In short, I think that this thread is dead and am closing off the comments.

Cynthia

Good point about the broad meaning of terms in the New Testament. Paul constantly refers to himself as a “diakonos” and as an “apostolos”. Does this mean that to be a “deacon” is to be an “apostle” and vice versa. Of course not.

As an English speakers we are prone to understand occurrences of Greek words like “apostolos”, “episcopos”, “presbyteros”, “diakonos” and assign them the meaning of office instead of function: apostle, bishop, presbyter, deacon.

We must remind ourselves that while these words eventually denoted ecclesiastical offices, they simply meant “one who is sent out”, “overseer”, “elder”, and “minister”. Paul and Luke seem to understands certain terms (i.e. “apostle”) in the more broad sense of the word.

The primarily error on the part of the Anglican defense of female clergy is their approach: “Let’s just stick to the texts of the Scripture,” as if the Bible was something we can dissect.

There is a constant and enduring tradition that interprets these passages and also affirms that the ontological character of Holy Orders can only be received by a male since only a male can sacramentally represent Christ as Bridegroom.

Given that I am significantly behind in my work, I will not be able to give more attention to this topic; however, feel free to continue the discussion without me.

Best wishes to all,
Cynthia

I see from my reference tracker stats that this has spawned a discussion on the BH list:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bibhorizon/message/93878
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bibhorizon/message/93865

I’m curious, what’s being said?

Cynthia

I know he’s away from a computer in the near future — some of you who would like his thoughts unpacked may enjoy reading the above link.

Blessings,
Doug
Poster of Short Comments

With those caveats in place, here goes;

1)It is so established among biblical translators that Junia was a woman and “Junias” not a name until much later that even conservatives who disagree with ordaining women have largely ceded this point. Instead, they try to argue about the rest of the sentence in which Junia is mentioned and claim that she was “esteemed BY the apostles” instead of “outstanding AMONG the apostles.” While this is gramatically possible in the Greek, it is highly unlikely. There are no authorship questions with Romans–Paul wrote it. And Paul never made the opinion of the apostles that big a deal–sometimes calling the Jerusalem crowd the “super-apostles” and making other sarcastic comments.

2) There are 2 ways that the term “apostle” is used in the NT: As a designation for the 12 disciples who made up Jesus’ inner circle and later formed the nucleas of the early church. Or, as a missionary, one “sent out” to evangelize in different parts of the Roman empire and plant new churches. Paul almost always uses the term in the second way. In calling Junia an “apostle,” he was almost certainly saying that she was a missionary evangelist like himself.

3) On the argument that men were created first and so have a different authority–the Genesis passage also has the animals created before men, should we give them more ordained authority than men? The chronological difference does not easily translate to a difference in authority.

4) It is not clear that the same things are being addressed in the Corinthian correspondence as in the Pastoral epistles. In the latter, women, especially young widows, seem to have been spreading either gossip or a heresy which denied the importance of marriage and of creation. The Pauline author’s “I do not permit a woman to teach or usurp authority over her husband,” is probably better translated as “I am not [for now] permitting,” because the women had been so deceived and erroneous. They needed to learn in quietness first.

5) In the Corinthian correspondence, Paul often quotes his opponents before answering them, but the original mss. had no quotation marks or even punctuation. So, it is possible that such sentences as “Women must be silent,” or “let them learn from their husbands at home,” were the slogans of Paul’s opponents, not his. It is difficult to tell.

6) “Head” in Greek often has the metaphorical meaning of “source,” (e.g., “head of a river,”) but seems to lack the authority metaphor that we use. So, calling man the “head of the woman” may be a ref. to Gen. where Eve came from Adam’s side–not a claim of male only authority in the church.

7) The “head covering” could refer to women having long hair or to a priestess’ headdress. I agree with Cynthia that the underlying concern of Paul seems to be that the radical egalitarianism of the early church (so unlike either Greco-Roman or Jewish culture) still not become a unisex denial of differences or a stumbling block to potential converts. Short hair or uncovered hair was a symbol in that era of prostitution–Paul is concerned that the liberated women of the church in Corinth not appear to be sexually loose or immodest. (Today, it is patriarchy that is the stumbling block.) Apparently women were allowed to pray or prophesy as long as their heads were properly covered.

