I truly believe the best in pastors who preach these texts from a complementarian framework, knowing their intent is to obey God in their best and most humble way, which I’ll speak more about later. But to me, the sermons are clearly grounded on an insufficient exegesis of the scripture. When we approach a text and leave with an interpretation that is backed by the argument “well that’s just what it says so we must submit in obedience, whether we like it or not” I think we ought to be warned. The Bible “just says” a lot of things that we do not in fact submit in obedience to. Perhaps you’ve heard the classic atheist response to such a position: “Leviticus just says that you shouldn’t wear clothes of two fabrics...but here you are with a cotton/polyester shirt on.” Or perhaps a Christian critique that “Paul just says to greet one another with a holy kiss” but we generally think that’s a bad idea. In these cases we employ simple and accepted exegetical tools to conclude that they are not universal commands for us to obey today, even though they’re preserved in scripture as imperatives.
But more gravely, what about the abundant new and old testament passages that seem to condone slavery and even give Biblical audiences proper guidelines within which to treat slaves, and slaves their masters? For a response to this I turn to Esau McCaulley’s work in “Reading While Black,” (a book that the reader should certainly read in its entirety rather than accepting this brief summary of a section from his introduction) wherein he describes his experience in college where only one exegetical approach was presented around slavery; that being that slavery is unarguably condoned by the Bible. Thus only the following responses remained, the fundamentalist approach to agree and so support slavery, or the progressive approach to dismiss the authoritativeness of scripture to at least some degree. But McCaulley had grown up hearing what he calls the “Black ecclesial position” which he righty claims to have done better exegetical work, so concluding that the Bible does not in fact condone slavery, but boasts a God of liberation.3
The same sort of exegesis and misguided conclusions are arising still today regarding gender and roles in the Church. This is the most crucial reason to follow up on these texts. The reason we dismiss Levitical laws and Paul’s kiss imperatives is because we have rightly interpreted those to be contextual, not universal commands. The reason the Church boasts a theology of liberation for slaves is also because of better exegetical work that emerged surrounding the passages that slaveholders once wielded as proof texts to support their arguments.
It is of course true that we should not jump through interpretive hoops or search for ways to convince ourselves that God’s word always agrees with our presuppositions, but we also shouldn’t be simple in exegeting passages that seem to agree or not agree with us either. Such simplicity, according to McCaulley, resulted in two divided camps surrounding slavery and biblical authority, and both erring. In the case of gender roles in the Church, that same third option exists, that both egalitarian and complementarian conclusions are built upon inadequate exegetical work and are erring similarly. We know this to be true because scripture will leave us with a blessing when we wrestle, not a curse.3 A “blessing” does not mean an interpretation that makes our hearts happy and never challenges our presuppositions, but rather one that satisfies the soul; an interpretation from the Holy Spirit living within us, coming from the God of Truth, finding its focal point in Jesus, and resulting in a clear gospel proclamation.
So, because the common exegesis of the “complementarian proof texts'' has continued to bring a curse upon my wife, reinforcing her marginalization, and also to me as a lover of Biblical truth; I began working through that pain. I have prayed time and time again that God would change my feelings about this issue if they are arising from my own personal discomfort toward that which God has made clear. Or, if my feelings are actually pointing me to a truth that God desires for His Church and thus arising from the Spirit, that He would enhance my feelings and lead me to do a better exegetical work on those same proof texts than my contemporaries; one that leaves us all with a blessing from God.
The matter of interpreting these scriptures correctly is vital because it directly and practically affects the functionality of the Body of Christ. For instance, we must conclude after interpreting 1 Timothy 2 that, either 1) no woman can teach a man in any setting or 2) women can teach men in at least some settings. I do not condemn complementarianists for their rigorous enforcement of the first interpretation of this text, prohibiting women from having pastoral and eldership roles in the Church. It is the only obedient response if indeed their interpretation of the scripture is correct, although I will argue against the validity of their interpretation with the rest of this work. But it goes to show the vitality of proper exegesis, because the Church is either 1) in danger of compromising our obedience to God and the gender roles He established for the Church or 2) marginalizing half the Church’s ability to use their spiritual gifts of teaching to admonish and exhort Her. Either misstep would be catastrophic for the Church. Indeed, I feel that we are bearing witness to the catastrophic fallout of such a misinterpretation and it is yielding malpractice and sin in the Church; we see the fruit of it almost every month when another headline emerges about a male Church leader who has sexually harassed and abused women, unchecked by Her all-male leadership. And, on the other side, we see the Church’s inability to be lovingly prophetic in a culture that has no clear direction regarding true human identity and how our gender and sexuality affect it.
So moved in my prayers to study deeper for myself, I poured over exegetical approaches and interpretations that hit every color of the spectrum. All of it led me to this. Not feeling fully satisfied by any one approach, but also never failing to unearth glimmers of truth from every interpretation, a new conclusion began to form in my mind. It’s the same conclusion Sydney and I come to almost every time we get into an argument: our argument is based around a misinterpretation. My conclusion, which I will expound upon in the body of my thesis, is that exegetical errors have led to damaging interpretations from both the “egalitarian” and “complementarian” interpretive parties. As I walk us through a more complete exegetical work on gender and the sexes we will see that there is room for both complementarians and egalitarians to come to the table around a more satisfactory exegesis of the scripture that enlightens the two truths embedded in our souls that:
men and women are created equally and have equal access to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit which leads to equal distribution of Spiritual gifts to be employed for all roles in the Church; including preaching, teaching, and eldership.
men and women image God in ways that are unique from each other and so complement one another; such that, apart from coming together as “one flesh” (a truth that’s only realized fully in Christ but has always been reflected in a sexually righteous marriage), humanity would yield an insufficient knowledge of the God of the Bible.
In this, I offer what I am calling the “redeemed humanity” viewpoint on the sexes in the Bible.