Women In Ministry (PART 3): With Dr. Craig Keener

hey everybody this is Joshua Lewis with the remnant radio thank you so much for tuning in today we've got a very exciting episode with dr. Craig keener we're gonna be talking about I guess the camera a Galit Arianism it's gonna be a fun a theological discussion if you've watched some of our prior episodes we've talked about complementarianism and egalitarianism it's basically talking about women and their function in the church dr. keener is gonna give us a presentation I suppose on on what that definition means to him since we've got one point compliment Aryans and egalitarian is now these terms are almost interchangeable amongst us we're actually joking about it right before the show it's been fun Before we jump in Miller cultural update how are you doing man cultural hub day I would say that I am as excited as can get Craig I mean obviously do you want to call you Craig or dr. keener great okay I was a huge fan I mean from from day one I picked up your book that you wrote on egalitarianism and I so I read your to vol work on miracles and I just ate the testimonies up it made me I mean it just got me excited to see the works of Jesus done and evangelism happened through that so yeah all week I've been looking forward to this podcast more so than anything I think honestly than any other guests we've yeah yeah it's fun when we get to have someone on who we just want to sit and glean like we're gonna have an hour of this conversation and then we're gonna want to have another two hours of conversation so it's just it's cool to be able to have someone on that weekend is just a wealth of information and knowledge that we can pull from your your scholarship on your commentaries that you've written the gifts of the Spirit women in ministry I mean you've got so oolitic I have no idea how you have the time to write all of this content and then you just you just released a book that's I mean it's much smaller than these other commentaries I just mentioned with dr. Brown on a post tribulation rapture I mean you're a busy guy how many how many books have you published it depends on what stage of publication or and I do I don't remember you think it's probably 26 now 26 books okay so you've got some more work I mean I mean I mean you should pretty step it up I was I was they're telling you about how awesome you were and then you said 26 I mean I was looking for somewhere in triple digits but that's fine that's cool 26 is decent no it's outrageous that's yeah I wanted I wanted to just do commentaries in the whole New Testament mm-hmm and then start doing something more something that covers you know broader areas in the New Testament more topically theologically or whatever but I realized that the rate I was going I would probably be about a hundred by the time I finished the New Testament so unless I can really appreciate up I kind of limited my focus more on which which books and gonna read commentaries and there you go I've got your first volume on Acts and I've barely made my way through it yet I've just sort of skimmed the surface of it but where can we get your content if we want more of your literature's Amazon the best way to go or your personal Jean or a Christian book distributed I think it's christianbook.com and also you can get free stuff at Craig keener calm do you just thought I got an email in say send me free stuff no no there's free stuff posted their their posts and there's there's a Bible interpretation manual but it's all very basic I mean it's like intro level or my academic stuff of course is published by publishers who well they only they want they want money for it thank you hey let's dive into our conversation today we're gonna be talking about women in ministry the Galit Aryan position give us a definition of egalitarianism as as you see it yeah actually I a gala terian probably isn't the best label that I would come up with in terms of a biblical label probably it would be closer to mutual submission or closer to this the gifts of the Spirit of for everybody but in in terms of yeah the way the way it's been defined egalitarian that there's no difference based on gender in terms of how gifts including leadership gifts are given by the spirit in the body of Christ excellent so so we we've been talking last couple of weeks on this topic you know we we said first Timothy let's let's give a kind of a presentation of this our buddy Geoff Jenkins came on the show and myself we both kind of gave a presentation of a first Timothy chapter 2 that the velour section that talks about you know I do not a permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man we that that section and when we're looking at it we were talking about it it really comes down to our hermeneutic approach like how how are we gonna read this text we have you know our John Piper's or wayne grudem's who are reading it this way and we have our Craig keener is reading it this way how how do how do you approach the text and what is what is that style to determine what is a historical context versus a prescriptive command for all time yeah and by the way I I'm friends with Wayne he likes you oh we've had him on the show and he's like I love Keener yeah I I I haven't met John Piper personally but I love his his emphasis on glorifying God and so on so this is yeah so our difference on this issue doesn't like spillover and everything else yeah but historical context makes a difference and everybody would at least all the scholars are know would recognize that historical context makes a difference in how we apply texts but the question is how do we apply it consistently to texts so for example first first Corinthians chapter 16 says that we are supposed to set aside money on the first day of the week to send to Jerusalem and we know from from Romans that the Gentile churches owe it to the Jewish church so there's a theological reason for it at least Romans first Corinthians 16 we we we don't say well no everybody has to do that we see that was addressed to the Corinthians look for the principle what can we learn from that in terms of stewardship and so on or in a bring up something from first Corinthians because you also have gender related passages there with regard to women keeping silence in Thrissur infants 14 and the women wearing head coverings mainly to cover their hair which is something I don't really have a problem with stop laughing you do need a covering though where you live I'll be laughing because you were seeing where is my hairbrush before the show from VeggieTales but anyway second timothy chapter chapter 4 paul gives clear instructions go to troy get my cloak and bring it to me