Women in the Church
Taking a fresh look at what the Bible teaches about Women in church for the ICOC. We'll answer questions like "can a woman preach on Sunday? What part do spiritual gifts play in how we serve the church? What does healthy organizational change look like?” So if you're ready for an in-depth, comprehensive study of women in the church you've come to the right podcast!
Women in the Church
#11. The Case for Limited Participation
In this episode, Corina and Travis lay out the case for the Limited Participation of women's roles in the public assembly and identify the nine theological and practical challenges we must wrestle with before deciding it's the proper interpretation.
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Welcome back to the women in the church podcast, we take a fresh look at what the Bible teaches about women in church. For the sufc. In credo, we are ready to actually say some semi definitive things
Corina Espejo:about women in the church. Semi definitive, like semi dark chocolate chips.
Travis Albritton:I am a big fan of some chips. Yeah, because they're not like so bitter, like the hardcore chocolate chips were just like, drains all the saliva to your mouth. Anyways, we're getting, we're excited to be here. And we're excited to to take the 10 hours of Bible study that we've done to this point, and actually get somewhere with it. So if you've been hoping that eventually we would land on some practical takeaways and positions, then this is the first of two episodes where we're going to do that. So Karina, just give us a broad idea of what we're gonna be talking about in this episode, so people know what to expect.
Corina Espejo:Yeah. So first off, we're going to try and talk about what we do agree about. So as we jump into this episode, we want to start from place of some points we found most if not everyone has agreed on, we'll talk about arriving at an answer and kind of some things to think through. We'll also talk about some assumptions that can just lead to very, very specific conclusions. We'll also talk about when the Bible is clear, and taking it literally and how tricky that can be. But just navigating some of that conversation, as well as current doctrine and church practices, particularly within our family of churches, the ICRC and again, we're just gonna end it all with making a case for limited participation, some problems with it, some of the the viewpoints that might be just limited in nature, but also to a way to communicate it in a way that might be more healthy and beneficial. We also want to just make sure to tell you, as we go through this episode, and the next, we just want to remind you, we love you. Our goal is not to make you feel offended is not to make you feel like we're just pointing a finger at you and make you feel shame. That is not the purposes of us going through, you know, this train of thought. We're not trying to trash your convictions. We're not trying to throw you under the bus. But we are trying to help you think through some of these these stances in the fullest capacity that we can. So please know, we love you. And that's that's really where all of this is coming from.
Travis Albritton:Yes, indeed. I mean, it's always a nerving. Whenever you start dissecting your convictions, right, like, oh, well, I assumed this was true. But now I'm realizing that there are some other questions I need to wrestle with before I can get back to that position. That's not a fun place to be. Why are you bringing all this up? Don't worry, by the end of the next episode, you will all probably be equally offended. But that's not our goal. Our goal is to think critically, about, you know, how we come to positions, about women's roles in view of the Bible, what the Bible teaches, and to just have a more complete understanding of how you arrive at different positions. And the challenges of those positions. Yeah, so let's jump right in, and Corina, with the things that most if not all, Christians would agree with, after reading through the Bible, and these are positions that we can really look to as starting places, for the rest of the discussion, like these are things that we can agree on things that we build on. So when we come to areas of disagreement, we at least have a common starting place.
Corina Espejo:Yeah. So the first one, and I will say most people, when they dive into the Bible, and they're really look at the context, their understanding that the Bible was written in patriarchal societies, what's happening, they look at the Bible, and they see a pattern of how the Bible really does have a very high view of women. And that can be hard. I know people who are stuck in right now culturally, and what they think of, but those Bible scholars who really dig into the Bible, and what it's saying, God paints a very, very high place and a very important place for women, not only within his creation, but within the gospel.
Travis Albritton:The next thing is that men and women are both co rulers, as image bearers of God, though male and female are different. So this goes back to our Genesis one conversation, where we see God say, let's create man in our image, male and female, He created them in the image of himself. And so that's something that most if not everyone agrees with that both male and female were created to reflect the image of God. And that while they're different, for example, my wife can bring forth children into the world. I cannot, and God created us in our differences that way, but each of us are co rulers and image bearers of God and so that's something that is almost universally agreed about from both Bible scholars and then also from just Christians that study this out for themselves.
Corina Espejo:Yeah, and because of these first two things, something that's also widely agreed on is that God uses women throughout the Bible to advance his kingdom to advance the gospel, to continue his redemptive work and play an active role within the people of God. And again, it's going to be a huge part of numbers one and two that we just talked about that God in the Bible, they've they have very high views of women, there's a lot of honor for women. And and of course, we're co rulers with men,
Travis Albritton:indeed. And then the last kind of thing we wanted to highlight as a point of agreement is concerning spiritual gifts, which is a practice we see kind of like detailed and outlined in the New Testament specifically in Paul's writings. And we see that spiritual gifts are not gender specific. Okay, so when he talks about spiritual gifts, these are supernatural gifts, talents, and abilities that are given by the Holy Spirit to disciples, in order to edify the body of Christ like that is the role in the purpose that they serve. And nowhere in the Bible do we see these gifts are for men, these gifts are for women. Yeah, all spiritual gifts are given to both men and women, including the gifts of teaching, preaching and prophecy, which are spiritual gifts outlined in First Corinthians and elsewhere. So that is something that's also agreed about. Now, the disagreement can come from, well, how are those gifts used? And we're gonna dig into that in the next few episodes. But just understand, from a theological level, there isn't a lot of disagreement about the fact that the spiritual gifts are given to both men and to women.
Corina Espejo:Yeah, and if people are like, Where does it say that because you know, we know you're out there, we know you, Romans 12, six to eight are looking at First Corinthians 12, eight to 10, and First Peter, or 11. So there's just some of those other places, too.
Travis Albritton:So those are the things that, in general, most people agree about. And so those should always be the starting places, right, that we want to find common ground, we want to find commonality in areas where there, there is disagreement, so that we're still talking the same language to each other, we're not talking past each other, and making assumptions about the other person's perspective that aren't true. Okay, so this is the starting place. This is the foundation. Now, over the next few episodes, we're going to lay out both the case for a limited participation viewpoint of what women can do in church, and then a full participation, viewpoints. But it's helpful to start first and foremost with the question we're trying to answer. Right, because the question that you are asking the Bible will determine the answers that you get. So Karina, what are some of the questions that that we're trying to get answered? As we approach these positions? Because the questions we ask will determine the kind of answers that we land on.
Corina Espejo:Yeah, some of us are some of you were asking, Can women teach and preach to a mixed audience on a Sunday? That's a very popular question. And some other ones are, can a woman teach and preach in a mixed audience and the church outside of the Sunday church gathering midweek classes? What does that mean for teaching days or retreats? And then, you know, again, the question is, okay, how would you determine what is appropriate? And what isn't?
