Fulcrum7 has consistently been opposed to feminism and its ideological daughter, female ordination since our beginning. We support male leadership, because the Bible does.
Here are some observations regarding male and female roles that I have gathered from the Bible over the last five years. I don’t think most of these have been published before (I could be mistaken).
The Resurrection of Jesus
There is a unique difference in how Jesus related to the women at His tomb and the men on the Emmaus Road a few hours later.
At the Tomb, He told Mary, “Go tell the disciples that I am alive and will be going back to the Father” (john 20:17). After directing her to stop clinging to Him, He gave her a task, a testimony if you will, and told her to share it with the Disciples. That’s pretty special.
That same day he found and walked with two of the Disciples on the Emmaus Road. Something pretty special happens there. He opens up the Scriptures to them, so they could come back to Jerusalem and teach (didasko) others. You see, the Disciples could race back to Jerusalem, burst into the room where the eleven Disciples are meeting and say “We saw something miraculous!” So? Anyone can see miraculous things, indeed the Disciples had seen hundreds of miracle as they walked with the Lord. But now, these men burst in the room and say “Give us the scroll, brethren.” Opening the Word of God, they share from Scripture all the things that Moses and the Prophets predicted concerning Jesus. They can now didasko (teach others).
Jesus did not expound on Scripture to the women because it is not their calling to teach (didasko) Scripture. He who made man and woman in complementary roles was consistent with Scripture in how He related to these dear followers on His resurrection day.
Didasko
In 1 Timothy 2:12, the Apostle Paul says “I suffer not a woman to teach (didasko), or usurp authority over a man.” This is fascinating. There is a whole structure on teaching in the New Testament. The term most commonly used is didasko.
What word does the New Testament use for teaching? Didasko
No Other Doctrine (1 Timothy 1:2-3). “Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. As I urged you when I went into Macedonia—remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they didasko no other doctrine, nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies.”
“And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to didasko, not resentful” (2 Timothy 2:24).
“I do not permit a woman to didasko or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve” (1 Timothy 2:12).
Qualifications of Overseers (1 Timothy 3:2)
“This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to didasko.”
“We have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe. Command and didasko these things. Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young” (1 Timothy 4).
“And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to didasko others” (2 Timothy 2:2). Note the words ‘reliable men.’ This is a companion verse to Paul’s instruction for appointing (ordaining) elders in the churches.
The Church of Thyatira in the Bible is signally rebuked for allowing the woman Jezebel to didasko (Revelation 2:20).
Titus 2
Verse 1. You must didasko what is in accord with sound doctrine.
Verse 2. didasko the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.
v. 3–5. “Likewise, didasko the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to didasko what is good. Then they can didasko the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.” God calls for older wiser women to didasko younger women. This is a unique calling.
v. 11-13. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, didasko-ing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
Husband of One Wife
In 1 Timothy 3:2, Paul calls for bishops (overseers) to be the husband of one wife (the aner of one gune). In Titus 1:6, Paul calls for elders to be the same, the husband of one wife (the aner of one gune). This is very clear. Paul is talking about qualified men here.
In 1 Timothy 3:12, Paul lays out the qualifications for a deacon, among them the husband of one wife (the aner of one gune).
Interestingly, in the qualifications for taking care of widows in the church Paul reverses these qualifications, saying she must be the (the gune of one aner). Paul is very clear on the different roles of men and women.
Deborah
Many people, in their desperation to make Scripture fit with culture, point to the story of Deborah in the book of Judges as an excuse for female headship. They fail to understand that you cannot have Deborah as a prototypical leader without also having the desultory climate of theological confusion that made her involvement possible. The book of Judges stands as a vivid example of theological pluralism, twice characterized as "each man doing what was right in his own eyes." That is not God’s will for us today (1 Cor. 14:40; 1 Timothy 6:11-12).
Elders
“Rebuke not an elder, but entreat HIM as a FATHER, (notice that Paul does not say "mother or father" here). and the younger MEN as BRETHREN” (1 Timothy 5:1).
