Egalitarians Need Better Arguments (Pt. 2): Fallacies and Feminism

Judgment, Exemplarity, Mission

This is the second post that I am writing about Preston Sprinkle’s, From Genesis to Junia. Sprinkle’s book chronicles his exegesis as he moves from the complementarian to the egalitarian position. In my first post, I interacted with Sprinkle’s faulty Biblical-theological foundation, namely his poor canonical methodology. He fails to consider the federal relationship Adam has to humanity and the relationship between man and woman in the creation order. In this post, I want to interact with a number of fallacious arguments that contribute to his overall argument.

1. Deborah - Sprinkle gives particular emphasis to the figure of Deborah in the book of Judges (55–58). This is for good reason: Deborah was a boss. She was a judge of Israel in Judges 4–5, who sent Barak to the battlefield. I agree with Sprinkle that Deborah was a godly, wise, prophetic woman who exercised authority over men. Why is it fallacious to use her as an argument for women in authority, then? Because God gives women rulers over Israel as a sign of his judgment (Isa 3:12). The book of Judges chronicles the sad devolution of God’s people due to their sin. I find it likely that the placement of a female judge like Deborah over Israel in the period of Judges was judgment for their cyclical and persistent idolatry. I am not necessarily asserting that this is the case today, but I am saying that it is much more likely that God placed Deborah as a judge over Israel as a punishment. Just as elsewhere in Judges the fact that God takes a side in an internecine civil war to punish the tribe of Benjamin does not necessarily indicate that bloody civil wars against one’s own kin are paradigmatic for how God’s people should conduct themselves, so I think, at the least, we should not draw conclusions about how church and family should conduct themselves from the fact that there is a female judge, godly though she may have been.

2. Exemplary Women - Important for Sprinkle’s mind is the role that exemplary women play in the OT (45–54) and the NT (65–87). I agree with Sprinkle that feminine heroines are an important part of the texture of Scripture. I have no desire to take away from their import in the Biblical witness; in fact, women are proportionally more often held up as exemplars than men. I did, however, write my dissertation on the exemplary language in Scripture, so I know a thing or two about this topic. Every example of imitation in the Bible (or anywhere at all) has discontinuity. The fact that women are held up as examples does not make them leaders; it makes them examples. Their example is to be held up, considered, distilled from their original context, and employed in a new context. Just as the presence of heroic women such as the mother of Coriolanus, Lucretia, or the Augusta Livia does not make the Romans a bunch of pre-modern feminists, neither does the presence of exemplary women, as exemplary as they are, indicate that the early Christians were served by formal female leaders.

3. Women witnesses to the resurrection - A favorite argument of egalitarians is that the first witnesses to the resurrection were women. Sprinkle himself rehearses the argument throughout his section on the gospels (65–87). I agree that this is a significant detail. It is hard to see any of the gospel-writers making up this detail when they recount the resurrection, giving the four resurrection accounts a historical flavor. It does not, however, indicate that women should be pastors. Why? The word used to describe the women’s witness to the resurrection is apaggellō (ἀπαγγέλλω) in Matthew 28:8, 10, Mark 16:10, 13, and Luke 24:9. If the gospel writers meant to signify by this that they were regarded as institutional leaders in the early church, then they would mean the same about the pig-herders who lost it when Jesus sent demons into their pigs (Matt 8:33; Mark 5:14; Luke 8:34, 36), the beggar in Jericho (Luke 18:37), and the soldiers who were supposed to be guarding Jesus’s tomb on Easter morning (Matt 28:11). It obviously does not follow that these people should be pastors, and neither does it follow for the women at the tomb. The witness of the women on Easter morning is significant and praiseworthy, even paradigmatic for Christians. It does not, however, imply that women should be pastors.

4. Priscilla, Junia, and Phoebe - Sprinkle spills a lot of ink on these three women (122–148), one of them even makes it into the title of his book! He argues that because of each of these women’s roles they should be considered as institutional leaders in the early church. Priscilla “teaches” in one verse (Acts 18:26) where she and Aquila, her husband, pull Apollos aside and teach him more accurately about the way of God. Sprinkle acknowledges that this may have been a private conversation. What he fails to mention, however, is that when describing a conversation, it only means a private conversation (Matt 16:22; Mark 8:32); it never means pulling someone aside for the purpose of a public teaching. Priscilla having a conversation with Apollos alongside her husband to explain the way of the Lord more accurately is noteworthy, but, again, it does not indicate that she was a pastor. Nor does the fact that a church met in her house (1 Cor 16:19). Under Roman law, Aquila was probably understood as the legal landowner, and, therefore, if anyone was considered a pastor or elder due to this detail, it was probably Aquila (although this detail itself is not necessarily incontestable).