Travis Albritton:Yeah, because it's not just the worship service that the Bible is speaking to you, right? Like, there are other times where we are gathered together. And so whatever position we take, we want it to be consistently applied across everything that we do, if we're going to really be true to trying to follow the Bible the best that we can, right, and not just like cherry picking, where we apply different convictions, right, that would not be an intellectually honest way of going about it. And so we definitely want to avoid that. And think through these different scenarios with whatever positions we land on, and how we would approach answering those right. And then the other thing to think through, when it comes to asking questions, is that the hermeneutical lens that you use will also impact the questions that you ask or the flavor of the questions you ask. So if you go back to Episode Six, where we talked about the art of biblical interpretation, and different hermeneutic styles, if you approach this question, from a blueprint, pattern, Mystic hermeneutic, then the question that you were asking is, what were the practices of the first century church that we should imitate, regardless of culture? Right? What are the timeless principles? What are the things that transcends any culture, any people group that were a part of? And how do we adopt those practices to be the people of God that worship in spirit and truth? Right, so like, that would be the version of this question that you would ask if you're looking through that lens. If you're looking through a theological hermeneutic lens, or a trajectory hermeneutic lens, then the question you asked me to be slightly different it's going to be how can we reflect the kingdom of God seen in the Old and New Testaments in the way that we embrace and embody our identity as image bearers in our church gatherings? And so, for that question, you're, you're starting at a 30,000 foot view. Looking at the entire Bible, and then filtering down to the Scriptures and the verses that speak to the specific question, and trying to make sense of how do these scriptures and passages fit into the broader narrative of what the Bible is saying about who we are, as image bearers? Versus the first question, you're starting with those passages, you're starting with the first Corinthians 11, and the first Timothy twos, and then you're building a case from there going out. So it's just it's two different approaches. One isn't right, and one isn't wrong. But it's helpful to recognize that when you take those different approaches, you can arrive in different places.
Corina Espejo:And we've talked about in one of our episodes, both the strengths and the pitfalls to those, so just be aware, be aware of those.
Travis Albritton:So those are the kinds of questions that we're trying to answer, right? It's essentially, can women teach and preach to a mixed audience and in what scenarios? And we're asking that question in different ways. But it's also helpful to recognize that we make assumptions about our biblical interpretation style, that we might not even recognize, but that can impact the conclusions that we reach. And so we wanted to kind of cover three very common, unspoken assumptions that both Korean and I have held ourselves and seen in the ICRC and just having recognition. And being able to acknowledge that these could be assumptions that you hold, will help you to understand why you land on certain conclusions, and why other people might land on different conclusions. So, Karina, what's the first assumption that we need to be aware of when it comes to interpreting the Bible and coming to an answer about women's roles in the church?
Corina Espejo:Yeah, the first one is that the Bible cannot contradict itself, because God cannot contradict himself. And we've got a few examples where to somebody who has read the Bible, and they've kind of seen some of these differing viewpoints, they're gonna say, No, that's not true. The Bible can contradict itself. One of them is Proverbs 26, four to five.
Travis Albritton:So proverbs 26, verse 45, in the NIV, says, Do not answer a fool, according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him, Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes. So which one? Is it writer of Proverbs? Are we supposed to not answer a fool? Are we supposed to answer a fool? And the fact that these verses are back to back is just even funnier, right? Like, it's not even hiding the fact that the writer here is giving pretty contradictory advice, there is a way to make sense of that we're gonna get to that in a second. The other scenario, where this plays out, is when we're trying to harmonize some of the problematic passages that we've studied out on this podcast. And I say problematic simply because there's a lot of discussion about what they ultimately mean. And there's not a lot of consensus. So First Timothy two, if you just read, it seems like it's pretty clear, right? Women can't teach or have authority over men. And there's some reason for that that's rooted in creation. But then in First Corinthians 11, we see Paul recognizing that yeah, like men and women are praying and prophesying in the public assembly. And his issue is with how that is being done. So which is it? Are they allowed to prophesy are women allowed to prophesy, which would entail some kind of like, I'm telling you something that God has given to me to share in a way that tells you about God, so speaking with some level of authority, or not. And then you get to Romans 16. And we see examples of women that God is lifting up for the work that they're doing in the church. And the work that he's lifting up is not necessarily work that we would attribute to a female role. So there's a struggle to harmonize all of these different perspectives and think through like, Okay, well, this is true. But this also has to be true in exactly the same way. And there's two ways that we can approach these kinds of, I'll put this in quotes, contradictory teachings, because that that word is actually leading us astray. They don't contradict each other in the sense that one is overriding the other, all of the scriptures are still the Word of God. But how we make sense of them, is where we need to just be aware of our assumptions and the conclusions that we're reaching because of those assumptions. And the first one is to simply just bend over backwards to try and make it work with varying degrees of success. Right? So we're going to figure out how to fit the puzzle pieces of First Timothy two in First Corinthians 11 together, and we're just going to make it work somehow, some way. We're going to create a truth practice that does both of them perfectly. That has historically been very difficult to do. You know, and there is something to be said for that approach, like we want to truly honor the Word of God as being from God. But there also are going to be times and scenarios where the Bible kind of gives different advice to different people. And so the second way that we can approach these seemingly contradictory Teachings is to accept that wisdom will often dictate different Godly wisdom or advice for different circumstances. And that's where going back to the first episode where we talked about that all scripture has cultural underpinnings, there is a writer writing to an audience and, and that God is using that person to communicate truths about Himself to this other people group. But that's all baked into a culture a time and place assumptions about the writer to the audience's receiving it. And so there are going to be times where, because the author or the audience is different, the advice that's given, is different. And there's a couple examples that we can actually point to, that kind of illustrate just practically, why that makes sense.
Corina Espejo:The first one is giving marriage advice to a young married couple versus empty nesters or family with young kids. And when we look at First Corinthians seven, eight to nine, we're going to see, okay, Paul is giving this biblical example, that is differing instructions from Paul on widow should marry widow should not marry for different situations different times, but it can seem like it's contradicting itself. And I like that you pointed out, you know, contradictory that word in and of itself are not saying that God is in conflict with himself or the Bible is in opposition of itself. But really, again, we're talking about these differing that they differ. And it's we can't just say that it's all the same and force them to fit when they're different. Like widow should marry, and widow should not marry all within one, you know, passage.
Travis Albritton:So that's an assumption that we can bring to the Bible that, you know, the Bible can't contradict itself. It can't say one thing in one place and something else somewhere else. Yeah. Because that would mean God is changing his mind. The Bible doesn't actually say that, like, it's helpful to recognize, that's an interpretation that we've given to the Bible, to help us make sense of these things. Alright, neutral, it's neither good nor bad. But it does kind of push us in one direction or another. So that's the first assumption that we want to basically acknowledge. The second one is that when the Bible is clear, we should take it literally, Jesus says, Love God, Love your neighbor. You don't need a degree in rocket science to understand that really fundamental elements of Christianity. But we can't always get away with that
Corina Espejo:every verse in the Bible, it's going to have its own cultural underpinnings. And when we overlook, that influence, the influence of the culture, what was happening at the time, or the people that it was written to, and by who was written by, and how that had its impact on the actual writing that we're reading, it can lead us to misinterpret it without even knowing it. And that's probably the hardest, you know, for those who think, Oh, I've done my homework. And I know what I know, and then realize, oh, there's a huge part of the context of how this was written. That you're missing.
