A CLOSER LOOK AT WOMEN'S ORDINATION #05: CREATION ORDER
by Ty Gibson
At this point in our study, we need to back up and take a candid look at 1 Timothy 2:11-14:
“Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.”
Those who are advocating male-only ordination point to this passage as proof that when Paul later says, “the overseer must be blameless, the husband of one wife,” he is issuing a universal moral rule against the ordination of women to the gospel ministry by appealing to the creation order. We know with certainty that this is not the case, for four solid hermeneutical reasons:
As we’ve already noted, by a simple comparison of Romans 16:1 with 1 Timothy 3:2, 12, it is absolutely clear that Paul did not intend for his “husband-of-one-wife” statement to constitute a universal rule against women occupying the ministerial role, but rather as a description of the moral character a person must possess in order to hold spiritual office.
We have other instances in Scripture in which women do speak and teach with God-given authority. Luke matter-of-factly informs us that Paul and his entourage stayed in the home of “Phillip the evangelist” with his “four virgin daughters who prophesied” (Acts 21:8-9). Think this through: if Paul believed in a universal divine mandate that all women, everywhere, at all times, are to learn in silence and not teach men by virtue of the fact that Adam was created first, and then Eve, we would not have this record of four daughters of Phillip prophesying. Rather, we might read that Paul said to these women something like, “You are women and we are men, so be silent. We will teach you, but you will not teach us.” But no, what we do have is a simply stated report of four women “who prophesied,” clearly indicating that God was speaking through them with teaching authority.
The Greek word hēsychia, translated “silence” in 1 Timothy 2, does not refer narrowly to verbal silence, but rather to being calm and refraining from causing disruption, to “not officiously meddle with the affairs of others” (Strong’s). Clearly, Paul is addressing a local, specific problem. There were some women who were dominating and disrupting the teaching process, and Paul essentially rebuked them by saying they should calm down, stop interrupting, and quietly engage in the learning process.
In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul is again addressing a local church situation. Three times he issues an admonition to be “silent,” but on this occasion the first two times he tells men to be “silent,” addressing the women the third time (verses 28, 30, 34). Also on this occasion he explains why he is telling them to be silent. In that local situation there was a lack of order, resulting in confusion and detraction from the edification process in which the church was attempting to engage. In this passage it becomes clear that when Paul issues his “be silent” admonition, it is in the interest of a practical concern for out-of-control, loudmouth people, both men and women, to cease disrupting the church’s discipleship process.
We see, then, that in the larger context of Paul’s thinking, 1 Timothy 2 does not constitute a timeless moral rule for all women to forever be silent and refrain from teaching men. That is manifestly not what God wants, made evident by the fact that He has called and empowered women to be in teaching, preaching, leading positions for the church. Ellen White is the most obvious and immediate example for Seventh-day Adventists. She was an active itinerant preacher throughout her ministry, teaching both men and women, and she was (and still is) the most prolific teaching authority in Adventist history. “Ah,” someone will interject, “but she was not ordained!”
Actually, she was ordained…by God Himself:
“In the city of Portland the Lord ordained me as His messenger, and here my first labors were given to the cause of present truth” (Review and Herald, May 18, 1911).
Ellen White’s case is extremely enlightening. Let the fact register with all the force it carries that God chose a woman to be His end-time prophet, to speak and to write authoritatively as His foremost representative to His end-time church. And He did so at a time in history when women generally did not occupy leadership roles. Women couldn’t even vote, nor could they occupy political office, in her time. And yet, God chose a woman to be the channel through which He would teach, lead, and even reprove men.
“But she was not ordained by the church!”
No, she was not, but ordination originates with God, not with humans, so she had the higher, not the lower, level of ordination. If you’re ordained by God, but not by humans, you’re still ordained. If you’re ordained by humans and not by God, you are not ordained.
“But she was ordained as just a prophet, not as a pastor, because pastoral ordination would have put her in spiritual authority over men, which the Bible forbids!”
Yet we all know that apart from the Bible the writings of Ellen White constitute the highest authority in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. That’s why we’re all quoting her authoritatively in this debate.
“But when the men in leadership told her to go to Australia, she obeyed and went, because they were men and she was a woman!”
Yes, she did go to Australia when they told her to, but there is nothing to indicate that she went because she was a woman and men told her to go. She went because of a humble spirit of submission to her brethren, the same as any male minister of the time would have gone if the brethren had told him to go. On different occasions men told her to do other things and she rebuked them, and on many occasions she told men in leadership positions what they were to do and she expected them to comply.
The plain truth of the matter is that Ellen White was, in fact, ordained by God himself, which clearly indicates that while we may be against ordaining women to authoritative spiritual office, God is not, which, if you think about it, is a very awkward position to be in.
