Women, The Church, And The Gospel Story | Reframing The Conversation

Part 1: Reframing The Conversation – Women, The Church, And The Gospel Story

In a world that often seems driven mad by competition and comparison, the unique differences between the genders are not always celebrated or championed as God intended. 

Too often, we see these differences between the genders flattened or dissolved entirely –  “anything a man can do, a woman can do too”, as if they imply inequalities and negatives we need to erase. 

But equality was never meant to mean sameness. God designed our differences to be a gift, not a threat – acknowledging and valuing our unique God-given gender distinctives makes us stronger, not weaker.

While we are the same in many ways, men and women are fundamentally different in other ways – important and beautiful differences that are coded into our DNA and which matter. You can read more about some of these differences in my article ‘The War On Gender’.

The ongoing conversation about these differences and, particularly, how they impact the ‘role’ of women in the church, in marriage, and in society is not new. Nor is it unique to our time. Early Christians also had to navigate and reevaluate this issue, particularly in the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It’s a topic that impacts me personally, both as a woman and as the mother of two daughters. My understanding and position have shifted significantly over the past few years of Christian journeying, and it was one of the first major theological shifts for me.

Christians generally fall into two camps: complementarian or egalitarian. These labels don’t capture the full nuance of either view, but broadly:

• Complementarianism holds that men and women have different but complementary roles in marriage, family, and church life, particularly in areas deemed ‘leadership’.
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• Egalitarianism teaches that the Bible mandates gender equality, including shared authority in the home and full participation of women in ministry.
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However, both terms can and do fall short. They often simplify a nuanced theological reality – that Scripture presents partnership, not hierarchy; unity, not uniformity; complementarity without extinguishing or ignoring key differences.

My Complementarian Background

I was raised in a strictly complementarian church where leadership, preaching, teaching, praying, and speaking publicly were generally reserved for men.

There were some (baffling) exceptions – women could teach boys, but only up to a certain age; they could lead worship (by playing the organ but not in any spoken way); they could vote in church elections but not serve in the roles upon which they voted. They could publish Christian articles or books, for all audiences, but not address the church from the platform.

Interestingly, some women were known to have written their husband’s sermons, which were then delivered by the husband as if they were his own words.

It was also a head covering church. I explore this further in my article ‘Leaving’, but it added to the confusion. 1 Corinthians 11:4 seemed (at the very least) to permit women to pray and prophesy as long as their heads were covered, yet this too was prohibited.

It wasn’t until my mid-30s, with three children of my own, that I began to seriously reconsider this topic. I reexamined everything I believed, in the light of Scripture, wrestling with what I had been taught but also what I had experienced.

Many men were catastrophically unsuited and ungifted for preaching or teaching. Many women who were clearly deeply spiritual and mature in faith remained silent. 

I also knew churches sat along a wide spectrum of belief and practice. My background was at one end – quite strict in practice but with some, somewhat inconsistent exceptions. At the other end existed churches that prohibited women from only the role of senior pastor or elder, but affirmed women in all other areas of church life – leading, teaching, preaching, and worship.

I wondered at those churches that silenced women in certain roles but not all. On what grounds did they make such a distinction?

And surely teaching, preaching, and pastoring were gifts, according to Scripture, not roles? Why were they somehow only reserved for one gender but not the other. Was this really what Scripture taught?

How Are We Interpreting The Arc Of Scripture?

The conversation loomed large in my mind. I wondered what God’s will was for me as a woman and Christian? I felt very clearly the call of a Christian apologist and teacher. What, then, was my place in the church and in my marriage? 

And what should I teach my children – both my son and my daughters – about their identity and place in God’s story?

Sincere Christians can be found on both sides of the argument and both affirm the authority of Scripture in relation to faith and practice. Yet both sides arrive at vastly different conclusions. Which one is right – and does it even matter?

It seemed to me, as I took a deep dive into the subject, that the key differences lie in the interpretation of the overarching narrative of Scripture and how we then read and apply certain biblical texts in light of that narrative.

I also came to realise that we all bring bias to the table, shaped by our upbringing, worldview, experiences, and church community. It can be hard to move beyond those biases, to look past the frameworks we’ve inherited and even consider an alternative interpretation – for both sides.

Even the process of translating scripture involves some degree of interpretation. Translators make judgment calls as they try to express original meanings in target languages.

So, on any complex topic, such as this, we need to examine not just the verse in question, but its context, the culture in which it was written, the original language, and how the passage fits into the broader narrative of scripture. The “plain reading of Scripture” in our English translation is often not the actual meaning of Scripture, as I came to discover.

The Importance Of Context – Zooming Out

Context firstly includes the surrounding text, the audience the text was intended for, the cultural climate of the time, and the language in which the passage was originally written.

But it also includes the overarching Scriptural narrative, as I touched on briefly above.

The gospel of the kingdom of God – arguably one of the main themes of Scripture – is not just good news about our own personal salvation but is also the story of God’s intention for all creation.