Junia is “well-known” among the apostles and had suffered imprisonment for her faith (Rom 16:7). This tells us much about her character. Sprinkle makes quite a bit of hay over the fact that Paul uses the preposition “en” rather than the dative case. This is completely unconvincing to me, however. The dative and en are often interchangeable, as anyone familiar with the language knows. I think she was well known “to the apostles” rather than being called an apostle. But, even if Junia is called an “apostle,” this does not in and of itself indicate anything about a formal leadership role in the church. The word “apostle” simply means “messenger,” and other than the twelve apostles or Paul it describes Jesus (Heb 3:1), Barnabas (Acts 14:14), the whole missionary team of Paul (as seen in a variant of 1 Th 2:7), the men Paul sent to Corinth to receive the collection (2 Cor 8:23), Epaphroditus (Phil 2:25), James, the brother of Jesus (Gal 1:19), the false teachers visiting Corinth (2 Cor 11:5, 13; 12:11–12), all the witnesses to Jesus’s resurrection (1 Cor 15:7), a “messenger” (Jn 13:16). To be sure, if Junia and Andronicus are called “apostles,” this is a mark of great distinction. In and of itself, however, this would not indicate that she was a pastor in the church.

Unlike Junia, there is no doubt that the word “deacon” (διάκονος) is applied to Phoebe (Rom 16:1). Phoebe is said to be a “servant/deacon” of the church at Cenchrae, and probably was part of the delegation which carried Paul’s letter to the church. Again, the problem is figuring out what precisely this means. The word “deacon” is often translated as “servant” because it usually means “servant” (Matt 20:26; 22:13; Jn 2:5, 9). Jesus says all disciples of his must be a servant (Jn 12:26). Rulers in positions of authority are God’s “servants” (Rom 13:4). Yes, leaders in the church are supposed to be known as “servants,” but this does not mean all servants are leaders (Matt 23:11; Mark 9:35; 10:43). Paul calls himself a “servant to the circumcised” (Rom 15:8), but this is hardly an official “office” and the language here seems more metaphorical. Sometimes “deacon” clearly means pastor, such as when Paul calls pastors “ministers of the new covenant” (2 Cor 3:6; 6:4; Eph 3:7; 1 Cor 3:5; 2 Cor 11:23; Col 1:7, 23, 25; 1 Tim 4:6), but he also calls Satan’s servants his “deacons” (2 Cor 11:15). Sometimes a “deacon” is someone who is faithful in his service to the Lord and who it is unclear if they have a formal office or not (Eph 6:21; Col 4:7). It is clear that, at least in some churches, there was an office of the church that was distinct from pastors which was called being a “deacon” (Phil 1:1; 1 Tim 3:8, 12). There probably were “deaconesses” of this sort fairly early, given Pliny’s letter to Trajan (10.96-97), but this is some 50+ years after Scripture was written. So, is Phoebe a “deacon,” yes. But what kind? If we are going by context, the use of the word “deacon” in Romans is metaphorical (Rom 13:4; 15:8). Context further indicates this is Paul’s way of metaphorically praising her character; in the next breath, Paul praises her for her financial support of himself and others; by her generosity she “served” the church (Rom 16:1–2). Nothing indicates she held an official title in the church, and, even if she did, nothing would indicate that she was the kind of deacon who was a pastor.

Conclusion

There is no question that Scripture has a high view of women. It is peopled with exemplary women and the early church was often served in key ways by women. It is clear that God has given extraordinary gifts to women. I do not wish to take away from this. I only wish to say that it does not follow that, therefore, they should be pastors. The ways women serve in Scripture are extraordinary, but this does not even quality as circumstantial evidence for female pastors or heads of households. Sprinkle makes leap after leap in asserting all this as evidence for female pastors; much of his book is one fallacy after another. And, if I was an egalitarian, I would want to base my convictions on something more solid than that.