8)Ministry is based on gifts–the eschatological outpouring of the Spirit which does not discriminate on the basis of gender. Gal. 3:27-28 roots a radical egalitarianism in baptism/new life of Christ. So the popular bumper sticker, “Ordain women or stop baptizing them” seems entirely appropriate to me.

9) There are too many NT examples of women in roles that subordinations would forbid to them for the subordinationist argument to be correct. It’s not just Junia. Phoebe is called both a deacon and an overseer. Priscilla (along with her husband) taught Apollos (elsewhere called an apostle) “the way of God more accurately.” Priscilla and Aquila were clearly a missionary team and Priscilla may have been the author of Hebrews. The 4 daughters of Philip were evangelists and prophets. Etc., etc. The subordinationist view runs right into these numerous counterexamples.

I cannot answer the question of the special place of Anglicanism to Rome–especially when the Church of England may be older than the evolution of the Bishop of Rome’s office from “first among equals” to monarchial Western Pope.

Before presenting an alternative read of some of the passages that you mention in your comment, I want to pose a few questions that relate directly to your last comment.

(1) You say that it was especially man’s task to “guard and keep” the garden and its worship. Prior to the Fall, from what (danger) is the man guarding and keeping Eve—Adam and Eve are in a state of paradise. (Perhaps you have in mind specifically and only the serpent). Also, why does “keep” in Gen 1:15 have to equate to some kind of battle metaphor—especially given that there are no foreign invaders (i.e., no other humans), nor should we necessarily think that the animals are wild and might attack and kill Adam and Eve (prior to the Fall) such that Adam must protect Eve from them? Is the “battle” with the serpent a primarily physical, intellectual or moral battle? If both Adam and Eve are created imago Dei and one is not morally or intellectually superior to the other, then in what way is Adam especially called to protect Eve?

(2) You write, “in general, as a sex, males are called to give the fundamental direction to cultural life. They are particularly responsible for the task of guarding and keeping cultural and moral boundaries and others within the culture.” This appears to be a huge assertion, and it is difficult for me to see how women are supposed to have anything but a very secondary role in shaping culture based on what you say here.

(3) If men in general are as you say above and are in general better suited to be leaders, then why wouldn’t you have a problem with queens? Given your premises, it would seem a moral failure for a “true man” to allow queens to rule.

(4) The following statements are unclear to me, would you unpack them:

(a) “I don’t believe that women are constitutionally capable of being special priests, just as men are not constitutionally capable of being pregnant?”
(b) Regarding male circumcision, you write that it “gives particular significance to the importance of shaping and controlling male initiation.” What do you mean by that? You then say that in the NT “things change somewhat” [a huge understatement in my opinion] and now both women and men received the sign of covenant in Baptism. Here I think that Wright offers a very good alternative read. Commenting on Galatians Wright says, “[t]he presenting issue in Galatians is male circumcision. We sometimes think of circumcision as a painful obstacle for converts, as indeed in some ways it was; but for those who embraced circumcision, it was a matter of pride and privilege. It not only distinguished Jews from Gentiles; it also distinguished them in a way that automatically privileged males. By contrast, imagine the thrill of equality brought about by baptism, the identical rite for Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female. And that’s not all. Though this is somewhat more speculative, the story of Abraham’s family did of course privilege the male line of descent: Isaac, Jacob, and so on. What we find in Paul, both in Galatians 4 and in Romans 9, is careful attention—rather like Matthew 1, in fact, though from a different angle—to the women in the story. If those in Christ are the true family of Abraham, which is the point of the whole story, then the manner of this identity and unity takes a quantum leap beyond the way in which first-century Judaism construed them, bringing male and female together as surely and as equally as Jew and Gentile. What Paul seems to do in this passage, then, is rule out any attempt to perpetuate male privilege in Abraham’s family by an appeal to Genesis 1, as though someone were to say, ‘But of course the male line is what matters, and of course male circumcision is what counts, because God made male and female.’ No, says Paul, none of that counts when it comes to membership in the renewed people of Abraham.”

