Quotes from Richard Hays' Reading with the Grain of Scripture

 

I have enjoyed reading some of Richard Hays' earlier works (I've read parts of The Moral Vision of the New Testament and he has a very good 1 Corinthians commentary in the Interpretation series), so I decided to plunge into a collection of his essays written at different moments in his career in Reading with the Grain of Scripture. Hays is a United Methodist who recently retired from teaching. He became an influential interpreter of Paul and a significant New Testament scholar. He taught at both Yale and Duke. Probably the main ideas that stood out to me are how Christians should read the OT analogically as pointing to Jesus and the Spirit, his approach to hermeneutics, and some of his takes on Paul. I'm posting below quotes from the book that stood out to me. This is definitely a Bible nerd sort of book, so folks who've been through seminary might find these quotes more palatable.

On trying to separate biblical study from the church and take it entirely into the academy:

Here is the point I’m leading to. […] …the intense academic study of the Bible really is not important outside of faith communities. […] As Robert Jenson has incisively remarked, “outside the church, no such entity as the Christian Bible has any reason to exist.” The Bible is a collection of documents gathered by and for the church to aid in preserving and proclaiming the church’s message. Therefore, “the question, after all, is not whether churchly reading of Scripture is justified; the question is, what could possibly justify any other?” (p. 34; quoting Robert Jenson’s “Scripture’s Authority in the Church”).

On how resurrection informs Christian interpretation of the OT: 

(3) The NT resurrection accounts teach us to read the OT as Christian Scripture. To read it in this way, as we have noted, does not mean to deny its original historical sense, nor does it preclude responsible historical criticism. Christians have a stake in seeking the most historically careful readings of the OT texts that we can attain. At the same time, however, in light of the NT’s witness, we cannot confine the meaning of the OT to the literal sense understood by its original authors and readers, for these ancient texts have been taken up into a new story that amplifies and illumines their meaning in unexpected ways. The NT writers insist that we are to read Israel’s story as a witness to the righteousness of God, climactically disclosed in Jesus Christ. They insist that Israel’s Scriptures, understood in the fullest and deepest way, prefigures Jesus. This claim, of course, has important implications for Jewish-Christian dialogue. I would suggest that the goal of such dialogue should be not “tolerance” but respectful controversy between communities that make competing and partly incompatible claims about the meaning of Israel’s story. In any case, the stories we have considered here show emphatically that a hermeneutic of resurrection will not treat the OT as superseded or obsolete. It has an indispensable role in bearing witness to the gospel. (4) Reading in light of the resurrection is figural reading. Because the OT’s pointers to the resurrection are indirect and of a symbolic character, the resurrection teaches us to read for figuration and latent sense. The Sadducees were literalists, but God seems to have delighted in veiled anticipations of the gospel. For that reason, resurrection is the enemy of textual literalism. Or, more precisely, resurrection reconfigures the literal sense of Scripture by catalyzing new readings that destabilize entrenched interpretations: the resurrection stories teach us always to remain alert to analogical possibilities and surprises. Resurrection-informed reading sees the life-giving power of God manifested and prefigured in unexpected ways throughout Scripture. It would therefore be a mistake to catalog, say, all the explicitly christological readings of OT texts in Luke-Acts and suppose that we had thereby exhausted the hermeneutical possibilities for understanding Scripture’s witness to Jesus Christ. On the contrary, the Jesus who taught the disciples on the Emmaus road that all the Scriptures bore witness to him continues to teach us to discover figural senses of Scripture that are not developed in the NT (pp. 64-65).

The cross in Paul's theology and writing:

Thus, for Paul, there is no right knowledge of the identity of Jesus apart from the cross. That is why he tells the Corinthians he “decided to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). Paul’s struggles with rival preachers often turned precisely on this issue: the super-apostles in Corinth were preaching a powerful, glorious, rhetorically polished Jesus rather than a crucified Lord; the rival missionaries in Galatia sought to avoid persecution and remove “the offense of the cross” by preaching circumcision (Gal 5:11; 6:12); and in Philippians, Paul derides his adversaries as “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil 3:18). Whether by precept or by example, these other early Christians were proclaiming “another Jesus” because they were not allowing the crucifixion to stand at the heart of their account of his identity. Paul, on the other hand, returns again and again to the cross as the touchstone of his interpretation of Jesus’s identity (see, e.g., 1 Cor 1:23-24, 30; 2 Cor 13:4; Gal 3:1; 6:14; Phil 2:8; Col 1:20) (p. 158).

Jews and Gentiles, Continuity and Discontinuity:

(1) God the Father acts freely and graciously to rescue his people, in a totally unexpected way, to create a new covenant community of the “sons of God.” This new community is continuous with the covenant community of Israel reaching all the way back to Abraham yet at the same time is discontinuous in its surprising inclusion of gentiles as God’s sons and daughters. The relation between continuity and discontinuity is worked out through scriptural exegesis that demonstrates how God’s unexpected action was prefigured and promised in Israel’s Scripture, whose true original sense is now at last disclosed through the apocalypse of Jesus Christ. This complex retrospective hermeneutical reconfiguration of the “Israel of God” [Gal 6:16] complicates any attempt at simple judgment about whether Paul is or is not a supersessionist. A corollary of this point is that Pauline interpreters ought to quit lobbing the accusation of “supersessionism” at one another (p. 199).

Paul's Use of Polemics and Bracing Critique:

(3) Paul is not afraid of polemic. I offer this observation with some trepidation, because in some sectors of the church there is already all too great a readiness to adopt a polemical tone similar to Paul’s brutally undiplomatic “O brainless Galatians, who has bewitched you?” (3:1). But I equally suspect that in other theological circles–and certainly in many approaches to pastoral care and preaching–the default tone has instead become one of unconditional, nonjudgmental inclusivity, a tone that greets any and all opinions and practices with tepid, suffocating tolerance. To the extent that this is an accurate diagnosis of a certain malaise in “mainstream” Protestantism, Galatians may come as a bracing blast of fresh air, with its uncompromising call: “Stand firm, … and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (5:1). Galatians reminds us that there are times when the truth of the gospel really is at stake, when we must not yield submission even for a moment to forces that would compromise or undermine the liberating message of Jesus Christ. The difficult task, of course, is to discern when those times are at hand, and when we are confronting a status confessionis (p. 202).

In the following long quote, Hays is offering some positive evaluations of NT Wright’s interpretation of Romans 11:25-27. I have not included some questions and critiques he poses later.

(3) Gentile believers “come in” to Israel. When Paul writes of the fullness of the gentiles “coming in” prior to the salvation of all Israel, into what does he expect them to come? Wright answers that they are to come in to Israel, precisely as the olive-tree metaphor in 11:17-24 has indicated. As wild olive branches they are grafted onto the tree, which is undoubtedly a symbol for Israel. This image is fully consistent with Paul’s well-attested theological conviction that his gentile converts have been taken up into the story of Israel. Paul insists that Abraham is the father of circumcised and uncircumcised alike (Rom 4). In his view, the non-Jewish Christians at Corinth “used to be Gentiles” (1 Cor 12:2), but now they are to regard Moses and the people of Israel in the wilderness as “our forefathers” (1 Cor 10:1-4). As Wright compellingly observes, gentile believers in Jesus have, in Paul’s view, received circumcision of the heart and can now rightly be described as “Jews” (Rom 2:25-29); accordingly, Paul can encourage his Philippian converts who “worship in the Spirit of God” and confess Jesus as Messiah to join him in declaring “we…are the circumcision” (Phil 3:3). In light of such texts, it also seems highly likely that when Paul invokes a blessing on “the Israel of God” (Gal 6:16), he is referring to all those, gentile and Jew alike, who share a common identity in Christ (Gal 3:26-29).

