I never studied theology. Though I would love to. But I have to accept, that it will, very likely, never happen. I just don’t find the time. On one hand, that is sad. I think, I could teach better. Or give more sound advice. Something like that. On the other hand, I can take a different approach to the Bible. I can question things until I understand them completely. I even have to. But that also means, I can be wrong at times. And on the topic of women preaching, I could be wrong. I don’t think so, but I could. I mean, I am questioning the believes of many here. But I will do it anyway.

Depending on the context you have, women preaching is somewhere between uncommon and unbiblical. For a long time, my understanding was, that women are technically not allowed to preach, but some pastors ignored that. But as a teenager this unequal treatment started to bug me. Not really, because I thought, men and women had to be equal. But if God poured out His Spirit on all flesh, why shouldn’t She (the Spirit of God) be able, to speak through all flesh? Why should the word of a man be divine, because he stands behind the pulpit, and the word of a woman worldly, no matter where she is? I mean, don’t we have the same Spirit?

I soon learned, that the New Testament (or Paul to be more precise) tells women to be quiet in church and not to preach. Probably the most quoted scripture here is 1. Corinthians 14:34. “Women shall be quiet in church.” But when Paul tells them to be quiet, he tells them to stop talking. Like, to each other. The Greek word used here (lalein), refers to a back and forth conversation. And if you have ever been to a synagogue where men and women have their own sections (the church in Corinth was a former synagogue), you know, why Paul has to say that. It is not the public speaking, he does not approve of, it’s the private.

The other important verse is 1. Timothy 2:12. “A woman shall not preach.” First of all, he does not address women but wives. So we could say, that married women are not allowed to preach. (There are numerous accounts of unmarried female prophets, like in Luke 2:36 and Acts 21:9. God obviously used them to speak to and teach His Church.) But in Timothy it is noteworthy that nowhere it says “church” or “congregation”. And it doesn’t say “preach” it says “teach”. From the context we can not induce, that he means preaching on Sunday mornings. The sentence goes more like this. “Wives shall not teach nor dominate their husbands.” And then, Paul takes the Garden of Eden as an example, where a woman told her husband what to do and messed up the fate of mankind.

And speaking about the fall: It was part of the curse, that women will be dominated by men (Genesis 3:16). And that is the curse, Jesus came to break. In Paradise men and women were equals. And in eternity they will be again. Before God there are “neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female” (Gal. 3:28).

I recently read an article about a Jewish perspective on Genesis 3, the Fall of men. (Apologizing to Eve, by Akiva Gersh) The author looks at Adams reaction, when God asks him, what had happened. Adam did not own up. He looked for a fall guy and found his wife. “I am the good guy here. Look at her.” He pushes Eve away. And instead of confronting him (“Wait a minute, Adam! You knew exactly, what you were doing. God told you, not me, to avoid the tree!”), she submits to it by adopting his behavior, blaming the snake. She stands up for her husband. He pushes her away, she tries to draw him back, to please him. Now, Akiva Gersh says, God just responses, by letting them have the relationship they chose themselves. She will try to please her husband, while he pushes her away.

I love, that language can have more than one layer. How you can transport a deep meaning by slightly changing a word or a sentence. And one of my favorite examples is in Genesis 1, where God Plans the creation of man. (And it is a great example of the Trinity in the Old Testament. Because God is talking to Himself here.) Verses 26 and 27.

God said: “Let us (plural) make man (singular) in our (plural) own Image. […]” And God (singular) made man (singular) in His (still singular) own Image, and He (singular) made them (plural) male and female.

We see the triune God making humans in Their Image by making them male and female. It needs both to reflect the image of God. So if we want to get to know God in His fullness, we need to look at men AND women. So, learning about God will be very one sided, when we only hear a man’s perspective.

Throughout the entire Bible, the relationship between God and His people is compared to husband and wife. Paul even says more than once, that marriage is a mere copy of the relationship between Jesus and the Church. But then I wonder. Why is the Wife of Christ called to teach the Good News to all the world, when it should be strictly forbidden for the wife of man?

And even when we say, that women are not allowed to preach in church, we find yet another problem. Where do we draw the line? It is ok in kids ministry, right? And in women’s ministry. How about a prayer meeting or a small group? Or is it just on Sunday mornings? But what if the church meets Saturdays? How small has the audience to be, for a woman to be permitted to speak? Drawing the line is not that easy, you know.

These are some of the thoughts I have on the topic of women preaching. Yes, I don’t have the ultimate proof, that God wants women to preach. But at least, I cannot find any place in the Bible that clearly prohibits it. But I do find a few verses that seem to point in the opposite direction.