Given what I take to be your respect for Wright as a biblical scholar, it seems unlikely that you will dismiss his read as careless, uninformed, or failing to attend to the “deeper themes” of Scripture. Below, I have copied the following is taken directly from N.T. Wright’s article referred in my post, which can be read in full here: http://www.cbeinternational.org/new/pdf_files/wright_biblical_basis.pdf . In the excerpt below, Wright focuses directly on two commonly cited passages by those who argue against the ordination of women, viz., 1 Cor 14 and 11.

***

“I have always been attracted, ever since I heard it, to the ex¬planation offered once more by Ken Bailey. In the Middle East, he says, it was taken for granted that men and women would sit apart in church, as still happens today in some circles. Equally important, the service would be held (in Lebanon, say, or Syria, or Egypt) in formal or classical Arabic, which the men would all know but which many of the women would not, since the wom¬en would only speak a local dialect. As a result, the women, not understanding what was going on, would begin to get bored and talk among themselves. As Bailey describes the scene in such a church, the level of talking from the women’s side would steadily rise in volume, until the minister would have to say loudly, “Will the women please be quiet!” whereupon the talking would die down, but only for a few minutes. Then, at some point, the minis¬ter would again have to ask the women to be quiet, and he would often add that if they wanted to know what was being said, they should ask their husbands to explain it to them when they got home. I know there are other explanations sometimes offered for this passage, some of them quite plausible; this is the one that has struck me for many years as having the strongest claim to provide a context for understanding what Paul is saying. After all, his cen¬tral concern in 1 Corinthians 14 is for order and decency in the church’s worship.

What the passage cannot possibly mean is that women had no part in leading public worship, speaking out loud of course as they did so. This is the positive point that is proved at once by the other relevant Corinthian passage, 1 Corinthians 11:2–11, since there Paul gives instructions for how women are to be dressed while engaging in such activities, instructions which obviously wouldn’t be necessary if they had been silent in church all the time. But that is the one thing we can be sure of. In this passage, almost every¬thing else seems to me remarkably difficult to nail down.
In Paul’s day (as, in many ways, in ours), gender was marked by hair and clothing styles. We can tell from statues, vase paintings, and other artwork of the period how this worked out in practice. There was social pressure to maintain appropriate distinctions. But didn’t Paul himself teach that there was “no male and female, be¬cause you are all one in the Messiah” (Gal. 3:28)? Perhaps, indeed
that was one of the “traditions” that he had taught the Corinthian church, who needed to know that Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female were all equally welcome and equally valued in the renewed people of God. Perhaps that had actually created the situation he is addressing here; perhaps some of the Corinthian women had been taking him literally, so that when they prayed or prophesied aloud in church meetings (which Paul assumes they will do regularly; this tells us, as we’ve seen, something about how to understand 14:34–35) they had decided to remove their normal headcovering, perhaps also unbraiding their hair, to show that in the Messiah they were free from the normal social conventions by which men and women were distinguished.”

Wright goes on to say that it could also have been the case (yet admits that this is not explicitly in the text) that the only women appearing in public without headcoverings were prostitutes and that this would create an extremely confusion view of the church to outsiders—(Wright gives the modern analogy of women wearing bikinis to the worship serive). Of course Paul was not happy about such an “expression of freedom” and instead insisted “on maintaining gender differentiation during worship.”

[...] “Another dimension to the problem may well be that in the Corinth of his day the only women who appeared in public with¬out some kind of headcovering were prostitutes. This isn’t sug¬gested directly here, but it may have been in the back of his mind. If the watching world discovered that the Christians were hav¬ing meetings where women “let their hair down” in this fashion, it could have the same effect on their reputation as it would in the modern West if someone looked into a church and found the women all wearing bikinis.

