UNPUBLISHED BOOK: GOOD ORDER IN THE CHURCH

Leslie McFall

EXCURSUS 1: Critique of John Stott's position

An evaluation of John Stott's view on the ministry of women in: Issues Facing Christian Today (Basingstoke, Hants: Marshall Morgan & Scott, 1984. "13. Women, Men and God," pp. 234-57)

Before presenting the theological background against which John Stott sets his case I shall set out the generally accepted biblical understanding of the relationship between Adam and God, and between Adam and Eve, as held by conservative-evangelicals. Disagreements in this area will have direct consequences for the understanding of the place of men and women in the New Creation and the Church.

There are two crucial questions that need to be answered from Scripture if we are to understand the role of men and women in the Christian Church. The two questions are:

1. What authority has God given to women?

2. What work has He given women to do?

These two questions cannot be separated into water-tight compartments because the substance of one (her authority) lies within the other (its expression), because woman's work and her authority are interconnected when set over against man, her head. The answers cannot be found in inherited knowledge. When we become new creatures in Christ we receive the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth, and into a right understanding of the Word of God.

Men need to know why God created them and what authority He has given to him. Women, likewise, need to know why God created them and what authority He has given her, and how these relate to the authority and role He has given to man. This knowledge has to be acquired through revelation. It is not inherited.

Under Part One: Introduction, we noted that Adam had been given his reason for living before God created Eve. Consequently his reason for living could not have included Eve in it. He was placed on earth to take control of it under the Creator's delegated authority and headship. He was to serve the Creator in a direct headship relation. God was his head.

God created Eve for Adam. Her origin arose from a "sense of need" that originated in Adam, not in God. The fashioning of Eve's body, mind, and soul was carried out with the sole intention of providing Adam with the most perfect companion he could wish for.

Eve's purpose for living was to be a loving companion, wife and mother. Eve, coming later, entered into a world already committed into Adam's hands. Both Adam and Eve accepted the different relationship that God originated for each of them. The head of Adam was God: the head of Eve was Adam. Common to both headships was love. Without love these two headships would have degenerated into a master-servant, or employer-employee relationship.

If we define love as an outgoing concern for another's good, then Adam's love for the Lord God expressed itself continually in the thought of "not my will but yours be done." Likewise Eve's desire was to carry out Adam's will as fully, and to the same degree of commitment, as he carried out God's will. Love, not force or compulsion, motivated all they did for each other. And all was for the glory of God.

There are two elements that characterise these two love-headships. First, the relationship is a love relationship. Second, this love expresses itself continually in the desire of one to do the will of the other. One will is used to see that the other's will is achieved. There are not two wills but one, and one outcome, not two. Therefore there can be no disunity or disharmony in a headship relation. If there is disunity it means there are two competing wills for two outcomes. The headship relation breaks down the moment two competing wills come into existence. A marriage that is built on headship cannot break down. Only when the headship breaks down can a marriage break up.

The sin of Adam and Eve had catastrophic consequences. The entrance of sin brought about irreversible alterations to the whole of creation. Pure, unadulterated love, so essential in the two love-headships died within the Human soul as an inherited characteristic of being Human. It was replaced by a fallen human nature which was characterised by every form of self-centredness imaginable, and this fallen nature has been transmitted to all men. Adam "begat a son in his own likeness, in his own image," not in the image in which he had been created. That first perfect "image of God" was permanently lost as an inherited characteristic of what constituted our once perfect Human nature. Although a vestige of that original Human nature is a characteristic of every human being since Adam's time, we are not truly "Human." We are a fallen, incomplete version of the Human nature that left God's hands. In Jesus we see what that original Human nature looked like in all its perfection. He was perfect man.

Also as a perfect man we see in Jesus' headship relation to his Father the perfect obedience that Adam (and all his descendants) should have given to God. Jesus, as the Second Adam, lived a life of perfect obedience to the will of his Father, and as a result his righteous life and death can be offered to all who will accept him as their head. He used his will to accomplish the Father's will. This is our working definition of headship.

If the first casualty of sin was the death of pure love, its corollary was the emergence of a loveless creation. Sin penetrated deeply and permanently into the entire creation. Nothing in the present world is as it left the hand of a perfect Creator. Everything has the mark of imperfection about it. Imperfect human beings were born, and in place of a natural love-headship being an inherited characteristic of every human being born into the world we find a force-headship emerging, "he shall rule over you."

This means that force-headship will be the natural inherited condition for the post-Fall world, and will characterise all societies, peoples and nations which do not have Christ as their head. Christ alone can transform and replace force-headships with his love-headship.

Before the Fall the Lord God was the Head of Adam, and Adam, in his turn, was the head of Eve. Here was an hierarchical structure of authority and responsibility in which each knew their place and privileges. Here was perfect order. Eve used her will to do Adam's will, and Adam used his will to do God's will. In this way God was in complete control of His world. His will was being done on earth as it was being done in heaven.

For the purpose of redeeming mankind God made Jesus Christ the head of every man, and Jesus took on a new relation to his Father which he never knew before&emdash;the Father became his Head. The original, pre-Fall headship of Man and Woman was unchanged by this new arrangement because the New Kingdom was to restore the original love-headships between Man and Woman, and between Man and God through Christ as Man's new head.

If we take God's headship, as expressed in His relation to Adam, as our perfect example of "headship" then we see that headship involves God's right to govern Adam's life totally. He was created for God. Woman was created for Man, therefore Man must likewise be fully in control of his delegated sphere of authority and responsibility. He has this God-given status for all time.

The second characteristic we see in God's headship is that He is a loving God. Everything He does for Man is out of love for him.

Third, as a God of love He is also characterised as being a God of order. Disorder is a direct challenge to His headship over everything. Perfect love manifests itself in perfect obedience. In God's world, order and obedience are inseparable. Likewise disorder and disobedience are two sides of the one coin. In all love-headships perfect obedience is at the core of the relationship. Without it disorder takes its place and the headship breaks down.

Women are expressly commanded to obey their husbands in everything after the pattern of the Church obeying Christ, and of Jesus obeying his Father. Man is to love after the pattern of the Lord's love for the Church.

Because God is a God of order He has set Man as head over Woman, just as He has set Christ as head over every man. In view of this analogy it would be against good order for man not to obey Christ his head in everything, and for Woman not to obey her husband in everything. The two go together. If perfect love casts out fear, then lack of love results in fear. The former results in a love-headship, the latter in a force-headship. Force-headship was not an original part of Adam's constitution. It could not exist in his pure Human nature because he had perfect love for his wife. It did not exist until sin entered his perfect world and produced fear. And fear became a permanent feature of human relationships. When the Lord God said to the woman, "and he shall rule over you," He was only pointing out the consequences of her action. As long as she remained away from her proper headship relation to her husband she would experience his "force" to remain in control of his own life and the world he was given to rule. Her sin produced a force-headship in Adam, and sin, unfortunately produced a force-headship in God (toward Adam and Israel), and in Jesus (toward disobedient churches). Because force-headship is the final means, the last resort, to counter disobedience and disorder, in itself it cannot be an evil thing. God and Christ both resort to using it to retain and regain control of their worlds. God used it before the Fall of Adam to defeat Satan.

From a study of the character of God's headship and that of the Lord Jesus it is clear that headship involves three things. It involves (1) control of the one over whom one is set. In the case of God He is in control of His world and He had the right to control Adam's world. He exercised this right by laying down restrictions and granting freedoms. Adam was made acutely aware that he was not free to do as he pleased. He was in a loving relationship with his Creator from the moment of his creation. It involves (2) love of the one over whom one is set. Again, the love of God and Christ is legendary and unquestionable. Love is the engine of the headship relation. And it involves (3) the right to use force or discipline for the good of the one over whom one is set. We see this demonstrated in God's care and discipline of Israel. This aspect of God's nature we have called force-headship to distinguish it from His love-headship.

There is a right use of the force-headship (e.g., discipline) and a wrong use (exploitation). It is as much a part of human nature as it of the God-nature. It is like "power" and "authority" which are likewise open to abuse or right use, but cannot be abolished. Like thorns and thistles, force-headship is here to stay, but the more men and women come closer to being like the Lord Jesus the less likely will they experience force-headship to maintain good order.

When the Lord God gave Adam headship over Eve neither of them could have known what force-headship was. Adam could only experience love-headship because force-headship requires disobedience to manifest itself. So up until Eve sinned she never experienced force-headship or knew of its existence. But as soon as she sinned Yahweh was able to inform her that she had brought force-headship, or "rule" into existence for the very first time, and that, like the thorns and thistles and child-birth pains, it would be part of her experience to the end of time. Even as a Christian woman force-headship can never be completely abolished from her world any more than sin can be completely abolished from her new life in Christ, or birth-pains, or thistles from her physical world. The reason for this is that she remains capable of sin after her conversion to Christ, and in addition to this her Christian husband remains capable of sin after his conversion to Christ. But just as the Christian man should never disobey Christ in anything (and so avoid experiencing the Lord's force-headship over him), so neither should a Christian woman disobey her husband (and so avoid experiencing her husband's force-headship over her). Self-control has to be acquired and exercised for as long as the headship relation exists.

As soon as Adam sinned Yahweh used His force-headship to retain control of him. Part of that control involved loss of privilege; he was expelled from the Garden lest he commit further acts of disobedience.

Following the Fall the whole worship of God was placed squarely on man's shoulders. This is in keeping with the headship of Adam over Eve. This is as you would expect a consistent God of order to act. Adam was "the glory of God"&emdash;the finest thing He ever created. Adam was the apple of His eye, the one to whom He could delegate power and authority to rule the earth on His behalf and for His glory. That was his function; that was why he was made.

Eve, on the other hand, was created, not to fulfil Adam's role directly but indirectly, through the specific task of being his helpmeet. She had a different glory. She was created to be "the glory of man"&emdash;the finest thing he could possess. She was made specifically for him and derived her origin from him. So they differed in glory and they differed in function or role. These differences are gender specific. Gender determines their glory and gender determines their role. This explains why Yahweh separated His people according to gender when they appeared before Him in worship, both in the period before the sending of His Son and after it. This explains why He absolutely forbids any confusion between the genders. They must not wear each others clothes or look like each other. God separated the genders because of the different authority He gave to each. Man's authority is to act as God's representative and so it is different from that given to women. They do not have the same authority because they do not have the same function or role in God's creation or order. Authority is gender specific. Man is the head of Woman, not vice versa. The Woman is to obey the Man in everything, not vice versa. There are many and different powers and authorities in God's creation, but God has distributed these according to the counsel of His own will, and we should be content with the station He has placed each gender in. He has revealed that authority is gender specific, and this was so from the beginning, before any culture existed.

The women are to cover their heads when they appear before God in private and in public because they are female, and men are not to cover their heads because they are male. The reason give is based on gender not on prevailing culture, "A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman [is to cover her head because she] is the glory of man" (1 Cor 11:7, 10). To remove the visible distinction put there by God Himself between the genders is to create confusion in His Kingdom and Church.

God has left us in no doubt what part each gender is to play in His worship service. The women are to be silent and the men are to offer the worship to God acting as heads of their families, or in their own right as males.

This is a brief summary of the biblical background against which every new theory regarding Man's headship must be tested.

