#11. The Case for Limited Participation

Episode Transcript
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Travis Albritton (00:01):
Welcome back to the women in the church
podcast, we take a fresh look atwhat the Bible teaches about
women in church. For the sufc.
In credo, we are ready toactually say some semi
definitive things

Corina Espejo (00:13):
about women in the church. Semi definitive,
like semi dark chocolate chips.

I am a big fan of some chips. Yeah, because
they're not like so bitter, likethe hardcore chocolate chips
were just like, drains all thesaliva to your mouth. Anyways,
we're getting, we're excited tobe here. And we're excited to to
take the 10 hours of Bible studythat we've done to this point,
and actually get somewhere withit. So if you've been hoping

(00:41):
that eventually we would land onsome practical takeaways and
positions, then this is thefirst of two episodes where
we're going to do that. SoKarina, just give us a broad
idea of what we're gonna betalking about in this episode,
so people know what to expect.

Yeah. So first off, we're going to try and talk
about what we do agree about. Soas we jump into this episode, we
want to start from place of somepoints we found most if not
everyone has agreed on, we'lltalk about arriving at an answer
and kind of some things to thinkthrough. We'll also talk about
some assumptions that can justlead to very, very specific

(01:19):
conclusions. We'll also talkabout when the Bible is clear,
and taking it literally and howtricky that can be. But just
navigating some of thatconversation, 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 limitedparticipation, some problems

(01:41):
with it, some of the theviewpoints that might be just
limited in nature, but also to away to communicate it in a way
that might be more healthy andbeneficial. We also want to just
make sure to tell you, as we gothrough this episode, and the
next, we just want to remindyou, we love you. Our goal is

(02:02):
not to make you feel offended isnot to make you feel like we're
just pointing a finger at youand make you feel shame. That is
not the purposes of us goingthrough, you know, this train of
thought. We're not trying totrash your convictions. We're
not trying to throw you underthe bus. But we are trying to
help you think through some ofthese these stances in the

(02:25):
fullest capacity that we can. Soplease know, we love you. And
that's that's really where allof this is coming from.

Yes, indeed. I mean, it's always a nerving.
Whenever you start dissectingyour convictions, right, like,
oh, well, I assumed this wastrue. But now I'm realizing that
there are some other questions Ineed to wrestle with before I
can get back to that position.
That's not a fun place to be.
Why are you bringing all thisup? Don't worry, by the end of

(02:52):
the next episode, you will allprobably be equally offended.
But that's not our goal. Ourgoal is to think critically,
about, you know, how we come topositions, about women's roles
in view of the Bible, what theBible teaches, and to just have
a more complete understanding ofhow you arrive at different
positions. And the challenges ofthose positions. Yeah, so let's

(03:16):
jump right in, and Corina, withthe things that most if not all,
Christians would agree with,after reading through the Bible,
and these are positions that wecan really look to as starting
places, for the rest of thediscussion, like these are
things that we can agree onthings that we build on. So when
we come to areas ofdisagreement, we at least have a

(03:38):
common starting place.

Yeah. So the first one, and I will say most
people, when they dive into theBible, and they're really look
at the context, theirunderstanding that the Bible was
written in patriarchalsocieties, what's happening,
they look at the Bible, and theysee a pattern of how the Bible
really does have a very highview of women. And that can be
hard. I know people who arestuck in right now culturally,

(04:02):
and what they think of, butthose Bible scholars who really
dig into the Bible, and whatit's saying, God paints a very,
very high place and a veryimportant place for women, not
only within his creation, butwithin the gospel.

The next thing is that men and women are both
co rulers, as image bearers ofGod, though male and female are
different. So this goes back toour Genesis one conversation,
where we see God say, let'screate man in our image, male
and female, He created them inthe image of himself. And so

(04:35):
that's something that most ifnot everyone agrees with that
both male and female werecreated to reflect the image of
God. And that while they'redifferent, for example, my wife
can bring forth children intothe world. I cannot, and God
created us in our differencesthat way, but each of us are co

(04:56):
rulers and image bearers of Godand so that's something that is
almost universally agreed aboutfrom both Bible scholars and
then also from just Christiansthat study this out for
themselves.

Yeah, and because of these first two things,
something that's also widelyagreed on is that God uses women
throughout the Bible to advancehis kingdom to advance the
gospel, to continue hisredemptive work and play an
active role within the people ofGod. And again, it's going to be
a huge part of numbers one andtwo that we just talked about
that God in the Bible, they'vethey have very high views of

(05:29):
women, there's a lot of honorfor women. And and of course,
we're co rulers with men,

indeed. And then the last kind of thing we
wanted to highlight as a pointof agreement is concerning
spiritual gifts, which is apractice we see kind of like
detailed and outlined in the NewTestament specifically in Paul's
writings. And we see thatspiritual gifts are not gender
specific. Okay, so when he talksabout spiritual gifts, these are
supernatural gifts, talents, andabilities that are given by the

(05:56):
Holy Spirit to disciples, inorder to edify the body of
Christ like that is the role inthe purpose that they serve. And
nowhere in the Bible do we seethese gifts are for men, these
gifts are for women. Yeah, allspiritual gifts are given to
both men and women, includingthe gifts of teaching, preaching
and prophecy, which arespiritual gifts outlined in

(06:16):
First Corinthians and elsewhere.
So that is something that's alsoagreed about. Now, the
disagreement can come from,well, how are those gifts used?
And we're gonna dig into that inthe next few episodes. But just
understand, from a theologicallevel, there isn't a lot of
disagreement about the fact thatthe spiritual gifts are given to
both men and to women.

Yeah, and if people are like, Where does it
say that because you know, weknow you're out there, we know
you, Romans 12, six to eight arelooking at First Corinthians 12,
eight to 10, and First Peter, or11. So there's just some of
those other places, too.

So those are the things that, in general,
most people agree about. And sothose should always be the
starting places, right, that wewant to find common ground, we
want to find commonality inareas where there, there is
disagreement, so that we'restill talking the same language
to each other, we're not talkingpast each other, and making
assumptions about the otherperson's perspective that aren't

(07:10):
true. Okay, so this is thestarting place. This is the
foundation. Now, over the nextfew episodes, we're going to lay
out both the case for a limitedparticipation viewpoint of what
women can do in church, and thena full participation,
viewpoints. But it's helpful tostart first and foremost with
the question we're trying toanswer. Right, because the

(07:31):
question that you are asking theBible will determine the answers
that you get. So Karina, whatare some of the questions that
that we're trying to getanswered? As we approach these
positions? Because the questionswe ask will determine the kind
of answers that we land on.

Yeah, some of us are some of you were asking, Can
women teach and preach to amixed audience on a Sunday?
That's a very popular question.
And some other ones are, can awoman teach and preach in a
mixed audience and the churchoutside of the Sunday church
gathering midweek classes? Whatdoes that mean for teaching days
or retreats? And then, you know,again, the question is, okay,
how would you determine what isappropriate? And what isn't?

Yeah, because it's not just the worship
service that the Bible isspeaking to you, right? Like,
there are other times where weare gathered together. And so
whatever position we take, wewant it to be consistently
applied across everything thatwe do, if we're going to really
be true to trying to follow theBible the best that we can,
right, and not just like cherrypicking, where we apply

(08:29):
different convictions, right,that would not be an
intellectually honest way ofgoing about it. And so we
definitely want to avoid that.
And think through thesedifferent scenarios with
whatever positions we land on,and how we would approach
answering those right. And thenthe other thing to think
through, when it comes to askingquestions, is that the
hermeneutical lens that you usewill also impact the questions
that you ask or the flavor ofthe questions you ask. So if you

(08:52):
go back to Episode Six, where wetalked about the art of biblical
interpretation, and differenthermeneutic styles, if you
approach this question, from ablueprint, pattern, Mystic
hermeneutic, then the questionthat you were asking is, what
were the practices of the firstcentury church that we should
imitate, regardless of culture?

