WOMEN
IN THE MINISTRY OF JESUS
AND
IN THE EARLY CHURCH.

 

 

By
Ronald W. Graham

 

 

 

 

LEXINGTON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY
1983

 

      The Gospels by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are our primary sources for whatever knowledge we have of what Jesus taught about women and how he related to them. What we gain from the Gospels are remembrances and impressions of the kinds of things that Jesus said, the sorts of deeds that he did, and the types of relationship that he entered into with people. What he taught, he did not write in a book. What he did and how he lived was not recorded on videotape. What we hear, or think we hear, of Jesus is heard through the ears of others; what we see, or believe we see, we see through the eyes of others. It is presumed in what follows that the portrayal in the Gospels of Jesus' attitude toward and relationships with women is sufficiently clear and authentic.

      * This study was prepared at the request of the Commission on the Ministry of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Kentucky and is published with the Commission's concurrence. The assignment had a number of facets. One, it was to "cover the waterfront" and do so with lay women and men and parish clergy in mind. Therefore scholarly references are minimal. Two, it was judged that the method of interpretation is as important an issue as determining what the New Testament says. Otherwise we are left with, for example, one person citing Paul in Galatians 3:28, "there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus," and another quoting Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:34, "the women should keep silence in the churches," with the two never brought into dialogue with each other. Three, it was thought that the emphasis should be on scripture, with the implications drawn in a study guide. In consequence there is, for instance, no discussion of women as elders.

      Portions of the study on Paul have appeared in the Quarterly in earlier issues and are used with permission: "Women in the Pauline Churches: A Review Article," 11: 1976: 25-34, and "Paul's Pastorate in Corinth: A Keyhold View of His Ministry," 17: 1982: 45-46, 48-52. Many versions of the Bible are used by present-day Christians. Those cited in this study are as follows:

1)   The language of Jesus

      Jesus taught, or for the most part taught, in Aramaic (the language of the common people in Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia from about 300 B. C. to A. D. 650). The Gospels are written in Greek. Greek grammar, as English, has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter, although gender is not a matter of sex as it usually is in English. (The word for "word," logos, is masculine, for "day," hemera, feminine, and for "child," paidion or teknon, neuter. The definite article, "the," which has but one form in English, has distinct masculine, ho, feminine, he, and neuter, to, forms in Greek. The same is true for pronouns, adjectives, and a number of other parts of speech.)

      Jesus never uses--or is never portrayed as using--inclusive language such as "men and women" (much less "women and men"). Look, for example, at the Greek of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (5:3). The "blessed" are masculine, as are "the poor in spirit," and so on through all the Beatitudes. When Jesus talks about disagreements between people and how this relates to worship it is anger against the "brother" and insulting language used against the "brother" that is in mind (5:22-24). Likewise the "enemy" who is to be loved is masculine (5:43-44). (The word is adjectival in Greek and had both masculine and feminine forms.) Those who do love their enemies and pray for their persecutors are said to be "sons" of the heavenly Father (v. 45) (though, interestingly enough, the King James version of 1611 translated this in the inclusive term, "children").

      The disciples once put to Jesus the question, "Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?" and for answer Jesus called a child and "put him in the midst of them" and talked about the childlike spirit. The word "child," paidion, is neuter in Greek, and the word translated "him" is therefore also neuter and so we do not know whether Jesus selected a boy or a girl (Mark 9:36; Matt. 18:2; Luke 9:47). However, when he goes on to say, "whoever receives one such child in my name receives me" (Mark 9:37; Matt. 18:5; Luke 9:48), the "whoever" might in Greek have been masculine or feminine but is in fact masculine.

      Sometimes only a masculine or neuter form was available and the choice of a feminine was not open to Jesus if he wanted to be clearly [4] understood. But time and again, when he could have used a feminine form, or both a feminine and masculine, he used (only) masculine.

      What might we conclude from this? One possibility is that we owe the male-oriented language of the Gospels to Jesus himself. In which case he might have been insensitive to the feelings of women of his time (which presumes that women who heard Jesus had feelings about inclusive language), or that he did not foresee that down the centuries this usage would present a problem to women who would follow him if they could, or that he was biased against women, or that he chose not to take issue with the patterns of speech then current in public address. The other possibility is that we owe the male-oriented language to Mark and the other Evangelists and the early Church. In which case we are dealing with interpreters of Jesus who were insensitive, or lacking in foresight, or biased, or who thought that in their day and age fighting the battle of inclusive language was not worth the trouble.

      What we have to come to terms with is that the language of Jesus in the Gospels of the New Testament is male-oriented. But language does not tell the whole story.

2)   The Parables of Jesus

      The parables are transcripts of common life. They do not ask in the first place whether this or that action is to be morally approved or disapproved. They simply note that as a matter of fact people do so and so--the shepherd seeks a sheep that is lost (Matt. 18:12-13; Luke 15:3-6); the pearl-merchant knows a good bargain when he sees it (Matt. 13:44-46); people often do a service to others not out of pure kindness but to save themselves greater trouble (Luke 11:5-8); a shrewd manager uses his advantages without scruple and profits by it (Luke 16:1-13). Some parables have to do with things--like the salt that has lost its saltiness (Mark 9:50; Matt. 5:13; Luke 14:34-35) or the fruit that a tree bears (Matt. 7:16-18; Luke 6:43-44).

      Others naturally take the affairs and doings of men as their subject--like the sower sowing seed (Mark 4:3-9; Matt. 13:1-9; Luke 8:4-8) and the builders building on solid rock or shifting sand (Matt. 7:24-27; Luke 6:47-49).

      However, a few of Jesus' stories have women as central characters in them. For example, the center piece of Luke's trilogy of parables of [5] the lost and found--the sheep, the coin, and the boy--has a woman as its chief character. The silver Greek drachme was one of ten that she owned--perhaps her savings, or her dowry, or a circlet of coins that she wore as a headdress. In any event it was precious. She lived in a peasant's house with a low door and no windows and so must light a lamp and seek carefully among the reeds on the floor and in every nook and corner until she finds it. Her fears allayed, she needs must share her relief and joy and so immediately gathered neighbors together to tell them the good news. In the same way, says Jesus, linking earth with heaven, "there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents" (Luke 15:8-10).

      Again, it is Luke who also has the parable of what the Jerusalem Bible entitles "the unscrupulous judge and the importunate widow" (18:1-18). As the story runs, there was a certain judge who neither feared nor cared what people thought about him. To such a judge came one of that society's most vulnerable persons, a widow. She had no wealth with which to bribe him and no power with which to threaten him. She could only plead out of conviction of the rightness of her cause. She entreated the judge in his court and waylaid him in the street, making her angry plea and pouring out her insufferable tale of woe. He could not get away from her. At last, to stop her from worrying him to death, he saw to it that she got her rights. The story presupposes an interval between the days of the ministry and the Second Coming and this widow's nagging persistence becomes an encouragement for the disciples to "keep on praying and never lose heart" (v. 1, NEB). (The parable has the secondary message that God will vindicate his chosen people in the end.)

3)   Divorce and remarriage

      Divorce was a man's prerogative in Judaism. In Roman society a woman could divorce her husband. A Jewish woman could sue, asking a court to force her husband to give her a divorce.

      Jesus is quoted on the issue of divorce and remarriage in Mark 10:1-12; Matthew 19:1-12; Luke 16:18. Two features of these passages may be stressed. One, there is a strong affirmation of marriage as a union between a man and a woman that is not to be broken by humankind. God's intention is permanency in marriage; divorce was a concession made [6] later to human hardness of heart (Mark and Matthew). The appeal to God's intention emphasizes that male and female are created for each other, with no place made for the subordination of the woman to the man. Two, in Matthew, Jesus champions the right of a faithful, innocent wife not to be divorced. In Mark, he is purported to have accorded a wife the same right of initiating divorce proceedings (which was a contemporary Roman, but not a Jewish, right), whilst at the same time she comes under the same judgment as a husband does. In Luke, Jesus charges the man who divorces his wife and marries another as committing adultery against a woman, contrary to the male orientation in Jewish society, which found adultery to be a sin against some man's rights.

      In Matthew 5:31-32 Jesus defends the right of the innocent wife who has been given a certificate of divorce by her husband--the right for the marriage to be maintained and for her to be respected (see Evelyn and Frank Stagg, Woman in the World of Jesus, pp. 131-32).

      One thing common to these sayings ascribed to Jesus is the absence of the double standard that discriminated against women, together with some bias in favor of women.

4)   A universal gospel

      In spite of what has been noted about the male-oriented language of the Jesus of the Gospels and the predominance of male imagery in the parables, there is nothing in the accounts that suggests that there was one gospel for men and another for women, or that acceptance of that good news entailed one thing for women and another for men, or that audiences were segregated. The grammar of the Greek may be masculine in form, but the "whosoever will" of the gospel was universal in character and was so understood by women as much as by men in the days of Jesus' ministry.