 

(4) Paul’s kinspeople, the Jewish people, can find salvation only through confessing Jesus Messiah as Lord. There is no separate dispensation for Jews apart from Christ. Paul has insistently argued throughout Romans that “there is no distinction” between Jew and gentile with respect to God’s saving action. This is the whole burden of Rom 1-4. The righteousness of God is revealed through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who trust in him (Rom 3:21-24). And, in case his readers may have forgotten the point, he hammers it home again in Rom 10:9-13: everyone who confesses that Jesus is Lord and believes that God has raised him from the dead will be saved (v. 9). Precisely with respect to this point “there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord [Jesus] is Lord of all” (v. 12). Thus, whatever Rom 11:26-27 means, it cannot mean there is a Sonderwag, a separate path of salvation for Israel–or for some part of Israel–apart from trusting in the one whom Paul proclaims to be Israel’s Messiah. That is why Paul anguished over many of his own kinspeople who have not accepted the gospel (9:1-5), and that is why he continues to pray earnestly “that they may be saved” (10:1)–surely meaning that they may not “remain in unbelief” (11:23).

 

(5) The meaning of kai houtōs (11:26a) is “and thus”–not “and then.” It refers to manner, not temporal sequence. In other words, it points back to the events summarized in verse 25 (the hardening of a part of Israel and the incoming of a plenitude of gentiles to stir Israel to jealousy) as the surprising manner in which the salvation of “all Israel” will occur. As Wright puts it, “and that, the entire sequence of 11.11-24, summed up in 11.25, is how ‘all Israel’ will be saved” [Quote from pg. 1241 of Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God].

 

(6) “All Israel” means the one people of God, composed of Jews and gentiles who have come to place their trust in Jesus Messiah. The cumulative force of the previous five points leads almost inescapably to Wright’s conclusion that “all Israel” in Rom 11:26a is Paul’s way of describing the whole people of God, the whole body of those who confess Jesus as Messiah and Lord, and thereby find salvation within the christologically reconfigured covenant with Israel’s God. […] Wright notes that Paul had, significantly, launched this whole train of argument in 9:6 with the declaration that “not all who are from Israel are Israel. […] And Paul further insists that it is “the children of promise” who are truly reckoned as the “seed” of Abraham (9:8). We should not forget that in Galatians he had argued vehemently that the uncircumcised gentile believers in Galatia were precisely among the “children of the promise” (Gal 4:28), Abraham’s heirs. Thus, for Paul to include Jewish and gentile Christians together under the designation “Israel” is fully consistent with deep currents in his theology (pp. 243-245).

Here Hays cites Paul’s use of Abraham in Romans 4:18-21 as an example for how to interpret Scripture, particularly in opposition to a hermeneutic of suspicion. It is a good quote with which to end.

This passage is particularly interesting because Abraham’s pistis [faith] is interpreted explicitly as his trust in God’s promise despite its incongruence with Abraham’s own experience of sterility and frustration. Abraham might have had good reason to exercise a hermeneutic of suspicion toward the divine word that had promised him numerous descendants, for all the empirical evidence–his experience–seemed to disconfirm God’s word. Yet he did not: “no apistia,” no suspicion, “made him waver.” Abraham was not a simpleton who failed to see the tension between his experience and the word that God had spoken to him. He had to wrestle with doubts and–indeed–with the extinction of all human hope for normal progeny. This wrestling is clearer in the Genesis narrative, where Abraham openly questions God (see Gen 15:2-3; 16:1-16; 17:17-18; for Sarah’s doubts see 18:12-15), than in Paul’s brief summary. Nonetheless, according to Paul, Abraham discounted his own experience, rejected skepticism, and clung to the promise of God “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” Rom 4:17); therefore, “it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Thus, Abraham becomes the prototype of the community of faith, which interprets all human experience through trust in God’s word: in short, Abraham exemplifies a hermeneutic of consent, a hermeneutic of trust. (In this respect he is like Mary, who asks suspiciously, “How can this be?” but in the end submits herself to the word of promise: “Let it be with me according to your word,” Luke 1:34, 38). A trusting hermeneutic is essential for all who believe the word of the resurrection but still see the creation groaning in bondage to decay and do not yet see death made subject to God. The hermeneutics of trust turns out to be, on closer inspection, a hermeneutics of death and resurrection–a way of seeing the whole world through the lens of the kerygma. Our reliance on God entails a death to common sense, and our trust is validated only by the resurrection (pp. 395-396).

A Response to J. D. Greear and Al Mohler on the Role of Women in the Church

In some parts of the Christian world, debates are flaring up about women’s roles in the church and what God’s will is concerning them. This is particularly true in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) at present, as a string of recent events has led to much conversation on the topic. There has been the decision to leave the SBC by the eminently popular Beth Moore, who has produced a lot of curriculum that Lifeway, the discipleship and Christian education arm of the SBC, and other distributors have sold. Dr. Beth Allison Barr is a professor of church history at Baylor who comes from a Baptist background. She published a book in April called The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth, and it takes a look at the history behind what the church has said about women’s roles, and she documents some of her journey out of complementarian theology, further kicking the conversation wide open. (Full disclosure: I haven't read her book but have listened to her speak on a podcast). Top that with the recent ordination of three women at Saddleback Church in the greater Los Angeles area–home to pastor Rick Warren and currently the largest church in the SBC–and you can see why Christian Twitter has been abuzz on the issue.

J. D. Greear, the current president of the SBC and pastor of Summit Church in Durham, NC, wrote a blog post after Saddleback ordained the three women, calling the decision “disappointing” and linking to a position paper on gender roles utilized by his church, which you can see here. Al Mohler, the president of the largest seminary connected to the SBC, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, also wrote a piece that's critical of women in church leadership here. I'm not a Southern Baptist, but Zion Baptist Church in Woodland, AL, played an instrumental role in me becoming a Christian as a teenager. I am grateful for the SBC, and though I differ from them on a few things, they are my brothers and sisters in Christ and I will always cherish the grace God has given me through them. I pray that God would give grace and blessing to the SBC and to these two men I'm interacting with in this post.

I find Greear’s position paper much more charitable and willing to reason through things with kindness and Scripture at the center, while Mohler comes off as harsh and dismissive. Mohler’s piece doesn’t seem designed to persuade those who think differently from him, but rather serves to drum up those who are already in agreement with him. It also appears that Greear and Mohler disagree on some things themselves, with Greear being open to women preaching in certain settings, but not Mohler.

Two very common perspectives on gender roles in the church are clashing in these things, though there are lesser known intermediary positions too. The wider church has labeled these two perspectives as complementarian theology and egalitarian theology. Complementarians hold that God does not call women to be clergy and that women should submit to their husbands and have a more supportive role at home. Men are to lead at the church and in the home. Most complementarians would say 1 Timothy 2:11-15 and 1 Cor. 14:34-35 represent God’s ultimate will concerning gender in church leadership, while other passages around women taking leadership roles can be understood contextually or should be considered exceptions. When it comes to marriage, wives honoring/submitting to husbands is commanded in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16; Ephesians 5:21-33; Colossians 4:18-19; Titus 2:5; and 1 Peter 3:1-7, and complementarians would say the husband “gets more of a vote,” so to speak, in decisions pertaining to the family. A good source of getting information and arguments from some of the thought leaders from this perspective is the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. 

Egalitarians hold that God calls women and men to be clergy and that leadership of the family is more determined by the gifts of the Spirit and someone's talents rather than biology. They would lift up other biblical passages where women are in positions of authority (we'll look at some of these below), the mutuality without hierarchy present in Genesis 2, and a close reading of the NT marriage passages in context to advocate for equal partnership as God’s ultimate will. They'd make the case that restrictive passages on women in church leadership like 1 Timothy 2:11-15 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 can be understood contextually. You can see proponents of this perspective in the group Christians for Biblical Equality.

What is God’s best on this issue? I don’t have perfect knowledge and I welcome correction if you see me going wrong, but I wanted to offer my perspective on the issue of women in church leadership and why I come to a different conclusion from Greear and Mohler on God calling women to be clergy. (Maybe we can look at the passages on marriage another day and in another post.) I land more in the egalitarian camp on this, though some egalitarian arguments and exegesis prove more convincing than others. I want to lift up some introductory considerations, engage primarily with The Summit's position paper, and then dive into interpreting some of the relevant passages of Scripture. I also will ask some questions of my complementarian brothers and sisters.