Travis Albritton:Yeah. And there's some things that, you know, if we're totally honest, the New Testament is very clear about that we, in our current church practice, do not practice, right. So the New Testament is clear we are we are to greet each other with a holy kiss, that men should only have short hair, and women should have long hair, and that church gatherings are to happen in people's homes like those are clear church practices that we seem to gather from the New Testament. And so there's two ways of approaching this, you can say, well, some of those are cultural things that are limited in time and place and application. And there are transcending principles that apply to us. And we can kind of not excuse away the cultural stuff, but we can put it in its proper place.
Corina Espejo:The one thing I was thinking as you were saying that too, even within First Timothy two, we look at the verses eight to 12. And I know some people Oh, those are commands, right? So women should learn quietly with all submissiveness. Okay? But then I wonder, do we also expect men to pray lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling? And I think I don't see too many men ever lifting their hands? And are they holy? How do I determine that how holy is holy? Let you know it's so it's just one of those other thoughts I've had about that.
Travis Albritton:Right, that one of them is a symbolic posture of the heart better than the other is clearly a dictate from God Himself. So in reality, what we do is we practice selective literalism that we're not consistent with just taking the Bible as is and applying it to our own church practices. Because intuitively, and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we know not everything should be taken at face value. Like there's, there's more to the Bible than just taking the words at face value. Yeah. And so when we take Certain things literally, because they make sense to us. Or it's been explained to us that way, we're then left to try and explain away other things that are difficult to understand, either talking them up to allow us to to cultural practices doesn't apply, or this part of the passage should be taken literally. But the verses right before and right after we should not take literally, it's like, well, is that actually a consistent hermeneutic? Is that going to stand up to scrutiny? Is that really where we want to lay our foundation for our understanding of the Bible? We got to be careful with that assumption. We got to be careful with that church practice, because it's highly subjective, right? How do you know that you've chosen the right parts to take literally, and which parts to not take literally, it's not something that ultimately is something that we're going to agree about? Yeah, because it's so subjective. And so instead, what we want to do is strive to employ multiple hermeneutics, to get a full picture of what the Bible has to offer us not just looking at it from one perspective, but looking at all the tools available to us to get a big picture of what the Bible is trying to communicate, and then take that to create church practices. So that's the second assumption, but want to be aware of that, you know, we can come into our Bible study thinking, when the Bible is clear, I'm just gonna take it literally and do exactly what it says. That can be tricky. What about the third assumption that we want to be aware of Corina
Corina Espejo:current doctrines and church practices of the ICC are more correct than other denominations?
Travis Albritton:Did you just say that out loud?
Unknown:Did I did?
Travis Albritton:Yeah, go ahead and talk about this one, because this is one that we don't say. But it's something that I don't know about your experience Corina. But I've certainly thought this. I've certainly held this belief at different points in time. Because after all, if I if I didn't think the ICSC was the most correct, then I'd probably going somewhere else, right?
Corina Espejo:Yeah, I definitely grew up with this. And I think I'm glad that there are a lot of things that led to this thinking that we no longer practice, but I still see actions. And again, we might not ever say this, but with our actions we do. And so you know, this thinking of there's only one true church, there's only one true church and we're at and if you go to another church, which with another name, you must not be a disciple, somebody walks in off the street. And if we go by this one true church doctrine, the immediate assumption without ever talking to them about their theology, and about their life is to say, you are not a disciple, because you are not from an ICRC Bible study series, and again, very particular ones as prerequisites for baptism and salvation. And if people didn't have that experience, then their baptism probably isn't valid. Their salvation probably isn't valid, right? Other things like women can't baptize other women, these were things that used to happen. And it's interesting, these doctrines and church practices of the ICC, and oh, my goodness, these are just a few. I'm sure those of you who have grown up in this church, I COC spiritually or in life, there are going to be a lot of things that come to your mind. And you think we don't do that anymore. And yeah, it's just interesting to see the evolution.
Travis Albritton:And not to say that, like what we're currently doing is not a better version of church than what we were. Right. We're growing. We're learning. We're maturing as a faith community, but we're still relatively young. Yeah, you know, like 50 years old, maybe from the kind of the origins of the ICRC till today. And so you think about other Christian denominations or groups that have been refining their theological perspective, over centuries, there are going to be things that they've thought more about than we have, yeah. And we can learn from them. And we can take some of that and we can wrestle with it, we can pick out the pieces that seem to fit with our view of the Bible. And we can reject the things that, you know, we clearly don't agree with. And it's also just helpful to recognize, like, even in our own church history, we have shifted positions, on things that we once held to be essential doctrines that differentiated us from other denominations, things that, you know, 30 years ago would have been unheard of, to even question. Now, it's like, oh, yeah, we were totally wrong about that. And we had to mature in our thinking, and we had to move past that. You know, that's just an admission of humility, of saying, we're still figuring it out. So we just want to make sure that when we're coming to this Bible study, we're not coming in with the assumption that we've arrived. Yeah, that we have it figured out. We've got it all together. Because when we do that, then questions that arise about church practices about our convictions about our doctrines. They're no longer seen as like people trying to mature in their understanding of God in the Bible. It can be seen as a threat to church unity, because there's nothing left to learn. If we figured it out. Then why are we asking questions? Like, those questions are just distracting us from the mission? Right? Yeah. But if instead we recognize, you know, maybe we don't have everything figured out. perfectly, which I would be willing to bet is true, then we can take more of a position of humility, right and be willing to learn, be willing to be corrected by the scriptures, as we grow in our understanding of who God is. And it's also helpful to remember that God, and the Bible can stand up to the scrutiny of our questions, and our curiosity, our faith is resilient enough to ask hard questions. Are we taught to be afraid of like, Oh, if I asked this question, I might realize that God's not real, or the Bible isn't true. If God Israel, and the Bible is true, no matter how many questions we throw at it, God is going to continue to reveal Himself to us over time. So that's a confidence we can hold on to, and then with the other hand, have the humility to recognize there are still things we can learn from the Bible, and in our own church practices,
Corina Espejo:I even think about, so I did a class and probably one of the biggest things that changed my mind and helped me to mature and my thinking of this is, Steve canards, he did a class on the restoration movement, and really, the whole class the whole seminary class ended with, we should always be in a constant state of restoration. We need God, we need to be humble, we need to be growing. And we should always be pursuing his will and be comfortable with a certain amount of change that that is good. So I like what you're saying about faith. And I wonder if more leaders and individuals think will Oh, no, if we admit we're wrong, or we have to change everything, other people's faith, I think people are sometimes less concerned about themselves and more concerned, like, oh, no, people are going to have a reason to think that we don't have it on straight and they're going to leave God they're going to leave. And it's like such a funny, you know, Skid Row effect that we play, when we're uncomfortable with growing and repenting and restoring and changing,
Travis Albritton:and you set yourself up to fail. Yeah, take that position, right? Because if you if you hold the position that like, we've got things figured out. And if you have a question like we have the answer, there's no need to rehash this. We figured it out. As soon as you recognize, oh, there was actually a small thing over here that we didn't have figured out, now we know more, you've set yourself up to fail, right? Because now you have to acknowledge, maybe I didn't have perfect knowledge about who God is. Which, you know, hopefully, that's the stance most of us would take that sense of humility of, I'm just trying to learn as much as I possibly can. And a way to kind of draw this to something that might feel more familiar. When you're studying the Bible with somebody, is it more effective to pretend like you have your whole life together and you don't sin? Or is it more effective to just be raw, transparent and honest and say, Listen, I'm just as jacked up as you are. But because of Jesus, I can now live a life free from sin. Which one is going to help the person see the value in becoming a Christian? Is the second one right? To be like, Oh, you're human, just like me. So if God can save you, maybe you can say me too. Versus Oh, man, I gotta be like this perfect Pharisee to even qualify for God's grace. There's no way I'm going to cut it. And so we just got to be careful the position that we're taking, that we're not setting ourselves up to fail, not just for ourselves, but for the people that we're trying to lead.
