These are days of great unrest. The Suffragette Movement gained its great victory—votes for women—years ago, and things have marched forward since then with giant strides. Even such a conservative institution as the Established Church is preparing to give women a place in her ministry.
From the point of view of politics, this question should not concern the Christian. His politics are heavenly. “Our conversation [“citizenship,” N.T. “politics”] is in heaven.” (Phil. 3:20)
We are, however, naturally affected by what surrounds us. Lawlessness in the world is apt to be reflected by lawlessness in the church. This being so, it appears to be a timely moment for the examination of this deeply important subject—Woman: her place in Scripture.
At first the subject seemed to divide itself under two heads:
1. Woman: her place in nature.
2. Woman: her place in grace.
It is, however, impossible to separate the two. Woman’s place in nature illustrates her place in grace, or rather her relation as a Christian woman to God.
This is brought out by the very way woman was created. The manner of it was unique—in sharp contrast to every other being. It is typical, symbolic, illustrative.
Adam is thrown into a deep sleep—type of the death of Christ. From his side a rib is taken, a woman builded therefrom, and presented to him as helpmeet. This is typical of the church—the result of the death of Christ—which will be presented to Him as His bride.
“Does not even nature itself teach you?” (1 Cor. 11:14) is capable of a wide application. God has in His wisdom put great differences in the physical, mental and emotional make-up of man and woman. He has most evidently marked them to be distinct, yet complementary.
Man’s superior height, strength, reasoning equipment stand in happy contrast to woman’s natural grace, gentleness, mental nimbleness.
The very fact that woman was “taken out of man” proves her equality. She is not an inferior, but an equal, a helpmeet. Between man and man there is similarity, identity—between man and woman there is equality, but with it diversity.
The very fact that woman was “taken out of man” proclaims the headship God has given man, as, also, her privilege to accord man the place God has given him.
Man and woman are equal morally but he is the head positionally.
Scripture distinctly states: “The man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man … Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man in the Lord. For as the woman is OF the man, even so is the man also BY the woman; but all things of God” (1 Cor. 11:8-9, 11-12). How exquisitely guarded and balanced a presentation of the truth is this!
This is all designed to illustrate the relationship between Christ and the church. In Ephesians 5 the relationship between husband and wife is unfolded. Is the wife to submit to the husband? It is on the ground that “the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church” (v.23). Are the husbands to love their wives? It is even “as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it” (v.25). Is the man told to leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife as one flesh? We are reminded: “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (v.32).
From the very first the reader will see woman’s place in nature is typical of her place in grace, and typical, as it widens out, of the church’s relation to Christ. How wonderful!
EVE
We are told, “Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (1 Tim. 2:13-14). Here we get the first and most powerful warning against woman taking the lead. A lurid beacon at the very start of man’s journey across the ocean of time.
Instead of repelling the serpent’s advances, and seeking the help and protection of her God-given head, she acted in independence. There is no need to labour the seriousness of the act, nor the unutterable sadness of its results.
SARAH
The first woman in the Bible after Eve to receive more than a passing notice is Sarah. Evidently she was a woman of vigorous personality. She was no weak plaything, without mind or will of her own. On the contrary, we should gather she was a masterful woman. But she stands as the example of “the holy women who trusted in God, being in subjection to their own husbands,” for we read, “Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well” (1 Peter 3:5-6).
This clearly gives us the position of woman in relation to man, and the practice followed by godly women of old.
DEBORAH
Deborah occupies a very unique place in Scripture. She was a prophetess—a married woman too, and judged Israel.
She was an exception to the rule, but the exception proves the rule.
Scripture does not speak against the place she took, nor does it approve. It simply states the fact.
Yet there is sufficient out of Deborah’s own mouth to see what she thought of it—to condemn, at any rate, the backwardness of the men, even if we go no further.
She summoned Barak to go against Sisera. As a prophetess she told him that the Lord would deliver the enemy into his hand.
