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Our aim at Redemption Hill Church is to have men and women serving God in every way that He has intended for them to do. When it comes to the roles of men and women in church, we see two very clear principles in scripture that become the foundation for our understanding of this subject. Firstly, the equality of both men and women in God’s sight as equal image bearers of God, identical in value and worth, and secondly the distinct roles that God has called men and women to play by virtue of how He made us.

This is taken both from common sense by looking at the physiological differences between men and women and secondly by what scripture teaches.

What are the primary differences in roles?

In the church, we see that woman are able to do everything that men can do except for two areas that are particularly linked to the role that men are primarily designed to carry. These two areas are a) being elders, and b) teaching doctrine.

The reason for men being elders in the local church is taken from scripture, which only ever speaks of men being elders. Paul only ordained male elders, and there is no reference to anything other than male eldership in scripture. This is not in any way hierarchical, but rather in accordance with the roles that God has assigned. The areas of ministry that are uniquely limited to elders are setting doctrine, carrying out church discipline, and the overall direction of the church. Shepherding, leading, various forms of teaching, etc are primarily elders roles but not limited to them. The area of teaching (setting) doctrine is taken from 1 Timothy 2.12. Elders are to be those who teach and protect the doctrine of the church.

Women then are able to do everything other than these two things, The question that we then ask is, what are the practical out workings of women not being able to teach doctrine in a headship type of role? And what does this mean that women are able to do at RHC?

There are many places in scripture that speak of woman ministering:

• They are (with men) to do the work of the ministry (Eph 4.12)
• They can pray and prophesy in church (1 Cor 11.5) The prophet Joel promises that they will prophesy, as interpreted by Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2.17)
• They are encouraged to teach other woman, especially about marriage and family matters (Titus 2.3)
• They can be used by God with spiritual gifts, like Agabus’s daughters (Acts 21.9)
• They can (with their husbands) teach or ‘show more adequately the way’ other men in certain situations (Acts 18.26)
• They can serve as deacons (Romans 16.1, 1 Tim 3.11)

To help answer the question ‘what then can women do?’ we have listed some of the things that the women can do:

Community Groups: Women can lead Community Groups, although we would prefer that if there were men in the group that they co-led the group with another man. We wouldn’t object to a lady leading a Community Group for a meeting, especially if she was going through the study notes from Sunday’s sermon or some other material.

Lead various ministries: Women can and do lead various ministries at RHC. Examples include outreach and evangelism groups, arts groups, Children’s ministries, AskAnything website ministry, visitation teams, prayer groups, social groups, care and compassion, follow up, counseling, social outreach, worship etc (the list is almost endless). There are obviously some ministries that are best led by the elders, such as the overall pastoral functions and teaching / doctrine areas of the church, etc.

Be actively involved in services on Sundays: Worship leading, leading services, communion, and leading prayer times are all open to women at RHC. In addition to this women are encouraged to be involved in most aspects of Sunday services. Giving testimonies, sharing encouragements, teaching the women on Sundays (that men would do well to pay attention to as well!), minister in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, etc.

Leading: Some women are born with an ability to lead, as a gift from God (Rom 12.8). We would want women to flourish in these areas, including sharing at and facilitating community groups, specifically teaching other women, teaching women at church, as well as encouraging, sharing and testifying at church on Sundays.

Teaching: The scripture is clear that women can teach other women, (Titus 2.3) and pray and prophesy in church (1 Cor 11.5).

We would not be comfortable with a woman preaching on a Sunday at RHC in the way that Simon (or one of the other elders) normally would. By this we mean that we would not give them a text and say ‘go ahead and preach this week’. However we would allow a lady to address the women of the church for a portion of a sermon on a Sunday, and we would allow them to testify, share an encouragement (lengthy or short) that God may be impressing on their hearts (hopefully from scripture!) and be used of God in any of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

We want our women to feel free to minister, share and serve the body with their gifts. The only roles on Sunday we would reserve for men would be the preaching of the word through a passage as the primary instruction on a Sunday, and other specific functions that elders should carry out, such as carrying out church discipline, etc. 