It’s massive scope stretches from Genesis to Revelation and includes lofty themes such as the glory and sovereignty of God, the creation and capacity of humanity to image God’s glory, the fall and redemption of humanity, the purpose and kingship of Jesus, the new creation of a resurrected community of image-bearers and, finally, the arrival of ‘the new heavens and new earth’, when God will be all-in-all and the gospel story will have reached its resolution.

It goes without saying that any conclusions we draw from specific passages, or any theological frameworks we apply in practice, must align with the consistent gospel threads woven throughout the biblical narrative.

What is also true is that encountering the gospel often radically shifts our assumptions. It reorients our lives, offering us a vision of what will be, rather than what is. And it invites us to move into and live in that bigger story.

We see this clearly in the New Testament. Paul the Apostle’s letters are full of encouragement and correction for the early church as they grappled with this radical new way of seeing the world through the lens of the gospel.

His letter to Philemon, for example, shows how the gospel reshaped the relationship between a master and his slave. Though their social relationship may have remained intact under Roman law, Paul reminds Philemon that Onesimus is now his brother in Christ. It is this status that should dominate their new relationship.

Jews who thought of themselves as God’s unique and chosen people were now to consider Gentiles as family, loved by the same God, and this particular issue is highlighted in Paul’s letters to the churches at Ephesus and Galatia.

And, importantly for many women, men were to consider and treat women as equals in the purpose and plan of God for humanity; directly challenging a long and complex history of patriarchy.

What Is Patriarchy?

Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power in areas like political leadership, moral authority, and control of property. It’s also associated with the belief that this dominance is natural and justified by inherent differences between men and women. Most ancient and many modern societies are patriarchal.

Both Roman and Jewish societies were patriarchal and hierarchical. The gospel entered that world – and challenged it. It was into this context that Jesus and later Paul and the apostles preached, taught, and formed communities.

Understanding this helps us see why some of Paul’s words might sound jarring today. But it also helps us see just how radical the early Christian message really was.

So while some fear that rejecting patriarchal hierarchy means embracing the excesses of modern feminism, the truth is far simpler – and far more profound. The call to mutuality and shared leadership isn’t a concession to culture; it’s a return to creation. 

It’s the gospel’s quiet, revolutionary undoing of the curse.

Feminism & Biblical Womanhood

The fear of feminism has led some to treat any talk of equality as compromise. But true feminism, at its heart, is simply the belief that women are fully human – equal in value, dignity, and capacity. Biblical womanhood does not seek to extinguish the distinctives of womanhood but to elevate and champion them. alongside their male counterparts.

That conviction is not in conflict with Scripture; it is affirmed by it. Where feminism seeks to restore women’s worth and agency, the gospel reveals the source of that worth – the image of God shared by both male and female.

Of course, not every expression of feminism aligns with Christian faith, just as not every expression of masculinity reflects Christ. For my further thoughts on Biblical Womanhood, you might like to check out this article.

But dismissing egalitarianism as “progressive” misses the point entirely. Egalitarian theology isn’t an attempt to abandon the authority of Scripture, bow to cultural pressures, or to modernise Christianity – it’s an attempt to return to it.

It’s about recovering and living out the mutuality and partnership God designed in Eden, modelled in Jesus, and embodied in the early church.

The gospel doesn’t need patriarchy to protect it. It stands on its own, a glorious, compelling and inspiring narrative found in Scripture, freeing both men and women to serve, lead, and love without hierarchy or fear.

Where To Start?

It can be hard to know where to land first in this conversation. Right at the beginning, in Genesis? In the middle of the ‘I suffer not a woman to teach’ passages? At the dawn of early Christianity?

Personally, I think Genesis is a great place to start. Yes, the New Testament has things to say about creation, gender, and marriage. But we must read the New Testament through the lens of Genesis, not the other way around.

It is Genesis that sets the scene; the purpose for which humanity was created and the place in which the image of God is going to be realised. It is outlining the ideal and is therefore a means to a theological end.

What Genesis Teaches

1. No hierarchy in our humanity.

2. No hierarchy in our responsibility.

3. No hierarchy in our conjugality.

Genesis gives us a picture of shared humanity, shared purpose, and shared partnership, and I expand a lot more on the points above in this article. Both man and woman are created in the image of God, both are entrusted with the care of creation, and both are called into mutual relationship with one another. They are alike and yet distinct, each imbued with qualities that enrich their partnership.

Distinction is not the same as dominance. Scripture presents their differences as gifts for partnership, not grounds for power. Both are called to walk with God, to nurture creation, and to live in mutual dependence.

There is no hierarchy in their worth, their work, or their union – only unity and complementarity born of equality.

The subject of gendered hierarchy and how this plays into a complementarian framework is covered in a lot more depth in my article ‘Stop Promoting Gendered Hierarchy’, which you can read here.

Sin distorts this dynamic, of that there is no doubt, but it was never God’s design for humanity. In Christ, and in the new creation He brings, we see complementarity and equality restored and renewed.

To understand the framework God intended for humanity -and how it took shape in the early Christian communities – we must look to the women who walked with Jesus and those who prayed, prophesied, taught, and pastored in the early church.

That’s where we’ll go next.

This article was first published 15 November 2020