INTRODUCTION

Stott has arranged his presentation around four key terms: sexual equality, complementarity, responsibility and ministry. We shall use these divisions in the following critique of his position on the place of women in the Church. But before doing so we shall present a summary of his understanding of the theological background against which he sets his case without making any comment on it at this stage.

Stott appears to have looked on the pre-Fall period as a time of sexual equality, when "men and women were equal beneficiaries both of the divine image and of earthly rule" (237 ) and where "(neither) sex is more like God than the other, or that either sex is more responsible for the earth than the other. No. Their resemblance to God and their stewardship of his earth . . . were from the beginning shared equally" (237 cf. 239). The equality of the sexes is seen to correspond to something "feminine" and "masculine" in God Himself. Since "feminine" and "masculine" are part of God's own being they cannot be ranked as inferior and superior elements in His one nature. God is both in some sense.

Stott balanced this with an acknowledgement that there was a male headship before the Fall which harmonised with having complementary roles. But sexual equality was distorted by the Fall and in place of equality and complementarity there came in the rule of one over the other (239). Headship degenerated into domination.

Stott found this view of the Fall and of Headship confirmed by the teaching of the OT prophets who looked forward to the New Covenant in which the original equality of the sexes would be reaffirmed (240). On the Day of Pentecost there was no disqualification on the grounds of sex. When Jesus came he terminated the curse of the Fall and restored to women the blessing of sexual equality with man which she had before the Fall. Paul summed up this change in his charter statement of Christian freedom in Galatians 3:28. All who are "in Christ" enjoy a common relationship and sexual distinctions are henceforth to be regarded as irrelevant (241). There can be no question of one sex being superior or inferior to the other "in Christ." In the changed estimation of God and in Christ "there is neither male nor female" in the New Kingdom (or New Covenant). All Christians are equal (241). Stott's conclusion was that sexual equality had been established by Creation but was perverted by the Fall. It was recovered by the redemption that is in Christ. What redemption remedies is the Fall; what it recovers and re-establishes is the Creation. In the pre-Fall headship relationship between Adam and Eve there would not have been any coercion exercised by Adam over his perfect wife, Eve. He would have exercised a gentle, loving partnership with her, and this constitutes the essence of recovered headship in Christ.

On complementarity Stott has sought to show that equality and identity are not to be confused. Equality of worth is not identity of role (241). He accepted that "although God made male and female equal, he also made them different (242). Genesis 2 is understood to clarify that equality does not mean identity and that complementarity includes "a certain masculine headship" (243).

On responsibility Scott asks: How can male headship be reconciled with sexual equality (Gen 1) and sexual complementarity (Gen 2)? Some say it cannot if women are "fully human and equal in every way to men" (244). His own reply is that submission does not imply inferiority (245) and that distinct roles are not incompatible with equality of worth.

Stott defended male headship on the grounds that it is based on the Creation, not on the Fall (245). What Creation has established no culture is able to destroy (246). However, he conceded that the first-century cultural expression of male headship can "be replaced by other symbols more appropriate to the twentieth century" (246). The first-century symbols of submission were head-covering, learning in silence, being silent in Church, not ruling over men or teaching them. He does not suggest what the twentieth-century replacements for these symbols might be. His main point is that "the headship itself is creational, not cultural" (246). He maintains that headship definitely implies some kind of "authority" to which submission is necessary, but he cannot accept that the obedience of a wife and that of a child are identical. He noted that the word "authority" is not used in the NT to describe the husband's role, nor obedience the wife's. Instead he suggested that the word "responsibility" conveys more accurately the kind of "headship" Paul envisaged. "The husband's headship of his wife, therefore, is a headship more of care than of control, more of responsibility than of authority" (247). The masculine "headship" is the God-given means by which femininity is protected and enabled to blossom. "'Equality' and 'partnership' between the sexes are sound biblical concepts, but not if they are pressed into denying a masculine headship of protective care" (248). The biblical ideal of headship is selflessly loving the wife, and may justly be called "Christlike" because of this characteristic.

On ministry, Stott begins with the statement that there is a strong prima facie biblical case for active female leadership in the Church, by pointing to the ministry of Huldah, Miriam and Deborah in the OT, and in the NT to the women who proclaimed Jesus' resurrection, the many references in the Acts and the Epistles to women speakers and workers, Philip's four daughters, women who prayed and prophesied in Corinth (1 Cor 11:5), Priscilla, women helpers in the entourages of Jesus and Paul, and to the list of women in Romans 16. He acknowledged he could not find a single example of a woman who held an institutionalised position of authority, such as a female apostle or elder, he nevertheless argued that, "if God saw no impediment against calling women into a teaching role, the burden of proof lies with the church to show why it should not appoint women to similar responsibilities" (251). This arises out of, and is consistent with, his understanding of what it means to be "one in Christ" where there is no longer any male-female distinction at that level.

Stott found support for an "every member ministry" from the Day of Pentecost when the gifts were given to females (as well as males) for the good of the whole Body. Women have a call to exercise their gifts in the Church with no restriction that is not also applicable to men. This, again, is consistent with his understanding of what "equality of the sexes" means and involves.

On 1 Corinthians 14:33-34 Stott takes the widely held view that this command cannot be a ban on all types of speaking in church because 11:5 permits her to pray and prophesy. The prohibition on women speaking relates only to disruptive talking by women (251).

Stott's understanding of 1 Timothy 2:11-12 is that it supports female submission to men, but he qualifies this with the observation that first-century ways of expressing this, namely, silence and quietness during the worship service, not teaching or ruling men, and covering the head, are not appropriate today and may/should be replaced by uncovering the head, speaking, teaching and ruling men, because these are culturally acceptable today, provided that in so doing they are not usurping an improper authority over the men (252). In matters of discipline and authority he regarded it as biblically inappropriate for a woman to become a Rector or a Bishop (254).

So the only area in which women differ from men is in the exercise of authority over men (in the home and in the Church); otherwise they are equal in all other respects. Stott does not regard the teaching role as one of exercising authority over men, though he is aware that it was so in New Testament times and up until recent times. But since the First World War there has been a change in cultural conventions and today the gift of "teaching" is no longer seen to carry authority, hence the issue of "authority over men" does not arise. In a sense if ministers can be viewed as "Information-Providers," rather than persons who spoke with authority, then the office of "teacher" can be divorced from the office of those who exercise "authority," that is, male bishops and Elders.

What has been said of a teaching role applies equally today to a leading role. Today "leading" does not imply a position of authority. You can choose not to accept the "suggestions" of others. If leaders can be viewed as "Suggestion-Makers" rather than persons who spoke with authority, then the office of "leader" can be divorced from the office of those who exercise "authority," that is, male bishops and Elders.

DETAILED CRITICISMS OF STOTT's POSITION

Stott's starting-point appears to be the assumption that Adam and Eve were equal in every respect except that Adam was given a "headship" role. This "headship" is defined not as leading or being in authority over, but of "responsibility." It is not clear to me what "responsibility" means if it does not mean exercising authority or being in control of others for the glory of God, as His delegated appointees.

Stott's emphasis throughout his work is on "sexual equality." This is the backbone of his position. He sees the Fall as responsible for producing a "headship" or "domination" of the woman by man which is inherently non-Christian as it belongs to the fallen world of human nature. Christ came to purge men and women of this "domination" which had resulted in women being exploited by headship-men. In Christ "sexual equality" has been, and is being, restored to women and men, so that there is no difference between them as regards freedom to exercise their spiritual gifts in the public arena of the church, and also for women to exercise leadership over mature men (including her husband?) on condition that she herself comes under male headship. This last qualification is a concession to his belief that headship belongs to Creation and not to the Fall. But it is just here that an inconsistency becomes evident. How can a woman be a leader of mature men but not be allowed to lead her own husband due to his position of being her head? Another factor underlying his work is the uncritical acceptance of modern day cultural norms as being on a par if not superior to that experienced by the Early Church which was cemented in theological statements for all time in all places&emdash;a world-wide Christian culture. Not until women were drafted into the steel factories and other industries connected with the armaments industry did women wear men's clothes. At the time women strongly objected to having to wear boilersuits and trousers but they were cajoled into it with the argument that it was part of their war effort.

Also women never ventured into a Church service without a headcovering. However, a joint-statement of the King and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York issued a call for a National Day of prayer on the anniversary of the beginning of World War II and women and girls were permitted to enter a near by church bare-headed to pray because the day of prayer was on a week-day and all citizens were encouraged to take time out from work and congregate at the nearest church building for a short service.

PART ONE: EQUALITY

1. EQUALITY OF ROLES

Stott made the assumption that Adam and Eve were "equal beneficiaries . . . of earthly rule" (237). This can only be sustained by looking at Genesis 1:26-28 in isolation from Genesis 2:4-25. This approach is typical of feminist writers who are intent on reading "equality of the sexes" into the biblical text. Genesis 1 is played up to the detriment of Genesis 2. If we look at both chapters it is clear that Genesis 2 gives us the actual order in which Adam and Eve were created: Adam was created first and then sometime later, after he had named all the animals and sought for a companion, God created Eve to be a helpmeet for him. This is how Paul read the text (1 Tim 2:13-14 and 1 Cor 11:8-9). Consequently we are to understand Genesis 1:27 "male and female he created them," to mean, "male then female he created them." But as Genesis 1:26-28 is a summary of the whole of creation the details are omitted in the interest of fitting the whole of creation into a single week. Indeed, Genesis 1 may have more to do with teaching the need for man to rest one day in seven than for the actual details of when each animal was created. Animals do not fit neatly into three spheres, air, land and sea, so there are amphibians and insects and the unseen world of microbes and bacteria to account for.

Paul confirms the historical order in which male and female were created in 1 Corinthians 11:8 ("but woman is out of man") and 1 Timothy 2:13-14 ("For Adam was first formed, then Eve"). The focus in Genesis 1 is on God as Creator and from that point of view it was sufficient just to enumerate the different things He created without going into the exact order or purpose behind the creation of each animal or thing. God expends energy on His creation and "rests on the seventh day." He then becomes the pattern for Israel to follow in keeping the Sabbath day for rest and recuperation.

Genesis 2, on the other hand, had a different focus. This time it is not on God as Creator, but God as Father. First He created a son (Adam), made in His own image, and before he created a daughter (Eve), He gave the rule of the Garden to him "to work it and take care of it" (2:15, cf. v. 5b). Adam named all the animals before Eve was created and out of that experience came his sense of being alone. At this point Yahweh saw that "it is not good that man should be alone," so He created a daughter, Eve, and, as her Father, He "gave her away" in marriage to His son Adam. It now becomes clear how Eve comes to have rule over the earth: she has it by virtue of being married to the one to whom God gave it originally. But marriage is more than two becoming one flesh: it is the entrance into a love-headship relation in which Adam is the head of Eve. The purpose of her existence was to do his will, as his was to do the will of the Lord God.

I conclude that they were not equal beneficiaries of the earthly rule. They were joint-beneficiaries through Adam's headship.

Stott remarked, "There is no suggestion in the text that either sex is more like God than the other, or that either sex is more responsible for the earth than the other. No. Their resemblance to God and their stewardship of his earth . . . were from the beginning shared equally, since both sexes were equally created by God and like God" (237).

There are three confusions here. First, he noted that neither sex is more like God than the other. By narrowing "the text" down solely to Genesis 1:26-28 he effectively shut out Genesis 2 from the discussion. This is not a sound method of biblical exegesis. It is feminist exegesis being applied to an isolated "text." Stott has a methodological problem with his hermeneutical approach to the text of Scripture. We must interpret Scripture by Scripture and adopt a holistic approach to the subject of headship.

