Let me first start by saying that the only skin I have in this particular game is that I love to pick away at threads where I feel that patriarchal systems have sought to supress and 'keep women in their place' through an interpretation of the scriptures. I don't personally want to be an elder, nor do I think I necessarily fulfil all the requirements regardless. I do however believe that the church family and wider church is poorer for this prohibition and that is my motivation for this whole blog really.
That off my chest, for this post I wanted to put down in writing some of my thoughts on this so far. Also, they are just that, my thoughts so far and for this post I've landed on 'pronouns' and 'tradition'. I've come on a journey from a complementarian stance to a mutualist/egalitarian stance and I hope I am still learning and developing all the time. I've talked to MANY people about this and funnily enough it was a recent discussion about the reformation (and in fact nothing to do with women at all) which prompted this post.
For further context, I have been brought up in churches where male eldership is the accepted norm. My previous church 'movement' now ordains women as pastors though the local leadership did not. My church (I don't say 'current' as it suggests an impermanence which isn't the case!) only recognises male eldership but takes a 'soft' approach to complementarian traditions in that women can have positions of leadership, can teach and preach, just cannot be elders. The wider movement I'm in has huge variation on their adoption of complementarian practices. It takes a beautiful family to be able to sit with differences as well as mine seems to be able to do, so I'm wholly grateful to be in my local iteration even while not agreeing on this point.
The verses I want to look at this time are (of course) 1 Timothy 3:1-12
"Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer [elder] desires a noble task. 2 Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. 5 (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. 7 He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap."
Pronouns - I don't even want to stay here long because the argument for male eldership I feel is actually at it's weakest using pronouns to discuss these verses. The book of Timothy was written in Greek which is an androcentric language. The context of the time was that of patriarchy and so him = them, both male and female. Male was the default sex in society at the time. Therefore, the 'whoever' in verse one is gender neutral so is inclusive of both male and female and the 'him's' throughout the verses likewise.
If however you would like to take the reading of the verses in the most literal sense then we will see very clearly that many men, whether eldership material or not, will be immediately disqualified and the argument further unravels. For one, he must be married and he must be the father of multiple children. Polygamy was an issue at the time of the letter, so to say he must only have one wife is right - the biblical foundations for marriage had already been set - one man and one woman. So must an elder be married? Of course not! But if they are, it must observe the intended non-polygamous nature of the union. That any children be well behaved might be an (optimistic) expectation, certainly where the next exhortation is to conduct themselves in a manner WORTHY of the respect of the family.... but it does say 'children'. So if they only have one child, or no children, then are they also disqualified? Of course not! We easily dismiss these as a nonsense because we know that the context of these instructions is based on the situation of the time. This is before you note that none of the virtues are in fact peculiar to any particular gender.
Tradition - An argument I have heard is one that suggests that the early church 'fathers' established a male only eldership and this was relevant and seminal because they would possibly have been discipled by the apostles. However this raises issues for me. Firstly, they were also immersed in the same patriarchal culture, but did not have the same God-breathed impartation which became canon scripture. One difference between the Bible and what came later is the astonishing counterculturalism (is that a word? Spell check suggests not!?) of the word of God which did not come particularly with the church 'fathers'. The Bible pushed back at the endemic misogyny of the times. Those (not all presumably #notallchurchfathers) who came later rather leaned into it and called it tradition.
Secondly, and this is key because of the concept of 'sola scriptura' which means the belief that the bible is God's final and inspired authority - to ascribe the same importance of church tradition to the Bible text is a catholic approach (the scriptures are not the sole authority), which is troubling. So for me, this cannot be a solid argument. In fact, women were first disqualified officially from eldership some 360 years AD, a clear departure from the experiences of the Christian women leading in the bible texts and long after the disciples had passed away.
You might argue what is wrong with church tradition but you only need to point to the slave trade, the crusades, injustices and cruelties relating to misogyny and homophobia (the list goes on) to make the point. None of these outrages come from Jesus. All of them come from church bodies using the bible to legitimise horrors. These horrors became tradition, many of which continue today. Because something has been done by the church for millennia does not mean it necessarily holds value. In healthcare and education (my personal contexts), this is the exact reason why a practice should be challenged.
Like I said, these are thoughts. I don't think they are without foundation, which I see established in Genesis 1:26-28 and then throughout the Bible where we see women clearly in positions of leadership both pastorally and other realms.
Bibliographic Sources
Lucy Peppiatt
The Gospel Coalition
Renew.org
Gotquestions.org
Andrew Wilson
Marg Mowczko
Sarah Bessey
Sandra Glahn
Terran Williams
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