Challenge To Christian Feminism - Watchman Research Media

The Garden of Eden has disappeared and, with it, the original order of creation. The Fall from innocence distorted all relationships, particularly between men and women, destroying the harmony.

Chronologically, Eve was the first to sin. That is because Satan (who is masculine) approached her first. Why did he do so? Divide to conquer; one is easier to tackle than two. The New Testament teaches us that it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman who was deceived and deluded and fell into transgression (2 Timothy 2:14).

Eve thought she was doing right because she was more vulnerable to being seduced in mind, whereas Adam knew he was doing wrong. So Paul’s practice of prohibiting instruction by women; however uncomfortable we may feel with his line of thought, seems to saying: Eve, as a typical woman, was liable to be misled and therefore more likely to mislead.

That Adam followed her with neither argument nor protest put him in the feminine role, which may explain why, theologically, Adam was the first to sin!

The New Testament holds Adam responsible for introducing sin and death to the human race (Romans 5:12), rather than Eve. This doesn’t mean that Adam is regarded as basically responsible for the whole situation, for her as well for himself.

He could and should have rebuked her and interceded for her. But instead Adam took a feminine role, and abdicated his position. Because of space and time we cannot debate whether God’s punishment fitted their crime.

The Fall introduced struggle into their respective spheres of activity. This word struggle became the watchword of men like Darwin, Karl Marx, Nietsche, Hitler and more recently those who advocate socialist and communist ideals.

Adam will be affected in his daily work, Eve in her family relationships. Note that the Fall did not introduce this differentiation, it merely damaged it:

And to Adam He said, because you have listened and given heed to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it, the ground is under a curse because of you; in sorrow and toil shall you eat of the fruits of it all the days of your life.

Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you shall return (Genesis 3:17-19).

Adam is addressed first, since he carries prime responsibility in the partnership. Banished from the garden to the field, he will only survive with great effort against opposing factors. The Bible doesn’t mention anything of his marital relations, nor is he told to rule his wife.

Eve is also punished, but in relation to her family. In childbearing (birth process rather than upbringing) her pain (physical rather than mental, and not menstrual) is to be increased (not introduced). In relation to her husband her ‘desire will be to him,’ which means to control, manipulate, posses someone.

Having led her husband into sin, she must now live with a continuing urge to subordinate him to her wish and will. His reaction will be not only to resist this takeover, but to use his greater strength to ‘rule’ her. Male domination is the inevitable result of this struggle for supremacy of wills. In Genesis 3:16 we read:

To the woman He said, I will greatly multiply your grief and your suffering in pregnancy and the pangs of childbearing; with spasms of distress you will bring forth children. Yet your desire and craving will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.

In these verses above lies the real explanation for the centuries of exploitation and suppression of women, against which feminism has been validly protesting for years to the point that feminist beliefs had led some people to seek to abolish gender distinctions. But do feminists seek power or principle?

The advent of rule to describe marriage was not the introduction of subordination but the exaggeration of it (in much the same was as pain in child-bearing increased). Responsibility for direction in the male became a reaction into domination.

The male-dominated garden is now a male-dominated jungle. Each sex sees the other as an object rather than a subject, to serve their own purposes. This situation can only be remedied by divine grace, by redemption rather than legislation or a feminist revolution.

God’s strategy is to plant on earth a community of men and women who will live as Adam and Eve did, in His creation order (except for their nudity, which will never recur, even in heaven).

The Woman was Made From Man..After Man and For Man

Woman was made from man, not dust. This might be thought to indicate the incompleteness of the man (and the reason he seeks union with a wife rather than parents in (1 Corinthians 11:24); but Paul uses this to support the headship of the man: “For man did not come from woman, but woman from man” (1 Corinthians 11:8), possibly recalling that she came from his side.

Woman was made for man; the reserve is not true (1 Corinthians 11:9). Her primary function is in relation to him; his was already established without reference to her ( (1 Corinthians 11:15).

And the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and guard and keep it….Now the Lord God said, It is not good (sufficient, satisfactory) that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper (suitable, adapted, complementary) for him (Genesis 2: 15,18).

The word help in no way implies inferiority, since it is often used of God’s assistance. Neither does it imply identity, since God’s help is in terms of support, sympathy and strength-rather than substituting for man in his task.

The woman was made after man. His priority in time has other implications. The firstborn carries responsibility for and authority over later arrivals as Paul indicates in 1 Timothy 2:13. “For Adam was first formed, then Eve; God names man (Genesis 5:2) and the stars. Man names the animals when God brought them to him.

He is not rebuked for taking this authority. Nor is it valid to object that woman is not a name since it is generic rather than specific. Adam called her Eve; a legacy of his action is to be found in a wife taking her husband’s surname after marriage.

God and man can relate face-to-face because they bear the same image, yet man is subordinate to God. The same dual aspect applies to men and women.

The underlying principle is that in Christ we are still male and female. We are still what God created us to be, so when we worship God we do so not as persons, but as men and women, willing to accept how God made us.

So transvestism is condemned in the Bible, for when men want to be like women and women like to be like men, there is a rebellion against how God made us. When we worship God as Creator, we come to him as his creatures, and so we need to let that difference be clearly seen.

Western culture is generally saying the exact opposite. It argues for the removal of many differences between men and women, and this belief is creeping into the Church. But men and women are different. We are complementary, of equal value and dignity and status in God’s sight, but with different roles, responsibilities and functions before God.