Second, Paul clearly saw in the reason for Eve's creation (to be a helpmeet) that she did not have the same function as Adam. While Adam was "the image and glory of God," Eve was the "glory of man" (1 Cor 11:7). The whole of Adam's constitution was created for the specific task of ruling the earth on behalf of God. Everything about him, but especially his headship, being made in his Creator's image, fitted him to fulfil the role he was assigned to, and designed for. On the other hand, everything about Eve, her bodily shape and constitution, being the weaker sex, and the placing over her of Adam as her head, all fitted her to fulfil the role she was assigned to, and designed for, which was not identical to Adam's role.

I conclude, therefore, that they had two distinct roles which their different bodies and constitutions point to, and that their resemblance to God as regards function was not the same. Adam was the head of Eve, and consequently he was more responsible for the stewardship of the earth than Eve was, because of the headship he was given by God before Eve was created. She came later and shared in his position by virtue of her "one flesh" relation to him.

Third, he has confused nature with role. Because Adam and Eve are both human and both made by God and so share in the same moral image of God, it does not follow that they both have the same roles, or both serve the same function within the family, or both have the same responsibility for the stewardship of the earth. It is a non sequitur to argue that equality in one respect must mean equality in other respects.

2. SEXUAL EQUALITY

Eve's gender marked her out for a specific role that the creation of another man could not have fulfilled alongside Adam. She was not another man. She was not equal in gender, and from the beginning Adam and Eve had different roles. So to talk of "sexual equality" does not make sense. We need only re-phrase it to read "gender equality" to see this. "Gender equality" can only mean "two men" or "two women." But God created them "male and female." You cannot get a greater sexual difference than this.

It would appear that Stott has (unconsciously?) adopted feminist vocabulary without bringing it to the Word of God and testing it there. I conclude there is no such thing as "sexual equality." What God created was sexual quality: perfect male and female qualities.

There is some misinformation in Scott's presentation of the origin of gender (239). He appears to use the term "sexual equality" for equality in the moral image of God. By equating the image of God with gender he has confused the issue. It is generally agreed that the "image of God" is the same in men and women; but likewise all are agreed that they do not have equality of gender. Their genders are different (sorry to have to point out the obvious, but someone seems to have missed the obvious somewhere along the line!).

Few things are less self-evident than the idea that all men are born equal. In mental and physical capacity, heredity distributes its favours with uncompromising distinctiveness. There is a predetermined inequality in the genetic constitution of man."

Stott claimed that the "prophets looked forward to the days of the New Covenant in which the original equality of the sexes would be reaffirmed" (240). Nowhere do the prophets preach an "original equality of the sexes." This kind of statement is found only in feminist writings.

God poured out His spirit on men and women under the Old Covenant. There was no disqualification on account of sex, status, standing or seniority then. There was equal treatment then as there was under the New Covenant. To insinuate that God practised sex discrimination, that is, He favoured only men when it came to the distribution of prophetic gifts under the Old Covenant is false. The evidence is there that He gave the gift to Deborah, Miriam, Huldah, Hannah(?), and no doubt many others. God, not man, was the giver of the prophetic gift under the Old Covenant so any suggestion that there was inequality in its distribution is an allegation against God not against man. What would distinguish the outpouring in the New Covenant would be its commonness, not that it would be given to women for the first time, as though God had not given it to women before.

Stott appears to equate sexual inequality (whatever that means) with male domination which came about as a result of the Fall. He believed that males have been irresponsible in the use of their "headship" to suppress and oppress women from being treated as equal (whatever that means) to them.

First, there is no evidence that the genders of Adam and Eve were distorted or changed as a result of the Fall. They remained unchanged&emdash;male and female. So we can eliminate this area from the essence of what was distorted in the Fall.

Second, the Fall affected the moral image of God in both of them. But since they both fell they both underwent the same change in their natures. We showed in the Introduction above in what way the love-headship was affected by the Fall and how, as a direct consequence of it, a new characteristic appeared in Adam's life, namely, a force-headship, as a direct consequence of their sins. We also showed above that in itself this is not an intrinsically evil characteristic. Yahweh knew only of a love-headship with His angelic forces until Satan rebelled against Him. The love-headship turned into a force-headship as He imposed His will on Satan and his angels.

Immediately Eve sinned against her head she produced the same force-headship in Adam that Satan produced in God. So force-headship per se is not the problem. God, Christ and Man must use force to restore control of their worlds, otherwise they will cease to be masters in their own house.

Stott does not distinguish between love-headship and force-headship. He says: "'headship' degenerated into 'dominion.'" (239) Here the term "headship" is given an intrinsically evil connotation. It is something to be hated. It does not belong to Christ. And the following three illustrations he gives are intended to bear out the evil of man's headship. He nowhere seems to recognise that this evil headship (as he conceives it) is part of the nature of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I conclude that men and women are equal in nature (in the moral image of God) but gloriously different in sexual orientation. The concept of "sexual equality" does not exist in God's creation. It is a meaningless phrase if taken at its face value, because as regards actual gender men and women are not equal, if by equal we mean the same. To make sense of Stott's confused vocabulary we need to read "moral image equality" where he has written "sexual equality."

3. SEXUAL EQUALITY : JESUS AND WOMEN

Stott presents Jesus as a liberator of women. "But Jesus broke these [Pharisaical] rules of tradition and convention. . . . Jesus terminated the curse of the Fall, reinvested woman with her partially lost nobility, and claimed for his new Kingdom community the original creation blessing of sexual equality."

I have already shown that "sexual equality" is not a biblical concept. What did Jesus bring for men and women? The Gospel says he brought to both of them (not just women) the offer of restoration to the pre-Fall fellowship with God through the offering up of his life for them. Both are saved by faith and both will be restored to their pre-Fall status and roles.

In that pre-Fall world the head of Woman was Man. That headship was a love-headship. That is what women will be restored to in Christ. Once again she will find that being Man's true helpmeet is the way to glorify Christ. She will re-enter a love-headship with her husband if he is a Christian. If he is not a Christian she can still be a true helpmeet to him by God's grace. Fulfilment cannot be found outside her new headship relation, either a love-headship or a force-headship.

In the pre-Fall world the head of Man was God the Father, now, under the New Covenant, it is Christ Jesus. The presence of the "new man" within the convert will allow him to re-enter the love-headship with God, through Jesus Christ, that Man once knew in the Garden. Fulfilment for man cannot be found outside a headship relation with Christ.

Stott's catalogue of incidents where Jesus encountered women tells us no more than a similar catalogue of incidents where Jesus encountered men. He came to save both equally from their sinful ways. Women were no worse off than men spiritually. Both were equally sinful in their own ways, and both denied each other the rights and duties that belonged to headship. The purpose behind the inclusion of incidents in the Gospels which involved women was not to teach the "equality of the sexes" but to contrast their acceptance of Jesus and his rejection by those who ought to have been the first to recognise him as Israel's Messiah. Neither are they related to show how badly women were treated by men, as Stott has done here, concluding his catalogue with an appeal to Jesus' "great charter statement of Christian freedom: 'There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus' (Gal. 3.28)." (240-41). See my reply to this misuse of Galatians 3:28 below and under 4.2. above.

I conclude that there is no sexual equality (if this means men and women are equal in headship, or in gender, or in physical strength, or in attributes, etc.) in Christ's new Kingdom, because that would be a distortion of not only the new Kingdom values, but of all God's past dealings with man on the basis of the headship He gave to him at the beginning.

4. GOD AS MALE AND FEMALE

Stott argued, "if both sexes bear the image of God . . . then this seems to include not only our humanity . . . but our plurality . . . our sexuality." He then extrapolated from this: "Is it too much to say that since God, when he made man in his own image, made him male and female, there must be within the being of God himself something which corresponds to the "feminine" as well as the "masculine" in humankind?" (237-38). On this line of argument we might enquire: Has God got anything corresponding to the penis in man? Or does He have breasts and menstruate every month? God is a Spirit. He is sexless.

Stott does not appear to realise that in God, as in Christ, there is neither male nor female in the "image of God" (Gal 3:28). God is not a Jew or a non-Jew. Note the mistranslation "male nor female" on page 241 which is typical of those who exploit Paul's words to suit their own agenda. The Greek reads, "male-and-female" indicating that Paul is viewing gender as a single entity like all the others in the list which are preceded by the negative particle. Paul did not say, ". . . there is not male, and there is not female . . . ." Rather the full statement reads, "There is not Jew and not Greek; there is not slave and not freeman; there is not male and female." There are five, not six, negatives. Paul is denying that in the "new man" there is "male and female," just as in the spirit world there is not "male and female." At the disembodied spirit level we will not be able to distinguish a "Jew" spirit from a "non-Jew" spirit. Nor will we be able to detect a "male" spirit from a "female" spirit, because at that level all such earthly distinctions will fall away and we will be like the angels in heaven&emdash;sexless, stateless and classless (apart from rewards?) (Mt 22:30).

Instead of arguing from the biblical text that God is a Spirit, and so sexless, Stott followed the feminist argument that God may be both male and female&emdash;an androgynous God! God does not have a body: He is a Spirit. He is genderless. Gender is not an eternal attribute. It was something that God created for the purposes of reproducing animals and humankind. The moral image of God is neither "male" nor "female," nor it is "male-and-female."

When God created Adam he was not created male and female&emdash;an androgynous being. This idea belongs to Jewish fables and myths and old wives' tales. It does not belong to revelation. Adam was not created defectively "in the image of God" because he was not also female. He had two distinct parts. God created his body from the dust. (At this stage did that include his sexual organs?) The second part was the life force, the spirit, that God breathed into his nostrils. This spirit was neither male nor female; it was neither a Jewish spirit or a non-Jewish spirit. It was sexless, stateless and classless because it came from God Himself.

What Stott failed to appreciate was that not only did God create homo sapiens (i.e. adam) male and female, He also made Man the head of Woman from the beginning, in their perfect state. We have shown above how fundamental to good order this is. Without it there is disorder. Men and women are not equal in headship. Consequently, when God is dealing with His people He works through His own created structures and honours Man with the privilege of bringing his household's worship to Him. Therefore when He addresses something to Man, or requires something from Man, we are not to assume that Woman is necessarily included in that communication. It all depends on whether God is addressing Man in his role as head of Woman, or whether it applies only to men, or whether it is something that applies to both of them. The context will decide not an Inclusive Language Lectionary. Stott approves of inclusive language, "They were right, therefore," he says, referring to a book published by the National Council of Churches of Christ (USA) called An Inclusive Language Lectionary, "to translate 'brethren' as 'sisters and brothers,' and the generic 'man' as 'human being' or 'humankind,' for in so doing they simply clarified what these words have always meant" (238). This is sloppy, wishful thinking. He should have taken care to examine carefully who is being addressed.

It is interesting that the apostolic writers were addressing men when they said, "Greet one another with a holy kiss" (Rom 16:16; 1 Cor 16:20; 2 Cor 13:12; 1 Thess 5:26; 1 Pet 5:14). Given the separation of the male and female worshippers that God introduced into His OT Church and which was continued into New Testament times, and considering both the Greco-Roman and Jewish cultures regarding the place of women at that time, it would have been against proper decorum for men to start a new custom of kissing women disciples. It would not only have been revolutionary, it would have been offensive both to Jew and Greek. Yet Paul admonishes the Corinthians that they were not to give offence to Jews and Greeks or to the Church of God (1 Cor 10:32). This is an instance where proper attention to the culture of the time, and the context in which it was given (spoken to men only), would have led Christian girls and young men not to apply it to themselves today. "Flee all appearance of evil," we are commanded.

