This is the final of six in a series of teachings entitled, The Priesthood of All Believers, delivered by the Reverend John W. Howe. The title of this teaching is, Priestesses in the Church. Well, we come to the last lecture of this series, and I want you to know that I've saved, if not the best, certainly the most controversial for last, the question of women's ministry, specifically the question of women in the priesthood, what some have sarcastically or derisively called priestesses in the church. I want to make a couple of personal comments. I'm sure that you all know that as of this fall, we asked the Reverend Mary Hayes to join the pastoral staff here at Truro.

Probably most of you have met her, yeah? Maybe some of you have heard her preach. What you may not know is that three of the members of the search committee that unanimously recommended her began with a pretty deep conviction against women's priesthood.

And as they and I increasingly sensed that the Lord might indeed be pointing us in this direction, in the direction of asking a woman or this woman, Mary, to come on the staff, I determined that I really needed to come to grips with this question once and for all. at least for me. And you may not come to the same conclusions that I did, but I just want to share with you that if I couldn't be persuaded on biblical grounds that woman's priesthood was a good and legitimate thing, then I wouldn't dream of asking a woman to come on the staff for some other reason, for sociological or political or what other kind of reasons.

I needed to be convinced on biblical grounds. I want you to know I did my homework. I must have read two dozen books on the subject, listened to all kinds of tapes, talked to lots of people, both sides of the issue, pro and con, and it was really out of that personal study that I decided to do this present series.

And the reason is, what really lies behind what we've been about these past several weeks is that I'm convinced that most of the debate, in fact, the vast majority of the debate, and it remains a very hotly divided debate, most of it involves not only a great deal of confusion about what the scriptures have to say about women, but even more, a lot of confusion over what they say about priesthood. So that's why we've been where we've been, and now I want to come tonight to this particular issue of women's priesthood. If you remain unconvinced, I probably will not change your mind in the next few minutes, but at least I want to make very sure that you're asking the right questions.

Let me give you some technical background. First of all, the Greek word for a priest of the Old Covenant, H-I-E-R-E-U-S, that is transliterated into English, curious is literally a sacrificing one or a sacrificer. The priest was somebody who offered sacrifices on an altar for sin.

Those three things go together, priest, altar, sacrifice. And what we've seen so far is, number one, that that priesthood, that priesthood, that sacrificing priesthood of the Old Testament was exclusive, hereditary, male only. And two, that priesthood was abolished when Christ became our great high priest.

Dr. Leon Morris, who was the Archbishop of Sydney, wrote in a book a couple of decades ago, curious is used of Jewish priests and of priests of pagan religions, for in those religions officials did offer sacrifice. But there is no official of the Christian church who may be spoken of as a sacrificing priest. No official of the Christian church who may be spoken of as a sacrificing priest.

The fact that Christ is our great high priest means that his is the only priesthood in the Christian church. The conception of a priestly line, the members of which are the only people by whom sacraments can be effectively administered, is alien to the gospel. Why then do we call clergy in the Episcopal Church, and in other denominations as well, priests?

Why, if Hurius has been completely abolished by Christ, why do we call our clergy priests. How many of you know? Anybody?

Do you know that the word derives from a completely different root altogether? How many of you know that comes from a completely different root word altogether? This is not from furious, but from presbyteros, I bet you recognize it, from which we get, right, presbyter, or even presbyterian, which means elder.

And look at what happened. In Old English, presbyter became proest, P-R-O-E-S-T. In Middle English, presbyter became preest, P-R-E-E-S-T. and then in modern English, presbyter became priest. To call a member of the clergy a priest is not to call that person a sacrificer, but an elder.

And the question, this is the question, is not whether a woman may become a curious. She cannot. Neither can a man.

Jesus Christ has taken that over for himself. it's not whether she may become a herius but whether or not she may become a presbyteros whether or not a woman may become an elder I want to look at one other word we say that we are an episcopal church that's from the Greek episcopos root word there is scopus from which we get scope, telescope, periscope microscope meaning to look at, with a little prefix, epi, which means to magnify it, to look closely, to examine something very closely, to scrutinize. In vulgar Latin, episcopus became e-biscopus, b-i-s-c-o-p, being the center of that, from which you can see we get bishop, right?

