The CBE Scroll

Parableman points to a news item about Judge Robert Armstrong in California, who has ruled that a law against disrobing in front of a minor applies only to men and not to women, even though no mention of gender occurs in the law. How so? The law says “exposes his person.”

Like Parableman, I’m more than a bit mystified by this odd ruling. Does Judge Armstrong not know that English-speakers have been using masculine pronouns for gender-indeterminate or gender-unknown people for approximately forever? Has he not considered that the writers of that law were not thinking about the gender of the hypothetical ecdysiast at all?

Alas, Judge Armstrong would find many kindred spirits among a certain brand of evangelical Christian, where the masculine pronouns in such verses as “If a man desire the office of bishop, he desireth a good work” (1 Tim 3:1, KJV) are given their full force. In both cases, the issue is English grammar—King James’ “a man” renders the Greek tis, a relative pronoun that can be either masculine or feminine, and the verb “he desireth” renders Greek epithymei, a third person form that can be suitably rendered with either “he,” “she,” or even “it.” That is why better Bibles (NRSV, TNIV, etc.) avoid the confusion by not importing gender language into verses such as this where they do not exist in the original. Of course, there are other passages where the gender component is present in the Greek text. The requirement that a church leader be “the husband of one wife” (1 Tim 3:2) springs to mind. But does that mean Paul found it unthinkable that women might lead in the church?

Personally, I strongly suspect that Paul assumed that, by and large, the persons who assumed oversight in the churches would be male. But Paul assumed this based on the cultural norms of his day, and I’m convinced he was aware—and affirming—of certain exceptions. He commended Junia the apostle, for example, in Romans 16:7, and referred to Euodia and Syntyche as his “fellow laborers” (Phil 4:2-3), a term he most often used for those in the frontlines of his apostolic ministry. If most first-century church leaders ended up being male, it was not because that is what Paul demanded but because that was what the Greco-Roman culture would endure. Assuming Pauline authoriship of the Pastorals and the Prison Epistles, it is clear that Paul was willing to embrace the prevailing cultural norms insofar as they served in the short term to advance the cause of Christ (Eph 5:21–6:4; 1 Tim 2:1-2, Philemon, etc.).

An assumption, innocently made in light of prevailing social custom, does not a doctrine make.