“PRISCILLA AND AQUILA” VOLUME 27, NUMBER 4 INSTRUCTED APOLLOS MORE” AUTUMN 2013 PERFECTLY IN THE WAY OF THE LORD” (ACTS 18)”

23 The Trinity and the Eternal Subordination of the Son Francis Geis 5 Leadership of Women in Crete and Macedonia as a 29 Book Review: Alan F. Johnson’s How I Changed My Mind Model for the Church Aída Besançon Spencer about Women in Leadership Shirley L. Barron 17 The Authority of the Bible and the Authority of the 30 Poems: Nativity I—Incarnation, Theological Tradition Kevin Giles Nativity II—Child of Highest Heaven, and 19 Is God like a Totem Pole or a Circle? Why We Need Mary Waiting on Easter Morning Ruth Hoppin to Insist on Nicaean Orthodoxy to Avoid Falling into Christians for Biblical Equality Heresy William David Spencer www.cbeinternational.org Editor’s Reflections � When editors Ronald Pierce and Rebecca of course, understand that he was doing far more than merely Groothuis’s Discovering Biblical Equality making a claim to deity. He was stating a revelation: revealing came out in 2005, many were surprised to himself as equal with the Father. read its subtitle: “Complementarity with- How equal is equal? The word is actually an absolute term. out Hierarchy.” “Wasn’t that term ‘com- Absolute terms do not have degrees of absolutism. One is either plement’ already taken? Didn’t it already equal or one is not. It is like the term “eternal.” Someone or some- mean ‘hierarchical’ by its inherent nature? thing is either “eternal,” or not “eternal.” If it lasts a phenomenally Was this a case of co-opting a word and at- long time, but eventually ceases to be, like the Greek gods that tempting to redefine it away from its origi- could eventually die (a claim the Cretans even made for Zeus, nal meaning?” were the questions to ask. whom they believed was buried on Mount Ida, though other Those who took the time to check it out in Webster’s Unabridged Greeks maintained Zeus was indeed immortal, thus branding Dictionary may have been surprised to read: “1. something that “all Cretans” as “liars”4), then it is not eternal. It is like the state completes or makes perfect . . . 2. The quantity or amount that of being pregnant. One is either pregnant or not. One is not “sort completes anything . . . 3. Either of two parts or things needed to of pregnant,” or “somewhat pregnant.” One is either pregnant or complete the whole; counterpart.”1 one is not. It is like the word “unique.” In popular parlance, we That we are counterparts, completing one another (1 Cor hear folks refer to “the most unique experience I ever had,” or 11:11–12), should not have been such a great surprise. Genesis 1:27 “this is more unique than that.” But, such statements are misus- tells us male and female humans are created in the image of God, ing the term. There are no degrees to “unique.” Something is ei- and we see God employing the concept of counterpart in Colos- ther unique (one of a kind), or it is not. And it is like the term sians 1:15. There, we are told that Jesus Christ is the visible coun- “egalitarian.” Again, this is an absolute term. One cannot be a terpart of the invisible God, the eikōn, “that which has the same soft egalitarian. One is either egalitarian, or one is not. There are form as someth[ing] else,” a “living image”2 that completes God’s not degrees of “equal.” Each of these terms describes an either/or self-disclosing revelation by making the Great Unseen seen (John situation. In classical Greek, isos meant “equal in size, strength, or 14:8–11). No wonder the pious wanted to kill Jesus in John 5:18. number.”5 Equal meant equal. We are told he was calling God “his own father,” “making himself The Trinity is in perfectly equal, completing, complementary equal (isos) with God.”3 What his opponents realized is that, in his harmony. claiming descent from none other than God, Jesus was actually These days, when I begin my early morning prayers, I praise declaring himself to be God, as his “Father” was God. Christians, this harmony, appreciating each of the persons who make up the

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Editor • William David Spencer Associate Editor / Graphic Designer • Deb Beatty Mel Board of Reference: Miriam Adeney, Myron S. Augsburger, Book Review Editor • Aída Besançon Spencer Raymond J. Bakke, Anthony Campolo, Lois McKinney Douglas, Gordon D. Fee, Richard Foster, John R. Franke, W. Ward Gasque, J. • Mimi Haddad President / Publisher Lee Grady, Vernon Grounds, David Joel Hamilton, Roberta Hestenes, President Emerita • Catherine Clark Kroeger† Gretchen Gaebelein Hull, Donald Joy, Robbie Joy, Craig S. Keener, John Editors Emerita • Carol Thiessen† & Gretchen Gaebelein Hull R. Kohlenberger III, David Mains, Kari Torjesen Malcolm, Brenda On the Cover • Triquetra symbol Salter McNeil, Alvera Mickelsen, Virgil Olson, LaDonna Osborn, T. L. Osborn, John E. Phelan, Kay F. Rader, Paul A. Rader, Ronald J. Sider, Aída Besançon Spencer, William David Spencer, Ruth A. Tucker, Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, Timothy Weber, Jeanette S. G. Yep

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2 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No.4 ◆ Autumn 2013 One God, revealed in the Bible, whom we worship as Christians. self in his now limited human form (John 14:28). But even while I thank and praise the Father, from whom comes every good and he is assuring his opponents his “Father . . . is greater [the same perfect gift and in whom is no shadow of turning. And I praise word meizōn] than all” in John 10:29, they still try to execute him and thank Jesus, who did not have to leave heaven, but did so, for blasphemy, “because,” as they explain, “you being a human coming into our world and suffering what we suffer, doing for us make yourself God” (v. 33), since he called God his Father and what we could never do for ourselves, dying for us to pay our pen- claimed that “I and the Father are one [hen]” (v. 30). The equal- alty of rebellion. And I praise and thank the Holy Spirit for con- ity with God remains, even as he is limited in human form and, tinuing to care-take us, equipping us with every gift we need to thereby, less than the Father in the attributes of deity: no longer serve the reign of the Great Triune God. omnipresent (when he was in Galilee, he e who would become more like the As a result, I am these days increas- was not in Bethany [see John 11:21]); no ingly troubled in my spirit whenever dis- WGod who created us need to strive longer omniscient (he did not know ev- cussions on the Trinity degenerate into for perfect harmony in our relationships, erything now [see Matt 24:36; Mark 13:32], contentious arguments over whether the loving one another with a selfless love that his humanity limiting his ability to search Father is supreme and the Son is sec- completes each other and rules out selfish the depths of the Father’s mind); and no ondary, or whether they are on the same contention. longer omnipotent (he could now die for plane, or whether the Spirit is just a lackey our sins [see John 19:30]). But all this he of one or both or has a full share in the Godhead, or whenever gave up out of selfless love. As in the creation of humanity, in the believers become completely absorbed in the Holy Spirit and the recreation of humanity, we see God working in perfect harmony. Spirit’s gifts to the exclusion of the other personalities in the Trin- The lesson is obvious, as the editors of Discovering Biblical ity, since that is the one who is working with us now. I fear we Equality so well knew. Equality is not something to be limited might all fall into a theological version of the political trap of the in others, nor is it something to be exploited. We who would be- Corinthians—pitting one person of the Trinity against another as come more like the God who created us need to strive for perfect they chose one leader against the others: Paul versus Apollos ver- harmony in our relationships, loving one another with a self- sus Peter versus Christ (1 Cor 1:12). Paul was appalled (1 Cor 3:21). less love that completes each other and rules out selfish conten- Apollos refused to visit (see 1 Cor 16:12). And, obviously, Peter did tion. This is the way God intended us to love each other. And we not choose to show up to capitalize on his devoted support group. should love our Creator selflessly with complete gratitude. These Applying this kind of selective preference to the Triune God is goals will truly bring in the reign of God. a grave error: an injustice to the God who loves us and who creat- Toward reflecting the beautiful harmony we see within God, ed us. In Genesis 1, we see the Holy Spirit gestating the chemicals we are calling this present issue of Priscilla Papers “The Bible to that God created at the beginning, and, when they are ready, the the Creeds (with special attention to the Athanasian Creed): Di- Father speaking, and the Word going forth and creating (see Gen vine Equality, Human Equality.” The title, I should mention, is 1:1–3ff; cf. John 1:1–3, 10–11; Col 1:15–17). We do not see the One set up in a Greek style of reasoning modeled on its letter “X” God With Three Faces or Personalities, whom the Bible reveals, (pronounced “chi”) and is called a “chiasma”: A-B-B-A. In this as a triumvirate of three competing gods, splitting up over the case, our article on the Bible is about human equality as present blueprints for the world, or any of the persons of the Trinity roll- in the New Testament churches. Aída Besançon Spencer draws ing up a third of the plans and stalking out of heaven, grumbling, out some insights from her brand new, major commentary on or holding out, insisting that “Created by (any one of them)” be the Pastoral Epistles to show us how human equality was present stamped on one-third of us and a third of the items around us. in these seminal churches where mature Christian women were All of the Godhead created us in a perfect harmony of activity leaders. Then, Kevin Giles gives us a brief discussion on the value and loves us and wants us to be in a love relationship with our of the creeds. I follow with an application on the Trinity from creating One God in three coequal and coeternal personalities. the Bible and two creeds associated with Athanasius: the Creed Jesus tells everyone in John 14:21 that whoever loves him will of Nicaea, which he defended, and the Athanasian Creed, built be loved by his Father. There is no competition in the Godhead. by his disciples from his thought. Finally, Francis Geis explores That is why Jesus, though he was “God,” as he reveals again to his insights about the Trinity gleaned from the Scriptures. Our book peril in John 10:33, did not, as Paul explains to the Philippians, review of a volume edited by Alan Johnson, How I Changed My decide for selfish reasons his equality with God (again, the term Mind, is presented by Shirley Barron. Ruth Hoppin brings our is- for equality is isos) was something to hold onto (arpagmos, Phil sue to a close with three delightful poems from her recent book, 2:6), but lays aside (kevoō) what he possesses (Phil 2:7). Being Spinning the Arrow of Time. Ruth is well known for her work on already in the form (morphē) of God (2:6), this full person of the the authorship of Hebrews, along with her poetry, both of which Godhead chooses to take on (lambanō) the form (that is the same have been published in previous issues of Priscilla Papers. word morphē) of a servant (2:7); for selfless love, he becomes hu- In a fallen world, we find competing with and attempting to man like us. best and subject one another deceptively easy to do, but, if our Then, as a human, the humbled God-in-human-form could model is Jesus, we will realize that any authority we possess is assure his disciples that “the Father is greater (meizōn)” than him- gifted to us by God and is a servant authority, given us to serve

Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2032 • 3 the church over which Jesus Christ (not ourselves) is head (Col Notes 1:18). Our goal is not to rule over each other, but to hear our Sav- 1. Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (New York, NY: Random House, ior say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt 25: 21). 2001), 418, col. 1. 2. Walter Bauer, Frederick William Danker, W. F. Arndt, F. W. Gin- Blessings, grich, eds., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 281 col 2–282, col 2. 3. All translations of the Bible text by the present author. 4. See a discussion in Aída Besançon Spencer, Titus, 2 Timothy, New Covenant Commentary Series (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2013), p. TBA. 5. Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, comp., A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977), 839, col. 1.

Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn— for he has done it.

– Psalm 22:30–31

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4 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No.4 ◆ Autumn 2013 Leadership of Women in Crete and Macedonia as a Model for the Church Aída Besançon Spencer

A superficial glance at the New Testament in translation, com- teaching positions versus unofficial teaching, nor does it seem bined with an expectation of a subordinate role for women, re- to be an issue of subject matter. sults in generalizations that Paul commands women not to teach These sorts of modern categories are not apt for describing or have authority (1 Tim 2:11–15), except in the case of older wom- a church that met in a home in which the family and family- en teaching younger women how to be housewives (Titus 2:3–5), of-faith structures and the public and the private spheres and women are not to teach in official, public, formal positions in overlapped in the home-worship events. . . . Paul does not the church, but they can teach in informal, private, one-on-one complain that the false teachers are not appointed teachers; situations in the home.1 rather, he complains that they are offering false teaching. It is However, a deeper search into the New Testament reveals a important, then, not to misread the social context in which dissonance with those interpretations. In 1 Timothy 2:12, Paul early Christian teaching transpired on Crete and elsewhere.5 writes, “I do not permit a woman to teach,” but, in Titus 2:3, Paul expects the “older women” to teach. Paul uses the same root word Many egalitarians have argued that 1 Timothy 2:11–15 needs to for men as for women teaching, didaskō. However, is it clear that be understood in light of its heterodox and cultural context. The “man” is the object of teaching in 1 Timothy 2:12? Also, why would beauty of the Bible is that each of God’s revelations is commu- Titus not teach all the women in Crete (Titus 2:6–8)? Timothy nicated in a different historical situation so that we can apply does in Ephesus (1 Tim 5:1–2). Although both Timothy and Ti- each passage in analogous contemporary historical situations. tus are supposed to present Paul’s instructions to their respective Of course, since one God inspires these revelations, certain prin- congregations (1 Tim 4:6; Titus 2:15), why is Timothy challenged ciples will be above culture, but how to apply these principles will to be a model (typos) for all the believers (1 Tim 4:12), but Titus is vary. Two major factors affect the place of women in the differ- challenged to be a model (typos) only to the younger men (Titus ent New Testament churches: first and primarily, the acceptance 2:6–8)? In contrast, why does Paul presuppose and support the or rejection in a church of the gospel core message (heterodoxy leadership of Euodia and Syntyche as his coworkers (Phil 4:2–3), or orthodoxy) and, secondarily, the regional culture’s expecta- as well as Lydia (Acts 16:14–15, 40), if all women are restricted? tions for women. I have chosen three churches (Philippi, Ephe- Some commentators have argued that Titus 2:3, directing the sus, Crete) where (1) we have a clearer understanding of ancient elder women to teach, is possible only because Titus 2 envisions a women’s positions and (2) the New Testament shows the effect private, informal household (oikos) setting, while 1 Timothy 2:11– of the gospel on leadership roles. (I have not included Corinth 12 envisions a public, formal church setting.2 Oikos, however, is because, in Corinth, the women were continuing to pray and also Paul’s image for the church: God’s oikos “is the church of the prophesy in public and because their secular position is not as living God” (1 Tim 3:15). But why would a devout believer act clear as in Macedonia, Anatolia, and Crete.) Comparing the his- in one’s own household differently than when serving in God’s torical cultural information about women in Macedonia, Ana- household? Early Christians lived, of course, in their own house- tolia, and Crete with the state of right teaching in these different holds,3 but they appeared to have worshiped in either their own New Testament churches sheds light on solving any apparent dis- or one of the other households, not in separate church build- harmony. In contrast, traditionally, overemphasizing the women ings, as became more prominent after Emperor Constantine’s in Ephesus at the expense of the other region’s women leaders era.4 Thus, the private, informal versus public, formal dichotomy has resulted in a blanket limitation on women’s leadership, limit- seems more appropriate to a modern, Western, preemerging ing opportunities for all women to use their spiritual and natural church setting than to the ancient Western emerging church, or gifts in church leadership while overburdening men. to house churches in mainland China. Ben Witherington sum- marizes well: AídA BesAnçon spencer is professor of new Tes- tament at Gordon-conwell Theological seminary. If Paul and/or Luke had qualms about women teaching under This article is developed from her work on 1 Timo- all circumstances and on all subjects, we certainly would not thy and Titus, 2 Timothy in the new covenant com- have [Titus 2:3] in this letter. The issue in regard to teaching mentary series (2013, 2014). she is a Board of ref- is not gender specific in itself (see, e.g., Rom 16; Phil 4, which erence member for christians for Biblical equality refers to women coworkers in Philippi), nor, to judge from and book review editor for Priscilla Papers. Among earlier Pauline letters, is the issue women teaching or speak- her numerous books and articles are Beyond the Curse: Women Called to ing to men (cf., e.g., 1 Cor 11; Acts 18:18–26). Furthermore, the Ministry (also in French and spanish), Biblical Voices on Biblical Equality, issue is not public versus private speaking, nor is it official The Global God, and 2 Corinthians, daily Bible commentary. she is Found- ing pastor of organization of pilgrim church, Beverly, Massachusetts.

Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2032 • 5 Philippi, Macedonia is one of the most amiable New Testament letters. Yes, the church had its problems, but the church was not convinced by heterodox The positions of women in ancient Macedonia, Anatolia, and teachers. Derek Thomas summarizes: “But in the earnest and un- Crete had many similarities, especially in contrast to women discriminating preaching of Paul to the women at the riverside, in ancient Athens and Israel. Wealthy Athenian and Eastern in the baptism of Lydia, in the influence of Euodia and Syntyche, women were still sequestered in the home. J. B. Lightfoot com- in the prayers and service of the hon- ments about Macedonia: “In not a few aul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke encouraged ored widows and in the warmth of the instances a metronymic [inscription] welcome Crescens’ sister could expect, takes the place of the usual patronym- Pthe participation and leadership of women we may be glimpsing the new kind of ic and in other cases a prominence is in Philippi by speaking to them in public, status the Christian church could afford given to women which can hardly be staying at Lydia’s house, and choosing women to women, especially in a place where accidental.” He adds, “the active zeal of such as Euodia and Syntyche as coworkers. the Jewish presence was not strong.”15 the women in this country is a remark- able fact, without a parallel in the Apostle’s history elsewhere and Ephesus, Anatolia only to be compared with their prominence at an earlier date in the personal ministry of our Lord.”6 Macedonian women gained Lydia herself came from Thyatira (Acts 16:14), which is in the an- more social and legal rights than other Greek women, especially cient region called Lydia in Anatolia, Western Asia Minor. Ac- Athenian.7 As a result, women in Hellenistic Egypt had many so- cording to William Ramsay, the Lydians tended to be matriarchal cial and legal rights because Hellenistic queens were successors (a preference native to Asia Minor), in contrast to the Phrygians of the Macedonians. Thus, in Hellenistic Greece, some women and Carians, who tended more to the patriarchal type of social scholars and prose writers can be found in Alexandria, such as institutions.16 In the province of Lydia, the goddess was promi- the Neopythagorean philosopher Perictione and Hypatia, who nent, while a male god very often was put forward as her son. In was leader of the Neoplatonic School (fourth and fifth centuries Phrygia and Pisidia, the goddess was not so prominent, and the AD).8 William Tarn summarizes: “If Macedonia produced per- male god often stood alone.17 Thus, not surprisingly, the Synod haps the most competent group of men the world has yet seen, of Laodicea in Phrygia in the fourth century was the first to limit the women were in all respects the men’s counterparts; they women.18 In contrast, women prophets were frequent in Ana- played a large part in affairs, received envoys and obtained con- tolia before the second century.19 Anatolian women, with their cessions for them from their husbands, built temples, founded Amazon heritage, were influential. Ephesus in Anatolia was first cities, engaged mercenaries, commanded armies, held fortresses, a Lydian village. Of the twelve Ionian cities, Ephesus is the most and acted on occasion as regents or even co-rulers.”9 Egypt had Lydian.20 In Anatolia, women also were prominent. It was ac- at least seven Cleopatras!10 ceptable for them to hold public positions and perform duties of In contrast to Jesus’s disciples, who were astounded that Jesus authority and influence in their communities.21 The worship of spoke to the Samaritan woman (John 4:27),11 Paul, Silas, Timothy, Artemis was also prominent, and this pagan cult seemed to have and Luke encouraged the participation and leadership of women influenced the new Christians in Ephesus. in Philippi by speaking to them in public, staying at Lydia’s house, Second-century geographer Pausanias wrote, “All cities wor- and choosing women such as Euodia and Syntyche as coworkers ship Artemis of Ephesus, and individuals hold her in honour (Phil 4:2–3). “Coworker” (synergos) is also used to signify Paul as above all the gods. The reason, in my view, is the renown of the a teacher, Timothy as an evangelist, Silas as a prophet, and Ep- Amazons, who traditionally dedicated the image, also the ex- aphroditus, Clement, and Prisca. In the genitive case, synergos treme antiquity of this sanctuary. Three other points as well have is a “colleague.”12 Paul told the Corinthians to “be subject to . . . contributed to her renown, the size of the temple, surpassing all every coworker,” and “give recognition to such people” (1 Cor buildings among men, the eminence of the city of the Ephesians 16:16, 18). Thus, a “coworker” is a colleague placed in a position and the renown of the goddess who dwells there.”22 Ephesus and of authority to whom the churches were to be subject. Synonyms Artemis were inseparable.23 Pausanias also mentions that the for coworkers include ministers of the word, such as apostles, priestesses and priests of the Ephesian Artemis lived in purity for prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers (Eph 4:11–13).13 Euo- a year, “not only sexual but in all respects, and they neither wash dia and Syntyche “labored side by side” with Paul in the gospel nor spend their lives as do ordinary people, nor do they enter (Phil 4:3). Euodia and Syntyche’s disagreement affected the unity the home of a private man.”24 Strabo, a first-century geographer, of the entire church. Lydia, Euodia, and Syntyche were function- describes the priests (megabyzi) as “eunuchs” who were held in ing as church overseers. Lydia was a persuasive businesswoman, great honor. Maidens (virgins) served as colleagues with them in the head of her household, who was quite aggressive when she their priestly office.25 The “eunuchs” either were not sexually ac- strongly urged (parabiazomai) Paul, Silas, Luke, and Timothy to tive for a year or they castrated themselves.26 They would model cross barriers of race (Jew and Gentile) and gender and to remain a celibate religious lifestyle in honor of the virgin goddess.27 In at her house (Acts 16:14–15, 40). This church, led by women, be- contrast, married women were forbidden even to enter the tem- came a financial and spiritual partner with Paul to advance God’s ple of Artemis.28 As a result, the Ephesian Christian church, too, reign for many years.14 Consequently, the letter to the Philippians had a low view of marriage (1 Tim 4:3).

6 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No.4 ◆ Autumn 2013 Acts records the silversmith Demetrius reminding his fellow to teach them. They were exempt from any requirement that ne- artisans that “we get our wealth from this business,” and, when cessitated their leaving the home for any period of time. They Paul persuaded “a considerable number of people” that gods also did not participate in the synagogue “House of Study,” which made with human hands were not real, their businesses would be was a place for males only. They were considered to be in the affected (Acts 19:25–26 NRSV). As the Ephesians were renowned same category in rabbinic laws as Gentiles and slaves.42 Wealthy for their devotion to luxury,29 the church also had problems with Jewish and Greek women would be encouraged to stay within wealth (1 Tim 2:9–10; 6:6–10, 17–19). the house, active in the indoor life of household management.43 Ephesus was also well known as a center for the study and The Gentiles at Ephesus had a variety of educational expec- practice of magic—the use of techniques to assure human control tations for women. Women would participate in the religious or power over supernatural forces.30 Magic appeals to unhealthy ceremonies of goddesses,44 but probably not in actual physical curiosity and the desire for power over others and oneself.31 Mag- sacrifice.45 Later Greek and Roman societies appear generally to ic and drugs were interrelated.32 Artemis’s name, together with have limited the public participation of women. The Athenian the names of other gods, would be repeated in incantations.33 Greeks and the Romans were both patriarchal. Even though the Jerome comments that Ephesus was “the chief city of Asia where situation may have been better for some Gentile women, since idolatry and the deceptions of the magicians’ arts which always many women were no longer forbidden from pursuing higher accompany idolatry thrived. . . . They, whom the error of demons education, still, very few women were teaching in a professional had so long held and who knew that there are spiritual beings sense in salaried positions in great houses, or running a school as and powers and who had perceived a certain likeness of divin- a sophist.46 Early marriage limited opportunities for women. The ity in organs and auguries and divinations, were in need of the learned professions were still usually reserved for men. Women apostle’s commendation to God.”34 The festival of Artemis, like were also excluded from law schools, since arguing publicly in those of the Amazons, affirmed orgiastic religious practices.35 court was forbidden, being considered “immodest.”47 When women celebrated their festivals, they might “spend whole Thus, when confronted with heterodox teaching and learn- nights on the bare hills in dances which stimulated ecstasy, and in ing, neither the Jewish nor Gentile women may have been well an intoxication perhaps partly alcoholic, but mainly mystical.”36 prepared to withstand either. Some Christians at Ephesus had previously participated in these When Paul does not permit a woman “to domineer over practices of magic (Acts 19:13–19; 1 Tim 5:13). (authenteō) a man, but to be in silence” (2:12b), he uses oude to Paul’s commands for the women at Ephesus in 1 Timothy connect “I am not permitting a woman to teach” with “to domi- 2:11–12 to learn “in silence,”37 but not yet “teach,” show they neer over a man.” The second action, “to domineer,” is more inten- had succumbed to heterodoxy and needed to be reeducated to sive than “to teach.” Thereby, we can translate the sentence, “I am withstand it.38 They were to learn in silence because the ancients not permitting a woman to teach, certainly not to domineer over considered this the best way to learn, as Simon, the son of Paul’s (or destroy) a man.” Romans 8:7, 11:21, and 1 Timothy 6:16 also teacher, Rabbi Gamaliel, summarized: “All my days have I grown join by oude two actions that are prohibited, where the second ac- up among the Sages and I have found naught better for a man tion is more intense and negative than the first action, in the same than silence; and not the expounding [of the Law] is the chief way as “domineer” (authenteō) is more intense and negative than thing but the doing [of it]; and he that multiplies words occa- “teach” (didaskō). Paul writes in Romans 8:7 that the mind hostile sions sin.”39 Silence had positive connotations among the ancient to God “does not submit to God’s law or moreover/especially not Jews, because the Old Testament gives positive connotations for is able” to do so. In 1 Timothy 6:16, he identifies God as the One silence, for example, “Those who have knowledge use words with “whom no human has seen, moreover/especially not is able to see.” restraint. . . . Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and So Paul is not allowing women to continue a teaching destructive discerning if they hold their tongues” (Prov 17:27–28 TNIV). to men, even as Eve’s teaching was destructive to Adam. Women and men at Ephesus wanted to be “teachers of the Volumes have been written on authenteō.48 The difficulty law,” but they understood “neither what they say nor concerning arises with interpretation, because this verb occurs nowhere else what they assert” (1 Tim 1:7). They had no “perception” of spiri- in the Bible. Although some scholars have argued that authenteō tual truths based on careful faith-based thought.40 Consequently, has positive connotations (“to exercise authority”), these positive their authoritative manner of communication did not ensure the connotations come from later ecclesiastical use (AD 370 and even authority or accuracy of what they communicated. later) and are therefore irrelevant.49 The noun cognate used by If such teachers included Jewish females (such as younger Jewish writers contemporary to Paul clearly has negative connota- widows, 1 Tim 5:11–13), teaching authoritatively would be an tions. For example, Josephus uses authentēs to render “assassins” unusual and desirable opportunity for them. Of course, Jewish (murderers of Galilean Jew[s] on their way to a festival in Jeru- women could be taught and could teach the Scriptures at home, salem).50 Contemporary Roman writers also used authentēs with as Lois and Eunice authoritatively taught Timothy the Old Testa- negative connotations. The historian Appian (AD 95–165) used ment.41 However, Jewish women, unlike Jewish men, were not authentēs for “murderer.”51 Diodorus of Sicily also used authentēs obligated to study rabbinic and Old Testament law, nor did they in negative contexts: “the perpetrators of the sacrilege” and “the receive any merit in studying the law, nor was anyone obligated author of these crimes.”52 Authenteō is similar to the negative

Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2032 • 7 type of leadership Jesus portrays for the Gentile rulers (archōn). prototype of an ignorant person who sins, yet receives mercy. In Their leadership is described with two words: katakurieuō and contrast to Eve, Adam often is a prototype of someone who sins, katexousiazō (Matt 20:25), formed from the root preposition “un- but not by means of deception.65 He knew what he was doing. der” (kata), which vividly describes the position of the person be- In Romans 5:12–21 and 1 Corinthians 15:22, Adam is significant ing ruled. Katakurieuō signifies “exercise complete dominion.”53 for what he brought into the world—death. All humans die and Katexousiazō signifies to wield “authority over” or “tyrannize” live in a world of death and suffering because Adam sinned and “over someone.” 54 Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon agrees: authenteō sig- brought death into the world. nifies “to have full power or authority over,” and “commit a mur- How, then, does the illustration of Eve relate to the women at der,” while authentēs refers to a “murderer.” 55 Thus, Paul would be Ephesus? The women at Ephesus were reminiscent of the woman prohibiting women from exercising an absolute power over men in Eden: Eve. The Ephesian women were learning and teaching in such a way as to destroy them. By learning “in silence” (2:11–12), a body of heretical beliefs to others in an autocratic manner, the women at Ephesus will become part of the health-producing and they submitted to heterodox teachers who brought spiritual educational process: learning peacefully, cooperatively, not teach- death to their listeners. Eve, too, had in her time been deceived ing, yet, thereby, not harming their teachers. into believing certain heterodox teachings: if she touched the Why might Paul have chosen to use authenteō (“domineer,” fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she would be- 2:12) when writing to Ephesus? Artemis of Ephesus was modeled come like God, yet she would not die. She authoritatively passed on the queen bee.56 After the young queen has stung to death on her teachings to Adam. Her eating the fruit symbolized her any other competing queen bees, she leaves the hive on a mating “belief.” Sadly, he learned. He, too, ate the forbidden fruit. The flight. The seven or eight drones who mate with her die because entire state of humanity and nature was affected by their actions: their reproductive organs are torn out after mating.57 Similarly, enslavement to sin and death. Eve’s deception affected the state the cult of Artemis at Ephesus was associated with ritual or actual into which she entered, one of transgression. So, too, if the wom- murder. Artemis could use her arrows to protect, but also to at- en at Ephesus continued in being deceived by false teaching, they tack. One etymology for her name was “slaughterer, butcher.”58 would enter a state of transgression. And, as the earth became Artemis could protect mothers, but also kill them.59 In festivals fallen, so too the church at Ephesus would fall. (Already, some for Artemis, to keep Artemis from slaughtering the partici- women were “turning after Satan” [1 Tim 5:15].) pants, “one must hold to a man’s throat the sword, and spill the Instead, Paul had begun a process to address the educational blood for hallowing and the Goddess’ honour’s sake.”60 Artemis’s limitations imposed on women, especially in such a syncretistic tales were not that different from legends about Amazon war- area as Ephesus, by commanding that the women learn the truth riors, who were required to slay a male enemy before they could so they could understand fully the Christian message and not be marry.61 Catherine Kroeger adds: “In Ephesus women also as- deceived, and, then, when they taught, they would bring spiritual sumed the role of the man-slaying Amazons who had founded life and salvation to their listeners. the cult of Artemis of Ephesus. . . . Evidence of actual human Crete sacrifice has been discovered at the lowest level of the great Ar- temisium.”62 Consequently, authenteō might very well allude to Crete also had a strong emphasis on matriarchy.66 It had one of a traditional destructive pagan feminine principle at Ephesus. the oldest civilizations in the Aegean Sea, “the first great civiliza- However, if women were actually killing men, Paul would have tion on European soil.”67 Although females in Crete did not have used a stronger verb than “I am not permitting.” Rather, he was all the political rights that men had, Minoan Crete women were using authenteō metaphorically to describe destructive attitudes, probably the social equals of men and participated in all activities, women modeling themselves on Artemis, the “slaughterer,” and including the dangerous sport of vaulting over charging bulls.68 on Eve, for, when she ate the fruit forbidden by God, it resulted Perhaps because of this, the women at Ephesus were hav- in death (Gen 3:3–4). I. H. Marshall summarizes: “In the context ing more difficulty with heterodoxy; thus, Timothy had to be a it seems most likely that through their being ‘deceived’ there was model for all believers of orthodoxy (right doctrine), whereas, at a false content to their teaching and that this element included Crete, the elder women could share the educational burden with some kind of emancipatory tendency.”63 Titus. Although Crete had a heterodox teaching similar to the Eve is a prototype of someone who sins because (s)he is de- one in Ephesus, it did not appear to affect the women’s doctrine. ceived: “And so Adam was not deceived, but the woman, having The challenge was to orthopraxy (right action). The opponents been deceived, came (to a state of ) transgression” (1 Tim 2:14). As in Crete were confessing knowledge of God, but their actions did in 1 Timothy 2:13–14, and in 2 Corinthians 11:3, Paul uses Eve as a not demonstrate their beliefs. As Paul lamented, they “profess to prototype for persons who are deceived by Satan’s teachings that know God, but they are denying his works, being abominable lead them away from the truth. In 2 Corinthians, Eve illustrates and disobedient and unacceptable for every good work” (1:16). the danger to the whole church of Corinth, while, in 1 Timothy, Paul’s opponents denied God’s works by not doing them.69 she illustrates the danger for the women at the church in Ephe- The women at Crete, thus, were allowed to be in positions sus.64 However, deception is not limited to women. Paul himself of leadership. To support this point, I will show that Titus 2:2–3 says he was deceived by sin (Rom 7:11). In 1 Timothy 1:16, he is a should be translated “elders” rather than simply “old men and old women”: “(Encourage)70 elders (males) to be sober, honorable,

