[blockquote]That CBMW would publish such a shoddy paper shows a few things to me:

1. They simply cannot conceive that they MAY be wrong.

2. They write such articles to keep the already-convinced convinced. They cannot really be used to try to convince the searching or egals. But this strategy is only partially viable as long as non-egals are the majority.[/blockquote]

It’s like I joke with my husband sometimes after he tells me surprising news: “What can I say? I’m speechless–and not in a good way.”

I’m sorry if this is rude, but really, several times while reading Hess’s rebuttal I laughed out loud. If this is what passes for scholarship in the comp world, then it’s no wonder the secular world thinks Christianity is a joke.

I just received the latest issue of MUTUALITY, theme of which is “Walking in the Spirit.” And while all the articles are good, I said my most hearty “Amen!” to the one by J. Lee Grady, “Breaking Up the Good Old Boy’s Club.” And part of what he says is pertinent to our discussion of biblical interpretation, which I here will quote for benefit of all:

For centuries traditionalists have misread and twisted Paul’s words about women. Citing two difficult passages (1 Cor. 14:34-35 and 1 Tim. 2:12), they have forged a doctrine of female silence and subjugation that runs contrary to the rest of Scripture. We don’t have room to dissaect these passages, but it should be noted that Paul was dealing with specific crises in Ephesus and Corinth when he made these statements. If we are to honor God in our Bible interpretation we must look at all Paul said about women, as well as how he worked alongside women. When closing his letter to the Romans, Paul mentions several women leaders who served on his apostolic team–including Phoebe, a deacon; Priscilla, a skilled Bible teacher; Tryphena and Tryphosa, whom he described as “workers”; Persis, a Persian woman he labeled as “hardworking”; and Junia, who obviously served in apostolic ministry (see Rom. 16:1-4,7,12). In other epistles he mentions women who led churches, such as Chloe (see 1 Cor. 1:11)…Paul obviously saw women as a strategic part of God’s plan. When he ventured into Europe he went to the place where women prayed–and Lydia, a businesswoman, was his first convert (see Acts 16:13-14). The Paul who clamped down on female false teachers in Ephesus is the same Paul who supported his female ministry comrades. We need to stop making him out to be a chauvinist when he was the best model of a male leader who empowered women” (MUTUALITY, Summer 2009, p.6)

And I am sure we would all agree with what J. Lee Grady says here about the true teaching of Paul on the true role of women in this Age of the Spirit, when both men and women are to be prophets of Christ and his kingdom. But what we also must see and take into account, when dealing with them, that it is the complementarian’s prior commitment to hierarchy forces them to distort and misrepresent Paul and his teaching regarding our corporate life and ministry under the New Covenant, which he clearly sets forth in Gal. 3:15-4:7; 1 Cor. 11:2-14:33; and 2 Cor. 5:11-6:2.

And sad to say, there may be times, like Jesus had to do with the Pharisees and Sadducees, when we must confront them and say, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures nor are you properly responding to the Holy Spirit (i.e., the Power of God)” (Matt. 22:29, my rendering). In other words, we need to warn our complementarian friends that when they fight against us and what we are seeking to show them from the New Testament,they may not be resisting us, but the Holy Spirit, who is speaking to them through us. And I say this with fear and trembling before the Lord.

The divergence between egalitarians and hierarchialists on male-female relationships in home, church and society is not based on our personal opinions as to how certain texts, such as 1 Tim. 2:11-15 and 1 Pet. 3:5-7, are to be understood and applied. Nor is it based on either of us possessing a low view of Scripture, nor by our denying the sola Scriptura principle of the Reformation. And those who say we do,well, they speak either out of ignorance or deliberate misrepresentation of the facts.

We both agree that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible written Word of God, the final rule by which all Christian doctrine and practice is to be measured. So we share a common, high view regarding the divine origin and nature of the Scriptures, and the role they are to play in developing a Christian system of theology and ethics that is both rational and practical.