Interpretive Considerations

The first thing I’ll say is that this topic can get complex and multiple interpretive issues come into play. One of those issues is trying to make sense of what the whole sweep of Scripture says about a topic, not just a few passages. In preaching on women in ministry a few years ago, I encouraged people to think of making sense of a complex topic in Scripture as being like a bicycle that comes to you in a box and you need to assemble the parts. We need to look at all passages that are relevant to the topic and assemble them in a way that makes sense of all the parts. If you put it all together in such a way that some passages are discarded or left out, then you probably haven’t put it together correctly. It would be like making a unicycle out of the parts for a bicycle–you've made something from the parts, but you still have the frame and an extra wheel lying on the ground. Let's take what the Bible says about wealth and possessions as an example. If you highlight the passages about God giving people prosperity and material blessings while neglecting passages about generosity and simplicity, then you’ve left out some crucial pieces of God’s design for how we treat money and possessions. It's like riding a unicycle when God intends for us to ride a bicycle. Sure, we've have made something from the parts, perhaps even something that can propel us forward, but we're missing God's intended design, which is faster and more useful than a unicycle. (And yes, you guessed it: I actually had a unicycle and a bicycle that I used as props in that sermon. Lord, have mercy.)

We further can think on how much historical background should shape our interpretation. What was going on in the world in which a text was written? What was the situation in a church and city to which a particular letter was addressed? What was going on the broader culture? How might such knowledge help us better understand how the original hearers and readers would’ve interpreted a passage, or help us understand why a particular command was given? 

A further interpretive issue concerns determining if something is a universal command to be obeyed in all times and places regardless of context versus determining when we shouldn't literally obey a command, but instead pull a principle from it that we apply a bit differently to our lives today. A common example my New Testament professor, Dr. Craig Keener, would use to illustrate this are Paul’s repeated commands around greeting one another with a holy kiss (Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:26). I think most churches in the U.S. don’t obey this verse literally, because in our context kissing one another might imply something different and potentially negative to the culture around us compared to what it would've meant in Paul's original context. But we can pull the principle of greeting one another warmly and with hospitality from these commands and apply that in a way that best makes sense in our context to fulfill the spirit of the command.

I mention these interpretive issues first because they shape how people make sense of the Bible and help us see how people arrive at different interpretations of the Bible. You’ll see them coming into play below. 

Women of Spiritual Authority in the Bible

Right off the bat, I want to list some passages of Scripture that showcase women in authoritative roles.

• Miriam—Prophetess & leader, Exodus 15:20-21; Micah 6:4
• Deborah—Judge over all Israel & prophetess, Judges 4:1-5:31
• Huldah—Prophetess, 2 Kings 22:14-20; 2 Chronicles 34:22-28
• Isaiah’s Wife—Prophetess, Isaiah 8:3
• Anna—Prophetess, Luke 2:36
• Daughters of Philip—Prophetesses, Acts 21:8-9
• Women in the Corinthian Church—Prophetesses, 1 Corinthians 11:5
• Priscilla—Evangelist and teacher with her husband Aquila. Taught a man, Apollos, in Acts 18:24-26.
• Phoebe—Deacon, Paul likely trusted her to be able to explain the letter of Romans as carrier of letter. Romans 16:1-2
• Junia—Apostle, most likely Andronicus and Junia were a husband and wife apostle team. (More on this below). Romans 16:7
• Euodia and Syntyche—Labored with Paul in spreading the Gospel. Philippians 4:2-3

Something else of note is that Paul ranks being an apostle and prophet/prophesying above pastoring/teaching in 1 Corinthians 12:28 and Ephesians 4:11. Since you have the example of a woman apostle and several women prophets throughout Scripture, with some of this being present in Paul’s letters themselves, what does that mean for what the Bible says and what Paul believed about women having authority in the church? This is going to be important to wrestle with as we keep delving into the topic.

Now let’s turn to The Summit Church’s position paper.

The Summit Position Paper–Positives

I want to start off by saying I have a lot of respect for J. D. Greear. I find him to be a wise voice in the SBC, and he is someone who cares about evangelism and is open to pursuing racial reconciliation. I also appreciate his and his church's desire to be centered on Scripture, which is evident throughout The Summit’s document. I’m an egalitarian, but I fear some egalitarians make their case mostly by leaving the Bible behind and focusing primarily on experience and reason rather than Scripture. This is not a Protestant (or Methodist) way of doing theology. To the degree egalitarians have argued for women in ministry leadership by abandoning Scripture, we deserve critique and become guilty of not setting people up for a submissive view toward Scripture like Jesus, the apostles, and the early church had. I ultimately come to a different conclusion from Greear, but his biblical focus is good.

The document is much more nuanced and well-rounded than some other presentations I’ve seen from complementarians, showcasing the diversity of women in Scripture. I’m glad the Summit highlights the incidents where women did teach men and preached in mixed settings in the Bible. I also am grateful to see that Summit allows women to be deacons in section IV-D, which is what we see in Romans 16:1-2 and 1 Timothy 3:11 (more on this below). The words in III-B on the necessity of all Christians to submit to God, to each other mutually, to government in some things, and to church leadership in some things is healthy as well. I agree with them that the titles pastor, elder, and overseer refer to the same role in the NT (see their interchangeable use in Acts 20:17, 28), and they also correctly highlight that we have no examples in the New Testament of women as elders, overseers, or pastors. As shown above, however, there are passages that showcase women in more authoritative roles than that of pastor/overseer/elder in the Bible. You do have a few women who were considered elders in the early church (see the first footnote to the postscript in this article that gives some names of women who were considered clergy: https://margmowczko.com/women-elders-new-testament/), but it is quite true to say the large majority perspective in church history is against women in ministry leadership. While tradition is an important resource to consider theologically, for Protestants, it is not the ultimate authority. The Bible is our primary authority and represents the earliest traditions of the church, and later tradition can sometimes miss the mark.

The Summit’s Position Paper–Questions and Critique

I’m grateful that Greear sees Junia as a woman in Romans 16:7. For a time, Junia’s name was made into the masculine Junias because people assumed a woman couldn’t be an apostle, but the name Junias isn’t extant in any other Greek writings, while the feminine name Junia was relatively common. There are several early church interpreters who viewed Junia as a female apostle (Ambrosiaster, John Chrysostom, Origen, Theodoret, Jerome, John of Damascus, etc.). I’d like an explanation of why Greear prefers to interpret the Greek phrase in Romans 16:7 “episemoi en tois apostolois” as Junia being held in high esteem by the apostles instead of being considered outstanding among the apostles. Episemoi gets variously translated as “noteworthy,” “outstanding,” “reputable,” or “prominent,” and tois apostolois means “the apostles.” The argument centers around the sense given to the preposition en–does it mean “in/among” or “to/by"? 

While “to” or “by” is lexically possible, this is not the most common sense of the preposition. BDAG, one of the most reputable Greek-English lexicons, lists "to" or "by" as the eighth possible meaning of en, and there are only a few passages in the New Testament where the authors think this sense is utilized. En usually locates someone or something within a group, condition, or time, and there are many more attestations of this sense of the word in the New Testament (see BDAG pp. 326-330). The most common usage of en would imply that Andronicus and Junia were apostles. Nate Sparks writes about this in a blog post, citing New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham’s book Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels.

…Bauckham asserts that Paul’s consideration of Junia as an apostle is ‘virtually certain’ (p. 172). Bauckham sees the lack of a qualifier for “apostolois" in Romans 16:7 – such as occurs with “apostle of the churches” in 2 Corinthians 8:23 or “your apostle” in Philippians 2:25 – to be an indicator that: Romans 16:7 must refer to the apostles of Christ, whom Paul generally refers to simply as “apostles,” meaning that Junia and Andronicus were apostles themselves, not that they were esteemed by other apostles. Bauckham readily notes that this usage is not as narrow as that used in the Gospels at the choosing of the “twelve apostles”, but points out that it is the sense in which Paul refers to his own inclusion as an apostle [see, for instance, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11]. (Source: https://natesparks130.com/2016/03/08/rhetorical-questions-kevin-deyoung/#_ftn6)

In reference to what is written in section II-B, egalitarianism doesn’t consider men and women to be “interchangeable,” as though there were no differences among them at all. I’m an egalitarian and I do not believe this. There are obvious biological differences between women and men, and we too see complementarity in God's design of the two sexes. We just don’t think biological sex determines the roles God might call a woman or man to in the church and in the home. Also, the language in this section about complementarian theology giving women more reasons to serve in the church is mystifying. How is egalitarianism giving less motivation for women to be involved in the life of the church when it asserts God can call women to more roles and offers them more opportunities than complementarianism? Further, it's not like egalitarians are going to criticize women if they serve in roles more traditionally expected of women in the church, like children and family ministry. The logic here eludes me.

