The
Great Controversy and the Early Church
Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the February 27, 2016 Sabbath School Lesson
“For
all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and
female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:27-28, NIV
When I attended Walla Walla University (then College)
forty years ago, all of the theology faculty were men with the exception of the
teacher of lower division, New Testament Greek. While Greek was required for a
theology degree, there was little doubt that the Greek teacher was not really a
minister and therefore she occupied a different plane than the male faculty, in
spite of her ability with Greek and her role in helping many young ministerial
students achieve a level of competency with a language that would enhance their
ministries later. Although some of the stories she shared with us I remember to
this day, I do not know that she ever stood in a pulpit. In fact, though we had
several female theology and religion majors, they all shared with me that they
were dissuaded from seeking ministerial careers by faculty advisors because the
church would not accept it. Perhaps one could attribute this to the cultural
biases of the time as a male theology student was also dissuaded from pursuing
a ministerial career due to his mixed-race marriage. The church was no more
ready to accept miscegenation with their pastors than they were to accept
women.
I would like to think that forty years later we have
grown in grace and understanding. However, I note that even today, the only
woman on the theology staff is a part-time staff member teaching only lower
division classes. This is surprising to me, because Walla Walla University has
a reputation for liberalism among the more conservative members in the
denomination. Perhaps that reputation is based more on conservative propaganda
than actual fact. While the college church has employed female ministers, their
School of Theology seems to be more in harmony with those who vehemently
expressed their opposition to women’s ordination at the 2016 General
Conference. While this may not be the intent, it appears that the School of
Theology is just fine with women teachers, as long as they are in a position
where they neither supervise the male faculty nor have the numbers to
potentially out vote their male counterparts on faculty committees. Although I
am not a woman, if I were, I would question the value of my contribution to the
theology program in such an environment. Intentional or not, discrimination
tends to stifle the Holy Spirit’s calling in others. Can we finally bring it to
an end in our day? The time remaining before the Parousia to address such
unfairness is only getting shorter.
When we consider praxis in the early church, in spite of
the culture, it appears more egalitarian than we often find in our own modern
denominations. Voluntary socialism seemed to be the rule. Possessions were held
in common and doled out according to need.[i] Some who have problems
accepting the idea of a socialist early church have pointed out that the
surrender of goods was voluntary as opposed to a modern government taking the
goods and redistributing them. But this may be a slight distortion of what
actually took place. The surrender of the heart to Christ was voluntary, but
the Holy Spirit’s leading may have been what prompted the socialism that took
place. That being the case, one might question whether a resistance to the idea
of socialism could in any way be derived from any identification of possession
of property with values taught by Jesus. Instead it might be based on the Holy Spirit’s
inability to lead an un-surrendered heart in the direction of seeing others
needs greater than our own. This may be a problem we all struggle with to some
degree. Whether we choose to accept this or not, there was certainly something
unique happening in the early church compared to our church today.
Such egalitarianism, supported by the teachings of
Jesus, may have drawn women to Christianity in large numbers. They may have
seen it as a counter to the male-dominated culture of the day. While Jesus lived
and taught, many women were already drawn to His message and cared for His
needs.[ii] We even see this today,
with women often making up the bulk of the church membership and providing much
of its ongoing sustenance. In the early church, because of the chaos of
transition from the hierarchical rigidity of the temple priesthood to a
priesthood of all believers,[iii] women may have, at least
for a time, found more voice and opportunities for leadership. Some have seen
Junia[iv] being listed as an
apostle as an example of this. Others who do not wish to accept that women were
at any time in positions of leadership within the church debate whether or not
Junia was female. But even if we grant them such a concession regarding Junia’s
gender, we perhaps find a more unequivocal example of female leadership in
Priscilla, the wife of Aquila. Her work is so closely intertwined with her
husband’s that they are most often referred to as a common entity, Aquila and
Priscilla. Paul does not give preference to one over the other, referring to
them both as Aquila and Priscilla[v] and also as Priscilla and
Aquila.[vi] They seem to have been
the leaders of a church that met in their home.[vii] That leadership was not
simply a passive allowance of the use of their home. They actively taught others
about Jesus and the Christian way. For instance, when Apollos arrived in
Corinth and was publicly proclaiming Jesus, they both took him aside and taught
him a more complete understanding in order to enhance his ministry.[viii] This may have
contributed to his subsequent successes evangelizing Achaia.
When we consider the effectiveness of both men and women
leading out in the early church, it may seem strange that we often no longer
allow women to exercise leadership over men who are working in the ministry. It
is as though we refuse to recognize the Holy Spirit’s calling if it is extended
to a woman. Are we perhaps treating all women as proxies for Eve and punishing
them for her weakness in the Garden of Eden? If so, why would we do such a
thing? There is apparently no biblical requirement for men to subjugate women.
Why do we then act as though there was? While it is true that as the result of
Eve’s sin, God said that Adam would rule over her,[ix] He also said that child
bearing would be painful. We see no problem with offsetting the pain of
childbirth, but we act as though exercising unbearable rule over all women as
something inviolable. That is at best inconsistent, and at worst selfish and
arrogant on the part of men who see no problem with that. Both ruling over
women and pain in childbirth are derived from sin, not righteousness.
Some like to point to the Old Testament Aaronic
priesthood in support of their views toward placing women on a lower level than
themselves. However, in doing so, they seem to be jumping completely over the
gospels. They appear to have missed the significance of the tearing of the
curtain in the temple at Christ’s death[x] and the ultimate
destruction of that same temple. The Aaronic priesthood had come to an end. The
temple sacrifices that pointed to Christ were no longer necessary. The priests
who ministered through those sacrifices were now superfluous. Instead the
priesthood of Melchizedek had come to pass. Christ’s sacrifice had given Him
the ordination necessary to minister in the heavenly sanctuary as that High
Priest.[xi] Those who follow Him were
now ordained through baptism and the receipt of the Holy Spirit to a universal
priesthood in that new order.
Like the Jews who failed to recognize Christ as the
Messiah and continued to keep the old sacrificial system operating until the
temple was destroyed by the Romans, some seem to want to keep that old model of
the priesthood in our day. Some even go so far as to reinstate the feasts that
pointed to Christ’s first advent. Perhaps like the Jews who continue the feasts
as well, they do not understand the meaning of Christ’s life, death and
resurrection.
I cannot help but wonder about how far we have wandered
from the plan for man and woman as given in the Creation Story. There was no
indication at Creation that man was to somehow subdue or subjugate the woman.
Since mankind was to have dominion over the Earth,[xii] stepping into a role of
dominion over woman would have lowered woman from being considered human, to
being a part of the animal creation, less than man, the ruler. But God had
said, “It is not good for man to be alone.”[xiii] God did not find a
suitable creature in all that man had dominion over. Man needed a helper, not a
servant, not a master, but a helper, a co-equal.
Perhaps our tendency is to be too much like Adam after
he was caught in his sin and to see the woman as a problem in our lives instead
of as the helper God created.[xiv] If we deny the
possibility for women to reach the full potential of their calling, we diminish
ourselves. We also may be inadvertently committing the same sin Adam did. We
may be implying that we would be better off without the woman that God put here
with us. God may not accept that from us any more than He did from Adam.