The Seventh-day Adventist Church created a mess by allowing female elders without simultaneously establishing a doctrine on male leadership (which should have been easy to do because the Bible is clear on it). They allowed the unbiblical camel of female headship to stick its long nose in the tent, and then had three votes on whether the camel could come the rest of the way in, when they should have had one vote on when the camel should be permanently pushed back outside.
Jesus’ Disciples
Some proponents of female ordination claim that the reason that Jesus chose twelve men as His disciples is because He was being sensitive to culture. This is a futile argument.
In John 17:6 Jesus says that God gave Him the disciples. Those who charge the Lord with choosing men only because of cultural considerations, overlook that fact that God Himself chose the 12 disciples.
In John 17:9, Jesus repeats that God gave Him the disciples. God not only gives Jesus the disciples, He gave Him truth to give to them (verse 7). He didasko’d (taught) them that they might didasko others.
God chose the twelve disciples for the wisest of reasons, and furthermore enshrines their names in the foundation of the New Jerusalem itself (Rev. 21:14). It is ludicrous to suggest that the very foundation of the New Jerusalem is an artifact of cultural accommodation. Not so.
Unity
(John 17:21). The unity of believers has a convicting power on the world — to save some, and to convict others. This is why WO is so damaging — the resulting disunity harms the ability of the world to believe.
Theologically, feminism (and WO) is the principle element in undermining biblical dualism (God’s distinctions). That is why it should be absolutely rejected.
Governmental headship in the Bible is male. Ask a woman, do you want to be the “Buck stops here person, with the full weight of responsibility?” Most Godly women say “No” and this is an appropriate response (1 Peter 3:4). God has called women to serve in different roles than men, and we are happiest when we follow His instruction.
Ellen White
Some people seize on abstract examples to try and overturn a biblical ideal. This is what pro-WO liberals do in the case of Ellen White. They claim that her unique ministry means that women can be pastors or church leaders. This is a futile argument. How many women are given the task of messenger that she was given? Name one, today.
This is a similar maneuver that people use to claim that because Moses & Elijah were in heaven that all dead believers are now in heaven.
Any attempt to make the messages that God gave EGW into a normative pattern for all other women, devalues her ministry into meaninglessness. To try and use Ellen white as a normative pattern for women in ministry, you must also prove that all other women have the same prophetic gift. It is like saying "Because Isaiah was a prophet, all men are prophets." Not so.
And yet, Ellen White sought no ordination or leadership position in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. On occasion she said that those who join themselves to feminism (women’s movement) had severed themselves from the Three Angels’ Messages. She easily recognized its wrong spirit,
“Those who feel called out to join the movement in favor of woman's rights and the so-called dress reform might as well sever all connection with the third angel's message. The spirit which attends the one cannot be in harmony with the other. The Scriptures are plain upon the relations and rights of men and women. Spiritualists have, to quite an extent, adopted this singular mode of dress. Seventh-day Adventists, who believe in the restoration of the gifts, are often branded as spiritualists. Let them adopt this costume, and their influence is dead. The people would place them on a level with spiritualists and would refuse to listen to them” (1T 457.3).
Incidentally, the dress reform mentioned here was women beginning to dress more like men. Ellen White wisely condemned that.
Summary
1 Timothy 2:12 "I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, rather she is to remain quiet." The Bible says so. And that's it.
What if a person feels like they have gifts to teach and preach? How you feel means nothing. No one gets to do everything that they feel like they are gifted at. No one does. What if a man has several wives and he feels like he is gifted to be a pastor? The Bible says he must be the "husband of one wife" (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:6).
Just because you feel like you are gifted to do something, that doesn't give you the right to overthrow biblical qualifications. There is absolutely no room for women to be in the office of pastor, bishop, or elder or to exercise authority over a man. There is a role for older women to teach younger women (Titus 2:4-5).
The Word of God excludes all women and most men from the role of being shepherds of the flock. Do it God’s way, and many blessings will follow.
As people of the Book, we Seventh-day Adventists should lead the way on the complementary roles of male and female.
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