Silencing The Lambs

Do Women Have The Right To Preach?

In Harmony

When I read the Scripture, Jesus was a champion for women. He condemned the traditional attitudes and practices of His day toward women by His own deliberate actions. He spoke to women in public, which was discouraged by law, and He raised them to a new status by letting them travel with His itinerant party on His preaching tour through Galilee (Luke 8:1-3). Women were faithful in ministry with Jesus, providing him with food and housing during his journeys. Jesus, in return blessed the women in his ministry. Jesus even called the religious leaders hypocrites after they criticized him for healing a woman on the Sabbath. Jesus pointed out that they treated their animals better than they treated women (Luke 13:15-16).

If Jesus was a champion for women, why would Paul fall into traditional attitudes of the time and subordinate women? The answer to this question lies in what was going on at the time when Paul was writing to Timothy. After some research, I now believe that Paul was speaking on an issue that was relevant at the time and addressing the cultural context. I read an article by David Fees which gave me insight about 1 Tim 2:11-14.

David Fees explained that Timothy was in Ephesus. At that time, Ephesus was the world center of paganism, governed spiritually by the female deity Artemis, whom the Romans called Diana. The cult of Artemis taught the superiority of the female and advocated female domination of the male. It espoused a doctrine of feminine procreation, teaching that this goddess was able to bring forth offspring without male involvement. Sexual perversion, fertility rites, and endless myths characterized the cult, and elaborate genealogies traced through female rather than male bloodlines. Rather than an androcentric perspective (dominated by or emphasizing masculine interests or a masculine point of view), they were coming from an estrocentric, or female, perspective.

Also present in Ephesus was a group of Jewish Gnostics who combined the teaching of Artemis with the teaching of the Old Testament story of Adam and Eve. In the most prevalent Gnostic version of the story, Eve was the “illuminator” of mankind because she was the first to receive 'true knowledge' from the serpent, which Gnostics saw as the “savior” and revealer of truth. Gnostics believed that Eve taught this new revelation to Adam, and, being the mother of all, was the progenitor (predecessor) of the human race. Adam, they said, was Eve's son rather than her husband. This belief reflected the Gnostic doctrine that a female deity could bring forth children without male involvement.

Imagine the confusion that was going on in the church with Jewish Gnostics spreading their beliefs to the first Christians. Paul was simply trying to clarify and address the confusion that was going on in the Church concerning the Gnostic version of the Adam and Eve story versus the first Christians' belief. When you read 1Timothy 2:11-14 with this new insight, instead of subjugating women, Paul is actually liberating women.

"No, I'm not with the Church of God in Christ. With them I could not be a preacher, a pastor, and certainly not a bishop, But I was brought up in the Church of God in Christ; in it a woman can only be an Evangelist or a Missionary. And they are losing some very good people because of that restriction. No woman today is going to go through Seminary and get a Masters degree or a Doctorate degree and just be an Evangelist, a Missionary, or a Sunday School teacher. I'm not demeaning these positions; I am just saying that a woman who prepares herself much, as those degrees indicate, has been given much, so much is expected of her, and she also expects much more than what they will allow. As a result, the COGIC is losing some of their best people. As you know, 90% of the church members are women. [But] women are not going to go to school and get PhD's to go downstairs and cook chicken.”

Bishop Dr. Ernestine Cleveland Reems
The Season of the Woman: Pastor Ernestine Cleveland Reems is Chosen Bishop
GibbsMagazine.Com

In Harmony

A key part of understanding 1Timothy 2:12, lies in Greek translation. For example, take the Greek word authentein. Many believe that the word is translated to mean, “to usurp authority” over a man, or “to have authority” over a man. Around the time the New Testament was written, the most common meaning of authentein was “to be, or claim to be the author or the originator of something.” Authentein is the crucial verb of 1Timothy 2:12. Authentein does not appear anywhere else in the Bible, so I will go with the most common meaning of the word. Thus, I believe Paul is saying, “I am not allowing (present tense for that situation) a women to teach or to proclaim herself the originator of man.” Authentein. What a difference a word makes!

Also the word that is frequently translated “silence,” hesuchia, also means harmony, peace, conformity or agreement. I believe that Paul goes on to say; “she must be in agreement,” meaning agreement with the Scriptures and with sound teaching in the Church.

He continues in this vein saying, “Adam was formed first, then Eve.” This statement opposes the doctrine of Eve as predecessor. He also says, “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was! And Sinned!” This statement directly contradicts the notion that Eve was the “illuminator,” and the carrier of new revelation.” Timothy 2:11-12 (Paraphrased and Amplified).