      In relation to women, Jesus' manner of life is even more instructive than his teaching.

1)   Jairus' daughter
      Mark 5:21-24, 35-43; Matt. 9:18-19, 23-26; Luke 8:40-42, 49-56

      Once upon a day, perhaps in the region of Capernaum, an official of the local synagogue came to Jesus and begged him to come and lay hands [7] of healing on his 12-year old daughter who was just about "at her last gasp" (Sherman E. Johnson, The Gospel According to St. Mark, 2nd ed., p. 106).

      By the time Jesus arrived at the house the girl was dead. The mourning party was ushered out of the house and in company with the father and the mother and three disciples, Jesus raised the young girl.

2)   The woman with the hemorrhage
      Mark 5:25-34; Matt. 9:20-22; Luke 8:43-48

      Sandwiched between Scenes I and II of the Jairus narrative is the account of the woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years and had endured much at the hands of doctors. Perhaps because her disease made her ceremonially unclean, she came up to Jesus from behind and touched the fringe of his outer garment. Immediately the bleeding stopped. And Jesus, realizing inwardly that power had gone out of him, turned around in the press of people and asked, "Who touched me?" Whereupon the woman, in fear and trembling for the audacity she had shown in her uncleanness, told her bitter-sweet story. And Jesus said to her, "Daughter, your faith has saved you; go in peace, and be healed of your disease" (Mark 5:34).

3)   The Syrophoenician woman
      Mark 7:24-30; Matt. 15:21-28

      This story is without parallel in the Gospels. Matthew calls the woman featured in it a Canaanite, which is the ancient name by which the Phoenicians called themselves. In the time of Jesus, Phoenicia, which included Tyre and Sidon, was included in the Roman province of Syria. She is described by Mark as a Greek which, from a Jewish point of view, would mean that she was a pagan.

      To follow Mark, whose account differs somewhat from Matthew's: One day when Jesus was in a house near the city of Tyre, as soon as she had heard about him the Syrophoenician woman came and fell at his feet, begging him to drive the demon out of her daughter. Jesus' response strikes us as being out of character: "Let us feed the children first; it isn't right to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs" (TEV). The desperate mother, stubbornly humble, refusing to be rebuffed, is open to receive whatever help Jesus is prepared to give: "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's leftovers." At [8] which, Jesus answered: "For such an answer you may go home; the demon has gone out of your daughter."

      Verse 27 has long presented difficulties, first at the point of the suggestion, that the Jews ("the children") must be given the bread of the gospel before it can be shared with the Gentiles ("the dogs"), and second, the harshness of Jesus' response. The first may be accounted for as a reflection of the situation of the Church at Mark's time of writing, acquainted with or involved in the Gentile mission (see Rom. 1:16, "to the Jew first and also to the Greek"). The second is not so easily disposed of and as a result half a dozen or so attempts have been made to tone down Jesus' seeming rudeness. (1) Jesus spoke in half-jest, referring playfully to house dogs or puppies (kyrania; the Jerusalem Bible translates the word as "house dogs"). But that is unfunny humor. (2) Or perhaps he says in effect, "My disciples might regard Gentiles as dogs, but would you and I agree with that?" (The disciples' irritation with the woman, described as loud mouthed, and Jesus' seeming aversion, are in Matthew's account.) (3) Or maybe Jesus spoke sharply in order to put her faith to the test (see Matt. 15:28). (4) Or it could be that his response was not intended as an insult but was a reflection of his uncertainty: should he give--was he obliged to give--to Gentiles that which in large measure he had not been able to give to his own? (5) Or perhaps the response was all the sharper because Jesus' understanding of his mission had a growing edge to it and it was now becoming acutely clear to him that the good news could not be confined to his own nation.

      This pagan woman's faith--her confidence or desperate hope in her refusal to be put off, her humble openness--found reward in her daughter's restoration to a sound mind.

4)   The widow's gift
      Mark 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4

      The point of this story is a comparison between contributions to God (for religious and charitable purposes) that are significantly personal and sacrificial and those that cost little because given out of one's surplus.

      However it was a woman's giving that Jesus singled out, not a rich man's or a priest's, and this in spite of women's limited access to the Temple in Jerusalem. [9]

5)   The woman (or the women) who anointed Jesus
      (1) Mark 14:3-9; Matt. 26:6-13

      These two Evangelists tell of an unnamed woman who came to Jesus when he was in the house of Simon the leper, in Bethany. It is given as the first episode in the Passion Narrative. She anointed Jesus' head with expensive perfume. Some present resented the waste, contending that the money had been better spent on the poor. But he regarded the act of extravagant devotion as a beautiful deed, something akin to anointing his body for the burying. Jesus appreciated women, as well as men, whose life had an over-and-above quality to it, whether faith, stewardship, or devotion.

      (2) John 12:1-8

      John has an anointing of Jesus by Mary of Bethany which at some points resembles Mark's account and at others, Luke's (see below). It takes place six days before Jesus' last Passover rather than two, as in Mark, and where Mary anointed him is not stated. It is Jesus' feet that are anointed, rather than his head. Moreover, it is Judas specifically who is critical that the money had not been spent on almsgiving for the poor--a much more righteous deed, in his view, than anointing with costly perfume.

      One thing common to all three accounts is Jesus' appreciation for a woman who had some deep sympathy for the purpose of his life and sought, as it turned out, to match the prodigality of his self-giving with the lavishness of her own. (See Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John, I-XII, pp. 447-54.)

      (3) Luke 7:36-50

      Luke tells of an anointing of Jesus that differs markedly from Mark's story and even from John's. It takes place early in the Galilean ministry; the setting is' criticism of Jesus by fastidious Jews who thought he ran with the wrong kind of people; the house is a Pharisee's; the woman who anoints is a "sinner"; contrast is drawn between the love shown by this prostitute (or, possibly, adulteress) and the lack of love (defined here as common courtesy) shown by the host; none expresses concern for the poor; no reference is made to the anointing as a preparation for the day of Jesus' burial; and the upshot of it all is that the woman is forgiven. [10]

      One of the things Luke seizes on as reflective of Jesus' moral insight is that God's willingness to forgive sins is integrally related to our willingness to love or our capacity for loving, and that this was exemplified in the outpouring of generosity and contrition in a "call girl." (See I. Howard Marshall, Commentary on Luke, pp. 304-314.)

6)   The widow's son at Nain
      Luke 7:11-17

      In losing her son, the widow of Nain, but half a dozen miles from Nazareth, was bereft of the only other man in her family and many of the townspeople mourned with her. As Jesus joined the sorrowing procession "his heart [too] went out to her" (v. 13, NEB, NIV). He touched the coffin--unclean because it contained a dead body--and called upon the young man to sit up. When the son had sat up and spoken, Luke concludes the human interest part of his tale with the heartfelt one-liner: "and Jesus gave him back to his mother" (v. 15, TEV, NIV).

7)   The ministering women
      Luke 8:1-3

      Jesus' forgiveness of the "erring sister" who anointed him and his raising of the dead son of the widow of Nain is followed in Luke by a thumbnail sketch of a preaching mission by Jesus in the towns and villages of Galilee. In this he was not alone but was joined by the Twelve and quite a number of women. Some had been cured of evil spirits and some were healed of their sicknesses, demonstrating in personal service their gratitude to Jesus. Others, apparently, had other reasons for accompanying him. Luke names three women, including the wife of an officer in the court of Herod Antipas (one of Herod the Great's sons), Tetrarch of Galilee. Much is packed into the sentence: "[they] used their own resources to help" (translating diakonein, from which comes "deacon") "Jesus and his disciples" (v. 3, TEV).

      This suggests that women had a public and prominent part in the ministry of Jesus.

8)   Martha and Mary
      (1) Luke 10:38-42

      If frequency of reference means anything, the two women Jesus was closest to were the Bethany sisters, Mary and Martha. Luke tells of a visit to their home in which Martha prepared the meal while Mary [11] "settled down at the Lord's feet and was listening to what he said" (v. 39, PME). Martha got upset over all the preparations she had to make unaided and finally vented her feelings to Jesus: "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to get on with the work by myself? Tell her to come and lend a hand" (v. 40, NEB).

      But Jesus chided her for "fretting and fussing" (v. 41, NEB) over the preparations and added: "Just one [thing] is needed. Mary has chosen the right thing, and it will not be taken away from her" (v. 42, TEV).

      What is the right thing that Mary is doing or what is the better part she has chosen (NEB)? Why is it right or better? What does Luke intend by this story?

      Mar-tha is the Aramaic feminine of mar, meaning, "master" or "teacher." Perhaps her name coincided with her being the "mistress" of the household.