Corina Espejo:And I think even fail fall, right. pride comes before the fall. It's like, I got it. Do you though? That's real. So the case for limited participation? Let's do
Travis Albritton:it. Yep. So So everything we've done to this point is just building up tension. You're like, alright, what are you actually gonna say something definitive on the questions that we're trying to answer? Here's where it is. Alright. So in this episode, we're gonna do a few things. We're going to lay out from the passages that we've studied on this podcast, how you would land on what in the scholar community is called limited participation. And we're going to define what that is. And then we're going to talk about the challenges of that position. Biblically, theologically, that we'll need to wrestle through in order for that to be a well rounded, healthy position. But first, let's just lay out how you would build a case from a consistent, exegetical perspective. Cradle once you kick that off,
Corina Espejo:yeah, most people they're going to start with a blueprint hermeneutic they're going to be first looking at the axe, the epistles are going to come to some of these, Paul's writing, to discover timeless practices, what they feel are timeless that will transcend culture. Again, they're using these these concepts to form what that's going to mean for us right now our current church practices. So we're going to look at First Corinthians 11. And we're going to say, okay, that outlines a divine hierarchy, where God's desire is for men to be in a position of authority over women, and that does not support abusive leadership. So let's be very clear. This is not what the blueprint hermeneutic is supporting, but it is supporting that men are in a position of authority over women Again, we talked about this with Genie Shaka folly. Typically for limited participation, we're gonna find that the case is that of folly. It refers to authority that people a person who is in charge, and that men are the head of women in God's orderly creation. It's also going to look at all these things and say, Okay, well hold on. Women are active participants in the assembly, we don't want to say that they don't have any place where they shouldn't be there. We are going to say, in ways that do not position themselves as being over the man. It's important that this is obvious and very visible, because again, when we're thinking about some of the scriptures, we go over because of the angels, quote, unquote, right, or because of the principle of headship again, Kafala, meaning headship authority. It's what we more often hear with those who take this limited participation stance.
Travis Albritton:And just to backtrack a little bit. The reason we're looking at x and the epistles to create an answer for church practice, is because that would be the portion of the Bible where we would see instructions for churches, after Jesus's resurrection. We're not just playing favorites and saying, We really like Paul, we really like to look back. It's like, the reason you filter down to those books in particular, is for that reason, okay? And that's, and that's a very blueprint hermeneutic approach. So taking First Corinthians 11, where we see this idea of headship of husbands being the head of their wives, as God is the head of Christ, we see that echoed in Ephesians five, which is the very famous marriage retreat passage, we're talking about husbands and wives, right. And so that passage, we would then take that version of headship and see Yeah, Ephesians five reiterates that Husbands are to be, quote, unquote, in charge, by contrasting their duty, to love their wives to the wife's responsibility to submit to her husband. Now, this does not mean that you get to be a dictator. And you know, your wife is your house servant, you know, because both husbands and wives are to take a stance of mutual submission. That's the verse that comes right before that very famous passage. And then also, when you take this position and limited participation, it's also helpful to point out like, the instructions to husband are quite lengthy. If you just like do a word count, compared to the life's, and that the calling, to deny yourself, and to give yourself to your wife, as Christ has to the church is a very, very high calling. So we're not just letting husbands off the hook and saying, you just get to boss people around and wives, you just have to submit Ephesians five is a very mutual submission picture. But if we take the principle of headship that we arrived at in First Corinthians 11, and apply it to Ephesians, five, then the position you would take is that the buck stops with the husband, when a decision needs to be made for the family. At the end of the day, the husband is the tiebreaker.
Corina Espejo:We see this all again, too. In first Corinthians 14, we're looking at this limited participation, the blueprint hermeneutic viewpoint, somebody looking at First Corinthians 14 will see that it's going to teach that in order for the worship service to be orderly, right, and not chaotic, proper worship, that women should avoid interrupting their husbands when they are speaking to the assembly, that men and women are given similar constraints when it comes to prophecy. So the Scripture doesn't support that women can't speak at all. But it does, you know, you're gonna read first Corinthians 14 and think, well, but they they don't really have a place to interrupt or to speak without the husband's permission.
Travis Albritton:Right. And if you remember, when we did the episode on First Corinthians 14, there's three instances in that section of Scripture, where Paul is giving the direction to be silence. So he doesn't have a vendetta against women. There are specific things that are happening in the church in Corinth that he's addressing. And there are three instances there are three issues with speaking that are leading to disorderly worship. One of those is wives interrupting their husbands. And so he's giving that corrective to be like, hey, if your husband is giving the sermon, don't be peppering him with questions from the back row. You can talk to him at home, right? Because remember, we are also playing out the scenarios. What if you're not married? Does that mean you just don't get to ask questions? Well, no, that's not that's not what this is saying. It's talking about in the context of an assembly of people worshipping together, we want to have certain practices, and we want to avoid some of the faux pas, that would lead to outsiders coming in and saying like, these guys are nuts. God is not here, versus them coming in and the disciples coming in and saying, man, God is here. We really want that to be evident in our worship. So that's what First Corinthians 14 teaches and the position you would take from a limited participation standpoint. Then we get to First Timothy to where it clearly states, women are not allowed to teach or have authority over men. In fact, it says I do not permit or I do not allow a woman to teach or have authority over men. So that's, that's pretty clear, right? And that just reinforces the position that we arrived at in First Corinthians 11. Because if it's true that there's this divine order, God, Jesus, man, woman, angels want to talk about how we're gonna judge angels one day, that that's just kind of how God set up creation. And so we are reflecting that in our church practices. And so that means that yeah, women aren't supposed to teach or have authority over men. However, since we also acknowledge that teaching and preaching are spiritual gifts that are given to both men and women, then there also must be some kind of teaching that God encourages for women. And so where would we find some ideas for what that could look like? Kareena?
Corina Espejo:Yeah, the number one is going to be Titus two, three to five talking about how women should be teaching other women. And that's, that's where I think we reason within this limited participation. If a woman has a gift to teaching, then her place is channeling that and instructing other women, and even children but not men, since that would dishonor God and her husband by exerting that headship over a man.
Travis Albritton:Yep. And at the tail end of that passage, in First Timothy two, Paul draws this connection to creation order. And if he was referring to some kind of cultural practice, like you shouldn't teach men, because in the city of Ephesus, like that's improper, like that would be maybe more cultural, because he's going all the way back to Genesis, then that's going to make it a timeless principle, something that if it was true in Genesis, and it's true in First Timothy, it should be true today. And the reason the justification that's given is that because Adam was created first, he is given authority over his wife Eve, before the fall before sin enters the world. And that's really, really key. Now, when we move on to Romans 16, we do acknowledge like, hey, the women in Romans 16 are lifted up for the work they have done to advanced the gospel. But then in order to make sense of Phoebe as a deacon, Priscilla helping Lita house church Junia being lifted up for the stellar work that she's doing, that needs to somehow marry together with what Paul teaches in First Corinthians, Anna, First Timothy, are those things can't run into each other. So what would that look like? What would that look like from a limited participation viewpoint?