now most of us have never gone to troy us have never done any ex-commander Sleeman in the seventeen hundreds and they don't make cloaks there anymore if we found a cloak if it survived if it happened to be Paul's how would we know it was false and then the biggest problem how are we gonna get it to him he's dead so don't laugh that's sick you're sick chapter 4 you know it's part of the set of letters is first Timothy so everybody acknowledges that some things are addressed to particular situations now when we get down to the business of which things are addressed to particular situations I mean most of it actually is addressed in particular situations but draws on universal principles to do so so the real question is what are the universal principles in the text and in some cases maybe they have to do with gender in some cases maybe they have to do with something else and so the important thing is figuring out which things are where for example with head coverings most churches today in most parts of the world although I've taught in places where this is not the case most churches would say no women don't have to wear head coverings in all cultures it's the principles of the text that are more important so there's propriety propriety so as I studied the function of head coverings in Mediterranean antiquity it became increasingly clear to me that it was a form of sexual modesty so is it important to be to be modest did not try to turn the heads of people of the other gender or of your own gender for that matter and yeah well that that seems to be a good principle it's not just even in in first Corinthians 11 does that mean women have to wear hats and all cultures and most of us would say no so in the same the same with the holy kiss like one culture where I was teaching wear head coverings were normative in the church right I raised the question okay they're normative in this culture so they're normative in the church but how many of you would say they should be normative for all cultures well only half the people raised their hands I said how many of you would say that a woman who goes to church without a head covering will go to hell one guy actually raised his hand and after we after we discussed the cultural context of you know what some of the issues were in Corinth he responded but the Bible says women have to wear head coverings and I said yes but it commands the holy kiss five times as often and yet none of you read him in with a holy kiss when I came in the room nope too late now they're doing now I am really in the hygiene that was a form of greeting in that culture that you'd use for family members or for people you were close to or for teachers or students or rulers you might kiss him on the hand or whatever but most people you actually it was a light kiss on the lips which is you know why I was kind of well so then I think the question we have is when do you say so I mean you you raised it earlier you said we what is the way we do this consistently yes so when do I know like as the average reader I mean yeah I will I won't know unless I read books of people like yourself who have written on here's what was normal in that culture I mean it's specifically the the Ephesus just you know admonition it's like how do I know for sure that this had to do with some cultural thing taking place in Ephesus and that the church for sure was dealing with that particular problem yeah and I'm going to cite some principles for this but also I want to acknowledge up front that there are difficulties with this and that's when we need to give each other grace on a lot of these issues that are not you know at the heart of the gospel because in some cases it's it's pretty hard to know I mean okay the writer is drawing on a universal principle to make this particular point which is the principle in which is the point is is the writer stating the principle upfront or as the writer just in in in implicitly drawing on the principle and you find this even with the head coverings because some of the arguments that Paul uses or some of them would have made a lot more sense in terms of the way argumentation was done in the first century then then you know the way we would try to make the same point today so it we need to give each other grace and this is one of the issues where we need to give each other grace because in terms of like right now I'm working on the con during first Peter and it seems like most of us who defend the patron authorship or evangelicals and some of the other scholars not all of them some of them are very respectful but some of the other scholars like oh yeah they say that because you know what would you expect the conservative scarlet is saying well all of the external evidence supports metronome fashion it's skews me like a no-brainer to go for petrol and authorship so when when something's you know a lot of Evangelicals or at least most of us are or you know taking hits from people who don't like that but when it comes to issues like this I mean you'll have people on either side will be attacking the personal faith of the people on the other side of the issue I used to be on the other side of the issue because I thought that's what the text said and as I started immersing myself in the the world the first century world it just seemed to me like this is one of the most obvious issues where the cultural backgrounds makes a big difference so I just say that at the beginning to say let's give each other grace well III know the extra step and say I am on the other side of the issue I am complementarian and we're having you on the show so that you can get me on the other side of the issue so I don't want to be on this side it just is this is the side that I see right show me that the grass is greener on the other side this is sort of the point of our show to is is to bring in different traditions people on different side of the spectrum on non-essential issues so we're not on here debating the virgin birth we're not on here debating the deity of Jesus but we are asking the question about complementarian egalitarian and people get to learn with us yes yeah yeah so yeah yeah actually some things where I I would like to be on the other side but I can't because the text constrains me but anyway so I under understand that but I I'm not going to try to persuade you to eat grass on either side I don't think stay away from the grass in any case coming coming back to super principles one of the principles is is there any other place where where the author or you know is a Christian it believes in the whole Canon any other place where the Bible teaches a different approach and there are some things where you've got a consistent