“Does God allow women to teach?” she asked, looking to me
for clarity.
This bright, gifted college student was being trained to
join a church planting team in France, and she wanted to fully play her part. Through
her training she discovered a preaching gift, but she wasn’t sure what to do
with it. As a pastor’s daughter, she had been bathed in the faith since infancy;
yet, questions like this one remained unanswered. Taboo.
“Does God allow women to teach?”
It’s a question that I, too, have been forced to wrestle
with since moving to France. In the States I kept plenty busy using my preaching
gift in the realm of women’s ministries, which is generally not controversial. But
since moving to France, where there really is no such thing as “women’s
ministries,” I’ve been asked to preach or teach to mixed-gender groups. That is
to say, when I preach in church these days, both men and women are present. And
we have lost one supporter due to this fact—a man who wrote to tell us that God
does not allow women to teach men.
I wish I could be so sure.
Again, scholars—experts who love Jesus with all of their
hearts—have studied the scriptures pertaining to this subject and come to
different conclusions. I, too, delve into the Word of God, seeking wisdom,
guidance and truth. While my questions are clear, the answers are not so simple.
However, I have discovered a few insights that help me to make my way.
At the end of Paul’s letter to the Romans, right after he
commends Phoebe, Paul sends greetings to his friends Priscilla and Aquila:
Greet
Priscilla and Aquila, my
co-workers in
Christ Jesus. They
risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are
grateful to them. Greet
also the church that meets at their house.
Priscilla is a married woman who is mentioned six
times in the New Testament, always with her husband Aquila. Four of the times that they are mentioned,
Priscilla’s name comes first—a detail that carried significance, as it was contrary
to standard practice. According to the New American Commentary on Acts, “That
she is usually mentioned before her husband is indeed remarkable for first
century usage but probably is less due to her social status than to her
prominence in Christian circles.”
Priscilla and Aquila make their Biblical debut in Acts 18, where they are identified as tentmakers who worked alongside Paul both
in vocation and in ministry. Later in that same chapter, they teach a man named Apollos. Apollos was a highly educated man from Alexandria
who knew the way of the Lord and spoke boldly and accurately about Jesus. Priscilla
and Aquila recognized that he had a gift, but they also noticed some minor
faults in his theology concerning baptism. So they invited Apollos to their home
and taught him the truth. Luke writes this in Acts 18:26:
He [Apollos] began to speak out
boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him
aside and explained to him the
way of God more accurately.
Apollos went on to become a powerful preacher and
evangelist, due in part to his humble acceptance of the teaching that he
received from Priscilla and Aquila.
The New American
Commentary on Acts says, “It is noteworthy that Priscilla took an equal
role with her husband in further instructing Apollos.” In other words,
everything in the passage, including the phrasing in the original Greek,
indicates that the teaching of Apollos was a joint effort, shared by husband
and wife.
In the end of his letter to the Romans, Paul sends
heartfelt greetings and expressions of gratitude to his friends Priscilla and
Aquila, calling them both his “co-workers,” which I imagine was a double
entendre. So when people say that in 1 Timothy 2:12 Paul strictly forbids women
to teach men, I have to ask, “What about Priscilla?”
Tune in next week when I ask, "What about Junia?"
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