(09:14):
Right? What are the timelessprinciples? What are the things
that transcends any culture, anypeople group that were a part
of? And how do we adopt thosepractices to be the people of
God that worship in spirit andtruth? Right, so like, that
would be the version of thisquestion that you would ask if
you're looking through thatlens. If you're looking through

(09:36):
a theological hermeneutic lens,or a trajectory hermeneutic
lens, then the question youasked me to be slightly
different it's going to be howcan we reflect the kingdom of
God seen in the Old and NewTestaments in the way that we
embrace and embody our identityas image bearers in our church
gatherings? And so, for thatquestion, you're, you're

(09:57):
starting at a 30,000 foot view.
Looking at the entire Bible, andthen filtering down to the
Scriptures and the verses thatspeak to the specific question,
and trying to make sense of howdo these scriptures and passages
fit into the broader narrativeof what the Bible is saying
about who we are, as imagebearers? Versus the first

(10:18):
question, you're starting withthose passages, you're starting
with the first Corinthians 11,and the first Timothy twos, and
then you're building a case fromthere going out. So it's just
it's two different approaches.
One isn't right, and one isn'twrong. But it's helpful to
recognize that when you takethose different approaches, you

(10:40):
can arrive in different places.

And we've talked about in one of our episodes,
both the strengths and thepitfalls to those, so just be
aware, be aware of those.

So those are the kinds of questions that
we're trying to answer, right?
It's essentially, can womenteach and preach to a mixed
audience and in what scenarios?
And we're asking that questionin different ways. But it's also
helpful to recognize that wemake assumptions about our
biblical interpretation style,that we might not even
recognize, but that can impactthe conclusions that we reach.

(11:12):
And so we wanted to kind ofcover three very common,
unspoken assumptions that bothKorean and I have held ourselves
and seen in the ICRC and justhaving recognition. And being
able to acknowledge that thesecould be assumptions that you
hold, will help you tounderstand why you land on

(11:34):
certain conclusions, and whyother people might land on
different conclusions. So,Karina, what's the first
assumption that we need to beaware of when it comes to
interpreting the Bible andcoming to an answer about
women's roles in the church?

Yeah, the first one is that the Bible cannot
contradict itself, because Godcannot contradict himself. And
we've got a few examples whereto somebody who has read the
Bible, and they've kind of seensome of these differing
viewpoints, they're gonna say,No, that's not true. The Bible
can contradict itself. One ofthem is Proverbs 26, four to

(12:08):
five.

So proverbs 26, verse 45, in the NIV, says,
Do not answer a fool, accordingto his folly, or you yourself
will be just like him, Answer afool according to his folly, or
he will be wise in his own eyes.
So which one? Is it writer ofProverbs? Are we supposed to not

(12:29):
answer a fool? Are we supposedto answer a fool? And the fact
that these verses are back toback is just even funnier,
right? Like, it's not evenhiding the fact that the writer
here is giving prettycontradictory advice, there is a
way to make sense of that we'regonna get to that in a second.
The other scenario, where thisplays out, is when we're trying
to harmonize some of theproblematic passages that we've

(12:52):
studied out on this podcast. AndI say problematic simply because
there's a lot of discussionabout what they ultimately mean.
And there's not a lot ofconsensus. So First Timothy two,
if you just read, it seems likeit's pretty clear, right? Women
can't teach or have authorityover men. And there's some
reason for that that's rooted increation. But then in First
Corinthians 11, we see Paulrecognizing that yeah, like men

(13:16):
and women are praying andprophesying in the public
assembly. And his issue is withhow that is being done. So which
is it? Are they allowed toprophesy are women allowed to
prophesy, which would entailsome kind of like, I'm telling
you something that God has givento me to share in a way that
tells you about God, so speakingwith some level of authority, or

(13:38):
not. And then you get to Romans16. And we see examples of women
that God is lifting up for thework that they're doing in the
church. And the work that he'slifting up is not necessarily
work that we would attribute toa female role. So there's a
struggle to harmonize all ofthese different perspectives and

(13:59):
think through like, Okay, well,this is true. But this also has
to be true in exactly the sameway. And there's two ways that
we can approach these kinds of,I'll put this in quotes,
contradictory teachings, becausethat that word is actually
leading us astray. They don'tcontradict each other in the
sense that one is overriding theother, all of the scriptures are

(14:21):
still the Word of God. But howwe make sense of them, is where
we need to just be aware of ourassumptions and the conclusions
that we're reaching because ofthose assumptions. And the first
one is to simply just bend overbackwards to try and make it
work with varying degrees ofsuccess. Right? So we're going

(14:41):
to figure out how to fit thepuzzle pieces of First Timothy
two in First Corinthians 11together, and we're just going
to make it work somehow, someway. We're going to create a
truth practice that does both ofthem perfectly. That has
historically been very difficultto do. You know, and there is
something to be said for thatapproach, like we want to truly
honor the Word of God as beingfrom God. But there also are

(15:03):
going to be times and scenarioswhere the Bible kind of gives
different advice to differentpeople. And so the second way
that we can approach theseseemingly contradictory
Teachings is to accept thatwisdom will often dictate
different Godly wisdom or advicefor different circumstances. And
that's where going back to thefirst episode where we talked

(15:26):
about that all scripture hascultural underpinnings, there is
a writer writing to an audienceand, and that God is using that
person to communicate truthsabout Himself to this other
people group. But that's allbaked into a culture a time and
place assumptions about thewriter to the audience's

(15:47):
receiving it. And so there aregoing to be times where, because
the author or the audience isdifferent, the advice that's
given, is different. And there'sa couple examples that we can
actually point to, that kind ofillustrate just practically, why
that makes sense.

The first one is giving marriage advice to a
young married couple versusempty nesters or family with
young kids. And when we look atFirst Corinthians seven, eight
to nine, we're going to see,okay, Paul is giving this
biblical example, that isdiffering instructions from Paul
on widow should marry widowshould not marry for different

(16:25):
situations different times, butit can seem like it's
contradicting itself. And I likethat you pointed out, you know,
contradictory that word in andof itself are not saying that
God is in conflict with himselfor the Bible is in opposition of
itself. But really, again, we'retalking about these differing
that they differ. And it's wecan't just say that it's all the

(16:46):
same and force them to fit whenthey're different. Like widow
should marry, and widow shouldnot marry all within one, you
know, passage.

So that's an assumption that we can bring to
the Bible that, you know, theBible can't contradict itself.
It can't say one thing in oneplace and something else
somewhere else. Yeah. Becausethat would mean God is changing
his mind. The Bible doesn'tactually say that, like, it's
helpful to recognize, that's aninterpretation that we've given
to the Bible, to help us makesense of these things. Alright,

(17:17):
neutral, it's neither good norbad. But it does kind of push us
in one direction or another. Sothat's the first assumption that
we want to basicallyacknowledge. The second one is
that when the Bible is clear, weshould take it literally, Jesus
says, Love God, Love yourneighbor. You don't need a
degree in rocket science tounderstand that really

(17:37):
fundamental elements ofChristianity. But we can't
always get away with that

every verse in the Bible, it's going to have
its own cultural underpinnings.
And when we overlook, thatinfluence, the influence of the
culture, what was happening atthe time, or the people that it
was written to, and by who waswritten by, and how that had its
impact on the actual writingthat we're reading, it can lead
us to misinterpret it withouteven knowing it. And that's

(18:02):
probably the hardest, you know,for those who think, Oh, I've
done my homework. And I knowwhat I know, and then realize,
oh, there's a huge part of thecontext of how this was written.
That you're missing.

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 currentchurch practice, do not
practice, right. So the NewTestament is clear we are we are
to greet each other with a holykiss, that men should only have
short hair, and women shouldhave long hair, and that church
gatherings are to happen inpeople's homes like those are
clear church practices that weseem to gather from the New

(18:40):
Testament. And so there's twoways of approaching this, you
can say, well, some of those arecultural things that are limited
in time and place andapplication. And there are
transcending principles thatapply to us. And we can kind of
not excuse away the culturalstuff, but we can put it in its
proper place.