      It may be that Jesus thought that Martha's problem lay in making too elaborate preparations for the meal. "One dish" would be sufficient and though he was "Lord" (that is, master teacher) no more was called for. It was she, not Mary, who was creating consternation and tension. Moreover, were the meal less sumptuous, Martha herself would have more time to listen to Jesus' "teaching" (as the RSV and TEV in v. 39 translate ton logon autou, "his word").

      After a lawyer said to Jesus, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" eliciting the response, "Love God, love neighbor" (10:25-28) there comes in Luke the Parable of the Good Samaritan ostensibly addressed to the question, "Who is my neighbor?" (10:29-37). Then comes the narrative of Martha and Mary which may be intended by Luke to speak to one facet of loving God.

      It may therefore rather be in Luke's account that what Mary has set first--an insight that is endorsed by the Teacher--is the importance of listening to Jesus as the teacher of the word of God. What that teaching testified to was the Kingdom of God so Mary's choice had to do with her opening herself to receive the blessings of that Kingdom. On that occasion, listening to the teaching was more important than preparation for a meal; what Mary chose was right and not to be denied her and Martha's choices might also have included such or some listening. [12] The part that Mary chose or the role that she played was unconventional. Luke's emphasis is on Teacher--teaching--learning. Women were not instructed by rabbis in the Scripture itself although they were taught how it should regulate their lives. They were not allowed to touch the Torah. (See Evelyn and Frank Stagg, Woman in the World of Jesus, p. 118.) But Jesus, the Teacher, opened his heart and mind to Mary and she was justified in listening, and not giving herself up to the preparation of a meal, and choosing not to be squeezed into Martha's mold. "For a Jewish audience it would be of great significance that a place was given to women by Jesus not simply to do domestic duties in church but to listen and learn" (Marshall, Luke, p. 451).

      (2) John 11:1-44

      Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, appears only in the Gospel of John. In chapter 12 he is present, on the eve of the Passion, when Jesus and at least Judas were guests in the Bethany home. The sisters served, Lazarus reclined at table with the guests, and Mary at one point anointed the feet of Jesus with fragrant, costly perfume.

      According to chapter 11, Lazarus fell ill and his sisters sent for Jesus. He died and for some unstated reason Jesus did not come until had been in the tomb four days. When the grieving sisters heard that Jesus was on his way, Martha went to meet him. There may be rebuke in her greeting to Jesus: "If you had been here, sir, my brother would not have died" (v. 21, NEB). Martha went and got Mary and they returned to Jesus, still strangely where Martha had left him. Mary reiterates Martha's rebuke or plea. Then all three made their way to the tomb and Jesus raised Lazarus, restoring him to life.

      The narrative centers on Jesus and his being "the resurrection and the life" to every person who has faith in him (v. 25), but what it says about these two women in passing is not without interest.

      Martha could converse with Jesus about her belief in the resurrection (vv. 21-27), indicating that her mind was not confined to the kitchen.

      When Martha and Mary went to Jesus, weeping, he was deeply moved and burst into tears (vv. 31-35).

      At the tomb, it was Martha who protested rolling away the stone that sealed it on the ground that smell and sight would be too much. [13]

      After the raising of Lazarus, "many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary [after her brother's death] . . . put their faith in [Jesus]" (v. 45, NIV). First one sister, then the other, is featured and each has her identity.

      Martha and Mary, Lazarus and Jesus constituted a group of friends. Martha felt free to rebuke Jesus, even though, or because, she respected him. Jesus could take issue with her without condescension. Feelings between them could run deep. From the two women Jesus could receive; to them he could give. Tension, sorrow, and joy they could openly share.

9)   A woman reproved
      Luke 11:27-28

      One day, in the crowd, reports Luke, a woman called out to Jesus, "Happy the womb that carried you and the breasts that suckled you," which brought forth the rejoinder, "No, happy are those who hear the word of God and keep it" (NEB).

      The response has an edge to it. Jesus never puts a woman down but by the same token he does not patronize women, cower before them, or sentimentalize them. Nor is motherhood elevated sentimentally, not even his own mother's (see Mark 3:31-35).

      Here as elsewhere, Jesus affirmed personhood, giving it its worth apart from sexuality or other distinctions. .  .  This is no incidental point. This is the heart of Jesus' perception of persons. Ethnic, racial, cultic, sexual, and other distinguishing factors were secondary to him. Personhood was primary (Evelyn and Frank Stagg, Woman in the World of Jesus, p. 111).

10) The woman with the bent back
      Luke 13:10-17

      Another story peculiar to Luke that lifts up Jesus' concern for and attitude towards women is that of the woman who had been sick for eighteen years and was bent over and unable to straighten up. There are five features to the account. One, her sickness was attributed to possession by an evil spirit, but the healing is not described as an exorcism, although Jesus acknowledges that she has been "kept prisoner by Satan for eighteen long years" (v. 16, NEB).

      Two, Jesus either went to her or she made her way to him during a sabbath service in a synagogue and he touched her. Compassion was given hands and feet. [14] Three, Jesus was angrily taken to task by the synagogue ruler (though he directed his complaint at the people rather than Jesus) for effecting a cure on the sabbath. (A condition that had persisted for eighteen years could have been endured for one more day.) But the Teacher retorted that the "work" that on paper was forbidden in practice, within limits, was authorized. Cattle could be tied up on the Sabbath lest they stray. Oxen and donkeys could be untied and "travel" to water. The woman's self-interest was at least as justifiable as that of any owner of cattle, and Jesus' untying of the "knots" that bound her was at least as defensible as the action of an owner who let his donkey loose and took him to water. (See Marshall, Luke p. 558.) This woman was a person, and that with Jesus came first.

      Four, in responding to the synagogue ruler Jesus addressed this woman in honoring fashion as "a daughter of Abraham" (v. 16)--a singular term in the Gospels, inclusive language to boot.

      Finally, there are the Lucan touches: the liberated woman's praising God, Jesus' critics' and opponents' humiliation, and the people's delight "at all the wonderful things he was doing" (v. 17, NEB).

11) The woman at Jacob's well
      John 4:1-42

      The story centers on a Samaritan woman whom Jesus met at Jacob's well. It was about noon. Jesus, on his way to Galilee, was worn out from his journey. The disciples had gone into town to buy provisions. As he rested there this woman came to draw water and Jesus asked her for a drink. She was amazed that he, a Jew, should disregard the fact that she was a Samaritan and ask her to draw water and pour him a drink: "Jews do not use the same dishes that Samaritans use" (v. 9, TEV).

      If she was amazed at him, so were the disciples. Their unvoiced question was: "Why are you talking with her, [a woman]?" (v. 27, TEV. (A Jew normally did not talk with a woman in public, not even his wife.)

      In the dialogue that ensued between Jesus and this Samaritan woman one thing led to another and it turned out that she was much married--five times in all, although Jews were allowed only three marriages--and living at the time of speaking as the common-law wife of a sixth man. Jesus' request for a drink was addressed to a woman, who was an "unclean" Samaritan and, as it chanced, a sinner. In the course of [15] their conversation Jesus speaks of the living water that he has to give and invites her to drink of it. As he disregards Jewish prejudice towards Samaritans, so he urges her to ignore Samaritan prejudice towards the Jews: "it is from the Jews that salvation comes" (v. 22, NEB).

      The story closes with the woman leaving her water jar at the well and hurrying back to the village to tell of her encounter with Jesus. The upshot of this was that a number of the villagers, impressed and curious, went out to see Jesus for themselves. She who heard good news needs must share it, and some who heard were moved in turn to hear it at first hand from Jesus.

12) The woman caught in adultery
      John 7:53-8:11

      The New International Version says of this passage: "The most reliable early manuscripts omit [it]." The Jerusalem Bible concludes: "The author of this passage is not John; the oldest [manuscripts] do not include it or place it elsewhere. The style is that of the [first three Gospels]." The New English Bible quite rightly notes: "This passage . . . has no fixed place in our witnesses. Some of them do not contain it at all. Some place it after Luke 21:38, others after John 7:36, or 7:52, or 21:24."

      The incident recounted in this passage is set in the Temple. Jesus was seated, teaching, with a crowd gathered around him. Some teachers of the Law and some Pharisees interrupted his teaching as they brought to him a woman caught committing adultery. They stood her before him "in full view of everybody" (v. 3, JB). They reminded him that in the Mosaic Law it was commanded that such a woman be stoned to death and then put the question, "What have you to say?" (v. 5, JB).

      The narrative continues: "They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him" (v. 6, NIV).