The trouble is, of course, that Paul doesn’t say exactly this, and we run the risk of ‘explaining’ him in terms that might (perhaps) make sense to us while ignoring what he himself says. It’s tempting to do that, precisely because in today’s western world we don’t like the implications of the differentiation he maintains in verse 3: the Messiah is the “head” of every man, a husband is the “head” of every woman, and the “head” of the Messiah is God. This seems to place man in a position of exactly that assumed superiority against which women have rebelled, often using Galatians 3:28 as their battle cry.

But what does Paul mean by ‘head’? He uses it here sometimes in a metaphorical sense, as in verse 3, and sometimes literally, as when he’s talking about what to do with actual human heads (vv. 4–7 and 10). The word he uses can mean different things; and a good case can be made that in verse 3 he is referring not to “head¬ship” in the sense of sovereignty, but to “headship” in the sense of “source,” like the “source” or “head” of a river. In fact, in some of the key passages where he explains what he’s saying (vv. 8, 9, and 12a) he is referring explicitly to the creation story in Genesis 2, where woman was made from the side of man.

The underlying point then seems to be that in worship it is important for both men and women to honor God by being what they are and not blurring the lines by pretending to be something else. One of the unspoken clues to this passage may be Paul’s as¬sumption that in worship the creation is being restored, or per¬haps that in worship we are anticipating its eventual restoration (15:27–28). God made humans male and female, and gave them “authority” over the world. And if humans are to reclaim this au¬thority over the world, this will come about as they worship the true God, as they pray and prophesy in his name, and are renewed in his image, in being what they were made to be, in celebrating the genders God has given them.
If this is Paul’s meaning, the critical move he makes is to argue that a man dishonors his head by covering it in worship and that a woman dishonors hers by not covering it. He argues this mainly from the basis that creation itself tends to give men shorter hair and women longer (vv. 5–6, 13–15); the fact that some cultures, and some people, offer apparent exceptions would probably not have worried him. His main point is that in worship men should follow the dress and hair codes which proclaim them to be male, and women the codes which proclaim them to be female.
Why then does he say that a woman “must have authority on her head because of the angels” (v. 10)? This is one of the most puzzling verses in a puzzling passage, but there is help of sorts in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In these writings we find the assumption that when God’s people meet for worship, the angels are there too (as many liturgies, and theologians, still affirm). This means that the angels, being holy, must not be offended by any appearance of unholiness among the congregation. Paul may share the assump¬tion that the angels are worshipping along with the humans, or he may be making a different point.

When humans are renewed in the Messiah and raised from the dead, they will be set in authority over the angels (6:3). In worship, the church anticipates how things are going to be in that new day. When a woman prays or prophesies (perhaps in the lan¬guage of angels, as in 13:1), she needs to be truly what she is, since it is to male and female alike, in their mutual interdependence as God’s image-bearing creatures, that the world, including the angels, is to be subject. God’s creation needs humans to be fully, gloriously, and truly human, which means fully and truly male and female. This, and of course much else besides, is to be glimpsed in worship.
The Corinthians, then, may have drawn the wrong conclusion from the “tradition” that Paul had taught them. It seems that his main aim was that the marks of difference between the sexes should not be set aside in worship—at least perhaps. We face different issues, but making sure that our worship is ordered appropriately, to honor God’s creation and anticipate its fulfillment in the new creation, is still a priority—there is no “perhaps” about that.

When we apply this to the question of women’s ministry, it seems to me that we should certainly stress equality in the role of women but should be very careful about implying sameness. We need both men and women to be themselves in their ministries, rather than for one to try to become a clone of the other.”

Best wishes,
Cynthia

p.s. If someone else wants to summarize Wright’s take on 1 Tim 2 (from the article linked in my original post), please feel free to do so.

My comment was mostly composed of notes that I wrote on the subject and so it is not as polished as it could be. Many of the responses show that what I was trying to say has been misunderstood at key points, so I hope that the following will go some way towards clarification.