The one thing I was thinking as you were saying
that too, even within FirstTimothy two, we look at the
verses eight to 12. And I knowsome people Oh, those are
commands, right? So women shouldlearn quietly with all
submissiveness. Okay? But then Iwonder, do we also expect men to
pray lifting holy hands withoutanger or quarreling? And I think

(19:18):
I don't see too many men everlifting their hands? And are
they holy? How do I determinethat how holy is holy? Let you
know it's so it's just one ofthose other thoughts I've had
about that.

Right, that one of them is a symbolic
posture of the heart better thanthe other is clearly a dictate
from God Himself. So in reality,what we do is we practice
selective literalism that we'renot consistent with just taking
the Bible as is and applying itto our own church practices.
Because intuitively, and withthe guidance of the Holy Spirit,

(19:50):
we know not everything should betaken at face value. Like
there's, there's more to theBible than just taking the words
at face value. Yeah. And so whenwe take Certain things
literally, because they makesense to us. Or it's been
explained to us that way, we'rethen left to try and explain
away other things that aredifficult to understand, either

(20:10):
talking them up to allow us toto cultural practices doesn't
apply, or this part of thepassage should be taken
literally. But the verses rightbefore and right after we should
not take literally, it's like,well, is that actually a
consistent hermeneutic? Is thatgoing to stand up to scrutiny?
Is that really where we want tolay our foundation for our
understanding of the Bible? Wegot to be careful with that

(20:32):
assumption. We got to be carefulwith that church practice,
because it's highly subjective,right? How do you know that
you've chosen the right parts totake literally, and which parts
to not take literally, it's notsomething that ultimately is
something that we're going toagree about? Yeah, because it's
so subjective. And so instead,what we want to do is strive to
employ multiple hermeneutics, toget a full picture of what the

(20:56):
Bible has to offer us not justlooking at it from one
perspective, but looking at allthe tools available to us to get
a big picture of what the Bibleis trying to communicate, and
then take that to create churchpractices. So that's the second
assumption, but want to be awareof that, you know, we can come
into our Bible study thinking,when the Bible is clear, I'm
just gonna take it literally anddo exactly what it says. That

(21:17):
can be tricky. What about thethird assumption that we want to
be aware of Corina

current doctrines and church practices of the ICC
are more correct than otherdenominations?

Did you just say that out loud?

Unknown (21:29):
Did I did?

Yeah, go ahead and talk about this one, because
this is one that we don't say.
But it's something that I don'tknow about your experience
Corina. But I've certainlythought this. I've certainly
held this belief at differentpoints in time. Because after
all, if I if I didn't think theICSC was the most correct, then
I'd probably going somewhereelse, right?

Yeah, I definitely grew up with this.
And I think I'm glad that thereare a lot of things that led to
this thinking that we no longerpractice, but I still see
actions. And again, we might notever say this, but with our
actions we do. And so you know,this thinking of there's only
one true church, there's onlyone true church and we're at and

(22:10):
if you go to another church,which with another name, you
must not be a disciple, somebodywalks in off the street. And if
we go by this one true churchdoctrine, the immediate
assumption without ever talkingto them about their theology,
and about their life is to say,you are not a disciple, because
you are not from an ICRC Biblestudy series, and again, very
particular ones as prerequisitesfor baptism and salvation. And

(22:34):
if people didn't have thatexperience, then their baptism
probably isn't valid. Theirsalvation probably isn't valid,
right? Other things like womencan't baptize other women, these
were things that used to happen.
And it's interesting, thesedoctrines and church practices
of the ICC, and oh, my goodness,these are just a few. I'm sure
those of you who have grown upin this church, I COC

(22:57):
spiritually or in life, thereare going to be a lot of things
that come to your mind. And youthink we don't do that anymore.
And yeah, it's just interestingto see the evolution.

And not to say that, like what we're currently
doing is not a better version ofchurch than what we were. Right.
We're growing. We're learning.
We're maturing as a faithcommunity, but we're still
relatively young. Yeah, youknow, like 50 years old, maybe
from the kind of the origins ofthe ICRC till today. And so you
think about other Christiandenominations or groups that
have been refining theirtheological perspective, over

(23:33):
centuries, there are going to bethings that they've thought more
about than we have, yeah. And wecan learn from them. And we can
take some of that and we canwrestle with it, we can pick out
the pieces that seem to fit withour view of the Bible. And we
can reject the things that, youknow, we clearly don't agree
with. And it's also just helpfulto recognize, like, even in our

(23:54):
own church history, we haveshifted positions, on things
that we once held to beessential doctrines that
differentiated us from otherdenominations, things that, you
know, 30 years ago would havebeen unheard of, to even
question. Now, it's like, oh,yeah, we were totally wrong
about that. And we had to maturein our thinking, and we had to
move past that. You know, that'sjust an admission of humility,

(24:16):
of saying, we're still figuringit out. So we just want to make
sure that when we're coming tothis Bible study, we're not
coming in with the assumptionthat we've arrived. Yeah, that
we have it figured out. We'vegot it all together. Because
when we do that, then questionsthat arise about church
practices about our convictionsabout our doctrines. They're no
longer seen as like peopletrying to mature in their

(24:40):
understanding of God in theBible. It can be seen as a
threat to church unity, becausethere's nothing left to learn.
If we figured it out. Then whyare we asking questions? Like,
those questions are justdistracting us from the mission?
Right? Yeah. But if instead werecognize, you know, maybe we
don't have everything figuredout. perfectly, which I would be
willing to bet is true, then wecan take more of a position of

(25:05):
humility, right and be willingto learn, be willing to be
corrected by the scriptures, aswe grow in our understanding of
who God is. And it's alsohelpful to remember that God,
and the Bible can stand up tothe scrutiny of our questions,
and our curiosity, our faith isresilient enough to ask hard
questions. Are we taught to beafraid of like, Oh, if I asked

(25:28):
this question, I might realizethat 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 atit, God is going to continue to
reveal Himself to us over time.
So that's a confidence we canhold on to, and then with the
other hand, have the humility torecognize there are still things

(25:48):
we can learn from the Bible, andin our own church practices,

I even think about, so I did a class and
probably one of the biggestthings that changed my mind and
helped me to mature and mythinking of this is, Steve
canards, he did a class on therestoration movement, and
really, the whole class thewhole seminary class ended with,
we should always be in aconstant state of restoration.
We need God, we need to behumble, we need to be growing.

(26:15):
And we should always be pursuinghis will and be comfortable with
a certain amount of change thatthat is good. So I like what
you're saying about faith. And Iwonder if more leaders and
individuals think will Oh, no,if we admit we're wrong, or we
have to change everything, otherpeople's faith, I think people
are sometimes less concernedabout themselves and more

(26:35):
concerned, like, oh, no, peopleare going to have a reason to
think that we don't have it onstraight and they're going to
leave God they're going toleave. And it's like such a
funny, you know, Skid Row effectthat we play, when we're
uncomfortable with growing andrepenting and restoring and
changing,

and you set yourself up to fail. Yeah, take
that position, right? Because ifyou if you hold the position
that like, we've got thingsfigured out. And if you have a
question like we have theanswer, 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 havefigured out, now we know more,
you've set yourself up to fail,right? Because now you have to

(27:13):
acknowledge, maybe I didn't haveperfect knowledge about who God
is. Which, you know, hopefully,that's the stance most of us
would take that sense ofhumility of, I'm just trying to
learn as much as I possibly can.
And a way to kind of draw thisto something that might feel
more familiar. When you'restudying the Bible with
somebody, is it more effectiveto pretend like you have your

(27:35):
whole life together and youdon't sin? Or is it more
effective to just be raw,transparent and honest and say,
Listen, I'm just as jacked up asyou are. But because of Jesus, I
can now live a life free fromsin. Which one is going to help
the person see the value inbecoming a Christian? Is the
second one right? To be like,Oh, you're human, just like me.