      What was it that Jesus was being asked to decide? One (unlikely) suggestion is that the woman had been tried but not sentenced and Jesus was being asked to decide the punishment. A second is that the woman had not yet been tried because the Sanhedrin (the highest Jewish court) had lost the power to decide capital cases. If in accordance with Mosaic Law Jesus declared that she be stoned, he would be deciding [16] contrary to Roman Law. If, on the other hand, he decided the case in the woman's favor and advocated her release, he would be contravening the Law of Moses. A third suggestion is that in spite of Rome's restriction on the Sanhedrin, some Pharisees and others were about to exercise lynch law and stone the woman. But there was an unresolved point of law which Jesus was asked to settle: Was it necessary for the woman to have been warned about the punishment that committing adultery would entail? (See Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John I-XII, Vol. I, pp. 337-38.)

      For a time, Jesus made no reply, save what he wrote with his finger on the ground. His critics pressed their question; he sat up straight and said: "That one of you who is faultless shall throw the first stone" (v. 7, NEB). He then bent over again and once more wrote on the ground. Unable to pass the test that Jesus put to them, they slipped away one by one, the elders making the first move. Then Jesus, left alone with the woman still standing before him, said to her: "Where are they? Has no one condemned you?" Her reply was pointedly brief: "No one, sir." In response to this Jesus said: "Nor do I condemn you. You may go; do not sin again" (vv. 10-11, NEB).

      It may be that the husband of the woman had arranged for his wife to be caught in the act by arranging for one or more "religious" to be present to witness her sin, instead of seeking to encourage her fidelity. In any case, we may presume that Jesus' conclusion was that the critics and accusers were zealous for the letter of the Law but had little or no concern for its purpose: they were all for justice with nothing of compassion for her and only malevolence towards him (v. 6). In its original, this may be the chief point of the encounter, but his attitude to the woman, though secondary, is instructive.

      His first demand was that she be treated fairly, and second, that justice be tempered with mercy. Moreover, he accepts her as she is and affirmed her as a person. He did not play games and pretend that she had not sinned. He did not condone or explain away her adultery. He did not throw it up at her. But whereas her accusers probably only made her bitter and defiant, Jesus challenged her to a new self-understanding and a new way of life: "Go now and leave your life of sin" (v. 11, NIV). [17]

13) At the Cross

      As with so many aspects of the story of Jesus, the Evangelists both agree and disagree with each other.

      For one thing, they are not in agreement as to who witnessed the crucifixion. Mark names Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. When Jesus was in Galilee, they had "followed him, and ministered to him." With them were "many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem" (15:40-41, RSV). Matthew mentions Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee (who could be Mark's Salome). There were many others "who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him" (27:55-56, RSV). Luke says simply that "all his acquaintances and the women who had following him from Galilee" were witnesses (23:49, RSV). Among the women were probably Mary Magdalene, Mary (possibly the mother) of James, and Joanna (24:10; 8:1-3). Only Luke has the women as part of a larger group of those who had known Jesus personally (v. 49, TEV). John identifies Jesus' mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene (with the possibility that the second Mary was his mother's sister). He alone puts Jesus' mother (whom strangely he never names) at the Cross and only he has one of the disciples (the Twelve) present, namely, "the disciple whom he loved" (19:25-27). The scene in which Jesus tenderly committed his mother, perhaps long since widowed, into the care of her son is found only in John.

      For another thing, the first three Evangelists have the women witnessing the crucifixion from afar whereas the Fourth possibly has Jesus' mother and son "standing nearby" (v. 26, NIV; though the NEB has John standing beside Mary rather than both explicitly standing near the Cross).

      What all four Gospels do agree on is that a group of women who had been intimately associated with Jesus over a period of time were among the grief stricken who through the long, excruciating hours watched him cry for mercy on the souls of men.

1)   The burial

      All four Evangelists assert that Joseph of Arimathea took the broken body of Jesus, wrapped it in a linen shroud, and laid it in a new [18] tomb. Mark has it that Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus observed where Joseph laid the body (15:42-47). Matthew names Mary Magdalene "and the other Mary" as observers (27:57-61). Luke says that "the women who had come with [Jesus] from Galilee" took note of the burial place and then went home to prepare spices to anoint him (23:50-56). John writes that Joseph, together with Nicodemus, wrapped the body in linen strips with spices (19:38-42).

      Mark tells how that early on the first day of the week the two Marys, joined now by Salome, took spices to anoint the dear dead Jesus (16:1-2) and Luke that the women who had followed him from Galilee went out to perform this sweet ministration (24:1).

      The Evangelists have little to say about the feelings that Jesus' friends and followers had for him. If the Gospels were biographical in character much more would be said about the affection these women had for him that led them to gather around the Cross and do for him the little that was left for them to do.

2)   The resurrection

      Throughout the history of the Church the resurrection of Jesus has been a basic tenet of the Christian faith. Most critical scholars regard Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians as predating our Gospels. In I Corinthians 15:1-7, the Apostle says that the risen Jesus appeared to Cephas (Peter), the Twelve, over five hundred brothers (or brothers and sisters) at once, James (the brother of Jesus), all the Apostles, and last of all to Paul.

      This listing is male-oriented. All the more significant therefore is what is said in the Gospels about the place of women in the resurrection. It is more likely that the Evangelists, in spite of their many differences, had their hands on gritty historical facts which the Church dared not hide, ignore, or deny than that for some inexplicable reason they invented the stories about the women.

      Differences among the Gospels have to do with: (1) the time at which the women went to the tomb (Mark 16:1; Matt. 28:1; Luke 24:1; John 20:1); (2) the number of women who visited the tomb and their names (Mark 16:1; Matt. 28:1; Luke 24:10; John 20:1); (3) the purpose of the visit (unstated by John; Mark 16:1; Matt. 28:1; Luke 24:1); (4) the number of messengers in the tomb and whether they were angelic or human [19] (Mark 16:5; Matt. 28:2; Luke 24:4; John 20:12); (5) the message delivered by this person or these beings (Mark 16:6-7; Matt. 28:7; Luke 24:5-7; John 20:13); and (6) the response of the women (Mark 16:8; Matt. 28:8; Luke 24:9; John 20:18).

      Agreements among the Gospels include: (1) The emphasis put on the resurrection's having taken place on the first day of the week (Mark 16:2; Matt. 28:1; Luke 24:1; John 20:1; although Luke also preserves a tradition that it would occur "on the third day" (24:7); (2) the prominence given to Mary Magdalene, who is the only one referred to in John and the first-named in each of the others (John 20:1; Mark 16:1; Matt. 28:1; Luke 24:10); and (3) the stress placed on the discovery that the stone had been rolled back and the tomb was empty (Mark 16:3-6; Matt. 28:2-6; Luke 24:2-3; John 20:1-2).

      Even more significant are these aspects of the narratives of the resurrection: (1) the announcement to the women in Mark (16:6-7) and Matthew (28:6-7) that Jesus was risen; (2) the first appearance of the risen Jesus, which was to Mary Magdalene in John (20:14) and to that same Mary and another Mary in Matthew (28:5); and (3) the commissioning of Mary Magdalene and the others to proclaim the gospel of the resurrection to the disciples.

      If the gospel is the fact of, and the significance of the fact of, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, these women were his companions in the days of his ministry, they continued with him through the crucifixion when possibly all the men except John had fled, and they were the first witnesses to and proclaimers of the resurrection--the last perhaps contingent on the other two.

1)   Jesus in the Temple
      Luke 2:41-52

      The birth story in Luke comes to a climax with Jesus, at age twelve, on the threshold of adult life, going to Jerusalem with his parents to observe the Passover. The feast was spread over seven days, although pilgrims were required only to stay for two. Jesus' parents remained for the whole week. Jesus, however, unbeknownst to his folk, stayed longer. They had traveled in caravan for a whole day, some 20-25 [20] miles, before they discovered he was missing. They found him in Jerusalem, in the Temple precincts, sitting at the feet of teachers. He impressed these teachers as a lad with unusual gifts of mind, particularly with regard to understanding the Law.

      The parents justifiably took Jesus to task for not telling them of his whereabouts. He replied: "Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father's affairs?" (v. 49, JB). Obedience to parents is set by this unusual boy within the context of a more fundamental obedience to God.

2)   The wedding at Cana
      John 2:1-11

      John tells of a wedding feast at Cana of Galilee to which Jesus and his mother and his disciples were invited. The wine ran out, and Mary took the problem to Jesus for solution. His enigmatic reply runs, literally, "What to me and to you?" It might have been a hostile answer: "You must not tell me what to do, woman" (v. 4, TEV); or one that questioned why her interest should be his, since he was not the master of the feast but only a guest: "Why do you involve me?" (NIV); or one that sought to disengage them both: "Why is this our concern?" Whichever, the mother is not put out by her son's response but says with confidence to the servants: "Do whatever he tells you" (v. 5, RSV).