voice all the way through scripture and so you know good indication is probably not just cultural because in a variety of cultures you've got the same the same thing so for example on on the issue of homosexual behavior as to whether it's right or wrong I mean the Bible speaks with the unanimous voice we can debate whether this text or that text actually is addressing the issue but every text that does address the issue it speaks with the unanimous voice in the case of the roles roles of women we actually have differences like an interest in athief I've the woman is supposed to rule the domestic sphere she's basically confined almost of the home which was the ideal Hellenistic approach but in in proverbs 31 the ideal matron is you know she buys a field and she sells it she's doing real estate yeah she she makes text tools she's an entrepreneur you know so or song the Solomon you know the the the woman is working in a vineyard so you know agrarian work so you have different approaches and different passages in light of different cultural expectations in those things another principle that is important is whether whether they're speaking with the culture or against the culture so sometimes there are things where first Peter then working on now there's some times when it says okay don't don't rock the boat in the culture when things you don't need to or two wives of unbelieving husbands you know do do do what will not offend your husband as much as possible because you know wives were expected to hold their husband's religion so obviously the Christian wife of a non believing husband doesn't don't don't cause trouble where you don't need it choose your battles in a sense because this is where you're gonna need it and I think that's a valid principle for us in a lot of ways in terms of choosing our battles don't don't fight the culture on things where we don't need to fight them on but then there are other things where the culture holds diverse views and the the author is very clear I mean in going back to the illustration I used before there were different views about homosexual behavior in the greco-roman world but a Jewish view was pretty well unanimous you go through all all early Jewish writings Greeks though it was it was common practice Greek Greek culture and Roman culture practiced it in somewhat different ways but yeah it was a it was a common practice and so Paul is actually going against the majority of the surrounding culture in that challenging the surrounding culture that actually addresses I think one of my one of my slippery soap questions to you is people will say that it once you buy into a Galit arianism and you buy into the using that in that historical context to explain that narrator or explain that text then the same thing is possible for you to do with homosexuality which you're addressing that in this conversation you're saying that was widely accepted and if anything Paul was very clearly against it yeah yeah and actually if if you're hermeneutic is so that's you make up cultural background yeah you can come up with any any explanation you want to like you know some explanations that I've heard for defending homosexual behavior they made up cultural background not the one about pederasty that one actually was the common most common expression of it with the Greek crowd but one of the arguments I heard was it's related to idolatry well it wasn't specifically related to idolatry most of the time I mean it was polytheists who practiced it but you can't say you know well Paul just deals with it because it's related to idolatry and even the pederast ik argument that wasn't necessarily true it could be I know I'm getting way off track here but just no justification even with a pederast ik argument it would be boys on the cusp of adolescence especially prepubescent and then up through adolescence and sometimes it carried on beyond that and in Roman culture the issue was just see I didn't even want to get into some of the stuff but huzzah yeah but in any case it wasn't exclusively Petr astok and Paul's language I mean he could have used such specific language but it does not do he actually speaks of both both genders doing it you know there's a whole context of that I don't think we should exaggerate because you know Paul's taking an illustration that his Jewish audience and I think his Christian audience would have agreed with can you hear me all right yeah we can I'm monitoring questions at the same time that you're talking oh it's not got one for you as well yeah in Paul goes on to a vice list that includes slander and gossip and all sorts of other things that he says are worthy of death so I think he's making a graphic illustration of something a lot of his audience would agree with especially the Jewish members of his audience but it's to bridge into his argument to show that all of us need Jesus to save us from and but anyway just to say yeah you don't want to make up that ground and I I had somebody also bring up the argument with me some months ago saying well you know denominations it's a slippery slope once they ordain women soon there the retaining people who are practicing homosexual behavior and and other things and and I said that's not the slippery slope the slippery slope in in those particular denominations are speaking up is not it is not simply that they decided to retain women it's that they decided to ordain women by rejecting what Paul said rather than by understanding the historical context it makes a difference one good point that is a really good point I mean I mean the majority of women who Pentecostals and and holiness churches were having women in ministry a long time before what we call more liberal churches were so we need to be fair about the the Salvation Army start starting in the you know some of this actually goes back to the 1860s that's the 1960s but anyway that's another whole oh there was the question you had yeah so that this comes from a pastor in Aspen he said it seems to me in dealing with universals we have to connect all the passages together to make sense Genesis Gospels first corinthians first timothy one cultural thing in ephesus shouldn't overturn the greater universal what do you think about that i'm having a little bit of trouble hearing you which is why i asked earlier but i think I got the question okay so yeah you need to connect passages together so which passages are we talking about is a big question because yeah if you start with Genesis man and woman together are created in God's image and together there to rule the rest of creation and God makes in 2:18 God makes a helper suitable for Adam and the word that's translated as helper it's it's