Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to The Overflow—the bonus round of faith and real-life conversation with Brandon and Susan Thomas. Every week, they unpack the powerful insights, behind-the-scenes experiences, and personal reflections that didn’t quite fit into Sunday’s sermon.
This is where the conversation gets practical, honest, and a little bit unscripted. Whether it's an encouraging word, a deeper dive into Scripture, or a hilarious moment from their week, Brandon and Susan bring fresh perspective and spiritual fuel to keep you going.
It’s real talk, fresh takes, and full hearts.
These are the conversations too good to cut and too real to miss.
Can women be in ministry? Can women preach? Can women teach? Can women pastor? We're going there.
Speaker 1:Welcome to The Overflow. Today, we're tackling a topic that we are excited to tackle because we know it's popping on the headlines and there's a lot of conversation in church circles, not so many outside of church circles, but inside church circles, there's a lot of questions about what does the Bible say about women in ministry? And we're going there, Susan.
Speaker 2:We are going there. This is a big topic, obviously, close to my heart because I am a woman.
Speaker 1:Woman. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So let's dive in.
Speaker 1:Let's dive in. Well, first of all, just to set the debate, this is a hot topic.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The tribe that both you and I came from, the Southern Baptist Convention, has recently added a motion to amend their constitution, which they'll vote on next year, 2027, to take a look at and to reject women as pastors. Now, I'm not summarizing the resolution, but basically they're going to say, Women cannot be called pastors in Baptist churches. Women cannot function as pastors, specifically preaching in Southern Baptist churches. This does not affect us because we are not a Southern Baptist church. But I do know that over the last seven years, 44 churches have been investigated for having women pastors.
Speaker 1:Some of them, of the 44, some left of their own will. They left the Southern Baptist Convention. And then others were asked to leave, or they were disfellowshipped. Whatever it is, that's the report. And so this really is an issue for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's an issue in some Bible church circles. It's an issue in some reform church circles. And it comes down to what do we believe about women in ministry? And so we're gonna go to the word of God.
Speaker 1:We're gonna talk about our journey on this topic a little bit too.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. And, you know, as we enter into this conversation, I think just being, you know, very vulnerable about our position is I mean, I can speak for both of us wholeheartedly. We dearly, desperately desire to be right before God. That's our desire. I I, for the most part, really do not care so much what people, their opinions, or what they have to say other than wise counsel who's rooted in the word of God.
Speaker 2:And so as we go into this topic and into the subject, for me, there's a humility there because I truly can understand both sides of this debate. I can understand how people came to their conclusions. And so as we, you know, begin that conversation, honestly, there's that that element where there's not anger towards someone who believes differently than we do. There is an understanding of I can see how you got there, and here's how we are where we are based on the word of God.
Speaker 1:Yes. Here's what you're gonna get in this podcast. You're gonna get a biblical stance of where we are. You're gonna get our personal journey and what that looked like. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we're gonna talk about what this looks like at Keystone and how we practice it in boots on the ground in our local spiritual And first of all, just to say a couple of ground rules is, number one, position is not cultural accommodation. If you know us, we are 100% fine bucking the trends of culture. So it really isn't that. We talk against culture all the time. So this isn't like, if you're just tuning in, this is not wokeism 101.
Speaker 1:That is not us.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:We are not into that, and we reject it and speak boldly and plainly, consistently. This is truly a biblical position for us.
Speaker 2:And we believe the Bible means what it says and says what it means. God means what he means. Some of the complicated challenging areas of the of the scriptures are on us. It's our journey to discover, god, what are you saying? And then that's in the context of the whole written word of god, but it's huge for us.
Speaker 2:We're not interested in tickling ears that we wanna hear what we wanna hear.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We're not doing and and I'm not doing this because Susan dragged me to this position. That that could be perhaps an assumption that, I'm a I mean, maybe if you don't know me, you could say, oh, he's a weak man. He's got a strong wife, she dragged him there. Speak to that a
Speaker 2:little really not the case. In fact, I remember the first time you invited me to speak with you on stage. I mean, I was utterly terrified. I don't even know really how you got me to do it. And I was, I I just it was the first time to do that.
Speaker 2:You felt led to have me join you when we were back at the school. And I remember memorizing everything I was gonna say word by word because I just couldn't even fathom public speaking like that.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:But, you know, that that scenario you just described was definitely not true for us.
Speaker 1:No, the truth is for us, I arrived at this biblical position where we landed before you did. And it was years of teaching and leading, truly years. It wasn't one year. It wasn't even two years. I mean, we were really walking through this consistently and just walking through the biblical and where we landed.
Speaker 1:And so we're gonna walk through that as well. So on our Southern Baptist roots, it did, it was our starting point. Can't argue against that. Starting point was a specific position. But one of the things I'm so grateful for about our roots is that it gave us a love for studying the word of God.