The fact that the apostolic writers have clearly only men in mind when they are writing to the churches should not surprise us. The same concern dominates and characterises all OT law and communication between God and men, because it is directed at the circumcised, Covenant community, who are responsible for carrying out the terms of the Covenant. Even the wording of the Ten Commandments shows that men are being addressed (see Ex 20:8, 12, 17; cf. 23:26). The purpose behind the laws is stated in Deuteronomy 6:2; 14:23. Fathers, not mothers, were responsible for teaching the Law to their sons (Deut 6:7). Priests were given the responsibility to teach God's Torah to the entire nation (Lev 10:10).

Column A gives the total occurrences of the word ajdelfo" "brother" (in sg. and pl. forms). Column B gives the total times the congregation is addressed as "brothers" or, "my brothers" (plural only)(following the Majority Greek Text).

[See Chart 19. Title: "Paul and the New Testament writers addressed their letters to men"]

From the manner in which the Apostles addressed their congregations it is clear that the synagogue model is in view throughout. In the speeches in Acts men are addressed throughout. Throughout Paul's nine epistles he constantly addresses the members as "brothers." Not once in the whole New Testament is a congregation addressed as "brothers and sisters," as we might do today, despite the fact that the NRSV translates 1 Cor 15:1, "Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, . . . ." There is no word for "sisters" in the Greek here! So conscious is Paul at times that he is addressing men that he does not speak directly to the women/wives who are clearly there in the congregation. Rather, he speaks to the women through their menfolk, "Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted to them to speak, but let them be in subjection . . . . And if they . . . let them ask their husbands at home" (1 Cor 14:34-35; translation and emphasis mine). We might have expected him to break off addressing the men to speak directly to the women, but he does not.

The insistence on mechanically turning "brothers" into "brothers and sisters" can lead to real blunders. Thus the number of male witnesses to the resurrected Lord is reduced by half in 1 Corinthians 15:6 in the NRSV! This version reads: "Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died." The reason for stating that 500 males saw Jesus was that under the Old Covenant, according to rabbinic tradition (based on Deut 17:1) women did not constitute valid witnesses. Paul lived with this biblical ruling, and so, when he came to list the witnesses to Jesus' resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 (and remember he is addressing his letter to men) his list does not include a single woman, and yet everyone knew from the Gospels that Mary Magdalene was the first to see him and many other women as well, before He was seen by the apostles. According to Jewish law Peter was the first witness to see Jesus after his resurrection, hence Paul begins his list with Peter/Cephas (1 Cor 15:5). Even Jesus Himself ignores the women who bore witness to his resurrection and refers only to the male witnesses. Mark 16:14, "And he reproached their unbelief and stiffness of heart, because they believed not the ones having seen him having been raised." Here "the ones" is masculine plural, as is the aorist middle participle "having seen him," which is a reference to the two on the road to Emmaus and Peter. These were Jesus' three male witnesses. The apostles might have been excused if all the witnesses had been women. So even in the minutiae of Jesus' life we see a consistency in his respect for his Father's laws right to the end of his life.

The NRSV shows inexcusable ignorance of the background against which Paul composed this list of male witnesses. It also reveals that this version is not to be trusted because the reason for listing only male witnesses is well-known and appreciated in biblical scholarship, but here feminist ideology has dictated the translation. The imposition of ideologically-manipulated vocabulary is not the way to produce a "faithful" translation, but it receives the blessing of John Stott. Awareness of the times in which the epistles were written is absolutely crucial to a correct hermeneutic.

After this necessary digression to show that Stott has been more under the influence of feminist writings than Paul's we can return to his understanding of Galatians 3:28.

Stott genuinely appears to believe that God is both male and female. "It is a remarkable statement that he [God] is simultaneously Israel's Father and Mother" (238). In reply it should be noted that it is not to be wondered at that God should compare Himself to anything in the physical world. It is not surprising that He should pick out characteristics or attributes in His creation to convey what He is like at any one point of likeness. Animal characteristics and behaviour are attributed to God. He is said to be a lion and at the same time to be a lamb! He is said to bellow, roar and fly, but He is not an animal! He is said to have horns, wings and feathers. It would be poor exegesis which would take these figures literally and speculate that God is "in some sense" all these animals. He is often likened to inanimate objects such as stone, rock, hiding-place, fortress, tower of strength, corner-stone, and temple. If He is not these literally why, then, when anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms are attributed to Him do these suddenly become of the essence of God? If the characteristic of a rock is its immovability and Yahweh wants to transfer that concept to Himself then we do not make the rock the essence of God. God is said to have a soul, face, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, lips and tongue, voice, arms, hands, heart, stomach, chest, feet. Human affections and emotions and weaknesses are attributed to Him. He repents, sorrows, rejoices, hates, is zealous, is jealous, shows displeasure, shows pity, etc. Human affections and feelings are attributed to God, not that He has such feelings, but, in infinite condescension, He is thus spoken of to enable us to comprehend Him. Human actions are attributed to God, for example, He acquires knowledge in the same way as humans do by coming down from heaven, as if He were ignorant of what is going on (Tower of Babel, etc.), He displays ignorance, doubt, He even forgets, He remembers, thinks, laughs, cries, breathes and speaks. Man's five senses are attributed to Him, He sees, hears, smells, touches and tastes. Human activities are attributed to Him; He walks, rides, rises up, passes through, begets, hides, washes, wipes, builds, opens doors, shoots arrows, writes and anoints people. He experiences human occupations; He is a builder, warrior, counsellor, physician, shepherd, witness, king, father, spouse. Human time limitations are attributed to Him, He has years and days. We have to accept Yahweh's word when He says, "I am God, and not man" (Hos 11:9). The creation story reveals that God has hands (8 references; "He makes" [3x], "divides" [2x], "creates" [2x], and "places" [1x]), He has a voice (15 references; "He blesses" [2x], "calls" [3x], and "speaks" [10x]) and He has eyes (6 references; He sees [6x]). For all we know it may well be that God does not have any hands, eyes or voice! We, and the biblical writers, find it hard to conceive of God without human attributes and so we are in constant danger of creating a god in our own image and after our own likeness. It is one thing for God to convey something of Himself by using human terms such as "father" and "mother," or "ox" or "hen;" but quite another thing to present Himself as He really is.

Once we realise that the Hebrews were not gifted at abstract conceptions but tended to use the physical world to convey their abstract conceptions then we are not likely to take the anthropomorphic language of the Bible literally any more than we would accept that God repented, or grieved, or changed His mind. Behind the use of these anthropomorphisms is a reality no doubt but the point being made here is that we must not turn the anthropomorphisms into the essence of Yahweh. They are very, very poor instruments to convey the reality but they are all we have got.

I conclude that God is neither male nor female. He is a Spirit. Male and female characteristics, animal characteristics, inanimate characteristics, may all be utilised to convey individual characteristics or attributes in Yahweh, in particular situations, and under certain circumstances, but it would be theologically indefensible to take these figures literally, not even the human ones.

In the light of the foregoing study why should it be remarkable "that he [God] is simultaneously Israel's Father and Mother"? asks Stott. In reply it can be said that if Stott is going to take these figures literally then God is also a lion and a lamb simultaneously! His failure to understand the difference between metaphor, figure, analogy, etc. on the one hand, and the reality of God on the other (He is neither male nor female) leads him to a false conclusion, namely that Genesis 1 affirms "the fundamental equality of the sexes" (239) because God is both male and female in His essence.

It should be remembered that after death Christians will cease to be male and female. Christians will be like the angels&emdash;sexless. Gender is something that belongs only to the physical creation. It falls away completely at death. God cannot be male and female. He is neither. Consequently when Scripture says that man is "the image and glory of God," this image does not lie in his male genes but in the spirit that God breathed into his body. This can be proved as follows. Should Adam never have expressed a desire for a helpmeet and lived alone on the earth he would still have been the same image&emdash;the same person&emdash; and still have been the same "glory of God," i.e., the thing that God was most proud of in the whole of His creation&emdash;His pride and joy, because God said this of Adam before he was given a helpmeet. Therefore, giving him a helpmeet could not have added anything to this image or increased God's glory. Adam was perfect before his body became a "male" body. Was he created sexless, like his Creator, since he was perfect when he left the hands of God? His maleness may only have come about later, at the time when God created a female counterpart to him. This has to be so unless God created Adam as a male from the beginning. And if Adam was male from the beginning then his sex organs were redunant, unnecessary and functionless, which seems odd. Adam had seed but it was useless. Does God design obsolete organs, or did He create Adam as a male in anticipation that Adam would seek a mate? If so, then this means Adam was a male without a love-headship relation.

Stott's idea that God was somehow both male and female was a mistake, because gender is not an eternal feature of God's nature or His creation. It is a created thing. It is finite. It is not an eternal attribute of God. It is destined to be terminated. Stott's inability to see the temporary nature of gender led him to create a god with male and female attributes. He is confused in his handling of anthropomorphic language in the Bible as they are applied to God.

Stott went astray with his strange concept of "sexual equality," not realising that gender was a temporary creation and is not of the essence of the "image of God" that Man and Woman were created in, because God is sexless; He is a Spirit. But the final image that Man was created in, differs from the image that Woman was created in, because she lacks the headship element. Both God and Man have headship.

Headship, as we have defined it above, is a relational term (person-to-person). There is, however, another kind of headship, the kind where God delegates control of the Garden of Eden to Adam, "to tend and keep it" (Gen 1:15). In this non-relational sense (person-to-object) Adam is given delegated control over God's creation, but this is shared by Woman, so that it is a joint-dominion (Gen 1:28), therefore it cannot be the kind of headship spoken of in 1 Cor 11:3 which Man has in relation to Woman. This confirms our definition that headship is a relational term (person-to-person) and not a creational term (person-to-object).

But we might ask: Was Man created in God's image with headship before God created a sexual partner for him? Not if headship involved one person doing the will of another. If Woman did not exist when God made Man then Man did not have a headship relation. He could only acquire his headship once Woman came on the scene, prior to that he was as one of the angels who are also called "sons of God." Consequently, maleness and headship are inseparable, and Man's headship did not exist until Woman was created. The position Woman now occupies is the same as Adam occupied before she was created. She is as much in the image of God as he was before she was created for him. Headship comes with his gender. Because she is female she cannot have headship in this life. But because men and women will be as the angels after this life, man's headship disappears in the next life. It has relevance only in this life, not in the next.

That headship is not of the essence of the Godhead can be seen in Jesus' headship. He was given it by the Father for the purpose of redeeming Mankind and He will have it only while the earth exists. There was a time when He did not have it (Jn 17:2) and there will come a time when He will not have it (1 Cor 15:24), but nevertheless He is still God the Son, of the same essence and image as the Father from all eternity. Similarly, in the case of Adam. He did not have a love-headship relationship until Eve was created, and he will cease to have it in the next life. He has it only for the duration of life on earth. In the next life he will be as the angels: sexless (neither male nor female), stateless (neither Jew nor Gentile) and classless (neither a slave or a master), but he will still be "the image and glory of God" albeit fully transformed into such through incorporation into Christ. Consequently, neither headship nor masculine gender is of the essence of this image. They are additions to it; Earth-specific additions that God gave to Man but not to Woman. Woman was not give headship, therefore there could be no "sexual equality" (however it is defined) between Adam and Eve, or between Man and Woman. One is subordinate to the other in function. The female delights to do the will of the male; the man delights to do the will of Christ, and Christ delights to do the will of His Father, so that God is head over all things through this chain of headships.