(27:58):
So if God can save you, maybeyou can say me too. Versus Oh,
man, I gotta be like thisperfect Pharisee to even qualify
for God's grace. There's no wayI'm going to cut it. And so we
just got to be careful theposition that we're taking, that
we're not setting ourselves upto fail, not just for ourselves,
but for the people that we'retrying to lead.

And I think even fail fall, right. pride comes
before the fall. It's like, Igot it. Do you though? That's
real. So the case for limitedparticipation? Let's do

it. Yep. So So everything we've done to this
point is just building uptension. You're like, alright,
what are you actually gonna saysomething definitive on the
questions that we're trying toanswer? Here's where it is.
Alright. So in this episode,we're gonna do a few things.
We're going to lay out from thepassages that we've studied on
this podcast, how you would landon what in the scholar community

(28:51):
is called limited participation.
And we're going to define whatthat is. And then we're going to
talk about the challenges ofthat position. Biblically,
theologically, that we'll needto wrestle through in order for
that to be a well rounded,healthy position. But first,
let's just lay out how you wouldbuild a case from a consistent,
exegetical perspective. Cradleonce you kick that off,

yeah, most people they're going to start with a
blueprint hermeneutic they'regoing to be first looking at the
axe, the epistles are going tocome to some of these, Paul's
writing, to discover timelesspractices, what they feel are
timeless that will transcendculture. Again, they're using
these these concepts to formwhat that's going to mean for us

(29:36):
right now our current churchpractices. 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 isfor men to be in a position of
authority over women, and thatdoes not support abusive
leadership. So let's be veryclear. This is not what the
blueprint hermeneutic issupporting, but it is supporting
that men are in a position ofauthority over women Again, we

(29:58):
talked about this with GenieShaka folly. Typically for
limited participation, we'regonna find that the case is that
of folly. It refers to authoritythat people a person who is in
charge, and that men are thehead of women in God's orderly
creation. It's also going tolook at all these things and

(30:19):
say, Okay, well hold on. Womenare active participants in the
assembly, we don't want to saythat they don't have any place
where they shouldn't be there.
We are going to say, in waysthat do not position themselves
as being over the man. It'simportant that this is obvious
and very visible, because again,when we're thinking about some

(30:42):
of the scriptures, we go overbecause of the angels, quote,
unquote, right, or because ofthe principle of headship again,
Kafala, meaning headshipauthority. It's what we more
often hear with those who takethis limited participation
stance.

And just to backtrack a little bit. The
reason we're looking at x andthe epistles to create an answer
for church practice, is becausethat would be the portion of the
Bible where we would seeinstructions for churches, after
Jesus's resurrection. We're notjust playing favorites and
saying, We really like Paul, wereally like to look back. It's
like, the reason you filter downto those books in particular, is

(31:18):
for that reason, okay? Andthat's, and that's a very
blueprint hermeneutic approach.
So taking First Corinthians 11,where we see this idea of
headship of husbands being thehead of their wives, as God is
the head of Christ, we see thatechoed in Ephesians five, which
is the very famous marriageretreat passage, we're talking

(31:38):
about husbands and wives, right.
And so that passage, we wouldthen take that version of
headship and see Yeah, Ephesiansfive reiterates that Husbands
are to be, quote, unquote, incharge, by contrasting their
duty, to love their wives to thewife's responsibility to submit
to her husband. Now, this doesnot mean that you get to be a

(32:02):
dictator. And you know, yourwife is your house servant, you
know, because both husbands andwives are to take a stance of
mutual submission. That's theverse that comes right before
that very famous passage. Andthen also, when you take this
position and limitedparticipation, it's also helpful
to point out like, theinstructions to husband are
quite lengthy. If you just likedo a word count, compared to the

(32:25):
life's, and that the calling, todeny yourself, and to give
yourself to your wife, as Christhas to the church is a very,
very high calling. So we're notjust letting husbands off the
hook and saying, you just get toboss people around and wives,
you just have to submitEphesians five is a very mutual
submission picture. But if wetake the principle of headship

(32:50):
that we arrived at in FirstCorinthians 11, and apply it to
Ephesians, five, then theposition you would take is that
the buck stops with the husband,when a decision needs to be made
for the family. At the end ofthe day, the husband is the
tiebreaker.

We see this all again, too. In first Corinthians
14, we're looking at thislimited participation, the
blueprint hermeneutic viewpoint,somebody looking at First
Corinthians 14 will see thatit's going to teach that in
order for the worship service tobe orderly, right, and not
chaotic, proper worship, thatwomen should avoid interrupting

(33:25):
their husbands when they arespeaking to the assembly, that
men and women are given similarconstraints when it comes to
prophecy. So the Scripturedoesn't support that women can't
speak at all. But it does, youknow, you're gonna read first
Corinthians 14 and think, well,but they they don't really have
a place to interrupt or to speakwithout the husband's

(33:46):
permission.

Right. And if you remember, when we did the
episode on First Corinthians 14,there's three instances in that
section of Scripture, where Paulis giving the direction to be
silence. So he doesn't have avendetta against women. There
are specific things that arehappening in the church in
Corinth that he's addressing.
And there are three instancesthere are three issues with
speaking that are leading todisorderly worship. One of those
is wives interrupting theirhusbands. And so he's giving

(34:10):
that corrective to be like, hey,if your husband is giving the
sermon, don't be peppering himwith questions from the back
row. You can talk to him athome, right? Because remember,
we are also playing out thescenarios. What if you're not
married? Does that mean you justdon't get to ask questions?
Well, no, that's not that's notwhat this is saying. It's
talking about in the context ofan assembly of people
worshipping together, we want tohave certain practices, and we

(34:33):
want to avoid some of the fauxpas, that would lead to
outsiders coming in and sayinglike, these guys are nuts. God
is not here, versus them comingin and the disciples coming in
and saying, man, God is here. Wereally want that to be evident
in our worship. So that's whatFirst Corinthians 14 teaches and
the position you would take froma limited participation

(34:55):
standpoint. Then we get to FirstTimothy to where it clearly
states, women are not allowed toteach or have authority over
men. In fact, it says I do notpermit or I do not allow a woman
to teach or have authority overmen. So that's, that's pretty
clear, right? And that justreinforces the position that we
arrived at in First Corinthians11. Because if it's true that

(35:18):
there's this divine order, God,Jesus, man, woman, angels want
to talk about how we're gonnajudge angels one day, that
that's just kind of how God setup creation. And so we are
reflecting that in our churchpractices. And so that means
that yeah, women aren't supposedto teach or have authority over
men. However, since we alsoacknowledge that teaching and

(35:41):
preaching are spiritual giftsthat are given to both men and
women, then there also must besome kind of teaching that God
encourages for women. And sowhere would we find some ideas
for what that could look like?
Kareena?

Yeah, the number one is going to be Titus two,
three to five talking about howwomen should be teaching other
women. And that's, that's whereI think we reason within this
limited participation. If awoman has a gift to teaching,
then her place is channelingthat and instructing other
women, and even children but notmen, since that would dishonor
God and her husband by exertingthat headship over a man.

Yep. And at the tail end of that passage, in
First Timothy two, Paul drawsthis connection to creation
order. And if he was referringto some kind of cultural
practice, like you shouldn'tteach men, because in the city
of Ephesus, like that'simproper, like that would be
maybe more cultural, becausehe's going all the way back to

(36:40):
Genesis, then that's going tomake it a timeless principle,
something that if it was true inGenesis, and it's true in First
Timothy, it should be truetoday. And the reason the
justification that's given isthat because Adam was created
first, he is given authorityover his wife Eve, before the
fall before sin enters theworld. And that's really, really

(37:01):
key. Now, when we move on toRomans 16, we do acknowledge
like, hey, the women in Romans16 are lifted up for the work
they have done to advanced thegospel. But then in order to
make sense of Phoebe as adeacon, Priscilla helping Lita
house church Junia being liftedup for the stellar work that
she's doing, that needs tosomehow marry together with what

(37:26):
Paul teaches in FirstCorinthians, Anna, First
Timothy, are those things can'trun into each other. So what
would that look like? What wouldthat look like from a limited
participation viewpoint?