Speaker 1:Yes. Again, my bachelor degree was a biblical languages degree. My master's of divinity was biblical language emphasis. And then even in my doctorate, doctorate of ministry, it was deeply rooted in text, particularly in the book of Acts. And so we're Bible people.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And great scholars, it's important to note, the great, awesome academics and scholars disagree with where we land. But great academic scholars agree with where we land. True, there's wonderful people. There's conservative, biblical churches that disagree with where we land. There's conservative biblical churches that agree with where we landed.
Speaker 1:If there's one thing I could say is this is not a resolve slam dunk, and all of a sudden we're here teaching something that's never been taught before in two thousand years of the church.
Speaker 2:No,
Speaker 1:This is our heart. So let's just dive into the word of God, and it begins with what the Bible says. There's some notable people in the Bible that leap off the pages. Yeah. And there's some prophetesses, for example, and a prophet is someone who speaks.
Speaker 2:Well, before you share those names, I think that the, you know, elephant in the room is the belief that the bible lands through Paul and what he spoke in the New Testament, that the bible lands on women should remain silent. That women should do not have a position to speak, teach, or lead men, and that they should remain silent in the church. And those we're gonna look at those passages.
Speaker 1:Three passages.
Speaker 2:Right. We're gonna look at those passages, but that is the argument against women in leadership in the church, against women preaching or teaching the word of God or pastoring, you know, in the local church, that's we gotta start out with, that's what we're talking about. Yeah. And then as you open up the scriptures as you're about to do and we're about to talk about how God has something different that he says.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it begins in the garden. You have Adam and Eve, and definitely Adam is created first, Eve out of Adam, but this couple is given mandate, and it is crystal clear that the mandate, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and govern it, and the Bible says he blessed them and told them, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and govern it. That governing activity is given to man and woman pre fall. Before the fall, that was God's design, holding hands, venturing out in a powerful way. Throughout the Old Testament, you have women prophetesses.
Speaker 1:A prophet is someone who oracles for God, someone who speaks for God, thus saith the Lord. It can be foretelling, but most often it is forthtelling. And some women prophetesses in the Bible, you have Miriam in Exodus 15, Deborah, Judges four, Huldah in two Kings 22, Isaiah's wife was a prophet, Isaiah eight, Anna in Luke two in the New Testament, and Philip's four daughters in Acts 21, there is a record, I mean, that's a pretty decent little list there, of women who were asked to not be silent, women who were to speak, and in Deborah's case, a woman who governed, a woman who was a judge, a woman who they came and they were instructed by her, they were led by her.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And those are powerful images. Because here's what we know to be true. God does not contradict himself.
Speaker 2:God is not one way on one day, and then he switches up with a new personality the next day. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so as you read a passage of scripture, this is something I mean, I have not yet arrived on anything. He even this topic and everything else. I'm on a journey of getting to know God and and knowing his word.
Speaker 2:But the more I've learned as I've studied God's word is understanding what the text is saying in context of the whole message. To just handpick one verse out of the entirety leaves us in lack. And so you have to look at those at those realities. And and just a side note, sometimes the, I believe, very unfair accusation is made that, oh, this is a, you know, liberal point of view that does not believe the word of God. It's similar to definitions of sexuality and that that's fluid and that, you know, people in this belief that we hold that God does have an assignment for women.
Speaker 1:Let me go there. Yeah. So there is a charge that those who hold this position are taking what's called a hermeneutic. They're taking an approach to the word of God, similar to the way people who now read the Bible and see that the Bible affirms homosexuality. And nothing can be further from the I don't think any true, any biblical scholar, somebody honestly coming to the text who really studies it, could make that accusation intelligently that this is truly a disagreement and interpretation of a couple of scriptures.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They're big ones, and we gotta wrestle with them. Yeah. But it is us wrestling.
Speaker 2:Well, and the difference in that particular example is that the context of the whole when it comes to sexuality, when it comes to homosexuality, if you look at the context of the whole scripture, God is consistent.
Speaker 1:Never affirmed.
Speaker 2:That it is one man, one woman. His design was in the covenant of marriage. That was his heart from the very beginning, Genesis one and two. And and all throughout in Romans chapter one, it's condemned very specifically, going outside of God's order.
Speaker 1:Jesus advocated exactly what marriage was to look like.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so that matters because what we're talking about the topic today, we're about to uncover a plethora of examples of God calling and utilizing his girls, utilizing his women, raising up his daughters. And there's a lot of reasons why, I mean, we may not get to all of it, we won't in this one podcast. But there's a lot of reasons why even bigger than in the context of the local church, I believe, of why women as a whole have experienced oppression since Genesis three. And so this is an application potentially that we're talking about today of misunderstanding where we wanna clear it
Speaker 1:up. You know, and I mentioned prophetesses first because I think that goes right at the teeth of the prohibition that Paul talks about in one Timothy two, one Corinthians eleven, and one Corinthians 14, and it is be silent. Yet in the Old Testament, you have these women not being silent. They are actively speaking from God and then to mankind, to God's people from God. And so in the Old Testament, have these, but you have other wonderful people who are exercising authority, which is another one of the prohibition.
Speaker 1:I do not allow them to teach or exercise authority. Many scholars bring those two together. We'll read those in a moment. But you have Esther who is exercising incredible authority. Again, Deborah exercising authority.