5. GALATIANS 3:28 AND EQUALITY

Stott supports the feminists in declaring Galatians 3:28 to be Paul's "great charter statement of Christian freedom" (240). This is not a charter statement of Christian freedom. On a superficial reading the text seems to say that all distinctions between men and women have been abolished in Christ and both are equal in every respect. Reading the text from a feminist point of view the idea of "freedom" may seem to dominate. But which idea was in the mind of Paul? Was it "freedom" or "unity" or "equality"?

It is argued that Galatians 3:28 implies that Christian men and women are equal (241), and that it entitles them to serve in the ministry as if they were men, or on a par with men. Paul's reply to this may well have been, "It is written, 'the head of every man is Christ, and the head of woman is man . . . . For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man'" (1 Cor 11:3, 8-9). Just as man is not equal to Christ as regards authority, so neither is woman equal to man as regards authority; she is to be subject to man as man should be to Christ.

Consequently, this text is not a license for men and women to indulge in interchangeable roles as though gender had no theological significance.

Paul tells the Ephesian Christians (3:4-6):

In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are joint-heirs [with Israel], joint-body [with Israel], and joint-sharers [with Israel] in the promise in Christ Jesus.

These verses throw light on Galatians 3:28. Here Paul makes it plain that there is no Jew or Gentile in Christ. Both are heirs, both are members and both are sharers in the same promise of reconciliation through Christ Jesus. The key expression is "joint- [with Israel]," and that is precisely what Paul says again, but only negatively this time, in Galatians 3:28, "For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for as many as to Christ were baptized did put on Christ; there is not here [i.e., when you put on the image of Christ] Jew or Greek, there is not here servant or freeman, there is not here male and female, for all you are one [body] in Christ Jesus." Note the emphasis on the oneness in Christ, not on their equality with one another.

Another text that throws light on Galatians 3:28 is Colossians 3:9-11, "Lie not one to another, having put off the old man with his practices, and having put on the new [man] which is renewed in regard to knowledge, after the image of the one creating him [i.e., the new man]; where there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, freeman&emdash;but the all and in all&emdash;Christ." Here Paul points out the oneness of the image of God in which all partake in Christ. This "image" is not "Greek" or "Jewish"; this "image" is not "male" or "female"&emdash;it is Christ's image&emdash;the New Man&emdash;the Second Adam, that all are baptized into. The renewed image is uniquely Christ's image and we are all (male and female, Jew and non-Jew) being renewed in that one image in true knowledge, righteousness and holiness (Eph 4:24) if we are in Christ.

This single image is referred to again in Ephesians 4:22-24:

You are to put off concerning the former behaviour the old man, that is corrupt according to the deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man, which, according to God['s creation], was created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore, putting away the lying, speak truth each with his neighbour, because we are members one of another.

Once again note the idea of unity, not equality, here. We all constitute one body, and we all share one "new man" image&emdash;Christ's image and Christ's body. The concept of equality is absent from all these texts. The emphasis is on oneness, unity, Christ's one image, Christ's one body.

That each of the national, social and gender distinctions remain in force after we have put on the one image that we all share in common, is stated in Colossians 3:11, "Christ is in all things," i.e., in the list he has just enumerated: Jew, Gentile, foreigner, Scythian, slave, freeman, and he could have added, male and female. So the oneness works both ways, we are in Christ, and he is in us, whether we are male or female, Jew or non-Jew. John 14:20, "I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you."

Not by isolating one text (Gal 3:28) from its context, but by comparing Scripture with Scripture, as has been done above, does it become clear that Paul is concerned to emphasize the oneness of the image&emdash;the oneness of the body into which all sorts and conditions of humankind are baptized. Whether we are black or white, Israeli or Arab, when we are baptized into Christ we all partake of the one image&emdash;Christ's. As an indispensable part of becoming a Christian we are not baptized into a Jewish image, or a male image; we are baptized into Christ's image. This was a shocking idea for a Jew to accept. In Christ Jew and Gentile were one. This was unheard of. All his life a Jew thought his was a special race of humans, and as such he despised the Lawless, pork-eating Gentiles. Now he is told that Gentile and Jew enter into the Kingdom of God on the same terms&emdash;faith. This line of thought takes us deep into the message of Galatians than misappropriating it to fight the battle over women's ordination.

Now just because we all partake of the one baptism and partake of the one Christ does not mean that God has done away with His establishment of the headship of Man. Oneness has been confused with equality by many who exploit the words of Galatians 3:28. If this text is made to teach equality of the sexes, or that it is a charter to overthrow Man's headship of Woman, then, beware, exploitation is going on.

Stott claimed that, "It [Gal 3:28] means rather that as regards our standing before God, because we are 'in Christ'. . . sexual distinctions are irrelevant" (241). If by "standing before God" he means our claim to be His sons and daughters in Christ, then there is no problem. However, he goes on to confuse this "standing before God" with a claim that men and women have identical roles. His claim reads, "So, whatever needs later to be said about sexual roles, there can be no question of one sex being superior or inferior to the other. Before God and in Christ 'there is neither male nor female.' We are equal." (241) This is a non sequitur. He has switched the terms from 'status' to 'role,' in the argument. What applies to the former does not apply to the latter.

This claim shows that Stott has not taken into account Adam's headship before the Fall. Nor has he understood the theological significance that God placed on gender distinction which He introduced into His worship. It cannot be said that just because we are "in Christ" gender distinctions are irrelevant.

He has confused "standing" with "roles." He has assumed that because we have the same standing before God (which is true, as defined above) we must also have the same roles before God. It is a fault he has in common with the feminists.

SECTION CONCLUSION

The greatest area of confusion in Stott's section on sexual equality is his inability to define what he means by "sexual equality." At times he appears to think in terms of the moral image of God which all men and women have equally. I do not know of a single Christian in history who has ever challenged that truth. This is something every feminist, liberal and conservative Christian holds in common. If this was how he consistently defined "sexual equality" there would be no problem. In which case he ought to have changed the term to "image equality," to avoid confusion.

But at other times he appears to be thinking of "roles." In which case he seems to have a picture in his mind of Adam and Eve getting along without the need for a headship relation. That seems to be his idea of "sexual equality." What then happened to this relationship was that it was perverted by sin. God cursed her and told her that from now on her husband would rule her. This he views as an evil, and because of this "rule" women have been exploited by men. With the coming of Christ woman is released from this "rule" and she is restored to "a certain headship" state she enjoyed before the Fall.

If this is Stott's definition of "sexual equality" then he has completely misunderstood the Genesis 2 account of the origin of Adam and Eve as interpreted by Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:3, "the head of woman is man." "For man is not of woman, but woman is out of man. And also, man was not created on account of the woman, but woman on account of the man" (11:8-9); and 1 Timothy 2:13-14, "For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman, having been thoroughly deceived, into transgression came." Paul is quite clear that the headships of God, Christ and Man, are an intrinsic part of God's ordering of the entire universe from the beginning. Stott has nothing to say about the distinction between headship and obedience.

The only "sexual equality" of a sort that Paul teaches is in 1 Corinthians 7:3-5:

because of the fornication let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her proper husband; to the wife let the husband render the due benevolence, and in like manner also the wife to the husband; for the wife over her own body does not have authority, but the husband; and in like manner also, the husband over his own body does not have authority, but the wife. Do not rob one another, except by consent for a time . . . that the Adversary may not tempt you because of your incontinence.

But this kind of equality would be better termed "mutual access."

Stott's work is significant for its failure to take the teaching on Man's headship seriously. He views it as an evil consequence of the Fall in line with feminist thinking.

Stott also adopted a "tunnel vision" approach to the material. The only text he examined under the topic of "sexual equality" was Genesis 1:26-28. This is also the feminist's proof text. Genesis 2 was not consulted here nor, indeed, the other creation-theology texts (1 Cor 11:8-9; 14:34; 1 Tim 2:13-14) because these would have established a headship relation between Adam and Eve in the pre-Fall period, and this was, and is, completely unacceptable to feminists.

The lesson from Stott's two related mistakes is that this topic requires a holistic approach and an openness to all of God's word. The subject is greater than a single "proof" text can convey. Stott's conclusions reveal a Christian writer who is more in touch with the thought world of feminists than with the thought world of Paul and the Lord Jesus.

PART TWO: COMPLEMENTARITY

Stott sympathises with feminist thinking, "It is the expectation that women must fit into a predetermined role against which feminists are understandably rebelling. For who fixed the mould but men?" (241-42) He quotes Betty Friedan with approval, "Our culture does not permit women to accept or gratify their basic need to grow and fulfil their potentialities as human beings" (242). He accepts the feminist description of women's contemporary role in the home, family and church as a restriction on her freedom. He agrees to the extent of declaring it "an example of blatant male chauvinism" (242). On the role between men and women he believes that "Scripture is silent about this division of labour."

On this last point one wonders what Stott would make of Paul's statements in 1 Timothy 5:9-10, where, referring to the expected life-long occupation of women, he says, "she is well-known for her good deeds, such as bringing up children, showing hospitality, washing the feet of the saints, helping those in trouble and devoting herself to all kinds of good deeds." To young widows his advice is, "So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander" (1 Tim 5:14). What role does Paul envisage for women? He instructs the older women to teach (by example, guidance and experience) the younger women how "to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God" (Tit 2:4-5). It cannot be made much plainer that the way a woman can fulfil her creation purpose is to accept the love-headship of her husband and be content with her calling to manage the home well. She fulfils her creation role when she obeys her husband in everything. If she cannot lovingly accept that then she will fail to fulfil her creation purpose. "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, . . . Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit themselves to their husbands in everything" (Eph 5:22).

So Scripture is not silent about the different roles husbands and wives are to fulfil. They have been spelled out very clearly by the Holy Spirit for our guidance.

Stott writes, "Genesis 1 declares the equality of the sexes; Genesis 2 clarifies that 'equality' means not 'identity' but 'complementarity' (including . . . a certain masculine headship). It is this 'equal but different' which we find hard to preserve" (242-43). They are not hard to preserve; they are equal in their moral image but different in their roles. Nothing could be simpler.

Genesis 1 does not teach the equality of the sexes, as we have pointed out, if by that he means they have equal powers, authority and responsibilities. Stott has accepted uncritically the feminist creed that there is no difference between men and women except in their bodies. (A rather large exception and one that determines their different powers and authorities, because these are gender-specific, and where they&emdash;as male and female&emdash;fit into God's good ordering of His creation.)

To some extent Stott's concept of complementarity is off-centre because although he is using the right terms these are not coming out of the positive, biblical teaching of headship, but from a feminist perspective.

PART THREE: RESPONSIBILITY

"All students of Genesis agree that chapter 1 teaches sexual equality and chapter 2 sexual complementarity" (244). This is false teaching. Genesis 1 does not teach sexual equality. It teaches that men and women were both made in "moral the image of God." The image itself is neither male nor female, since it is God's image and He is neither male nor female, nor both.