Awkward, indeed!
Those Adventists who interpret 1 Timothy 2-3 as a universal mandate against women’s ordination overstep the evidence in the face of the fact that they are members of a Church with a woman prophet, and a church that has always accepted women in general in teaching, preaching, evangelistic roles, all of which are, by definition, activities of spiritual authority. They have to outrun the text to sustain their overall position against women’s ordination while at the same time allowing for Ellen White’s ministry to be acceptable and for women in general to teach and preach.
In other words, there is a glaring gap in the logic of their position.
They begin by insisting that male-only ordination is a moral mandate due to the fact that Adam was created before Eve, from which they insist that women may not authoritatively teach men. But then they are faced with a woman prophet they accept in an authoritative teaching role—namely, Ellen White. So they have to figure out some explanatory angle to make exceptions for some women to teach men. But here’s the colossal problem: if we’re dealing here with a moral mandate, then there can be no exceptions, and to make exceptions is to inadvertently confess that it’s not a moral issue after all. And if it’s not a moral issue, then there is no legitimate reason to urge it as a universal rule for the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Why, then, did Paul reference the fact that “Adam was formed first, then Eve”?
We need simply to read the context of the passage to grasp what Paul is getting at. As we pay attention to his opening comments to Timothy we discover that a specific situation prompted his letter:
“As I urged you when I went into Macedonia—remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:3).
He then states further that there are those in the Ephesus church who are exerting their influence to “cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm” (verse 4-7). At the close of chapter 1, he encourages Timothy to “wage the good warfare” against the false teachers he’s dealing with in Ephesus, naming two of them as “Hymenaeus and Alexander.”
Clearly, then, Paul is addressing a local situation in which there are individuals who are positioning themselves as teachers, causing theological disputes, and detracting from the godly edification that should characterize the local church dynamic.
Then in chapter 2 Paul proceeds to address the fact that there are some women attending the Ephesus church who are escalating the problem. They are obviously sympathetic to the false teachers because later in chapter 5 Paul laments the fact that “some” of the women at the Ephesus church “have already turned aside after Satan” (5:15). So Paul is offering counsel to Timothy regarding how to deal with the women who are contributing to the theological disputes by exerting themselves in domineering manner over the men.
It is this situation that calls forth from Paul the admonition that the women are not to “teach” or exercise “authority” over the men!
The word “authority” here is not a word that indicates leadership, but rather it points to a controlling attitude. These women were not exerting godly leadership, and Paul was not, therefore, saying that women cannot ever be godly leaders. He’s not laying down a rule that negates women in general from ever teaching or leading. Rather, he is addressing a disastrous local situation. This is why, writing a letter to another local group of believers, he affirms a women named Phoebe for exerting a positive leadership influence: “assist her in whatever business she has need of you; for indeed she has been a helper of many and of myself also” (Romans 16:1-2). This woman does not need to be told to be silent. To the contrary, Paul positions her as someone the believers should “assist in whatever business she has need of you.”
To make the point about how the local dynamic elicited the specific nature of Paul’s admonition, imagine if Phoebe and Ellen White had been the influential women present in the Ephesus church. They would have been a positive and strong female force for the heretics to reckon with. Paul would not, therefore, have written the same counsel. But as it was, the local sisters were contributing to the problem and opening the door to the heretics. So Paul said those women should stop disrupting the teaching process and submit to the brothers who are attempting to teach the truth and combat the heretics.
In other words, Paul is not attempting to make a deep, philosophical point, but rather a practical one. In this passage we are witnessing Paul, the pastor, in action. Timothy is faced with some out-of-control, loudmouth ladies disrupting the educational process at the Ephesus church. So Paul tells him to tell them to quiet down, just like he told some loudmouth men to do at Corinth. Then to achieve his pastoral goal, he appeals to the fact that though Adam was created first and then Eve, it was Eve, not Adam, who was deceived by Satan. He is speaking homiletically, pastorally, to a specific problem, and the Genesis account of Creation and the Fall makes his point. But there is no evidence in the passage, or in the whole of the biblical narrative, that God has issued a universal rule against women ever, anywhere, at any time teaching men, and Paul certainly is not making any point in this passage for or against women’s ordination. Women’s ordination is nowhere on his radar.
The intent of Paul’s letter to Timothy is simple and clear if we just read it in its own immediate historical and situational context, which includes the fact that Paul was very happy on other occasions to direct attention to women who were good and trustworthy leaders in the advancement of the gospel, as in the case of Phoebe. To use 1 Timothy 2 and 3 to rule out the ordination of women is a hermeneutical stretch at best. The passage simply does not support the weight of the position—a position so heavy it claims that ordaining women to pastoral ministry would constitute to unfaithfulness to Scripture.