      (At this level of interpretation, there is no need to discuss the possible symbolism of Mary, the mother of Jesus, at Cana.)

3)   Jesus' true family
      Mark 3:31-35; Matt. 12:46-50; Luke 8:19-21

      Once upon a day a crowd gathered around Jesus in such numbers that it was difficult to get to him and there was no time to snatch a meal. Concerned, his mother and brothers, and perhaps sisters too, sent a message to him, to which he replied: "Who are my mother and my brothers?" and answering his own question he went on: "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Mark 3:34-35, RSV). (The answer is softer in Luke.)

      Tradition has it that members of Jesus' family ruled the Palestinian church for some years, in which case this might be a churchly protest against exercise of power in the church by one family, albeit Jesus' family. [21]

      On the other hand, it may be simply that Jesus, though a person of deep sentiment, was not sentimental, and in the most forthright terms he seeks to make it clear that discipleship is based on something more than blood and natural, familial ties.

      The strongest evidence of male bias in the life and teaching of Jesus is his restricting the Twelve to men. Why twelve, and not eleven or thirteen? Perhaps because Israel was founded on the twelve patriarchs, these new twelve constituting the nucleus of a reformed or reconstituted Israel. (If so, then twelve male disciples might be a defensible choice.) They were a unique group, never, except in the case of Judas, replaced.

      Maybe Jesus chose only men to constitute the Twelve because he thought he had gone about "as fur as he could go" in calling the Judaism of his time in question.

      If it be argued that Jesus' choice of twelve men is an obstacle to ordaining women to the ministry today, account should also be taken of the fact that all were Jews (or "converted" Jews) and one of them betrayed Jesus. Should these too be patterns for today's ministry? The fact is that no literalism turns out to be thorough-going literalism.

      Only passing attention has been paid in this study as to how far this or that story may be taken as an accurate account of what happened on this or that occasion. Judgments will vary in particular instances. But this has not been our chief concern. What is striking is the overall impression that Jesus made, the legacy he left, the memory the church cherished. The total picture is clear enough.

      First of all and most important of all, Jesus treated women as persons. He respected their intelligence, spirituality, assertiveness, and spunk. He resonated to their courage and faith. He responded to the energy of their being. He felt for them in grief and illness and loneliness. He gave to them and was open to receive from them. He took delight in their company and openly companioned with them. He met the needs of a Mary Magdalene and there was that in him that was willing to [22] meet her needs. He quickened in them new hope. He aroused in them gratitude and devotion. And at point after point, by word and by deed, he took issue with concepts and practices that viewed or treated a woman as a second-class citizen.

      It would not be inappropriate for a woman to express her appreciation of the Jesus of the Gospels:

      Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man--there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronised; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as "The women, God help us!" or "The ladies, God bless them!"; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything "funny" about women's nature. (Dorothy L. Sayers, Are Women Human?, p. 47).

      Any interpretation of Paul's thought and practices has to bear a number of considerations in mind.

      For one thing, his Letters are occasional in character. They are responses to issues raised in and by a number of local congregations. That influences what the Apostle said and what he did not say. For example, we would not know what he believed about the Lord's Supper were it not for the scandalous conduct of some more well-to-do Corinthians. The situational nature of the Letters may also have influenced the way in which Paul expressed his mind. For instance, his relating the Lord's [23] Supper to the death of Jesus in the way that he did might have been affected somewhat by some misunderstanding by the Corinthians. If so, that would leave the way open for a differently nuanced statement in a different setting.

      Secondly, there is the possibility of development in Paul's thinking and if we were to take our cue from his thought we would have to decide whether the later notion was truer than the earlier and which point on the graph of his theology we were settling on. But a resolution of this issue depends on three other decisions: What is the understanding of the truth we are working with and how did we arrive at it? Which Letters are Paul's? What was the order of their writing?

      For the purposes of this study the following Letters will be treated as Pauline:

      It should be noted that many regard the Pastoral Epistles (1-2 Timothy and Titus) as Pauline and, contrariwise, many others look upon Ephesians and Colossians, as well as the Pastorals, as the first "commentaries" on Paul's beliefs and practices.

      Thirdly, there is the question of how far Paul went in every regard in working out what it meant to be "in Christ." In First Corinthians, for instance, we have much that has to do with sex and marriage and relationships between husband and wife but next to nothing about singles or about parents and their children. (Most people lived together in families and neither Greco-Roman nor Jewish culture was child-oriented.)

      However, in Ephesians we get this:

      Children, obey your parents, for it is right that you should. 'Honour your father and mother' is the first commandment with a promise attached, in the words: 'that it may be well with you and that you may live long in the land'. [24]

      You fathers, again, must not goad your children to resentment, but give them the instruction, and the correction, which belong to a Christian upbringing (6:1-4, NEB).

      Now, if we are considering Christian upbringing and the responsibilities of parents and children to each other, that will take us some distance but not very far--not nearly as far as what has been set down about relations between husband and wife. We presume too much if we take it for granted that Paul in every case spelled out to the limit what being "in Christ" meant to him.

      Fourthly, was Paul primarily an apologist for the Christian faith or a defender of it?

      Defenders of the faith tend to make as wide as possible the distance between the true faith as they understand it and deviationist sects and heretical individuals against whose teachings and practices the door must be closed with firmness.

      Apologists, on the other hand, minimize the gap between themselves and their potential converts.

      Apologists may be perceived as elastic in principle (which was a charge laid against Paul in 2 Cor. 1:13-24) or as less concerned about the "truth" of what they say than they are about "winning" their hearers (which may be the point of 1 Cor. 9:19-23; see also vv. 12b-18).

      First Corinthians 9:19-23 is an amazing statement which may be checked against some other statements of Paul's as the confession of an apologist for the faith:

      I am a free man and own no master; but I have made myself every man's servant, to win over as many as possible. To Jews I became like a Jew, to win Jews; as they are subject to the Laws of Moses, I put myself under that law to win them although I am not myself subject to it. To win Gentiles, who are outside the Law, I made myself like one of them, although I am not in truth outside God's law, being under the law of Christ. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. Indeed, I have become everything in turn to men of every sort, so that in one way or another I may save some. All this I do for the sake of the Gospel, to bear my part in proclaiming it (NEB). [25]

      In 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 Paul engages the libertines in Corinth and begins where they begin--with the Christian's freedom. Later in the passage he distances himself from them.

      In 1 Corinthians 7:1-5 he is in dialogue with the ascetics and starts where they start--with self-discipline. But then he goes on to put space between himself and them.

      In 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 he takes up the question of the eating of food that has been "consecrated to heathen deities" (v. 1, NEB). He begins where the "liberals" are--standing firm on their superior gnosis, "knowledge," of the nothingness of idols--and then moves on to the higher claims of agape, "love."

      In 1 Corinthians 12-14 he tackles the issue of glossolalia, "speaking in tongues." He first affirms that the gift of tongues was a genuine supernatural charisma, "grace-gift," but then moves on to talk about an even "more excellent way."

      In Colossians 2:8-23 he addresses himself to that congregation's worship of angels and identifies himself with their feel and taste for higher things. But then he adds, if we are thinking about "the things that are above" (3:1), remember that that is where we situate Jesus Christ, "seated at the right hand of God" (3:1). And so he goes on, relating the "Christ above" to the Christian's life "here below" (see 2:20-4:6).

      Paul could be accused by critics and opponents of not being very scrupulous in his principles and of trimming his sails in given situations to the prevailing winds. On the other hand, he might well have seen himself as a missionary whose endeavors were conditioned by the capacities and situations of the several recipients of his gospel. In addition, it looks as though he took pride in having a certain elasticity of mind, a measure of flexibility in dealing with situations that required delicate and subtle treatment if relationships were to be maintained and growth "in Christ" were to be encouraged.

      Fifthly, Paul's Letters are primary for a determination of his thought; Acts is secondary. However, if the "we" in the "we" passages in Acts (16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1-28:16) includes the author, presumably Luke, then these also must be reckoned as primary. [26]

      Paul's earliest statement on women and men in the church is in Galatians 3:28: "There are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (JB).

      First, these parallels are not all of the same order: slave and freeman, and Jew and Greek are distinctions historically arrived at but male and female is of the order of creation and is not washed away by baptism into Jesus Christ.

      Second, these parallels denote three of the deepest divisions in the ancient world. What Paul says is that they can have no place in the thought or the practice of those who are united in Christ.

      Third, the Apostle roots his conviction in the nature of the Christian faith--"in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith"--and the character of Christian baptism--"as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (v. 27, RSV).

      Fourth, Paul was convinced that life in Christ, or what amounted to the same thing, life in the Spirit, had or should have personal and social consequences. "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit" (5:25, RSV).

