See also “Can Women Be Pastors? The Case For.”
Some Christians (commonly called “complementarians” within evangelicalism) believe that God has reserved one higher office of spiritual oversight for qualified men: the office of elder/pastor. In churches with an episcopacy, this extends to the role of chief pastor or bishop. Whether or not one agrees with this view, it was held by the church for over 1800 years, and the arguments should be taken seriously and responded to respectfully—not dismissed as merely “sexist” or “outdated.” While not every point is affirmed by every complementarian, this article provides some of the common lines of argument in favor of a male-only pastorate.
Ministry and Office in the Old and New Testaments
The Church should empower women to serve in all kinds of ministry, but ministry should not be confused with office. Every Christian is spiritually gifted and called to do “the work of ministry” (Eph. 4:12), and there is even a sense in which every Christian is called to preach (Acts 8:4; 21:9); however, not every Christian is ordained to every office. The question is not, “Can women be in ministry?” or even “Can women be preachers?” but “Can women be ordained to the office of elder/pastor?”
In the Old Testament, women ministered as prophetesses, wise women, and judges, yet God explicitly reserved one office of spiritual leadership for men alone: the office of priest for Aaron and his sons (Ex. 28:1). While the Old Testament priesthood and New Testament pastorate are not identical, there is a close parallel: Both are offices in which men are ordained by the laying on of hands to lead God’s people in public worship and authoritatively teach them God’s Word. The doctrine of the priesthood of all believers means that because of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, all believers, male and female, are anointed for ministry (1 Pet. 2:5, 9); however, it does not logically follow that every office is now open to all, since the New Testament maintains an ordained ministry and reserves certain priestly functions for the church’s lead officers. Female ministers in the New Testament (e.g., Euodia, Syntyche, Junia) should be celebrated as coworkers in gospel ministry, but they cannot be used to disprove a male-only pastorate any more than female ministers in the Old Testament (e.g., Miriam, Deborah, Huldah) can be used to disprove the male-only priesthood.
Jesus did not hesitate to empower women in countercultural ways, yet he still chose twelve men to be his apostles and to hold the most authoritative office in the early church. According to every historical record that we have from the early church, the apostles, in turn, only ordained male pastors or bishops.
Authoritative Teaching in the Public Assembly
The Apostle Paul encouraged women to teach in various contexts (Acts 18:26; Col. 3:16; Titus 2:4), but he upheld the responsibility of male pastors to be the church’s authoritative teachers in the gathered assembly. In 1 Timothy 2:8–15, Paul addresses men and women in public worship. He later refers back to this passage as “how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God” (1 Tim. 3:15). In this context, Paul writes, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over [authentein] a man.”
Paul pairs the infinitive “to teach” with the infinitive “to authentein,” which is commonly used in Greek literature in the positive or nonpejorative sense of “exercise authority” or “have authority.” Many translators of the past understood authentein in a nonpejorative way (e.g., Tyndale, Luther, and Calvin). While some opted for the negative or pejorative sense of “usurp authority” (KJV), new discoveries in Greek papyri allow for a more informed decision. Furthermore, every time that two infinitives are joined in the New Testament, they are either both positive or both negative. Since “teach” is positive, authentein is almost certainly positive as well. When joined by the conjunction oude (“nor”), words often define one another, and so Paul is most likely referring to authoritative teaching in the public assembly. Chrysostom notes that in 1 Timothy 2:12, Paul is referring to the church’s official, authoritative teaching, which took place from “the seat of the bema,” and should not be confused with the many other contexts in which women such as Priscilla were encouraged to teach (Homily 31 on Romans).
In the apostolic church and throughout church history, it was the responsibility of the church’s elders/pastors to teach in this official capacity, except in unusual cases where someone taught with the delegated authorization of the elders. In 1 Timothy 5:17, Paul uses the same two concepts of teaching and exercising authority to characterize the office of elder: “elders who rule … who labor in teaching.” Unlike the informal ministry of prophets, who were subject to on-the-spot accountability in the early congregations (1 Cor. 11:5, 14:32), elders were tested in advance and ordained as authoritative representatives of the church (1 Tim. 3:1–7; Titus 1:5–9). To this day, everyone understands that there is a difference between what happens if a church member stands up and shares what they believe that God has told them, and what happens when an ordained pastor expounds the word from behind the pulpit.
Qualifications for Male Elders
In the section immediately after Paul tells Timothy that women may not teach [didaskō] or exercise authority (the work of elders), Paul gives qualifications for elders and emphasizes that they must be “able to teach [didaktikos]” (1 Tim. 3:2; cf. Titus 1:9). Paul also writes that elders must be “the husband of one wife” (1 Tim. 3:2; cf. Titus 1:6), which assumes that the candidates are all men who are likely (though not necessarily) married. When Paul addresses women (widows), he uses a different phrase: “the wife of one husband” (1 Tim. 5:9).