Genesis 2 teaches more than just complementarity, it teaches headship. But Stott failed to see this. Instead he wrote, "To these, however, the apostle adds masculine 'headship'" (244).

Stott was on the right track when he wrote, "submission does not imply inferiority" (245) and later on when he argued that Paul based&emdash;

his teaching about masculine headship on the biblical doctrine of creation. He drew his readers' attention to the priority of creation ("Adam was formed first, then Eve," 1 Tim 2.13), the mode of creation ("man did not come from woman, but woman from man," 1 Cor. 11.8) and the purpose of creation ("neither was man created for woman, but woman for man," 1 Cor. 11.9).

Unfortunately, Stott accepted Hurley's idea that by right of primogeniture the firstborn inherited command of resources and the responsibility of leadership. This is not how Genesis 1-2 presents headship. There responsibility is the act of God in handing over the control of the earth to Adam to subdue it and to rule over every creature on it (Gen 1:26; 2:15; 9:2). This rule is given to all males, not just to Adam, God's first human son (Lk 3:38). Woman, because of her "one flesh" relation to man, likewise shares in this rule through her husband, because they are no longer two but one flesh. The right of primogeniture would deprive the vast majority of males their inheritance to control and govern the earth.

Stott was again right to note that Paul's three reasons for man's headship are taken from Creation and not from the Fall (245), and that they are not affected by the fashions of passing culture. The headship itself is creational, not cultural (246). Unfortunately he is not consistent in his understanding of what "headship" involves before and after the Fall.

Stott was also on the right lines when he wrote, "'Headship' definitely implies some kind of 'authority,' to which submission is necessary, as when 'God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church'" (Eph. 1.22). (246). He noted that submission is required between wives and husbands, children and parents, slaves and masters, but he draws back from accepting that a wife's submission to her husband is on the same level as that between children and parents. Here he has not understood the difference between headshiop and obedience relationships. On the analogy that all virgins are girls, but not all girls are virgins, so there are many obedience relationships which are not headship relationships, but all headship relationships are obedience relationships.

But Stott fails to say at what level a wife is to submit or what form it should take because he has not understood the difference between headship and obedience relationships. He thought he found support for avoiding the concept of "obedience" between husband and wife in that "the word 'authority' is not used in the New Testament to describe the husband's role, nor 'obedience' the wife's duty" (246), to the approval of feminists. In reply it can be pointed out that the word "authority" is not used to describe Christ's headship of, or relationship to, the Church, nor "obedience" the Church's expected response. But does that mean Christ has no claim on the Church to obey Him out of love in everything?

Stott was right to detect that the obedience expected from a child and that expected from a wife are different. They are different because there is no headship relation between child and mother, but there is one between husband and wife. In the former, obedience is due to the teacher-child model, but in the latter there is a gender love-headship that was established before the Fall whereby Eve was specifically created to form an intimate union with Adam to whom had been given control of all things before she was created. By virtue of her union with him she inherited his inheritance; but hers is a derived inheritance, whereas it is the inheritance of every man by right of gender. The head of every man was God, not his earthly father, so that every man stands in the same position before God as Adam, and every woman stands in the same position as Eve.

Because Stott was unaware of the meaning and concept of the love-headship that was established before the Fall, he fell back on creating his own, namely, "care and responsibility." These are good Christian-sounding virtues and no one could deny they are desirable in a man. "The husband's headship of his wife, therefore, is a headship more of care than of control, more of responsibility than of authority" (247). Omitted from this definition is obedience&emdash;voluntary, loving obedience, given by his wife. Without obedience the love-headship relation cannot be sustained. Given the wife's voluntary choice to obey, then her husband's "care" and "responsibility" will be a joy to give, and not a yoke. Her voluntary choice to obey is based on her knowledge that God created her to be a helpmeet to man; to obey him in everything, and to do it as unto the Lord himself, even when her husband is not worthy of her obedience. At the heart of the love-headship relation is Christian love. "Husbands love your wives;" "Wives obey your husbands." These are two sides of the love-headship coin. On the one side is love-headship, and on the other is force-headship.

When either partner fails to live up to their headship calling then it will revert to a force-headship, the default headship that characterises every man born into the world. In itself this headship is not evil. God pointed this out to Eve, "he shall rule over you." This "ruling over someone" or dominion, or force-headship, never existed until Eve sinned against Adam by leading him to disobey his Head. But from that point onwards it became an instrument whereby man would always retain control of his world by force if necessary.

In itself this force-headship is not intrinsically evil because God Himself resorted to it, and Jesus will do the same with Satan in the Last Days. Satan was once under God's control, but when he rebelled the other side of God's love-headship emerged, namely His force-headship. And by means of force He restored His perfect rule. So the use of force per se is not intrinsically evil. It can be used for good or evil. God's will is that the love-headship should be the normal way for His people to live, but if it is challenged, then force or discipline is permissible to retain/regain control of the normal order of rule.

Stott's reduction of male headship to "protective care" is only a half-truth. The other half is that the correct female response to male headship is to choose freely to obey her husband in everything. In every marriage the man's headship has two sides. There is a love-headship which responds to loving obedience, and there is a force-headship which responds to disobedience. The Lord God informed Eve, "he will rule over you," and man will, either through one headship or the other rule over her. To a large extent it is up to the woman which headship will "rule her." If she chooses the path of obedience and submission to her husband's will then she can expect a love-headship response; but if she chooses to challenge her husband's God-given headship, then she can expect to be ruled by brute force, and forfeit the joys of a happy marriage. No man could divorce a woman who chose the path of obedience, or reject the woman God loves who is defined as a woman with a gentle and quiet spirit (1 Pet 3:4).

One of the duties laid on older Christian women was to teach the younger women how "to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God" (Tit 2:4-5). With the increasing prevalence of divorce among Christian women, have the older women failed in their duty to God to teach younger women "to be subject to their husbands," in everything? The fact that these older women are to teach suggests that females are not born with an innate sense of how a marriage will "work." It has to be taught; knowledge has to be imparted. And at the core of this transmitted knowledge will be the biblical teaching on the headship of Man, Christ and God. This is implicit in the words "to love their husbands," and "to be subject to their husbands."

HEAD-COVERING

Stott does not accept (or understand?) Paul's theological case, based on creation and nature, that women should be covered before God, and men not covered. He makes the assumption that, "The wearing of a veil or of a particular hair style was indeed a cultural expression of submission to masculine headship, and may be replaced by other symbols more appropriate to the twentieth century, . . ." (246).

There is a certain ambivalence shown here toward the Word of God. He starts with twentieth-century culture and seeks to bring God's Word into line with it. It does not seem to occur to him to consider whether twentieth-century culture is an arrogant flouting of God's good order. Its culture certainly does not arise from God's Word. Twentieth-century culture is anti-God and expresses the mind of the "god of this world" (Acts 26:18; Eph 2:2; 6:12; Col 1:13; 2:15). In fashion it degrades women and exploits them at every level, in adverts, on TV, in literature, art, music, and clothes. As regards modesty, near nudity is seen on every beach and cat-walk. Free condoms are handed to our children. Filth, bad manners, bad language, crudity of all kinds bombard us daily and this is held up as "culture." It is unrighteous living.

Stott again shows more awareness of anti-biblical literature than he does of Scripture itself if he assumes that the argument put forward by Paul for head-covering is based on local custom and not on gender.

It is surprising that Scott accepted Hurley's unsubstantiated theory that the "covering" and "uncovering" in 1 Cor 11 is the same as "putting up" and "putting down" hair. Such a theory will not stand up to a close study of the text.

Stott's rather distant approach toward the text of Scripture is also surprising and disturbing. It is one thing to be well-read in secondary literature, but if we neglect our primary source&emdash;God's Word, it does not say too much about our respect for it. I find his dismissal of Paul's argument as though it was based on local culture very disturbing. It shows up a yawning gap in his hermeneutical approach to Paul's writings. He clearly has a feminist-orientated axe to grind. He is constantly looking for compromise with feminist-sounding words such as "equality" and "partnership" between the sexes (248). These are sound biblical concepts, but the only "equality" that is a biblical concept is the "moral image of God" in which He created male and female. The only "partnership" that is a biblical concept is the love-headship between men and women, where the wife is to obey her husband in all things and he is to love his wife at all times.

PART FOUR: MINISTRY

Some Christians have argued that the ordination of women is inadmissible because all the authority offices (apostles and elders) were gender specific and it was incompatible with male headship for women to rule or teach men. But Stott brushes aside the Pauline arguments against women ministers with the remark, "That is only one side of the argument, however. On the other side, a strong prima facie biblical case can be made for active female leadership in the Church, including a teaching ministry [to men]" (250).

Scott's "biblical case" consists of the gift of prophesy given to women, like Huldah and Miriam. Deborah was more because she judged Israel and settled their disputes and led Israel into battle.

God is sovereign over all His works and hence He may, and often does, use extraordinary means to accomplish His purposes&emdash;extraordinary from our point of view. For example, He opened the mouth of an ass to rebuke a prophet (Num 22:28). When Saul told his servants to, "Find me a woman who is a medium, so that I may go and enquire of her," because, "the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets" (God's usual means), God used a means that Saul ought to have "cut off" (1 Sam 28:9) in order to condemn him. He had commanded His people to cut off all such mediums (Deut 18:9-12; Lev 19:31; 20:6, 27).

Thus we see that God can use agencies to convey His will which He has proscribed in His Word. We should not, therefore, conclude from the witch of Endor's account that it is permissible for the Church to institute and ordain witches to the ministry because they have been instrumental in conveying God's will in the past! Though we are bound to God's written and revealed will for us, He is not bound by His own laws as we have just shown.

When God threatened to chastise Jerusalem and Judah we read (Isaiah 3:1-5, 12):

See now . . . the Lord Almighty is about to take from Jerusalem and Judah . . . hero and warrior, the judge and prophet, the soothsayer and elder . . . . I will make boys their officials; mere children will govern them. . . . The young will rise up against the old. . . . Youths oppress my people, women rule over them.

It was a shame in Hebrew culture to be ruled by a woman or a child, or to die by the hand of a woman. God knows how to shame the male members of the Old Testament Church.

When a nation, people or congregation turn away from God they very soon turn aside His authority structures. Things are turned upside down, and the men and women who rule have power only in name, not in reality. For old Israel, the outward sign of spiritual decline&emdash;of God's judgment&emdash;was when women ruled over them. When they saw women in authority they could conclude that all was not well with the nation's worship. The remedy was not to oust the women from positions of authority, but to repent and return to the Lord who would reset the nation on its feet again, and restore the judge and prophet to lead them.

Another paraded example of Stott's is, "And the children of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord . . . . Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, she judged Israel at that time" (Jud 4:1, 4). But here we have a clear example of a woman ruling Israel in a time of apostasy.

Of the more favourable references to women in the OT we read of Miriam, the sister of Moses, leading in singing. But when we look a little closer at the text it reads (Exod 15:20): "Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her, with tambourines and dancing." This is a good example of a woman ministering to women. She did not lead the men in singing Yahweh's praises. Later on, Miriam and Aaron (she is named first, Num 12:1ff.) spoke against Moses and challenged his authority. God was content simply to rebuke Aaron, but we are told, "The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he left them. When the cloud lifted from above the Tent, there stood Miriam&emdash;leprous, like snow" (12:9-10). When Moses and Aaron pleaded with God to heal her, the Lord replied, "If her father had spat in her face, would she not have been in disgrace for seven days? Confine her outside the camp for seven days" (12:14). God's punishment was the equivalent of spitting in her face for challenging the authority of Moses; she was condemned to remain outside the company of God's people for seven days like an unclean thing in His sight.