Speaker 1:And you have these wonderful women of character. Like you have Rahab coming to the rescue. Have on and on and on. Could just, we're, this is another, hold on. This is another thing is we're not trying to do this from an academic perspective where we're hitting all the points.
Speaker 1:We're inviting you into the conversation. Exactly. Like we were having lunch together. Yeah. And I was just going through it.
Speaker 1:But we are gonna bring some of those scriptures. Before we do, Joel chapter two, verse 28, And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my flesh, my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men dream dreams, your young men see visions, even on my male and female servants. In those days, I will pour out my spirit.
Speaker 1:So we see in the Old Testament this consistent pattern of we have these female prophets. Now in the Bible, you're gonna see the men 10 to one over the women represented in scripture. That's just honest. There's far more men in leadership, men exercise, men drawn attention to, men focused on about 10 for every one woman that rises. But the women that rise, those, the one of the 10, they're often very, very strong.
Speaker 1:They're often heroic. And in the case of, for example, Deborah, man, you'd want her to be your president. She is something else.
Speaker 2:And she was surrounded by a lot of judges, a lot of men who were judges over that course of that book that were really not in good places. There were some rough stuff happening.
Speaker 1:That's right. And, you know, even in Isaiah, I mean, is the wife of a prophet who has called herself a prophet. I think it's just so interesting. It would have been so easy for the writer to say, The wife of Isaac, but she is labeled as a prophetess herself. Let's get to some of those passages that are difficult.
Speaker 1:And then we'll kind of come to where we have landed together. First Timothy chapter two, the Bible says in verse 11, Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. Then he goes into verse 13.
Speaker 1:For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. So this is interesting because, I mean, it seems pretty doggone clear. I mean, if I was advocating for this position, I'd say, Hey, I read this passage. It is what it says it is.
Speaker 1:The Bible said it. That settles it. Here we go. And that's one way to read it. It really is.
Speaker 1:When I read this scripture, I read it in the context of the greater whole. I've already mentioned Old Testament prophets Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, Isaiah. New Testament prophetesses, Anna and Philip's four daughters, these are women that are forth telling. But then you look at some other examples. You've got Priscilla and Aquila.
Speaker 1:Priscilla and Aquila.
Speaker 2:Church planners.
Speaker 1:These are Priscilla and Aquila were Paul's coworkers. Yeah. He calls them his coworkers. He consistently labels Priscilla ahead of her husband, Aquila. And the indication is in the work that he was doing, she was the leader.
Speaker 1:He was supporting her in this lead. That doesn't mean he wasn't the leader.
Speaker 2:I think they were mentioned six times, and she was mentioned first four out of the six times. Just And
Speaker 1:then when you see them correcting Apollos, who later is called an apostle, correcting his theology, this is a big moment. Priscilla and Aquila correcting a man's theology. Yeah. Then you have Junia. Junia is listed in the book of Romans as someone who is highly esteemed among the apostles.
Speaker 1:So she is set in context with other apostles. She is among the apostles. Some people have said, well, it could be apostle means messenger, but she's clearly here being identified among the apostles. She's identified with the group. Some in church history have tried to claim, oh, Junior's a man.
Speaker 1:There's absolutely no evidence that she was a man. Everywhere you see in Roman linguistics, Junior is a, it's like saying Betty is a man. That's like saying Sally is a man. It's a girl name. It is a girl.
Speaker 1:And she is highly esteemed among the the prophet. I mean, the apostles. That's a big deal.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, that's a big deal. And then there's Phoebe. Phoebe is so interesting. Paul you know? And, again, Paul, the same writer who wrote these verses that we're talking about and that we're trying to understand.
Speaker 2:There's complication. I mean, there's there's complex complexities to these passages. But that same author Paul is telling us about these women that he worked with. He calls different women coworkers with me. I never can say their names right, but they got in a big fight.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, Cintiche. And what is her name? Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:Udike, I think so.
Speaker 2:Yes. Well, close. It was something. Eodea, Eodea, Eodea. Zentiche, I'm sure, I'm sorry ladies, I butchered your names.
Speaker 2:But both of them got in a big fight and it was, you know, for all time for us to read in the scripture. But Paul loved these two women and he was fighting for them and for their unity saying these women have been hard workers in the in the mission and the kingdom work. But Phoebe Phoebe was a woman who was a very wealthy woman, and she ended up funding the local church. She was a a big, you know, investor, a helper with that financially. But then Paul also describes her as a servant in the local church.
Speaker 2:Whatever that that term means, it was also a term that he often used for leadership in church. Does that mean she was a leader? It doesn't mean that. But being this wealthy woman who's funding the church and then a servant in the church, there was, you know, there's When
Speaker 1:Mary in the lead, she delivered the book of Romans. And that was She delivered the letter to the Romans.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's the ultimate example, that if you are a letterer, letter deliverer, you are defending, you are reading the letter of Rome, Romans, you're certainly not being quiet in church. You're not being silent. You're reading the letter. Potentially, the expectation was if there was questions, you would defend the letter. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then some have even argued that, have studied letter bringers, I don't know if that's the right word, but letter deliverers, that they would actually even have it worked out where they would perform it.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:They would act it out for the people that were listening. So, I mean, this was a dominant role, and he chose her.