8 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No.4 ◆ Autumn 2013 wise, healthy in faith, in love, in perseverance; (encourage) elders and elders have been found.74 Presbyteros (“elders”), like presbeia (females), likewise, to be in demeanor holy, not slanderous, and (“a delegation”), could represent a person or a group banding to- not enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, . . .” gether or appointed to ask for a favor, peace, or the resolution of An elder is like a steward or manager (oikonomos, Titus 1:7) differences.75 Thus, a synonym for “elders” was “ambassadors,” who was placed in charge of small or large households to feed people who sought reconciliation.76 Generally, they are presented and oversee the other workers, to make investments, and to in the plural.77 The Jewish Christians appeared to have adapted judge over disputers,71 as exemplified by Joseph as ruler over a the Jewish leadership format (since Christianity did have an Old household and all of Egypt (Acts 7:10). Moses originally chose Testament basis). elders to be trustworthy, honest judges over groups of a thou- In Titus, “overseer” (episkopos) is a synonym for “elder” (pres- sand, hundred, fifty, and ten (Exod 18:13–26). These judges were byteros, 1:5, 7). Episkopos etymologically signifies “to look upon or chosen by the tribes themselves and were trained by Moses (Deut ov e r.” 78 In Acts 20:28, “to oversee” includes the function of oversee- 1:9–18). Later, the Lord commanded Moses to gather seventy of ing doctrine and is synonymous with shepherding (also 1 Pet 5:2). these judges so that they too would be filled with the Spirit as The term “elder” probably implied a certain age. Some early Moses was and share his leadership burdens. In addition, the rabbis said thirty was the age for authority, sixty was the age to be Spirit came upon Eldad and Medad, who prophesied in the camp an elder (m.’Abot 5:21). Sixty was also the age for a widow to enter (Num 11:16–17, 24, 26). the church’s order of prayer (1 Tim 5:9). In Greco-Roman times, Jewish elders had authority in reli- What is the relationship between the male (presbytēs) and gious and civic matters. They handled city administration and female (presbytis) “elders” in Titus chapter 2 (2:2–3) and the “el- jurisdiction. The council of elders (and chief priests in Jerusalem, ders” in chapter 1 (presbyteros, 1:5)? These terms go back to the i.e., the Sanhedrin) decided cases of orthodoxy and heterodoxy root presbys (an old person or elder). Presbyteros is the compara- with the power of possible excommunication.72 In a village, one tive of presbys,79 literally, “the older one” or “elder of two,” as in of the elders might be chosen to be “ruler of the synagogue” to Luke 15:25. Presbytēs and presbytis are the masculine and femi- oversee the worship service and the place and represent the con- nine prose forms of presbys. Many English translations render gregation to Roman officials.73 Women “rulers of the synagogue” the forms in chapter 2 as simply age, not church leadership.80

Comparison of qualities in Titus 2:2–10 with those needed for elder and minister/deacon

Presbytēs (2:2) Presbytis (2:3) Nea/neos (2:4–7a) Doulos (2:9–10) (male elders) (female elders) (young) (slaves) 1. sober (nēphalios) 1. in demeanor, holy (2:4–5) Why? 1. to one’s master be subject in (elder, Titus 1:7; 1 Tim 3:2, 3; (hieroprepēs) To encourage young females all (hypotassō) minister/deacon, 1 Tim 3:8, 11) (elder, Titus 1:8) (nea) to 1. love husbands 2. honorable (semnos) 2. not slanderous (diabolos) 2. love children 2. to be well-pleasing (minister/deacon, 1 Tim 3:8) (minister/deacon, 1 Tim 3:11) (elder, Titus 1:6; 1 Tim 3:4–5; (euarestos) minister/deacon 1 Tim 3:12; (elder, Titus 1:7) widow, 1 Tim 5:10) 3. wise (sōphrōn) 3. not enslaved to much wine 3. be wise (sōphrōn) 3. not opposing (antilegō) (elder, Titus 1:8; 1 Tim 3:2) (elder, Titus 1:7; 1 Tim 3:2, 3; (elder, Titus 1:8; 1 Tim 3:2) minister/deacon 1 Tim 3:8, 11) 4. healthy in 4. teaching what is good 4. be pure (hagnos) 4. not misappropriating for a. faith (kalodidaskalos) (elder, Titus 1:8) themselves (nosphizō) (elder, Titus 1:9; minister/ (elder, Titus 1:8; 1 Tim 3:2) (elder, Titus 1:7; 1 Tim 3:3; deacon, 1 Tim 3:11) minister/deacon, 1 Tim 3:8) b. love 5. work at home (oikourgos) 5. showing for themselves (elder, 1 Tim 3:4–5; minister/ every good trust deacon, 1 Tim 3:12) (elder, Titus 1:9; minister/ deacon, 1 Tim 3:11) c. perseverance 6. be good (agathos) Why? honor the teaching (of (elder, Titus 1:7; 1 Tim 3:3) (elder, Titus 1:8) the savior God) in all 7. be subject to own husbands (hypotassō) Why? God’s word not be blasphemed To encourage young males (neōteros) (2:6–8) to be wise (sōphroneō) (elder, Titus 1:8)

Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2032 • 9 However, a church leadership position is also possible. In ancient perseverance, holiness (female elders and young women), ability times, deference was given to elders simply because of their age.81 to teach (female elders). All are to be household-oriented, not Second, in the same way as presbyteros could refer to leadership self-pleasing, not disobedient, and not seeking selfish financial positions or to age, presbytēs could refer as well to age or to lead- gain. Yet, the male and female elders have distinctive aspects of ership positions. Although the Bible does have several references their Christian walk to which they had to pay attention. For ex- where presbytēs refers simply to age,82 other references clearly ample, only women in these lists are challenged not to be slander- refer to ambassadors or envoys, as with the “elders” of the ruler ous (Titus 2:3; 1 Tim 3:11).89 from Babylon who visited Hezekiah (2 Chr 32:31) and elders rep- The elders in Titus 2:2–3 were exhorted to develop qualities resenting the Jews to Sparta and to Rome (1 Macc 14:22; 15:17). also highlighted for the church leaders mentioned in 1 Timothy Even the envoys from Rome are called “elders” (2 Macc 11:34). 3:2–12: being sober, wise, well behaved (overseer), and being not Elders (presbytēs) are also mentioned at the city gate where judg- open to attack from others, not devoting themselves to much wine, ments were made in Israel (Job 29:7–8; Lam 5:14). When Paul having sound doctrine, being honorable, sober, and not slander- calls himself presbytēs in Philemon 9, some translators render ers (ministers/deacons). The list for the female elders is connected it “ambassador” (REB, TEV), while others “old man” or “aged” with the list for the male elders by “likewise”: “[encourage] elders (NRSV, NIV, KJV). (female), likewise, to have a holy demeanor, not slanderous, and The feminine presbytis occurs only in Titus 2:3 in the Bible. not enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good” (2:3). Thus, Were women ever called “elder,” implying a leadership position although Paul highlights distinctive qualities for the male and fe- in ancient times? Yes, one heroic “aged” (gēraia) mother of seven male elders, their role as elders is similar. In 1 Timothy, the “like- sons was called by the author of 4 Maccabees an “elder” (pres- wise” indicates that the women are to pray as are the men (2:9), bytis), even though a woman (4 Macc 16:14).83 At Crete, a female, the ministers/deacons must have leadership qualities similar to Sophia of Gortyn, is described on a plaque as “elder (presbytera) the overseer’s (3:8), and the female ministers/deacons must have and ruler of the synagogue.”84 A woman, Mannine of Venosa, leadership qualities similar to those of the male ministers/dea- thirty-eight years old, is described as an “elder” in a cemetery cons (3:11). The “likewise” also indicates that Titus is to encourage in Italy. Bernadette Brooten found six or seven Jewish women the female elders as much as he does the male elders. “elders” spread over a wide geographical area.85 The Shepherd of When the elder women are exhorted to be “holy” (Titus Hermas used presbytis and presbytera as synonyms for the church 2:3), they are being encouraged to act in a manner appropriate (Vision 1 [2:2], Vision 2 [5:3; 8:1]). Female elders must have had to a priestly vocation. The neuter form, hieron, of hieroprepēs,90 leadership in the church,86 because the Synod of Laodicea (343– is always used in the New Testament literally for the temple in 81) forbade any more presbytides being ordained (canon 11). Con- Jerusalem (e.g., Matt 21:23). If indeed all believers are members sequently, Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek found evidence of God’s “holy priesthood,”91 then certainly women elders also for eleven female presbyters dating from the second to the fifth need to act appropriately according to their priestly vocation—in century.87 Atto, bishop of Vercelli (tenth century), summarizes other words, in a holy or reverent manner. that, before the Council of Laodicea (fourth century) “female Instead of wasting their time being drunk, the female elders presbyters” “assumed the office of preaching, leading and teach- are to teach (Titus 2:3). Didaskalos is the same root word used in ing.” They “presided over the churches.”88 1 Timothy 2:12. The difference is that, in Crete, the women are If presbytēs and presbytis in Titus 2:2–3 refer to leadership encouraged to teach what is good (kalodidaskalos), whereas the positions, how do they relate to the qualifications in 1:6–9? In women in Ephesus were forbidden from teaching what is bad.92 the same way as Paul describes the ministers/deacons in 1 Timo- The elder/overseer was to love what is good (philagathos, Titus thy 3:8–10 in a general way first and then goes on to describe 1:8). The next step would be to teach what is good (2:3). the female and male distinctive qualities (3:11, 12), so does Paul Ancient Crete and Sparta were cultures oriented toward war- in Titus first describe the general qualities of an elder/overseer fare. Cretan marriage was a public, state-controlled ceremony (1:6–9) and then goes on to highlight qualities on which the men involving those who belonged to the same age grade and same (2:2) and the women (2:3) need to work. Again in 1 Timothy 3, social class.93 The Cretans were particularly communal. Meals Paul encourages everyone to seek an overseeing office (episkopēs) and sleeping quarters were communal: one for the young men, (3:1), but then delineates the distinctive qualities of overseers another for the young women. Even mature men ate together. In (episkopos) and ministers/deacons (diakonos) (3:2–13). Similarly, Cretan society, the household was of considerable importance.94 the elders, youth, and slaves in Titus 2:2–10 are encouraged to One Minoan palace would sustain hundreds of people.95 The rel- seek positive qualities that would make them eligible to serve as atives and followers would construct their houses radiating out Christian leaders. from the palace at the center.96 However, the wives usually did Many of the qualities needed for elders/overseers in Titus 1:6– not join the husbands’ homes until later when the young women 8 are reiterated in the later lists in Titus 2:2–10: self-controlled had learned how to manage household affairs.97 Most marriages limiting of consumption of intoxicating substances (elders), hon- in all ancient cultures were arranged. For example, in Xenophon’s or, wisdom (male elders, young women and men), faithfulness Oeconomics, the husband says to the wife, “I took you and your (male elders and slaves), love (male elders and young women), parents gave you to me” to obtain “the best partner of home