Corina Espejo:Yeah, most people would reason that Priscilla was only teaching as a compliment to her husband Aquilla. And I think a lot of people speculate, okay, well, they will work together. But you know, one is not speaking over the other, and they would put a lot of speculation there, and what that would look like, but ultimately, she's with her husband, so she has her headship. Phoebe, they would say she's more of a servant of the church, and that she would only repeat the words of Paul that had already been given to her. She's just a deliverer. And again, she's just delivering the letter to Rome, that that's it, she handed it over. That's it. Some of these things that we reason I think even I've even heard, Lydia is only leading a house church of women. And some of the speculation there's it's only women, she's only ever led women.
Travis Albritton:And again, this is not like, hey, let's just make up a bunch of funky rules. But it comes back to those assumptions, right of what are we going to do when we see okay, Paul says you can't teach with authority. Then over here, we see this example of woman who could potentially be breaking that, well, maybe that situation is not exactly what Paul was condemning. So then what could that situation have been? And so we're trying to, we're trying to do our best to like make sense of how do we really follow the Scripture the best we can, all right. Now, something important to consider is that when you're arriving at this limited participation viewpoint, and you're using a blueprint or a patterns to hermeneutic, then any examples of women leading men in the Old Testament, or even in Jesus's ministry wouldn't really be relevant to the discussion at hand. Because, number one, we're not under the Old Covenant anymore. Like we're not following the law, the way the Israelites did. And then even Jesus's ministry was before Christianity was a thing, right? You can't be a Christian, unless you reconciled to God through Jesus's death, burial and resurrection. Right? And so if we're looking at what the Bible has to say about this question, as it relates to us as the New Testament Church, then those could be examples of things that happened at other times, but they wouldn't necessarily be a model for things we would imitate today. So in view of all those passages and the interpretations that we just went through, you would very easily and logically land in a place that said, you know, the Bible is clear. Women should not preach or teach authoritatively to men in church on Sunday. or in small groups larger than a few people, that if you do that you're undermining the roles that God has given to men and women and the orderliness of His creation, which that would be a big deal. If that, you know, if you're just saying, Hey, God, we don't like how you set things up, so we're going to kick it to the curb and do our own thing. Like that's a very serious thing to just kind of throw away. So that is what I limited participation viewpoint would hold that all the things we talked about that we have an agreement about men and women, both being image bearers about the Bible holding a very high view of women, that spiritual gifts are given to both men and women, and that we should encourage their use. But the Bible has spoken and given us some guidelines that we want to follow in good conscience. And if we follow those from a blueprint hermeneutic, then that's going to put us in a position where we say, You know what, for whatever reason, Godly wisdom is telling us women should not preach or teach authoritative Lee to men in assemblies of the body. Is there anything that I missed in their Corina?
Corina Espejo:No, sounds great. I think we I think we've summarized it. Yeah. Good.
Travis Albritton:So that is how you get there. But there are some challenges, biblically, theologically and practically, with this position. So we're going to talk with the small ones. We'll start with that six smaller challenges to the limited participation viewpoint. So Karina, why don't you kick off the first problem we're gonna have to wrestle with if this is our understanding of the role of women in church,
Corina Espejo:yeah, women serving in leadership roles, with authority over men throughout the Bible, and neither god nor the people of God that seemed to have a problem with it. So examples of these women, again, who are leaders with a certain amount of authority, if not, sometimes the fullness of authority that we see our women like Deborah, Esther, Phoebe, and Mary, and at the base of it, they're delivering the gospel message. Some of them were even judges, they gave out judgment. And so we see these things and decision makers and organizing and leading groups of people within worship. And acts 217 to 18 was one of our references. You want to read that? Travis?
Travis Albritton:Yes. So this is in Peters address to the crowd at Pentecost, starting the church. And in Acts chapter two, verse 17, says, in the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit on all people, your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams, even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. Now, remember, we dug deep into like, what does that word mean to prophesy? It's not a word we use a lot. Yeah. And if you remember from that discussion with Jeannie, it could be a sermon of sorts, right? You're delivering the Word of God instruction from God to people, you're warning people about the danger of their sin and their need to repent, and you're speaking as a messenger and representative of God, it could be talking about something it's going to happen in the future that God has given you this, this vision, this insight that you want to share with others, those would all be things that prophecy would entail that in Peters mind, and it acts to, that's going to men and to women. And if we look through the Bible, we see that there are actually instances where God seems to go out of his way to choose women to lead, right? If we go to Deborah, in the beginning of the book of Judges, there are a lot of Israelites alive at that time. For some reason, God said, the best person for this job is Deborah. And nobody really had a problem with that. In fact, they were pretty pumped that Deborah was leading, the people have gotten to the point where the person in charge of the army is like, Hey, I'm not going to battle unless you come to, because that's how important you are. And that's how much I respect your leadership. So that's the first challenge to this position. We got a few more. The next one would be if often, Teo, so that's the Greek word translated as authority in First Timothy two authen. Teo, if that really refers to a domineering, bullying, taking over type of authority. I mean, that makes sense to us. Yeah. If someone's following Jesus, those aren't fruits of the Spirit. Why would that prohibition then extend to the edifying, humble and introspective kind of teaching that should be attributed to wise and mature men and women of God? Right, if Paul is singling out this particular kind of behavior, and then we extrapolate to all kinds of authority, even authority, that's good. Is that actually the point that Paul is trying to make? And does it actually bear up under scrutiny just in real life?
Corina Espejo:Yeah, it's a big jump to make and I would encourage those who have always thought it to be synonymous, just ask yourself, Okay. domineering, bullying, taking over intimidation, and that equals a type of teaching that's edifying, humble. introspective, right? These are the words we're using. But really compare when you look at these things, and ask yourself, Okay, are women just as capable, some more capable of studying the Bible and gaining insights that could be shared with others? Does that mean that they're domineering bullying and taking over? Why are men excluded from hearing those insights in a congregational setting? These are small problems again, but but still things we've got to be able to think through because it's inconsistent,
Travis Albritton:right? And the reason these are challenges is because it impacts how do we implement this understanding? Right? So if you're holding to a limited participation viewpoint, you then have to wrestle with this, because this has huge implications. So limited participation, meaning that there are certain things that women should not do, then you got to draw the line somewhere, right? What kind of authority are we talking about? And then what implications would that have for the kind of participation that we see in church?
Corina Espejo:Yeah, and hopefully, none of you have seen this, but just to give you just a wider understanding that people have experienced the unfortunate flip side of this is that men who are allowed to exert authenticity or authority domineering, you know, bullying, intimidation tactics, that they are actually allowed to teach in a way that's not edifying, humble and introspective, and that's the unfortunate extreme that this can go to. Hopefully you haven't experienced that. But it's out there, y'all, it happens.