Speaker 2:He chose her. And that's so important because if I am Paul and the meaning of what I said means women should never speak and should be silent in the church, then to send a woman in a role where she would be the the only one able to answer questions, able to explain the book of Romans, able to defend the book of Romans because she whoever's bringing that letter would have has had to spend much time with the author to make sure they understood, really understood the intent of the author and what the letter had to say.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:That person had to be ready to go. And Paul chose a
Speaker 1:woman. Yes. I wanna read one Corinthians eleven:three-five as well, but I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. We're in cultural issues here.
Speaker 1:But every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head since it is the same as if her head were shaven. We're clearly in some cultural issues here of how things were done back then. I bring up one Corinthians chapter 11 because, number one, it's difficult to understand. It's clearly contextualized. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But one thing that is not contextualized here, whether the head covering or uncovered, whether it means if she prophesies without the covering, it's her prophesying without a headship in her life, be that her husband or an elder or a bishop. There's all kinds of ways to interpret this, but the thing I wanna take out is the simplest, easiest thing to see here is that to the church at Corinth, he assumed that the women would be speaking in church. He assumed that the women would be prophesying or praying out loud in church. Prophesying out loud to the church. Praying in front of the church.
Speaker 1:Do it with your head covered.
Speaker 2:Wow. Wow. And it's so that's so powerful on so many different levels because this passage gives us precedent that Paul, while he was carrying the word for all time to to apply for all of us for all time, he also cared about the culture he was in at the time. And so, like, I'll read that one passage again in a in a different translation talking about the shaving of a head. It said, but a woman dishonors her head if she prays or prophesies without a covering on her head.
Speaker 2:For this is the same as shaving her head. And then verse six, yes, if she refuses to wear a head covering, she should cut off all her hair. But it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut or her head shaved, She should wear a covering. And so it's just it's very it's fascinating that in that time, in that culture, they understood exactly what what was being talked about. There's another passage that talks about women and and just being careful what we adorn ourselves with and with and it goes on to describe certain jewelry.
Speaker 2:And, you know, the heart of that matter is God cares about the heart. Yep. Have a purity of heart. Don't be seeking the affirmations and affections of people. Love God with a purity.
Speaker 2:But is Paul saying never wear pearls? Right. Is Paul saying
Speaker 1:Is Paul saying that right now you're not you're if you were in church and your hair was uncovered like this.
Speaker 2:Right now. I mean, I don't have a head covering now.
Speaker 1:It's clear. There it is.
Speaker 2:These are the realities as you walk through the word of God and understanding it is so important.
Speaker 1:Let me go to first Corinthians 14. So this is a letter this is the same letter to the same church three chapters later. For God is not a God of confusion, but peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but me must be should be in submission. As the law also says, if there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.
Speaker 1:So that's another one of those passages right there, especially this is one that's lifted pretty consistently. Okay, if they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at church. They're not permitted to speak, but must be in submission. What's going on here? And especially if Paul in fourteen, one Corinthians 14, is saying, She can't speak, But in chapter 11, he's saying, She can speak.
Speaker 2:With her head covered.
Speaker 1:Here's how to speak. But then three chapters later, Stop speaking. Again, let me just back up and say, there's a way to read the Bible.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I'm not trying to be provocative to people who disagree with me on this, but there's a way to read the Bible. I was taught how to read the Bible. It's called hermeneutics. When you read this text, you read one Corinthians 14 in light of the rest of the chapter, and you read that chapter in light of the rest of the book. You read the rest of the letter of one Corinthians in light of the greater message of Paul.
Speaker 1:You read the greater message of Paul in light of the big message of the scriptures and the gospel. And when you go into one Corinthians 14, you see that he's dealing with a lot of disruption. I mean, he's tackling people speaking in tongues disruptively and how to bring order to that. And there's a lot of just order. He's like, Order, order, order, order.
Speaker 1:And many commentators believe that here what's happening in one Corinthians 14 is not a contradiction to one Corinthians 11. What he's addressing in 14 disrupting. People that are disrupting church. Somebody's preaching, and you're talking in church. And he's like, Hey, if you want clarification, talk to your husband back in the car ride home.
Speaker 1:Talk at brunch right after church, but not during church. You gotta listen. It's shameful to interrupt. Shouldn't do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And and God is a God of order, and Paul was very he valued leading and creating order in the local gathering at the church. And so the reading of it in its entirety is so critical.
Speaker 1:Then you go to first, I mean, really there's three passages. First Timothy chapter two that I've already read. And that one is very, very interesting. Yes. Because there's a word in there-
Speaker 2:That authority.
Speaker 1:On authority. That Greek word, on authority, is very unique. It's never found again in the entire New Testament. And it's only found, I think, if I read correctly, one place in my research, one other place in classical Greek research. This word is singular.
