Can Women Be Pastors? A Look at Key Biblical Passages (video)

Can women preach or teach? Can women be pastors or elders? Women in ministry leadership is a hot topic, controversial enough for some denominations and churches to divide over. We want to submit to Scripture’s teaching, to Christ’s lordship, and to the Holy Spirit’s leading. So it’s crucial we interpret well what the Bible says, both in its big themes and seeming contradictions.

In this video, we’ll look at women in the Bible who preached the gospel and taught Scripture. We’ll look at biblical scholarship on specific tricky passages in Paul’s epistles. This video was originally presented at the Fellowship of Christian Assemblies 2023 convention in Saint Paul, MN. Click here to watch on YouTube.

Human (spoken word video)

Sexual harrassment threatens to make us beasts and objects, but we’re human. I share my journey of healing and forgiving. Performed live at Slam Africa.

Radical Equality in Ephesians 5 (video)

Christians often quote biblical marriage advice in Ephesians 5, telling wives to submit to their husbands as the head, and husbands to love their wives. People misinterpret this passage to explain gender roles or even justify spousal abuse. But as I discovered while researching for my book Good News about Gender, this passage is actually a radical message of service and sacrifice. Watch the short infographic video here on YouTube!

God’s Children in an Era of Identity Crisis

In the US there have been many recent and competing conversations about different identities. It’s not wrong to identify with being a mother or a doctor or a pastor or a Republican or a Democrat or a Vikings fan or a Doctor Who fan or a woman or a person of color or a white person or a citizen of your country. So many of these identities are actually gifts from God – such as the talents, education, or job we have, the family and relationships we have. So many of these identities reflect the good and beautiful diversity of who God has created us to be and what we each appreciate about his world.

But our many good identities get warped into our whole self-image, which they were never meant to be. So our sense of self becomes so fragile that we can’t really love each other and work together because we’re insecure. There is a lot of pressure for us to put our main identity somewhere that will ultimately fail us. For the sake of ourselves, but also for the sake of the fabric of our whole society, we desperately need an identity that brings us together.

We are in an era of identity crisis. As Christians, we need to have better news than the news on TV. We need to have good news for this world. And I believe that part of that gospel is bringing people back to who they really are. I believe that this generation in this diverse society is hungry for a story that makes sense of who we are, which will then inspire us to live a transformed life.

Today we’re going to dig into one piece of who we are according to the Scriptures. It’s Father’s Day, and I do not nor will I ever have personal experience being a father. But I do know something about being a child. So today we’re going to talk about what it means to be God’s children.

That’s a snippet of what I preached at Bethel Christian Fellowship. Click here to listen to the rest.

Finding “The Proverbs 31 Woman”: Published in Priscilla Papers

Retro Fifties Lady Art Collage by Venita Oberholster CC0 Public Domain

Proverbs 31:10–31 was never intended to be a how-to manual for becoming the perfect woman.

In the context of Proverbs, this passage is the parting mnemonic incentivizing young men to pursue wisdom and marry wisely. The poem’s word choice and genre extol women not for their erotic appeal but for their heroic work ethic and contribution to their communities. When read along with the book of Ruth, the poem inspires people to fear God and marvel at how God uses even the lowest members of society for his glorious plan.

The message of Prov 31:10–31 neither trivializes women’s work nor shames women trying to “have it all.” It is much more. It invites us all—men and women—to seek wisdom, celebrate each other, and rejoice in God’s grace.

Click here to read my full article, published April 30, 2018 in Priscilla Papers: an academic journal of CBE International.

God’s #PressforProgress: the 2016 US election to Intl Women’s Day

Just before the US Presidential election year and a half ago, I wrote an article for Red Letter Christians entitled “Gender Equality Can Win in 2016”. I said:

Being a Christian means I believe in the good news. It’s not plastic optimism. I am convinced my God is big enough to redeem any mess for a good purpose.

I even see Jesus at work in this election.

I’m not going to say God supports any candidate, but when it comes to gender, God is using the fact that a woman is running against a sexist for a leadership position to raise awareness about gender equality. Women are sharing their stories of sexual assault on Twitter…

Right now, God wants to remind us that women and girls play a pivotal role in the direction of nations. Educating girls, empowering women economically, and ensuring the safety of God’s image-bearers is not peripheral to the gospel. It is how we proclaim to the world: there really is good news for you.

Looking back, I still believe that God used that election to press for progress in an unexpected way. A sustained awareness movement spanned the globe. The momentum of #MeToo has blossomed into sexual assault survivors speaking out, with the silence breakers becoming Time’s 2017 Person of the Year. Now the movement has led to Time’s Up, which includes legal support for harassment cases.

God is still redeeming negative situations for good. God is still at work through you and I. Let’s keep praying and working for progress along with our very big and good God.

Click here to read the rest of my article on Red Letter Christians. Or check out my book about the Good News about Gender.