Travis Albritton:Yep. And that's something that we just got to be aware of, and call it out when we see it right. The third, smaller challenge, smaller problem is that if we go all the way back to Genesis one and two, are we did a lot of discussion around those chapters. Genesis itself doesn't support hierarchy, or authoritative headship among image bearers. So when we look at how God created male and female as image bearers, we see the vignette in Genesis two where God creates man don't even have a name yet, and then creates woman from the man. There's no sense of hierarchy, there's no sense of one over the other. Now, if we start with first Timothy two, and then look backwards at Genesis and use First Timothy two as an interpretive tool, you can easily come away with that impression. Right? It's like, Well, Paul says, This is what Genesis teaches, so that must be true. And so that's why we spend so much time in Genesis because Genesis stands on its own. And when I understand what Genesis says, because then that helps us understand what point Paul is trying to make. Right? And so if we look at Genesis on its own, it doesn't support this over under power dynamic. That doesn't show up until later. And you know, when Paul says, Adam was created first, that could lead you to think, Oh, well, first born matters, this principle of primo Jenna tour, right to the firstborn. Like that has an impact on who gets to be in charge who gets to call the shots? Yeah. But the problem with Genesis is that over and over again, it subverts that practice, right, you think about Abraham, he wasn't the firstborn, he wasn't the oldest, Jacob was not the oldest. Joseph wasn't the oldest. And so we see like, over and over again, it's almost as if Genesis is subverting our expectations, and saying God's gonna choose the weak to shame. The strong, which is something that we actually see Paul teach in First Corinthians, right. So that doesn't add up. If we're going to take first Timothy two, as a lens to interpret Genesis, those two things don't match.
Corina Espejo:Yeah, the next one aser. It doesn't imply subordination and value or role. So when we use Genesis one and two, as a support to First Timothy two verses the other way around, we're disregarding aser, never indicating that type of hierarchy. In fact, in the Bible, we see it often to describe not only men and nations, but God Himself, which I don't find too many people saying God is under man, if they're reading with that biblical integrity,
Travis Albritton:right? And aser is that word that's translated as helper, or a helper suitable for him? Help mates, right? And so we can read that with our cultural context and think, Oh, well, Adams in charge, because he loves his helper. It's like, Well, are we gonna say that God is reporting to man? Unlikely, right? And so when we really understand that word, and what it means what it represents, that woman is actually the deliverer providing strength demand, and supplying what he needs. From a position of strength. It's not over under more important, less important person in charge person not in charge. That's not the dynamic that we're getting. That's not the picture that's being painted in Genesis one and two. And so if you look at First Timothy two, going backwards, you can get a skewed understanding of Genesis, but if you read Genesis on its own, it doesn't support hierarchy. or an over under a dynamic between male and female men and women.
Corina Espejo:Let's talk about Genesis three. Let's keep rolling through some of these smaller problems. Genesis three is descriptive and not prescriptive. And some of I think the thinking assume Genesis three in the fall in Okay, well now here are some of these quote unquote curses or consequences, that it's actually prescriptive that this is how it should be rather than this is how it is because and it's consequential. So you know, meaning that in this could be looked at after Jesus's atoning sacrifice, those who have been reconciled to God should strive to return to a Genesis to state of existence within our fallen world that most people look at Jesus coming and what he has done, it is redemptive. It is restorative back to Genesis two not to support that Genesis three model. And if headship is this theological principle that we're looking at, it must be consistent with the CO ruling model we see in Genesis two. So some of the issues that come there is that again, it's not consistent with the benevolent authority that we see given to both men and women. And that could be a problem,
Travis Albritton:right? If we see Genesis three is like, okay, Genesis one and two didn't work. Humanity screwed that up. So we're gonna reset God's desire, and that's Genesis three, then I'm sorry, all the brothers need to quit their jobs and start new careers in agriculture, because that's what Genesis three says we got to do. And women you need to seek to overthrow your husband. Because that is that is what God desires. You know, there's some problems with that. And you won't find many people that hold that position. And so if Genesis two is what we're trying to return to, if, as Karina mentioned, the atoning sacrifice of Jesus means that the sin of Adam has been conquered the consequences, the separation, that happened because of the fall because of sin, have been done away with through His resurrection. Then when we join with him in his resurrection, and become a part of the family of God, we get to return to that Genesis one and two, state of paradise and Eden, right. And as we look forward to the kingdom of God fully breaking in and us being able to experience God in heaven, that's what it's going to be like, right? Haven't we're not going to see that power dynamic that we see in Genesis three, we're all going to be there worshiping God together. And so if that is true, then Genesis two is the dynamic we need to be striving for within our churches, not Genesis three. And that can be problematic, if you hold to the limit participation viewpoint, because that would say that, actually, men need to be in charge. And that's what God really wants.
Corina Espejo:And women are only there to do what the men asks. And with their permission, and through them, and yeah,
Travis Albritton:as highly valued people, right, so valued. Sure. So not like diminishing the value of women are, it's very important to say that, you know, that's a misconception that if you hold the limited participation viewpoint, that means you don't like women, or you just try to put them down. That's not the case. No, right. So just read that for him. Right? It's it's not true.
Corina Espejo:Yeah, very few people, both men and women who I've met who opt for limited participation, very few of them, have I looked at their practical lives and thought, you don't value women. It's very rare that I have felt that or thought that. And so you know, again, talking about presuppositions, not just in Scripture, but even for people. I would be very gracious and give people maybe the benefit of the doubt get to know them get to see their lives, their faithfulness before jumping to those conclusions. All right,
Travis Albritton:we've got two more small problems. And then we can jump to the big kahuna. All right. So here's the fifth small problem you're gonna run into. When you take a limited participation viewpoint. There are women in the Bible, who were given and recognized with the authority to teach leading, instruct men. And we see this in both the Old and the New Testaments. But if we hold to the limited participation viewpoint, as being God's desire for the church, then those women would not be able to serve in the same way if they were alive today. Right. So thinking, some tangible examples. In the New Testament, we have Anna, who prophesied in the temple. We have Philips daughters who prophesied in the assembly, would you really allow someone's daughters to get up and start speaking on God's behalf to the assembly of believers of men and women? We probably wouldn't. Like we would probably see that as stepping over the line of what's acceptable practice and what's proper. And so that's something that you have to wrestle with from this perspective of like, there are women that do things in the Bible, we wouldn't allow them to do in our churches now, with this particular viewpoint.