My argument is not ultimately based on the nature of our physical bodies. If that were the basis for my argument, it would be a poor basis indeed! My argument is ultimately based on a fact that the Scripture gives significant weight to: the man was created before the woman. Scripture presents this detail to us as more than just an accidental feature of the narrative, but as a fact that should shape our understanding of the way that men and women ought to relate. As Paul points out, the woman was made for the man, not the man for the woman (1 Corinthians 11:8-9). The man precedes the woman in the creation order (1 Timothy 2:12).

Paul presents this fact as a fact that is of liturgical significance, as a basis for differentiating between the roles of men and women within the context of worship. In Genesis 2:15ff Adam is given the task of guarding and keeping the garden. Eve is not given this task in the same way, but is created as Adam’s ‘helper’ in his performance of the task. Adam is responsible for the task of guarding and keeping the garden, which is why he is responsible for the Fall. Adam is also responsible to be Eve’s teacher. Eve is not directly given the commandment not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam is, and he is responsible to guard and keep his wife, as well as the garden. When he stands idly by and allows Eve to be tempted, and uses her as a guinea pig for sin, he fails in his task.

Already at the very beginning we see that man was created, in some sense, as the leader and the woman as the helper. The man initiates and the woman brings to perfection that which the man has initiated. If this were not the case then we would not have fallen in Adam, but fallen in Adam and Eve, or fallen in Eve.

The fact that the woman was created as a helper for the man in his task is also significant. The woman is created in a way that equips her to provide what the man cannot provide for fulfilling the task committed to the man. In Genesis 1 we see that the task of being fruitful and multiplying, filling the earth and subduing it, is given to humanity in common and not just to the man. It is the task of guarding and keeping the garden and its worship that is the man’s especial task and responsibility.

As we read on in the biblical text it becomes clear that the Garden of Eden was not just an isolated and particular location, but is the more archetypal realm of worship. The cultural and political task of man takes place in the wider world, the liturgical task in the garden. The garden is the centre of life, from which life flows out to the land and then to the world. The garden is the realm in which man relates directly to God.

We see this more clearly when we study the worship of the Temple and Tabernacle. The Tabernacle and the Temple follow the model of the Garden of Eden in important ways. They represent the places where man relates directly to God, the places of God’s particular presence. It is from the Tabernacle and the Temple that all of the life of the people of God must flow. The Tabernacle and Temple stand at the heart and centre of the people of God and represents the place of beginnings. It is the place of order, an order that must be brought to bear upon the rest of the world as mankind goes out into the wider creation and relates all of it back to the worship of the Tabernacle and Temple.

It is in the realm of the Tabernacle and the Temple that priests are responsible. The priests are the guardians and keepers of the holy place and are also peculiarly responsible for guarding and keeping the house of Israel. They are the ones with the task of guarding and maintaining the moral boundaries of the people of God. They provide the fundamental direction for life by teaching and guarding the standards of the Law. It is from this fundamental direction that all of the rest of human life and cultural activity develops.

Very significantly, God never makes any provision for priestesses; there are only male priests. There are queens and prophetesses, but no priestesses. Kings (rulers under God) and prophets (members of the heavenly council, ruling with God) are far more exalted roles than those of priests. They are responsible for far greater areas (the king rules the land; the prophet brings God’s Word to all of the nations). However, the priest is the initiator and guardian. It is with the priest that things begin.

From the outset it is made clear that the priest is supposed to be a man of holy violence. Levi was already renowned for (unrighteous) violence in the book of Genesis. In Exodus 32:25-29 the Levites were set apart for priestly service after defending the covenant at the price of the blood of their brothers. In the worship of the tabernacle the priest is the one who bears the knife or sword to cut up that which is brought near to God. The priest spends most of his day in the task of killing. If unclean people approach God the Tabernacle is the place where deadly force will be exacted upon them, either by God, or by His standing army of the Levites.

