;)
BY
GEORGE O. WOOD The
Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in Orlando, Florida, in June 2000, excluded
women from the office of pastor. The newly adopted Baptist Faith and Message states
that while "both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the
office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture." Many
Southern Baptists explained their action as a move to counter liberal culture.
Christianity Today quoted Mike Whitehead, interim president at Midwestern
Baptist Seminary: "It is not news that God assigned roles in the home and
in the church. This principle is not a cultural relic but a divine order. Most
Baptists are pretty squeamish about tinkering with the words of God."1 Where
does this leave the Assemblies of God? By permitting the ordination of women and
permitting women to pastor, are we tinkering with the words of God? Have we capitulated
to the liberal culture by credentialing 5,225 women of our 32,304 credentialed
ministers (16.17 percent), and by having 387 women pastors among our 12,055 churches
(3.21 percent)? My purpose is not to denounce the Southern Baptists. I have
great respect and admiration for what they have done to advance the cause of Jesus
Christ. My reason for referring to them is to surface the hard question that is
often asked the Assemblies of God. The Southern Baptists, along with some believers
inside and outside our Movement, assert that permitting women every role in ministry
available to men violates Scripture. As Pentecostals, we better have an answer
to that. And, we do. Within this issue of Enrichment is an excellent exegetical
article by Craig Keener: "Was Paul For or Against Women in Ministry?"
Since Craig deals with the biblical text, I will not retrace his work. However,
the approach I take must include the foundational exegetical arguments advanced
by Craig, and also by Stanley Horton is his superb article, "Rediscovering
the Prophetic Role of Women," as well as Doug Clark’s article, "Jesus
and Women." THE TEXT AND OUR EXPERIENCEAs Pentecostals, we
intuitively approach the biblical text in a manner different from most of our
evangelical brothers and yes, sisters. We factor in the element of experience
as a lens through which we look at Scripture. We are criticized for that. But
our evangelical compatriots essentially do the same thing, except they interpret
the text from their nonexperience, which is an experience of sorts. I say
this with no edge. I’m a graduate of one of the finest evangelical seminaries.
I’m grateful for the training I received. Many of my own seminary community
side more with us than with the Southern Baptists on the issue of women in ministry.
But dialogue is freshened among believers when one can engage from time to time
in a little playful poking. |
By permitting the ordination
of women and permitting women to pastor, are we tinkering
with the words of God?
|
I cannot
count the number of times I, as a Pentecostal in an evangelical seminary, was
accused of basing my views on the Baptism and fullness in the Holy Spirit on my
experience. I learned to rejoin: "But you do the same thing. You base your
views on your experience. And your experience is that you have not had an experience." I
am not so foolish to predicate my hermeneutical approach toward women in the ministry
as resting solely on the pillar of experience. I do suggest that experience is
a necessary prism through which we understand and appropriate God’s Word. What
do I mean? Let me use two examples. Peter and CorneliusActs
10 starts us on a hermeneutical approach to resolving difficult issues. Men are
on their way from Cornelius to Peter in Joppa with an invitation for him to come
to Caesarea. Peter has no clue they are approaching. At the noon hour, on the
rooftop of Simon the tanner’s house, Peter falls into a trance while waiting
for lunch. He has a vision of a sheet descending from heaven with all kinds of
nonkosher animals. He’s told to kill and eat. To use a modern idiom, Peter
replies, "No, Lord, I cannot do that. I’ve never eaten a cheeseburger
in my whole life." (Cheeseburger is not in the text, but a cheeseburger is
nonkosher. If the vision occurred in 2001, cheeseburgers would have been on the
sheet. To this day, an orthodox Jew will not eat a cheeseburger because the Levitical
law is interpreted to ban the eating of dairy products and meat at the same time.) Notice
carefully what Peter said, "Surely not, Lord!…I have never (emphasis
mine) eaten anything impure or unclean [i.e., nonkosher]" (Acts 10:14).* This
is an astonishing admission. Was Peter absent the day Jesus taught on clean and
unclean foods? Several years before Peter’s rooftop experience, Jesus asked:
"Are you so dull?…Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man
from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? For it doesn’t go into
his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." Then comes Mark’s
tag: "In saying this, Jesus declared all foods ‘clean.’ "
(Mark 7:18,19). Do you see the issue? For years Peter had the clear, straight-line
teaching of Jesus on the subject of kosher and nonkosher foods; but it took Peter’s
experience of the vision to actualize the teaching as applied to his own life.