Yeah, most people would reason that Priscilla was
only teaching as a compliment toher husband Aquilla. And I think
a lot of people speculate, okay,well, they will work together.
But you know, one is notspeaking over the other, and
they would put a lot ofspeculation there, and what that
would look like, but ultimately,she's with her husband, so she
has her headship. Phoebe, theywould say she's more of a

(37:58):
servant of the church, and thatshe would only repeat the words
of Paul that had already beengiven to her. She's just a
deliverer. And again, she's justdelivering the letter to Rome,
that that's it, she handed itover. That's it. Some of these
things that we reason I thinkeven I've even heard, Lydia is
only leading a house church ofwomen. And some of the

(38:20):
speculation there's it's onlywomen, she's only ever led
women.

And again, this is not like, hey, let's
just make up a bunch of funkyrules. But it comes back to
those assumptions, right of whatare we going to do when we see
okay, Paul says you can't teachwith authority. Then over here,
we see this example of woman whocould potentially be breaking
that, well, maybe that situationis not exactly what Paul was
condemning. So then what couldthat situation have been? And so

(38:47):
we're trying to, we're trying todo our best to like make sense
of how do we really follow theScripture the best we can, all
right. Now, something importantto consider is that when you're
arriving at this limitedparticipation viewpoint, and
you're using a blueprint or apatterns to hermeneutic, then
any examples of women leadingmen in the Old Testament, or
even in Jesus's ministrywouldn't really be relevant to

(39:10):
the discussion at hand. Because,number one, we're not under the
Old Covenant anymore. Like we'renot following the law, the way
the Israelites did. And theneven Jesus's ministry was before
Christianity was a thing, right?
You can't be a Christian, unlessyou reconciled to God through
Jesus's death, burial andresurrection. Right? And so if
we're looking at what the Biblehas to say about this question,

(39:30):
as it relates to us as the NewTestament Church, then those
could be examples of things thathappened at other times, but
they wouldn't necessarily be amodel for things we would
imitate today. So in view of allthose passages and the
interpretations that we justwent through, you would very
easily and logically land in aplace that said, you know, the

(39:52):
Bible is clear. Women should notpreach or teach authoritatively
to men in church on Sunday. orin small groups larger than a
few people, that if you do thatyou're undermining the roles
that God has given to men andwomen and the orderliness of His
creation, which that would be abig deal. If that, you know, if

(40:12):
you're just saying, Hey, God, wedon't like how you set things
up, so we're going to kick it tothe curb and do our own thing.
Like that's a very serious thingto just kind of throw away. So
that is what I limitedparticipation viewpoint would
hold that all the things wetalked about that we have an
agreement about men and women,both being image bearers about
the Bible holding a very highview of women, that spiritual

(40:33):
gifts are given to both men andwomen, and that we should
encourage their use. But theBible has spoken and given us
some guidelines that we want tofollow in good conscience. And
if we follow those from ablueprint hermeneutic, then
that's going to put us in aposition where we say, You know
what, for whatever reason, Godlywisdom is telling us women

(40:54):
should not preach or teachauthoritative Lee to men in
assemblies of the body. Is thereanything that I missed in their
Corina?

No, sounds great.
I think we I think we'vesummarized it. Yeah. Good.

So that is how you get there. But there are
some challenges, biblically,theologically and practically,
with this position. So we'regoing to talk with the small
ones. We'll start with that sixsmaller challenges to the
limited participation viewpoint.
So Karina, why don't you kickoff the first problem we're
gonna have to wrestle with ifthis is our understanding of the
role of women in church,

yeah, women serving in leadership roles,
with authority over menthroughout the Bible, and
neither god nor the people ofGod that seemed to have a
problem with it. So examples ofthese women, again, who are
leaders with a certain amount ofauthority, if not, sometimes the
fullness of authority that wesee our women like Deborah,

(41:50):
Esther, Phoebe, and Mary, and atthe 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 decisionmakers and organizing and
leading groups of people withinworship. And acts 217 to 18 was
one of our references. You wantto read that? Travis?

Yes. So this is in Peters address to the
crowd at Pentecost, starting thechurch. And in Acts chapter two,
verse 17, says, in the lastdays, God says, I will pour out
my spirit on all people, yoursons and daughters will
prophesy, your young men willsee visions, your old men will
dream dreams, even on myservants, both men and women, I

(42:33):
will pour out my Spirit in thosedays, and they will prophesy.
Now, remember, we dug deep intolike, what does that word mean
to prophesy? It's not a word weuse a lot. Yeah. And if you
remember from that discussionwith Jeannie, it could be a
sermon of sorts, right? You'redelivering the Word of God
instruction from God to people,you're warning people about the

(42:53):
danger of their sin and theirneed to repent, and you're
speaking as a messenger andrepresentative of God, it could
be talking about something it'sgoing 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 inPeters mind, and it acts to,
that's going to men and towomen. And if we look through

(43:15):
the Bible, we see that there areactually instances where God
seems to go out of his way tochoose women to lead, right? If
we go to Deborah, in thebeginning of the book of Judges,
there are a lot of Israelitesalive at that time. For some
reason, God said, the bestperson for this job is Deborah.
And nobody really had a problemwith that. In fact, they were
pretty pumped that Deborah wasleading, the people have gotten

(43:37):
to the point where the person incharge of the army is like, Hey,
I'm not going to battle unlessyou come to, because that's how
important you are. And that'show much I respect your
leadership. So that's the firstchallenge to this position. We
got a few more. The next onewould be if often, Teo, so
that's the Greek word translatedas authority in First Timothy
two authen. Teo, if that reallyrefers to a domineering,

(44:01):
bullying, taking over type ofauthority. I mean, that makes
sense to us. Yeah. If someone'sfollowing Jesus, those aren't
fruits of the Spirit. Why wouldthat prohibition then extend to
the edifying, humble andintrospective kind of teaching

(44:21):
that should be attributed towise and mature men and women of
God? Right, if Paul is singlingout this particular kind of
behavior, and then weextrapolate to all kinds of
authority, even authority,that's good. Is that actually
the point that Paul is trying tomake? And does it actually bear
up under scrutiny just in reallife?

Yeah, it's a big jump to make and I would
encourage those who have alwaysthought it to be synonymous,
just ask yourself, Okay.
domineering, bullying, takingover intimidation, and that
equals a type of teaching that'sedifying, humble. introspective,
right? These are the words we'reusing. But really compare when
you look at these things, andask yourself, Okay, are women

(45:06):
just as capable, some morecapable of studying the Bible
and gaining insights that couldbe shared with others? Does that
mean that they're domineeringbullying and taking over? Why
are men excluded from hearingthose insights in a
congregational setting? Theseare small problems again, but
but still things we've got to beable to think through because

(45:29):
it's inconsistent,

right? And the reason these are challenges is
because it impacts how do weimplement this understanding?
Right? So if you're holding to alimited participation viewpoint,
you then have to wrestle withthis, because this has huge
implications. So limitedparticipation, meaning that
there are certain things thatwomen should not do, then you
got to draw the line somewhere,right? What kind of authority

(45:53):
are we talking about? And thenwhat implications would that
have for the kind ofparticipation that we see in
church?

Yeah, and hopefully, none of you have seen
this, but just to give you justa wider understanding that
people have experienced theunfortunate flip side of this is
that men who are allowed toexert authenticity or authority
domineering, you know, bullying,intimidation tactics, that they
are actually allowed to teach ina way that's not edifying,

(46:23):
humble and introspective, andthat's the unfortunate extreme
that this can go to. Hopefullyyou haven't experienced that.
But it's out there, y'all, ithappens.