In other words, the bishop is one who examines closely, inspects thoroughly, is deeply concerned about, holds others accountable to, and it's also someone who makes an official visit in the sense of an inspection tour. And episcopy is a visitation. And if you notice that, you'll follow that right down to the present time when our bishop makes his official once-a-year visit.

We call that the Episcopal visit. He may be here on any number of other occasions, but when he comes in the office of bishop making his visit, that's the Episcopal visit. In the New Testament, these two words, presbyteros and episkopos, are used interchangeably.

For instance, Paul reminded Titus that he had left him in Crete, quote, to appoint elders, presbyteros, in every town, dot, dot, dot, for a bishop, episkopos, as God's steward, must be blameless. To appoint elders, and then using interchangeably the word bishop. In Acts 20, verse 17, Paul summoned the presbyteros of Ephesus to confer with him, but when they arrived he called them bishops.

Peter wrote in his first letter, I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder, tend the flock of God over you, over which you have been made bishops. I exhort the elders as a fellow elder, tend the flock as bishops. When you look at the New Testament itself, you discover these several things.

Number one, it wasn't bishops and priests in a hierarchical structure, but it was what we might call presbyter bishops. It took about 150 years before that evolved into two quite distinct, clearly defined roles or orders. Secondly, there wasn't just one in any given congregation, but there was a number of them.

I told you to appoint elders in the plural. There would be a group of folks functioning in an eldership capacity. Number three, they were appointed.

As I just alluded to, they were appointed. They were not, in today's terms, ordained. They were appointed first by the apostles, and then in a kind of self-perpetuating, you know, one group of elders appointed the next group of elders.

Fourthly, they had secular occupations and responsibilities, as well as leadership in the church. In short, they functioned more like a vestry, If you look for a contemporary model, then like the clergy as we've come to know them later. Fifthly, as far as communion is concerned, in the earliest experience, the very earliest experience, I'm going right back to the book of Acts.

Now, the early chapters of the book of Acts, the experience of communion was that of a real meal, a shared meal. And in fact, what they did, it's quite clear, it was like a potluck supper. It says they were in each other's houses daily.

And it goes on to talk about having all things in common and so on. And as part of the regular meal, probably the evening meal for the most part, they remembered the words of the Lord Jesus. He said, whenever you eat this bread, whenever you drink the cup.

Do you follow what I'm saying? It was part of the real meal. Just as it was on the night of the Passover.

After supper, a real supper, he took the cup and gave thanks and said, this is my blood. You follow what I'm saying? In Jewish experience, they were all Jews at that point.

Who do you think celebrated or presided at the table? Guess again. Woman of the house.

Absolutely. right down to the present time. Woman of the house presided at the meal.

It's only because of abuse at Corinth, and you can follow this very carefully. You get in the middle of 1 Corinthians, and Paul really upbraids them. He says, when you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper that you're observing because one will hoard while another goes hungry and some will get drunk.

They're abusing the common meal, and so he gives new instructions He says, from now on, you eat your real meal at home, and then you come together for a symbolic meal with just a bite of bread and a sip of wine. But do you follow what I'm saying? Communion was not something relegated only to the apostles or relegated only to the ordained.

They didn't even have ordained. It was not relegated only to the men. It was presumably the women of the house that presided, at the very earliest experience.

Number six, as far as ministry is concerned, there's no question that women entered into virtually every form of ministry that the New Testament discusses. A lady named Phoebe is mentioned as a deaconess in Romans 16, verse 1. Various prophetesses are mentioned, the daughters of Philip and others, Acts 21.

One of the signs of the new covenant, I made a lot of this in that series at Pentecost time, One of the signs of the new covenant is your daughters, as well as your sons, shall prophesy. Priscilla and Aquila, interesting that Priscilla is mentioned first, consistently. Priscilla and Aquila took Apollos aside and instructed him in the things of the Lord more accurately.

He already had a beginning of a faith, but he didn't have it all together, and they took him aside and instructed him. Apollos goes out as what you might call a sub-apostle. He's not one of the original twelve, but he's functioning in an apostolic ministry, and this woman instructed him before he goes out.

Acts 18. It's clear that many of the churches, such as Philippi and Colossae, met in the homes of wealthy, hospitable women. All of God's people are enjoined to seek, develop and practice the gifts of the Spirit, all of God's people.

