Book Notes - Two Views on

Women In Ministry - Belleville, Blomberg, Keener and Schreiner.

Three quick things before the notes [which are not very detailed.]
1 - If this topic interests you, this is the book to read.
2 - I realize this is quite a controversial topic.
3 - You'll have to come to your own conclusions.

1. Egalitarian - Belleville
+ Male-Female Relationship - Gen 1-3
+ Gen 3:16 - gender dysfunction
+ women in leadership - gifting for ministry
women prophets - Miriam, Deborah, etc
a ministry that was exclusively female was that of mourning
women singled out as patrons of house churches in the NT
Jesus didn't have women in the 12 but had them in the 70. Knew that change could only go so deep at first.
I Tim 3:2 - husband of one wife - requirement for being an elder
... knowledge of the mores of a Greek city like Ephesus sheds important light. Greek married women simply were not prone to multiple marriages of illicit unions, while Greek men were. In fact, extramarital affairs were par for the Greek male but not tolerated for Greek women. Also, the divorce rate among Greek men rivaled ours today.

I Tim 2:12 - permit a women to teach or to have authority over a man
Paul had a corrective stance - false teachers - alarming scenario - congregational contention.
Suggesting that women were disrupting worship.

teaching in the NT was an activity not an office, every believer was called to do this, not merely church leaders.
Discussion about head versus source.
Jesus core of 12 were twelve _Jewish_ men. If one used the argument that women cannot be elders because Jesus didn't have women in the 12, what about non Jewish men?

order of creation - what about:
John the Baptist before Jesus
Jesus appearing to Mary before Peter
language of hierarchy does not appear in Paul's language

2. Complementarian - Blomberg
Jesus - inner core of three closest followers. Then come the 12. The come larger group - only in there were women.
...One can argue that to have a woman as Jesus' twelve closest followers would have proved too provocative in his world to gain any adherents for his movement and thus relegate this restriction on women to a merely cultural phenomenon. But in light of all the ways just surveyed that Jesus was willing to scandalize his society, is this argument really credible?

I Tim 2:12
exercise authority
the word 'teach' is used throughout the NT, the word normally translated 'exercise authority' is found nowhere else in Scripture and is quite rare in Greek literature more generally.
'authoritative teaching' connected to I Tim 3 - overseers and deacons. Only in his instructions for elders must candidates be 'able to teach' and only in his instructions for deacons do women appear.

male headship based upon order of creation - Adam first and then Eve.

++ Huge quote from the book:
Once you have decided as best as you understand it, what Scripture does permit women to do, can any reasonably objective observer of your church and your ministry quickly recognize you are bending over backwards to encourage and nurture women in these roles? If not, then you can't possibly be obeying Scripture adequately, even on your interpretation of it. Interestingly, over the years, I have had a number of outspoken egalitarian women, some of them well known in evangelical circles, confide in me privately and tell me that if complementarians would just do this much consistently, they could live with the remaining areas of disagreement and even stop lobbying for further privilege.

++ One final note - Ed Stetzer states that churches should make sure they have wrestled with this issue and have clear communications regarding it. He also cites research that says that "sixty-five percent of all of the younger unchurched said [knowing that the church did not endorse the ordination of women as pastors] would negatively impact their decision about getting involved."

Yeah.... go get the book.