Yep. And that's something that we just
got to be aware of, and call itout when we see it right. The
third, smaller challenge,smaller problem is that if we go
all the way back to Genesis oneand two, are we did a lot of
discussion around thosechapters. Genesis itself doesn't
support hierarchy, orauthoritative headship among

(46:55):
image bearers. So when we lookat how God created male and
female as image bearers, we seethe vignette in Genesis two
where God creates man don't evenhave 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 withfirst Timothy two, and then look
backwards at Genesis and useFirst Timothy two as an

(47:19):
interpretive tool, you caneasily come away with that
impression. Right? It's like,Well, Paul says, This is what
Genesis teaches, so that must betrue. And so that's why we spend
so much time in Genesis becauseGenesis stands on its own. And
when I understand what Genesissays, because then that helps us
understand what point Paul istrying to make. Right? And so if
we look at Genesis on its own,it doesn't support this over

(47:43):
under power dynamic. Thatdoesn't show up until later. And
you know, when Paul says, Adamwas 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 getsto be in charge who gets to call

(48:04):
the shots? Yeah. But the problemwith Genesis is that over and
over again, it subverts thatpractice, right, you think about
Abraham, he wasn't thefirstborn, he wasn't the oldest,
Jacob was not the oldest. Josephwasn't the oldest. And so we see
like, over and over again, it'salmost as if Genesis is
subverting our expectations, andsaying God's gonna choose the

(48:26):
weak to shame. The strong, whichis something that we actually
see Paul teach in FirstCorinthians, right. So that
doesn't add up. If we're goingto take first Timothy two, as a
lens to interpret Genesis, thosetwo things don't match.

Yeah, the next one aser. It doesn't imply
subordination and value or role.
So when we use Genesis one andtwo, as a support to First
Timothy two verses the other wayaround, we're disregarding aser,
never indicating that type ofhierarchy. In fact, in the
Bible, we see it often todescribe not only men and
nations, but God Himself, whichI don't find too many people

(49:00):
saying God is under man, ifthey're reading with that
biblical integrity,

right? And aser is that word that's
translated as helper, or ahelper suitable for him? Help
mates, right? And so we can readthat with our cultural context
and think, Oh, well, Adams incharge, because he loves his
helper. It's like, Well, are wegonna say that God is reporting
to man? Unlikely, right? And sowhen we really understand that

(49:29):
word, and what it means what itrepresents, that woman is
actually the deliverer providingstrength demand, and supplying
what he needs. From a positionof strength. It's not over under
more important, less importantperson in charge person not in
charge. That's not the dynamicthat we're getting. That's not
the picture that's being paintedin Genesis one and two. And so

(49:49):
if you look at First Timothytwo, going backwards, you can
get a skewed understanding ofGenesis, but if you read Genesis
on its own, it doesn't supporthierarchy. or an over under a
dynamic between male and femalemen and women.

Let's talk about Genesis three. Let's keep
rolling through some of thesesmaller problems. Genesis three
is descriptive and notprescriptive. And some of I
think the thinking assumeGenesis three in the fall in
Okay, well now here are some ofthese quote unquote curses or
consequences, that it's actuallyprescriptive that this is how it
should be rather than this ishow it is because and it's

(50:28):
consequential. So you know,meaning that in this could be
looked at after Jesus's atoningsacrifice, those who have been
reconciled to God should striveto return to a Genesis to state
of existence within our fallenworld that most people look at
Jesus coming and what he hasdone, it is redemptive. It is
restorative back to Genesis twonot to support that Genesis

(50:52):
three model. And if headship isthis theological principle that
we're looking at, it must beconsistent with the CO ruling
model we see in Genesis two. Sosome of the issues that come
there is that again, it's notconsistent with the benevolent
authority that we see given toboth men and women. And that

(51:12):
could be a problem,

right? If we see Genesis three is like, okay,
Genesis one and two didn't work.
Humanity screwed that up. Sowe're gonna reset God's desire,
and that's Genesis three, thenI'm sorry, all the brothers need
to quit their jobs and start newcareers in agriculture, because
that's what Genesis three sayswe got to do. And women you need
to seek to overthrow yourhusband. Because that is that is
what God desires. You know,there's some problems with that.

(51:36):
And you won't find many peoplethat hold that position. And so
if Genesis two is what we'retrying to return to, if, as
Karina mentioned, the atoningsacrifice of Jesus means that
the sin of Adam has beenconquered the consequences, the
separation, that happenedbecause of the fall because of
sin, have been done away withthrough His resurrection. Then

(51:59):
when we join with him in hisresurrection, and become a part
of the family of God, we get toreturn to that Genesis one and
two, state of paradise and Eden,right. And as we look forward to
the kingdom of God fullybreaking in and us being able to
experience God in heaven, that'swhat it's going to be like,
right? Haven't we're not goingto see that power dynamic that

(52:20):
we see in Genesis three, we'reall going to be there worshiping
God together. And so if that istrue, then Genesis two is the
dynamic we need to be strivingfor within our churches, not
Genesis three. And that can beproblematic, if you hold to the
limit participation viewpoint,because that would say that,

(52:42):
actually, men need to be incharge. And that's what God
really wants.

And women are only there to do what the men
asks. And with their permission,and through them, and yeah,

as highly valued people, right, so valued.
Sure. So not like diminishingthe value of women are, it's
very important to say that, youknow, that's a misconception
that if you hold the limitedparticipation viewpoint, that
means you don't like women, oryou 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.

Yeah, very few people, both men and women who
I've met who opt for limitedparticipation, very few of them,
have I looked at their practicallives and thought, you don't
value women. It's very rare thatI have felt that or thought
that. And so you know, again,talking about presuppositions,
not just in Scripture, but evenfor people. I would be very

(53:36):
gracious and give people maybethe benefit of the doubt get to
know them get to see theirlives, their faithfulness before
jumping to those conclusions.
All right,

we've got two more small problems. And then we
can jump to the big kahuna. Allright. So here's the fifth small
problem you're gonna run into.
When you take a limitedparticipation viewpoint. There
are women in the Bible, who weregiven and recognized with the
authority to teach leading,instruct men. And we see this in
both the Old and the NewTestaments. But if we hold to

(54:05):
the limited participationviewpoint, as being God's desire
for the church, then those womenwould not be able to serve in
the same way if they were alivetoday. Right. So thinking, some
tangible examples. In the NewTestament, we have Anna, who
prophesied in the temple. Wehave Philips daughters who

(54:27):
prophesied in the assembly,would you really allow someone's
daughters to get up and startspeaking on God's behalf to the
assembly of believers of men andwomen? We probably wouldn't.
Like we would probably see thatas stepping over the line of
what's acceptable practice andwhat's proper. And so that's
something that you have towrestle with from this
perspective of like, there arewomen that do things in the

(54:47):
Bible, we wouldn't allow them todo in our churches now, with
this particular viewpoint.

Yeah, this. The last one is the viewpoint of
limited participation tends tooverlook the context and
situation that The letters thatPaul has written these epistles
were occasioned for. It omitsthe ministry of Jesus and the
Old Testament from thediscussion, we forget that these
epistles are continuation of anarrative. Instead, limited

(55:14):
participation can lead towardsusing selective literalism to
draw conclusions, really justbuilt on a lot of speculation,
assumptions, conjectures, todetermine church practices. And
let's be real, just a littlegrace for Grace's do, there are
going to be some educatedguesses that all of us are are
going to do. It's just a cautionthat Be careful the conclusions

(55:38):
you draw, and that it'sinconsistent. Again, you pick
and choose you cherry pick, whento be literal, went to not when
to be circumstantial, when tonot so

yeah, and this challenge is really more a
product of the hermeneutic thatyou're using, versus the limited
participation viewpoint. Yes.
It's if you land and limitedparticipation, chances are,
you're using this kind of like,what are the transcending
principles from Acts and theepistles that apply to us today?
That's the lens you're using toapproach this question. And so
when you do that, you'reimmediately looking at the Bible

(56:08):
through a microscope, and kindof like extrapolating out,
that's just a weakness of thathermeneutic. 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 theBible. I'm leaving a lot of
stuff out when I'm coming to ananswer. And so you're gonna have
to reconcile that at some pointof how does this viewpoints

(56:29):
harmonize with the larger themesof the Bible, because they have
to fit together at some point.
But those are the smallproblems. And you might think,
Man, those are some pretty bigproblems. Those are the small
problems. Now let's look at thethree 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 towrestle with, in order for us to

(56:51):
have consistently applied churchpractices that reflects this
viewpoint. Okay, so these arethings that we really need to
sort through, if we're going tohave any kind of answer. When
people ask, Well, why do you dothat that way? Okay, so the
first one, the first big problemwe're gonna have to wrestle with
is what is going todifferentiate teaching with

(57:13):
authority, which from a limitedparticipation viewpoint would be
prohibited from first of thetwo. What differentiates that
from exercising the gift ofteaching? Which the Bible fully
endorses?