      Fifth, Paul was a passionate advocate of personal freedom: "for freedom Christ has set us free" (5:1), and it is in the middle of his longest continuous exposition of the theme of liberty that he asserts that in Christ there is no distinction between male and female.

      Sixth, no greater disservice could be done to Paul than to turn him into a Christian legalist or make him a supporter of new or continued personal bondages.

      Seventh, nonetheless, the question may be asked, "How did Paul work out his principle in practice? Did he always live up to it? Was he always consistent in his advocacy?"

      Paul first preached the gospel in what today we know as Europe in Philippi. There was no Jewish synagogue in that town, presumably because there were not enough Jewish males to constitute one. Ten were required, and if perchance there were only nine, not a hundred mothers in Israel, however devout, could fill that tenth place. [27] But Jewish women in Philippi gathered for prayer on the banks of the Gangites River and there went Paul on the sabbath. He engaged them in a conversation that quickly turned to the Christian message. One of those who opened their hearts to the gospel was Lydia who probably was a "non-Jewish synagogue worshiper."

      The first Christian community in Europe was formed from the response of one woman and her household. The story is found in Acts 16:11-15, in one of the "we" passages.

      In 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 Paul contends that men ought not to have long hair and women should not have short hair, and furthermore, in public worship, the heads of Christian men should be uncovered and those of Christian women covered. Why such a "ruling" by Paul--more honored today in the breach than in the observance--and how did he arrive at it? He gives four "becauses" in vv. 3-9 and another in v. 10b. One, the relationship between man and woman is in some sense a parallel of that between God and Jesus Christ. Two, a man who prophesies with covered head dishonors his head and him who is the head of the Church, Christ. Three, a woman who prays and prophesies with uncovered head brings shame upon herself and upon Christ. Four, man is made in the image and glory of God, woman in the glory of man. Man is the glory of God, therefore his head must be bare; woman is the glory of man, therefore her head must be covered. Five, angels (who are the guardians of the natural order) are at work among Christians seeing that the worship of God is conducted in a fitting order.

      What it is that Paul thinks a Christian woman should have on her head in public worship is a matter of debate. The Greek of v. 10 is exousia, meaning "authority," "power," "right." What it is that they should wear is variously rendered: "power," KJV; "an outward sign," PME; "a veil," RSV; "a covering," TEV; "a sign of authority." Two have marginal notes: "Greek authority (the veil being a symbol of this" (RSV); "some witnesses read 'to have a veil'" (NEB).

      What Paul seems to be saying is that now the new Christian woman, like the old Jewish man, speaks to God in prayer and declares his word in prophecy in public worship, and that to do what hitherto in Judaism [28] had not been permitted, she needs authority and power from God and symbols appropriate thereto.

      From Paul's point of view, the main issue at Corinth was not woman's submission to man but woman's submission to God; not man's authority over woman but God's authority over both man and woman. At least in that social setting, so Paul thought, what was demanded in Christian worship were signs of God's authority appropriate to the respective sexes: the uncovered head for men, the covered head for women.

      A number of additional observations may be made. For one thing, the sanctions that he invokes are instructive. He appeals to Jewish custom, the Old Testament (vv. 8-9, 11-12), natural law as understood in the Hellenistic world at the time (v. 14), and traditional practices among the Churches (vv. 2, 16), in order to arrive at what he believes is a Christian position!

      For another, Paul is uneasy about his reading in vv. 8-9 of the meaning of Genesis 2:21-23, 18 and clarifies his thinking in vv. 11-12:

      Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God (RSV).

      In other words, they owe their existence to each other and cannot do without each other.

      Again, he invites the members of the Church to make a decision for themselves, leaving some room for an opinion that diverges from his own (v. 13).

      Last of all, this congregation is disputatious and this passage is sandwiched between others dealing with divisions in the Church. Verse 16 may suggest that an argument about what men and women should wear in Church was not high on Paul's list of priorities: he breaks off the argument (v. 16) as though he has already taken up more than enough "paper" in dealing with what, after all, is for him a matter of no great import.

      (On this passage, see C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 2nd ed. 1971, and the article by Morna D. Hooker made use of therein. G. W. Tompf's article, "On Attitudes toward Women in Paul and Paulinist Literature: I Cor 11:3-16 and Its Context" [Catholic [29] Biblical Quarterly, 42: 1980: 196-215] is an argument against Pauline authorship of this passage.)

1)   1 Corinthians 11:5-6

      The point about the preceding discussion is what in women's dress should symbolize the new freedom and authority given to them in Christian worship. That became an issue only because women prayed and prophesied in worship: "any man who prays or prophesies . . . , any woman who prays or prophesies." The issue was not whether women should pray and prophesy aloud--they did both and Paul raised no question about this. If they ought not to have done so Paul probably would have told them so instead of spending time discussing head coverings and the length of hair.

      In Paul's value system, prophecy was one of God's greatest gifts to the Church for edification (1 Cor. 12:10, 28; 14:20-33). By prophecy he means intelligible teaching that builds up the Church in faith, explains mysteries, and imparts knowledge (1 Cor. 13:2).

2)   1 Corinthians 14:33b-36

      In the light of what has just been said, this passage presents a serious problem for here married women are forbidden to speak in worship and instead are told to go home and ask questions of faith of their husbands.

      The first problem presented by this passage has already been indicated and to it we shall return. The second is this: How authoritative is Christian teaching that is backed up by Jewish Law: "[women] are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate [to their husbands], as even the law says"(v. 34, RSV; italics added). What gives the writer the right thus to pick and choose from Jewish law to justify Christian positions? The third is this: What is forbidden is married women speaking in Church who have Christian husbands. If this is a rule, no ruling is given on single women (unmarried, widowed, separated, or divorced), or women whose husbands were Christian but who did not know a blessed thing. Here we are presented with an old Disciple dilemma: whether what is not forbidden is permitted or whether what is not approved or commanded is thereby forbidden. The Scripture does not itself say which principle should be followed. [30] To come back to the first problem: How do we square Paul's earlier approval of women praying and prophesying in Church with this disapproval of their speaking? The right to pray and prophesy is tacitly assumed in 11:5 (and the matter of head coverings they are to decide for themselves) but here it is forbidden, and looks to be forbidden as "a command of the Lord" (v. 37).

      Had the situation changed, and if so in what regards? The Letter does not say.

      Had Paul forgotten in the afternoon what he had dictated in the morning and if so, which position better represented his mind?

      Had his mood soured, or was he, as some Corinthians charged, unstable in his positions (2 Cor. 10:1)?

      Or is it a matter of taking into account the possibility that First and Second Corinthians are collections of Letters, with these verses the work of an unknown editor? If this were the case, the problem would not be eliminated: the responsibility for it would simply be shifted from Paul to someone else. The issue is whether what is said here is consistent with all else that we know of his mind from his Letters and Acts. If it is not, better to save the consistency of his thought than his authorship of everything in First Corinthians. (In support of non-Pauline authorship it may be noted that the argument through thirty-two verses has been all taken up with speaking in tongues and prophecy. In v. 33 the issue suddenly becomes women speaking in public worship and in v. 37 the argument reverts back to prophecy. In terms of the structure of the chapter this, to many, looks like an aside.)

3)   Philippians 4:2-3

      Euodia and Syntyche were two women who were leaders in the Church in Philippi. That they had risen to a position of prominence is nowhere regarded by Paul as regrettable or undesirable. What is deplored--and all that is deplored--is that fact that their present disagreement or lack of sympathetic concern for one another constitutes a threat to the well-being of the Church.

      His appeal to them to settle their differences is based on the fact that they had "labored side by side" (RSV) with him "in the gospel" together with Clement and others. [31] Synethlesan (syn-, "together with"; -athlein, "to contend for a prize") is variously translated: "worked hard with me to spread the gospel" (TEV); "contended at my side in the cause of the gospel" (NIV); "were a help to me when I was fighting to defend the Good News" (JB); "shared my struggles in the cause of the Gospel" (NEB). It occurs only elsewhere in the New Testament in 1:27 where the RSV translates it as "striving side by side for the faith of the gospel of Christ."

      The simple form of the verb, athlein, was used in descriptions of the Olympic Games, where "athletes" strained every muscle to achieve victory.

      So these two women, with Paul and Clement and others, stretched every nerve to further the cause of the gospel, and did so, we may be sure, by zeal of heart, word of mouth, keenness of mind, and the witness of their life. What more could be asked of Paul or Clement, or Euodia or Syntyche? What more could be granted to them?

4)   Other references to women in the Pauline Churches

      In Thessalonica and Berea, not a few leading women of high standing became Christians (Acts 17:4, 12).