But Barak in his unmanliness would not go except Deborah accompanied him. She promptly acceded to his request, but informed him that the journey should not be for his honour. Sisera should be sold into the hand of a woman.
Surely Deborah’s reply implied that if it were a matter of shame for Barak that a woman should slay Sisera, it was not less a matter of shame that a woman should be forced by the men’s backwardness to judge Israel.
NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN
When we come to the New Testament, we find the position of godly women honourable and beautiful in the highest degree.
The Virgin Mary—“highly favoured”—“blessed among women”; her cousin Elizabeth; Anna, the aged widow of four-score and four years, intent on God’s service, are most beautiful characters in connection with the birth of Christ.
Mary, the sister of Lazarus, sat at the Lord’s feet and heard His word. She it was who anointed Him for His burial, which act is never to lose its fragrance—“Wheresoever this gospel shall be told in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman has done, be told for a memorial of her” (Matt. 26:13). She earned praise than which none can be higher, “She has done what she could” (Mark 14:8). To Mary Magdalene was accorded the high honour of carrying the wondrous message of association with a risen Christ to His disciples, “I ascend to My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God” (John 20:17).
Think of the women “who ministered to Him [the blessed Lord] of their substance.” What honour!
And when we come to Christ ascended, and the Holy Ghost given, we are reminded of the “honourable women which were Greeks,” who believed; of Paul’s commendation of “those women which laboured with me in the gospel”; of Priscilla, who under the headship of her husband, had the privilege of instructing the eloquent Apollos in “the way of God more perfectly.”
What a lovely and honoured place is thus outlined for Christian women!
WOMAN’S PLACE IN MINISTRY
Her place is emphatically not one of public testimony. There are sixty-six books in the Bible, and all their authors were men. Not one was a woman. They were distinctly chosen of God.
There were twelve apostles. They were all men. Not one was a woman.
There were seventy sent out—in addition to the apostles—by the Lord. We are not told that there was one woman amongst them. The supposition that they were all men is so strong, taken in conjunction with the general teaching of Scripture on the point, that it amounts to proof positive.
There were “seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom,” chosen in Acts 6 to “serve tables.” Not one woman was chosen.
There were many witnesses cited in 1 Corinthians 15 to prove the resurrection of the Lord. Individual men are mentioned as witnesses, but there is no mention of a single woman. This is strikingly significant, as Mary was the first individua1 to see Christ risen, and was entrusted by Him with a wonderful message to the disciples. Her exclusion from the list of witnesses is the strongest proof that Scripture does not give women a place of public testimony.
There were bishops appointed in the early church. They were all men. No woman was among the number.
Deacons and elders were also appointed in the early church and described in 1 Timothy and in Titus. They were all men.
There are two witnesses in Revelation 11. They are prophets—not prophetesses or a prophet and prophetess, but prophets—men.
WOMAN OUT OF HER PLACE
When women get out of their place, they appear to be the special prey of the devil.
It is a woman in the parable, who introduced the leaven into the three measures of meal—type of the introduction of corrupting principles, which have permeated the Christian profession.
It was a woman—Eve—who was “in the transgression.”
There are “silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,” who are led captive by evil men in the perilous times of the last days. It is a woman—Jezebel—who stands historically in the Old Testament page as an example of all that is disgusting and wicked, who stands figuratively in Revelation as the example of ecclesiastical corruption and religious depravity of the worst type.
In the present day the great majority of spiritist mediums are women; modern spiritism began with women—the Fox sisters in America.
It was an hysterical woman—Mrs White—who by her blasphemous pretensions has been the leader, and largely the inventor, of that wicked system—Seventh-Day Adventism.
Christian Science—which is neither Christian nor scientific—owes its origin to Mrs Eddy—a woman.
Theosophy as known in the Western hemisphere was popularised by a woman—Madame Blavatsky; her work was carried on by a woman—Mrs Besant.
DECISIVE SCRIPTURAL INSTRUCTION
We read in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35:
“Let your women keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted to them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also says the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.”