Corina Espejo:Yeah, this. The last one is the viewpoint of limited participation tends to overlook the context and situation that The letters that Paul has written these epistles were occasioned for. It omits the ministry of Jesus and the Old Testament from the discussion, we forget that these epistles are continuation of a narrative. Instead, limited participation can lead towards using selective literalism to draw conclusions, really just built on a lot of speculation, assumptions, conjectures, to determine church practices. And let's be real, just a little grace for Grace's do, there are going to be some educated guesses that all of us are are going to do. It's just a caution that Be careful the conclusions you draw, and that it's inconsistent. Again, you pick and choose you cherry pick, when to be literal, went to not when to be circumstantial, when to not so
Travis Albritton:yeah, and this challenge is really more a product of the hermeneutic that you're using, versus the limited participation viewpoint. Yes. It's if you land and limited participation, chances are, you're using this kind of like, what are the transcending principles from Acts and the epistles that apply to us today? That's the lens you're using to approach this question. And so when you do that, you're immediately looking at the Bible through a microscope, and kind of like extrapolating out, that's just a weakness of that hermeneutic. So you just said, USF do acknowledge that, right? We just need to acknowledge, hey, this is a weak point in this particular approach to the Bible. I'm leaving a lot of stuff out when I'm coming to an answer. And so you're gonna have to reconcile that at some point of how does this viewpoints harmonize with the larger themes of the Bible, because they have to fit together at some point. But those are the small problems. And you might think, Man, those are some pretty big problems. Those are the small problems. Now let's look at the three large problems with the limited participation viewpoint. And when we say large problems, what we mean by that is, these are things that we have to wrestle with, in order for us to have consistently applied church practices that reflects this viewpoint. Okay, so these are things that we really need to sort through, if we're going to have any kind of answer. When people ask, Well, why do you do that that way? Okay, so the first one, the first big problem we're gonna have to wrestle with is what is going to differentiate teaching with authority, which from a limited participation viewpoint would be prohibited from first of the two. What differentiates that from exercising the gift of teaching? Which the Bible fully endorses?
Corina Espejo:Yeah, what settings are appropriate for a woman to teach in? What are the lines between personal sharing and teaching with authority. And since that line in the sand is not clearly laid out in the Bible, we tend to adopt practices that play it safe, by not putting women in positions that might lead to prohibited teaching. And in reality, you know, this means women's that women will rarely teach even in situations where the church would be edified by the use of their gifts.
Travis Albritton:We're trying to split hairs here, right? Because it's like, alright, teaching with 30 bad, but teaching. That's good, you should do that. Okay, so now you have to have a framework for all these real life scenarios, to decide what's approved what's unapproved, what's edifying, what's not edifying. And so if a couple goes up together in church to share communion, and the husband starts with a scripture reading the wife shares, personally from her life, and then the husband brings the wood at the end is the practicals. And some thoughts before praying over the assembly. It's like, well, what if the wife starts extrapolating on the Scripture her husband just read, as she now straight away from personal sharing and into teaching with authority? She assuming authority over her husband by doing that by jumping the gun? Is she assuming authority over the men in the assembly by saying this is what you think about the Scripture? And where is that line? Yeah, right. How do you how do you have something that you can apply consistently? And that's clear and obvious and like, oh, okay, well, I will do this. And I won't do that. And that's how I apply the scriptures, both in the church practice and in how I show up serve in church. The Bible doesn't actually give us that line. It doesn't tell us where that is. We just from this person, limited participation viewpoint, these things are both true. And we're trying to make sense of what does that actually look like? And so as Karina said, like, what ends up happening is we adopt a practice that's similar to what the Pharisees how the Pharisees would approach the law. They say, Okay, this is what the law says about how to not break the status. So we're going to create all these other rules to protect you from even getting close to breaking the law, because that would be terrible. And then we're going to enforce those rules as if they were the law to keep you from breaking the actual law. And so you start creating these guardrails, and then it's like, okay, well, why that guardrail? Why that one in particular, like, why are we doing it that way? And when you create those guardrails, the other thing that happens is, you say, Okay, well, we're gonna play it safe because we don't even want to get close to this line. If there's a line between Teaching that's endorsed, and teaching that's prohibited. We don't even want to get close, because we want to make sure we're honoring up their church practices. So we're gonna set the line way over here to make sure we never even get close to crossing it. Which that is well intentioned, yeah, right. Like, if you're trying to honor God, you don't want to see how close you can get to sand before you fall in. But what ends up happening is that women do rarely teach that events that we create. And this is case by case, right? I'm kind of over generalizing some of this. But the number of events that are set up for women to teach women are far outweighed by everything else the church does. And so even in our practices, we're not giving proper weight to giving women opportunities to exercise those gifts, because that's just not, it's not in the cadence of how we do church. And so the end result of this viewpoint, and the practices we create from it are that women basically don't get to use their gifts of teaching. Because we don't want to be in a position where they could potentially teach something that would be prohibited. And a
Corina Espejo:lot of these guardrails, these prohibitions, they're going to naturally be influenced by our culture and how we interpret things like authority. So just, again, some of the larger problems that we're seeing when we do that, and we have different places, different churches who are going to have different cultures, it's going to be hard to make this a universal practice, city to city country to country, you know, coast to coast. And so that that's another big problem, a part of this this one problem. The second problem is that this concept of headship, it is going to assume that Kafala entails authority. And we've talked about how that's not an unfounded, educated guess. Right? That's an unfounded conclusion. The questions that follow it, does it only apply to wives and husbands? Are men in general, the head of women in general? And again, for that, I think about it, what an 18 year old boy, actually for talking about first century church with a 13 year old man, because at 13 years old, they were considered men, would a 13 year old man be the head of have a wife of an elder or some some other woman who has a husband or even is way older? 60 year old woman, right? How sure are we that authority is the right reading of Kafala. Since that reading wouldn't make sense in the other places where the word appears in the New Testament, even just by consistent with Paul's writings in and of itself, even if we're just looking at the author. And the way that Paul is, as a writer uses Kafala.
Travis Albritton:And this really this principle of headship, and that that means that men are the head, we have to be really precise here. Because if you read first Corinthians 11, your English translation might say, man is the head of woman, but you'll see a subtext there a little note where it actually says, or you could say, husband and wife, because that's actually the terminology that's actually the language that you would see if you read it in Greek. So we have to be really precise here that we're actually taking an interpretive step to say, what is the broader principle of what Paul's trying to communicate? And how do we translate that we're not going to go down the rabbit hole of word for word versus thought for thought, translation, but just understand, when you're trying to take something from one language and translate it to another, you have to make decisions about intent. And sometimes it's not super clear. But if we just look at Ephesians, five, First Corinthians 11, the places where headship is linked to gender is in the context of marriage. And so is it appropriate then to say, well, because in this principle of headship, husbands are the head of their wives, then that then extends to the larger, broader family of God, that if you're a single woman in a church, you don't have a husband as your head. But then all the men in that church would be your spiritual husband in that sense of having a head having someone who is your head, who was giving you headship, and then these different situations of like, okay, teaching with authority, and headship. Like, what is what? How do you? How do you put these things together? Especially when there's other translations of Kafala. That doesn't just mean authority. It could mean origin source, or it could simply just mean like body part, like, head of the body could follow of the body, right. And remember, Jeannie went through a bunch of different passages in the New Testament where Paul uses that word to follow in different ways. And the way to translate, it isn't always super clear. You can sometimes go either way. And so we have to be careful to be really certain that headship and QA follow a means authority. Because we can't say that with 100% certainty, it might be true, that it could just as easily not be true. So we don't want to put all our eggs in that basket and say, because this is what a headship principle means. We're now going to create church practices based on it when there's still a lot of discussion around. Do we actually really understand headship?
Corina Espejo:The last big problem we're going to be looking at is how many Many men, and this is going down to the practicals. If we're talking about the public assembly and worship, how many men need to be in attendance, before it's a sin or to pose as God for a woman to teach from the scriptures?