Some commonly asked questions:

Would we allow a female guest speaker to preach at RHC?

I would have to say that it is quite unlikely, although we would not make a categorical statement like that. There may be a time or situation in which we felt a godly lady has a message for the church that we should hear, and we would want to be open to that. Someone once asked John Piper a similar question: “I’m a guy. Is it wrong for me to listen to Beth Moore?”

He answered like this: “No. Unless you begin to become dependent on her as your shepherd—your pastor. This is the way I feel about women speaking occasionally in Sunday school. We don’t need to be picky on this. The Bible is clear that women shouldn’t teach and have authority over men. In context, I think this means that women shouldn’t be the authoritative teachers of the church—they shouldn’t be elders. That is the way Rick Warren is understanding it, and most of us understand it that way.

This doesn’t mean you can’t learn from a woman, or that she is incompetent and can’t think. It means that there is a certain dynamic between maleness and femaleness that when a woman begins to assume an authoritative teaching role in your life the manhood of a man and the womanhood of a woman is compromised.

To the question of whether men should listen to a woman like Elisabeth Elliot—who was the Beth Moore of my generation. Elisabeth Elliot provoked students to be lay down your life missionaries. I love it! Sock it to them Elisabeth! She was so in your face about laying your life down and being radically obedient and totally committed. She was not a pastor, and she didn’t even preach on Sunday mornings. She is my kind of lady. I can learn heaps from her.

I want to learn from my wife and I am happy to learn from Beth Moore. But I don’t want to get into a relationship of listening or attending a church where a woman is becoming my pastor, my shepherd or my authority. I think that would be an unhealthy thing for a man to do. I could give reasons for that biblically, experientially and psychologically, but I have given the gist of it.

So the answer is, no it is not wrong for you to listen to Beth Moore, but it could become wrong. I think Beth Moore would be happy with that answer. I’ve talked to her about this, and I think she would be OK with what I’ve said. Our paths cross at the Passion Conference every now and then, and we talk.”

(The following are questions and answers taken from the book “Biblical Manhood and Womanhood” by John Piper and Wayne Grudem)

2. Priscilla taught Apollos didn’t she (Acts 18:26)? And she is even mentioned before her husband Aquila. Doesn’t that show that the practice of the early church did not exclude women from the teaching office of the church?

 We are eager to affirm Priscilla as a fellow worker with Paul in Christ (Romans 16:3)! She and her husband were very influential in the church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 16:19) as well as Ephesus. We can think of many women in our churches today who are like Priscilla. Nothing in our understanding of Scripture says that when a husband and wife visit an unbeliever (or a confused believer-or anyone else) the wife must be silent. It is easy for us to imagine the dynamics of such a discussion in which Priscilla contributes to the explanation and illustration of baptism in Jesus’ name and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Our understanding of what is fitting for men and women in that kind of setting is not an oversimplified or artificial list of rules for what the woman and man can say and do. It is rather a call for the delicate and sensitive preservation of personal dynamics that honor the headship of Aquila without squelching the wisdom and insight of Priscilla. There is nothing in this text that cannot be explained on this understanding of what happened. We do not claim to know the spirit and balance of how Priscilla and Aquila and Apollos related to each other. We only claim that a feminist reconstruction of the relationship has no more warrant than ours. The right of Priscilla to hold an authoritative teaching office cannot be built on an event about which we know so little. It is only a guess to suggest that the order of their names signifies Priscilla’s leadership. Luke may simply have wanted to give greater honor to the woman by putting her name first (1 Peter 3:7), or may have had another reason unknown to us. Saying that Priscilla illustrates the authoritative teaching of women in the New Testament is the kind of precarious and unwarranted inference that is made again and again by evangelical feminists and then called a major Biblical thrust against gender-based role distinctions. But many invalid inferences do not make a major thrust.

