There is a place for strong women in church management.
In the Garden, Eve sinned by listening to the wrong voice. But the New Testament says she was deceived, lacking the particular spiritual discernment for things fundamental to human existence. She ventured outside her limits, making a decision which changed all Creation, which was not hers to make. Adam sinned because he refused to restrain her, but let her take the lead in that eternal decision. He did not stand up for God’s divine order.
In the Wilderness Tabernacle, those outside the Covenant had their place for worship. Women under the Covenant got a little closer, but men even closer. Only priests went up to the actual Tabernacle itself, and rarely inside it. It was not about spiritual holiness, but about vested responsibility. Worship was a parable demonstrating certain truths about the human situation as God views it.
The layout of the permanent Temple continued to reflect this. When the Temple was destroyed and Judah was exiled, they had to find some way to keep the Covenant alive. They developed and extended the worship which had always been permitted away from the Temple grounds. The synagogue reflects something of the Temple service. Synagogue leaders sat closest to the raised central platform for reading and teaching. Men sat around them, along with boys past their Bar Mitzvah. Women sat outside that, and Gentiles could gather farther back. This mattered, though, only when the attendance was large enough to warrant such formality.
In spiritual culture, everything is contextual. In the home, women can easily lead as much as men, except for those ultimate decisions which address duty to God. So in worship, men always lead, if available. In the household, women were more likely to be around to make lesser management decisions, presumably in accordance with her husband’s known concerns. She could surely order the servants and slaves around, but they were supposed to balk when they knew it something was contrary to the master’s stated wishes. It was fluid and contextual.
As the gospel spread into Gentile lands, and there were churches composed of mostly or all Gentile believers, no one was surprised to find women elders. The Apostles never batted an eye, apparently. The limitations we know about had to do with dividing between spiritual leadership and management issues. Eve was subject to deception on spiritual matters, which parabolically points to all women. Adam knew better, but was wrong for not taking the lead when it came to that spiritual issue, which only appeared to be a management issue.
If a man can be taught the cultural background necessary for true Christian living, so can a woman. Churches are spiritual families. They gather for worship, and such things require a very strong spiritual discernment and leadership. But the business of gathering and getting things done is a matter of God’s Laws.
The Covenant of Moses applied to Israel, and only to Israel — that nation, that place, that time. It ended at the Cross; the Veil was torn in two. Jesus dismissed the Talmud and corrected the Law of Moses. The latter was merely a contextual application of the higher Laws of God. We learn the Laws of God by reading the Bible with a spiritual understanding. Churches are not under the Talmud for sure, and not under a dead covenant, either. But their management is under Laws. Women can understand the Laws, and execute faithfully the Father’s wishes, same as any adult who seeks to know His Laws.
Families join as families. We give our allegiance to another government. The divine government is always right, regardless of any other government, so there is a sense in which we rebel against all human governments. We are the New Israel, a nation whose borders are in the Spirit Realm. To help us live in this fallen realm while our hearts are in the spiritual domain, He gave Laws. Not simply prescriptions and proscriptions, but a call to personal loyalty to Him. We don’t call people to become born-again; only God can breathe life into a dead spirit. We call sinners to repentance. That is the doorway to eternal life, to divine rebirth. No one of us knows whether any other is born-again, but we can surely know when they need to repent. The church operates under Laws because that’s all we can do.