This pattern of priests as men of holy violence is seen throughout Scripture. Phineas is set apart for high priesthood as a result of thrusting a spear through a man and a woman. Samuel is seen as the one who guards the boundaries as a man of holy violence by hacking Agag to pieces. We see that, when waging war, the Israelite army took on a sort of priestly level of holiness. The Levites were at the centre of Israel’s war camp in Numbers 2 as the crack troops. They are the ones who are taught to have eyes that do not spare when it comes to the exacting of divine judgment.

When I speak of man as the Initiator and Guardian, this is what I mean. The man, unlike the woman is given the task of special priesthood. The task of the priest is the task of leading special worship, maintaining the boundaries that God has established (‘guarding and keeping’) and providing the fundamental direction from which the rest of life develops.

Women are certainly priestesses in the Church in some sense. They share in the priestly task of the Church. However, when it comes to the priestly task they are always ‘helpers’ and never leaders. Serving in the capacity of special priesthood is something that is limited to men alone.

As the Church has begun to rethink what it means to be the Church, it has started to lose sight of the fact that the Church is very much about making war (contra Daniel). It is certainly about far more than this, but it is never about less. The pastors of the Church have the task of special priesthood, setting the fundamental direction for the task of the Church, leading the Church in the realm of special worship and maintaining the boundaries by means of robust Church discipline. This task is a task that has been given to the man.

My argument is not an argument from biology. However, biology is not opposed to symbolism and theology (I think that Daniel is missing my point here). The physical, mental and psychological constitution of the man suits him for the task of the priest. The woman is not suited for the task in the same way. In my experience, the concept of sacred violence (whether understood literally, or as a guiding metaphor) is something that many of those in favour of women priesthood most strongly object to. I was just reading a book by Elaine Storkey a few days ago and she made the point that women find it hard to relate to the idea of warfare and we need to start to move further away from this guiding metaphor (again, certainly not the only such guiding metaphor) within the Church. This, of course, makes my point, which is that men are constitutionally suited for the task of leading holy warfare in a way that women are not. She also argues (as a leading Christian feminist) that women tend to favour a different style of leadership, which again makes my point. God has established male leadership in the priesthood for a reason.

Sacred violence is one of the most basic tasks of the priest, offensive as this may be to contemporary sensibilities. I fail to see sufficient serious and humble engagement with the biblical text on this point. What I usually encounter is a rejection of the theme altogether, despite the positive way in which the theme is treated in Scripture.

The fact that men are priestly has broader implications. The priest is one who serves the bride, rather than ruling over her. The priests lead the people in important senses, but they do not rule over them. They serve them. In general, as a sex, males are called to give the fundamental direction to cultural life. They are particularly responsible for the task of guarding and keeping cultural and moral boundaries and others within the culture. It is men, for instance, who bear the responsibility to go to war to defend women and children. Only a degenerate culture sends its women and children to fight for its men. Women are only called upon to fight in extreme and unusual situations. Only dishonourable men stand idly by (like Adam) and leave women to stand in the breach and uphold the boundaries for them. Men are called to lead the way in this task.

This also applies in the context of the family. The father bears particular responsibility for setting the fundamental direction of the household. This is not a direction that should be imposed upon the household by force. The husband acts as servant and protector for his wife, not as a ruler over her. Biblically it is the father who bears particular responsibility for discipline (in both its positive and negative sense) and correction. Much (quite possibly all) of the discipline may be exercised by the wife and mother. However, the wife disciplines her children as the helper of her husband. Where proper discipline has not taken place, the buck stops with the father. The husband is particularly charged with the task of acting as priest for the wife and children by guarding them from outside harm of any form.

Life flows out from the sanctuary and back into it. It is the man who initiates the movement of life in the sanctuary and it is the woman who is most responsible for perfecting this movement in the realm of the wider world. The movement out into the world must involve the laying down of man’s strength in service of the woman, who will complete and perfect what he has started. If men just seek domination over women, life will never flow out beyond the sanctuary. As life flows beyond the sanctuary into the land and then into the wider world, the role of the woman is to become more prominent.