This is plain. For a woman to take part publicly in the church is in defiance of Scripture.
But we are told the word “speak” really means “chatter.” We are told that the men sat on one side and the women on the other in the Christian assemblies, as is the custom in Jewish synagogues to this day. We are told the women brought scandal upon the public service by chattering.
But the word “speak” does not mean “chatter.”
It is the ordinary word for “speak,” and is used in reference to God Himself.
Others urge this has only reference to married women. But it seems too absurd to suppose that a woman should be able to speak the day before she is married, and be unable to do so the day after.
The fact is Scripture supposes women in a very general way being married, hence they were to ask their husbands at home. Clearly an unmarried woman might happily ask some married brother her questions and be well within the spirit of the divine instructions.
Again, Scripture says:
“If any man thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write to you are THE COMMANDMENTS OF THE LORD. But if any man be ignorant, let him be IGNORANT.” (1 Cor. 14:37-38)
Further, 1 Timothy 2:8, is very plain:
“I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.”
Here “men” means men in contradistinction to women. The Greek word employed here excludes women.
The next verse speaks of women in contradistinction to men, exhorting them to modesty and simplicity in dress and ornament.
Then the Apostle adds:
“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man but to be in silence.” (1 Tim. 2:11-12)
This carries the question further than 1 Corinthians 14, where conduct in the assembly is in view. Here it is conduct as between man and woman, and would include any public testimony, where both sexes were present.
Two reasons are given:
(1) “For Adam was first formed, then Eve.” (v.13)
Evidently this is the strongest reason, as showing the order of creation; the illustration, too, of Christ and the church.
Then:
(2) “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” (v.14)
Here governmental consequences are seen consequent on the first woman not being subject to God’s order.
THE DIVINE TYPE DESTROYED
Moreover, woman stepping out of her place is the destruction of the type as to man and woman illustrating Christ and the church. We read:
“The head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” (1 Cor. 11:3)
But the reader may point out that there is provision made in Scripture for women praying and prophesying (see 1 Cor. 11); that Philip’s daughters prophesied (it never says they prophesied before Paul, as many state); that women laboured with Paul in the Gospel, and inquire if this does not prove their right to public ministry.
It leaves room for very happy, blessed service. Would there were more of it! But it clearly does not include ministry in the assembly, or public testimony before a mixed audience of men and women. If it did, Scripture would contradict itself. If the Holy Ghost led women to such service, He would lead them to violate Scripture given by the same Holy Ghost, which would be unthinkable.
It may be urged, women evangelists have been much owned of God. Yes, that is true, but it is no proof that they were right, and in all possibility they would have been owned still more if their service had been kept within lawful bounds. “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.”
Ample room is left for the ministry of women among women and children, mothers’ meetings, Sunday-school work, etc., besides the helping of the Lord’s servants in a similar way to which the women laboured with Paul.
The comfort and encouragement an active, godly, Christian woman—moved by love to Christ and souls, and yet governed by Scripture—can render is incalculable. When we meet such we profoundly respect them.
Mary anointed the Lord for His burial. Martha served the Lord right well. Phebe was a servant of the church, and a succourer of many. Lydia entertained the Apostle Paul in her house. Priscilla, subject to the headship and leadership of her husband, helped Apollos to understand the way of God more perfectly. Women laboured with Paul in the Gospel. Would that the descendants of these godly women were found in every city and village in the world! Happy, blessed service! There is no room for women to repine at the divine restrictions set on their service. There is more work for them to do than they can ever overtake.
Let Christian women rise from their study of Scripture determined, by God’s grace, to carry out its instructions as to their relation to man; to illustrate by their conduct the wonderful truth of Christ and the church; to be individually a protest against the lawless spirit of the age; to glory in the wonderful and unique place which is theirs. Then will God be glorified. Then will their true usefulness be available to the full. Then will Christian men profoundly respect them, and be helped and influenced by them, and find out what that truly wonderful word, HELPMEET—which alone belongs to women—means.