It's not only for men. And nowhere is that delineated according to gender. So, I put it to you this way.

Ordination, sacramental ministry as something belonging only to the ordained, the hierarchical structure of bishops, priests, and deacons, and the separation of God's people into clergy and laity, none of these are contained in the New Testament itself. They evolve from it, some of them more quickly than others, some are already beginning to evolve within it, but they're not there at the earliest stage. They evolve from the New Testament teaching, but they're not in the New Testament teaching as normative.

And if they evolved in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 15th centuries, why may they not continue to evolve today without being faithless to the New Testament and to the Lord himself? Or, let's put it the other way around. Is there anything in Scripture that would prohibit a woman becoming a priest, not in the sense of a herius, but in the sense of a presbyteros?

that I believe is the question okay and I said I may not convince you but I want to make sure you're asking the right question the question is is there anything in the New Testament that would prohibit absolutely a woman functioning as an elder not a sacrificer because none of us can do that but as an elder comment Well, let's deal with that as I'm moving on, all right? My question is, is there anything that would prohibit that? There's no question that virtually all of it is addressed in the masculine, okay?

But I'm asking, is there anything that would prohibit it? And on the surface of it, there are two passages that would seem to do exactly that. Would seem to be an absolute prohibition.

Now there are other passages that you can argue your way around. There's two passages that would seem to be an absolute prohibition against a woman becoming a priest in this sense of eldership. Until you look at them a little more closely.

First one I want to look at is 1 Timothy chapter 2. 1 Timothy 2, verse 8. Let a woman learn in silence, with all submissiveness.

I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men. She is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

Yet women will be saved through bearing children if she continues in faith and love and holiness with modesty. Pretty strong stuff, isn't it? You like that, Sid, don't you?

I thought you'd like that. He's trying. It appears to say there's a radical distinction between men and women.

Men are to lead and to pray. Women are to learn and keep silent. No woman is to teach or to have authority over men.

And Paul's basis for saying this is rooted in the creation on the one hand and the fall on the other. The man, Adam, was created first. And the woman, Eve, is the more subject to deception and transgression.

and it would seem that the implication is she's more responsible for the whole mess than is the man. Men are to lead the church, women are to bear children and tend the home. There are several problems with that.

Number one, the women did teach, pray, and prophesy, and Paul not only instructed them to do so, but he used them in ministry. Number two, what's really radical about that statement is not let a woman learn in silence, but let a woman learn at all. That's what's radical about that, because the culture into which Paul is speaking, the culture of the Jews on the one hand and Gentiles on the other, is one in which women were not permitted to learn in the sense of becoming a disciple.

That was forbidden. You couldn't do it. What's radical is he's saying, let the woman learn.

Let her learn. In reminiscence of Jesus commending Mary for sitting at his feet in the position of a disciple. That's a technical phrase.

Mary sat at his feet. while Martha was out in the kitchen and Jesus says she has chosen the best part and it won't be taken away from her. That is absolutely radical.

That was an offense to both cultures that the woman would be permitted to take the position of a disciple. And that's exactly what Paul is saying. Let the woman learn.

In silence, yes. But we'll come to that in just a second. He's saying, let a woman become what she has never been permitted to be before, a disciple of a master teacher.

Okay? Thirdly, this strange business in verse 15 about women will be saved through bearing children, where in the world does that come from? Nowhere else in scripture is there any suggestion that a woman's salvation is going to be through childbearing.

If it were, what about the unmarried woman? What about the barren wife? Nowhere except God's comment to Eve that she will be the bearer of children through whom one will come who will bruise Satan's head.

In other words, it's a reference. There's no question it's a reference not of women in general being child bearers but that the woman, the same woman who was deceived first and who led into the transgression, the same woman was promised that she would be the bearer of Messiah's line. And that corrects the balance.

That equals it out. In other words, if Eve may have been tempted first she was also the agent of bearing the Messiah who came for our redemption. It is not, in short, a statement of her inferiority, but of her co-equality as someone who is fit to become a disciple.

Do you follow what I'm saying? That's an aside. She's to keep silence because she has been excluded from this process for all these years out of the fact that she was the instrument of temptation but the other side of the coin is she was also the instrument of childbearing through which came Messiah who earned our redemption.