      In Athens, one of the two named converts was a woman (Acts 17:34). In Corinth, Paul came upon Priscilla and her husband, Aquila, both Jewish Christians. She no less than her husband instructed the gifted Apollos of Alexandria and Ephesus (Acts 18:24-28), made their home a house-church in both Ephesus and Rome (Acts 18:19; 1 Cor. 16:19; Rom. 16:3-5), and was a fellow-worker of Paul's (Rom. 16:3-4).

      To Rome (if Romans 16 was addressed to that Church) went Phoebe of Cenchreae, the only member of that Church whose name we know. She is described by Paul as a diakonos, which is the masculine form of the word (16:1). It is variously rendered: "servant," KJV; "deaconess," RSV and JB; "who serves" (TEV); "servant (margin: deaconess)," NIV; "who holds office in" (NEB). Diakonos hardly designated an office at that time. Paul can speak of himself (1 Cor. 3:5; 2 Cor. 3:6; 6:4), Apollos (1 Cor. 3:5), and of Stephanas and his household (1 Cor. 16:15; they were "the first converts in Achaia") as diakonoi. The word appears to mean "minister" rather than "deacon" or "deaconess." Phoebe is further described as a "helper"--a word used only here in the New Testament--which may mean that in that part of town she provided hospitality, [32] opened her home to the Church, and perhaps participated in the government and liturgy of the Church. She must have been a person of standing and authority for the Church is asked to "give her any help she may need." (Whether she was "a deacon" or "the deacon" or "a deaconess" is difficult to be sure of: the reference is skimpy, the early Christian vocabulary lacked precision, and the allocation of ministerial duties was rather flexible.)

      In that same chapter (v. 7), Paul makes mention of Andronicus and Junias or Junia (see NEB margin). If Junia, she was a woman and no doubt the wife of Andronicus. They are described as being "eminent among the apostles" (NEB). (See C.E.B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary _on he Epistle to the Romans, Vol. II, pp. 788-90.) The term apostle was first used for the Twelve, who belonged to the Jewish-Christian Church. But as the mission expanded into the Greco-Roman world the term began to be used as well of Paul and Barnabas and others (Acts 14:14; 1 Cor. 1:1).

      Does it here have only the general sense of minister, servant, loyal follower (literally it means "one who is sent [with a message, or as an ambassador or envoy]"), or does it denote precise ministerial significance? In other words, is Paul putting the action of Junia (and Andronicus) on the same plane as his own?

      From Rome (?) Paul sent greetings to Nympha of Laodicea, who also had a Church in her house (Col. 4:15).

      Prominent and generous as the women were who lent their homes for house-churches, it is not likely that they did not speak a good word for Jesus Christ in them. At any rate nowhere is there any indication that the women named above were debarred by Paul from "praying and prophesying" in public worship.

      Paul's thinking about women as sex objects is found in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20.

      Corinth was a large city with two ports, east and west, and a population of upwards of 600,000. Dominating the plain on which the city had been rebuilt less than a hundred years before Paul's time was the steep promontory of Acrocorinth, rising to a height of 1857 feet. [33] Situated on Acrocorinth was the temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. It was said that there were a thousand prostitutes attached to this temple. Intercourse with them was valued as a sacramental act, assuring the worshiper of greater flocks and herds and larger harvests.

      There were those in Corinth who understood Paul to be teaching that freedom in Christ meant achieving or being granted a purity that could never come under threat and, perchance, justified a downright disdain for the moral law. "Nothing is wrong if it feels good" might have been one of their catchy slogans.

      The attitude of the libertines to a religious prostitute was, "she's OK," "I'm OK," and "it's OK to have intercourse with her." Their line of reasoning was, "men have a physical hunger for food and a physical hunger for sex with a woman. As it is OK to eat what I please, so it is OK to have sex with whom I choose."

      "Not so," said Paul. And what he said he maintained on two grounds: one, food and stomach are of only temporal importance whereas the person who belongs to the Lord has a significance that derives from resurrection and "the life everlasting"; and two, one can eat alone and the stomach needs only the impersonal substance of food, but intercourse calls for two people, male and female, and requires the complexity of human personality for its satisfaction.

      To put it simply, as Paul does: food is a thing but a woman is a person. In the sex act each should be fully subjects, a "thee, thyself" and "I, myself" and neither be an "it, a thing."

      If that was the Apostle's attitude towards relationships outside marriage, how much more would it not have been his within the marriage bond. His stance rules out exploitation, coercion, domination, brutality and self-centeredness and lifts up the fully personal: persuasion, respect, kindness, gentleness, and "preferring one another" in love (Rom. 12:10, KJV).

1)   1 Corinthians 7:1-40

      If some Christians in Corinth adopted the attitude toward at least one class of women, "hands on, anything goes," others took the stance that in the marriage relationship it should be a matter of "hands off, [34] nothing goes." "It is well for a man not to touch a woman" (1 Cor. 7:1, RSV), meaning "a husband should not have sex with his wife," said these ascetics. (NIV has, "it is good for a man not to marry"; TEV, "a man does well not to marry"; a NEB, "it is a good thing for a man to have nothing to do with women.")

      "Not so," said the Apostle, and went on in some fullness to deal with marriage and sex. Three remarks may be made on this chapter before we come to our chief interest, Christian women in the Pauline Churches.

      One, marriage is good and sex within marriage is good, and right, and proper (even if, because of his missionary commitment and the nearness of the End, Paul believes singleness and celibacy are better [v. 7]).

      Two, Paul has a healthy appreciation of the dynamism of sex. Like the prophets before him, he knew that the line between sex and religion can wear "precious thin." That is because sex and religion both have to do with creative drives and elemental urges.

      Three, when he told the Corinthians that he thought it better for unmarried not to marry, he did so because he was convinced that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ was near at hand (7:25-31).

      But we cannot look forward to a Messianic Age that is to come in, say A. D. 70. We can shift A. D. 70 to A. D. 1990 if we wish, but that is not what Paul meant. Further, in moving the Second Coming to, say, A. D. 1990 we can in addition decide that for that reason we shall not marry. But few folk who believe in the imminent return of Jesus Christ do that. (Either way the most literal interpreters of Paul do not interpret him literally.)

      Four, there is a mixture of flexibility and firmness in the Apostle's position. Elements of flexibility: some Christians should remain single, others should marry; some should maintain their marriages, others should probably separate; some formerly married should not remarry, others may; and some betrothals should proceed to marriage, but some should not. Elements of firmness: a husband should have but one wife, and a wife but one husband; sexual union should take place only when there is a marital relationship; and there should be no permanent abstention from sex within marriage. (See Victor Paul Furnish, The Moral Teaching of Paul, pp. 30-50.) [35]

      Relative to women in relation to marriage and sex is this: Paul may take a somewhat dim view of sex but he does not take a dim view of women. There is a constant emphasis on the mutuality of the marriage relationship. "The wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does" (v. 4, RSV). If there is a temporary abstinence from sex for a season for prayer, this should be by mutual agreement (v. 5). What is said to the wife in a mixed marriage--Christian and pagan--is said also to the husband. What is written about the effect on the children of one partner becoming a Christian is applied equally, whether that one be the mother or the father. And if the wife can become more anxious about worldly things than the affairs of the Lord, so also can the husband.

      Paul's understanding is that sexual fulfillment is meaningful only where it takes place between two persons who are committed exclusively to each other and are bound together in their mutual respect, care, and love. Each partner is called upon to affirm the personhood of the other. There must be fidelity and love, harmony and concord. Husband and wife are called upon to create a condition of shalom: "God has called us to peace" (v. 15, RSV).

2)   Colossians 3:18-19

      As stated above, New Testament scholars are not agreed as to whether the Letter to the Colossians is Pauline or deutero-Pauline. There are a number of passages in what are judged to be later writings in the New Testament that have the character of "rules for the household." Colossians 3:18-4:1, Ephesians 5:22-6:9, 1 Timothy 2:8-15; 6:1-2, Titus 2:1-10, and 1 Peter 2:13-3:7 are of this character. They deal with moral issues that faced Christians in their everyday lives. They resemble contemporary Hellenistic and Hellenistic Jewish instruction in morals. They present guidelines that are judged to be tried and true. The exhortation in Colossians has to do with husband-wife, parent-child, and master-slave relationships.

      Wives are enjoined to "be subject" to their husbands. The verb hypotassein is translated in a number of different ways: "submit," KJV, NIV; "be obedient to," TEV; "give way to," JB. Taken at face value it is an injunction to conform to the prevalent social order and it permits of no choice by the wife. [36]

      Doing this is "fitting in the Lord" ("what you do as Christians," TEV; "your Christian duty," NEB--in both cases making "Lord" refer to Jesus Christ rather than God.)

      Then husbands are directed, not to submit to their wives (as one might expect from 1 Cor. 7:3-5), certainly not to lord it over them, but to "love [them] and treat them with gentleness" (JB).