a word that's often used for goddess or help I mean it's not a term of weakness and suitable means corresponding to so Genesis yeah it depends on how you read Genesis and then also it depends on what passages you start with I mean all through the Bible men held the majority of ministry positions that's true but do we explain that by explaining way all the evidence for women holding some or do we say in other words do we see the women is exceptionally see this is a cultural situation where the man dominated or do we pretend there aren't any exceptions in the Bible or do we pretend that the men didn't dominate you know it's so like an example would be Deborah was an exception yeah that was gonna she's a prophetess she's a judge of Israel there were only two judges that we know of who were also prophetic voices and those were Samuel and Deborah and and then you know you've got other prophetess is Miriam Exodus 15 you've got Isaiah's wife Isaiah chapter 8 is called the prophetess you've got in in in in Luke chapter 2 you have Anna alongside Simeon and as a prophetess you have the four virgin daughters of Philip in Acts chapter 21 who are there with a goddess isn't is a male prophet later in that you know in the section you've got your sons and daughters will prophesy that that's like the norm when the Spirit is poured out Joel chapter 2 and X Acts chapter 2 which in fact was the the the major text used for supporting women in ministry in the 1700's and 1800's and then you look at when Paul names his women coworkers she named the most women coworker he names a lot of them in Rome Romans 16:1 2:7 in fact he he praises his women coworkers more than his men coworkers in Rome and also in Philippians 4 verses 2 and 3 we read about women coworkers why do they predominate in Roman Philippi these were two of the two of the cities in the Roman Empire where women had the most freedoms so we would that women would be more likely to make use of that freedom for the gospel in places where they were they had it well today of course in cultures where women have a lot more freedoms we would probably expect a larger proportion of women to do various kinds of ministry so for for clarity sake you had brought up Deborah Old Testament stuff you talked about some of the woman of the Old Testament like Miriam but then you said that one of the primary arguments in the 17 1800 s was the spirit being poured out on all flesh so would you make the case that in the Old Testament there was a different kind of role for women and that that has now opened up in the New Testament or like that or you see this as a consistent thread throughout old and new I I see it more as a consistent thread I wouldn't see it as a is a new thing except that you know in the Old Testament prophets were a much more limited group not just by gender but I mean in the New Testament the idea is the spirit of prophecy is is on all beliefs very abundant yeah it's very abundant as opposed to a very limited well and I think that may even be part of the idea be I could be wrong on this but I think that might even be part of the idea between behind Galatians 3:28 I know that there's some other sayings it could be interacting with but it's interesting in in Joel 2:28 and following well chapter 3 if you're reading in Hebrew but in in Joel you have the spirit poured out on servants on both genders and on young and old Galatians 3:28 I don't think mentions the young and old but let's lay out for you yeah but the slave and free and the male and female I think there may be an illusion - oh it's interesting I don't think I've ever made that connection I know you're talking about yeah like that we're all yeah it's interesting yeah so following up to that I just screwed up the transition yeah following up to that when we look at Old Testament text I would love for you to tackle this I know this might take us off changed a little bit but the Isaiah text such a hard text for me to come to where it says that women and children rule over you as a judgment of God I know that's one of the complement Aryans love to use that that it's the judgment of God when women and children rule over you that text on Isaiah okay yeah what would be your take on that when because I know that's one that compliment Aryans throw around to say hey oh well yeah they're women who lead in the Old Testament but God literally told the the people okay this is because of judgment this is this is not the way I wanted it to be what would be your take on that I think if you were in a masculine culture the idea of having machismo culture or however we want to put it macho culture it'd be a shameful thing in that culture that's that's a shameful thing yeah that a universal I think that God raises up Deborah shows that it's not now some people say well God raised up Deborah because there wasn't a man to do it if you want to use that argument look we've we've got a few billion people in the world and you didn't reach gospel we got plenty of work it needs to be done would you differentiate at all between well I guess so so one of the questions I've got his in the Old Testament we mentioned Deborah who's a judge and then the rest of the females who had high sort of authoritative positions were prophetess why weren't there female priest or priestess Kings yeah that was I see that as a is a cultural issue as well some people have tried to use that to say and they've also used Jesus Twelve Apostles being that was going to be a follow-up question yeah and they said well then ministers should be male but I mean then ministers also should Jewish I don't have a problem with ministers being Jewish but if you make if you limit it to Jewish most of Jesus disciples were me for the bill mister all of them were galilaeans they spoke Aramaic I mean you know how far do you want to take it none of them wore jeans but yeah they would we do now I think a woman apostle in the New Testament that's debated although I think it probably wouldn't be debated so much if she weren't a woman paul paul mentions you know he uses the language of Apostleship more broadly than what you have in the gospels and usually in acts so in the gospels and usually in acts it's just a twelve you have one exception in acts in acts 14 in a couple times it mentions Paul and Barnabas as apostles but Paul use of the term more broadly of course including himself isn't apostle also first Corinthians 15 verses 5 through 7 Jesus appeared to the twelve and then to some others and then to all the apostles you have Galatians 1:19 James is an apostle you have probably Silas and Timothy depicted as apostles in in Paul's letters and so Andronicus and Junia now we were talking about this before