Without the experience at Simon the tanner’s, Peter would have probably lived
the rest of his life and never eaten any nonkosher item, even though the Lord
had expressly given permission to do so. Look next at Peter’s explanation
to the Jerusalem church on the coming of salvation and the Spirit to Cornelius’
house. Peter is up against a traditional interpretation of the Old Testament text
as he explained to Cornelius, "You are well aware that it is against our
law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him" (Acts 10:28). Why
then did he come? "But God has shown me…." Once the Holy
Spirit is poured out on Cornelius, Peter has some explaining to do to the Jerusalem
church. He defends himself two ways: (1) the experience itself (Acts 11:4—15),
and (2) a biblical text, "Then I remembered what the Lord had said, ‘John
baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit’ "
(verse 16). On the basis of the conjuncture of experience and Scripture, Peter
rests his case and the Church makes the proper conclusion (verses 17,18). Had
the Lord left it to the Early Church to engage in theological debate concerning
whether or not the Old Testament text permitted an observant Jew to visit a Gentile’s
house–or the inclusion of Gentiles into the family of God without circumcision
or maintenance of the ritual law–the issue would have been argued until the
cows came home. The Holy Spirit simply chose to take initiative and decide the
matter by fiat, and then leave it to the Church to attest His work by reference
to the written Word. This provides for us a clue concerning how to adjudicate
an issue such as women in the ministry. Is it possible that, in addition to looking
at the biblical text, we should survey what the Holy Spirit is doing within the
experience of His people? Let me be clear that I am not suggesting we forsake
the objective grounds of Scripture for the murky dangers of ascertaining truth
by subjective experience. We must never forget the prescient statement of former
General Superintendent Thomas F. Zimmerman: "A river is designed to
flow within banks. For Pentecostals, experience is the river, but that river must
stay within the God-ordained banks of Scripture." However, a key perspective
has often been lost when Bible believers divide on a doctrinal issue: What does
the Bible itself teach us concerning the method by which the Early Church resolved
doctrinal differences? It is that method I am looking for; this shapes my hermeneutical
approach to the text. |
I am not suggesting we forsake the
objective grounds of Scripture for the murky dangers of
ascertaining truth by subjective experience.
|
The
Jerusalem CouncilI have presented an opening example from the biblical
text itself. Had it been left to the Jerusalem church to debate from the Old Testament
on whether Peter should be given permission to go to Cornelius’ house, and
whether these Gentiles should be received into the community of faith and baptized
without being circumcised, I don’t think there would be too many who would
deny that the Jerusalem church would have banned the visit. The Holy Spirit, though,
acted unilaterally in taking the initiative, in keeping with the Lord’s promise
that when the Spirit came, He would lead into all truth (John 16:13). Is
the example of Peter and Cornelius an aberration, or is the same principle repeated
again? The answer to the last part of the question is a clear and resounding yes. Look
at the Jerusalem Council, recorded in Acts 15. They were no longer dealing, as
with Cornelius, over the inclusion of one Gentile family into the Church. The
Early Church was dealing with the inclusion of entire Gentile communities resulting
from Paul and Barnabas’ first missionary journey. A good segment of the Jerusalem
church is upset. Why? Because they feel the text of the Old Testament is violated.