10 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No.4 ◆ Autumn 2013 and children” (Oec 7.11). Thus, love for one’s husband had to be summarize all the previous lists. Younger women are instructed learned. In Titus, Paul places responsibility for the training on to model themselves on the elder women, and Titus is exhorted the female elders. Titus does not teach the women. Husbands do to be a comparable “model” (typos) for the younger men (Titus not teach women (in contrast to Xenophon, Oec 7.8–9), nor do 2:7–8), treating them as “brothers” (1 Tim 5:1). Timothy, though, is mothers, as we might expect. Paul a model to all believers (1 Tim 4:12). wanted Christian models for the aul’s standard of monogamy in marriage stood in Education through modeling is a younger women. He assumed a so- Pcontrast to Roman and Greek standards deeming most effective means of communi- ciety divided by sex when he picked it acceptable for married men to have sexual cation, especially to those who are Christian female elders as teachers. relations with slaves, concubines, or prostitutes. one’s equal.104 Thus, women teaching women was Thus, Paul gave the female elders not a limiting command for women, but, rather, a liberating one. in Crete a key role to teach the young women, one unusual for Paul encouraged the young women to work in the “house- ancient Greek society. It is true that, in Titus 1:6 (as in 1 Tim 3:2), hold” (oikourgos, 2:5). In contrast to postindustrial societies, in the general qualification for an elder/overseer is to be a “one- ancient times, all people worked in the household; as Xenophon woman man,” but this may simply indicate that most Cretan and explains, husband and wife are “partners (koinōnos) in the house- Ephesian elders were men rather than women. A male overseer, if hold (oikos).” Xenophon goes on to explain that men work out- married, must be a man who is faithful and devoted and focused doors, while women work indoors (Oec 7.30); however, the out- on only one woman. In other words, men are to love “their own doors and the indoors are all part of the household. In contrast, wives as their own bodies” (Eph 5:28). Paul’s standard of monoga- the model of an ideal, biblical, capable wife works both outdoors my in marriage stood in contrast to Roman and Greek standards and indoors, as in Proverbs 31:13–27, buying fields, planting vine- deeming it acceptable for married men to have sexual relations yards, and selling garments.98 The women were to be rulers of the with slaves, concubines, or prostitutes. Roman slaves legally never household (according to 1 Tim 5:14), and, thus, would not be idle married; they cohabitated (contubernium). The slaves, however, (1 Tim 5:13). The rabbis agreed that “idleness leads to unchastity” considered their marriages valid. The slave women could not be (R. Eliezer) and “idleness leads to lowness of spirit” (R. Simeon accused of adultery.105 Xenophon assumes a married man could b. Gamaliel, m. Ketub. 5:5). Their basis may be King Lemuel’s have a sexual relationship with a household slave: “When a wife’s mother, who said that the capable wife “does not eat the bread of looks outshine a maid’s, and she is fresher and more becomingly idleness” (Prov 31:27).99 dressed, they’re a ravishing sight, especially when the wife is also Although hypotassō (“being subject,” Titus 2:5) can be used willing to oblige, whereas the girl’s services are compulsory” (Oec for hierarchical relationships, it can also be used for mutual or 10.12). Demosthenes explains, “Mistresses (hetaira) we keep for equal authorities, as prophets who are subject to other prophets, the sake of pleasure, concubines for the daily care of our per- allowing each other to speak and evaluate each other’s message sons, but wives to bear us legitimate106 children and to be faithful (1 Cor 14:29–33), or as Christians to Christians (Eph 5:21), or as guardians of our households” (Neaer 122). Hetairai were “women, the Son and the Father (1 Cor 15:27–28), or as the Corinthians slave or free, who traded their sexual favours for long or short who are served and Stephana’s household who are serving in periods outside wedlock.”107 They could be streetwalkers or ac- ministry (1 Cor 16:15–18). Wives, along with other Christians, are complished courtesans. Adolf Berger and Barry Nicholas explain exhorted to be supportive presences in actions and words. They that Roman law “took cognizance only of adultery by the wife. . . . are respectfully to cooperate with their husbands, treating them Adultery by the husband was never as such a crime, but his illicit as valuable.100 This is particularly important (and challenging) intercourse with a respectable woman constituted the crime of in a society where the father or husband was the paterfamilias or stuprum under the Lex Julia, and in the fifth century (Cod. Just. chief priest who held the power of life and death over the entire 5.17.8) his adultery in the matrimonial home or his adultery with household.101 Aristotle, for example, addresses his words to male a married woman anywhere entitled his wife to divorce him.”108 masters (Politics 1.2.2 [1253b]), but, in contrast, Paul has Titus ad- If a man were faithful and devoted and focused only on his wife, dress his words to females directly (2:3). Aristotle uses the lan- he would have no room in his heart or his time for other intimate guage of one human “ruling” another in the household (archō, female (or male) relationships. Politics 1.2.8, 12 [1254a–b]),102 but Paul does not. In effect, “a one-woman man” (1 Tim 3:2) would be a man who As the female elders are compared to the male elders by the is “joined fast to his wife” and “one flesh” with her.109 Thus, the em- use of “likewise” (2:3), now the male youth are compared to the phasis in the text is not on the gender of overseers being men. A female youth: “encourage the younger ones [probably males],103 man with one wife indicates fidelity in marriage and being devoted likewise, to be wise concerning all, showing yourself a model to the spouse, which is a quality necessary for leadership. A single, of good works, in the teaching—pure, honorable, beyond re- chaste man (or woman) would not contradict Paul’s prescription. proach with a healthy message, in order that any opponent might Such a man yet has no wife to whom to be faithful. If single men be ashamed, not having evil to say concerning us” (2:6–8). The could not be overseers, then Paul, maybe even Timothy, could not young men, like the young women, as well as the elders, are to be overseers. In fact, by this reasoning, Jesus, the greatest “Over- be “wise concerning all” (2:2, 6–7). “Concerning all” appears to seer” of our lives (1 Pet 2:25), could not be an overseer!

Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2032 • 11 An additional question to consider is the nature of language Bible Commentary Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 363; that may appear sex-specific, but is in reality generic. If 1 Timo- Fee, 1 Timothy, 186; Kelly, Commentary, 240; Mounce, Pastoral Epistles, 410; Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus, New Interna- thy 3:2 and Titus 1:6 are sex-specific, how, then, would we inter- tional Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd- pret Malachi 2:15, “let none be faithless to the wife of his youth” mans, 2006), 724. (RSV)? Does that mean that Malachi allows wives to be faithless 3. E.g., Titus 1:11; 1 Tim 3:4–5, 12; 5:4; 2 Tim 1:16; 4:19. to their husbands? I think not. 4. E.g., Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 10.3–4. 5. Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Chris- Probably, the translations “faithful in marriage” (CEV) or tians I: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1–2 Timothy, and 1–3 “faithful to their spouse” (1 Tim 3:2 CEB) render best the inten- John (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006), 138. tion of the more literal “a one-woman man.” Further, the over- 6. J. B. Lightfoot, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians (Grand Rapids, seer’s relationship with his (or her) spouse is an important, but MI: Zondervan, 1913), 56–57. not the only, quality for leadership. How can people be faithful 7. Lightfoot, Epistle, 56; Acts 16:13–15, 40; 17:4, 12. 8. Nevertheless, education was not promoted for women, even by and persistent in following God if they cannot be faithful and the wealthy. See Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: persistent in their earthly one-flesh relationship?110 Women in Classical Antiquity (New York, NY: Schocken, 1975), 131, 136–39; Pomeroy, Women in Hellenistic Egypt: From Alexander to Cleopa- Conclusion tra (New York, NY: Schocken, 1984), 66–71; Leanna Goodwater, Women in Antiquity: An Annotated Bibliography (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1975), 15. While the celebrants of Artemis might be encouraged to par- 9. William Tarn, Hellenistic Civilisation, 3rd ed. (New York, NY: ticipate in intoxicated orgiastic practices and the magical con- World, 1952), 98. trol of gods and humans (e.g., Acts 19:19), in contrast, Paul was 10. Pomeroy, Women; Grace Harriet Macurdy, Hellenistic Queens: exhorting self-control, order, and gentleness. Although Ephesus A Study of Woman-Power in Macedonia, Seleucid Syria, and Ptolemaic Egypt, The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Archaeology 14 (Chi- was a place of great wealth, and the heterodox teachers also were cago, IL: Argonaut, 1932). promoting their own financial gain (Titus 1:10–11), the Christian 11. E.g., Mishnah Ketubbot 1:8; 7:6. A woman could be divorced overseers were not to be greedy. Good teaching is essential dur- without financial settlement if she spoke in public with a man. ing times of wrong teaching, controversy, and speculation. 12. Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, and Henry Stuart Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968, hereafter LSJ), “Apt or skillful at teaching” in 1 Timothy 3:2 is a key character- 1711–12; 1 Cor 3:8–9. istic for an overseer at a time when the church is confused about 13. 2 Cor 1:1, 24; 1 Tim 1:1; 2:7 (Paul: apostle, teacher); Rom 16:21; 1 which teaching is sound and unsound.111 Effective teaching is Thess 3:2; 2 Tim 4:5 (Timothy: evangelist); Acts 15:32; 2 Cor 1:19, 24 (Silas: often combined with wisdom.112 The women at Ephesus needed prophet); Phil 2:25; 4:2–3; Rom 16:3 (Aída Besançon Spencer, Beyond the Curse: Women Called to Ministry [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1985], 118–19). to learn (1 Tim 2:11). The women at Crete needed to teach (Titus 14. Phil 1:5; 4:15–19; 2 Cor 8:1–5. 2:3). Believers needed to be taught so they could teach others (2 15. Derek Thomas, “The Place of Women in the Church at Philippi,” Tim 2:2). Teaching is so important that elders who teach should Expository Times (January 1972): 120. be paid more than others (1 Tim 5:17–18). 16. W. M. Ramsay, The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia I (Oxford: In summary, although women were more prominent in these Clarendon, 1895), 5, 7, 94. 17. Ramsay, Cities, 264. secular cultures, the Jewish and Gentile disciples of Jesus did 18. Spencer, Beyond the Curse, 63. not automatically limit their prominence, as in Macedonia and 19. Ramsay, Cities, 118. Crete. In contrast, they assumed the leadership of women in the 20. W. M. Ramsay, Asianic Elements in Greek Civilisation (New churches of Philippi and Crete. Although the women in Ephe- York, NY: AMS, 1927), 172–73, 263, 267, 296. 21. Rick Strelan, Paul, Artemis, and the Jews in Ephesus, Beihefte zur sus in Anatolia also had a heritage of secular leadership, Paul did Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der limit their teaching because they had been affected by negative älteren Kirche 80 (New York, NY: Walter de Gruyter, 1996), 191. Paul aspects of the pagan religions. Instead, he placed them on a pro- Trebilco, Jewish Communities in Asia Minor, Society for New Testament gram to prepare them for leadership through education. What Studies Monograph Series 69 (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 112–26. key principle is, then, above culture? Affirmation and knowledge 22. Pausanias, Description of Greece (Descr.) 4.31.8. of healthy, accurate teaching is what counts above all. The dis- 23. Strelan, Paul, 46. ciples were most concerned with this. They did not travel about 24. Pausanias, Descr. 8. 13.1. teaching distinctive roles for men and for women in the church, 25. Strabo, Geography (Geogr) 14.1.23 [C641]; Jerome Murphy- O’Connor, St. Paul’s Ephesus: Texts and Archaeology (Collegeville, MN: but, rather, right knowledge and action. Liturgical, 2008), 24. Notes 26. Catherine Clark Kroeger, “God/dess of the Past,” The Goddess Revival: A Biblical Response to God(dess) Spirituality, ed. Aída Besançon 1. E.g., William D. Mounce, Word Biblical Commentary 46: Pasto- Spencer et al. (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1995), 58. Florence May Ben- ral Epistles (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2000), 410; J. N. D. Kelly, nett (Religious Cults Associated with the Amazons [New York, NY: AMS, A Commentary on The Pastoral Epistles, Harper’s New Testament Com- 1967], 19–20, 38–39) adds that effeminate priests and sex confusion were mentary (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1963), 240; Gordon D. Fee, part of the rites of Artemis at Ephesus. See also Richard Clark Kroeger New International Biblical Commentary: 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus (Peabody, and Catherine Clark Kroeger, I Suffer Not a Woman: Rethinking 1 Timo- MA: Hendrickson, 1988), 186. thy 2:11–15 in Light of Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1992), 2. E.g., Luke Timothy Johnson, Letters to Paul’s Delegates: 1 Timothy, 193–96; Ramsay, Cities, 93–94; Ramsay, Asianic, 174. 2 Timothy, Titus, The New Testament in Context (Valley Forge, PA: Trin- 27. “Virgin” may simply refer to being unmarried. Sex is prohibited ity, 1996), 232–33; Samuel Ngewa, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, African only between husband and wife (Ramsay, Cities, 95, 136; Strelan, Paul, 73, 120).

12 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No.4 ◆ Autumn 2013 28. Pomeroy, Goddesses, 189. Artemidorus Daldianus (of Ephesus) 43. Philo, On the Special Laws 3.31 [169–71]; Against Flaccus 11 [89]; (Onirocritica 4.4) wrote that death is the penalty for a married wom- Spencer, Beyond the Curse, 50. See also Xenophon, Oeconomicus 7.23, 35. an who entered the temple of Artemis of Ephesus; Bennett, Religious 44. Sinclair Hood, The Minoans: The Story of Bronze Age Crete (New Cults, 33. York, NY: Praeger, 1971), 117. The fifteen known women who were high 29. Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae (Deipn.) 12. 525C; Murphy- priests in Ephesus is the largest group known from any city (Strelan, O’Connor, St. Paul’s, 50; Strelan, Paul, 76. Artemis was called “savior” Paul, 120). because her temple was a place of refuge (Colin Hemer, The Letters to the 45. Euripides, Iphigeneia at Tauris, 41. Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting, JSNT 11 [Sheffield: JSOT, 46. Bruce W. Winter, Roman Wives, Roman Widows: The Appear- 1986], 48). ance of New Women and the Pauline Communities (Grand Rapids, MI: 30. Webster’s Dictionary 2001: 1155. For an example of the mysteries Eerdmans, 2003), 116. of Artemis, see G. H. R. Horsley and S. R. Llewelyn, eds., New Docu- 47. Winter, Roman Wives, 178. Nevertheless, a few Roman women ments Illustrating Earliest Christianity, 6 (NSW, Australia: Ancient His- gave public speeches (Pomeroy, Goddesses, 175–76). tory Documentary Research Centre, Macquarie University, 1992), 200– 48. Sanford Hull lists the many exegetical difficulties in 1 Tim 2:8– 02. Betz includes samples of ancient spells of power (Hans Dieter Betz, 15 (Gretchen Gaebelein Hull, Equal to Serve: Women and Men in the ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation (Chicago, IL: University of Church and Home [Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming Revell, 1987], 259–65). The- Chicago Press, 1986). A second-century Artemis even has zodiac signs saurus Linguae Graecae lists no verb forms of authentein before the third on her chest; Selahattin Erdemgil, Selçuk Ephesus (Istanbul: Net Turistik century AD. Yayinlar, 2009), 60; Lynn R. LiDonnici, “The Images of Artemis Ephesia 49. See the extensive discussion in Philip B. Payne, Man and Wom- and Greco-Roman Worship: A Reconsideration,” Harvard Theological an, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul’s Letters Review 85, no. 4 (Oct. 1992): 407. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 361–92; Linda Belleville, “Teach- 31. Spencer, Goddess Revival, 82. ing and Usurping Authority: 1 Timothy 2:11–15,” Discovering Biblical 32. Pharmakeia could refer to drugs or witchcraft (LSJ, 1917). The Equality: Complementarity without Hierarchy, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, Ephesian Six Letters functioned as charms to make the bearers invin- IL: InterVarsity, 2005), 209–17; Kroeger, Suffer, 87–103, 185–88. cible (Athenaeus, Deipn. 12.548c); Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s, 51; Otto 50. Josephus describes Antipater, Herod’s son, as an authentēs be- F. Meinardus, St. Paul in Ephesus and the Cities of Galatia and Cyprus cause he was accused of killing his family members (Jewish War 2.12.5 (New Rochelle, NY: Lycabettus, 1979), 92. [232–40]; 1.30.1 [582]). Philo describes the person who has tried to de- 33. For an example of a syncretistic spell of attraction, see Betz, stroy the virtues as his “own murderer” (That the Worse Attacks the Bet- Greek Magical Papyri, 89. ter 21 [78]). The Wisdom of Solomon describes bad parents as authentai 34. Ronald E. Heine, The Commentaries of Origen and Jerome on St. who “kill defenseless souls by their own hands” (12:6). Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: 51. Roman History; Civil Wars 1.7.61; 3.13.115; 4.17.134. Oxford University Press, 2002), 77. 52. Hist. 16.61.1; 16.5.4. Some scholars have posited that the noun 35. Elaine Fantham, et al., Women in the Classical World: Image and and verb have different root meanings, e.g., Andreas J. Köstenberger and Text (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1994), 134; Martin P. Nils- Thomas R. Schreiner, eds., Women in the Church: An Analysis and Ap- son, The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and Its Survival in Greek Religion, plication of 1 Timothy 2:9–15 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2005), 45, 102. 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Biblo and Tannen, 1971), 503, 509. However, the definitive grammarian A. T. Robertson indicates that the 36. Jacquetta Hawkes, Dawn of the Gods (New York, NY: Random: verb authenteō comes from the noun authentēs (A Grammar of the Greek 1968), 286 (picture 126). The Cretan Bacchic frenzy worship continued New Testament in the Light of Historical Research [Nashville, TN: Broad- in Ephesus (Strabo, Geogr. 10.3.7 [C466]; Kroeger, Suffer, 54). The festival man, 1934], 147–48). of Artemis included heavy drinking (Christine Thomas, “At Home in the 53. LSJ, 896. City of Artemis,” Ephesos: Metropolis of Asia, An Interdisciplinary Ap- 54. LSJ, 924; BDAG, 531. Katakurieuō is used of the demons who proach to Its Archaeology, Religion, and Culture [Valley Forge, PA: Trin- “overpower” the Jewish exorcists so that they are left naked and wound- ity, 1995], 110), though not all aspects of the festivals were unwholesome. ed (Acts 19:16). See Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s, 63, 175, 177, 199; Paul Trebilco, “Asia,” 55. LSJ, 275. Editors Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida agree The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting 2, The Book of Acts in Its that authenteō signifies “to control in a domineering manner” (Greek- Graeco-Roman Setting, ed. David W. J. Gill and Conrad Gempf (Grand English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains I, 2nd Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994): 321–22; Irene Ringwood Arnold, “Festivals ed. [New York, NY: United Bible Societies, 1989], 474). of Ephesus,” American Journal of Archaeology 76 (1972): 17–22. 56. Statues uncovered of Artemis and coins of Ephesus often include 37. “Silence” is emphasized by being placed before the verb in 2:11 the figure of a queen bee, e.g., Peter Scherrer, ed., Ephesus: The New and by being repeated at the end of 2:12. Guide (Turkey: Gaphis, 2000), 205, 213; Kroeger, Suffer, 71. See Ephesus 38. E.g., 1 Tim 1:7; 2:11; 2 Tim 3:6–7. Museum, Selçuk, Turkey. 39. Mi shnah ‘Abot 1:17. For more references, see Spencer, Beyond the 57. Charles D. Michener and Mary H. Michener, “Bee,” Collier’s En- Curse, 77–80. cyclopedia 3 (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1987): 763. 40. Noeō (Frederick William Danker, ed., A Greek-English Lexicon of 58. “Artemis,” Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd ed., ed. N. G. L. Ham- the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. [Chica- mond and H. H. Scullard (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970 (hereafter OCD), go, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000; hereafter BDAG], 674–75; Jo- 126; LSJ, 248; Nilsson, The Minoan-Mycenaen Religion, 509. Another ety- seph Henry Thayer, Thayer’s Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament mology is “safe and sound” (Artemidorus Daldianus, Oniocritica 2.35; [Marshallton, DE: National Foundation for Christian Education, 1889], Strabo, Geogr 14.1.6). 426–27). For example, Jesus realizes that his disciples have observed 59. In Euripides’s tales, first the angry Artemis demands the sacrifice that, when they eat something, it enters the stomach and then leaves the of the maiden Iphigeneia, daughter of Agamemon, to appease herself body. But, they have not carefully thought that this physical principle (Iphigeneia at Aulis, 89–93) and then snatches her from the altar to make is analogous to a spiritual lesson (Matt 15:16–20). The rabbinic laws of her priestess of her temple in Taurica, north of the Black Sea. When- purity and impurity directing ways of eating are not what make someone ever any Greek men came to that coast, they were seized and sacrificed. pure (Matt 15:1–20). Faith helps one understand matters spiritually. See Iphigeneia was forced to consecrate them to Artemis for death on the also Heb 11:3; Matt 16:9; 24:15; John 12:40; Rom 1:20; Eph 3:4; 2 Tim 2:7. altar. “I consecrate the victim,” Iphigeneia laments, “in rites of that dark 41. 2 Tim 1:5; 3:14–15. cult wherein Artemis joys—fair is its name alone.” While Artemis barred 42. Mishnah Qiddushin 1:7; Hagigah 1:1; Sukkah 2:8; Spencer, Beyond murderers from her altars, she “yet joys herself in human sacrifice!” the Curse, 47–57.

Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2032 • 13 (Euripides, Iphigeneia at Tauris, 35, 40, 381–84). Clement of Alexandria 66. Bennett, Religious Cults, 75; Winter, Roman Wives, 141. refers to these sacrifices (Exhortation to the Greeks, ch. 3). 67. Cyrus H. Gordon, “Minoan Civilization,” Collier’s Encyclopedia 60. Euripides, Iph. taur., 1458–61. 16: 330. Keith Branigan and Michael Vickers, Hellas: The Civilizations of 61. Herododotus, Hist 4.117; Bennett, Religious Cults, 10–11. Ancient Greece (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1980), 23. 62. Kroeger, Goddess Revival, 58, 61; OCD, 127. Self-castration of the 68. Gordon, “Minoan”: 332–33; Branigan and Vickers, Hellas, 41–43. eunuchs as consecration to the goddess could be a frenzied and bloody 69. See also Titus 2:7, 12–14; 3:1–2, 8, 14. rite (Thomas, Ephesos, 91). See also Kroeger, Suffer, 185. 70. Since the initial noun “elders” is in the accusative (direct object) 63. I. Howard Marshall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on case, the verb is implied. “Elders” (2:3), “slaves” (2:9), and “the younger the Pastoral Epistles, ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999), 441–42. Oth- ones” are likewise in the accusative case, but “the younger ones” has a er helpful samples of similar conclusions about 1 Tim 2:11–14: (1) Di- verb “encourage” or “be encouraging,” which likely is the missing verb daskein “forbids women to teach a wrong doctrine.” Paul does not allow in all three sections. a woman “to proclaim herself author of man,” going back to the sense of 71. Matt 24:45–49; 25:21–23; Luke 12:14, 42–44; Acts 7:26–27, 35. authentēs as the responsibility of the subject in the accomplishment of 72. Matt 21:23; 26:3–4, 47, 57; 27:1, 12; John 9:22; 12:42; 16:2; Acts 4:5– an act or function. 1 Tim 2:12 may prohibit “cultic action involving actual 9; 25:15; mishnah Sanhedrin; Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish Peo- or representational murder” (Kroeger, Suffer, 81, 99, 103, 185, 192). (2) ple in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 BC–AD 135) II, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: T. Authentein has the connotation “to domineer.” Some kind of “disruptive & T. Clark, 1979), 431–35; Lee I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First behavior, which perhaps included boisterous affirmation of the heresies, Thousand Years (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), ch. 5. seems to lie behind these instructions” (Fee, 1 Timothy, 73). See also REB, 73. Luke 13:14; Acts 13:15. “I do not permit women to teach or dictate to the men,” and CEV, “They 74. Bernadette J. Brooten, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue: should be silent and not be allowed to teach or to tell men what to do” Inscriptional Evidence and Background Issues, Brown Judaic Studies 36 (2:12). (3) The second verb (authenteō) modifies the first verb (didaskō), (Chico: Scholars, 1982), chs. 3, 4; Levine, Synagogue, 482, 486. Trebil- similar in function to a pleonasm or hendiadys: I am not permitting a co, Jewish Communities, 104–25. He notes Rufina (Ionia), Theopempte woman to teach with self-assumed authority over a man. In other words, (Caria), Sophia (Crete), Peristeria (Thebes), Rebecca (Thrace), Sara the connecting oude combines two conceptually different elements to Ura (Rome), Makaria Mazauzala (Oea), and Eulogia (Malta). He found express a single idea (Payne, Man and Woman, 337–59). See also TNIV, twenty-one women with titles in ancient synagogues. The prostatēs (Jael, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man” Phoebe in Rom 16:2) in some communities was probably “the most im- (2:12). The footnote has, “Or teach a man in a domineering way.” (4) portant official” (109). “Paul is addressing women who have been involved in teaching the her- 75. E.g., Luke 7:2–4; 14:32; 19:14. esy,” or have assumed the teaching role inappropriately “out of a desire to 76. 2 Cor 5:19–20. dominate in the public meeting” (Towner, Letters, 223–24). (5) Paul “con- 77. Peter includes himself as one of many in 1 Pet 5:1, but John simply sidered it inappropriate for women to arrogate authority to themselves. calls himself “the elder” in 2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1. See also Brooten, Wom- This would explain why Paul did not use the common word for having en Leaders, 53. Christian elders first appear in Acts. Elders in Jerusalem authority, exousiazō, in 1 Tim 2:12” (Walter L. Liefeld, “Women and the receive the gifts collected by Barnabas and Saul (Paul) for the starving Nature of Ministry,” JETS 30:1 [March 1987]: 52). (6) “Paul may here be Christians in Judea (Acts 11:29–30). As in Crete, at the second visit to warning against a domineering use of authority, rather than merely any new churches in Asia Minor, Paul and Barnabas oversaw the election of use of authority” (Craig S. Keener, Paul, Women, and Wives: Marriage elders in every church (Acts 14:23). Each church would have more than and Women’s Ministry in the Letters of Paul [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, one elder (Acts 20:17). The apostles and elders in Jerusalem would decide 1992]: 109). (7) Authenteō is not “gender-specific,” as John Chrysostom questions of heterodoxy versus orthodoxy. The whole church would con- advises husbands not to “be despotic or domineer the woman” (Hom 10 sent to their decision (Acts 15:2–23; 16:4). As the apostles, even Christian Col). The verb “characterizes the nature of the teaching rather than the elders have the responsibility to pray for healing (Jas 5:14; Mark 6:7, 13). role of women in church leadership in general” (Witherington, Letters, 78. Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon, 242. “Elders” and “overseers” are 227–28). (8) “It is inconsistent to regard the dress code in 1 Timothy 2:9 also synonyms in Acts 20:17, 28, and 1 Peter 5:1–2. A. T. Robertson (Word as culturally relative and, therefore, temporary, but the restriction on Pictures in the New Testament III: The Acts of the Apostles [Nashville, TN: women’s ministry in 2:12 as universal and permanent. All these instruc- Broadman, 1930], 217) suggests “elder” was the Jewish name and “over- tions are part of the same paragraph, the same flow of thought” (Rebecca seer” the Greek name for the same office. Merrill Groothuis, Good News for Women: A Biblical Picture of Gender 79. LSJ, 1462; Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon, 535. Equality [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1997]: 214). (9) “We must resist read- 80. E.g., NRSV, NIV, TNIV, REB, TEV, CEV, NASB, JB have “older ing our way of doing things back into the practice of the early church. men/women.” KJV has “aged men” and “aged women” (2:2–3). Spanish Teaching in the New Testament era was an activity, not an office. . . . It versions do not differentiate between Titus 1:5–6 and 2:2, 3, rendering was a gift, not a position of authority” (Linda L. Belleville, Women Lead- them all “anciano/a,” Reina-Valera 1995, Dios Habla Hoy, Biblia de las ers and the Church: Three Crucial Questions [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, Américas, Nueva Versión Internacional. 2000], 173). “There is no first-century warrant for translating authentein 81. E.g., Lev 19:32; Deut 28:50; Isa 9:14–15; Wis 2:10. as ‘to exercise authority.’ . . . Rather the sense is the Koine ‘to dominate, 82. E.g., Abraham, Gen 25:8; Jacob, Gen 43:27; Eli, 1 Sam 2:22; 4:18; to get one’s way.’” “To define a purpose or goal actually provides a good Zechariah, Luke 1:18. fit: ‘I do not permit a woman to teach so as to gain mastery over a man,’ 83. See translation by H. Anderson, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2 or ‘I do not permit a woman to teach with a view to dominating a man” (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1985), 561. (Belleville, “Teaching and Usurping Authority: 1 Timothy 2:11–15,” Dis- 84. First to fourth century AD; Brooten, Women Leaders, 41. Levine covering Biblical Equality: Complementarity without Hierarchy, 2nd ed. confirms that women have been identified as elders and rulers of the [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2005], 216, 219). synagogue (officials) in the area of Asia Minor and its immediate sur- 64. Hymenaeus and Alexander are punished instead of educated be- roundings: Smyrna, Crete, Myndos, Thrace, Venosa, Tripolitania, Rome, cause they apparently know they did wrong (1 Tim 1:19–20). and Malta (10 percent of total names mentioned); Ancient Synagogue, 65. Chrysostom (Homiliae in Genesim 17.19) also notes that Eve did 482–83, 487. Greg Horsely (“Early Evidence of Women Officers in the not deceive Adam. Alan G. Padgett agrees that Eve is a type of those who Church,” Priscilla Papers 1 [Fall 1987]: 4) has found numerous examples of are being deceived by false teachers, but, in 1 Tim 2:11–14, Adam is a type female elders. Moreover, even the term presbytera has been used for older of Timothy and Paul’s sound doctrine (As Christ Submits to the Church: women in 1 Tim 5:2. All this data contradicts Mounce’s pronouncement A Biblical Understanding of Leadership and Mutual Submission [Grand that “there was no position of ‘women elders’ in the Pauline churches or Rapids, MI: Baker, 2011], 94, 96, 99). in the second century” (Pastoral Epistles, 270). In Ireland, women were