Originally published: https://lightbearers.org/blog/a-closer-look-at-womens-ordination/
At this point in our study, we need to back up and take a candid look at 1 Timothy 2:11-14:
“Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.”
Those who are advocating male-only ordination point to this passage as proof that when Paul later says, “the overseer must be blameless, the husband of one wife,” he is issuing a universal moral rule against the ordination of women to the gospel ministry by appealing to the creation order. We know with certainty that this is not the case, for four solid hermeneutical reasons:
As we’ve already noted, by a simple comparison of Romans 16:1 with 1 Timothy 3:2, 12, it is absolutely clear that Paul did not intend for his “husband-of-one-wife” statement to constitute a universal rule against women occupying the ministerial role, but rather as a description of the moral character a person must possess in order to hold spiritual office.
We have other instances in Scripture in which women do speak and teach with God-given authority. Luke matter-of-factly informs us that Paul and his entourage stayed in the home of “Phillip the evangelist” with his “four virgin daughters who prophesied” (Acts 21:8-9). Think this through: if Paul believed in a universal divine mandate that all women, everywhere, at all times, are to learn in silence and not teach men by virtue of the fact that Adam was created first, and then Eve, we would not have this record of four daughters of Phillip prophesying. Rather, we might read that Paul said to these women something like, “You are women and we are men, so be silent. We will teach you, but you will not teach us.” But no, what we do have is a simply stated report of four women “who prophesied,” clearly indicating that God was speaking through them with teaching authority.
The Greek word hēsychia, translated “silence” in 1 Timothy 2, does not refer narrowly to verbal silence, but rather to being calm and refraining from causing disruption, to “not officiously meddle with the affairs of others” (Strong’s). Clearly, Paul is addressing a local, specific problem. There were some women who were dominating and disrupting the teaching process, and Paul essentially rebuked them by saying they should calm down, stop interrupting, and quietly engage in the learning process.
In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul is again addressing a local church situation. Three times he issues an admonition to be “silent,” but on this occasion the first two times he tells men to be “silent,” addressing the women the third time (verses 28, 30, 34). Also on this occasion he explains why he is telling them to be silent. In that local situation there was a lack of order, resulting in confusion and detraction from the edification process in which the church was attempting to engage. In this passage it becomes clear that when Paul issues his “be silent” admonition, it is in the interest of a practical concern for out-of-control, loudmouth people, both men and women, to cease disrupting the church’s discipleship process.
We see, then, that in the larger context of Paul’s thinking, 1 Timothy 2 does not constitute a timeless moral rule for all women to forever be silent and refrain from teaching men. That is manifestly not what God wants, made evident by the fact that He has called and empowered women to be in teaching, preaching, leading positions for the church. Ellen White is the most obvious and immediate example for Seventh-day Adventists. She was an active itinerant preacher throughout her ministry, teaching both men and women, and she was (and still is) the most prolific teaching authority in Adventist history. “Ah,” someone will interject, “but she was not ordained!”
Actually, she was ordained…by God Himself:
“In the city of Portland the Lord ordained me as His messenger, and here my first labors were given to the cause of present truth” (Review and Herald, May 18, 1911).
Ellen White’s case is extremely enlightening. Let the fact register with all the force it carries that God chose a woman to be His end-time prophet, to speak and to write authoritatively as His foremost representative to His end-time church. And He did so at a time in history when women generally did not occupy leadership roles. Women couldn’t even vote, nor could they occupy political office, in her time. And yet, God chose a woman to be the channel through which He would teach, lead, and even reprove men.
“But she was not ordained by the church!”
No, she was not, but ordination originates with God, not with humans, so she had the higher, not the lower, level of ordination. If you’re ordained by God, but not by humans, you’re still ordained. If you’re ordained by humans and not by God, you are not ordained.
“But she was ordained as just a prophet, not as a pastor, because pastoral ordination would have put her in spiritual authority over men, which the Bible forbids!”
Yet we all know that apart from the Bible the writings of Ellen White constitute the highest authority in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. That’s why we’re all quoting her authoritatively in this debate.
“But when the men in leadership told her to go to Australia, she obeyed and went, because they were men and she was a woman!”
Yes, she did go to Australia when they told her to, but there is nothing to indicate that she went because she was a woman and men told her to go. She went because of a humble spirit of submission to her brethren, the same as any male minister of the time would have gone if the brethren had told him to go. On different occasions men told her to do other things and she rebuked them, and on many occasions she told men in leadership positions what they were to do and she expected them to comply.
The plain truth of the matter is that Ellen White was, in fact, ordained by God himself, which clearly indicates that while we may be against ordaining women to authoritative spiritual office, God is not, which, if you think about it, is a very awkward position to be in.