      They are forbidden to behave in an overbearing manner or to imagine that they belong to a superior species. They are responsible for their wives and must live together with them in "love" which is the only true manner of conduct. This command needs no justification, for the commandment of "love" is absolutely valid (Eduard Lohse, A Commentary on the Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon, translated by W. R. Poehlmann and R. J. Karris, p. 158).

      Jesus' submission to the Father and the Father's love of the Son is one of the Fourth Gospel's themes.

      As seen earlier, the husband as the "head" of a woman (his wife) and God as "head" of Christ is a Pauline way of viewing relationships (1 Cor. 11:3), although he goes straight on to argue preferably for the dependence of husband and wife on each other.

      If Colossians is Pauline, we may here be confronted with what is occasionally found in Paul, evidences of the continuation of the Old Age even though he is convinced that the New Age has come. The "old man" has not at every point been superseded by the "new man in Christ." Much, of course, hangs on the ways in which and the points at which wives are expected to "give way" to their husbands. Even more depends on the character of the husband's loving his wife and treating her with gentleness.

      Moreover, the psychological subtleties of one partner's giving way to the other are not explored by the writer of the Letter.

3)   Ephesians 5:21-33

      This passage has some features akin to 1 Corinthians 11:3 and some like the Colossian teaching just studied. The relation of the wife to her husband is again defined (by implication) with the verb hypotassein, with the same variety in English translations (see the Greek of vv. 21 and 22). However the rationale given is more "Christian" and more explicit: "out of reverence for Christ" (RSV, TEV, NIV, NEB). [37]

      Unlike in Colossians, the husband is said to be the "head" of the wife, and this should be patterned not on God's headship of Jesus Christ but on Christ's of the Church. Most of all, the husband is to love his wife, and love her "as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (v. 25, RSV). In fact Paul comes to be more taken up with Christ and his love for the Church than the husband-wife relationship (see especially vv. 31-32).

      Strikingly different from the Colossian teaching are the opening and closing sentences: "Give way to one another in obedience to Christ" (v. 1, JB; the wife to the husband being the first example: it is a sentiment that is first-cousin to Rom. 12:10b); and "let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband" (v. 33, RSV; italics added in both cases).

      As with Colossians, so with Ephesians: the nature of "the giving way to" is important and the quality of the loving is all-important. Again the psychological dimension is significant: respect for another cannot be coerced, it has to be freely given but must first be earned.

      First, account needs to be taken of the sanctions Paul invokes for his positions. They are many and varied, as we have noted here and there, and they might not all be of the same value, that is, equally persuasive today. Decency, propriety and order have some importance; preservation of a distinctively Christian community is another; traditional Jewish (Scriptural) teaching is a third; anthropological conceptions (for example, natural law) are a fourth; and what is singularly Christian is yet another.

      Second, some of Paul's teaching on the position of women may appear to us to be out of date and some may be judged to fall short of the clear, beginning principle enunciated in Galatians 3:28. That can be accounted for in part because he addressed himself to the social conditions of his own day and in part because we may imperfectly understand the problems he was dealing with.

      But by and large the Church has not yet exhausted his general principles and a great many have not yet grasped the insight with which he applied them. [38]

      Third, many careful and not-uncritical students of Paul are persuaded that there were influential women in the Pauline Churches-like Lydia, Euodia, and Syntyche of Philippi, and Priscilla and Chloe of Corinth, and Phoebe of Cenchreae--who counted the Apostle their staunchest ally, greatest encourager, and truest friend.

      Finally, and perhaps most importantly, to turn Paul, for whom freedom in the Spirit and liberty under Christ constituted gospel, into a legalist--whether in marriage, or the Church's ministry, or in dress--would be a sad misunderstanding, if not a gross misrepresentation. Being "true to the Scriptures" demands being true to the Apostle's mind and spirit as much as to his words on paper.

      The Letters to Timothy and Titus have been called the Pastoral Epistles for almost three centuries. They purport to give Paul's instructions to these two leaders about procedures to be followed in the Churches for which they are respectively responsible. Many who doubt Paul's authorship of Colossians and Ephesians have even stronger reservations about his being the author of the Pastorals.

1)   1 Timothy 2:8-15

      This passage has something in common with 1 Corinthians 14:33-36 and some of the questions raised by that teaching are raised also by this. But there are these differences, and they are not slight:

      the strictures on women--and on women only--relative to dress, jewelry, and hair-do;
      the absolute injunction that women be passive and silent, even in learning;
      the argument from the primacy of Adam; and
      the assertion that a woman's salvation is in part dependent on the fact of her bearing a child or children.

      However, the last-stated difference perhaps should be translated "kept safe through childbirth" (NIV) or "brought safely through childbirth" (NEB margin) rather than "saved through motherhood" (NEB).

      Some Greek manuscripts suggest that the mother will be saved only if she and her children continue "in faith and love and holiness, with modesty" (RSV). [39]

      That a woman's salvation should depend on her bearing a child and that faith should thus be biologically grounded would be a sorry falling away from the Apostle's understanding of faith in, say, Galatians and Romans.

2)   Titus 2:3-5

      The household rules in Titus 2:1-10 pertain in succession to older men, older women, young women, younger men, and slaves. These groups are to be models of good deeds and sound faith and examples are given in each instance. None, surely, would be enjoined exclusively for, say, older men or young women.

      However, Titus is to teach the young women that they are "to love their husbands and children, [and to be] submissive to their husbands" (vv. 4-5, RSV). (Again the verb translated "submissive" is hypotassein.)

      Nothing is said about the husband's responsibility to his wife, whether he be old or young.

      The rationale given for the rules is, negatively, "that the word of God may not be discredited" (v. 5, RSV), and positively, that "the doctrine of God our Savior" may be adorned (v. 10).

      First Peter 2:13-3:7 is another passage that enunciates some rules for households. There are agreements with and differences from the teaching in Colossians, Ephesians, and the Pastorals. This passage treats of servants (slaves), wives, and husbands and in addition directs that Christians, "for the sake of the Lord," "submit [themselves] to every human institution" (2:13, NEB).

      Again wives are charged to "be submissive" to their husbands--the verb is hypotassein. Once more they are counseled to let their adornment be not gold and braided hair and fine dress but quality of spirit and also, in this case, submission to their respective husbands. The purpose of such a life-style is for Christian wives to win by the life lived those pagan husbands who had not been evangelized by the word spoken (3:1-6).

      Husbands are bidden to

      always treat their wives with consideration in their life together, [40] respecting a woman as one who, though she may be the weaker partner, is equally an heir to the life of grace (3:7, JB).

      There is a note of equality here, as the last clause clearly states; but it is also there in the manner in which the husband is to be a Christian husband: "in the same way" (3:7, JB, NEB) as the wife is to be a Christian wife.

      (See David L. Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter, especially chapter 6.)

      A number of conclusions have been suggested along the way in the course of this study. At this point only two matters needs to be referred to.

      One has to do with the method of interpreting the New Testament and our understanding of its authority.

      We can treat the scriptures as a flat, level book, equally the Word of God in every part, in which case we can dip into it at any point and what we come up with will be all of a piece with everything else. That may be fine, until we try to fit it all together in one coherent and consistent whole. If the difference cannot be reasonably reconciled, we are left with the need to choose one position or another, willy nilly, arbitrarily. The alternative is the possibility that some words are more the Word of God than others.

      We can, for example, begin with Paul's clear and unequivocal claim that the character of the Christian faith is such and the nature of baptism into Jesus Christ and the Church is such that "in Christ there is neither male nor female" and test the rest of the New Testament against it. One possibility is that everything--concepts and practices--can be brought into line with this, albeit at times with some difficulty.

      Alternatively we may conclude that, try as we may, we cannot make it all agree and fit together. In that case we may decide that some teachings and practices are "Christian" and others are not; or that some are more nearly Christian than others. If we do, (1) we should know what we are accepting and what rejecting (or what we place in the center [41] and what on the periphery) and why, and (2) we should be consistent in our choosing.

      The other matter has to do with the dominant teaching of the New Testament: "in Christ there is no distinction between male and female." That is clear enough; it is central; and it is crucial. What declensions there may be from that lofty and liberating principle are relatively late in date and few in number. [42]

[Typed note within the front cover of R.W. Graham's copy of the Quarterly]

July 15, 1986

I am prepared to stand to the basic conclusions I arrived at, except that 1 Corinthians 14:34b-36 may constitute a protest of Paul's against the men in Corinth requiring the women to keep silent in church services. That derives from a different reading of the Greek than the one I (and most others) have hitherto followed. If my more recent conclusion is the best, the passage would be Paul's, but at the same time it would be a repudiation of the injunction to keep silent, and that would be in keeping with his position disclosed elsewhere in the Letters and Acts.

Ronald W. Graham