By Barry Fike
Subservience and women seemed to go together as ‘peas and carrots’ – at least in the conservative brotherhood that I was raised in. Yes, women had their place in the body of Christ – so long as they stayed in a classroom with children – not in their teenage years – and sat piously simple and didn’t raise a question in a class of mixed company (meaning men and women). How much more simply could Paul have said it? "Women, keep silent, if you have a question ask your husband at home." End of discussion – it’s in the Bible? Right?
Well, so are those scriptures that talk about women having their heads covered, and not to wear costly adornment. Wait, didn’t Shakespeare say something about ‘Consistency, thou art a virtue’? If he didn’t, he should have. How inconsistent the church has been on a subject of great importance only continued to frustrate questions that I honestly had on this topic until I began to study the Jewish background of such scriptures and the practices that Paul was obviously referring to. I was led into a study of sociology (my wife would be proud) and learned that people, like today, didn’t live in a box but had a whole society of feelings, temptations, languages, and cultural shifts that defined who they were as a society. Paul, being of both Roman and Jewish lineage, certainly had a feeling for both cultures and understood, as none other would, or possibly could, what these differences meant when introduced to the "Jewish" God and his manifestation upon this earth. It’s no wonder that those at Athens scoffed at Paul and his resurrection ‘tale’ while others were interested to listen further. Philosophy is interesting so long as nobody really takes it that serious. But, I digress.
So what about women and their role in the church? For such a discussion so many factors need to be referred to that a book is needed. (coming) But for the brevity of this article let me reference a few factors just to get you thinking. As they said in the "Sound of Music" – "Let’s start at the very beginning; it’s a very nice place to start."
"And God created man [Adam] in His image, in the image of God did He create him, male and female He created them." (Gen. 1:27)
So many times we read so carelessly over this passage in English that we rarely have taken time to see the intricacies and depth of the message being given about the first creation created directly from God. (Yes, I know that we all are in a way but that’s another discussion)
From Genesis 1 we travel to chapter 2 and read that woman was created solely as an afterthought, God took a rib, created woman, and she blew it. Story told – from then on in history women are subservient and misunderstood by most cultures except one: Judaism! Within Judaism we find that women were heralded as the foundational cornerstone of the home, they had rights within society to own property, take care of the home, at times run a business, and even more rarely study and become a Rabbi. Have you read Proverbs 31:10-31 lately? It’s no wonder that her works should praise her in the gates – she did practically everything except sit at the gates, the sacred stomping grounds for those in charge of the city and the study of the Holy word. In other words, the society of the Jews was grounded not upon the men but upon the women.
What’s the point? We read the same scriptures and come away with completely different ideas concerning women and their role in not only society but within religion. The difference is that they study it from Hebrew and we, (we meaning ‘Christians’) primarily from English. Without insight into the Hebrew language and commentaries of the Jews (Talmud, Mishnah, etc.) our reflections may led us into not only doctrines that not only have shallow underpinnings but damming as well.
When Paul told Timothy to "Study (spoudazō ) to show thyself approved unto God" (KJV), or "Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth", (ASV) I believe that he meant that before you make doctrine hard and fast be sure that you’ve done your work. "To exert oneself, endeavor, give diligence" is what spoudazo means according to Thayer’s Greek English Lexicon (G4704). In other words with this subject, as any biblical concept, we are dealing with another language and other social groups; if you want to deal with the closest Biblical sacred ties ending with Jesus Christ and his movement called ‘the Kingdom’ in the first century and about 2000 years in another part of the world that we often misunderstand even to this day it’s not going to be that simple. Nobody said it was going to be easy, and it isn’t unless you are from the school that believes that the Bible means what it says and says what it means. If you were part of the original audience then I’d have to agree with you. Since we aren’t, and it wasn’t written in English, and it wasn’t written in the USA, or any other part of the present day modern world, then it behooves us to get some decent study material in front of ourselves and delve into the word on a deeper level than simply listening to brother so and so and following him as blindly as the blind following the blind – they both end up in the ditch. I’ll let you draw the analogy from here as it applies.
I’ve said all this to say this: to understand these concepts that were originally given, and have been studied for thousands of years, you’re going to have to do a little study aside from this article and any book that you’ll read on the subject. However, with that said, here’s a primer course into a bible study that has helped me understand women, their role in the society, and, more important, their role in the church.