The group for Gentile inclusion feels otherwise. How do you resolve an issue
when both groups have a very high view of Scripture? Does the Assemblies of God
have any less high a view of Scripture than the Southern Baptists? No. Our Statement
of Fundamental Truths begins by affirming, "The Bible is our all-sufficient
rule for faith and practice." The first article relates to the Scriptures
inspired: "The Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, are verbally
inspired of God and are the revelation of God to man, the infallible, authoritative
rule of faith and conduct (2 Timothy 3:15—17; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Peter
1:21)." The Jerusalem Council provides a paradigm for resolving a textual
dispute among believers over doctrine. First, there is a full-scale discussion
of the issue. The Judaizers led with their thesis, "The Gentiles must be
circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses" (Acts 15:5). In the "much
discussion" that followed (verse 7), the believers who belonged to the party
of the Pharisees probably quoted volumes from the Old Testament text supporting
their position. While teaching a college-level course on Acts, I once set
aside a class session for the students to role-play the Jerusalem Council. Some
students were assigned to play the role of the Judaizers; others, the pro-Gentile
party. A student assumed the role of the moderator, James. Two other students
played the roles of Barnabas and Paul. A very lively discussion followed. I noticed
one thing through the reenactment–something I should have known earlier,
but hadn’t really paid attention to it. The weight of the biblical text was
on the side of the Judaizers. The role-playing Judaizer students quoted Scripture
by the yard in advancing their view of "be saved and be circumcised,"
or "no circumcision, no salvation." In fact, if you stack up all
the texts supporting circumcision on one side of the scale, and the texts affirming
inclusion of Gentiles without circumcision on the other side, the Judaizers clearly
had the scales tipped in their favor. However, since the Scriptures cannot
be broken (set against each other), it became the task of the Jerusalem church–and
it is ours today as well on other matters–to harmoniously resolve texts that
appear to be contrarily engaging each other. The "much discussion"
of Acts 15:7 dealt first with the question, What does the text of Scripture say?
The Judaizers answered one way; Paul and Barnabas the other. How do you affirm
truth when believers are throwing texts at each other? Here is where the
Jerusalem Council has a most important lesson for us–and it’s the same
lesson discussed above regarding Peter’s going to Cornelius. We must listen
to the experience of seasoned leadership who give testimony to being guided by
the Holy Spirit. Following the textual debate, Peter stood and recounted
his testimony of years earlier with Cornelius at Caesarea. His clinching line
is, "God, who knows the heart showed (italics mine) that he accepted them
by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us" (verse 8). Peter
quoted no Scripture; he simply restated his experience. Then Paul and Barnabas
stepped to the microphone. They too spoke of their experience. "The whole
assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the
miraculous signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them"
(verse 12). The Judaizers have no testimony to share. Their arguments are
based solely on proof texts, and they totally ignore what the Spirit has done. James,
presiding at the Council, drew a conclusion supported by those assembled. He affirmed
the testimony of Gentile inclusion and attested it by reference to key texts from
Amos 9:11,12 and Isaiah 45:21, pointing to the ingathering of the nations and
God’s eternal plan for such (Acts 15:16—18). The essential matter
decided, four conditions are laid down for Gentiles to follow (Acts 15:19—21)
as essential either for moral purity (abstain from sexual immorality) or table
fellowship between Jews and Gentiles (food offered to idols, strangled meat, and
blood). APPLYING EARLY-CHURCH RESOLUTION
METHODOLOGY TO THE WOMEN IN
MINISTRY ISSUEWhy is this discussion on the inclusion of the Gentiles
relevant to the issue of women in the ministry? Because we learn from the New
Testament itself the process by which the Early Church resolved issues when texts
appeared to collide. Their understanding of the text was impacted by their experience
in the Spirit. Let me cite some examples from my own Pentecostal roots. I
spent some of my early years growing up in northwest China. The women sat on one
side of the church, and the men on the other. The educational level of the women
at that time was considerably less than that of the men. Married women called
out across the sanctuary to their husbands, seated on the opposite side, with
questions related to what was being said or done in the service. That experience
helped me put into context Paul’s admonition that women should remain silent
in the churches, asking questions of their own husbands at home (1 Corinthians