Therefore, it's okay for her to be a disciple. Do you see that? There's a totally different spin on it.

The point is, before she can teach others, she must herself first be taught, just like anyone else. she's never been permitted to be taught up to this point. Under the old covenant, that's excluded from her.

Under the new, it's permitted. Paul says, I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men. The word authority there is not the word that is usually used.

It's not exousia, but it's authentio, which means to usurp. I permit no woman to usurp authority over men. That's the only place that word is used in the New Testament.

Every place else where you read authority, it's privilege or right, exousia. This one instance, it's the word authentio, which means to usurp. I don't permit a woman to usurp the place of authority.

I command that she be discipled before she's permitted to teach. In other words, Paul is claiming for women the prerogatives that up until this point have been only irrigated to men. Bo? Yeah. Let a woman learn in silence. Couldn't the last part of that also be a reference to the technique of Jewish instruction, which is still used in yeshiva, which is instruction by argument rather than teaching in the classic lecture system that we use. Can you be saying she has no background here in education, so let her sit and soak it up listening to the arguments rather than brewing egos in arguments? Sure. She hasn't yet, at this point in history, at this point in culture, she hasn't yet the background to move into the position of leadership but the point is let her learn okay the point of becoming a disciple is always always that you might give it away to others let her become a disciple that's what's radical about that statement well the other passage I commented on in a sermon some of you may have heard it so I'm not going to go into it quite as fully, but let's look at 1 Corinthians 14. And this, at first glance, appears to be even stronger.

1 Corinthians 14, starting with verse 33. It's actually the middle of the verse. He's just said, God is not a God of confusion, but of peace.

And then in the middle, in RSV, it's a new paragraph. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

What? Did the word of God originate with you, or are you the only ones it has reached? Sounds like he's saying, who do you think you are to let women speak in church?

They should keep silent. They're not permitted to speak. They must be subordinate, as even the law says.

This seems to be an absolute prohibition. If you heard my sermon, you remember I said, if you take that as an absolute, we're not going to have women praying, prophesying, teaching, or even singing, if you're going to take it absolutely. If you're going to take it absolutely, we're not going to have women teaching kids in Sunday school.

Okay? Because this one doesn't say, let them not have authority over men. It says, let them be silent, period, in church.

But once again, exactly the same problem that contradicts flat out not only Paul's teaching elsewhere, but his practice. And we've got to interpret Scripture in the light of Scripture. Those are two very hard sayings, but we've got to look at them in the light of the rest of the teaching of the New Testament, the rest of the teaching of Paul himself in particular.

In the preceding paragraph, he's just given instruction that when we come together, each one of us is to have a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, an interpretation. And he goes on to say in verse 31, For you can all prophesy, one by one, so that all may learn and be encouraged. Three chapters earlier, he gave instructions on how the women are to pray and prophesy.

And again, there's some strange stuff. I'm not going to take the time to go into it about covering of the heads and so on. There's a whole bunch of stuff that he alludes to.

But the point is, he's giving instruction that women are to pray and are to prophesy. In other words, not to be silent. And if you go into the background of that particular business, it's in the context of saying, again, exactly the same thing that we ran into in 1 Timothy, that there's a historical difference between men and women in the fall, but there's an equality between them in Christ.

Now, let's try to make sense of this particular paragraph. What you need to understand is that New Testament Greek has absolutely no punctuation whatsoever. There are no paragraph headings.

There are no periods at the end of sentences. There are no commas. There are no question marks.

There is nothing. There are certainly no quotation marks. and yet from chapter 7 right on through the end of the book it's very clear that what Paul is doing is quoting a number of things that the Corinthians have written to him and then commenting on them chapter 7 just take a quick look I'm not going to be tedious about this but chapter 7 now concerning the matters about which you wrote okay quote here's the first one it is well for a man not to touch a woman unquote and then he comments on it chapter 8 now concerning food offered to idols quote unquote we know that all of us possess knowledge and then he comments on it chapter 8 verse 4 we know that an idol has no real existence quote unquote then he comments on it chapter 8 verse 8 quote food will not commend us to God unquote and so on do you see what he's doing?

now concerning the matters that you wrote me about here's the first one well for a man not to touch a woman here's my comment on that that's the structure of the second half of 1 Corinthians and I'm suggesting to you that that's exactly what's going on in this particular paragraph he is quoting back to them something they wrote to him one of the matters they wrote about and then he's commenting on it and I think I can give you several reasons why that is so first of all the practice of keeping women silent is spoken of as a rule in all the churches of the saints in all the churches of the saints. That is a very strange phrase when you stop and think about it. It is the only place that that phrase is used in the New Testament.