the show and I think I think you can make a legitimate grammatical case for it being well one of my friends good friends made it a grammatical case for it being there just noted among the Apostles but the majority of scholars including scholars who have responded to that article by my my friends think that you can make a much better grammatical case for it being these are our noted apostles I mean nowhere else does Paul appeal to the opinion of the Apostles is a group and that would be kind of hard when you've got apostles all over the place I mean it's not just the twelve in Jerusalem it's you know Silas and Timothy over there and presumably Barnabas and others so Andronicus and Junia Jimmy is clearly a woman's name yeah I think that's that's a it's a point that I would like to maybe get a little bit more elaboration on because in the dialogue that I'm getting on line a lot of people who are coming to this are like look close case there's a woman apostle done over and they're making it sound as if the the Junior argument is just it's so obvious it's so clear cut would you would you say that it's it's that obvious or that there is quite a bit of scholarship that still debates this on two different sides like is is this still a conversation worth having or is it like now really the majority of the evidence is on Junya here being a female apostle I mean I know that what your stance is but is this as rock-solid as it's being made out to be online or is this is their play in this is there is it there's their speculation on both sides I would say I would say the majority of evidence favors journey of being a woman apostle in terms of it being a hundred percent I don't think I don't think that would be fair I think the the grammar is is is still open to to some discussion I have friends who would say no and they they have actually spent more time with that grammar than I have but I don't like to hang too much on a grammatical argument giving all the exceptions to everything yeah sure first year Greek is where you learn all the rules second year Greek is where you know the exceptions or you or you learn broader rules that you can't press for so much detail but in terms of Junia being a woman I think that for sure we all agree that yeah that's settled or should be so I think the evidence is is so why good maybe this is a dumb question but why wouldn't I mean if is there some reason why Jesus didn't choose a female apostle amongst the 12 other than cultural reasons he's gonna send out the he's gonna send out the 12 - bye - in terms of harassment the women are going to face sexual harassment normally you wouldn't send women out travelling in galilee by themselves so if you send a woman and the man together it better be either brother and sister or husband and wife i mean probably the Gospels don't say this but probably from what we know with the culture Jesus and his group of disciples was criticized enough just for having women traveling with them as a group like with cm mark 15 and Luke chapter 8 so it would not have been safe or advisable to do that unless you had a husband-wife team now later on we do know that Peter and the other male apostles did have women going out well we have their wives going with them but at the age that they were I mean most disciples are most disciples back then were teenagers Peter may have been in his early 20s he was married probably had kids at home though so it he's already bucking the tide of the culture quite a bit including some what with gender I mean you've got Mary sitting at his feet in Luke chapter 10 verses 38 to 40 - I believe it is ya know as to what that means of course you have the expression in about 1 1 where disciples would sit at the feet of the rabbis but the question is what how does Luke use that expression he uses it on one of the place that's next 20 to 3 where Paul sits at the feet of Gamaliel so she's taking the posture of a disciple and Jesus actually commends her for that he's being countercultural already it's already getting on other people's nerves including her sister who wants her to be helping with the kitchen which I can't blame Martha for that I mean the last time he had like five thousand men plus women and children over for dinner you know she's got to be ready all this food but anyway that's sorry I keep the aggressing no you're okay you're okay there to that point you know you have this natural okay so so women in that culture not honored respected the way that they ought to be we would all agree on that yes um why don't we see and maybe maybe I'm just ignorant too why don't we see more scriptural evidence to condemn that you know when we have hey guys you ought to treat yourselves this way don't don't be like the Gentiles lording authority over one another why isn't there contextual evidence to suggest hey you're treating your women as subpar as as a subhuman you know you really need to make sure that there you know your yeah yeah yes say again oh and I would never say that they are no no I yeah I'm not saying that they are but like hey you know you're treating these women in a way that's degrading and I think that you would you would agree that in Jewish culture in many situations women could be used you treated as property or treated or considered as a lesser than the fact they could just sign a a divorce paper and get rid of them you know shun them and the culture was not typically I think the thing is we don't actually know what the culture is we want yeah we want to know well I mean soldiers are true I mean I've read in Gentile cultures it certainly this way I mean this can be exaggerated but we can definitely say that the culture was definitely not neither compliment Aryans nor Galit Aryans today in general in our culture would feel comfortable with first century Judean culture or Galilean culture sure broader Mediterranean culture that that I think would be fair to say they were true well normally they wouldn't be treated as subhuman or something like that some of the things though yeah the divorce that was a male prerogative as the Pharisees interpreted it of course if you had money you could get away with whatever you wanted to but that's part of the issue I mean even the even what you said there about serving one another following Jesus example serving one another I mean what is that supposed to address is that supposed to exclude okay but not the women if it's not excluding the women then it obviously includes the women yeah there were a whole lot of other inequities that the culture had to challenge and Jesus was challenging him all the time he wasn't hanging out with the elite he was he was hanging out with the sick and the infirm and healing