Now hold on to your hats and check this out:

[Now in response to the Gnostic teaching stemming for the worship of Artemis that Eve was the originator of Adam and the goddess of life], let the woman learn (in agreement with sound doctrine) with all submission (to that doctrine). And I do not permit a woman to teach that she is the originator or the illuminator of man, but to be in agreement (with the church). For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived [his was direct disobedience], but woman being deceived [thus not being infallible], fell into transgression [proving that she was human.]

Talk about a revelation!

Women in the Church: Yet there were some internal tensions. With the emergence of middle-class membership came issues about women's participation in the church, as some black women now had the relative leisure to look beyond the immediacies of life. Several female leaders in this era raised the issue of women's ordination, only to be rebuffed by the male hierarchy. Instead, women formed missionary societies to address all manner of local and international needs, from the support of job training in their communities to funding for African American missionaries to Africa. They worked on urban ills, established reading groups, and advocated for better living conditions. They also wrote for religious periodicals, promoting quite traditional ideals of Victorian womanhood, respectability, and racial uplift. Women also continued work among their less fortunate counterparts in the rural South, in what continued to be an uneasy alliance. Like male religious leaders, too, they protested the creeping effects of Jim Crow laws and the systematic violence of lynching.

In case I'm not clear,

Christian women, we are no longer bound by the subjugated translation of 1 Tim 2:11-14. Jesus paid it all on Calvary. We are no longer under a curse. There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28). Women, go out and exercise the gifts that God has given you to edify the saints, evangelized the lost, and exalt the savior! In the words of T.D. Jakes, become a leading lady.

Joy O. Banks
15 December 2002
joy@praisenet.org
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Ebony: Greatest Black Women Preachers

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In the most extensive poll of its kind, Ebony Magazine named 15 pastors, evangelists, professors and scholars who represent "in the highest degree the great Black pulpit art of passion, eloquence and wisdom." Three of the ministers tied for the first-place positron in the balloting: the Rev. Prathia Hall, the Rev. Carolyn Knight and the Rev. Vashti McKenzie. The trio was closely followed by the Rev. Renita Weems, the Rev. Suzan Johnson Cook and the Rev. Ann Lightner-Fuller.

The Rev. PRATHIA LAURAANN HALL, pastor of Mt. Sharon Baptist Church in Philadelphia, is in "a class of her own," the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. of Chicago says, and "lies the gospel to new levels, lifting hearers simultaneously with an understanding of an awesome God that is unparalleled." A graduate of the Freedom Movement of the '60s and a descendent of a long line of preachers, Dr. Hall is also dean of African-American Studies and a lecturer in Christian ethics at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. The Rev. Charles W. Adams of Detroit says, "Better than anyone else in the pulpit today, she combines the best scholarship with keenly precise Biblical interpretation and passionately persUasive delivery."

The Rev. VASHTI M. MCKENZIE, pastor of Payne Memorial AME Church in Baltimore, is described as an "electrifying speaker" who is "the epitome of eloquence and dynamic delivery." Dr. McKenzie is the author of several books on the leadership of women in the church as well as a volume of sermons. The Rev. Otis Moss Jr. called her "an extraordinary person in gifts, skills, education and character." Another praised her for her "regal elegance...and a majestic application of Scripture to vicissitudes, vagaries, circumstances, and situations of daily urban life." Several of her fellow ministers said she has the gifts to become the first woman bishop in the AME church.

The Rev. CAROLYN ANN KNIGHT, assistant professor of homiletics at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, was cited as a "gifted, stand-up preacher" who delivers "fresh and fulfilling" sermons. Rev. Knight is the founder and president of "CAN DO!" Ministries, dedicated to youth and young adults. Dean Clarence Newsome of the Howard University School of Divinity says she has "a disciplined but creative way of marshaling eternal truths from heaven to the human heart with a quality of pulpit voice and picturesque speech that is unique to the best of the African-American religious heritage."

The Rev. RENITA J. WEEMS associate professor of Old Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, Tenn., was praised for her ability to make Scripture "come alive to town and gown" and for her "profound understanding of the pain, suffering, aspirations and hopes of African-American women." In addition to her teaching ministry, Dr. Weems is the author of two books on women's spirituality and wholeness. Dr. Wright said she "combines the scholarship of a Ph.D. in Old Testament and Hebrew languages with the Deep South's wisdom of Black women who have known hard times."

The Rev. SUZAN JOHNSON COOK, founder and senior pastor of Bronx Christian Fellowship Church, N.Y., was praised for the seamless construction and creativity of her sermons. Dr. Cook also received high marks for compassion. "She is better than anyone I know in relating the Gospel to the present-day needs of people," a fellow minister said. Dr. Cook, who was the only minister appointed by President Clinton to the National Advisory Board on Race, is the editor or co-author of several books, including the acclaimed, Sister to Sister: Devotions For and From African-American Women. Another book, on spirituality for women in the workforce, will be released soon. She is "a superb preacher and an excellent writer," concludes another respondent..

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