Sometimes Paul and others speak of all the saints. Sometimes they speak of all the churches. But what are all the churches of the saints?

It's redundant when you stop and think about it, isn't it? No, it's not quite. alright that's another word for the same thing but the word saint in the earliest use was applied to the Jewish believers the Jews who converted to Christ Jews of Palestine and Jerusalem in particular Acts 9 verse 13 verse 32 verse 31 Acts chapter 26 verse 10 are all instances in which they're referring to the Jewish Christians as the saints.

When churches were finally established in the Gentile world, the Jewish Christians continued to be called the saints. And eventually that word came to be used for all Christians. But you can see in the New Testament instances in which it's still referring specifically to the Jewish Christians.

And one of the best is in 1 Corinthians 16. Verse 1, now concerning the contribution for the saints. He's talking about the saints back in Jerusalem.

He's appealing to Gentile Christians in Corinth to make a contribution to help the saints, the Jewish Christians back in Jerusalem. In all the churches of the saints, are the congregations built upon that Jewish-Palestinian foundation. This is not a universal practice of all the churches.

This is a practice that is carried over from the Jewish-Palestinian tradition, and Paul is referring to it. Secondly, when Paul gives instructions that apply to all the churches, which he does over and over and over, he makes it very clear that he is endorsing. And in most cases, he is the author of those instructions.

Chapter 7, verse 17, this is my rule in all the churches. Chapter 11, verse 16, we recognize no other practice, nor do the churches of God. Chapter 16, verse 1, as I directed the churches, and as we saw in 1 Timothy, I permit no woman to do thus and so.

Paul owns the instruction, but he doesn't do so here. He doesn't do that. He simply refers, as in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches.

He doesn't say, I permit that. He doesn't say, this is our rule. He says, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says.

What law? No, sir. You can search the Old Testament, and you will not find one single instance in which it says that subordination entails silence.

Not one. Know where it comes from? The Talmud.

The Talmud. In which it says that the men may receive religious instruction, period. Under certain conditions, a woman, if she is a married woman, may accompany her husband to the meeting if she keeps unobtrusively silent.

She is to be subordinate to him and silent. That's what's being quoted. There's no personal endorsement.

It simply says the law, which turns out to be a law, again, of Jewish-Palestinian Christianity, the law of the Talmud, comes in. And what a far cry from women being encouraged and instructed to pray, to prophesy, to teach, as did Priscilla, Or even Paul's own exhortation in this same letter back in chapter 7, verse 34, where he says that some women should not get married, also some men should not get married, so that they would be unencumbered for their ministry. Do you follow me?

It's in total contradiction to what he said everywhere else. He's endorsing the Jewish tradition in their churches. You might think so until the next word. And that's the most important clue of all. Verse 36, Paul's response to all of this is not an endorsement but exactly the opposite.

What? That little particle translated what is a total disjuncture. It's a total separation from what has immediately come before.

It could be translated nonsense. I'm suggesting to you, again, you could write this in if you like, put in the punctuation. Here's one more of several statements that they sent to him and asked him to comment on.

So he puts in quotations, quote, As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church clothes, quote, What? where did that come from nonsense and Paul does that repeatedly in this very book that same word that little particle e in Greek translated what comes up over and over and over again in chapter 6 verse 9 verse 16 verse 19 chapter 9 verse 6 verse 8 verse 10 chapter 10 verse 22 11 13 and so on for instance in chapter 6 verse 1 when he's speaking of those who would rather take their problems to a secular court than to settle them you won't find this in the RSV but you'll find it in the Greek he says what?

nonsense do you not know that we will be judging the world indeed judging the angels one day do you see what I'm saying? so A statement followed by the particle E and then Paul's rebuttal is in essence the structure of much of this letter. He quotes back to them what they've said to him and then radically disagrees with it.