Where we appear to disagree is what is truly involved in the regular and consistent practice of the sola Scriptura principle. Sola Scriptura, contrary to what some might think, does not mean that all the truth there is to discover and know can only be found in Scripture. There are many truths of mathematics, history, science, and medicine, for example, that are not found specifically in the Bible. But according to the sola Scriptura principle, all such truths, if indeed true, must cohere with the Bible’s true teaching regarding the spiritual and material realms. Robert Bowman, Jr., says it so well:

Sometimes our knowledge of the Bible will lead us to correct our mistaken notions about history or science or psychology. On the other hand, sometimes advances in our knowledge of these fields will force us to reexamine and refine, even correct, our understanding of the Bible. This happened, for example, when Galileo proved the earth revolves around the sun and therefore that the earth moves, contrary to the standard interpretations of the Bible at the time…A simplistic “Bible-only” application of this protestant principle that refuses to allow such corrections to our understanding of Scripture is destructive, in two ways. First, it divides Christians, because those who are open to all truth will not allow themselves to be held back by those who are closed to anything that will not fit their set interpretations of the Bible. Second, it hampers evangelism, because intelligent non-Christians can see that such “Bible-only” fundamentalism blinds its adherents to proven truth, and this discourages them from taking Christianity seriously (Cf. ORTHODOXY AND HERESY: A BIBLICAL GUIDE TO DOCTRINAL DISCERNMENT, p. 61)

Nor, I will say it again, does the sola Scriptura principle hold that the meaning and significance of any biblical text is self-evident, or that the Bible is self-interpreting to such a degree as to render useless or worthless how others have read and interpreted Scripture. All Scripture has to be properly read and understood within its proper literary, historical and cultural context before it can be properly explained and applied to our own modern situation; something which hierarchialists are conviently ignoring to promote their own set interpretation of Scripture.

In order to maintain their prior commitment to male dominance, they violate basic principles of biblical interpretation, which in the case of other doctrinal and ethical issues, they expect everyone to practise. They conveniently avoid or alter the basic principle, on which most theologians agree, that any valid Christian theology must be founded on a solid biblical theology that truly exegetes, correlates, and harmonizes the revelation of both Old and New Testaments, which is progressive and culminative in nature, but never contradictory. And while they profess to be more logical than their egalitarian opponents, they are often guilty of blatant logical fallicies a second year philosophy student would quickly recognize as illogical and invalid.

But other than constantly confronting them with solid exegesis and solid rational arguements, and exposing their own errors, I am not sure what more we can do to help them see something they don’t want to see.

The real issue here, I think, is anachronism. Tensions in gender relations created by today’s post-industrial context, the increasing opportunities for women that threaten those with more traditional perspectives, etc., are read back into 1 Tim. 2 (to support a view of the inferiority of women) and, through 1 Tim. 2, to Gen. 2-3.

In this case, this understanding of 1 Tim. 2 – separated from its historical & social context – is needed to support this anachronistic reading of Genesis.

1. They simply cannot conceive that they MAY be wrong.

2. They write such articles to keep the already-convinced convinced. They cannot really be used to try to convince the searching or egals. But this strategy is only partially viable as long as non-egals are the majority.

I listened to a preacher on a car radio some years back who was preaching on the Proverbs 31 woman.

And ya know…
He kept preaching through the Eph 5:22 lens.
He defined and significantly narrowed the Proverb 31 woman through Eph 5:22 instead of teaching it the other way around, using the Pr31 gal as the foundation or first mention for Ephesians 5:21&22. He kept emphasising the importance of submission over and over (and OVER) to the point that the Proverbs 31 woman’s domain was reduced to housework.

He disempowered and gutted PR31 until it was unrecognizable.

Very sad.

I have heard this same argument from many complimentarians and find it bizarre.

That would mean that for thousands of years, folks could not rightly understand Gen 1 and 2 until Paul wrote that letter to Timothy.