Speaker 1:And outside of this context, when it's used, Paul only uses it here, when it's used that one other time in Roman culture, I think only once, Yeah. But But when it's used, it is domineering. It's like you're an upper class person and you're domineering. You're bossing around. You're barking orders.
Speaker 1:You're being dominant Suppose
Speaker 2:you have a master towards their servant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, towards a slur, and not a good master. No. Like you're being rude. You're being domineering. And so if that is, in fact, what Paul was trying to use here, again, this is the only time he used this word, and the only other time we can find use of this word, or whenever we find this use of this word, it's domineering.
Speaker 1:You're led to believe simply that there was domination happening here. And Paul is saying, I will not allow the women to treat the men that way. Yeah. I will not allow the women. Some have brought the, Temple Of Artemis in Ephesus into context, that there was, that the women were the dominant religious figures, and they were bringing that cult worship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cult worship.
Speaker 1:That cult worship into the church. I think that's a reasonable explanation. N. D. Wright has that explanation.
Speaker 1:I think it's a reasonable explanation, but I think it's enough just to say they're being dominant and that's not the way we do things in church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and again, for me, as a woman, when I read these, if I'm just reading my Bible and I read that verse, or I'm just reading that one chapter, just I'll just can I just be vulnerable for a little bit my journey? I so long
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:To be right by God. I so long to be right before him. And so without the bigger context and out without the study, when I read women should be silent in the church, you gotta know there's a portion of me that's like, I will hang it up. I don't wanna say a word. I don't wanna speak outside of what God has called me to speak.
Speaker 1:And
Speaker 2:yet, as I step back and I see the women that that God values and that Paul talks about, and that were leaders in the early church and leaders throughout the Old Testament, and the women in the New Testament, and how God treated women, Jesus, how he treated the women around him. And I know for this particular discussion of, you know, should women be pastors in a church? Should they have leadership in the church? Should they speak in the church? That to go to Mary Magdalene may be the weaker argument some might consider.
Speaker 2:But as I look at her, and I just, again, wanna understand the heart of I
Speaker 1:would say the Magdalene sitting at the feet of Jesus would be a lesser argument, but it's wonderful texture.
Speaker 2:Well, actually, I'm talking about Mary Magdalene at the tomb.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:But also Mary,
Speaker 1:Mary Magdalene I'm feet at the feet of Jesus.
Speaker 2:But both of
Speaker 1:Mary at the feet of Jesus. Mary Magdalene at the tomb.
Speaker 2:Yes. Actually, both of those I'd love to hit on though. But I think Mary Magdalene gets me on many levels because I just her radical transformation and all her demons and the Lord I mean, Jesus absolutely freeing her life is just the most beautiful picture of how God loves his people. I love Mary Magdalene and just her story. I just feel like I see myself in her story.
Speaker 2:If you've ever been freed from something, she's she's just such a wonderful example of God's love. But Mary Magdalene, the scriptures tell us in the gospels that she was the one God chose to be at the empty tomb first. And she was the one that Jesus chose to reveal himself as the risen messiah to say, listen, go tell my disciples. Go tell the guys. I want you to go back.
Speaker 2:Tell all the guys, I am risen. Which I understand. We're not inside church walls. We're not inside the structure of a church building, but that is the most profound theological thing to communicate at all of the scriptures. The the most foundational fundamental theology that we have as Christ followers is that he is risen.
Speaker 2:And to communicate this news for the very first time, God chose a woman.
Speaker 1:That's a big deal.
Speaker 2:He chose her.
Speaker 1:It's What about the woman at the well?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. I mean, woman at the well, I mean, Jesus met that woman at the well and all her past was on display because he knew it all and he's calling it out lovingly, but just shocking her socks off.
Speaker 1:Her life has changed.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:She goes back to the village and tells everybody about Jesus.
Speaker 2:Preaches to the entire village and many of them get saved.
Speaker 1:So you have the first Easter message being declared by a woman. If that's not theology, I don't know what it is, but I do understand that doesn't make a case for the office of pastor. Right. But it does show something. It shows something, as we'll talk about in a moment.
Speaker 1:You have the woman at the well. You've got Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus, as many have argued, taking the posture of a disciple, taking a posture of a learner. I'm learning what you're teaching so I then may teach others.
Speaker 2:And Martha, her sister, was so upset. Wanted her to be in the kitchen working with her, you know, getting everything prepared and even communicated her annoyance to Jesus. Will you please tell Mary to come in here and help me? And what did Jesus say? He said, Mary is right where she's supposed to be.
Speaker 2:This is the better place for her to be. Let her sit at my feet.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna share in a moment, I'm gonna share exactly where we land on this interpretation, and I'm I'm reserving part of how to interpret these three passages for how we land. But I do wanna show that this isn't also, some have said, Well, I mean, you know, if this is true, you have New Testament women in ministry, and then all of a sudden, now we have women preaching. This hasn't happened in all of church history, women preaching. And I listen to that because I'm highly suspect of just all of a sudden we found something new.
Speaker 2:Cultural, a new cultural Yeah.