Yeah, what settings are appropriate for a
woman to teach in? What are thelines between personal sharing
and teaching with authority. Andsince that line in the sand is
not clearly laid out in theBible, we tend to adopt
practices that play it safe, bynot putting women in positions
that might lead to prohibitedteaching. And in reality, you

(57:47):
know, this means women's thatwomen will rarely teach even in
situations where the churchwould be edified by the use of
their gifts.

We're trying to split hairs here, right?
Because it's like, alright,teaching with 30 bad, but
teaching. That's good, youshould do that. Okay, so now you
have to have a framework for allthese real life scenarios, to
decide what's approved what'sunapproved, what's edifying,
what's not edifying. And so if acouple goes up together in

(58:15):
church to share communion, andthe husband starts with a
scripture reading the wifeshares, personally from her
life, and then the husbandbrings the wood at the end is
the practicals. And somethoughts before praying over the
assembly. It's like, well, whatif the wife starts extrapolating
on the Scripture her husbandjust read, as she now straight
away from personal sharing andinto teaching with authority?

(58:38):
She assuming authority over herhusband by doing that by jumping
the gun? Is she assumingauthority over the men in the
assembly by saying this is whatyou think about the Scripture?
And where is that line? Yeah,right. How do you how do you
have something that you canapply 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 howI apply the scriptures, both in

(59:00):
the church practice and in how Ishow up serve in church. The
Bible doesn't actually give usthat line. It doesn't tell us
where that is. We just from thisperson, limited participation
viewpoint, these things are bothtrue. And we're trying to make
sense of what does that actuallylook like? And so as Karina
said, like, what ends uphappening is we adopt a practice
that's similar to what thePharisees how the Pharisees

(59:20):
would approach the law. Theysay, Okay, this is what the law
says about how to not break thestatus. So we're going to create
all these other rules to protectyou from even getting close to
breaking the law, because thatwould be terrible. And then
we're going to enforce thoserules as if they were the law to
keep you from breaking theactual law. And so you start

(59:41):
creating these guardrails, andthen it's like, okay, well, why
that guardrail? Why that one inparticular, like, why are we
doing it that way? And when youcreate those guardrails, the
other thing that happens is, yousay, Okay, well, we're gonna
play it safe because we don'teven want to get close to this
line. If there's a line betweenTeaching that's endorsed, and
teaching that's prohibited. Wedon't even want to get close,

(01:00:04):
because we want to make surewe're honoring up their church
practices. So we're gonna setthe line way over here to make
sure we never even get close tocrossing it. Which that is well
intentioned, yeah, right. Like,if you're trying to honor God,
you don't want to see how closeyou can get to sand before you
fall in. But what ends uphappening is that women do
rarely teach that events that wecreate. And this is case by

(01:00:28):
case, right? I'm kind of overgeneralizing some of this. But
the number of events that areset up for women to teach women
are far outweighed by everythingelse the church does. And so
even in our practices, we're notgiving proper weight to giving
women opportunities to exercisethose gifts, because that's just
not, it's not in the cadence ofhow we do church. And so the end

(01:00:49):
result of this viewpoint, andthe practices we create from it
are that women basically don'tget to use their gifts of
teaching. Because we don't wantto be in a position where they
could potentially teachsomething that would be
prohibited. And a

Corina Espejo (01:01:02):
lot of these guardrails, these prohibitions,
they're going to naturally beinfluenced by our culture and
how we interpret things likeauthority. So just, again, some
of the larger problems thatwe're seeing when we do that,
and we have different places,different churches who are going
to have different cultures, it'sgoing to be hard to make this a

(01:01:26):
universal practice, city to citycountry to country, you know,
coast to coast. And so thatthat's another big problem, a
part of this this one problem.
The second problem is that thisconcept of headship, it is going
to assume that Kafala entailsauthority. And we've talked
about how that's not anunfounded, educated guess.
Right? That's an unfoundedconclusion. The questions that

(01:01:48):
follow it, does it only apply towives and husbands? Are men in
general, the head of women ingeneral? And again, for that, I
think about it, what an 18 yearold boy, actually for talking
about first century church witha 13 year old man, because at 13
years old, they were consideredmen, would a 13 year old man be
the head of have a wife of anelder or some some other woman

(01:02:10):
who has a husband or even is wayolder? 60 year old woman, right?
How sure are we that authorityis the right reading of Kafala.
Since that reading wouldn't makesense in the other places where
the word appears in the NewTestament, even just by
consistent with Paul's writingsin and of itself, even if we're
just looking at the author. Andthe way that Paul is, as a

(01:02:32):
writer uses Kafala.

Travis Albritton (01:02:35):
And this really this principle of
headship, and that that meansthat men are the head, we have
to be really precise here.
Because if you read firstCorinthians 11, your English
translation might say, man isthe head of woman, but you'll
see a subtext there a littlenote where it actually says, or
you could say, husband and wife,because that's actually the
terminology that's actually thelanguage that you would see if

(01:02:56):
you read it in Greek. So we haveto be really precise here that
we're actually taking aninterpretive step to say, what
is the broader principle of whatPaul's trying to communicate?
And how do we translate thatwe're not going to go down the
rabbit hole of word for wordversus thought for thought,
translation, but justunderstand, when you're trying
to take something from onelanguage and translate it to
another, you have to makedecisions about intent. And

(01:03:17):
sometimes it's not super clear.
But if we just look atEphesians, five, First
Corinthians 11, the places whereheadship is linked to gender is
in the context of marriage. Andso is it appropriate then to
say, well, because in thisprinciple of headship, husbands
are the head of their wives,then that then extends to the

(01:03:40):
larger, broader family of God,that if you're a single woman in
a church, you don't have ahusband as your head. But then
all the men in that church wouldbe your spiritual husband in
that sense of having a headhaving someone who is your head,
who was giving you headship, andthen these different situations
of like, okay, teaching withauthority, and headship. Like,

(01:04:03):
what is what? How do you? How doyou put these things together?
Especially when there's othertranslations of Kafala. That
doesn't just mean authority. Itcould mean origin source, or it
could simply just mean like bodypart, like, head of the body
could follow of the body, right.
And remember, Jeannie wentthrough a bunch of different
passages in the New Testamentwhere Paul uses that word to
follow in different ways. Andthe way to translate, it isn't

(01:04:26):
always super clear. You cansometimes go either way. And so
we have to be careful to bereally certain that headship and
QA follow a means authority.
Because we can't say that with100% certainty, it might be
true, that it could just aseasily not be true. So we don't
want to put all our eggs in thatbasket and say, because this is

(01:04:46):
what a headship principle means.
We're now going to create churchpractices based on it when
there's still a lot ofdiscussion around. Do we
actually really understandheadship?

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 talkingabout the public assembly and
worship, how many men need to bein attendance, before it's a sin
or to pose as God for a woman toteach from the scriptures?