14:34,35; 1 Timothy 2:11,12). Clearly, he had not forbidden them to speak within
the context of prayer or prophecy (1 Corinthians 11:4,5). My experience
shaped my understanding of the text. It was no different in regard to women preachers. My
mother was ordained by the Assemblies of God in 1924–as were a host of other
women in the early years. I grew up listening to my mother and other women preaching
the gospel. What was their basis for so doing? The Holy Spirit had called them
in light of the prophetic promise of Joel 2:28—30 fulfilled in Acts 2:17,18–in
the last days God would pour out His Spirit on all flesh, including daughters
as well as sons who would prophesy, including women as well as men servants. In
Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost, he announced that God had launched
the fulfillment of that promise. It’s not surprising, therefore, that the
Pentecostal church has always embraced women in ministry–since to do such
is Pentecostal. It’s what the Spirit promised to do in the age before the
coming of the Lord. God is an equal opportunity employer; therefore, so must we. When
texts have been thrown against us–such as 1 Corinthians 14:34,35 and 1 Timothy
2:11—15–our experience told us that these texts must be interpreted
in light of Joel 2, Acts 2, and Galatians 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor
Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." This
is the same pattern we find when dealing with the Gentile inclusion question.
Had the issue been presented for debate prior to Peter’s going to Cornelius’
home or prior to Paul’s Gentile mission, the Jerusalem church would have
voted against both endeavors of bringing in the Gentiles without prior observance
to Jewish law and culture. But the debate took place after the endeavors of Peter
and Paul–and their experience helped the Early Church reach an appropriate
understanding of the text. With the advent of the modern Pentecostal movement
in 1901, the Holy Spirit began to be poured out copiously on both men and women.
Six of the 12 elders at the Azusa Street mission were women. They granted credentials
and laid hands on believers to go forth as missionaries and evangelists. At
the organizational meeting of the Assemblies of God in 1914, women were granted
the right of ordination as evangelists and missionaries, but not as elders. Ordained
women were, at first, not permitted to vote in the General Council since such
was regarded as an eldership function. However, women were accorded voting rights
beginning with the 1920 General Council, the same year the 19th Amendment was
adopted which granted women in the United States the right to vote. The
ban on eldership meant that ordained women should not serve as pastors, marry
people, and administer the ordinances of water baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
However, the Assemblies of God had ordained women fulfilling all these functions
anyway. In 1922, then general superintendent E.N. Bell, writing on behalf of the
Executive Presbytery to ordained women, wrote: "It has nevertheless been
understood all along that they could do these things when some circumstance made
it necessary for them to so do…. The Executive Presbytery… authorized
the Credential Committee to issue new credentials to all our ordained women who
are actually preaching the Word just the same as ordained men do, and that these
new credentials should state these women are authorized to do these things when
necessary." So sensitive and potentially divisive was that decision that
Brother Bell requested at the end of his letter to ordained women: "TAKE
NOTICE: This letter is not to go out of your personal possession." In
1935, the General Council itself recognized that ordained women may pastor and
administer the ordinances of the Church. If the Early Church took a few years
to sort out the Gentile inclusion issue, it is not surprising that we took a few
years at the beginning to work through the issue of women’s inclusion in
ministry. SALVATION AND STATUS IN GALATIANS 3:28I referred earlier
to Galatians 3:28 as providing a pattern to help us understand the text and experience
brought to bear upon the text. Galatians 3:28 deals with three great cultural
divides: (1) Jew and Gentile, (2) slave and free, (3) men and women. As
regards salvation, the distinction between each of these was clearly abolished
from the start of the Church. Salvation was equally available to both Jew and
Gentile, slave and free, men and women. As regards status, the Holy Spirit
worked developmentally within the Church as it became a model to the outside unbelieving
world. For example, the first issue the Spirit tackled from Galatians 3:28
was the Jewish/Gentile issue. Gentiles were to be included without first becoming
Jews. However, to accommodate cultural sensitivities of believing Jews, the Gentiles
were told not to eat blood or things strangled. Over time, how an animal was killed
or whether a person ate his steak rare ceased to become an instrument of division.