Speaker 1:And some people would argue this is a result of feminism or the enlightenment or modern secularism, weak men, And strong I would argue, I actually did some digging, and I grew up where the leader of the Southern Baptist conservative resurgence, conservative movement, which so many of you don't even know what I'm talking about. But the Southern Baptists fought for the Bible and they fought off liberalism, which is awesome and commendable, and I applaud.
Speaker 2:I remember.
Speaker 1:And one of the leaders, one of the founders, a guy named W. A. Chris will pastor First Baptist Church Dallas. His wife held a Sunday school class every Sunday for, I think, fifty years. Okay?
Speaker 1:So here is the leader of the conservative resurgence, and his wife is leading a Bible study for men and women on Sunday mornings for decades. You have Moon. If you're Southern Baptist, you have Lottie Moon Christmas offering, okay? It's a girl, and she's being celebrated as one of our great missionaries. And then you go into church history, and you begin to see way back, fourth century, Marcella and Paula.
Speaker 1:Jerome designated Marcella as the person that the bishops and the presbyters should bring doctrinal questions to. This is from Jerome, okay? Early church father. Fourth, fifth century, Olympias and Melania the elder, deaconess, theological confidant of John Christostome. Melania resolved the schism involving 400 monks at Antioch.
Speaker 1:In the seventh century, you have Hilda of Whitby. She governed a double monastery of men and women, trained five future bishops, hosted a church synod, and she's referred to by Bede, the theologian. Hildegard of Bengen, the only woman of the Middle Ages formerly authorized by ecclesiastical leaders for public preaching tours. I mean, so you have, through church history, these moments. But I wanna say, for those that would still be suspect of those examples, if you are a Protestant right now and you're holding to that position, you're a Protestant.
Speaker 1:You went fifteen hundred years as a Catholic, and then all of a sudden you found your reformation. So there is something I could say that God could do where he allows for years of them to be off in some theology and then to rediscover it. Wow. I'm not afraid of that. Wow.
Speaker 1:We have an entire Protestant Reformation built on hundreds of years, at the very least, of bad doctrine being corrected, and we're living in the fruit of that. Hey, I'm here to show you it's not hundreds of years of We bad have historical record of women in ministry actively teaching, preaching, and leading. But if that record wasn't there, I think it's okay for us to make a correction.
Speaker 2:That's really good. You know, as believers, I'm talking about true believers, people who we love Jesus, and we want to do his will. We wanna be right with the Lord. I believe that what comes with that is a posture of of humility and a posture of love our neighbor and a posture of kindness. And one of the things that troubles me about this particular debate is that some people who hold the stance that women should be silent in the church, that there should not be women leadership operating inside the church, that there often is a spirit of anger, a spirit of Rudeness.
Speaker 2:Very rude. Condescending. Just, you know, accusation. You know? You must you must be a liberal.
Speaker 2:You must be a person who doesn't believe the word of God. You must be a person who writes your own rules. There's just often this tone that can sometimes come along with it. And I believe the fruit on that tree is concerning to me. And even some podcasters, there are some people, influencers who will hold this stance, some of whom are women.
Speaker 2:And it's been very fascinating to me as I watch women with a platform that is very, very large, larger than the number of people that attend our church. Men and women who are following these women and they are saying with with, you know, angry conviction that women should not speak, that women should be silent when it comes to these these things, the word of God, and yet they're preaching on their
Speaker 1:regularly preach theology.
Speaker 2:And They're the teaching. They're truly truly teaching.
Speaker 1:Teaching theology consistently from their podcast Yes. And from their platform, which, again, we have no problem with. We'd be like, go girl, you're doing it. You got it. I would also say that it's important to recognize that, again, we're not saying you can't believe that position.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But I do wanna say, if you do believe that position-
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:We wanna, and we're about to tell you where
Speaker 2:we
Speaker 1:all are the way. You need to really embrace it because you need to walk in the fear of the Lord. If you are, for example, in a Southern Baptist church, and you've just agreed, maybe you've voted for that resolution, man, you need to walk in the fear of the Lord. Even Albert Moeller, who's the president of Southern Seminary, who is a very smart man, brilliant man, and I believe loves the Lord. But Al Moeller, he said honestly, and I think that if you take this position, he's recognizing the consistency issue.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:He said that if you are a woman, and you even appear on a podcast with your husband like we are right now, and you're commenting on the weekend sermon with your husband, okay? So, I mean, you're talking about the most solid of positions. You're sitting there with your husband. You're commenting. He says that's forbidden according to these passages because you are providing teaching and exercising a level of authority on text Yes.
Speaker 1:To a mixed audience.
Speaker 2:And this is where for me, I'm a truth girl. I wanna follow God. And if I if I look at those passages outside of the context of the whole and, you know, we as you said, and we're still on the journey, But deep diving into what the Greek words mean, deep diving into, for example, do not have authority over men, what does that mean? Is that domination? What does that mean?
