Can a Woman Preach if Elders Affirm It?
John Piper
Audio transcript
Welcome back to a new week. Here’s a leadership question Pastor John. Does 1 Timothy 2:12 leave open the possibility that women are permitted to preach in the weekly gathering of a local church as an extension of the male elders of the church or as an expression under their governing authority? For example, is the wife of a pastor free to preach in a Sunday gathering?
Well, I don’t want to assume that any of our listeners have all the biblical foundations in place for doing this kind of refined application thinking. So let me put a few things in place and then I will specifically answer the question. Here is the text that we are talking about: 1 Timothy 2:11-14. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first and then Eve and Adam was not deceived, but eh woman was deceived and became a transgressor. So let me work backward in that text toward my answer to the question and I would remind the listeners that every one of these comments raises more questions. So there is a book, a little book called 50 Crucial Questions About Manhood and Womanhood that Wayne Grudem and I did and it is free online at Desiring God PDF. And if you have more questions, I hope they are answered there, at least some of them will be, I hope.
So Paul gives two reasons and they are not the only ones for why he would limit the teaching and governing office of the Church to spiritually qualified men. Reason number one, verse 13. Adam was formed first, then Eve. This is shorthand for about eight to 10 pointers in Genesis one to three that God intended the man to bear a unique responsibility, not sole responsibility, but unique and special responsibility for leadership in relation to women. That man was created first is one of those eight to 10 pointers and, in a sense, symbolizes all the others. You are there first. You bear first responsibility to lead, protect, especially when it comes to attacks from outside, which was just about to happen in chapter three as Satan approaches the couple who will take up responsibility to be the protector and the spokesman here and give leadership in the face of this kind of opposition. So that is number one. Adam was formed first and then Eve.