In the OT Hilkiah the priest and four other men went to the home of Huldah the prophetess and received Yahweh's prophetic word through her (2 Kgs 22:14). Since God has poured out His Spirit on old and young, male and female, it follows that if men could exercise their prophetic gift outside the context of the formal ecclesia, then the women and girls could also do the same, provided they covered their head. What is forbidden to the women, but granted to the men, is to exercise their prophetic gift in the church meeting itself. A woman cannot use the excuse that she could not help speaking a prophetic word in church because she was overcome by the Spirit to speak, because we are told that "the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, for God is not a God of disorder, but of peace" (1 Cor 14:32), or as one paraphrase puts it, "Remember that a person who has a message from God has the power to stop himself or to wait his turn" (The Living Bible).

Noadiah was a prophetess in the time of Nehemiah, but she strongly opposed Nehemiah's attempt to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (see Neh 6:1; probably by giving out some "word of prophecy" she had "received" from Yahweh) and along with other male prophets tried to intimidate him. Self-proclaimed prophetesses and prophets give false advice or false messages from God. The testing procedure is set out in Deuteronomy 13:1. Such false prophetesses and prophets were to be stoned even if they were one's parents or relatives (Deut 13:6; 33:9). No doubt Noadiah prophesied in public.

In the NT we read of Anna, a prophetess of eighty-four years of age, who "spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem" (Lk 2:38). As there were no public assemblages in the Temple precincts on such occasions, the speaking of this holy woman took place on a personal or private level. Nevertheless, she did speak to all, including Simeon, who was present, therefore women did deliver their prophecies to men in a private or personal capacity.

Prophetesses in public roles seem to be the exception in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament prophetesses were more common. In Acts 21:9 we read: "He [Philip] had four unmarried daughters who had the gift of prophecy." The text does not tell us when, how, or where they exercised their gift. The verse as it stands, however, says nothing about these four daughters prophesying in the church. Like Huldah they probably prophesied in their own home, but we have no evidence that they prophesied in the church. It is a sign of desperation when Acts 21:9 is used as "proof" that women prophesied in the church.

The only reference to a prophetess teaching in a New Testament church is in Revelation 2:20, where she is roundly condemned by him "whose eyes are like blazing fire" as follows:

To the angel of the church in Thyatira write: . . . I know your deeds, your love and faith . . . . Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.

Note that Jesus says she calls herself a prophetess, which suggests he did not regard her as such.

Lastly, we have a further example of God's sovereignty over His own means of communicating His prophecies to His people in using the impious high-priest Caiaphas to convey a prophecy about Jesus' death for the nation (Jn 11:50ff.).

It is clear, then, that God may, in His sovereignty, bring good out of evil, and use pious and impious persons to convey His will. Pragmatic arguments and arguments from results are not convincing arguments. Pragmatic arguments if they fly in the face of God's revealed truth are dangerous, and if put into practice are sinful, "Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins" (Jas 4:17).

Much is made of the fact that Apollos was taken into the home of Aquila and Priscilla where they explained the Word of God to him more fully. Note that this activity did not happen in church, but that does not stop many from applying it to the ecclesia. Neither did Priscilla explain the Gospel on her own. We have no example where a woman taught a man on her own in her own home. Would this have been possible or seemly? It cannot be inherently immoral for a husband and wife to invite someone into their home and talk to them about spiritual things, surely? So what's the problem with Priscilla discussing spiritual matters with male guests? You would think to read some commentators that she was involved in some extraordinary feat, unheard of in the annals of human relationships! If women are told to educate themselves by asking their own husbands at home concerning what he learned in the weekly services, surely she could learn from other male friends and guests, and there will arise occasions when she knows more than some of her male guests or younger friends in the faith. It would be quite natural for her to impart this knowledge to them, surely, in the privacy of her own home. But we are not at liberty to extrapolate a principle from what happened in her home to what she can do in church, especially if she specifically forbidden to teach in church.

There are two distinct approaches to the biblical material. On the one hand there are those who work from principles that are either stated or implied in Scripture. These principles, together with an understanding of the integrity of God's Word as a consistent and reliable guide to the mind of the Trinity, are their guide to understanding the practices of the Early Church as reflected in the pages of the New Testament writings. Thus Phoebe would be understood to be operating within those principles and not in opposition to them, and so her work for the Lord would be seen within a theological context and not as the result of an ad hoc arrangement. Given the consistent teaching of the Apostles and the culture she lived in there is just no way that she could have spoken in the Christian Church (or Christian synagogue). A good understanding of the culture she lived in, Paul's teaching on the place of women in all his churches, the history of the next nineteen centuries which never saw a woman permitted to preach in church, give a consistent picture. What was preventing the Church from permitting women to speak in the church was theology or principle. They clearly allowed principle to come before pragmatic considerations.

On the other hand, others approach the same biblical material, but start, not with isolating theological principles, but with practices: with what people actually did; how Jesus treated men and women; the large number of female friends that Paul greets, etcetera, and out of these incidents or descriptions draw some general observations. These observations, plus a different understanding of the integrity of God's Word, including the idea that the Scriptures give contradictory teaching and that those who wrote them were not always consistent in what they said and did, often present a picture that appeals to today's sense of what is fair and right. On this approach greater attention is paid to the practices of the Apostolic Church, without a deeper understanding of the underlying principles that produced those practices. The practices then become the basis for extensions. For example it is argued that if Phoebe could be a deacon why could she not be an Elder? If Priscilla taught Apollos in her home why could she not do the same in church? If a man can preach why can't a woman? The argument from extension must be carefully weighed in case it violates the principle that produced the original practice which is now being extended.

If the Lord has given the gift of prophesy to male and female but He specifically lays it down that females are not to exercise this gift in His church that should be the end of the matter. If they are not permitted to exercise the gift in His Church then they are permitted to exercise it outside the Church, and thus there is no contradiction between 1 Corinthians 11:5 and 14:34. If we find women exercising their gift of prophecy then we can infer that they did so either in their own home, or in the company of friends, or even in public (with their heads covered). The one place we can infer they did not exercise it was in the Church. If we find men exercising their gift of prophecy then we can infer that they did so either in their own home, or in the company of friends, or even in public. The one place we can also infer they exercised it was in the Church, because we know that they were permitted to do so there.

It might appear that God is being arbitrary in debarring women from exercising His gift in one place but not in another, but He has His reasons. I have set these out in the theological section of this work. It is not profitable to set up disagreements between Jesus and Paul, or between Jesus and the apostolic church, or between Paul and the Early Church, and use these supposed disagreements to do away with the principles on which God has ordained we should come before Him in worship. To use Scripture to destroy Scripture puts the destroyer in the place of Scripture.

The universal principle is: Remain in your present calling. If one is female, let her remain female, and accept this from God and the calling that goes with it, namely to subordinate all her talents and knowledge to serve Man as his helpmeet, knowing that this is exactly what God wants her to do with her life. The statement of what she is expected to do with her life must give her life tremendous focus. It is a very practical calling. She can see the man before her whom she is to help achieve the purpose he has been made for.

On the other hand, if one is male, let him remain male, and accept this from God and the calling that goes with it, namely, to subordinate all his mind, and soul and strength to serve God through Christ, and Him alone. This is slightly more difficult for him because he does not have God right before him in a physical manner to whom he can talk, as a wife might do to her husband. But nevertheless man is obliged to find out what is God's will for him and get on with it by faith. It must be comforting to him to have someone by his side who truly loves him and is desirous that he fulfil his own personal calling. She is so united with him in body and soul that his goal becomes hers; they both can subdue the earth if they work together in harmony with God's laws.

We have scratched about to find a clear example that would contradict the rule that women should keep silent in the churches, but there is none. At best we have found instances where God poured out His Holy Spirit on women, as well as on men, in the OT Church, but He never raised up women of the stature of Isaiah, Jeremiah or Ezekiel, with a ministry to the whole nation. Why did He choose only men to reach men?

Stott acknowledges that he has no example where a woman had an office ministry in the NT, that is, a woman apostle (not even a special place for Jesus' mother, or the wife of an apostle who went around carrying out a public ministry alongside her husband). There is not a single woman Elder ordained in any church anywhere. Wherever women appear they always do so in a helpmeet role, often as married couples (see Rom 16), but never in a leadership role over men in their own right. In any case that would have been impossible given the culture of the time which was set up by Yahweh Himself.

Theologically a woman could never be head of her husband. That would be against revealed truth. So if she has to be subject to her own husband how could she be head over another woman's husband? The idea is preposterous. Each man has only Christ as his head. If his own Elder or Bishop is not his head; and his own father is not his head, much less can a woman be his head. It is against revealed truth for a woman to teach a man because that is an authority role.

Nowhere in the entire history of God's people did a woman have a legitimate teaching role. All the positive biblical examples are of women's ministries which were either charismatic, i.e., prophetesses (Deborah, Miriam, Huldah, Philip's four daughters), or informal and private (e.g., Priscilla and Aquila in their own home). This is in keeping with the headship of man in both testaments.

Despite this, Stott argued that "if God saw no impediment against calling women into a teaching role, the burden of proof lies with the church to show why it should not appoint women to similar responsibilities" (251).

If Stott can show any evidence where, as the normal practice, God "ordained" or "anointed" any women anywhere in the Old or New Testaments to the priesthood, where the teaching ministry was located, or to a position of leadership such as the monarchy, or even to have the main responsibility to teach her own sons God's Law, then he might begin to have a case. The burden of proof lies with the one who wants to change the status quo.

Standing in the way of any leadership role by women over their own husbands, or over other husbands, is the headship of Man. The spirit of the prophets are subject to the prophets' control, which means that any gifts God has given to women they have control over their use of them in the sphere in which she can use them, without violating her headship relation to her husband or any other man. If God gives some women the gift of teaching then she must use that to teach women, not men, in the church, because that is specifically forbidden in 1 Timothy 2:11-12. But Stott overturns this prohibition because he assumes that 1 Corinthians 11:5 permits women to prophesy in church, (251) and so the command to keep silent in 1 Corinthians 14:34 must refer to "talkative women."

I have shown above that 1 Corinthians 11:5 does not explicitly say that women can prophesy in church, whereas 1 Corinthians 14:34 explicitly says she is not to prophesy in church. This means that if she is to exercise her gift of prophecy she can do so outside the church service, and hence there is no contradiction between 11:5 and 14:34.

Another important detail that Stott has overlooked is that the whole epistle of 1 Corinthians was addressed specifically to men, and consequently 1 Corinthians 14 does not envisage any woman making any verbal contribution in church. Throughout it is talking about men contributing a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation, so these activities are limited to men. He did not note the context of 1 Corinthians 14 when he claimed that "everyone" is allowed to make these contributions, "without limiting these to men" (251).

Stott is puzzled why commentators have not viewed Paul's statements in 1 Corinthians 14:34 and 1 Timothy 2:11-12 as two antitheses as set out below.