The meat issue constituted a temporary, but not a permanent concession to cultural
sensitivities. The second issue related to slaves and free. Within the church
there was to be no distinction between master and servant–each was equal
at the foot of the Cross. However, as an accommodation to culture and to prevent
massive social upheaval and persecution of believers–slave and free–the
full-scale liberation of slaves was not advocated. Slaves were to be obedient
to their masters (Ephesians 6:5—8; Colossians 3:22—25; Titus 2:9,10;
1 Peter 2:18—20), even more so to their believing owners (1 Timothy 6:1,2).
Surely no one now would advocate the foregoing texts as an argument for slavery
today. We recognize these texts as interim until the full force of Galatians 3:28
could be applied. The gospel is like tree roots growing underneath the sidewalk.
Sooner or later, the liberating power of the gospel–for Gentiles, slaves,
and women–breaks through the repressive concrete of cultural mores and norms
that discriminate and oppress. The third issue of Galatians 3:28 relates
to "neither…male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Our evangelical friends who are opposed to the ordination of women or women as
pastors agree with us that Galatians 3:28 clearly makes salvation available without
distinction to each of the three groupings listed by Paul. They agree with us
over the status issues of Gentiles and slaves. For example, no one would argue
that we interpret Galatians 3:28 in light of the slave passages listed above.
We interpret Ephesians 6, Colossians 3, Titus 2, and 1 Peter 2 in light of Galatians
3:28. Neither Gentile nor Jew, neither slave nor free–that is the permanent
and enduring law of the gospel as related to both salvation and status. Why
are women left out? Arguing that Galatians 3:28, in regards to the status of women,
should be interpreted in light of 1 Timothy 2:11—15 is no different than
arguing that Galatians 3:28 should be interpreted by the slave passages. Parenthetically,
why do our Southern Baptists friends–and other evangelicals who agree with
them–not equally insist on the enforcement of the veil (1 Corinthians 11:3—6)
along with the enforcement of "silence" for women? Why this selectivity
in the text? By their own hermeneutic, wouldn’t this failure to enforce the
veil amount to a capitulation to "liberal culture" and "tinkering
with the words of God"? SUMMING UPIn the end-time harvest,
Pentecostals believe that God is accepting all workers and qualifying them for
any role consistent with their calling and gifting. My estimation, historically,
of how we arrived at that view is that in our early days we witnessed that the
Spirit himself had called women into the ministry. Like the Bereans (Acts 17:11),
we immediately went to the text to see if this experience could be corroborated.
Our forefathers found the eschatological texts of Joel 2, quoted in Acts 2; and
the salvation/status text of Galatians 3:28. They understood that God was bringing
Pentecost again to the Church to gather in the harvest at the end of the day.
In this era of the Spirit, the harvest was so huge, both men and women were needed. Their
inclusion of women into the ministry followed exactly the same pattern used by
the Early Church, as recorded in Acts. They brought their experience to bear on
the text; they brought the text to bear on their experience. And they found a
complete consistency between the written words inspired by the Spirit and the
present-day leading of the Spirit. Now, with almost 100 years of experience, we
can say without hesitation that God’s calling, equipping, and effectively
using women in ministry "seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" (Acts
15:28).
| George
O. Wood, D.Th.P., is general secretary of the Assemblies of God, Springfield,
Missouri. |
ENDNOTES 1. Jody Veenker,
"Culture Clash," Christianity Today, 10 July 2000, 19.
*Scripture references are from the New International Version. | 