I fear in section III the ideas get confusing in trying to delineate when women can and can’t preach and teach. They can preach and have authority over a group as long as they’re not doing it in a way that explicitly states they’re an elder or implies that they’re teaching like an elder. But that begs the question: what does it mean to teach and preach like an elder? Do elders have a particular way they preach and teach? I know several elders, and they all have different styles and gifts when it comes to preaching and teaching. Further, in III-E, I don't think the division of teaching into “general” and “special” categories is a biblical one. Colossians 3:16 and 1 Peter 4:11 are cited in support of this claim, but how these verses establish that there’s “general” teaching that everyone can do and “special” teaching that only male elders can do is not apparent. Further, how would you know if a sermon was a “general” one or verged into “special” teaching territory? Can you consistently say that women are sometimes allowed to teach and preach in mixed settings, but also say in III-E that “for most churches, particularly in North America, the sermon acts as the most obvious example of ‘special’ teaching at the local church level,” so therefore women shouldn’t preach sermons at church, though they can offer "admonitions" and "scriptural insights" during the worship service? The distinctions are fuzzy and some of the argumentation folds in on itself. I fear it will leave people confused. Further, Deborah and Miriam had more authority in the life of God’s people than an elder would've had in the NT. Would they fit into this schema?

As we continue, I want to offer an interpretation of two key biblical passages where Paul restricts women's ministry. Let’s start with 1 Timothy 2:8-15

1 Timothy 2:8-15

Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing. I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God. A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. (NIV)

Paul's letter of 1 Timothy is addressed to Timothy as his delegate over the churches in the city of Ephesus. This passage is getting at disruptions and distractions in the gatherings of the congregations in Ephesus, presumably at worship, since in 2:1 Paul is telling Timothy to instruct the people on how to pray and we return to the theme of prayer in 2:8. The first disruption centers on angry men who were getting into arguments–probably not the most fun experience if you visited the church in Ephesus back in the day and some men were raucously arguing with each other. The next two disruptions center around women, with verses 9-10 being devoted to modesty and 11-15 to women being barred from teaching. In context, Paul’s commands on modesty probably were intended to minimize conflicts centered around opulence and social elitism as well as connotations of sexual immorality connected with some of the specific adornment Paul mentions (see Philip Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus: NICNT, 208-209). Paul moves on to give further instruction for the women in Timothy’s churches, calling for them to learn in quietness and submission, saying that he does not permit a woman to have authority and teach over a man, making an appeal to creation to further his argument, and then giving the promise that women will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith, love, holiness, and propriety. 

First off, Paul wants women to learn. “While this may seem unsurprising to us at this juncture in history, the degree of education appropriate for women was very much a subject for debate in the Greco-Roman world, with some suggesting it was inappropriate altogether. There is even a notorious Jewish saying, ‘better to burn the Torah than to teach it to a woman’ (J. T. Sot. 3.19a, 3). Here in our text women are not merely encouraged to learn, they are required to do so. They are to do it in quietness and in all submission/subordination” (Ben Witherington III, The Problem with Evangelical Theology, 99). Most likely here Paul is telling the women to be submissive to the teacher/instructor in the gathered group, not to their husbands or to men in general.

The fact that Paul bars women from teaching in verse 12 brings with it the assumption that some women had been teaching in the Ephesian church. The verb that the NIV translates as “assume authority over” is authentein in Greek, and it only occurs here in the NT. There is some discussion over whether in means simply “to have authority over” or, more negatively, “to domineer.” Scholars are divided and both senses are possible. Whichever sense we go with probably isn’t crucial for our overall interpretation. The main question is: Why does Paul stop these women from teaching and having authority?

The traditional complementarian interpretation is Paul in verses 13-14 anchors his argumentation back to creation, which therefore makes his prohibition of women teaching and assuming authority over men a universal prohibition, rooting male leadership and teaching authority back to God’s created design. Egalitarian interpretation often maintains that Paul is making the prohibition here for reasons specific to this church context, and Paul appeals to the creation story as an illustration of the present problem in this church, but not as a transcultural forbiddance.

If you'll permit a brief digression, one place you see most people consider an appeal to creation to be a culturally bound argument that isn't applicable in the same way today is in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. In this passage, part of Paul’s argument for women wearing head coverings involves an appeal back to creation in verses 8-12. Most Christians consider the head coverings command in 1 Corinthians 11 to be a contextually bound command from which we might pull principles around honoring spouses, but not literally apply them in the same way today by requiring all married women to wear head coverings in church. Most women/wives don’t wear a head covering in worship in Christian congregations in many parts of the world today. Perhaps those who argue for women not teaching or preaching over men should also advocate that women/wives should wear head coverings in church if they want to be consistent in their interpretive method.

Returning back to 1 Timothy 2, there is evidence in 1 and 2 Timothy that indicates multiple problems with women at the church in Ephesus under Timothy’s charge. In 2 Timothy 3:6-7, Paul talks about false teachers who sway gullible women, work their way into their homes, and spread false doctrine. Since women weren’t as educated as men back at the time, they probably would have been more vulnerable to false teachers. Ben Witherington sees this as standing behind the appeal to creation in 2:13-14.

I suggest that the reason for the mention that Adam was formed first, before speaking of Eve, is to remind the audience of the context of the story in Genesis 2. That story is quite clear that Adam alone was formed and was present for the original instructions about what was prohibited. Eve was not there for proper divine instruction, hence she was more susceptible to deception. Nothing is said here about the woman being more susceptible by nature to deception, unlike what we find for instance in Philo (Witherington III, Problem, 101).

Paul also gets on to some widows in 1 Tim 5:6 and 11-15 for living for pleasure, breaking their pledges, saying things they shouldn’t say, going from house to house as gossips, and some of them even rejecting the faith altogether to follow Satan. Paul’s overall message concerning widows in 5:3-16 seeks to encourage families to care for their elderly, put strictures around which widows the church supported financially, and counsel younger widows against the example of other younger widows who were behaving badly. One gets the picture that some of the troublesome widows that Paul upbraids in 5:11-15 had been put on the list to receive financial support from the church while they were going about causing problems for the church. This would not have been good for the reputation of the church or for the quality of the fellowship. Combine that with the modesty issues Paul has just mentioned in 2:9-10, and it seems plausible that local problems with women stood behind why Paul pumped the brakes on women teaching and having authority over men in Ephesus. 

There also are some more positive examples of women in Paul's correspondence with Timothy. Paul sees the Christian faith as being passed down to Timothy from his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice in 2 Timothy 1:5. Priscilla, along with her husband Aquila, are mentioned in 2 Timothy 4:19. In Acts 18:24-26, Priscilla and Aquila taught a man, Apollos, the way of God more fully, and they did it in Ephesus, the same city where this letter is directed to Timothy. Further, there's what Paul says about women deacons in 1 Timothy 3:8-13.

Deacon comes from the Greek word diakonos, which is used to describe an office of church leadership in 3:8-13. It means "servant" or "minister." It clearly refers to a leadership office in the church in at least two cases: in 1 Timothy 3:8-13 and in Philippians 1:1. It also can have a more generic sense of being a servant without any official ecclesiastical position implied. Jesus calls all Christians to be servants–see, for instance, Mark 10:43-45 and its parallels. Paul applies the word to himself and others multiple times to talk about serving or ministering in some way. There are some instances where it’s not clear if he is referring to someone who serves exceptionally well or to someone who held the office of deacon. You can see different examples of him using the word in Greek in Rom. 16:1 (Phoebe); 1 Cor. 3:5; 2 Cor. 3:6; 6:4; 11:23; Eph. 3:7; 6:21 (Tychicus); Col. 1:7 (Epaphras), 23, 25; 4:7 (again, Tychicus). It is quite probable that Paul refers to Tychicus, Phoebe (a woman), and Epaphras as people who held the office of deacon based on the location of where they are brought up in these letters (either toward the beginning or end), and especially in light of Tychicus being called a deacon twice in different letters.