It is in this way that the relationships between men and women follow the pattern of the life of the Trinity. There is a constant movement of giving and receiving within the life of the Trinity. However, my point is that this movement is not purely symmetrical. Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 11 is that the Father is the source and initiator of the movement, setting the fundamental direction. The giving and receiving operates in terms of this. It is not a one way movement in the case of the Trinity, nor is it a one way movement in the case of men and women. As Paul observes, the man is never independent of the woman (1 Corinthians 11:11-12).

The wider cultural task of Genesis 1 is one that has been given to humankind in common and not to the man or woman in particular. However, even in the task of sexual reproduction we see the pattern that man initiates that which only the woman can bring to perfection. Having initiated the movement, man must serve the woman in the task of bringing the movement to perfection. When man seeks domination this perfection cannot be achieved.

In the wider world beyond the sanctuary the roles of men and women are not differentiated in the same way. The fact that man is the leader in the sanctuary realm does not mean that men must lead in every realm. As already pointed out, there is no problem with queens and prophetesses. This is why I have no difficulty with women playing a leading role in every single realm of human life, outside of that of special priesthood. In fact, if my reading is correct (and I am pretty certain that it is), it can be seen that such a role of women is not just permissible, but necessary. The human project will fail unless it is brought to its perfection by women. The fundamental cultural direction that is provided by men must be brought to its height by women. Men cannot do this in the same way. This applies in all sorts of areas. Theology is one such area. The Church needs women theologians and I believe that women theologians can bring to the theological task things that men lack.

The movement from male initiation outwards can be seen in the Bible itself. The story of Scripture begins with Adam. Much of the OT is a story of fathers and sons. Firstborn sons have a particular significance in the Exodus and are eventually replaced by the Levites. The religious life of Israel is dominated by men and it is the role of men that is particularly focused on. The priests are men. The community is marked out by the sign of circumcision, something which, incidentally, gives particular significance to the importance of shaping and controlling male initiation. Women do not receive the covenant sign in the same way, but come under the men who do. They receive the covenant sign vicariously.

In the NT things change somewhat, as the cultural movement begun in the OT begins to spread out into the wider world. Men and women both receive the covenant sign of Baptism in the same way. The male role of initiation, maintained by the rite of circumcision and the exclusion of those with damaged genitalia (Deuteronomy 23:1), becomes downplayed, as even eunuchs can be baptized. The role of women within the Church becomes more pronounced than the role of women was in the life of OT Israel. This is not because the OT was bad, nor is it a negation of what we see there. The change is due to the fact that the NT is the time when the movement started in the OT begins to near its completion.

The NT begins with the role of the woman Mary, in whom the great task of Israel is fulfilled. Christ is not born through the potency of man, but the man Joseph must learn to be the servant and guardian of his wife Mary, in whom is fulfilled what he could never achieve. What we see, then, is the sacrifice of male power at the moment of completion. The man reaches a point where his natural strength fails him and he must be content to remain as a humble priest, protecting the woman through whom salvation comes. The movement of Scripture involves a breaking and humbling of the natural power and potency of the male sex as men learn to be husbands who love and serve their wives, rather than macho men who dominate and abuse the female sex.

A new movement begins in Christ, who lays down His life for His bride the Church. The final consummation occurs when the glory of Christ is revealed. The true glory of Christ is, of course, the Church, just as the Gentiles to be the glory of Israel. The macho hero who seeks to glorify himself is thus excluded. The Church is the completion of Christ — the totus Christus.

So what does this mean for concrete gender roles? I don’t believe that women are constitutionally capable of being special priests, just as men are not constitutionally capable of being pregnant. However, in most areas of life what I have said above has little or no bearing upon what roles men and women can perform. Men and women are different, though, and for this reason they will usually bring different strengths to whatever task they perform. Consequently, how they perform their roles may differ.

As I do not believe that my position generally has much bearing on what roles men and women can and cannot perform, I don’t want to give the impression that we have anything beyond pretty general guidelines in this area. The guidelines that we do have are helpful, though. The man sets the fundamental direction for the task and then must surrender his strength and serve the woman who completes it.

