The Question

We’re looking at a carefully thought out question from a sceptic today, regarding the Biblical position on gender roles.

To the original author, I’ve left the quote anonymous for now as I didn’t want to put your name without permission, but if you’d like to be credited properly then just let me know as I’m very happy to do that and link to a website or facebook page etc.

It’s a fair question being asked, so let’s get started:

A big warm Hello to you all. Here’s a controversial topic, straight from the Bible, word for word, which makes it sacrosanct …

Before you read on, I must tell you, I think we are all equal, whatever your nationality, gender, politics, or faith…

1 Corinthians 11:3 “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.”

Titus 2:4-5 “that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.”

1 Corinthians 14:34-35 “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.”

1 Timothy 2:11-12 “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to *usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”

So … According to the Bible (not me), women come last and men are the boss. If they drink, don’t stay at home, and do what their husbands tell them, they are disobeying god. All women preachers will end up in hell, along with all their followers – because they are disobeying god as well, for letting them preach.

Do theists agree with these scriptures? How about women theists, do you practice these ‘commandments’? If not, then do you still consider yourself a true believer in today’s modern society? Finally … Why don’t ALL theists follow these rules?

PS … “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to *usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”

Oxford Dictionary: *Usurp (verb) …

1. Take (a position of power or importance) illegally or by force.

2. Take the place of (someone in a position of power) illegally; supplant

3. Encroach or infringe upon (someone’s rights).

So that’s the question. Note: I have edited the formatting of the verse references slightly, only because it makes it match my automatic reference mouseover plugin, so that people can easily find the passages and read around them if they would like. I’ll also note that the original author mostly quoted the King James Version, which is fine. My plugin uses the ESV translation but that doesn’t make a big difference here other than modernising the English a little.

I thought that was a very warm and carefully worded post, and deserves a sensible reply.

Response

Yes I do stand by those scriptures, but there are a couple of important principles to add that rather modify the picture. Even within the (currently very lively!) western world Christian debate on this issue, we often conflate things like position, role, value and rights. The 1 Corinthians passages are the most challenging to figure out, but I will note that the most clumsy and harsh possible interpretations of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 (eg the ‘total silence’ view) specifically seem to be excluded by other statements in the same letter (eg in 1 Cor 11). Aside from that, the rest of the passages you quote are not hard to interpret and I do agree with a pretty straightforward reading (despite being unpopular in our culture), so I still think the question is a fair one.

Since the debate is mainly about what it means for a man to have a leadership role (within a marriage or a church, those are the two areas mentioned in the Bible), the missing scripture is not actually one about marriage but one about leadership positions:

‘And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles Lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”’ ‭‭> Mark‬ ‭10‬:‭42‬-‭45‬ ‭ESV‬‬

So leadership positions are, for any Christian (husbands included), not to be sought as some sort of self-validation and certainly not an opportunity for self-aggrandisement.

When it comes to church leadership specifically, I’m not sure I meet all the 1 Timothy 3 (or Titus 1) requirements to be eligible to be a church elder myself, so that excludes me. Indeed, most Christians are not ever to become church leaders just as much as any woman may be excluded (though it must be noted that women are not excluded from church leadership based on lack of merit or skills. I have no need to guess at God’s motivations). And yet this is no disadvantage to me or anyone else as the whole point is that leadership positions do not exist to benefit those who hold them, but to serve others.

Of course, many men have abused such positions of leadership – and some women have taken and abused those positions too, since there have been plenty who disagree with the plain reading of the passages you quoted and have also been church elders or domineering wives. You are right to ask what the authoritative Christian teachings say, since the teaching from Christ and his appointed apostles (including Paul) is the definition of Christianity. Thankfully, the behaviour of us his later followers does not define anything. Jesus makes clear that every human will be judged for their own abuses.

One other thing to note: when it comes to marriage (arguably the more important of the two contexts to get right) the texts are very clear but also…none of the commands about women submitting are addressed to any man to enforce. Rather, in Ephesians 5 (the second half) the husband is commanded to love his wife as Christ loved the church (the woman is not commanded to make him do so) and the woman is addressed and commanded to have a submissive attitude (but the husband is not told to make her be so). If we criticise the Bible it must be for how it actually commands people to act, not for how people have gone outside what it commands. And the Bible commands men to love their wives like Christ loved the church, giving himself up for her.

You believe in equality? I of course heartily agree that we all have equal value regardless of any characteristic, as we are all – male and female – made in the image of God and all given responsibility over the natural world. And all equal in the Kingdom of God, even if we are assigned some role differences in the meantime. (Who knows, perhaps in the new heavens and new Earth the women will all be put in the positions of authority. If God decides that, it would surely be fine. He did say the first will be last and the last will be first, after all.) I get the idea of equality of value from Genesis 1:27-28 and other places. I might ask where you as an atheist can get that same (correct) belief about equality from? Surely not from the Bible.

We can go deeper

So there’s my answer to that specific question. Remember, the challenge is about the nature of Biblical teaching about a topic, so that’s why it’s reasonable to quote the documents in question when answering.

There’s a lot more that could be said, and other questions that may surface on the same topic. I could expand this or branch out onto a related issue. So what do you think? Do you have any questions about the Bible’s teaching on gender roles? Put your politely-worded questions and responses in the comments!