1 Timothy 3:11 is the verse relevant for our discussion. It reads in the NIV, “In the same way, the women are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything." Some translate "the women" as "the wives" of the male deacons, an interpretation that implies women didn't hold the office of deacon. The Greek word in question in this verse is gunaikes, a plural form of gunē, the word for woman. Gunē, along with the Greek word for man–anēr or arsēn–can also mean wife and husband in Greek. There isn’t a different word for wife and husband in Greek like there is in English. You have to infer from the grammar (often through the inclusion of a possessive pronoun or the definite article) and context if a biblical author is referring to wives and husbands. For instance, in Greek, my wife Laura would be “my woman" and I would be “her man.” 

Philip Towner gives several reasons for why he finds women deacons to be the best sense of 3:11. One of them is that while this word can mean wives, typically when wives are referred to in Greek in the NT, they either have a possessive pronoun attached to them or the definite article (see 1 Cor. 7:2, 3; Eph. 5:22; Col. 3:18, 24; 1 Pet. 3:1). The Greek here does not have a possessive pronoun or the definite article. Also, “The omission of a parallel instruction to wives of overseers [in 3:1-7] makes it still less likely that ‘wives of deacons’ would be singled out. Further, the reference in Rom. 16:1 to ‘Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae’ […] demonstrates both the existence of women deacons and the use of the masculine term [in Greek] to refer to a female deacon” (Towner, 266). There are a couple other nerdy Greek things Towner lists that he believes further supports this conclusion. Luke Timothy Johnson in his commentary on 1 and 2 Timothy mentions some different interpreters throughout history who came to the conclusion that Paul was referring to women deacons–Theodore of Mopsuestia (350-428), Theodore of Cyr (393-466), Oecumenius of Tricca, (tenth century), Theophylact (eleventh century), and Hervé de Bourg–Dieu (twelfth century) (Luke Timothy Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy: Anchor Yale Bible, 27-37).

In 3:9, Paul says that deacons “must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience.” Keeping hold of the deep truths of the faith implies that deacons teach. Why else would Paul make this a requirement unless deacons were responsible for communicating these truths in some way? So if Paul allowed women to be deacons in 1 Timothy 3, the presumption would be these women also would be teaching the "deep truths of the faith." And wouldn’t “deep truths of the faith” probably fall into the category of what The Summit labels as “special teaching” that they think women shouldn’t approach?

Returning back to 2:11-15, here's Witherington again:

Of what relevance is all this to the discussion of women learning rather than teaching? Eve is an example of someone who could be deceived by a false teacher (in this case a snake), [perhaps] because she had not been properly instructed in the first place. This speaks directly to the problem in Ephesus where we have some high-status, well-to-do women, likely with some education, who are trying to assume the mantle of teaching before they have learned the apostolic message properly, and in all likelihood after they have already been misled by the false teachers (Witherington III, Problem, 102).

Seeing some of these aforementioned problems with women indicated in Paul’s correspondence to Timothy, Paul affirming women in leadership in other parts of his writings, Paul greeting warmly a woman who taught Apollos in Ephesus in 2 Tim. 4:19, and Paul affirming women as deacons in 1 Timothy 3 all lead me to think the best way to interpret 2:11-15 is as a contextual prohibition against women rather than a universal one, though it is one from which we still can pull principles to apply to our context today. The principles at play here would be that the unlearned shouldn’t teach, but rather should spend time learning in submission to Scripture and the church. Depending on authentein’s definition, there also can be a lesson in not trying to domineer and wrench authority away from others, particularly if you think you deserve it as a high-status person. There is also the principle of self-control, which applies throughout all of 2:8-15. Self-control can require that we limit some of our Christ-given freedom for the sake of effectively engaging with a fallen culture (see also Paul’s words on the weak and the strong in Romans 14-15 and eating food sacrificed to idols in 1 Corinthians 8). This would have proved relevant for Christian women trying to reach a broken and patriarchal culture.

2:15 implies that God is capable of providing help and delivering women through the dangers of childbirth, which is part of the pain given as a curse in response to Eve and Adam’s sin in Genesis 3:16. There is a potential implication that Christ is able to heal and undo elements of the curse to those who hold on to him in faith and love and holiness. Part of the curse on Eve and women was also patriarchy and male domination in 3:16. Maybe that is a curse that God wants to heal us from today as well as we go on in faith, love, holiness, and propriety?

I want to ask a few questions of complementarians around 1 Timothy 2:8-15: If you believe the appeal to creation indicates a transcultural prohibition of women teaching and having authority over men, then wouldn’t Paul’s argumentation from the creation story also be transcultural? In essence, wouldn’t that mean that women are inherently more gullible and less discerning than men? This implies an intellectual and/or moral deficiency in women in comparison with men. Can the prohibition against women teaching and leading be universal and the argumentation used to support the prohibition not be? 

If you believe women are inferior to men intellectually and/or morally, what does that mean for your thoughts on women's ministry in complementarian churches? Should women, who are prone to deception, all get together to teach each other so they can push each other further into muddled thinking about God? 

Let's also look at 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.

1 Corinthians 14:34-35

Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. (NIV)

Some scholars (Gordon Fee being one, with Richard Hays following him) make the case on text critical grounds that these verses were an interpolation added at an early stage of copying the manuscripts of 1 Corinthians and aren’t original to the letter, and therefore we shouldn't consider them as Scripture. Several of the oldest manuscripts place these verses at the end of chapter 14, others put it where it presently is in our Bibles, and another ancient manuscript contains markings that imply the scribe considered these verses to be an addition inserted into the text. As some other scholars have noted in response to this view, while this passage may have been moved around to different places in the ancient copies, it is always there. There is no extant ancient manuscript where verses 34-35 are omitted, so it is likely original. So how are we to interpret it as Scripture?

Like 1 Timothy 2, the wider context of 1 Corinthians 14 pertains to the Christian gathering, specifically the worship service. Paul is concerned about the Corinthians worshipping in a way that is orderly, intelligible, and beneficial for those who gather. Paul highlights things that are disrupting orderliness in the Corinthian worship services, particularly a lot of people loudly speaking in tongues all at once with no interpretation. This was causing disorder in the gathering and turning visiting non-Christians away from Christianity. In light of this wider context about proper order in church worship, we can presume that some women were disrupting orderly worship gatherings as well.

It’s very hard to argue from this passage that women should never, ever speak in church, since Paul clearly assumed they were praying and prophesying in the Christian gathering earlier in this same letter in 1 Cor 11:5. “…[T]he only kind of speech he directly addresses in 14:34-36 is wives asking questions” (Craig Keener, Women in Ministry). So what is Paul getting at? As mentioned above, women were much less likely to be educated than men, both in the Bible and in philosophy. It seems likely that the women would have had more elementary questions for whoever was trying to exposit and preach from the Scriptures at the Corinthian house churches, and Paul is giving a short-term restriction—let the women keep silent so as not to slow down the learning of the whole group—followed by a long term solution to catch the women up to speed—let them learn the basics at home from their husbands, who were more likely to know the Bible. What does Paul mean when he says they should be in submission, as the law says? Again, it seems that they should be in submission to the teacher and the group at the worship gathering, similar to what is said in 1 Timothy 2:11 on women learning in quietness and full submission. All of us should submit to instruction in God’s law and not disrupt it. I can see a lot of application of this in youth groups...

To sum up, Paul seems to be dealing with uneducated women who were disrupting the order of the teaching portion of the Christian gathering with their questions. He wants them to be quiet during this time as to not slow down the others, but also to learn at home from their husbands so they can be caught up to speed. Paul did not think women should be silent all the time during worship gatherings.

For complementarians, how do you make sense of what Paul says earlier in 1 Corinthians 11:5 around women praying and prophesying in the Christian worship gathering, especially since prophecy is considered by Paul to be more beneficial than teaching in 1 Corinthians 12:28?

Does Paul contradict himself concerning women? What do you do with the passages in which Paul and others showcase women in roles more authoritative than pastoring and teaching in the New Testament? Can you put all these passages together in a way that makes sense of the whole Bible, not just parts? 