them he was hanging out with those who were morally marginalized by their culture tax collectors sinners he was he was hanging out with people who were economically marginalized Jews event of like a telemarketer you peasants yeah yeah he he he focused on the broken and the lowly even his disciples I mean fishermen and tax collectors those are the only occupations named those were pretty high up in terms of peasants but in terms of the elite no they were yeah nobody I mean Zacchaeus he was a high-level tax collector but in terms of his immediate disciples know so so if there were leadership inadequate a seasoned roles as far as ginger goes that he didn't address those directly because it's really an argument from silence he was addressing the broader cultural in general and was constantly that that's and some things would have to be left I mean the main issue was preaching the kingdom of God to the culture Jesus lived to the values of the kingdom but in terms of how to how to evangelize a hostile culture again you choose your battles and so you know the New Testament doesn't call for the abolition of slavery but it gives principles that were used rightly by the abolitionists I mean that was one of the main arguments in the 1800s I've read the arguments on both sides and they're hermeneutic is very informative I mean the pro-slavery arguments were a it's in the Bible it's in the Constitution you know slavery is all right and the the anti-slavery arguments were look the biblical principles of justice and equity arguable principles of Liberty biblical principles of valuing human life and and even if you look at and they look at it culturally they say okay slavery was there in the culture but does the Bible reduce it does the Bible move us in a direction that's more liberating and I think we have the same thing with the rules of women we don't want to exaggerate what it was in the culture there were actually a range of use in the culture but in terms of that range of views Jesus practice and and Paul's teaching and I know this is really debate weighted by it's debated by a lot of people who were against the Bible partly for this they think Paul is putting down women but you read you read Paul in light of the culture that's not what he's doing at all 1st Corinthians 14 if they want to learn something let them ask their husbands at home that seems to be the issue of the silence in 1st Corinthians 14 he can't mean all kinds of silence because I mean earlier in the same letter women can pray and prophesy and none of us I think in most of our churches anyway none of us think that women have to be completely Sun because we let him sing so you know what kind of silence does he mean well the one thing the address is there is if they have any questions let them ask their husbands at home why would they be asking questions is is one is one issue just I'll just deal with that quickly just to say that it was customary in ancient lecture settings Jewish and Gentile alike to interrupt with questions now the issue of why it was the women that's another issue that I'll come back through if there's time but let me let me deal first with the thing that I said it was going to deal with in terms let them ask their husbands at home that sounds kind of nothing sounds are nice to us at least to most of us but in that culture the vast majority of women over the age of 18 were married this would especially be true among Greeks where you had thirty year old men marrying women who were 12 years their junior because of the practice of throwing out more female babies than male babies as we can see from the business documents from Egypt from the you know the demographics of it it's pretty clear from the census records at least in some places Greek dominated and and also as well I'm going off again on another tangent let me get back to the the thing so most of the women were married in terms of asking their husbands at home plutarch who is one of the more progressive maybe one of the most progressive voices in greco-roman antiquity zina Fionn would be another one with Sonia's Rufus would be another one but Plutarch in his advice to bride and groom says to pollyannas the young man okay take an interest in your wife's learning he says most men don't think their wives can learn anything oh they don't take an interest but you take an interest and then he then he ruins it he says because of left of themselves wearing produced nothing but base passions and folly well you know Paul pop doesn't ruin it but the fact that he he he wants the husbands to take an interest in their wives learning that's among the most you know that's on the progressive end in terms of husbands dealing with their wives now do you want me to deal with the question of why he doesn't want the women asking questions even though he doesn't tell the men they're not allowed to yes yes why not yeah okay there are a couple possibilities here and what one of them is it was just considered unseemly for women to speak in public in front of other women's husbands not everybody shared that view by this period in Roman culture but many people still did and so that was that was the more conservative view so avoid being a stumbling block or house churches public or are they private may after all its meeting in somebody's home so you can see why that that could become an issue of confusion another possibility has to do in this this also could inform first Timothy the relative educational status of both genders you do have some some very educated women in antiquity they stood out and we have actually the names of some of them but when you compare it to men like for women for law there were two advanced form of Education in the Greek and Roman world well major forms advanced education one was philosophy the other was rhetoric we have like I only a handful of women who were philosophy teachers in antiquity we have maybe maybe one or two or three who were professors of rhetoric over the course of a thousand years that we know of whereas of hundreds of men women were not ordinarily trained in rhetoric but you know all that's beside the point in terms of the Torah there what would be more important would be the Jewish context and while women could learn about Torah in synagogue expositions we normally don't have them studying with rabbi well we never have him studying with rabbis in this period we have Maria the wife and daughter of a rabbi in the late second century who was known for her skill in domestic Holika but the other rabbis wouldn't listen to her and we also have a report of a woman who would sit in at the back of a rabbi teaching sometimes the only the only rabbi that I know of in in ancient