Rather than being an endorsement, it is exactly the opposite. Look, Paul has been exhorting the Christian community to see themselves as the members of Christ's body absolutely every one of them is necessary. There are no spare parts in the body of Christ.

We have different functions, different ministries, but all are necessary. He moves on from that metaphor, which is his central metaphor, the one he uses most often for the church. It's here, it's in Ephesians, it's in Romans, and so on.

He moves on from that to talking about worship and saying, when we come together, let each one come prepared to share a hymn, a revelation, a tongue, an interpretation, a lesson, a prophecy. whatever and then he quotes the Corinthians back to themselves but there's this law that says women are not permitted to speak they should be subordinate and silent and he says what? nonsense that's a misunderstanding of the old covenant imposed upon the new that is a limitation at the very point that God is calling all of his people into the exercise of ministry.

Sure. I'm afraid that that's what the case against women's ordination comes down to. Two sentences taken out of context in total opposition to the rest of what Paul teaches and does and in violation, in fact, of the whole spirit of the New Testament, which is one of moving into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

A woman may not become a Herius, but neither may any man today. That role's been taken. But women and men are called into a priesthood of all believers.

a priesthood in which we are to pray for each other we are to exhort each other we are to counsel each other we are to edify each other we are to build each other up in the faith we are to support each other we are to see ourselves as mutually interdependent parts of one body in Christ and in which all of us are eligible for whatever ministry God cares to give to us I don't believe all are called to leadership but some are and I do believe that if God pleases he could call a woman into leadership just as easily as a man and I find no prohibition against that in the New Testament itself the culture into which it was written was clearly one of a patriarchal kind of a society and this was a brand new thing and it took a very long time to be worked out. But the issue for all of us is the priesthood of all believers. We are a holy nation, a royal priesthood.

And the issue is, Lord, what do you want me to do? I'm available to you. Where do you want to send me?

What kind of a ministry do you want to give me? And that's where I want to end. The Lord's call to absolutely every one of us.

It may be that God is calling some of you into the ordained ministry. Some of you men, some of you women. It may be that you've never ever considered that.

Maybe he's calling you to that. It may be that he's not calling you to that at all, but he's calling you to a much more vigorous ministry than you've ever imagined. A ministry of sharing your faith on the job, in the neighborhood, with your family, whatever it might be.

The point is, there aren't any second-class citizens. The point is, he calls all of us to be his priests. The point is, he wants us to be available for him to use in whatever way he pleases to bring glory to his Son.

Let's stop there. Let's pray together, and then I'll be glad to entertain any comments that you might have. Father in heaven, thank you for the redemption that is ours.

thank you that we who were once no people are now God's people thank you that we who had once received no mercy have now become the recipients of mercy and grace thank you that we who were once divided from each other in so many ways of hierarchy and class and status and education and culture and race and gender are called into a place in which there's neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female. Thank you, Lord, that we who had nothing to give are now privileged to give the very gift of life. Thank you for calling us not only to be your children, but to be your priests.

A royal priesthood. Thank you that we share with Jesus the prerogatives and the privileges of royalty. Thank you that you call us to be your ministers, declaring the marvelous deeds of your grace.

Send us out, Lord, to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord. To him, to you, and to the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.

Welcome your comments. I want to say thanks for wrestling with that. You're welcome. You've answered some really significant questions, and I really appreciate it. Good, I like that comment. My wife has struggled with that paragraph. So have we all. And we came from a Baptist church, and they were, that's the word, that's the way it is, no women leaders, blah, blah, blah. But I don't think any of them ever knew any Greek. You read any commentary, I guarantee you, any commentary that I know of, and they will wrestle with the fact that that is so much out of keeping with the rest of what Paul has said in that letter, let alone elsewhere. Now, in most cases, what they'll try to do, most commentators, and this was my attempt to deal with it for years, was to say, well, it's simply a cultural thing, that because the women had never previously been allowed even to be part of the meeting, because it was a public scandal to allow them to be present, Paul is imposing this kind of a prohibition upon them, lest they add to the scandal. And given the fact that we were talking about earlier, they didn't have the background to understand what was going on.

You can just sort of picture the women kind of interrupting the meeting and say, hey, Sadie, what's he talking about? And that's the typical explanation that you'll have of that. But I don't think it goes anywhere near far enough.