Speaker 2:But if I'm just looking at it and I come to the conclusion that women be silent in the church and women do not teach do not teach do not teach men. What that means for me, what that means for women is that, for example, if you are a podcast influencer and you're on a podcast and you're speaking to your audience, your people, and your platform, that you can speak about everything else but do not speak about the word of God. Yep. So I can speak about fashion. I can speak about fitness.
Speaker 2:I can speak about cultural events.
Speaker 1:Parenting.
Speaker 2:But do not apply, do not allude to, do not discuss the word of God. It's unfathomable. I I can't comprehend that that would be something people would place on women. Half of the population, do not share the good news of Jesus on your platform. Whatever your megaphone is, raise it.
Speaker 2:Tell people about the good news of Jesus, but no, be silent. And it doesn't just stop there. What that means is for, for example, I'm a licensed professional counselor. So for the entire healing industry, profession, marriage and family therapists, licensed marriage family therapists, you can't do that because you can only
Speaker 1:You can never meet with both.
Speaker 2:You can never meet with both husband and wife. You can only counsel women. And that that begin if you really play it all the way forward, that moves into our educational systems.
Speaker 1:It's women teaching women. Women teaching That would be acceptable in that position.
Speaker 2:Right. But if you're a professor
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And you women should have no authority, should not be teaching other people. And someone right now listening might say, look, we're just talking about church, church leadership, but that's not what the text says if you understand it to me.
Speaker 1:Well, even if it does, when does theology stop? You know, when does theology stop? Yes. We we believe that it's all of Christ, all of life. Yes.
Speaker 1:And, I got that from my brother. I love that. All of Christ, all for life. And so Jesus is in your biology. How do you if I'm teaching biology and you're a woman, how do you not talk about the ways of the Lord in this?
Speaker 1:I mean, but you're forbidden.
Speaker 2:Fearfully and wonderfully knit us together.
Speaker 1:Weird bind.
Speaker 2:Yeah. He fearfully knit us together, wonderfully made. Mean, to not be able to talk about that. Yeah, it's a strange bind. And what I think is interesting, and even in the example you gave of Al Moeller, who we respect, that man begins to set up the boundary lines.
Speaker 2:Okay, so it's now if you're in a podcast and you're talking about the weekend sermon, like there's a, where does the line move? What is the next boundary And what is
Speaker 1:enforceable because that's his position. Well, another pastor may say, well, no, they could do that. And this is the thing that bothered me, that really has bothered me about that position is you become, you get to the place where you become inconsistent. The way that this has played out, you cannot have a children's minister. Oh, we're not gonna call her a pastor.
Speaker 2:She's a director.
Speaker 1:She's a children's director. She's a children's minister, but she's exercising authority over little boys. She's exercising authority over future young men. She's providing I mean, it does go there.
Speaker 2:Well, and it does get so wild. I mean, even as a mom, and just because I'm a letter of the law, I desire to live by God's law, not man's made up stuff, but truly desire. So then it's like, my brain just starts going. And I mean, I clearly go too far. But I'm like, okay, well then if you really follow that, then what about your own son?
Speaker 2:What about when he goes from a child to a man at 18? That's our age of adulthood in America. Or wait, maybe it's 13 when they have puberty. Mean, that's so
Speaker 1:far A lot of people wouldn't go there. Where I also get frustrated is I get frustrated. I mean, I hear you, that's the logical extreme. But I go, I see it happen where men will say, Okay, well, she can be on the stage with me and we can answer questions and we can do that. Well, she's speaking in church.
Speaker 2:She shouldn't be.
Speaker 1:She really shouldn't be if that's your extreme position. So I mean-
Speaker 2:Or another pastor that we appreciate his ministry very much, but he's adamant of, yeah, this SBC decision, he stands by it. He believes that women should be silent in the church. However, he will invite on his podcast, a world renowned, I mean, a very popular woman preacher right now who preaches all over the globe. Right. And will invite her and her husband onto his podcast, onto their platform.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But the reason is because-
Speaker 2:Which way?
Speaker 1:What he's saying is, I do believe that there's room. That's what the practice is. This is where I'm getting at is that if you would say, Okay, she can come on the podcast. Okay, well, she could be on the stage with me. Okay, a woman can do this, do that.
Speaker 1:You start carving out, okay? Well, let me offer you the way that we've resolved this. Yeah. All right? And I go to one Corinthians 11, and it says, The head of every man is Christ, the head of her wife is her husband, the head of Christ is God.
Speaker 1:And then you go into one Timothy, it talks about, For Adam was formed first, then Eve, and it goes into that. I believe that built into these passages is that the prohibition is not against women prophesying, because we see that clearly. The prohibition is not against women. We've explained what we think is happening here, but I believe that what the Bible is advancing is headship. And we see this in our home.
Speaker 1:In our home, we have leadership. You're a dominant leader. You exercise authority in the home. You speak in the home, but we have embraced what the Bible says about headship.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And that is that there's one person who will go knee to knee, eye to eye, toe to toe, face to face with the Lord, responsible for the future of our family, and that's the husband. That's me. Also believe that every church, Bible in the book of Revelation, it says, To the angel at the church of Sardis, to the angel at the church at Ephesus, that there's a sing You call it single elder. You could call it senior pastor. That that person bears headship.