3. Are you saying that it is all right for women to teach men under some circumstances?

 When Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:12, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent,” we do not understand him to mean an absolute prohibition of all teaching by women. Paul instructs the older women to “teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women” (Titus 2:3-4), and he commends the teaching that Eunice and Lois gave to their son and grandson Timothy (2 Timothy 1:5; 3:14). Proverbs praises the ideal wife because “She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue” (Proverbs 31:26). Paul endorses women prophesying in church (1 Corinthians 11:5) and says that men “learn” by such prophesying (1

64 Corinthians 14:31) and that the members (presumably men and women) should “teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” (Colossians 3:16). Then, of course, there is Priscilla at Aquila’s side correcting Apollos (Acts 18:26).

It is arbitrary to think that Paul had every form of teaching in mind in 1 Timothy 2:12. Teaching and learning are such broad terms that it is impossible that women not teach men and men not learn from women in some sense. There is a way that nature teaches (1 Corinthians 11:14) and a fig tree teaches (Matthew 24:32) and suffering teaches (Hebrews 5:8) and human behavior teaches (1 Corinthians 4:6; 1 Peter 3:1). If Paul did not have every conceivable form of teaching and learning in mind, what did he mean? Along with the fact that the setting here is the church assembled for prayer and teaching (1 Timothy 2:8-10; 3:15), the best clue is the coupling of “teaching” with “having authority over men.” We would say that the teaching inappropriate for a woman is the teaching of men in settings or ways that dishonor the calling of men to bear the primary responsibility for teaching and leadership. This primary repsonsibility is to be carried by the pastors or elders. Therefore we think it is God’s will that only men bear the responsibility for this office.

4. Can’t a pastor give authorization for a woman to teach Scripture to the congregation, and then continue to exercise oversight while she teaches?

It is right for all the teaching ministries of the church to meet with the approval of the guardians and overseers (=elders) of the church. However, it would be wrong for the leadership of the church to use its authority to sanction the de facto functioning of a woman as a teaching elder in the church, only without the name. In other words, there are two kinds of criteria that should be met in order for the teaching of a woman to be biblically affirmed. One is to have the endorsement of the spiritual overseers of the church (=elders). The other is to avoid contexts and kinds of teaching that put a woman in the position of functioning as the de facto spiritual shepherd of a group of men or to

avoid the kind of teaching that by its very nature calls for strong, forceful pressing of men’s consciences on the basis of divine authority.

5. How can you be in favor of women prophesying in church but not in favor of women being pastors and elders? Isn’t prophecy at the very heart of those roles?

No. The role of pastor/elder is primarily governance and teaching (1 Timothy 5:17). In the list of qualifications for elders the prophetic gift is not mentioned, but the ability to teach is (1 Timothy 3:2). In Ephesians 4:11, prophets are distinguished from pastor/teachers. And even though men learn from prophecies that women give, Paul distinguishes the gift of prophecy from the gift of teaching (Romans 12:6-7; 1 Corinthians 12:28). Women are nowhere forbidden to prophesy. Paul simply regulates

the demeanor in which they prophesy so as not to compromise the principle of the spiritual leadership of men (1 Corinthians 11:5-10). Prophecy in the worship of the early church was not the kind of authoritative, infallible revelation we associate with the written prophecies of the Old Testament.6 It

was a report in human words based on a spontaneous, personal revelation from the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 14:30) for the purpose of edification, encouragement, consolation, conviction, and guidance (1 Corinthians 14:3, 24-25; Acts 21:4; 16:6-10). It was not necessarily free from a mixture of human error, and thus needed assessment (1 Thessalonians 5:19-20; 1 Corinthians 14:29) on the basis of the apostolic (Biblical) teaching (1 Corinthians 14:36-38; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3). Prophecy in the early church did not correspond to the sermon today or to a formal exposition of Scripture. Both

women and men could stand and share what they believed God had brought to mind for the good of the church. The testing of this word and the regular teaching ministry was the responsibility of the elder-teachers. This latter role is the one Paul assigns uniquely to men.7

6. Since it says in 1 Corinthians 14:34 that “women should remain silent in the churches,” it doesn’t seem like your position is really Biblical because of how much speaking you really do allow to women. How do you account for this straightforward prohibition of women speaking?

