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This story was featured in the May 2008 issue of Chatter, a publication of Irving Bible Church. In the following article, Dr. Pyne describes how his thinking changed regarding the ministry role of women in the church as he applied the principle of transitional ethic. Though the elders of IBC did not reach the same ultimate conclusions as Dr. Pyne with regard to female elders and senior pastors, they did find his thought process as described here thought-provoking in interacting with the biblical texts.

When I was a theology professor, people frequently asked me about the role of women in ministry. I used to tell them I held to “complementarianism,” a word with far too many syllables. The label stands for a belief that, while women and men have equal dignity and value, they occupy distinct roles in church and in the home. Proponents of this position believe the Bible places restrictions on a woman’s service in the body of Christ. I no longer believe that, and I now attend a church with a female senior pastor. Clearly something has changed, but it was not my view of biblical authority. My interpretation of the Bible, however, has been recently renovated.

My perspective began changing when some respected friends and colleagues told me that, to them, the silencing of women’s voices did not seem like equal value. Neither did denying opportunity on the basis of gender communicate equal dignity. One friend reminded me that for almost 20 centuries of church history, Christian theologians regarded women as inherently inferior to men, prone to deception and perhaps not fully sharing in the image of God. Be patriarchal if you want, she said, but do not bother trying to soften the blow by calling it equality.

Those conversations opened my eyes. I had downplayed the Old Testament passages that treated women as property, spoils of war, or trophies for victorious men. I had not noticed that Deuteronomy 22 orders rapists to be fined and then given their victims in marriage. When I saw the way accused women were tested for adultery in passages such as Numbers 5, it never occurred to me that there was no similar test for men.

A central lesson became increasingly clear: The Law of God was never meant to represent God’s ideal.
In Matthew 19, Jesus pointed to the difference between the law and the ideal on the question of divorce. The ideal: “What God has joined together, let no one separate.” The concession: “Because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.” God’s law about divorce never constituted God’s ideal. It pulled people in the right direction. It made divorce more humane. But it was not the last word. The Law was a transitional ethic for those who had a long way to go on the journey of faith.

If the Law does not fully express God’s ideal, might something similar be happening with other ethical passages of Scripture, even in the New Testament? On the issue of slavery, the New Testament almost certainly represents a transitional ethic. Rather than overturning the institution of slavery, the New Testament assumes it. Jesus uses slavery as an illustration of discipleship. Paul instructs slave owners to treat their slaves with greater respect, even as brothers in Christ, but he never tells them to set the slaves free. Rather, he strongly warns slaves to obey even their Christian masters.

In America’s antebellum south, advocates of slavery seemed to have all the Bible verses on their side. They saw abolitionists as godless infidels who had abandoned the clear teaching of Scripture. But the abolitionists could not get around that idea that it was wrong for one person to own another. They championed the universal dignity of humanity made in the image of God. Reading the New Testament commands about slavery as an ethic on the way, they saw God’s ideal in other Scriptures: Acts 2 declared the Spirit would come upon all flesh, including male and female slaves; Galatians 3 proclaimed that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female.

The abolitionists were no doubt right. But even they did not always recognize the broader implications of their argument. Biblical references to slaves occur alongside references to women. When the slaves are told to submit, so are the women. When masters are told to be gentler, so are the husbands. What makes us think the instructions about men and women should be permanent? Should not “neither male nor female” be taken just as seriously as “neither slave nor free”?

A transitional ethic acknowledges a move from biblical command to biblical ideal. It embraces the spirit of the law over the letter of the law. It encourages a shift from careful restriction to broad encouragement. Paul models such encouragement in Romans 16 as he introduces Phoebe, a deacon and sponsor of a house church who may have been personally carrying Paul’s letter to Rome. Paul tells his readers to “receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints.” May we all join in the movement toward God’s ideal as we celebrate both women and men participating fully in the kingdom of God.

At IBC we recognize that God created both man and woman in His image, that He offers the same Holy Spirit to both men and women at salvation, and that the same spiritual gifts are available to both men and women for service. While the New Testament seems to imply that eldership is reserved for men, the elders of IBC affirm that women in all other roles are scripturally qualified, spiritually blessed, and directly called to use their spiritual gifts to build Christ’s Kingdom.

Bob Pyne taught theology at Dallas Seminary for 17 years and is now Director of Leadership Development for African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries (ALARM). He is co-author (with Joni Grace Powers) of LifeSpace: the practice of life with God. This one is for his 14 year old daughter.

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