Controversial Teaching in Paul’s Epistles

Perhaps the most controversial teaching in Paul’s epistles concerns women. Paul apparently imposes strict limitations on the ministry of women. And that’s why Feminist theologians dislike Paul’s letters and according to David Pawson they make some of these claims:

Pseudepigraphical. Some say the letters are not by Paul but are a second-century forgery in his name. Thus they should not be part of the canon.

Rabbinical.Others argue that if these letters are from Paul, the teaching on women is a throwback to his rabbinical days before his conversion. As an old man he is returning to prejudices from his Jewish childhood.

Cultural.They argue that this teaching is purely cultural. If Jesus were alive today, he would have chosen six men and six women as apostles. The favourite phrase that sums up this position is to say that Paul was culturally conditioned. So Jesus’ choice of 12 men to be his apostles was tactful, because in his day it would have been offensive to have women apostles – an argument which fails to realize that Jesus never did anything merely because it was ‘diplomatic’! One of the compliments that the Pharisees paid him was, ‘You pay no attention to any man.’ If it had been right for him to do it, then he would have done it.

Heretical. Others claim that women were barred from teaching because women led many of the cults. The Church needed to distance itself from these practices, so it barred women from teaching. There is, however, no evidence to support this theory.

Educational.The next argument suggests that the lack of education for women in Paul’s day made it unwise for them to be in a teaching/ leadership role. But if this was true, Paul should not have let uneducated men lead the Church. In Acts, the Sanhedrin describe the 12 apostles as uneducated men, and so they were.

But when you read Paul’s letters carefully, he teaches that the gender differences between men and women still apply in the Church. We cannot deny that 1 Corinthians 14:33-38 is one of the most difficult passages to understand and 1 Timothy 1:11-15 is widely considered to be the passage most offensive to Christian women in the writings of Paul.

However, Paul’s prohibition relates to gender, not ignorance; and this is based on creation, not culture. The gift of teaching Christians requires spiritual rather than intellectual qualifications and is quite unrelated to academic ability or opportunity. We need to remember that Jewish Rabbis wouldn’t even let a woman learn at all, even though they had no Scriptural justification for doing so.

The church started from a handful of people around AD 52. Paul’s strategy for evangelizing an area was to begin his work in the Jewish synagogue in the city he was visiting. But there was no synagogue in Philippi, for there were less than the required 10 male Jews to form one, and so Paul met with a Jewish ladies’ prayer group instead.

Among the women was one who was to be instrumental in the work of the Philippian church – a businesswoman named Lydia. Originally from Asia, she sold purple cloth for a living. Acts tells us that she had slaves and a household and that the whole household was baptized.

In 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35, Paul is taking a Christian, not a Jewish, position, in teaching both sexes as Jesus did before him. Women were not allowed to teach at all in the mixed congregation but in his letter to Titus, he encouraged them to do this on other occasions when men were not present.

Bid the older women similarly to be reverent and devout in their deportment as becomes those engaged in sacred service, not slanderers or slaves to drink. They are to give good counsel and be teachers of what is right and noble (Titus 2:3).

We also need to understand that preaching in those days was primarily announcing the gospel to unbelievers whereas teaching was addressed to believers something we call preaching in New Testament terms.

The general prohibition in 1 Timothy 1:12 to allow no woman to teach or to have authority over men is translated as to usurp authority. For a woman to direct a man was seen as an act of violence, because it violated the order of creation. For that is the background on which Paul bases his prohibitions. They express quite literally the order in which Adam and Eve were created:

For Adam was first formed, then Eve; and it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman who was deceived and deluded and fell into transgression (1 Timothy 1:13-14).

Eve was deceived and became a transgressor. Her assuming role of leadership had disastrous consequences and must not be followed by other women.

Though he excludes women from any activity involving leadership of men, he encourages women in many forms of ministry. Though his qualifications for eldership are male:

Husband of one wife…
Able to manage his own household…
Temperate and self-controlled….
Not given to wine…
And not a lover of money insatiable for wealth and ready to obtain it by questionable means…..

Yet the ministry of deacons is open to all. This is mentioned in the very next chapter 1 Timothy 3:11 and is confirmed by Deaconess Phoebe, Romans 16:1.

As a matter of fact, the whole chapter in Romans 16, he commends mostly women who have acquitted themselves in the work of the Lord. They bear the title ‘fellow’ worker colleagues of Paul (as were Euodia and Syntyche in Philippians 4:2; which means they shared in his mission of evangelism and church planting.

Conclusion

Woman is made from man. She therefore derives her being from him. Indeed, as the Bible indicates, woman is named by man just as he named the animals. Woman is made after man. He therefore carries the responsibility of the first-born. The significance of that will become clear in Genesis 3, where Adam is blamed for the sin not Eve, since he was responsible for her.

Woman is made for man. Adam had a job before he had a wife and man is made primarily for his work, while woman is made primarily for relationships.

This does not mean that a man must not have relationships or that a woman must not go out to work, but rather that this is the primary purpose for which God made male and female.

The fact that man named woman also shows how the partnership is to work: not as a democracy, but with the responsibility of leadership falling to the male. The emphasis is upon cooperation, not competition.

God made us men and women, and we need each other. He made us for different roles and responsibilities. In Genesis 2 we learn that the functions of men and women are different.

The Bible talks of the responsibilities of the man to provide and protect, and of the woman to uphold, encourage, assist and accept.

When men behave like women and women behave like men, we are distorting God’s creative beauty. So men are given the responsibility of leading. Although this is not popular teaching today, it’s there in Scripture. We can’t get round it.