This pattern is seen in many ways in Scripture and is taken for granted in many ways. We could say that the man is particularly responsible for the task of establishing and forming; the woman is particularly responsible for the task of filling and perfecting. The role of the man corresponds more to that of the Son; the woman to that of the Spirit. The Spirit is the Helper who perfects and brings to completion what Christ begins. In Scripture, for instance the man is generally presented as the one who builds the house; the woman is presented as the one who makes it into a home. It is the man who establishes the relationship of marriage (‘a man shall leave his father and mother…’); it is the woman who perfects the relationship in various ways, not least in the bringing to birth and raising of children. While many men make women sacrifice so that they can advance their careers, etc., the task of the man really must be that of serving the woman to bring to completion what he has started and lacks the power of his own to complete.

As the movements of life reach their height the role of men begins to fall away and the role of women takes over. I do not believe that this is primarily a matter of what jobs women can and cannot perform, so much as it is a matter of how they are enabled to perform those tasks. I see a need for cooperation between the sexes in practically every area of life. The action of filling and subduing the earth is one performed in cooperation, each sex bringing its peculiar strengths to bear in a common and concerted action of mankind (like the actions of the Trinity). In some actions one sex may be particularly prominent, but neither sex is designed to ever act completely independent of the other.

I am well aware that many Christian feminists will protest against this picture as sexist. However, I submit that this is the pattern that Scripture generally works in terms of. I do not believe that this robs women of power. Quite the opposite. I certainly do not believe that this limits the role of the woman to wife and mother (anymore than it limits the role of the man to husband and father). Women need men and men need women in every area of human life and action. What I believe is that genuine mutuality and reciprocity exists and that the woman isn’t just left as man’s subordinate. There is, however, an ordered movement, much as there is in the Trinity.

In response to Daniel, the reference to ‘being like the angels’ is not a denial of future bodily existence. Frankly, it is rather insulting to be told that I have a ‘scattered conception of the eschaton’ when he is the one who fails to recognize our Lord’s words from Matthew 22.

In response to Bekly, the last thing I want to do is to found my position on a few isolated prooftexts (anymore than I want to found it on the shape of human bodies). I am rather seeking to articulate a clear and detailed picture, drawing upon deep rooted and significant themes in the biblical text. I believe that these themes are significant as they are especially brought to our attention by explicit statements or frequent repetition. It is precisely this engagement with the deeper themes of Scripture that I find sorely lacking in most Christian feminist accounts, which often fail to go far beyond sweeping applications of verses such as Galatians 3:28, questionable arguments about fringe characters such as ‘Junia’ and the dismissing or minimization of the supposed ‘prooftexts’ for opposing positions, without presenting alternative readings of any depth.

When Paul teaches on the relative roles of men and women, he describes these roles in terms of the order of the life of the Trinity (1 Corinthians 11), the order of the sexes established in creation and undermined in the Fall (1 Timothy 2; 1 Corinthians 11) and the pattern of redemption in Christ (Ephesians 5). It is for this reason that I find the contrary arguments so unsatisfying. They tend to dismiss deep theological readings of the role of the sexes by claiming that Paul is merely writing in response to certain cultural issues in his own day.

The masculine language for God is another case in point. Part of what it means for us to be God’s image is that we are created male and female. Men and women image God in different ways. The intraTrinitarian relationships are also, as I have argued, in some sense paradigmatic for relationships between the sexes. As a result of this, the use of masculine language cannot be simply dismissed as unimportant. 1 Corinthians 11:7 even speaks of the man imaging God in a peculiar sense that the woman does not (just as the woman will image God in peculiar senses that the man does not).

I have already said that I have no problem with a sort of office for the ‘elderess’, so this need not be an issue between our positions.

What I would like to see in a response is a serious attempt to engage with the deeper themes of the biblical narrative, such as the creation account. Mere engagement with a few isolated texts is not very convincing.