Very interesting question, right?
Because you, we can go toextremes, and say, Okay, if
you're on a double date withanother couple, you know, and
you're sharing about the thingsyou're learning on your quiet
times and saying, you know, Iread this passage, and, you
know, I learned this from thisscholar, and, you know, this is
what I've learned about what Godsays here, intuitively, we, that
doesn't really sound like you'retrying to claim authority over

(01:05:36):
them. So let's go to the otherextreme. Alright, so now you're
teaching from behind a pulpit,to a mixed audience of, you
know, 500 people, and half ofthem are men? Well, from a
limited participationstandpoint, that wouldn't be
okay. That wouldn't be Godhonoring. So then, where's the
line? We had this line in thesand of teaching with authority
versus exercising the gift ofteaching and how slippery that

(01:05:58):
is. What about this one? Yeah,right? Where's the line of the
number of men that need to bethere before a woman needs to
stop talking or to stopteaching? And here's the problem
with that the Bible isn'tinterested in giving us that
answer. So whatever answer wecome up with is subjective in
nature, you can say it's threemen, you could say it's 12 men,
you can pick biblical numbers712, maybe 50. But those numbers

(01:06:20):
aren't coming from the Bible.
They're coming from us trying tomake sense of how do we
reconcile these things, thesepractices that we see in the
Bible and the things we'retrying to do in our worship
assemblies. And so that's alsobecause it's subjective. Because
it's not clearly laid out in theBible. It's also really
difficult to defend when someonepoints out this discrepancy. And
so it's like, hey, if we're in asmall group, and there's eight

(01:06:43):
people there, and we've said,that's a fine number, there's
four couples, the wives canshare, with some level of
confidence, and passion aboutthings they're learning. But as
soon as another man shows up,she needs to defer to her
husband, because she's crossedthat threshold. Like, who picks
that number? Yeah, you can'treally defend it. You know,

(01:07:03):
we're trying to make sense ofwhat the Bible is teaching the
best we can. But if we'readopting positions that are
indefensible, that's gonna beproblematic. And we, we need to
wrestle with that. That's a bigchallenge with this limited
participation viewpoint.

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 alimited participation with
incredible certainty. But thenyou have people who are
genuinely trying to make senseof limited participation.
They're not against your stance,they're just genuinely trying to

(01:07:37):
practice it. They may havequestions like this logistical
that might feel nitpicky, butgenuinely they're trying to
understand and figure out how tobest apply this, you're going to
get questions like this. So tothose of you who get questions
like this, just understand andcome with incredible patience,
humility and compassion, becausechances are, they just want to

(01:07:59):
do right by whatever stances ishappening. And no matter the
emotion behind it, try and hearthat hear that they're just
trying, they're trying to do thebest they can to make sense of a
stance that has been taken,

right, because the posture that we're gonna,
we're gonna wrap up here in asecond, the righteous posture of
someone who holds this viewpointis I'm just trying to be
obedient to God's word. Youknow, I'm not trying to tell God
or dictate to God, what I thinkshould be true. I'm just trying
to take the Bible for what itis, and live it out. Right. And
that is an admirable posture,and something that we should all

(01:08:36):
imitate. But that doesn't meanthat we're not going to have
challenges implementing some ofthose positions. Okay. So now
that we've kind of walkedthrough how you would land in
this place of saying, there arecertain things that from the
Bible, it seems women shouldn'tdo, or is improper for women to
do in church. And now we'vewrestled through nine problems

(01:08:58):
or challenges to holding thatperspective. Let's kind of
reframe how you wouldcommunicate this viewpoints
holistically, not ignoring thesechallenges, not ignoring these
problems, but recognizing themfor what they are and still
making sense of it and movingforward in a way that's
actionable. Right? So we don'twant to just stay in this state

(01:09:20):
of paralysis of we're just notgoing to do anything at all
because how do we make sense ofthat? What would be a different
way of communicating this thenmaybe what we did a little bit
before?

Yeah, yeah. And I'll give an overview before I
because I actually I love this Itook speech and debate in high
school. And I was actually verythe team I was on we were very
good and so closing statementswas actually my thing. So this
is like cool. Nice. So fun. Sofun. Learn something new about
you today. Yeah, fun, fun fun.
So the first thing let me justgive a brief outline my my

(01:09:52):
general formula and it changesbut my general formula I love,
love, love. We fellowship ofchurches we call it an
encouragement sandwich, right.
But in in a similar fashion, youwant to say the things that are
edifying first and last, and youwant to just leave that taste in
people's mouth, things that arewidely agreed upon things that

(01:10:14):
are going to be encouraging tothe person you're talking to.
And so I highly encourage inorder to take a humble and
mature stance, hopefully you cando some recon and get to know
the person you're talking to, toknow how to speak, what is going
to speak to them first and last,and then somewhere in the
middle, just making sure to saythings like, hey, to the best of
my studying and knowledge, theseare the conclusions that I have

(01:10:38):
come to, and it's not consistentwith what everybody believes.
But it is where I have come,this is the conclusion that I
personally have come to. Soalright, let's give a stab
somebody asked the question, whydo you believe in limited
participation? Or what do youbelieve about women's roles?
Here's how I would answer withthis limited participation
stance. First, let me saybecause this can get lost in

(01:11:00):
everything that I talk about,that I have a high regard not
only for the authority ofScripture, but just to be
humbled to God's wisdom, that Ican evolve and that I can
change. And even when thingsdon't make complete sense to me
that I can have trust in God andHis overall print plan of his
redemptive work to redeem all ofhumanity to himself. And I do

(01:11:24):
know, I understand that theBible is clear that men and
women, they are equallyvaluable. And you look out, you
look throughout the Bible, andyou will see that both men and
women should be treated withequal honor in the church. And
so when we talk about what I'mabout to talk about, with
limited participation, I hopethat does not get out shadowed.

(01:11:46):
You'll also see in scriptures,and this is what I've come to
believe that First Corinthians11. And First Timothy two, they
seem to suggest that women dohave restrictions from certain
practices in that churchassembly. And you know, the
reasoning behind that. It's notalways easy to understand. And
it's not always easy to makesense of, for example, you know,

(01:12:08):
childbearing, you're savedthrough childbearing and because
of the angels, and there aregoing to be things that don't
make sense. And I don't want youto feel like that goes away,
that the things that areconfusing go away. But as of
now, I think I'm finding thatthe view that makes the most
sense to me, is that women dohave a certain limited
participation within the churchassembly, but not because God or

(01:12:32):
even me that we are anti womenand women are stupid. And that's
not what I believe, again, Ibelieve women are our CO rulers,
I believe they are image bearersof 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

(01:12:53):
something I've had to wrestlewith and submit to what seems
like God's will in every way.
And it is something that I'mfinding I need to trust God
with. And I'm okay to change mymind in the future. This is just
what I recognize now, what theScriptures are meaning, and that
we can stay true to them today.
But let's be real, there aremany challenges and taking this

(01:13:16):
position, and I do not want tooutwash that I don't want to
look over it, and the ones thatI wrestled through, to maintain
a good conscience before God.
But again, those wrestling's iIt's not just in this topic that
I wrestle, there are so manyother things that I wrestle with
in a very similar nature, and Iam willing to change my
convictions, I'm willing tolisten to what you have to say,

(01:13:38):
and to change my mind if it ischanged if my conscience has
changed. And if God reveals thatI am misguided in my thinking,
or have an incompleteunderstanding of the Scriptures,
the only thing I ask is that youdo the same. And as we begin,
and if you want to continue thisconversation of Why think
limited participation is the wayto go. I just hope that you have

(01:13:59):
that same stance, because justas much as I believe the
scripture has high authority,that it has high regard and that
we should all have humility toGod's wisdom. That is something
I am expecting of you as abeliever as well. So I hope you
extend to me that same courtesybecause I believe you're you're
an image bearer of God, too. Ibelieve you're a co ruler, as

(01:14:20):
well. So that's how I wouldpackage that.

So we've covered a lot in this episode.
Hopefully you stick around forthe whole thing if you're here.
Congratulations. We are not doneyet, though. Because we are
going to do the same thing wedid today. Really laying out the
case for and the problems withlimited participation. We're

(01:14:45):
gonna do the same thing nextweek with full participation,
building a biblical case for whywomen should be able to serve
unrestricted in church, and thenalso work through what those
challenges are. So we hope youstick around for that. We'll
catch you next week

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