It's too absolute a prohibition. That doesn't deal with it. but I think when you get into the structure of the letter I think there really is warrant for saying it is exactly the opposite of what it appears to be at first glance please I don't know if you were here at the very beginning I commented that as we began to sense that maybe the Lord was pointing us to hiring Mary I mean, it's not hard of it, but I mean, what in your study and so on? Oh, well, I've just, you know, it's just a matter of really reading all kinds of stuff, and that's the only explanation that makes any sense to me, and it really does make sense to me. I've, you know, I think I've read them all, all the main ones that, you know, there may be some wild interpretation out somewhere, but that's, I think I've read them all. David. David. John, you're talking to the man who's the head of the household. Does that have any implication as to being head rector, should be a male? A couple things. First of all, it does not say head of the household, interestingly enough. It says the husband is called to be the head of the wife, and that's a little bit different.

The head of the household for a Christian family is Jesus. And we really need to hang on to that. Where it says that the husband is called to be the head of the wife, it immediately goes on to define that.

That's in Ephesians chapter 5. It immediately goes on to define that in terms of servanthood. That as Jesus is the head of the church, so the husband is to be the head of the wife.

And you start to think about how is Jesus the head of the church. He serves the church. And it spells that out at great length.

He cared for her. He washed her with the water of his word. and so on, you know, to present her spotless before himself, and so on.

So that headship is not prerogative, which is the way Western culture has taken it, but it's responsibility for service. And in fact, most of the linguistic scholars would point out that the word headship is not even there, not primarily a matter of authority, but it's like the head of the river. the origin the man is the origin of this relationship it flows out of him it flows out of his commitment to be a servant to his wife in the same fashion that jesus is servant to the church and still her lord so that the wife is commanded to be obedient to the husband as the church is to jesus and that's the relationship it's really one of mutual submissiveness.

And we usually quote from this one verse too late, where it says, wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord. The preceding verse says, be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Husbands, love your wives, and so on.

What was the second half of the question? As to whether there's any comments should be made as to whether a woman should be the head director. Yeah. I don't think you can legitimately draw that. I think that the question comes if a woman, you know, is a married woman and in relationship to her husband, is she then also to be in charge of the church in some particular sense?

I think that's a real difficult question. Real difficult. I think... specifically there was a radio coming home this afternoon there was a comment that yes anything but head record well that's that's pretty much where I have been for the last several years of saying that the American church has not even begun to make that distinction and yet that's exactly the question we ought to be looking at there's a difference between priestly ministry as defined tonight and being rector of the parish or bishop of the diocese so that while it might be appropriate to have a woman on a multiple staff or a woman in a specialized ministry, say the armed services or women's prison or something like that, there might be a question about her being in authority over the parish. I guess at this point my answer to that is it's probably the exception to the rule. But I believe God could make such an exception because he's done so all throughout history.

It was certainly the exception to the rule that a woman would be the judge over Israel, but sometimes that happened. It was certainly the exception to the rule in the Old Covenant that a woman would be a prophet, but sometimes it happened. A woman even led the army at one point.

That's the exception to the rule, okay? But it sometimes happened. And I think at that point you're down to talking cases.

Could God call a woman, this woman, to be the rector of a parish? Could God call a woman, this woman, to be the bishop of a diocese? And I would be unable to say he could not do that.

I would think it would be the exception. And you get into a dynamic there. I think it is true.

I've said this on many occasions in the past, that in general, when the women take strong leadership, the men fall back. But whose fault is that? Is that the woman's fault or is that the man's fault?

Or both? I said at the very beginning, I think there's not only an enormous amount of confusion over what the scriptures say about women, but an enormous amount of confusion over what we're talking about regarding priesthood. We have reincorporated into the whole discussion a view of priesthood, which is basically an Old Testament view.

You know, the patriarchal sacrificer, you know, as if that's what we're doing at the altar. We're offering a sacrifice. We're not.

We're celebrating the sacrifice that Christ offered. It's a big difference. Richard. My conception with priesthood, I didn't think back that far. I just thought about the Roman church priesthood of the Middle Age time, when these prohibitions against things got locked into canon law, and so forth also, was that he was a celibate, unapproachable, all-knowing, because he was probably the only educated person around, and this sort of thing, and that is what we're still living with. And often that's a misnomer. By the time of the Middle Ages, most of the priests did not know what they were saying when they said their masses. They learned them as best they could by rote, but they didn't know what Latin meant.

