Today I read a post on Scot McKnight’s blog entitled “Women in Ministry: ‘weaker vessel’?” (Yeah, he’s a brave one.) The post centered around 1 Peter 3:7 in which Peter refers to women as “weaker partner,” (NIV). McKnight wisely chose to echo the wisdom of a female theologian, Sarah Sumner, who deals with the sticky issue of this passage quite well.
What fascinated me about this post was, first, the scholarship represented by Sumner’s analysis, and second, the conversation that broke out via comments. Most folks were intelligent and constructive in their remarks, clearly aware of the explosive and sensitive nature of the topic at hand. But there were a couple extremists on both sides of the fence. Conservative theologians uncomfortable with a non-traditional view of women and feminist theologians who wanted the conversation to go further than it did.
In response to all of this, I commented with the following:
“Our goal should not be position, but relationship. As Tim (#10) said, ‘Thus, women need men; men need women; men need men; women need women. We all need each other’.
“Jesus himself said the same thing: ‘You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many,’ (Mark 10:42-45).
“So long as we approach this or any other human rights issue with a desire to validate the authority, position, capacity or ability of any one group (invariable, over or against another), we will be missing the boat completely. Even in the passage in question in 1 Peter, Peter’s command is given to men regarding, not their position relative to women, but the manner in which they should treat women. It is a relational command.
“The very idea that anyone of us does not need another is counter to the message of Christ. No, we need one another a great deal. All of us. Said another way, (and echoing Sarah Sumner), we are all weak. When we read about Jesus’ disciples squabbling over who is the greatest among them, we see clearly the pointlessness of such discussions. (These guys were all stiff-necked and clueless. How ironic that, of all the things they could be discussing, they chose to discuss their own strength!)
“Is it possible for us to reach a point at which we can all embrace the reality of our weaknesses and admit (even proclaim) our need for God and for one another? What might the community of believers look like if we achieved this?”
Any thoughts?
Well said. This might seem a strange thing to say, but I really believe that the NT passages about women in the church (1 Peter 3, 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy 2) are actually some of the least informative passages for us on how to deal with gender inequality. We know very little about the context of these passages, and we know very little about Paul’s intent there. Can we really trust ourselves to approach these passages without the biases and blinders of thousands of years of male dominance?
We DO know that Paul specifically addresses women leaders in his letters, for example in Philippians and Romans. We DO know that women traveled with Jesus, and that his actions towards women at times bordered on radically inclusive. We DO know that Jesus consistently sided against the powerful and for the powerless. We DO know that any good theology of creation should consider how God intended man and woman to function together.
To be brief (too late), we’ve got a lot of apologizing to do in churches for our treatment of women.
left by Trey on 11.28.2006 at 9:28 pm