the teach the Law of
the Lord to the people (Deuteronomy 17:11; 33:10)

A woman has the right
to make vows to the LORD independently from her husband, as in the case of
Hannah, but the husband, in the case of a married woman, and the father, in the
case of a young daughter living in her father's house (Numbers 30:16), had the
right to overrule it: "But if her husband overrules her on the day that he hears
it, he shall make void her vow which she took ..., and the LORD will release
her" (30:8). A wife or daughter cannot overrule the husband's or father's
authority in the home by claiming she made a vow to the Lord, a higher authority
than her male attachment, which she must obey. The Lord stands behind the
authority of a husband or father. This is not because woman is inferior but to
protect the government of the home. The vow of a widow or a divorcee is as
binding on these unattached women as a vow is upon the man (Numbers 30:9).

It is on the spiritual foundation that husbands and wives submit to one
another out of reverence for Christ that Paul commands wives to submit to their
husbands: "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the
head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, so also wives should
submit to their husbands in everything" (Ephesians 5:21-24). Peter holds up
Sarah as an example of a godly wife. In her self-talk (cf. Genesis 18:12) she
referred to Abraham as her lord: "For this is the way the holy women of the past
who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were
submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him
her master" (1 Peter 3:1-6). If we want to be revolutionary, let's put "obey"
back in the woman's wedding vows.

There are many texts in both
testaments that teach husbands have authority over their wives. For example,
"the elder must be the husband of one wife" (1 Timothy 3:2), never "... the wife
of one husband." One cannot appoint a wife as a leader of the local church
without upsetting this government for if a wife were an elder her husband would
be subject to her authority: "Obey your leaders and submit to their authority"
(Hebrews 13:7).

Deborah, however, who was married, is one clear
exception to patriarchy (Judges 4:4-7). Probably, however, it is the exception
that proves the rule. In addition to being a prophetess, Deborah was "judging"
(i.e., "ruling") Israel. The narrator, however, makes his intention clear by
carefully shaming the Israelite men at that time for their fear so that none
dared to assume leadership. Note, for example, how Deborah shames Barak, the
military commander of Israel's army, for his failure to assume leadership. After
she mediated God's command to him to join battle with Sisera, commander of the
Canaanite army, Barak replies: "If you go with me, I will go; but if you don't
go with me, I won't go." To which Deborah responds, "Very well...I will go with
you. But because of the way you are going about this (i.e., full of fear) the
honor will not be yours, the LORD will hand Sisera over to a woman (i.e., to
shame him (cf. Judges 9:54). Apparently, the LORD raised up this exceptional
woman, who was full of faith, to disgrace the men of Israel for their lack of
faith, which is essential to leadership in the holy nation. If so, the story
aims to reprove unfaithful men for not taking leadership, not to present an
alternative norm to male authority. The story also shows, however, that the Lord
is above culture and not restricted by normative patriarchy.

VI. Conclusion

We commend feminists for asserting the equality of women with men as equals
in nature, dignity, gifts and ministry. However, we condemn the arrogance of
those who autonomously name God, the world and self. We also contend against
those who see marriage as a galling bondage and/or who look down upon motherhood
within the structure of marriage as a lesser ministry than ministries outside
the home. Finally, we find the insistence of feminists on the equality of wives
with husbands in authority and leadership as unbiblical.

It is essential
to the message of the gospel that husbands love their wives and that wives
submit to the authority of their husbands. If husbands and wives are equal in
leadership, how does the husband exemplify a new model of leadership wherein the
ruler becomes a servant (Matt 20:25-28). And if a woman seeks to become
empowered as an equal to her husband in authority, how does she show the
submission of the Church to the Lord?

Tragically the elders in the
Church and husbands in the home, often out of a distorted emphasis on their
headship and their depreciation of the Spirit's gift that empower women to
minister, have both consciously and unconsciously suppressed women and quenched
the Spirit. The feminist perspective has rightly exposed this
abuse.