Travis Albritton:Very interesting question, right? Because you, we can go to extremes, and say, Okay, if you're on a double date with another couple, you know, and you're sharing about the things you're learning on your quiet times and saying, you know, I read this passage, and, you know, I learned this from this scholar, and, you know, this is what I've learned about what God says here, intuitively, we, that doesn't really sound like you're trying to claim authority over them. So let's go to the other extreme. Alright, so now you're teaching from behind a pulpit, to a mixed audience of, you know, 500 people, and half of them are men? Well, from a limited participation standpoint, that wouldn't be okay. That wouldn't be God honoring. So then, where's the line? We had this line in the sand of teaching with authority versus exercising the gift of teaching and how slippery that is. What about this one? Yeah, right? Where's the line of the number of men that need to be there before a woman needs to stop talking or to stop teaching? And here's the problem with that the Bible isn't interested in giving us that answer. So whatever answer we come up with is subjective in nature, you can say it's three men, you could say it's 12 men, you can pick biblical numbers 712, maybe 50. But those numbers aren't coming from the Bible. They're coming from us trying to make sense of how do we reconcile these things, these practices that we see in the Bible and the things we're trying to do in our worship assemblies. And so that's also because it's subjective. Because it's not clearly laid out in the Bible. It's also really difficult to defend when someone points out this discrepancy. And so it's like, hey, if we're in a small group, and there's eight people there, and we've said, that's a fine number, there's four couples, the wives can share, with some level of confidence, and passion about things they're learning. But as soon as another man shows up, she needs to defer to her husband, because she's crossed that threshold. Like, who picks that number? Yeah, you can't really defend it. You know, we're trying to make sense of what the Bible is teaching the best we can. But if we're adopting positions that are indefensible, that's gonna be problematic. And we, we need to wrestle with that. That's a big challenge with this limited participation viewpoint.
Corina Espejo:Yeah. And I think a sub problem to this, and I think it's more relational is, when we Buck up, so to speak, we get defensive because we hold a limited participation with incredible certainty. But then you have people who are genuinely trying to make sense of limited participation. They're not against your stance, they're just genuinely trying to practice it. They may have questions like this logistical that might feel nitpicky, but genuinely they're trying to understand and figure out how to best apply this, you're going to get questions like this. So to those of you who get questions like this, just understand and come with incredible patience, humility and compassion, because chances are, they just want to do right by whatever stances is happening. And no matter the emotion behind it, try and hear that hear that they're just trying, they're trying to do the best they can to make sense of a stance that has been taken,
Travis Albritton:right, because the posture that we're gonna, we're gonna wrap up here in a second, the righteous posture of someone who holds this viewpoint is I'm just trying to be obedient to God's word. You know, I'm not trying to tell God or dictate to God, what I think should be true. I'm just trying to take the Bible for what it is, and live it out. Right. And that is an admirable posture, and something that we should all imitate. But that doesn't mean that we're not going to have challenges implementing some of those positions. Okay. So now that we've kind of walked through how you would land in this place of saying, there are certain things that from the Bible, it seems women shouldn't do, or is improper for women to do in church. And now we've wrestled through nine problems or challenges to holding that perspective. Let's kind of reframe how you would communicate this viewpoints holistically, not ignoring these challenges, not ignoring these problems, but recognizing them for what they are and still making sense of it and moving forward in a way that's actionable. Right? So we don't want to just stay in this state of paralysis of we're just not going to do anything at all because how do we make sense of that? What would be a different way of communicating this then maybe what we did a little bit before?
Corina Espejo:Yeah, yeah. And I'll give an overview before I because I actually I love this I took speech and debate in high school. And I was actually very the team I was on we were very good and so closing statements was actually my thing. So this is like cool. Nice. So fun. So fun. Learn something new about you today. Yeah, fun, fun fun. So the first thing let me just give a brief outline my my general formula and it changes but my general formula I love, love, love. We fellowship of churches we call it an encouragement sandwich, right. But in in a similar fashion, you want to say the things that are edifying first and last, and you want to just leave that taste in people's mouth, things that are widely agreed upon things that are going to be encouraging to the person you're talking to. And so I highly encourage in order to take a humble and mature stance, hopefully you can do some recon and get to know the person you're talking to, to know how to speak, what is going to speak to them first and last, and then somewhere in the middle, just making sure to say things like, hey, to the best of my studying and knowledge, these are the conclusions that I have come to, and it's not consistent with what everybody believes. But it is where I have come, this is the conclusion that I personally have come to. So alright, let's give a stab somebody asked the question, why do you believe in limited participation? Or what do you believe about women's roles? Here's how I would answer with this limited participation stance. First, let me say because this can get lost in everything that I talk about, that I have a high regard not only for the authority of Scripture, but just to be humbled to God's wisdom, that I can evolve and that I can change. And even when things don't make complete sense to me that I can have trust in God and His overall print plan of his redemptive work to redeem all of humanity to himself. And I do know, I understand that the Bible is clear that men and women, they are equally valuable. And you look out, you look throughout the Bible, and you will see that both men and women should be treated with equal honor in the church. And so when we talk about what I'm about to talk about, with limited participation, I hope that does not get out shadowed. You'll also see in scriptures, and this is what I've come to believe that First Corinthians 11. And First Timothy two, they seem to suggest that women do have restrictions from certain practices in that church assembly. And you know, the reasoning behind that. It's not always easy to understand. And it's not always easy to make sense of, for example, you know, childbearing, you're saved through childbearing and because of the angels, and there are going to be things that don't make sense. And I don't want you to feel like that goes away, that the things that are confusing go away. But as of now, I think I'm finding that the view that makes the most sense to me, is that women do have a certain limited participation within the church assembly, but not because God or even me that we are anti women and women are stupid. And that's not what I believe, again, I believe women are our CO rulers, I believe they are image bearers of God, alongside of men. But because I do want to honor God, it's going to be hard for me to neglect First Corinthians 1111, in First Timothy two, and is something I've had to wrestle with and submit to what seems like God's will in every way. And it is something that I'm finding I need to trust God with. And I'm okay to change my mind in the future. This is just what I recognize now, what the Scriptures are meaning, and that we can stay true to them today. But let's be real, there are many challenges and taking this position, and I do not want to outwash that I don't want to look over it, and the ones that I wrestled through, to maintain a good conscience before God. But again, those wrestling's i It's not just in this topic that I wrestle, there are so many other things that I wrestle with in a very similar nature, and I am willing to change my convictions, I'm willing to listen to what you have to say, and to change my mind if it is changed if my conscience has changed. And if God reveals that I am misguided in my thinking, or have an incomplete understanding of the Scriptures, the only thing I ask is that you do the same. And as we begin, and if you want to continue this conversation of Why think limited participation is the way to go. I just hope that you have that same stance, because just as much as I believe the scripture has high authority, that it has high regard and that we should all have humility to God's wisdom. That is something I am expecting of you as a believer as well. So I hope you extend to me that same courtesy because I believe you're you're an image bearer of God, too. I believe you're a co ruler, as well. So that's how I would package that.
Travis Albritton:So we've covered a lot in this episode. Hopefully you stick around for the whole thing if you're here. Congratulations. We are not done yet, though. Because we are going to do the same thing we did today. Really laying out the case for and the problems with limited participation. We're gonna do the same thing next week with full participation, building a biblical case for why women should be able to serve unrestricted in church, and then also work through what those challenges are. So we hope you stick around for that. We'll catch you next week