When Paul goes on to give qualifications for deacons, he includes qualifications for the gunē. While this could refer to the deacons’ “wives,” it would be odd for Paul to give qualifications for the wives of deacons but not the wives of elders. A better translation is “women” (NASB; NIV; RSV)—that is, female deacons. Paul makes no mention of women in his qualifications for elders because women were not ordained to that office.
Grounded in Creation, Not Culture
After Paul’s instructions about a woman teaching, he makes several references to creation. Some have speculated that these references are meant to correct myths about creation spread by female teachers in Ephesus who were influenced by the cult of Artemis. However, there is no evidence that women were uniquely responsible for the false teaching at Ephesus, and the cult of Artemis was not a female-only cult as some claim (it also had male priests). Furthermore, the “myths” (1 Tim. 1:4) that Paul was primarily concerned about at Ephesus do not appear to be the myths of the Artemis cult, but myths spread by Jewish teachers of the law (1 Tim. 1:7). It is unlikely that these myths were related to creation, since Jews had a shared understanding of creation.
The more natural reading of the text is that Paul was grounding his instruction in God’s creation order. Women are not to hold the authoritative teaching office of elder, “For [gar, because] Adam was formed first, then Eve” (1 Tim. 2:13). In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul makes a similar appeal to creation to support his argument that although women may pray and prophesy in the public assembly, they should do so in a way that is respectful of male headship: “man was not made from woman, but woman from man” (1 Cor. 11:8).
When Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 14:34 that “women should keep silent in the churches,” it is not a total prohibition of women speaking; however, it once again reflects Paul’s concern to uphold male headship. Paul had just referred to the part of early Christian worship in which prophets were judged, and was likely prohibiting women from speaking at this point in the service (e.g., to avoid a situation where a wife might publicly correct her husband and dishonor him in front of the whole congregation). Whatever the case, Paul says that women should learn in public worship with an appropriate posture, “as the Law also says” (1 Cor. 14:34). “The Law” likely refers to the Torah in general, and especially to the book of Genesis, in which Adam was made first and Eve was made from his side.
An Extension of Male Headship in the Home
There is thus an important connection between male headship in the Christian family/household and in the church, which is “the household of God” (1 Tim. 3:15). In the home, husbands are called to represent Christ, the “head” and bridegroom, while wives are called to represent the church, the body and bride (Eph. 5:22–24). By extension, God has ordained that qualified men represent Christ to his actual bride, the church, in the office of elder/pastor. As husbands are called to be the primary leaders in their families, qualified men are called to be the primary leaders in God’s family. Pastors are public fathers who teach and correct the flock as representatives of God the Father. In traditions which emphasize the role of the pastor to act in persona Christi (in the person of Christ), it is viewed as especially appropriate for a man to stand in for Christ, who became incarnate as a man.
The Church’s Historic Consensus
It is the historic consensus of the Church, which Christ promised to guide into all truth (Jn. 16:13), that the office of pastor (or “priest”) is reserved for men. Women were not ordained as priests or pastors for over 1,800 years of church history. The first clear example of a woman being ordained as a pastor is in 1853 by the Congregationalist Church. A male-only priesthood or pastorate is still affirmed by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and most Protestant denominations. It is culturally elitist to reduce the Church’s historic consensus to sexism which has finally been remedied by the modern era. In the Ancient Near East and in the Greco-Roman world, there were in fact many female priestesses, yet we see male-only priests in Israel and male-only pastors in the church as a matter of theological conviction rather than cultural pressure. While some Christians in church history held sexist views of women, and these views should be repudiated, others affirmed their equality, and the Church was never merely a product of its times. It often challenged social norms in radical ways (e.g., Gregory of Nyssa was perhaps the strongest abolitionist in antiquity).
Men and Women in the Church Today
Reserving one office in the church for men does not prevent women from fully exercising their gifts—even gifts of teaching and leadership. Church mothers are just as important as church fathers to the health and flourishing of God’s family, and there are countless meaningful opportunities for women to use their gifts while respecting the unique responsibility which God has entrusted to male elders.
It is tragic that some churches overlook the gifts of women or tolerate mistreatment and abuse. These abuses should be rigorously confronted. At the same time, abuse does not take away proper use (abusus non tollit usum). Candidates for eldership must be thoroughly tested to ensure that they are “above reproach” (1 Tim. 3:2–3), and must then be held accountable to use their authority “for building up and not for tearing down” (2 Cor. 13:10). Pastors are undershepherds of the Chief Shepherd and are forbidden from “domineering over” the flock of God (1 Pet. 5:3).