Again, however, the problem is our failure to interpret the Bible
accurately. The model of leadership is that of a servant. Jesus models the
servant King who so loved his queen that he died for her. The willingness to do
the grand gesture of dying for a loved one becomes a practical reality only to
the extent that one practices self-surrendering services as a way of life. The
"servant" empowers his wife to use her spiritual gifts to their fullest
potential. On the other hand, the Bible instructs the wife to respect her
husband as her lord, which entails obeying him in everything. It is important to
note the Bible neither instructs the woman to manipulate the man to serve her,
to be the proverbial "neck that turns the head," nor the husband to have his
wife in subjection, to be the head that lords itself over the body. Serving and
obeying in mutual subjection are inward beauties worked in our hearts,
consciences, behaviors and customs by the Holy Spirit. These are ideals for
which we strive, though recognizing we never fully attain them any more than
other perfections of holiness. Our failure to realize them perfectly should be
accompanied with repentence and renewed faith, not by cynicism, despair, or
seeking new social structures.

I am a member of a church where I submit
to women leaders because I am called upon to endeavor to keep the unity of the
Spirit until we come to the full knowledge of Christ (Ephesians 4:1-13). It is
wrong to divide the body of Christ, which confesses Jesus as Lord and believes
in its heart that God raised him from the dead, on such nonmoral issues as modes
of baptism, eschatology, belief in the continuation or cessation of gifts, or
the Church's form of government. However, I ask my church and others like it
which I am full persuaded sincerely "want to find out what is acceptable to the
Lord" (Ephesians 5:10), to reassess whether their practice of ordaining women to
rule them has been impacted by the feminist perspective or by the bibilical.

References:

1. This article is an adaptation of a lecture
given in Regent Summer School, 1992

2. Mary A.
Kassian, The Feminist Gospel: The Movement to Unite Feminism with the
Church (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1992), p. ix.

3. Mary Daly, The Church and the Second Sex
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), p. 58

4. Kassian,
pp. 67

5. Kassian, pp. 87f.

6. Rosemary Radford Ruether, "Feminist Theology and
Spirituality," Christian Feminism, p. 16, cited by Kassian, p. 140.

7. Kassian, p. 147.

8. Revelation 21 and 22 present the end of that history in
images representing the Garden of Eden as regained.

9. God uses six feminine similes for himself (e.g., Isaiah
42:14).

10. Cited by Kassian, p. 141.

11. Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets (New
York and Evanston: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1962), p. 10.

12. Religious experience is the common denominator of all
religions. See William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: a
study in human nature) (London, Bombay, and Calcutta: Longmans, Green,
and Co., 1914).

13. Bruce K. Waltke, "Exegesis
and the Spiritual Life: Theology as Spiritual Formation," Crux,
30/3 (September, 1994): 28-35.

14. See Bruce K.
Waltke, "1 Timothy 2:8-15: Unique or Normative?" 28/1 (March, 1992)
:22-27.

15. Anthony C. Thiselton, New
Horizons in Hermeneutics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House,
1992), p.588

16. Richard John Neuhaus, "True
Christian Feminism," National Review (November 25, 1988), p.
24.

17. D.J.A. Clines, "The Image of God in
Man," Tyndale Bulletin, 19 (1968):53-103.
Ibid., p.
84.

18. Ibid., p84.

19. Clarence J. Vos, Woman in Old Testament
Worship (Delft: N.V. Verenige Drukkerijen Judels & Brinkman, 1968),
p. 168

20. The naming of children is ascribed to
woman 26 times, to men14 times, and to God 5 times.

21. I arrived at this interpretation independently from
Susan T. Foh, Woman and the Word of God: A Response to Biblical Feminism
(Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1979), pp. 68f.

22. In Psalm 123:2 David uses the simile of a maid to a
mistress, but none uses "mistress" as a title for God.

23. Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction
to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1990), p.
108.

Additional Reference: Priestesses in the
Church
by C. S. Lewis originally published in August 1948.

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