Speaker 1:And I believe, you know, just as Paul is reintroducing us to this pattern God has of Adam being first in the home, I believe that that headship is present in the church. And so where we would be, we would be called soft complementarian, lower C complementarian, whatever it would be, in that we believe that we're distinct. We believe that we have different gifts. We believe that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. We believe that.
Speaker 1:But I wanna unlock your leadership in the home. Ephesians talks about mutual submission, mutual serving to one another, but there is headship.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's where we land is that I am the senior pastor of Keystone Church. I bear the ultimate responsibility, but you have the ability to preach, teach, and lead at Keystone under the headship that God has given me.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And that brings great comfort. I mean, God gives us an order so that we can experience just like Paul was bringing order to the church, God brings order to the home and giving us different roles of how to love and lead alongside of each other. And when we embrace that, we what we find is just an overflow of peace in our relationships, in our home, in our church.
Speaker 1:So to summarize, here's where we came to. Yeah. We unpacked all of this. Yeah. And we looked at these three scriptures that seem to say, can't preach, can't teach, can't lead, and found that there was satisfactory for me, satisfactory explanations.
Speaker 1:And in light of the whole rest of the text, where there are women preaching Yeah. And clearly prophesying, Old Testament and New Testament, Explanations for these passages, even apostles, even speakers of the book of Roman, in the case of Phoebe. And we came to the conclusion that the explanations for these three passages are adequate. Mhmm. But here's the key for me.
Speaker 1:I could be wrong. We could be wrong. We're interpreting. And I wanna approach this really humbly and just let you know my heart, that as with the headship that I believe God has given me, the responsibility, that I look at this and there comes a point where you have to make a decision at times. You say, I understand the complementarian position where it's no women, no I understand it.
Speaker 1:You understand it.
Speaker 2:I do.
Speaker 1:We would even understand someone saying, I can't be in a church like that, that has Susan preaching. We would understand that. But at the end of the day, before the Lord, me and the leadership of Keystone have to make a decision of what do we believe theologically? And at the end of day, with all of the text and all of the work I just told you, I became biblically convinced, but then I had to make a decision. If I'm wrong, and I'm wrong, and this is the last thing you do, you go to the text and the truth and all of that, but if I'm wrong, then what I, let's say I'm wrong, and let's say I prohibit you from teaching and leading, and God said, No, I never meant for that, and I was wrong there.
Speaker 1:I suppressed your gift to the church. I suppressed all of the feminine gifts to the church, all of women in the church. I suppressed all those gifts. On the other hand, if I'm wrong over here and the fruit is good and there's not rebellion and there's not grabbing for power and and feminism and all those things, but it's us working together and you working under my headship, but teaching the word of God and being a gift to the church. And God says, yeah, I really wanted that to be only men.
Speaker 1:You know, at some point you have to weigh which is the greater wrong. And for me, I found that this was the greater wrong. Pushing down those gifts was a far greater impact. And again, it wasn't a hard decision because I'd already come to a biblical conviction of where I stood. But at the end of the day, you gotta make a call.
Speaker 2:You gotta make a call. And you know, when God says, I'm gonna pour out my spirit on all of my people, my children, my sons, my daughters, they're gonna prophesy. I think none of us, no Christ follower, I believe, truly, would deny that God commands us to go and tell. Mhmm. Jesus' last words before he ascended to the father were go and tell and make disciples of all people, all nations, baptizing them.
Speaker 2:And that's our great commission. That's our great mission on this earth is to build God's kingdom. And whatever megaphone, as I said earlier, that God has given you, raise it. Tell others about the good news of Jesus. And sometimes we can get so confused even in semantics of our modern day language, of our definitions of teaching, of leading and pastoring.
Speaker 2:We need to dive into the Greek. We need to find out what the Hebrew says in the old testament. We need to understand, try to understand, God, what do you mean? Not what is our interpretation, but where is the line drawn as I tell you the good news of Jesus? Was Mary Magdalene not instructing and teaching those men?
Speaker 2:They thought she was crazy. They're like, what you're telling us is absolutely crazy.
Speaker 1:Yet
Speaker 2:she was coming and telling them information they did not know. And it was the greatest news in all the world.
Speaker 1:And at the end of the day, this is not a closed handed issue.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Be very cautious of anyone that says, anybody that believes that Susan can preach or teach or a woman can preach or teach even under the authority of a single pastor, senior pastor, and they say this is a gospel issue, this is a salvation issue, that anybody believes that is a heretic, be very cautious of that church. Be very Now again, this could determine your fellowship. You could determine, I wanna go to a church like this and not like that. No problem there. But this is an open handed issue.
Speaker 1:This is an interpretation issue. And we should have great God believing, Jesus loving people who high five each other and disagree on this issue and will learn one day before the Lord who is right. I pray that you approach us with charity and I pray that you now understand that from our perspective, that there's great freedom for ministry, for women, and the local church at Keystone Church. We'll see you next time on The Overflow.