 [The following table is misaligned.&emdash;LMF]

THESIS ANTITHESIS

LEARN IN QUIETNESS/SILENT TEACH

FULL SUBMISSION AUTHORITY

The definition of antithesis in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary reads:

An opposition or contrast of ideas, expressed by using in contiguous sentences or clauses, words which are strongly contrasted with each other; as "thou shalt wax, and he shall dwindle." By extension: direct opposition (between two things); contrast. The opposite.

The first thing we should note is that the pairing thesis:antithesis is part of rhetoric or the art of using language so as to persuade or influence others (OED). Paul is not arguing a case here, he is laying down the law of Christ: "I do not permit . . . .," and: "let them be silent . . . as the Law says."

Paul is not setting up theses and antitheses in abstraction, but right courses of action and their incompatible opposites within a headship relation. It is this last observation that is central to Paul's whole position. It is missing from Stott's presentation.

It is because Paul is very conscious of the headship principle that governs the whole of God's universe and which he stated clearly in 1 Corinthians 11:3 ("of every man the head is the Christ; the head of woman&emdash;man; the head of Christ&emdash;God") that all his statements in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:11-14 and 1 Corinthians 11:3-16 find their origin and permanency. This principle governs all human relations, all divine relations, and even all Trinitarian relations. There are different powers and authorities among the divine (deity) beings. God as head over all things has given to His Son all authority in heaven and on earth, but He Himself does not come under the Son's authority (1 Cor 15:28). There are different powers and authorities among the angelic beings (angels and archangels). There are different powers and authorities among human beings (heads and non-heads which are specific to gender).

 [The following table is misaligned.&emdash;LMF] 

POWERS AND AUTHORITIES

SAME NATURE DIFFERENT AUTHORITIES

DEITY FATHER SON | HOLY SPIRIT

SPIRIT ARCHANGELS ANGELS

IMAGE OF GOD MALE (HEAD) FEMALE (NON-HEAD)

That Man should have an authority different from women, based on gender, is not permissible in feminist theology. Stott has accepted their theology and diluted or restricted "headship" to cover only "care and responsibility," in other words the nice side of headship. He ignores the fact that headship entails authority over one who, because of a certain prior relationship, owes loving obedience to that head. If that loving obedience is flagrantly withdrawn then the head has the authority to correct the disobedient person. We have shown above that headship has two sides, a love-headship and a force-headship. Both are seen supremely in God in the one case toward His Son (love-headship) and in the other toward Satan (force-headship) where in a cosmic battle God enforced His headship over a disobedient angel. God will be supreme either through submission to His love-headship or through submission to His force-headship. Headship implies that the one who is head must be in control of his world. If he is not, then in the case of God He ceases to be God, and the one who successfully resists His rule is either equal to Him or greater than Him. In the case of Adam, Eve exploited her love-headship to Adam to misuse her free-will to disobey his command not to eat from the Tree. God's reaction to this independent or anti-headship act was to give Man the power to re-establish control of his world by means of imposition, "he shall rule over you," in other words a force-headship, on the analogy of His own experience with Satan. But the love-headship is the normal headship that should prevail in every Christian marriage, but if and when there is the withdrawal of co-operation with the head (whether justified or not) "he will rule over you" will come into operation.

So love, authority and control are key concepts in the idea of headship and lie at the core of it. As part of love will come "care and responsibility;" as part of authority will come many reasoned pleas and requests; as part of control will come correction and ultimately discipline. The whole spectrum from love to punishment is included in the concept of headship. It is seen in God, in Christ as the head of the Church, and in Man. There are only three heads in the whole of God's world. This headship authority He has not given to Woman. Therefore there is no "sexual equality" when it comes to Man's headship. Stott flatly denies this, "The husband's headship of his wife, therefore, is a headship more of care than of control, more of responsibility than of authority" (247). This drastically reduced concept of headship is an attempt to appease feminist objections to the biblical doctrine of male headship. If ignores what happened when Satan rebelled against God's headship. Headship has two sides, but Stott can only see one side&emdash;the nice guy side.

The table above shows that while God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, have equality in nature, they have different authorities and roles (cf. 1 Cor 15:24, 27-28). The same goes for the angels and archangels. They have equality in nature, but not in authority. Lastly, men and women have equality in nature: both are made in the "moral image of God," but they have different authorities. Paul's doctrine of headships is in harmony with equality of nature and inequality of authority&emdash;equal in nature: unequal in authority. "When all things are made submissive to him then the Son himself will be submissive to him who made all things submissive to him, so that God may be all in all" (1 Cor 15:28; three times uJpotavssw is used here; Jesus is now seated at the right hand of God, the position of highest honour, cf. Acts 2:33-34; Rom 8:34; Col 3:1; Heb 3:1, 13; 8:1).

Because Stott, on the one hand, has a deeply compromised concept of Man's headship in order to accommodate feminist objections to male headship, and on the other hand, is attempting to find a further compromise with feminist objections over women's participation in all aspects of Christian ministry, he reduces Paul's teaching in 1 Timothy 2:11-12 to a principle and its cultural expression. He accepts the principle of male headship (but only in its drastically reduced form of "care and responsibility," with maybe an "element" [but not too much] of "authority" and "leadership") and assumes that its first-century cultural expression was silence, which need not be expressed in the same way today. He argues his new idea as follows:

The apostle's instruction sounds quite general: "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent." What strikes me about these sentences (and about 1 Cor. 14.34), and has not been adequately considered by commentators, is that Paul expresses two antitheses, the first between to "learn in quietness" or "be silent" and "to teach," and the second between "full submission" and "authority." The latter is the substantial point, . . . . But the other instruction (the requirement of silence and the prohibition of teaching), . . . seems to be an expression of the authority-submission syndrome, rather than an addition to it. There does not appear to be anything inherent in our distinctive sexualities which makes it universally inappropriate for women to teach men. So is it possible, I want to ask, whether, although the requirement of "submission" is of permanent and universal validity, because grounded in Creation, the requirement of "silence," like that of head-covering in 1 Corinthians 11, was a first-century cultural application of it? (252)

There are a number of misunderstandings of Paul's doctrine of headship here. First, Paul did not base his doctrine of head-covering on local culture. Stott has made a surprising error here and shows a lack of understanding of Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 11. I have set out in full above the theological basis on which Paul argued for head-covering. The main argument being the headship of man. Man has been given a headship authority directly from his Creator, and because he has it, he must not cover his head before God. The woman, on the other hand, does not have the same headship authority, but another authority distinct to her gender (1 Cor 11:10), and because she has it, she must cover her head before God. The status of the physical head (covered or uncovered) reflects the God-given authority each has been given. Because a woman does not have a headship authority she cannot go uncovered, otherwise she is claiming headship authority for herself, which she cannot do in God's presence. It is against good order in the Church.

Second, because Stott has misunderstood Paul's teaching on head-covering in 1 Corinthians 11, he brings that misunderstanding forward as an argument against the silence of women in church in 1 Corinthians 14:34 and 1 Timothy 2:11-12. If he had paid closer attention to 1 Corinthians 11:3-15 he would have noted that there, too, Paul based his argument for head-covering/uncovering on creation theology, and not on first-century culture as he mistakenly thought.

Third, we have noted that the first-century cultural analogy Stott drew between head-covering and keeping silence is flawed (because both universal practices are grounded in creation theology, not in local culture), but that does not prevent Stott from claiming that, "The wearing of a veil . . . was indeed a cultural expression of submission to masculine headship, and may be replaced by other symbols more appropriate to the twentieth century, but the headship itself is creational, not cultural" (246).

Note the false analogy drawn between Paul's call for a "covering" and Stott's use of veil. Paul nowhere calls for women to wear veils. Veils belong to culture and so are man-made conventions which have no spiritual meaning. They are a cultural expression of modesty. The "covering" advocated by Paul, on the other hand, has a spiritual function which is based on the creation authority God gave to Woman. It is not a cultural expression of submission to Man. I have argued elsewhere that in its context 1 Corinthians 11:10 refers to the unique authority that God gave to Woman. Commentators and translators fall over themselves to make the "veil" a symbol of man's authority. On that analogy then the uncovered head of a man must be the symbol of Christ's authority; but it is no such thing. Man is told not to cover his head because he is the image and glory of God, not because Christ is his head. The Lord Jesus is his head but there is no symbol to denote it, so neither is there a symbol to denote Man's headship over Woman.

Fourth, he sets up a false equation with the object of cancelling out or replacing the first-century cultural expression while attempting to holding on to the principle.

  [The following table is misaligned.&emdash;LMF]

THESIS ANTITHESIS

FULL SUBMISSION NOT TO HAVE AUTHORITY

CULTURAL EXPRESSION

TO LEARN IN QUIETNESS/BE SILENT NOT TO TEACH

Paul is not setting up theses and antitheses but incompatibilities.

  [The following table is misaligned.&emdash;LMF]

FEMALE STATUS MALE STATUS

NO HEADSHIP HEADSHIP

LEARN IN SILENCE TEACH

BE COMPLETELY SUBMISSIVE RULE OVER WOMEN

The reason why women are not to teach or rule men (in any shape or form) is not because they do not have the capability (the Holy Spirit does not distribute the gifts according to gender) but because it is incompatible with her status. Headship was given by God through creation to Man only. Paul picks out "teaching" and "ruling" as the pre-eminent marks of authority and control. These are the core attributes of headship when expressed in a loving manner. Teaching and ruling are incompatible with female status&emdash;her non-headship status. She can teach those to whom it would not be incompatible with her female status to teach, for example any other female or her own or other people's children, because this activity is not a headship activity.

Jesus was submissive (uJpotassovmeno") to his own parents at twelve years of age (Lk 2:51). This is the same word that is used in 1 Timothy 2:11 to describe the submissive attitude that Woman is to show toward Man. In other words the submissiveness shown by Jesus is based on the parent-child obedience expected of him in the fifth commandment, "Honour your father and mother," and not on any headship that his parents had over him. In contrast to Jesus' submissiveness the submissiveness shown by Woman to Man in 1 Timothy 2:11 is based on the headship principle, "the head of Woman is Man." We have shown above that all males have Christ, never their earthly father, as their head. So, while sons obey Christ and their father, the latter obedience is based on the father-son relationship, whereas the former is based on Christ's headship of all men. In the latter relationship Christ should have the total concentration of every male to do His will, and not their own. In the father-son relationship, however, the son is not expected to concentrate solely on his father's goal in life to the total exclusion of doing his own will, because his will is claimed by Christ.

We have noted Stott's statement above, "There does not appear to be anything inherent in our distinctive sexualities which makes it universally inappropriate for women to teach men." This ignores the fact that headship is gender-specific and is rooted in creation. It is because Man is the head that Woman is to learn in quietness (disposition). It is because Man is the head that Woman is to be silent (vocal) in Church. It is because Man is the head that Woman is not to teach men. It is because Man is the head that Woman is not to rule a man. It is because Man is the head that Woman is to cover her head in the presence of God.

While Stott permits women to disregard these incompatibilities on the grounds that they are expressions of first-century cultural conditioning, Paul will not permit them because they are incompatible with Man's headship and the Woman's creation status. Because they are based on Creation they were the universal expressions of that theology throughout the universal Church. There was no concession made to any local customs throughout the world. Wherever the Gospel was preached and received the disciples received these universal expressions of doctrine&emdash;the Apostles' teaching&emdash;without question. It is an irony that the Apostles' traditions were challenged otherwise we might never have understood the theological reasons that lay behind them. The ch