Conclusion

There’s certainly more to be said on the topic. We haven’t touched the marriage and submission passages. One of my favorite books on this topic that delves rather deeply into this exegetically and engages with several complementarian scholars is Craig Keener's Paul, Women, and Wives: Marriage and Women's Ministry in the Letters of Paul. 

I've posted this to make the case that Mohler's demurral on women clergy and the position paper Greear posted are open to scrutiny exegetically. Despite Mohler’s dismissal of someone like myself as being on the slippery slope down to unfaithful compromise, rushing headlong to get the Bible out of the way, it seems to me that he himself could be ignoring the Bible in some places. I think there are biblical reasons for affirming women in ministry leadership, and I find the egalitarian position makes sense of all the data better than the complementarian position. I could be wrong and am open to correction here, but I’d like to see how my complementarian brothers and sisters would respond to some of my questions and observations.

To return to the example of a unicycle and a bicycle, what if complementarians have been riding a unicycle and discarding passages of Scripture that don’t fit their theology, when God calls the church to go further and faster by riding a bicycle, utilizing all of God’s people, women and men, to the fullest extent in the mission of making disciples of Jesus? What if God is calling you as a woman into serving and leading in the church, not as a political statement, but as an act of faithfulness to the God who called Miriam, Deborah, Phoebe, Junia, and Priscilla? Let's follow the lead of Jesus in our lives. Let's follow the whole Bible in utilizing the whole body of Christ to its fullest extent in doing the work of the kingdom, for the glory of God.

Biblical Contradictions and the Cross

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. –2 Timothy 3:14-17 (NIV)

The Bible is the best selling book of all time, but when it comes to how we are to understand it, particularly when we look at problems and difficulties in the Bible, people start to get squirrelly. Paul penned what has become the most quoted passage in the church about Scripture, saying that Scripture is “God-breathed.” The question is, how are we to understand how God breathed it? My previous post dealt with interpreting Old Testament (OT) violence and genocide in light of Christ. In this post, I want to focus on the nature of biblical inspiration.

Right off the bat, I want to acknowledge that some other Christian sisters and brothers would disagree with me and would answer things differently from what I share in this post. That’s ok. As always, I could be wrong and ignorant about some things. While important, these issues don’t strike at the heart of Christianity. There can be a diversity of thought on these questions, and we can still love each other as brothers and sisters united around fulfilling Jesus' mission.

But I don’t want to pretend that how we answer some of these questions doesn’t have important consequences, and may make a difference over whether someone can come to faith in Jesus or not, or whether they remain a Christian or not. What we believe and the reasons we believe can impact people’s connection with Jesus. The apostle Peter says in 1 Peter 3:15, “…in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect…” Peter wanted his churches to be prepared to talk about why they’re Christians when it comes up in conversations, because that can make a difference in whether God uses us to open up a door for Christ or whether we put a stumbling block in the way of someone following Jesus. I also don’t want to pull any punches when it comes to dealing with the data. This post might be unsettling to some Christians. I’d encourage you to hang with me and read this even if this makes you feel uncomfortable, because I believe we should face truth and that Jesus is the God of all truth. In fact, while some of us may initially come to God through a profound emotional experience, sometimes it’s the intellectual grounding we get in our understanding of God that keeps us tethered to Jesus. I’ll start with a story that showcases this very point, and just like with my last post, it comes from pastor and author Greg Boyd.

Boyd shares in his book Inspired Imperfection that much of his growing up years were spent largely as an atheist/agnostic until he was converted to faith in Christ in a Oneness Pentecostal church as a teenager. God’s love and power became very real to him, and he was a passionate follower of Jesus in that time. When he left for college, however, his faith fell to pieces, mainly because of some faulty intellectual foundations he had received. A critical piece of that was his view of biblical inspiration. 

Greg’s pastor had taught that if the Bible is only 99% true, it might as well be 100% false, and said the Bible was inerrant in its history and details. In Greg’s first year of college, he took a class on the Bible as literature. In that class, he was exposed to thoughts on church history and issues in Scripture he hadn’t noticed before, some of them involving mutually exclusive claims in Scripture that seemed impossible to reconcile. His resulting inability to account for errors in the Bible eventually led Boyd to once again become an atheist. While he had experienced joy and deep love and purpose in being a Christian, he had to be honest with himself that if a flawless and perfect Bible was part of the bedrock Christianity was built on, such a notion wouldn’t hold water, and he had to leave it behind. Fortunately for Boyd, he was around a Christian friend who kept inviting him to explore further and to read other Christian theologians and writers. Boyd found Christians who had better ideas and arguments on which they based their faith in Jesus and the inspiration of Scripture, and he reclaimed his faith again down the road. He is a pastor and theologian today, having obtained his PhD in theology from Princeton. He has wrestled for years with how Christians could meaningfully believe in and understand the inspiration of Scripture, and many before him have done the same. Inspired Imperfection contains his more mature thinking on biblical inspiration.

Inerrancy

The notion that Boyd's pastor had imparted to him, that the Bible cannot contain any mistakes or flaws in it, has been called the doctrine of inerrancy. Inerrancy was a teaching articulated in 19th and 20th century America from some Presbyterian ministers, particularly some theologians connected to Princeton Theological Seminary who were part of the Fundamentalist movement that originated there. Some of the main proponents of the doctrine, B. B. Warfield and Charles Hodge, “claimed that Scripture was without error (whether it be physical, historical, psychological, or philosophical) when the precise words of the original documents were considered” (Collins, The Evangelical Moment, p. 43). It was done as a reaction to some excesses going on in the academic study of theology, where some theologians of the day were departing from crucial aspects of historic, orthodox Christianity in their teachings and methodologies. Some had started to deny the virgin birth of Jesus, had turned the resurrection of Jesus into a myth or totally psychologized it, denied Jesus' miracles, and more. Fundamentalists critiqued these excesses and wanted people to get back to the fundamentals of Christianity. Most of the time I hear people use the term “fundamentalist” as a term of derision for people who they think are anti-intellectual and politically fractious, but classic Christian Fundamentalism affirmed five main points:

1. The inspiration of the Bible by the Holy Spirit and the inerrancy of Scripture as a result of this. 
2. The virgin birth of Christ. 
3. The belief that Christ's death was an atonement for sin.
4. The bodily resurrection of Christ. 
5. The historical reality of Christ's miracles.

I can affirm points 2-5 and most of point 1, though I don't agree with inerrancy language. Like every Protestant, I believe the Bible comes first in how we come to understand God, ourselves, God’s will, and God’s authority, which is what point 1 is trying to lift up. However, the concept of inerrancy proves to be an unfounded assumption that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny as a way of understanding biblical inspiration. It strikes me as a way of trying to impose an outside requirement and assumption onto the Bible that doesn’t actually best make sense of what Scripture is. Boyd cites wise words from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famed character Sherlock Holmes: “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts” (Inspired Imperfection, p. 37). 

Inerrancy largely flows from an assumption. Since we Christians believe that God is perfect and omnipotent, he naturally would all-powerfully inspire his people to produce a totally perfect set of writings. But what if that is just an assumption and not reality? What if that’s not how God in his sovereignty has chosen for inspiration to work? We should be careful in assuming we know how God ought to work. Jesus, as the bringer of God's kingdom, went quite against the assumptions people had for how the Messiah would operate, and in many ways God's kingdom functions by upside-down, counterintuitive logic. Many religious leaders and people missed that Jesus was God's anointed deliverer bringing in a new covenant and decisively fixing the world's problems of sin and evil. Further, it seems one could make a similar assumption about the church. Since the Holy Spirit is omnipotent and perfect, and the Holy Spirit is inspiring the church, therefore the church should perfectly obey the Holy Spirit, live a wholly Christlike life, and glorify God in all things. I hope I don’t have to twist your arm to see that though the Holy Spirit is inspiring the church, the church is not perfect and does not always follow God’s will and purpose. What if something similar could be at play in how God inspired Scripture?

Let’s dive into some passages of Scripture to get our lay of the land, starting with a look at Jesus and how he used Scripture.