Awkward, indeed!
Those Adventists who interpret 1 Timothy 2-3 as a universal mandate against women’s ordination overstep the evidence in the face of the fact that they are members of a Church with a woman prophet, and a church that has always accepted women in general in teaching, preaching, evangelistic roles, all of which are, by definition, activities of spiritual authority. They have to outrun the text to sustain their overall position against women’s ordination while at the same time allowing for Ellen White’s ministry to be acceptable and for women in general to teach and preach.
In other words, there is a glaring gap in the logic of their position.
They begin by insisting that male-only ordination is a moral mandate due to the fact that Adam was created before Eve, from which they insist that women may not authoritatively teach men. But then they are faced with a woman prophet they accept in an authoritative teaching role—namely, Ellen White. So they have to figure out some explanatory angle to make exceptions for some women to teach men. But here’s the colossal problem: if we’re dealing here with a moral mandate, then there can be no exceptions, and to make exceptions is to inadvertently confess that it’s not a moral issue after all. And if it’s not a moral issue, then there is no legitimate reason to urge it as a universal rule for the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Why, then, did Paul reference the fact that “Adam was formed first, then Eve”?
We need simply to read the context of the passage to grasp what Paul is getting at. As we pay attention to his opening comments to Timothy we discover that a specific situation prompted his letter:
“As I urged you when I went into Macedonia—remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:3).
He then states further that there are those in the Ephesus church who are exerting their influence to “cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm” (verse 4-7). At the close of chapter 1, he encourages Timothy to “wage the good warfare” against the false teachers he’s dealing with in Ephesus, naming two of them as “Hymenaeus and Alexander.”
Clearly, then, Paul is addressing a local situation in which there are individuals who are positioning themselves as teachers, causing theological disputes, and detracting from the godly edification that should characterize the local church dynamic.
Then in chapter 2 Paul proceeds to address the fact that there are some women attending the Ephesus church who are escalating the problem. They are obviously sympathetic to the false teachers because later in chapter 5 Paul laments the fact that “some” of the women at the Ephesus church “have already turned aside after Satan” (5:15). So Paul is offering counsel to Timothy regarding how to deal with the women who are contributing to the theological disputes by exerting themselves in domineering manner over the men.
It is this situation that calls forth from Paul the admonition that the women are not to “teach” or exercise “authority” over the men!
The word “authority” here is not a word that indicates leadership, but rather it points to a controlling attitude. These women were not exerting godly leadership, and Paul was not, therefore, saying that women cannot ever be godly leaders. He’s not laying down a rule that negates women in general from ever teaching or leading. Rather, he is addressing a disastrous local situation. This is why, writing a letter to another local group of believers, he affirms a women named Phoebe for exerting a positive leadership influence: “assist her in whatever business she has need of you; for indeed she has been a helper of many and of myself also” (Romans 16:1-2). This woman does not need to be told to be silent. To the contrary, Paul positions her as someone the believers should “assist in whatever business she has need of you.”
To make the point about how the local dynamic elicited the specific nature of Paul’s admonition, imagine if Phoebe and Ellen White had been the influential women present in the Ephesus church. They would have been a positive and strong female force for the heretics to reckon with. Paul would not, therefore, have written the same counsel. But as it was, the local sisters were contributing to the problem and opening the door to the heretics. So Paul said those women should stop disrupting the teaching process and submit to the brothers who are attempting to teach the truth and combat the heretics.
In other words, Paul is not attempting to make a deep, philosophical point, but rather a practical one. In this passage we are witnessing Paul, the pastor, in action. Timothy is faced with some out-of-control, loudmouth ladies disrupting the educational process at the Ephesus church. So Paul tells him to tell them to quiet down, just like he told some loudmouth men to do at Corinth. Then to achieve his pastoral goal, he appeals to the fact that though Adam was created first and then Eve, it was Eve, not Adam, who was deceived by Satan. He is speaking homiletically, pastorally, to a specific problem, and the Genesis account of Creation and the Fall makes his point. But there is no evidence in the passage, or in the whole of the biblical narrative, that God has issued a universal rule against women ever, anywhere, at any time teaching men, and Paul certainly is not making any point in this passage for or against women’s ordination. Women’s ordination is nowhere on his radar.
The intent of Paul’s letter to Timothy is simple and clear if we just read it in its own immediate historical and situational context, which includes the fact that Paul was very happy on other occasions to direct attention to women who were good and trustworthy leaders in the advancement of the gospel, as in the case of Phoebe. To use 1 Timothy 2 and 3 to rule out the ordination of women is a hermeneutical stretch at best. The passage simply does not support the weight of the position—a position so heavy it claims that ordaining women to pastoral ministry would constitute to unfaithfulness to Scripture.
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