Jewish literature who had actually a woman sitting at his disciple as his disciple at his feet was Jesus and then more to the point than that is boys were raised reciting the Toma rap they were they were schooled in that they were taught in that whether they were literate or not in terms of writing or even reading they learned it orally girls were not there was there was no concerted effort to teach girls in that so you do have a radical imbalance of the of the male and the female in terms of who's going to be more more skilled in this when Paul says let the women learn that's a progressive statement because I mean okay they can't teach now they can't interrupt lectures with questions now but if they learn this situation might be different the same thing with first Timothy two with that let them learn quietly and submissively that's how all novices were expected to learn and and so if they're novices will course that's that's what's going to be expected then so yeah so so in summary it would be the equivalent of having a sixth grader in an eighth graders class and the sixth grader keeps raising their hand asking a question and it's holding back the whole class from getting through the session so they're like okay eighth grader take the sixth grader home and make sure to catch them up because they have not been treated the same way as you have so they don't have the level of knowledge that you have in this area so so your argument your argument but what you're saying that history has said is that women were not educated the way that they ought to have been and because of the the corporate assembly now they had the right to ask the question but they were holding back the the corporate lecture yeah that that is that is a really good illustration I may be using from now on as long as the author he does want credit i source you and I caught you so this is the student that comes to class and asked a question that shows that they didn't do their homework I used that illustration to inspire my students to do the reading before they come to class but they were mr. Murthy - you know he's dealing with false teachers that's a big issue in first and second Timothy it's the one set of letters where it specifically prohibits women from teaching is it a coincidence that it's also the one set of letters where we specifically know that false teachers were targeting women with their teaching because in in 1st Timothy 5 verse 13 or 14 I think pretty sure it's 13 it speaks of women widows going about as translations often say busybodies and something else well one of those words actually means spreaders of nonsense and in philosophical contexts often spreaders of false teaching I got that from Gordon fee talking about sourcing I asked warden where he how sure he was about that so he sent me a printout of every use that Greek word in all of extant Greek literature said okay but then even I think more clearly in second Timothy chapter 3 verse 6 it says that these false teachers are worming their way into households leading astray weak-willed women why would they target the women well is it that you do women have less discernment because they lack a y-chromosome I mean is it is it a biological feature that they don't have discernment or is it you know was it something in the environment that they caused them to lack the discernment more than men would but also another reason for targeting the women and specifically for targeting widows is in 1st Timothy chapter 5 is well where did the churches meet normally they met in homes and which groups of women most often though in their own homes widows and so hey you got your church building if you get it if you if you went over some some widows to help propagate your teaching so it's in the one set of letters that okay that we know that they were targeting women with their false teaching that's the one set of letters we're all specifically prohibits women from teaching the Bible and if if we see this as Pauline which I think most of us around here do but if we see this as Pauline I mean we also have to take into account what Paul says about his women co-workers elsewhere so it seems to me in light of that it makes more sense to say that Paul is dealing with an exceptional situation here rather than saying this is a universal situation and one that Timothy has spent a lot of time with them if it were universal already ought to have known about it yeah so I want to definitely have you back on the show to talk about a specific given text I'm glad that we were able to have this overarching conversation about the hermeneutic of this I definitely want to drill into it but I've only got you for like six more minutes yeah I know I so so I would love maybe a closing question I've got one I'll try to get you is more on first Timothy 2 in 1st Corinthians 14 but I know we're cutting it well yeah we can drill in or die's my primary question is in the in the the next chapter chapter 3 we're talks about exclude it presupposes eldership is male he does this in Titus and in Timothy the husband of but one exactly yeah so he presupposes male there as far as I can tell can you can you give me the reasoning behind again this is a cultural thing more than likely the men we're going to have leadership like like what is your what's your take on that well I mean especially in first Timothy you would expect him to presuppose men right after Chris Timothy chapter 2 binos gonna have to be men um also where he says the husband of one wife do others have to be married in all cultures was a common at this point no so I figured it was a reference to polygamy if I'm not-like argument is saying it wouldn't be polygamy because polygamy wasn't really practiced it's a one-man woman one man it could be practiced in Judea but it wasn't practiced in Ephesus where the where this letter is addressing so it wouldn't be polygamy it probably has to do with marital fidelity but that's that's a whole other issue but first Timothy chapter 4 part of the problem with the false teachers they're forbidding to marry so and in in Titus chapter one they're upsetting whole households so given this kind of false teaching having heads of stable households was important and also they have to be above reproach and and Paul frames his argument in 1st Timothy 3 with that he starts with that then they have to be a good reputation later on in the passage so it's important that these are people who are respectable within the culture given the pressures from outside the church and also the false teaching and and he already says with regard the widows some have turned aside after Satan so it's yeah I see he's drawing on universal principles but he's articulating it in