 Jesus on Scripture

Pardon me for being a bit laborious, but I think it is illustrative to look at a good number of Jesus’ direct quotations of and allusions to Scripture in the Gospel of Matthew, though I’m ignoring some other Scriptures that the Gospel-writer himself includes. This should give us a fairly representative picture of Jesus’s view of Scripture, which for him would’ve been the Old Testament. 

During his forty day fast in the wilderness, Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy three times in resisting the devil (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10) and viewed it as an authoritative message from God for how he was called to live his life, and Matthew records it because he wants us to see it as authoritative for our lives as well and useful for resisting temptation. 

Jesus intensifies commands from the Law in Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28, 31-32, and 33-37. He modifies the Law and a traditional teaching concerning enemies in Matthew 5:38-48. 

Jesus cites Hosea 6:6 on God desiring mercy instead of sacrifice in Matthew 9:13 an 12:7, and says the Pharisees need to learn the truth of this passage.

In Matthew 10:34-36, Jesus cites Micah 7:6 as foretelling the opposition and divisions within family his followers would face as they evangelize. 

In Matthew 11:10, he cites Malachi 3:1 as foretelling John the Baptist's ministry. 

Jesus mentions what David and his companions did in eating consecrated bread in Matthew 12:3-4, and further alludes to Numbers 28:9-10 concerning how the priests desecrate the Sabbath by offering sacrifices in the temple and yet are innocent, and now one greater than the temple is here in Matthew 12:5-6. 

He pulls from multiple OT passages in talking about Israel’s blindness and inability to understand the Gospel in 13:13-15. 

In Matthew 15:4-9, Jesus quotes Scripture and prefaces it with “God said,” as he quotes one of the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20:12 (“Honor your father and mother”) and Exodus 21:17 (“Anyone who curses their mother or father is to be put to death”) then he chastises his audience for disobeying God’s commands for the sake of their tradition, and cites Isaiah 29:13 as exemplifying his audience’s hearts being far from God. In this, we see that Jesus believed the OT Scriptures were a reliable witness in giving us the voice and commands of God. 

In Matthew 19:1-12, Jesus cites Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 on God’s desires concerning marriage and engages contemporary rabbinic disputes about divorce concerning Deuteronomy 24:1-4, siding with the School of Shammai's stricter line of interpretation. 

In Matthew 19:16-19 in Jesus’ conversation with the rich young man, he tells him to obey the commandments and cites five of the Ten Commandments, along with the love of neighbor commands in Leviticus 19:18, 34, as integral to finding life. 

In 21:13, Jesus cites from Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11 as he turns over tables in the Temple, showing that the religious leaders have failed and people have missed God’s purpose for the temple in the first place, even though the importance of the temple would soon pass since Jesus is the new temple, the new dwelling place of God. 

In 21:16, Jesus cites the Septuagint version of Psalm 8:2, seeing the praise of children at his entry to Jerusalem as a fulfillment of that verse. 

In 21:42-44, Jesus cites Psalm 118:22-23 and expounds on it, viewing the resistance and rebellion of the religious leaders in terms of them stumbling over the stumbling stone mentioned in that Psalm. 

In 22:29-33, Jesus gets on to his audience for not knowing the Scriptures well enough when talking about the resurrection and the nature of people’s existence after death, and draws attention to the verb tense used in passages like Exodus 3:6, where God says “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” God did not say "I was," but "I am," meaning that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob still exist and he is still their God. Jesus thus makes a grammatical argument from Scripture. 

In 22:34-40, when asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus cites Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, 34 on loving God with all our being and loving our neighbors as ourselves, and saying all of the Law and Prophets (OT) hang on these two commandments. 

He goes on in 22:44 to ask a question based on Psalm 110:1, asking how David could call the Messiah “Lord” if the Messiah has David as an ancestor, implying that the Messiah is greater than David. 

In 23:23, Jesus upbraids the Pharisees and teachers of the law for scrupulously observing more minor parts of the Law when it comes to tithing herbs and spices, but neglecting the weightier matters of it when it comes to justice, mercy, and faithfulness toward others. Basically, they are only being selectively faithful to the Scriptures and God’s revealed will in them. This also shows that Jesus views some commands of Scripture to be of more weight and importance than others.

In 23:39, Jesus cites Psalm 118:26 as referring to his second coming. 

In 24:15, Jesus refers to Daniel’s language about an abomination that causes desolation in Daniel 8:13; 9:27; 11:31; and 12:11 as referring to future events–interpreters divide over whether Jesus is solely talking here about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, or solely talking about his second coming, or is referring to both simultaneously. 

In 24:29, Jesus references Isaiah 13:10 and 34:4 and interprets them to refer to judgments and difficulties that will precede the return of Christ–whether they are literal or metaphorical is debated. 

Jesus alludes to Noah's flood of Genesis 7-8 in 24:36-39 and sees it as an example of how things will be at his return, particularly the suddenness and finality of the return and judgment of Jesus.

In 26:11, Jesus references Deuteronomy 15:11 as he comes to the defense of the woman who anoints him with expensive perfume. 

Jesus’ multiple references to Passover in Matthew 26 connect to the original Passover in Exodus 12 and other places like Leviticus 23:4-8 and Deuteronomy 16:1-8. 

In 26:31, Jesus cites Zechariah 13:7 on the shepherd being stricken and sees it as prophetically foretelling his own suffering and his disciples falling away from him. 

In 26:54 and 56, Jesus’ sees his betrayal and coming passion as fulfilling the Scriptures. 

In 26:64, Jesus makes oblique references to Psalm 110:1 and Daniel 7:13 as he confesses that he is Messiah and God to Caiaphas the high priest. 

On the cross, Jesus cries out with the words of Psalm 22:1 and makes it his own prayer, showing that this Psalm prophetically foretells his suffering and coming resurrection, victory, and vindication.

This is just one of the Gospels, but I hope this demonstrates that Jesus was someone who was immersed in the Scriptures, who deeply valued the Bible, who quoted Scripture often, and who interpreted Scripture in various ways. He viewed the Bible as coming from God. He viewed some Scriptures as weightier than others. He viewed some Scriptures as foretelling and being fulfilled in his own life and ministry, his death and resurrection, and his second coming. He intensified some commands and edited/fulfilled other commands from Scripture in his role of being God’s clearest revelation and the bringer of the new covenant. He saw Scripture as useful for resisting temptation and staying faithful to God’s purpose. You see a similar approaches for interpreting the Scriptures in other NT authors. Jesus loved the Bible. He does not claim it to be inerrant, but he definitely lives by it, interprets it uniquely for his day, sees it as coming from God, and viewed as authoritative for his own personal life and for the lives of others.

Some Biblical Contradictions and Problems

Now let’s look at some problems and contradictions that occur within the Bible. 

A common example involves comparing Matthew’s account of Judas’ death in Matthew 27:1-10 versus Luke’s account in Acts 1:15-19. Did Judas hang himself or fall headlong (perhaps jumping off of a height onto some rocks) and explode? Some try to combine the two accounts and say he hung himself and when he was cut down his insides must’ve burst out. This is possible, and the impulse to harmonize isn't a bad one, though we must confess neither text actually says this and this is an imaginative combination of them both. It further doesn’t resolve the question of who bought the field, Judas or the religious leaders, because the two texts say two different things about who purchased the field. Even more, in Matthew 27:9-10, Matthew says it was Jeremiah who said the price of 30 shekels of silver was set for Jesus in buying the potter’s field, when actually Matthew seems mostly to be quoting from Zechariah 11:12-13. Zechariah is where the 30 shekels and the money going to the potter comes from, while Jeremiah 32:6-12 tells of a story of Jeremiah purchasing a field. Jeremiah doesn’t mention 30 pieces of silver nor does it mention buying a potter’s field. Matthew seems to have creatively combined Zechariah with Jeremiah, and the quote from 27:9-10 is largely not in Jeremiah.

How many women went to the tomb on Easter? John 20:1 only has Mary Magdalene, while the other Gospels have multiple women at the tomb (Luke 24:1; Mark 16:1; Matthew 28:1). 

Matthew 28:2 and Mark 16:5 only have one angel appearing to the women on the day of resurrection, while Luke 24:2 and John 20:12 have two angels appearing. How many angels were there?

 John 20:1-10 has Peter and John seeing the empty tomb before Mary Magdalene, while the other Gospels have the women seeing the empty tomb first. Who saw Jesus’s tomb first?