The reason we believe Paul does not mean for women to be totally silent in the church is that in 1 Corinthians 11:5 he permits women to pray and prophesy in church: “[E]very woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head.” But someone may ask, “Why do you choose to let 1 Corinthians 11:5 limit the meaning of 1 Corinthians 14:34 rather than the other way around?”

To begin our answer, we notice in both 1 Corinthians 14:35 and 1 Corinthians 11:6 that Paul’s concern is for what is “shameful” or “disgraceful” for women (aischron in both verses and only here in 1 Corinthians). The issue is not whether women are competent or intelligent or wise or well-taught. The issue is how they relate to the men of the church. In 1 Corinthians 14:34 Paul speaks of submission, and in 1 Corinthians 11:3 he speaks of man as head. So the issue of shamefulness is at root an issue of doing something that would dishonor the role of the men as leaders of the congregation. If all speaking were shameful in this way, then Paul could not have condoned a woman’s praying and prophesying, as he does in 1 Corinthians 11:5 precisely when the issue of

shamefulness is what is at stake. But Paul shows in 1 Corinthians 11:5-16 that what is at stake is not that women are praying and prophesying in public but how they are doing it. That is, are they doing it with the dress and demeanor that signify their affirmation of the headship of the men who are called to lead the church?

In a similar way we look into the context of 1 Corinthians 14:33-36 to find similar clues for the kind of speaking Paul may have in mind when he says it is “shameful” for a woman to speak. We notice again that the issue is not the ability or the wisdom of women to speak intelligently but how women are relating to men (hypotassestho¯son-”let them be in submission”). Some kind of interaction is taking place that Paul thinks compromises the calling of the men to be the primary leaders of the church. Chapter 6 of this book argues in detail that the inappropriate interaction relates to the testing of prophecies referred to in 1 Corinthians 14:29. Women are taking a role here that Paul thinks is inappropriate. This is the activity in which they are to be silent.9 In other words, what Paul is calling for is not the total silence of women but a kind of involvement that signifies, in various ways, their glad affirmation of the leadership of the men God has called to be the guardians and overseers of the flock.

How do you explain God’s apparent endorsement of women in the Old Testament who had prophetic or leadership roles?

 First, we keep in mind that God has no antipathy toward revealing His will to women. Nor does He pronounce them unreliable messengers. The differentiation of roles for men and women in ministry is rooted not in women’s incompetence to receive or transmit truth, but in the primary responsibility of men in God’s order to lead and teach. The instances of women who prophesied and led do not call this order into question. Rather, there are pointers in each case that the women followed their unusual paths in a way that endorsed and honored the usual leadership of men, or indicted their failures to lead. For example, Miriam, the prophetess, focused her ministry, as far as we can tell, on the women of Israel (Exodus 15:20). Deborah, a prophetess, judge, and mother in Israel (Judges 4:4; 5:7), along with Jael (Judges 5:24-27), was a living indictment of the weakness of Barak and other men in Israel who should have been more courageous leaders (Judges 4:9). (The period of the judges is an especially precarious foundation for building a vision of God’s ideal for leadership. In those days God was not averse to bringing about states of affairs that did not conform to His revealed will in order to achieve some wise purpose [cf. Judges 14:4].) Huldah evidently exercised her prophetic gift not in a public preaching ministry but by means of private consultation (2 Kings 22:14-20). And Anna the prophetess filled her days with fasting and prayer in the temple (Luke 2:36-37). We must also keep in mind that God’s granting power or revelation to a person is no sure sign that this person is an ideal model for us to follow in every respect. This is evident, for example, from the fact that some of those God blessed in the Old Testament were polygamists (e.g. Abraham and David). Not even the gift of prophecy is proof of a person’s obedience and endorsement by God. As strange as this sounds, Matthew 7:22, 1 Corinthians 13:2, and 1 Samuel 19:23-24 show that this is so. Moreover, in the case of each woman referred to above we have an instance of a charismatic emergence on the scene, not an installation to the ordinary Old Testament office of priest, which was the responsibility of men.