Worth It? A Single’s Story

Sometimes I worry that since I haven’t dated yet I’m missing out on companionship and adventure. What it would be like to date someone? To avoid feeling this way, I create grateful hypotheticals:

If I’d dated during college, I wouldn’t have had time to invest freely and deeply in as many friendships. Singleness gives me a different kind of relational satisfaction.

If I’d been engaged after graduation, I couldn’t have moved to Kenya at a few months’ notice for my dream job.

If I was married, I couldn’t have travelled to Ethiopia recently on less than a week’s notice. Singleness frees me to go wherever God calls me (1 Cor. 7:34).

While I’ve had embarrassing moments and regrets, I’ve never gone through a breakup. Maybe I’m missing out on painful personal growth. But I’ve had more energy for other areas of personal growth, like exploring a call to ministry.

I treasure my freedom to make friends and follow God – the side effects of being single. What wonderful gifts!

Gratitude works when I’m being practical, when I see singleness as a situation. But if I start to see it as an identity, I can be ashamed of myself. Is something wrong with me? Maybe I’m some strange species of extra-virgin olive oil.

My friends from Christian colleges post facebook photos of engagements and weddings at alarming rates. I loved going to a secular college. Maybe I would have had more access to eligible Christians at a Christian school, but I didn’t actually want a ring by spring. So I feel behind and at a disadvantage in a game I never asked to play.

My secular school had different social rules to play by. In reaction to shame around sexual activity, sex positive teaching says all desires concerning sex are good. Therefore you shouldn’t feel ashamed of acting on them (as long as your partner agrees and it’s not harming anyone). If I didn’t want to be sexually active, then I was acting on my desire – no problem. But if I had desires I didn’t act on, then I was acting like the repressive Victorians that sex positivity was fleeing from. In that case, virginity was shameful – precisely because in Christian culture, sex outside marriage was shameful. I couldn’t win.

Since men traditionally ask women out, if a man hasn’t gone on a date, people will assume it’s due to his lack of interest or initiative. If people shame him for his lack of agency, he could do something about it. If I’m single, people assume it’s because no one’s interested in me. I can’t do anything about being single.

To explain why, allow me to adopt economic vocabulary. The worth of a good is determined by supply and demand. A Christian purity book asked me and my friends to reflect: “Are you a Styrofoam or china cup?” The implication was that staying pure (limiting supply) would increase our value in the eyes of men and God. That kind of thinking almost makes a girl fantasize about someone asking her out so she can reject him and increase her worth.

If there’s no demand, a woman’s value will plummet. She might use the tried and true marketing tactics of flirting, fashion and fitness to tempt customers. Or she might try to initiate something. But if her attention isn’t reciprocated, she’ll be “cheap.” She supplied too much of herself to the world, so the demand for her attention decreased.

This system encourages women to be passive before relationships even start. Good Christian girls wait because acting is irrelevant. External factors determine our value.

You can’t fault a woman for something she didn’t do. But when her identity is tied to others’ evaluation of her, you won’t have to. She’ll shame herself. And she’ll keep looking to her evaluators for love.

Donald Miller suggests our greatest desire is “to be known and loved anyway.” Shame tells us we’re unworthy. We look for kindred spirits or “the one” who will evaluate us and decide we are enough.

At least I do. Loneliness shaped my childhood. Friends broke playground alliances or moved away. The conditional love of teachers and authority figures was more attainable and predictable: Do your homework, follow the rules. Earn the label of good girl, smart kid. But conditional acceptance created fear, because if I messed up it would be gone.

I idolized made-up soul mates. Maybe God kept me single so I wouldn’t recreate my date into an idol.

Only the one who made my soul is worthy of worship.

Last week I listened to an old Relient K song that says: “You recite my words right back to me / Before I even speak / you let me know / I am understood // You’re the only one who understands / completely / you’re the only one who knows me and still loves / completely.”

God never left, never loved me conditionally. All my fear, shame, anger, sin – God saw it all. And if we’re talking economics – Jesus paid for me with his life. He invited me to become part of his bride and his family – the church. He promised to be with us forever.

God’s perfect love drives out fear (1 John 4:18) and shame (Ps. 34:5). We don’t have to play hard-to-get to boost our self-worth. Our Maker determined that we’re invaluable long ago. The Father said to Jesus, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). Jesus said to his followers, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you” (John 15:9).

I picture myself approaching the God who knows everything about me. God shakes a smiling head, offers me a hug.

Single or not, this love flows into all of us – and overflows to everyone else. Like a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, the Lord rejoices in the chosen people (Isa. 62:1-5). God takes great delight in us, quiets us with love and rejoices over us with singing (Zeph. 3:17).

I know, because last week, God sang that Relient K song to me. And we talked drinking tea from a comfortable mug. Like soul mates.

~Originally published September 29, 2014 on Christians for Biblical Equality’s blog (link)