Matthew 26:1-13 and Mark 14:1-11 have Jesus being anointed at Bethany with expensive perfume by a sinful woman two days before the Passover, while John has this happening six days before the Passover in John 12:1-11. Two days and six days aren’t reconcilable through trying to appeal to the use of different calendars. It seems unlikely that in the same place, Bethany, Jesus was anointed two different times by two different women to the exact same complaints from his disciples and he gave the exact same teaching about it after their complaints. Most likely the different sources remember the same event happening on different days, but both can't be right about the date historically. 

In Mark 2:25-26, Mark reports Jesus as saying that David and his companions ate the consecrated bread in the days of Abiathar the high priest, whilst the story in 1 Samuel 21:1-6 reveals that it was actually Abiathar's father Ahimelek who was serving as priest when that happened, not Abiathar. Most likely, Mark flubbed the name of the priest as he was writing his Gospel. Matthew (see 12:1-8) and Luke (see 6:1-5) realize this and correct it in their presentation of this teaching in their Gospels, not mentioning any name for the high priest. 

1 Chronicles 21:1 says that Satan incites David to take a census of God’s people, which gets him in trouble, while 2 Samuel 24:1 says that God in anger incites David to take a census of the people, which then gets him in trouble with God. God and Satan are about as different as you can get. Which one is true? They can’t both historically be true, but they do showcase different theologies for understanding the census. 

In the story of Jesus casting out the demons into a herd of pigs, Mark’s account in Mark 5:1-20 says there was one demoniac, while Matthew’s account in Matthew 8:28-34 says there two. How many were there? Further, comparing those same passages, Matthew 8:28 reports the city as being the region of the Gadarenes, which is based off the town Gadara, while while Mark says it’s the region of the Gerasenes in Mark 5:1, which is based off the town Gerasa. These are two different cities, though they both are located within the Decapolis, a group of Hellenized cities near Galilee that had a large Jewish population but were primarily made up of Gentiles, hence the presence of pig herds. Matthew chooses the city that would’ve been closest to those more familiar with the region by identifying Gadara (six miles from the lake), but Mark chooses what used to be the capital of the Decapolis and the better known city in identifying Gerasa (thirty miles from the lake). More than likely, Matthew is the more precise one here, since Jesus just got out of a boat and they are next to a body of water.

Matthew’s genealogy for Jesus in 1:1-17 says that there are 3 sets of 14 generations from Abraham to Jesus, when the last set actually contains only 13 generations. Did Matthew have trouble counting? Further, Matthew omits three generations in the section from David to Jeconiah, skipping the three offspring that follow Joram (Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah according to 1 Chron 3:11–12). The Gospel writer simply says: “Joram fathered Uzziah” (Matt 1:8). How do you explain the discrepancies in the names and numbers?

A humorous one is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:14-16–“I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else).” Paul is exposing the error in what he has just written and is correcting things as he goes–this is just a reminder that Paul was human like us. He is saying that what he said in 1:14-15 is actually in error and that he did baptize more people, and that he might not be able to remember everyone he baptized in Corinth. 

Above is just a sampling–there are many more examples we could show. These discrepancies, errors, and contradictions seem very hard to square away with an inerrantist view of Scripture. Some will claim that if we looked deeper, a solution would appear that would resolve any apparent inconsistencies amongst different Scripture passages. I'm open to that and perhaps we can do that with some passages, but you better be prepared to come up with a lot of solutions (remember that we've just looked at a fraction above), and frankly some "solutions" I've seen aren't very convincing. Some inerrantists will acknowledge that we do have discrepancies and errors in Scripture as we have them now, but will further claim that Scripture is inerrant in the original autographs or documents. I find this position to be unhelpful and a bit evasive, since we don’t have any original documents of Scripture–at best we have copies of copies. It implies that if we could just get the original documents of Scripture in our hands, they would say different things that make all the present problems we wrestle with disappear. I fail to see how this inspires confidence in us being able to trust the Bibles we are reading today that textual critics have done a lot of work to present to us. Also, the chance of all the original documents of the Bible being preserved over 2,000 years and located seems well nigh impossible. If God wanted us to have them and place our faith in such a notion, don't you think God would've preserved the originals for us? Others distinguish what they mean by inerrancy so much that their definition seems to suffer death by a thousand qualifications, and it pushes against the plain sense of what most people think of with the word inerrant. If God wanted to give us a perfect text, then inquiring into it should demonstrate that fact. I don't think it does.

I appreciate what proponents of inerrancy are trying to do, which is to say the Bible is authoritative and is the most foundational and important source for how we come to understand God. I agree that the Bible should be our foundation and our most important source for understanding God, ourselves, others, the world, and the purpose of our existence. That’s a huge part of what the Reformation was about, getting back to Scripture and reforming the church to understand God from its earliest traditions and sources as presented in Scripture. If something can’t be proven or inferred by Scripture, it shouldn’t be required as a necessary for salvation, and if something contrasts with the message of Scripture, properly interpreted, we should leave that belief or behavior behind. I also believe that Scripture on a whole is very historically reliable and is worthy of a sympathetic and serious read. We have good reasons for believing the Bible is a historically reliable book, particularly when it comes to Jesus. Scripture is still God’s word to us regardless of whether some parts end up being perfectly historically accurate or not, though the historicity of Jesus’s incarnation, ministry, death, and resurrection are non-negotiable (see 1 Corinthians 15:12-19). If you’d like further reading concerning the historicity of Jesus, I’d recommend Ben Witherington III’s The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth; it has scholarly bona fides, but isn’t going to take you forever to read. But to hang the authority of the Bible on inerrancy seems to be a bit of an intellectual sinking ship. Even more, I’m not aware of a passage of Scripture that claims Scripture is inerrant.

Biblical Imperfections as a Witness to the Cross

How, then, should we understand biblical inspiration? Is there a way to hold together Jesus' deep reverence for and deference to Scripture, as well as being honest about its flaws, or are these two notions inherently incompatible? Boyd maintains that God inspired the Bible to point us to Jesus as God’s perfect, inerrant word and gift to us, to show us how to live like Jesus, and that even the flaws of Scripture are inspired to point us to the cross of Jesus. In essence, even the contradictions we discover in Scripture can be redeemed and have an inspired purpose that God uses. 

Boyd’s premise that some of the imperfections of Scripture can be testimonies in themselves that perfection is only to be found in Jesus. God’s inspiration of Scripture accommodates human limitations, and those limitations are a reminder that God uses flawed and finite people to accomplish his glorious will, a reminder of our need for the grace of Christ in our mistakes and blind spots. And where do we see grace for the broken more than in the cross of Jesus? Thus, biblical imperfections are signposts meant to point us to the cross. Boyd thus affirms that he believes all of the Bible is inspired, not just select parts of it, and even says the Bible is infallible, that it does not fail to accomplish God’s purpose. That purpose isn’t necessarily for the Bible to be totally perfect in every detail, or to coerce us into a relationship with God against our will, but to serve as an inspired witness to the Crucified and Risen One, and how we are to know and love and serve him, and to see ourselves as sinners in need of him. “I now had a paradigm that enabled me to trust the Bible to infallibly accomplish all that God intends it to accomplish without needing to deny or to feel embarrassed by the fallibility of the biblical writings themselves” (Boyd, Inspired Imperfection, p. 69). He calls his view cruciform inspiration (p. 81).

While I don’t agree with all of Boyd’s thoughts, I like his overall thesis. It seems to be a much more accurate conception of what Scripture actually is, as well as a better theology of inspiration that avoids the pitfalls of inerrancy, while still taking all of Scripture seriously. God didn't send us a perfect text. He sent us a perfect Savior. God’s perfect, inerrant word is Jesus. Our faith is to be in him, with Scripture as God’s inspired witness to him, even in its contradictions and difficulties. 

I wonder if Boyd had such a foundation when he went to college, he wouldn't have felt compelled to give up his faith when he was exploring the intellectual foundations of Christianity. Perhaps now, because of his work and the work of others like him, we who read the Bible today can have a better paradigm for understanding its inspiration, nature, and purpose. Hopefully that will lead to us loving like Jesus and pointing others to faith in Jesus.