Do you know where the word hocus-pocus comes from? hocus pocus that's exactly what they mumbled the high point of the Latin mass is when the priest takes the bread and holds it up and says hocus corpus male this is my body and in many places Anglican as well as Catholic you'll go into the church today and they ring a bell at that point do you know why? do you really know what the tradition is?

In case you're sleeping or daydreaming or whatever, pay attention because this is the moment of the miracle, see? When bread becomes literally flesh, okay? That's the miracle.

And people say, hocus pocus, see? Okay? And what happened, I mean, think of what happened.

We're going from a meal in which Jesus says, this meal commemorates the once and for all offering that I made of myself. We've gone from that into a magical ceremony in which we are turning bread into body and wine into blood so that the priest may offer them to God as a sacrifice. What are we back to?

Like the old church. Curious. Exactly.

The priest offering the sacrifice on the altar. Do you see? That's what the Reformation is about.

Nobody wanted to start a new church. They wanted to reform that corruption and get back to what the New Testament itself said. Do you think the elders have secularized beliefs as well as the priests and priests in the kind of days of the years of the years and that's the first question and the worst question is how does it differ from the other two slants that we use in our... Yes, that's another discussion. Deacon means diaconate, diaconate means servant. And most people would trace that to the sixth chapter of Acts when it says that the apostles had gotten so burdened with the responsibility of serving the tables again, you've got this big potluck supper going on, and the apostles are running around caring for everybody's needs at table, that they said, let's appoint six men, and the word deacon isn't used there, but that's where it's traced to as a servant group to wait on tables and free the apostles to do the preaching and the teaching.

And it's interesting because the criterion for being a table waiter was let them be men filled with the Holy Spirit and of good repute. Interesting. And so what evolves then is in most cases in the pastoral epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy and in Titus, it talks about bishops and deacons or presbyter bishops and deacons.

So there are like two groups and we've already defined bishops, presbyter bishops, no presbyter bishops is horizontal than the servant group service group of deacons what's interesting is that a lot of scholars think that when it gives instructions about the deacons and it goes on to talk about women in 1 Timothy and in Titus it's not talking about the deacons' wives but it's talking about women who are themselves deacons sure today the way it works today is for the most part deacon is like an apprentice priest you know you are ordained as a deacon to serve for six months to a year before you become a priest so it's an apprenticeship but historically it's been a separate order and that's beginning to come back as people who are called to basically a secular occupation. They're not dependent upon their livelihood from the church, but they offer themselves in a servant capacity to help. Maybe hospital ministry, to help on Sundays at the Lord's table.

They're not ever going to become priests, but they're going to be permanently deacons. Down through English history, we've made a distinction between deacons and deaconesses, but the language now is just to call male or female deacons. One more, yeah. Thank you. Oh, wow. It's a second. It's totally a different subject. I have personally a great deal with this next part, and I know a lot of people, a lot of people, I have a lot of difficulty with a human being able to do anything because I've got all these children. And how is that square with what you're trying to do today to get the mothers back in the home with their children and not find them out? Well, I think each one of us is answerable to the Lord about that. And, you know, you'd have to step back and talk about a society in which the majority of women are now carrying at least a part-time, if not a full-time occupation outside the home. And maybe you come out at the position that that's totally wrong.

But that is where we are. And if women are doing that to go be executives of secular businesses, why shouldn't they be able to do that as servants within the church? That would be my answer.

I think there's a responsibility for the children, for sure. And each couple is going to have to work that out for themselves. In Mary's case, interestingly enough, I don't know if you had that in mind, but in Mary's case, she does have relatively young children.

Her mother-in-law, Wyss's mother, is an ordained Methodist minister who feels called of God at this particular moment in their history to be a kind of a nanny to those children. And it's kind of an extended family. So both Wyss and Mary sharing the responsibilities of parenting, but they also have the grandmother feeling called of God to help shoulder that particular burden for them.

So, you know, I think that's a decision. Well, all I'm using that is an illustration. That's how they've worked it out, and I think they're answerable to the Lord just as you and I are. This concludes the recorded question and answer session following Mr. Howe's teaching.