Women Speaking in the Church
Justin Peters and Susan Heck
www.rlfaber.com/womenspeaking.html
Version 1 - March, 23, 2024
  othertrend   earlychurchmeeting   relational church   traditional church

Introduction

This article is currently a pointer to some excellent videos that we enjoyed listening to March, 2024. We appreciated the conversation in this video between Justin Peters and Susan Heck because of the biblical fidelity on this controversial subject (complementarianism vs egaltarianism).

youtube.com/JustinAndSusan

This video is also good for how and when it is appropriate for women to speak in the church. Please ignore the attack/response content, that is not our focus. We are mainly interested in the discussion between Susan and Justin on women speaking in the church.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwRueVtPhZo


The rest of this article is much less interesting. These are old notes from August 17, 2008, and was written before a lot of the modern strange things.

We believe women can speak at church. But you may have to understand what we mean by that. We certainly don't mean speaking as a teacher of men in the church. We are thinking of women speaking informally, in the home, following the other trend way, during the Lord's Supper full meal. This was the normal way that the early church met.

The Bible is very clear about the tremendous role of women in the New Testament. Women were highly involved in the ministry of Jesus and the apostle Paul. New Testament churches were house churches, and they seemed to regularly have a full meal each week. It is inconceivable that the women were totally silent during these weekly home based meetings.

However, when it comes to the teaching times of the church meeting, these verses are very clear.

Let the women keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but let them subject themselves, just as the Law also says. And if they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in the church. (1 Corinthians 14:34-35, NASB)

Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and become a transgressor. (1 Timothy 2:11-14, NRSV).

The first verse (1 Cor 14:34-35), would seem to say that women should be totally silent at all times in church. But 1 Timothy 2:11-14 seems to clarify it to mean "learn in silence" and not "teach" or have authority in the church [meeting]. Therefore, we think these verses together make it pretty clear. Of course we could study many other verses, but these stand out and we still must deal with these. The question is whether we will follow the NT guidelines or follow the dominant cultural opinions of the day. We are amazed how zealously some will work at avoiding the clear teaching of God's Word! We think God is testing us to see who will obey and who will disobey. All of life is a grand drama. In the end, let God's clear teaching stand. "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice" 1 Sam 15:22.

Summary of the views

These are the 3 main views:

  • The Complimentarian / Traditional / Literal View which says women should not speak in the main church meeting and should not be teaching when men are present. Women should teach women, but not men. We think it is fine for women to speak after the teaching time that is reserved for men. We assume a home church style meeting (other trend vs traditional church). In a home church setting, we would expect women would to participate in many informal ways, but would carefully avoid teaching men. (Our View: This seems like a small minority of Christians)

  • The Complimentarian / Traditional / adapted to our culture View which says women should not be preachers or teachers in the church meeting... but can speaking in the church meeting in various ways based on 1 Cor 11. (Many Christians hold this view)

  • The Egaltarian / Feminist / Non-Literal / highly adapted to our culture View which says women can be preachers or teachers in the church meeting... and can exercise authority over men in the church...and perhaps can even be elders. (Many Christians hold this view)


FOOTNOTES

1. Complimentarian, Traditional, Literal view:





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