ways for these particular churches and therefore I would not see all of it is being transcultural you have to so kind of a follow-up question again only a few more minutes left in the show and if we have to tackle it another time just say cliffhanger we'll do it next time and it's perfectly fine with us other other issues too yeah yeah yeah so so the follow-up question would be if it was a cultural context to say the women were being deceived and targeted there was an abuse of power that was taking place would it then be appropriate to apply that principle in other contexts where there was an abuse of power and and that and targeting women taking place so if I go to an area where third wave feminism is is super antichrist it's super anti male leadership it's Superman type men in general maybe the usurping authority like just think of the most atrocious form of targeting women's you know psyche of men and Christ and the church would be appropriate to come in there and say yeah women can't teach there either if the principal each what if the principle is that in Ephesus there was an abuse of power taking place so women should not teach there would it be appropriate to apply that principle in our day and age where there's an equal level of use of power if if you had a setting where only women would be listened to the most effective ministers to them would probably be women but I mean I would still try to minister to them but they more likely listen to my wife and listen I guess the the reciprocal question would and then Anna gave me I know a look at two minutes I'm the hardest time I have with this is then in the areas that men are mostly deceived you know do we don't have prescriptions for the you know will we also say that only women should teach there and the men should stay silent I'm curious if this is a principle that hey can we can we apply this in other cultures and should we and how do we if it is a principle then I think it's almost more difficult than applying if it is a across the board that's that's where I have difficulty and maybe you can talk to you places where like with micro micro-financing where they actually target the women for micro financing because in those particular cultures the men are more likely to go out and spend the money on on liquor and so on and the women are more likely to save the money and invest the money and and improve the economy no no no I don't think we have a situation like that in the biblical cultures so we don't have an example like that in the biblical cultures but if you know talking about applying the principle to something like that that's often often done today I think it would be discrimination if you've got a reliable man who could do something with that and you discriminate against them but just as a general principle in those cultures the women are more reliable with the money and so they target the women interesting well like I said we're definitely have to have you come because there's just too much to unpack in a single yeah michael super informative thank you so much it's an honor to have you on I mean you it for those of you who are out there watching the show this is one of the former scholars on the subject you need to go read his book you wrote a book about women early church history where do people pick that up oh you can get it's called Paul women and wives you can get that through christianbook.com you can get that through Amazon there's also two views of women in ministry something like that the first one is published by Baker the second one is published by Zondervan and and Linda Belleville and I wrote the egalitarian argument in there and Tom Shriner and Craig Blomberg world were all friends wrote the complementarian argument in there and actually Craig and Tom aren't exactly the same place and in the argument different you talked about one point yeah be careful maybe poor choice of words agreed yeah yeah there's there's no question you know and like I was telling I don't think you've heard me say it but I've said in all of the other episodes I attend an egalitarian church I've led in egalitarian churches I've only led in a gala terian churches this is not a deal breaking issue for me and it shouldn't be for anyone out there I think that the scholarship of Scripture and making sure that we're making our arguments based out of Scripture you made the case the beginning of the show and I would love to kind of in on this note the groups that are ordaining women and they're also attaining homosexuals it's not because they're ordaining women that they're ordaining homosexuals it's because they're not taking the scripture seriously and they're they're just completely ignoring what paul says and if they're able to ignore what paul says here they can ignore what paul says everywhere it's not a hermeneutic it's just a libera libera attempt to just ignore scripture altogether and I think it's those are the trojan lazy those are the churches you gotta get out of you know it's it's not where they stand on this issue it's how they approach Scripture and if they're just willing to ignore texts that was such a great point about the slippery slope thank you really really good point yeah I'm gonna use that meetin I'll source you on it too I'll cite you dr. cater thank you so much for coming on the show and we'll have you back on the near future for those who are still watching man next couple of episodes are me really excited when I have Lauren on the show from whole my heart podcast we're having Tracy from storehouse ministry coming on we're gonna have Todd Wagner coming on I think it's gonna winds day or Thursday it's a random day and we also we just recently reached out to Michael Bleeker Michael Bleeker but Jane Jane yes the metaxas he hasn't said yes yet no I'm taking it as a yes yeah he said he'd be interested he's interested that's you guys tweet Eric Metaxas and be like jump on remnant radio yeah yeah that's arrest bug him into it so yeah dr. keener thank you so much for coming on and again we're definitely gonna have you back on to have more of this conversation it was very helpful for us be blessed hey thank you guys so much for watching you can tune in every single Monday night 8:30 p.m. Central Standard Time catch you later [Music] a whooping

Channel: The Remnant Radio

Views: 19,656

Keywords: women in ministry, Dr. craig keener, craig keener, complementarian vs egalitarian, can women preach, women pastors, craig keener egalitarian, egalitarianism, craig keener women in ministry, egalitarianism vs complementarianism, the remnant radio, remnant radio

Id: 2u9iMvvvqTc

Length: 63min 49sec (3829 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 23 2019