14 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No.4 ◆ Autumn 2013 ordained as bishops, for example, Brigid (c. AD 455–525) as a priest and a 99. Keum Ju (Jewel) Hyun notes that Prov 31 foreshadows Paul’s ad- bishop, whose successors were always to have episcopal orders and honor monition in Titus 2:3–5 (“How Titus 2:3–5 May Be Used Today as a Basis due to a bishop, and also Hilda and Beoferlic. Not until the twelfth centu- for Older Women to Mentor Younger Women,” M.A. thesis, Gordon- ry were the dignity and honors of a bishop removed from the titles of the Conwell Theological Seminary, 2001, 55). abbesses of Kildare. Many women in Gaul were also ordained to conduct 100. Aída Spencer, “Peter’s Pedagogical Method in 1 Peter 3:6,” Bul- the Mass (Peter Berresford Ellis, Celtic Women: Women in Celtic Society letin for Biblical Research 10:1 (2000): 110; 1 Pet 2:13, 17; 3:1. and Literature [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995], 37–38, 146–47). 101. Spencer, “Pedagogical Method,” 109; Willetts, Ancient Crete, 87. 85. Not until the Council of Laodicea (AD 363) is the order of female Alan G. Padgett, among others, mentions the evangelistic, apologetic, or elders forbidden by some (Brooten, Women Leaders, 43, 45). missionary nature of Paul’s exhortations in Titus, “for the advancement 86. Catherine Clark Kroeger agrees, “presbytēs is best understood of the church in the face of first century opposition” (“The Pauline Ra- as a church officer,” a “female presbyter” (The IVP Women’s Bible Com- tionale for Submission: Biblical Feminism and the hina Clauses of Titus mentary [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002], 757). 2:1–10,” The Evangelical Quarterly 59:1 (Jan 1987): 50–51; As Christ Sub- 87. Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek, eds., Ordained Women in the mits to the Church, 86–87. Early Church: A Documentary History (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins 102. According to the Cretan Gortyn Code, the father had power University Press, 2005), 210. Ammion, Artemidora, Epiktō, Kalē, Leta, over the children and the property. Strabo, Geogr 10.4.16, 20; Plato, Laws Martia, Flavia Vitalia, and Guilia Runa are mentioned (169–71, 191–98). 1.625C–626A; Aristotle, Politics 2.2.10 [1264a]; 2.6.21 [1271a]; 2.7.3 [1272a]; 88. Madigan and Osiek, Ordained Women, 191–92. The Acts of Philip Willetts, Ancient Crete, 86–87, 111, 113–14, 117, 119. (4–5th c.) assumes male and female presbyters (167). 103. The masculine plural can also serve as the generic, but, since 89. See also Fee, 1 Timothy, 184; Towner, Letters, 722. younger women were earlier mentioned (2:5), younger males are prob- 90. Hieroprepēs is composed of hieros (“holy”) and prepō (“appropri- ably intended in 2:6. ate”). Hieroprepēs signifies “appropriate to a sacred place.” It is a synonym 104. Only Timothy and Titus are singled out as individual cowork- for semnos (Titus 2:2). It can refer to a temple, e.g., the “sacred precinct” of ers who are patterns (typos) to be followed. a temple of the Mother of the gods (Strabo, Geogr 12.5.3 [C567]) or to a per- 105. Pomeroy, Goddesses, 193; Fantham, Women, 300, 306, 323; Win- son, e.g., a “sacred youth” who died heroically for his faith (4 Macc 9:25). ter, Roman Wives, 41. 91. Hierateuma and hiereus, 1 Pet 2:5; Rev 1:6; 5:10; Exod 19:6 LXX; 106. “Legitimate” (gnēsiōs) is the same term used for Timothy and Isa 61:6. Walter Lock writes, “they are to carry into daily life the demean- Titus by Paul (1 Tim 1:2; Titus 1:4). or of priestesses in a temple.” A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on 107. “Hetairiai,” OCD, 512. the Pastoral Epistles, ICC (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1924), 140. See also 108. “Adultery,” OCD, 10–11. Jewish law also contains, according to Fee, 1 Timothy, 186; Towner, Letters, 723; Witherington, Letters, 137. Tai Ilan, “no definition of or provision against adultery by the husband 92. 1 Tim 1:3, 7; 4:7; 5:13–14. against his wife, since he may marry more than one woman; the wife, on 93. An exception would be a minor who was allowed to marry an the other hand, must remain strictly faithful to her husband. The only heiress who could be even as young as twelve to safeguard the house- way a man can commit adultery is with another man’s wife.” Jewish Wom- hold’s interests. en in Greco-Roman Palestine (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 135. 94. R. F. Willetts, Ancient Crete: A Social History, From Early Times 109. Matt 19:5–6; Gen 2:24. For a discussion of the meaning of “one Until the Roman Occupation, Studies in Social History (Toronto: Univer- flesh,” see Spencer, et al., Marriage at the Crossroads: Couples in Conver- sity of Toronto Press, 1965), 48. sation about Discipleship, Gender Roles, Decision Making, and Intimacy 95. Jacquetta Hawkes, Dawn of the Gods (New York, NY: Random, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 25–31. 1968), 52, 55, 58. 110. See also 1 John 4:20. 96. Gordon, “Minoan Civilization,” 334. 111. 1 Tim 1:10; 2 Tim 4:3–4; Titus 1:9. 97. Spartans could not live with their wives until the men were thirty 112. E.g., Jas 3:1, 13, 15, 17 sophia; Acts 26:25 sōphrosunē. years of age (Strabo, Geogr 10.4.20 [C482]; Willetts, Ancient Crete, 112–14). 98. The Shulammite also is a vineyard keeper (Song 1:6) and, as well, Rachel was a shepherd (Gen 29:9). Prisca and Aquila had a joint busi- ness (Acts 18:3).

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16 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No.4 ◆ Autumn 2013 The Authority of the Bible and the Authority of the Theological Tradition Kevin Giles

A perennial and difficult question for conservative evangelicals to accept the creeds and confessions, that they are the most authori- answer is the relationship between the Bible and the creeds and tative interpretation of what the Bible teaches on the doctrines confessions of the church. We evangelicals say that we believe in they define. the ultimate authority and sufficiency of Scripture. We thus of- The term “tradition” ten hear evangelical teachers saying, “What we believe and teach comes directly from the Bible.” I frequently heard these words Confusion comes from the fact that the word “tradition” in as a young theological student, and they rang in my mind for church life can mean many things. It can refer to differing cus- twenty years until one day, when writing an article on “the how” toms on which the Bible is silent, such as what time the church of doing evangelical theology, I came to see they were inherently should meet, what hymns are sung, or how the church building untrue. We evangelicals draw on a rich theological tradition that is configured; or to doctrinal beliefs that have no biblical war- impacts heavily on how we interpret Scripture on doctrinal mat- rant, yet cannot be absolutely condemned, such as clergy robes, ters. Scripture is our ultimate authority in matters of faith and candles, and crosses, or to longstanding church teaching that is conduct, but we always come to Scripture with the theology or contrary to Scripture, such as purgatory, praying to Mary, and doctrine we have inherited from our teachers and mentors in our salvation by works. These we may lump together and call “church minds. This theology does not spring directly from the pages of traditions.” The sixteenth-century Reformers and most evangeli- Scripture. It is the product of a long process of reflection and de- cals today give no weight whatsoever to church traditions and, bate over many centuries as to what is the primary emphasis, the when they contradict Scripture, they reject them. fundamental insight, given the diverse teaching of Scripture on The Reformers, and historically informed contemporary specific doctrinal issues. evangelicals, sharply distinguish “church traditions” and “the For most Christians, the content of their theological beliefs is tradition,” understood as the theological or the interpretative first of all summed up in the three historic creeds; the Apostles, tradition that articulates the communal mind of the church on the Athanasian, and, most importantly, in the Nicene Creed, what the Scriptures teach on the great doctrines of the faith, now which is accepted by Eastern and Western Christians. These deal codified in creeds and confessions. As communal agreements on mainly with the doctrines of Christ and the Trinity. They express what the Bible teaches read holistically, these creeds and confes- what the church came to conclude, after a period of sharp and sions are (for those who submit to them) prescriptive both of divisive debate, is the teaching of Scripture read holistically on what is to be believed and of how the Bible is to be interpreted these two doctrines. For churches stemming from the Reforma- rightly on the doctrines they address. tion and post-Reformation period, their “confessions of faith” When we come to doctrines that were not disputed in the endorse what the creeds say on Christ and the Trinity, but they early church or in the Reformation age, we may not have any also define many other doctrines, especially those disputed in the theological tradition to guide us in the doctrinal interpretation of sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Like the creeds, they docu- Scripture. The contentious intramural evangelical debate about ment what the church has concluded is the primary and founda- the status and ministry of women is an example of this. What the tional teaching of Scripture on specific issues when this has been Bible teaches on the sexes was not discussed or contested until contested. very recently, and no creed or confession speaks on this matter. What the creeds and confessions teach is called “the theo- Theologians in the past generally reflected exactly the cultural logical tradition,” or “the interpretative tradition,” or just “the view of women that prevailed and then found an interpretation tradition.” Evangelicals agree this codified body of prescribed of a text or two to support their patriarchal mindset. Neither doctrines is a subordinate authority. Scripture is the ultimate au- side today wants to endorse their many very negative comments thority. This is true, yet, in practice, these two authorities can- not be sharply separated. For many if not most evangelicals, the KeVIn GILes (Thd) is an Australian Anglican pastor, theologian, creeds and confessions sum up what the church has agreed is the and author. on the Trinity, he has published The teaching of Scripture when this has been disputed. They reflect Trinity and Subordinationism: The Doctrine of God the collective mind of the church on how Scripture is rightly and the Contemporay Gender Debate (InterVarsity, interpreted on the great doctrines, in opposition to those who 2002), Jesus and the Father: Modern Evangelicals quote the Bible selectively to uphold an idiosyncratic doctrinal Reinvent the Doctrine of the Trinity (Zondervan, position. Possibly, the best way to express what has just been said 2006), The Eternal Generation of the Son: Maintain- ing Orthodoxy in Trinitarian Theology (InterVarsity, is to say that, for all evangelicals, the Bible is divine revelation 2012), and many articles in scholarly journals. and thus supremely authoritative, and, for those evangelicals who

Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2032 • 17 on women, or their interpretation of the texts they quoted, or Theologians can have all sorts of ideas as to what the Bible their selective appeal to Scripture. No contemporary evangeli- teaches on this or that issue, but their views are only opinions cal endorses “church tradition” on this matter. We are, rather, until there is communal consensus. For a theological opinion to all pioneers seeking to discover the central and primary teach- become a doctrine, the Christian community must decide that ing of Scripture read holistically on the sexes. In other words, we what is being taught accurately captures the primary and foun- evangelicals are striving to establish a doctrine or theology of the dational teaching of Scripture amid its varied comments on the sexes that will make sense of the varied comments in Scripture on issue in contention. This observation reminds us that doctrine this issue. As the church has discovered in the past, this cannot or theology is always an expression of the mind of the church. be done by proof-texting or by choosing arbitrarily our starting It is communal belief. Once consensus has been reached, this point. The approach that will bring consensus is to follow faith- consensus, now called “the tradition,” becomes the best guide we fully the methodology of biblical theology. We begin our study of have for rightly reading Scripture. It is what the church has de- what the Bible says on the sexes where the Bible begins, Genesis’s termined after a long and painful debate, invariably involving the chapter 1, and end where the Bible ends, Revelation’s chapter 22. best of theologians, is the right interpretation of the whole scope of Scripture.

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18 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No.4 ◆ Autumn 2013 Is God Like a Totem Pole or a Circle? Why We Need to Insist on Nicaean Orthodoxy to Avoid Falling Into Heresy1 William David Spencer

Is God more like a totem pole or a circle? That is to ask, is God some readers’ churches. This great and ancient statement of faith a being in tandem, a hierarchical Godhead with degrees of rank, says of the Trinity: “But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, glory, and even divinity: the Father at the top, the Son in the mid- and of the Holy Ghost is all one; the Glory equal, the Majesty coe- dle, and the Holy Spirit on the bottom? Or, is the Trinity an equal ternal”; “The Father unlimited; the Son unlimited; and the Holy community—a permanent triunity of one great God, in three Ghost unlimited. The Father eternal; the Son eternal; and the completely coeternal, completely coequal persons (or personali- Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three eternals, but one ties, or faces)? eternal”; “So likewise the Father is Almighty; the Son Almighty; A more contemporary way to ask is: Is the Trinity more a fam- and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And yet they are not three Al- ily or a business? In a family, different members can come to the mighties; but one Almighty. So the Father is God; the Son is God; fore depending on what the family is addressing. In a business, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods; but the chairperson of the board is over the chief executive officer, one God.” “And in this Trinity none is before, or after another; who is over the plant manager. none is greater, or less than another. But the whole three Persons One evangelical brother who espouses the totem-pole model are coeternal, and coequal. So that in all things, as aforesaid; the in the Trinity describes the divine relationships this way: “The Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped.”6 Father is supreme over all, and in particular, he is supreme within Thus, in the view of the disciples of Athanasius, the champion the Godhead as the highest in authority and the one deserving of of Nicaean orthodoxy, one divine Person is not regarded as hav- ultimate praise.”2 He also writes: ing a greater degree of glory, praise, or worship. And this creed makes no reference to the exercising of an eternal one-way au- An authority-submission structure marks the very nature of thority that is then applied to the home and to limit the ministry the eternal Being of the one who is three. In this authority- of women. submission structure, the three Persons understand the right- Today, however, the totem pole model has become very wide- ful place each has. The Father possesses the place of supreme spread and is seeking to influence every male, and especially authority, and the Son is the eternal Son of the eternal Father. every female, in the Christian community by confronting them As such, the Son submits to the Father just as the Father, as with an increasingly powerful set of voices purporting to speak eternal Father of the eternal Son, exercises authority over the for biblical sexuality, such as the professor we cited earlier. Son. And the Spirit submits to both the Father and the Son. As we see, the root of its assumptions is the idea that the Bible This hierarchical structure of authority exists in the eternal teaches a one-way domination/subordination structure in the Godhead even though it is also eternally true that each Per- Godhead reflected in domination/subordination domestic and son is fully equal to each other in their commonly possessed ecclesiastical relationships between the sexes. “Male headship” is essence. The implications are both manifold and wondrous.3 its rallying phrase, which it claims is mandated by that eternal Where do such “manifold and wondrous” “implications” take hierarchical order within God’s nature and, therefore, ordained place for this writer? He explains they are “in our own relation- by God’s good pleasure. And females—while equal—are different ships in the home and in ministry,”4 when “wives submit with joy from males, and, because of that difference, are ordained from all and gladness to the husband’s leadership in the home.”5 eternity to be subordinate. For him, such a totem pole model, supposing an eternal, one- Does that sound relevant? It does to me, because it affects ev- way “authority-submission structure” in the Godhead reflects in erything we do and say in the church and everything we teach a one-way, permanent “authority-submission structure” of men our children to do in the home. over women. Men always “exercise authority” and women always So, the question for us is clear. We need to ask: What does the “submit,” as he thinks is done in the Godhead. Bible say about the Trinity? Do we have any indication of which In the other model, the sphere, the Trinity is pictured not as a of these models is right? totem pole, but as an equal community—a permanent triunity of WILLIAM dAVId spencer is ranked Adjunct professor of Theol- one great God in three completely coeternal, completely coequal ogy and the Arts at Gordon-conwell Theological seminary/Bos- persons. ton campus and the editor of Priscilla Papers. His This position has been captured for posterity by the followers newest books are Name in the Papers (an adven- of the great defender of the Council of Nicaea, Athanasius, when ture/mystery novel from Helping Hands press [of they formed his teachings into “The Athanasian Creed,” which Trestle press]) and Reaching for the New Jerusalem: became a universal creed in Christendom in the late AD 400s A Biblical and Theological Framework for the City or early 500s (some one hundred years or so after Athanasius’s (Urban Voice series of Wipf and stock). death) and is used in churches all over the world, perhaps even in

Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2032 • 19 What does the Bible say about the Trinity? to bring all under his control and then bring it to his heavenly Father, the One from whom all the obedient will inherit the heav- First of all, we should note that the Bible does not begin with enly kingdom. As the replacement for the first failing human, the words like, “Long ago, far before our time, God dwelt in peaceful “Second Adam” will submit the entire created realm to God, put- bliss, needing no one and nothing. God was always in three Per- ting our world back into order, as Paul explains in 1 Corinthians sons or Personalities, all in perfect harmony . . . etc., etc.” 15:24–28: No. Genesis tells us nothing about od dispenses information to us on a need- God before creation, but simply starts Then the end will come, when he to-know basis, and, as for the eternal with these words: “In the beginning G hands over the kingdom to God the things about God before creation, God seems God created the heavens and the Father after he has destroyed all do- earth.” What beginning is it talking to have decided we do not need to know. minion, authority and power. For he about? God’s beginning? Of course must reign until he has put all his en- not! God has no beginning. Clearly, it is talking about our begin- emies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ning. The Bible initiates its revelation to us describing our be- For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says ginning and nothing before that. Similarly, the Bible ends with that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this Jesus’s promise, “I am coming soon,” followed by our appropri- does not include God himself, who put everything under ate response to that statement, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus,” and a Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be benediction: “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people, made subject to him who put everything under him, so that Amen” (Rev 22: 20–21). What happened before and what hap- God may be all in all. pens afterwards has little data tucked into the Scriptures. God dispenses information to us on a need-to-know basis, and, as for The debate over 1 Corinthians 15: 24–28 the eternal things about God before creation, God seems to have decided we do not need to know. After all, as Jesus explained Hierarchical thinkers have centered on these verses as a key pas- to Nicodemus, “I have spoken to you of earthly things and you sage describing the eternal relationship between God the Father do not believe, how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly and God the Son. For example, another evangelical professor ex- things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who plains these verses this way: came from heaven” (John 3:12–13). Here is an indication of what will happen after the final judg- So, when the Bible introduces Jesus, it does so by terse state- ment, when all enemies are destroyed and we enter into the ments on the equality of Jesus in the Godhead, such as Philip- eternal state. Just to be sure there is no misunderstanding, pians 2:5–7, which is not primarily intended to impart informa- Paul specifies that it was always the Father who always had tion, but to serve as an illustration urging us to be humble. Look ultimate authority, for it was the Father who “put all things in at what it says: “In your relationships with one another, have the subjection” to the Son—all things, that is, but of course not the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had: Who, being in very nature Father! Paul explicitly says, “He is excepted who put all things God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to in subjection under him.” The Father has never been subject his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the to the Son, “He is excepted.” very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”7 Similarly, John 1:1 begins with a brief statement that, when And then Paul specifies that once every enemy has been con- God began to create the world, the Word, that active agent of the quered and even death has been destroyed, the submission of Trinity, was face to face with God, and therefore distinct, but, the Son to the Father will not cease even at that time, for even at the same time, that Word was God, and, therefore, with God then, “the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put when our world began, actively creating so that nothing came all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all” into being the Word did not create, and this was the distinct per- (v. 28). The Son has been subject to the authority of the Father son of the Godhead who was born into our world as Jesus Christ since before the foundation of the world, and here Paul speci- (John 1:1–11). fies that the Son will continue to be subject to the authority of John 1:18 repeats the counsel Jesus gave to Nicodemus, that the Father forever.8 “no one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is This language of eternal subordination of the Son to the Father himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has is picked up by another set of writers who claim, “And of course, made him known.” this very reality of being in submission to the Father marks the Therefore, the Bible focuses in on the incarnation. Jesus Christ Son’s relationship with the Father for all of eternity future.”9 And took on human flesh in order to do the central task in God’s plan they cite the same passage. So, in the view of such hierarchical to reconcile this rebellious world to Godself. thinkers, Paul is teaching the Corinthians and subsequent read- So, 1 Timothy 3:16 tells us that Christ Jesus “appeared in a body, ers in these verses that the Son’s submission goes on forever. was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached However, verses 27–28 are part of a defense Paul is making among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in 1 Corinthians 15 that there is indeed life after death, so that in glory.” This is where its focus lies, and it stays unwaveringly the Christians of Corinth understand that the mission of Jesus centered on Christ’s search-and-rescue mission, as Jesus works

20 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No.4 ◆ Autumn 2013 Christ to earth did not end with his death, but did, indeed, con- “Lord” placed him on a lower plane than God. Paul’s inten- tinue after a resurrection. In fact, Jesus’s task was not simply to tion was precisely the opposite, viz., to put him on the same lead humanity in righteous and obedient living, as was the first plane with God; and accordingly it is as “Lord” that all divine humans’ pre-fall task, but something even more. In becoming a attributes and activities are ascribed to Christ and all religious last or second Adam, Christ’s mission was greater, having now to emotions and worship are directed to him. In effect, the Old redeem fallen humanity. Testament divine names, Elohim on the one hand, and Je- The great theologian of the Reformation John Calvin, also hovah and Adhonai on the other, are in the New Testament addressing these verses, realizes this, urging readers that, even distributed between God the Father and God the Son with as before his day, some of the “ancient writers who pay no attention little implication of difference in rank here as there. to the person of the Mediator, obscure the real meaning of almost Does this wording suggest Warfield does see any difference in all the teaching one reads in the Gospel of John, and entangle rank? Not at all. He explains: themselves in many snares.” So confusion on this passage is not new and, therefore, “we ought also to understand what we read The only distinction which can be discerned between “God” in Paul: after the judgment ‘Christ will deliver the Kingdom to his and “Lord” in his usage of the terms is a distinction not in God and Father” [1 Cor. 15:24p.]” relative dignity, but in emphasis on active sovereignty. “God” As Calvin begins to unpack the meaning for us, we see im- is, so to speak, a term of pure exaltation; “Lord” carries with mediately his focus on Christ’s “office as the Mediator” takes him it more expressly the idea of sovereign rulership in actual ex- to an understanding that is completely different than that of these ercise. It is probably that Paul’s appropriation specifically of hierarchical voices. the divine designation “Lord” to Christ was in part at least Calvin explains that, rather than a permanent state of eternal occasioned by his conviction that [Christ], as God-man, has subjugation to the Father, Christ, “having completed this subjec- become the God of providence in whose hand is the kingdom. tion” of the world, will have accomplished his mission, and will “yield to the Father his name and crown of glory, and whatever Therefore, for Warfield, “In a word, the term ‘Lord’ seems to have he has received from the Father, that ‘God may be all in all’ (1 been specifically appropriated to Christ not because it is a term of Cor 15:28).” Calvin wants us readers to understand that, to per- function rather than of dignity, but because along with the dig- form this mission, Christ had to become our “Mediator” and our nity it emphasizes also function.”11 “Lord,” each being a title, Calvin explains, that “belongs to the Clearly, both Calvin and Warfield affirm that the submission person of Christ only in so far as it represents a degree midway of Christ in the earthly role of the Second Adam and in the task between God and us.” to reconcile humans to God was temporary, not eternal. But, once Christ has completely fulfilled the role of human- Let me caution readers at this point that I record these obser- ity’s “Lord,” Calvin explains, “Then he returns the lordship to his vations with absolutely no intention to minimize the Bible’s pic- Father [who is also called ‘Lord’ in the Bible, e.g., Matt 22: 44] ture of the exalted position of the unincarnated Father, whom we so that—far from diminishing his own majesty—it may shine all see, in Revelation 4–5, sitting on the throne of heaven, the “seven the more brightly. Then, also, God shall cease to be the Head of spirits,” depicting the Holy Spirit and the Lamb with the marks of Christ, for Christ’s own deity will shine of itself, although as yet having been slain being present as well, while twenty-four elders it is covered by a veil.” Calvin adds, the incarnate “Christ, having who represent faithful humanity relinquish their own honors as then discharged the office of Mediator, will cease to be the am- tribute, as they extol: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to re- bassador of his Father, and will be satisfied with the glory which ceive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and he enjoyed before the creation of the world.”10 by your will they were created and have their beings” (Rev. 4:11). John Calvin is clearly not agreeing that the Son is in eternal Yet, even in this scene in heaven, Jesus Christ is distinguished subjection to the Father, a subjection that continues “forever,” by the sacrifice for humanity, and, indeed, in passages like Ro- or for “all of eternity future,” but rather this person of the Trin- mans 9:5, the humanity of Christ is what is being emphasized, ity ceases to be subjected and reclaims the “glory” that Paul ex- even while his Almighty power and position are being celebrated: plained was emptied out in Philippians 2:6–8, in order for this “Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human face, or permanent personality, or person of the Godhead to in- ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised. carnate and save us by dying for our sins. Amen!” The great late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Princ- There is not a competition going on in the Trinity for which eton theologian Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield also views person secures the highest praises. There is mutual love and mu- “Lord” as “a term of function,” but one that includes “dignity,” in tual glorification (as we see in Jesus’s beautiful prayer in John 17:1– Christ’s mission, as can be seen in his explanation of why “Paul 5), and the kind of tenderness within the Godhead that we need might very well call Christ ‘Lord over all’ but not ‘God over all.’” to emulate in our relationships. The Trinity is altogether lovely. He notes: So, what should we do about all this?

“Lord over all” would have meant, however, precisely what A few years ago, as a result of a conversation with Christians for “God over all” means, and it is singularly infelicitous to give Biblical Equality President Mimi Haddad, I drafted a new creed the impression that Paul in currently speaking of Christ as to affirm the traditional understanding we see in the Athanasian

Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2032 • 21 Creed, and I brought together a team of respected scholars to Today, as throughout history, it is important to make certain make certain what I was draft ing was as accurate to an historic we preserve the historic understanding of the Trinity as stated orthodox and evangelical understanding as we could muster up. in these universally accepted creeds, “Th e Creed of Nicaea” and Th is team included Christians for Biblical Equality founder “Th e Athanasian Creed.” Catherine Kroeger; Mimi Haddad; my wife, Aída Besançon At the same time, it is important in our own practice in the Spencer; Kevin Giles; I. Howard Marshall; Millard Erickson; home and in the church not to limit the ministry of more than Stanley Gundry; Steven Tracy; Alan Myatt; Royce Gruenler; and half of the body of Christ—the female half—but to help everyone Alvera Micklesen, who went carefully over the language to make exercise fully the gift s God has given each in ministry, in humble, certain it remained accessible to all readers. Th ese scholars rep- respectful, mutual submission to one another, as we all submit resented classical studies, biblical studies, theology, and church to Christ. history. We went through many draft s, back and forth, back and Notes forth, refi ning and refi ning. When we were fi nally fi nished, we put it up on its own website 1. Along with new data I have added to it, this article was adapted for all to examine and anyone who agrees to sign. If you who are from a workshop entitled “Who Is the Trinity? Why Is It Important for Egalitarians to Know?” given at the 2013 CBE conference, “Take Every reading my article are in agreement, you can go to the website Th ought Captive to Christ: Ideas Have Consequences,” in Pittsburgh, and sign your name—akin to putting a “like” on a friend’s Face- Pennsylvania (recording available at equalitydepot.com), along with book page. some material from my presentation at the Other Voices in Interpreta- We call our creed, “An Evangelical Statement on the Trinity,” tion Section of the 2012 annual meeting of the Evangelical Th eological and it reads as follows: Society, “Approach and Content: What Was Included in the Statement and Why I Oriented the Th eological Explanation of An Evangelical We believe that the sole living God who created and rules Statement on the Trinity by Athanasius’ Arguments in the De Synodis.” over all and who is described in the Bible is one Triune God 2. Bruce Ware, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, & in three coeternal, coequal persons, each person being pre- Reverence (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005), 51. 3. Ware, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, 21. sented as distinct yet equal, not as three separate gods, but 4. Ware, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, 136. one Godhead, sharing equally in honor, glory, worship, pow- 5. Ware, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, 138. er, authority, rule and rank, such that no per son has eternal 6. Wikipedia contributors, “Athanasian Creed,” Wikipedia, Th e Free primacy over the others. Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasian_Creed (accessed 2013). In the explanation I provided for it, one can see the impact of 7. Scripture quotations are TNIV, unless otherwise noted. Athanasius, the great defender of the Creed of Nicaea (May, AD 8. Wayne Grudem, “Biblical Evidence for the Eternal Submission of 325), as well as the infl uence of the Athanasian Creed on the fi nal the Son to the Father,” in Dennis W. Jowers and H. Wayne House, eds., Th e New Evangelical Subordinationism? (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012), 252. clause of the Statement (which Alan Myatt contributed). Both 9. Fred Sanders and Klaus Issler, Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective the statement and its theological explanation can be accessed at (Nashville, TN: B&H, 2007), 170. www.TrinityStatement.com. 10. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 1, book 2, ch. Th roughout church history, orthodoxy (that is, right belief) 14, sec. 3 (485–86). and orthopraxy (right action) have always been meant to go to- 11. Benjamin Breckinridge Warfi eld, Th e Person and Work of Christ (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1970), 224–26. gether, hand in hand.

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22 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No.4 ◆ Autumn 2013 The Trinity and the Eternal Subordination of the Son Francis Geis The doctrine of the Trinity is one of those core Christian beliefs Each of the Persons participates to some extent in the work of that—on the basis of scriptural revelation, orthodox religious tra- the others . . . Hence we say that while the spheres and func- dition, and common Christian spiritual experience—was care- tions of the Three Persons of the Trinity are different, they fully pondered, debated, and then formulated in the Apostles’ are not exclusive. That which is done by one is participated Creed, Nicene Creed, and Athanasian Creed. These “ecumenical in by the others with varying degrees of prominence. . . . In creeds” are recognized and subscribed to by most Roman Catho- Scripture we find the plan of redemption takes the form of a lic, Greek Orthodox, and Protestant churches as the true defini- covenant not merely between God and His people, but also tion of who and what the Lord God Almighty, the One True God between the different Persons of the Trinity, so that there is, as we worship and serve, truly is. it were, a division of labor, each Person voluntarily assuming a However, both in the past and in the present, some Chris- particular part of the work. . . . In the work of redemption the tian teachers and groups have argued, contrary to the creeds, that situation is analogous to this—through a covenant voluntarily there is an essential hierarchical structure within the Triune God, entered into, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit each undertake a with the Father being supreme over both the Son and the Holy specific work in such a manner, that during the time this work Spirit. In the fourth century, this subordinationist understand- is in progress, the Father becomes officially first, the Son of- ing of the Trinity was known as Arianism. Today, as propagated ficially second, and the Holy Spirit officially third. Yet within by certain evangelical teachers and scholars, it is known as the the essential and inherent life of the Trinity the full equality of eternal subordination of the Son. Before we can address these the Persons is preserved.2 deviations from Christian orthodoxy, we first need to review the This covenant of redemption among the three persons, and not doctrine of the Trinity itself. some hierarchical structure within the Triune God, should be The Trinity is a definition of the deity seen as determining which person has taken up a given task or role in creation and redemption.3 The doctrine of the Trinity is not an object or thing; rather, it is a definition of God’s being and communal character. Dr. Robert The distinction of the ontological and economic K. Wright explains: Trinity explained The Trinity is not a “thing.” It is a doctrine, a propositional The historic, orthodox understanding of the Christian doctrine description amounting to a definition of God. That is, for the of the Trinity is that, within the ontological Trinity (i.e., the theo- Christian, the word Trinity is a synonym for God. It is our logia in the terminology of the Eastern church), in eternity and definition of the Deity. . . . The basic framework of the doc- prior to creation, the Son is in all things equal to the Father, ex- trine consists of six statements, each of them exegeted directly cept he is not the Father. In time and space, during the incarna- from the Bible. They are: 1) The Father is Jehovah, 2) the Son tion and for the purpose of human redemption, the Son was vol- is Jehovah, and 3) the Holy Spirit is Jehovah. These describe untarily subordinate (in function, not essence) to the Father; this the eternal unity of the One God. Then; 4) the Father is not expression of the Trinity is designated by the Church Fathers as the Son, 5) the Son is not the Spirit, and 6) the Spirit is not the the economic Trinity (i.e., the oikonomia). The ecumenical creeds Father, distinguishing the Three Persons with the Being, or and many of the Church Fathers insisted that this distinction be- Substance of God. tween the theologia and the oikonomia was crucial for true and solid interpretations of the scriptural texts regarding the person For this reason, the Athanasian Creed warns us against either and work of Christ and for avoiding various forms of subordina- “confusing the Persons [or] dividing the Substance” of God. tionism. Within God’s eternal being, there are three centers of conscious- Wright makes the following comment regarding the necessity ness who, while they each exhaust the other’s awareness, still of maintaining a proper distinction between the ontological and think of themselves as I and Thou. Jesus’ own expressions in the economic Trinities: great high priestly prayer in John 17 show this clearly.1 It is evident from such New Testament texts as Matthew 11:25– 30; 28:18–20; John 1:1–18; 5:16–30; 10:22–38; 12:44–48; 16:12–15; FrAncIs GeIs is a committed christian lay minister who has Philippians 2:5–11; and Hebrews 1:1–14 that the three persons are taught sunday school and been active in his coequal and coeternal; that each person fully shares the divine church’s worship team, education committee, and life and attributes of the One True God; and that, while each per- missions committee for the last fifteen years. His son may have a primary operation in the divine works of cre- blog is called “Barnabas Hall.” An active member of ation and redemption, the others participate in and support these christians for Biblical equality and a Vietnam era works because they are the works of the One Triune God. veteran, he lives in Lakewood, colorado. Loraine Boettner states:

Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2032 • 23 [I]f each Person is Jehovah, each Person must be equally eter- God the Son, who became a human being in order to save us nal and share the whole of the being of God. Accordingly, the and reconcile us to God the Father, existed in a face-to-face6 rela- many attributes of God as a whole are said to belong to the Son tionship with the Father long before the angels, the universe, and and the Spirit also. The Athanasian statement refers to many human beings were ever created. It was a relationship of mutual of them, and a comprehensive knowledge, love, and respect. he Son, who became a human being in order list appears also in such accounts And, since it was a face-to-face re- as the opening description in the Tto save us and reconcile us to God the Father, lationship, it could not be the gaze of Westminster Confession of Faith. existed in a face-to-face relationship with the Father. some lesser deity looking up in rever- Since finiteness (the attribute of ence and awe to his superior, as Arius having limited being) belongs to the Creation only, we should taught, and as would be required, if the eternal subordination of heed the Athanasian Creed when it says of the Persons that the Son were true. No, only someone who is dearly loved, highly “we worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither esteemed, and treated as an equal and trustworthy partner has a confusing the Persons, nor dividing the Essence” (Art. 3–4). . . . face-to-face relationship wherein there is no attempt to hide one- self from the other or to look down on the other as an inferior. Because the Ontological Trinity exists in eternity, and the Eco- Of this intimate, mutual knowing and this loving face-to-face nomic Trinity describes activities in time, it will be obvious relationship, John has written elsewhere: that to impose temporal relations on the eternal being of God will violate the Creator-creature distinction. The subordinate In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was obedience of the [incarnate] Son growing up in Nazareth or with God, and the Word was God. . . . The Word gave life to on the Cross itself, is not to be reimposed backwards on the everything that was created, and his life brought light to ev- relationship between the First and Second Persons in eternity. eryone. . . . So the Word became human and made his home The Ontological Trinity contains no finite or temporal rela- among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And tions in itself, apart from God’s plan for the future of the finite we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only world. God’s plan is not his ontology, but only his foreknowl- Son. From his abundance we have all received one gracious edge of a created future. God’s Being logically precedes his blessing after another. . . . No one has ever seen God. But the Knowledge. In fact, God’s knowledge includes his knowledge Unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. of his own being. The future plan for the creation flows from He has revealed him. (John 1:1, 4, 14, 16–18) God’s Being, not vice versa. The temporal relations of the Jesus himself revealed that he was not only loved and esteemed economy cannot be imposed on the ontology in eternity. The as the Father’s Son, but also that, because the Son is an equal and economy manifests the plan in eternity, but its subordination trustworthy partner, the Father gave him full authority and en- cannot be imposed on the Persons in the eternal ontology.4 trusted him with the grand task of revealing the Father and his A failure to maintain the proper distinction between the onto- eternal purposes. Jesus himself stated, “My Father has entrusted logical Trinity and the economic Trinity is one of two key reasons everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, underlying the promotion by certain evangelical Protestants of and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to the current heresy of the eternal subordination of the Son. whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matt 11:27). This is not the pronouncement of some high-ranking assistant A meditation on the ontological Trinity from 1 John to a superior heavenly CEO. No, indeed—these are the words of Key texts in 1 John help us to understand that, while the onto- a Son who, if I may make the analogy with some reservation, is logical and economic Trinities must be properly distinguished, presented by Matthew as a full and equal partner with his Father they are vitally connected. The action of the latter in creation and in the “family business” of rescuing and restoring the world they redemption flows out of the communal character and covenant created together (cf. Gen 1–2; John 1:2–3, 10; Col 1:16; Heb 1:10; of the former, revealing the self-giving love and mutual agree- John 5:19–23; 14:9–11; 2 Cor. 5:19). ment of the Three Persons in the tasks they took up in creation Furthermore, Matthew 28:18–20 and other New Testament and redemption: texts plainly demonstrate that the Son fully and equally shares with the Father, before the incarnation, all divine attributes and We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, prerogatives. John Jefferson Davis states: whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes, touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of A text that has apparently not thus far received the attention life. This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have that it merits in this is the Great Commission statement of the seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is Risen Christ in Matthew 28:18: “All authority (pasa exousia) in the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Christ does not say he was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves that some authority has been given to him, or much author- have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship ity, but all authority. Christ can not be eternally subordinate with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and the Son. (1 to the Father as to authority, and at the same time truthfully John 1:1–3)5 claim that all authority in heaven and on earth is his. It will not do to argue that the “giving” by the Father implies greater

24 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No.4 ◆ Autumn 2013 inherent authority. As Philippians 2:5 states, equality with the ly agree with the sentiment, “You are the Potter, I am the clay.” Father was the Son’s by right; he shared all the divine preroga- Yet here the Bible says that all things were made “for” Jesus, tives with the Father prior to the incarnation. Philippians 2:5, and that He is “before” all things! Can such language possibly Matthew 28:18, and Revelation 5:6, 13 teach the Son’s coequal be used of anyone but the eternal Creator Himself? Can we authority before the incarnation, after the resurrection, and make sense at all of using such terms of someone like Michael subsequent to the ascension, now and forever in heaven.7 the Archangel or any other created being?9 Of course not. If this were not so, both the truth and certainty of the Gospel Finally, we are told all of creation “holds together” or “con- itself would be seriously undermined. sists” in Christ. Echoing John’s assertions about the Logos, . . . Irenaeus, the great second-century Christian apologist and Paul places within the realm of Christ’s power the very main- theologian, insisted that only one who was truly God could re- tenance and continuation of the entirety of the universe! He veal God to us. Commenting on Irenaeus’s insight, which was makes everything “fit” and remain in its proper place. Is this incorporated into the later Nicene formulation by Athanasius, not the function of God himself? It assuredly is.10 Thomas F. Torrance has stated: Arians and Jehovah’s Witnesses would have us believe that the Unless there is a substantial bridge between the visible and word firstborn implies that the Son is the highest of created be- the invisible, the tangible and the intangible, the comprehen- ings, adopted and appointed by God as the intermediary be- sible and the incomprehensible, there can be no sure or firm tween God and other created beings. The Greek word prototokos ground, it was argued, for authentic human knowledge of God (firstborn)—which is the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew as he really is in himself. In fact, if there were no such bridge, bekor—literally meant “first to open the womb.” It also had a the Gospel would be finally detached from reality, empty of metaphorical or symbolic meaning pointing to a special bond of truth and validity, and its account of the saving acts of God love between a father and son, and also to the fact that, under would be no more than a mythical projection out of human Old Testament law, as the son bore the father’s name and was his fancy, similar to that of the Gnostics who separated the Re- rightful heir and representative, he was to be accorded the privi- deemer from the Creator and even Jesus from Christ. . . . This leges, authority, honor, and respect that would have been given was precisely what Irenaeus found to be the central issue of to the father himself: the Gospel, in the incarnation of the very Word, Mind and As a title of honor for Jesus, prototokos expresses more clearly Truth of God himself in Jesus Christ: “The Lord has taught us than almost any other the unity of God’s saving will and acts: that no one can know God unless God himself is the Teacher, “the firstborn of all creation”, “the firstborn from the dead” that is to say, without God, God is not to be known.” A real (Col. 1:15, 18). Creator and Redeemer are one and the same, revelation of God to us must be one which God brings about the all-powerful God in Jesus Christ “the first and the last”, through himself. This is precisely what we find in the evan- “the beginning and the end”, who binds his own to himself gelical account of the relation of mutual knowing between from all eternity, and is their surety for salvation, if they abide the Son and the Father (Matt. 11:27; Lk. 10:22), which implies, in him.11 Irenaeus points out, that there is a mutual relation or propor- tion in being as well as in knowing between them (Against And what does God himself have to say regarding the Son as his Heresies, 4.11.1–5). With the incarnation, however, that rela- Firstborn? As recorded by the author of Hebrews: tion in mutual knowing and being exclusive to the Father and the Son applies to Jesus Christ the Son of the Father become But about the Son he says, man, so that he constitutes in himself the incarnate Son of “Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever; God the all-important mediation between God and man, and a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. thus between the invisible and the visible, the intangible and You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; the tangible, and between the incomprehensible and the com- therefore God, your God has set you above your prehensible. It may even be said, according to Irenaeus, that companions “the immeasurable Father is measured in the Son, for the Son by anointing you with the oil of joy.” is [the] measure (mensura/metron) of seeing [in] that he com- He also says, prehends him” (Against Heresies, 4.6).8 “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, Both John and Paul describe Jesus as God’s “one and only Son” and the heavens are the work of your hands. (John 1:1–13) and as God’s “firstborn” (Col 1:15–20). Thus, the Son They will perish, but you remain; most certainly is not a created being, not even of the highest rank they will all wear out like a garment. under God himself, but is fully equal with God the Father. In You will roll them up like a robe; agreement with the Father, he jointly created the universe. James like a garment they will be changed. White comments: But you remain the same, and your years will never end.” (Heb 1:6–12 NIV) Not only did He make all things, but Paul says that all things were made for Him! Christians instinctively know that we exist It is not rationally conceivable that any superior, self-conscious for God’s glory, pleasure, and purpose. Our hearts automatical- deity would ever truly and freely concede that any other being,

Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2032 • 25 however high the rank, was that deity’s equal or as worthy of wor- of the relationships of the three persons within the Triune God. ship, obedience, or service. Otherwise, how could God maintain Indeed, earlier in this epistle, John warns that only by remain- God’s rank as the primary deity? While these texts clearly dis- ing faithful to the Gospel as preached by himself can his readers tinguish the Father and Son, they also demonstrate that these continue in this fellowship of love, which is truly “the eternal life” two persons are coequal and coeternal, participate together in offered to all who abide in Christ and his word (1 John 2:24–27; the works of creation and redemption, and are therefore to be cf. with John 15:1–17). equally worshipped, honored, and served by angels and humans. Since the mark of this love is other-centered and self-giving and is the type of love to be reproduced in our lives individually Connecting trinitarian love, Christian ethics, and the and corporately by the Holy Spirit, John gives this exhortation: trinitarian covenants Dear friends, since God loved us that much, so we surely First John 4:7–17 sheds light on not only the inner life of the should love each other. No one has ever seen God. But, if we ontological Trinity, but also on what we have referred to as the love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full “trinitarian covenants” and to the “official order” of the economic expression in us. And God has given us his Spirit as proof that Trinity. Following God’s example, we are exhorted to love each we live in him and he in us. (1 John 4:11–13, my translation) other with a mutual love that is other-centered, seeking the well- being of others without concern for personal profit. If such is the nature of the love that binds the Triune God to- If this is the kind of love that expresses the very being of God, gether with us, should not that love also bind us together as the then within the Divine Being there must be a fullness and plural- community of the Triune God? ity of persons who exist in an eternal union of other-centeredness, This love was the fountain of the trinitarian covenants of cre- mutual respect, and self-giving love that promotes the wellbeing ation and redemption—covenants that had humanity, as those of the others. This concept of trinitarian love serves as the founda- made in God’s own image, as their primary focus. C. Baxter Kru- tion of Christian holiness and ethics. L. T. Jeyachandran explains: ger states: In the course of a Bible study for college students in Delhi, a From all eternity, God is not alone and solitary, but lives as Hindu girl asked me what I consider to be a brilliant question: Father, Son, and Spirit in a rich and glorious fellowship of ut- “How can you Christians say God is good? Good is the oppo- ter oneness. There is no emptiness in this circle, no depres- site of evil; evil is not eternal; therefore, good cannot be eter- sion or fear or insecurity. The trinitarian life is a great dance nal as well.” . . . We cannot define good with reference to evil of unchained communion and intimacy, fired by passionate, because good is the original of which evil is the counterfeit—a self-giving, other-centered love and mutual delight. This life problem parallel to defining the infinite in terms of the finite. is unique, and it is good and right. It is full of music and joy, Evil is an aberration. We need to look for a positive definition blessedness and peace. And this love, giving rise to such to- of good without reference to evil. getherness and fellowship and oneness, is the womb of the universe and of humanity within it. Very significantly, the answer lies in the trinitarian being of God. Love is the epitome of all virtue and the highest expres- The stunning truth is that this triune God, in amazing and sion of holiness. And God should not have to depend on his lavish love, determined to open the circle and share the trini- creation to actualize his capacity to love, for that would make tarian life with others…This is the one, eternal, abiding rea- creation as important as the Creator because the Creator son for the creation of the world and of human life. . . . Before would be incomplete without his creation. But the Bible intro- the creation of the world, the Father, Son, and Spirit set their duces love as an interpersonal quality requiring a subject-ob- love upon us and planned for us to share and know and ex- ject relationship that is available in the Trinity because of the perience the trinitarian life itself. To this end the cosmos was Father-Son relationship through the Holy Spirit. The trinitar- called into being, the human race was fashioned, and Adam ian God is complete in his love relationship without reference and Eve were given a place in the coming of Jesus Christ, the to his creation. The Father loves the Son before the creation of Father’s Son, in and through whom the dream of our adop- the world (John 17:24). The infinite personal medium through tion would be accomplished.13 whom this love is communicated is the Holy Spirit, and he is the one who pours the love of God into our hearts as well God’s eternal love and the trinitarian covenants (Rom. 5:5). . . . At the philosophical level, this is the funda- mental basis of all studies of values, what is called axiology. As with so much of Christian theology, everything begins with This branch of philosophy deals with the study, among others, and flows out of the revelation given to us in Genesis 1–3: of aesthetics and ethics. The holiness of this trinitarian God is Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, in the basis on which all ethics are grounded.12 our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and The proof that we are truly reborn and indwelt by the Spirit of the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild ani- God is that, in their own relationships, authentic members of mals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” the Christian community will express a love characterized by the So God created human beings in his own image, in the image mutual respect, intimate fellowship, and self-giving characteristic of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Gen 1:26–27 TNIV)

26 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No.4 ◆ Autumn 2013 From this text, we learn that (1) both man and woman, as human unity of a community of persons who love each other and beings, are made equally in the image of God; (2) that this imago live together in harmony. And “personal” means by definition dei comprises both ontological and relational elements; and (3) inter-personal; one cannot be truly personal alone but only as confirmed by the cultural mandate given in Genesis 1:28–29, in relation to other persons. Such is the unity and personal both man and woman are equal partners and coworkers under character of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is God’s rule, responsible for the cultivation and development of a deep, intimate, indissoluble unity between them. There are the earth for the mutual benefit of humanity and the creatures not three independent persons who decide to get together to placed under their care by God. form a club (or a dance group!) that might break up if the In this text, we see that the creation of the world and human- members decide to go it alone. They are what they are only in ity flows out of the love of the triune God. Moreover, from this relationship to each other. Each exists only in this relationship same Genesis text, we see that this work of creating and order- and would not exist apart from it. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ing the earth as a suitable home for humanity is carried out by live only in and with and through each other, eternally united the three persons on the basis of mutual agreement—i.e., a cov- in mutual love and shared purpose.16 enant—with the three persons working willingly and harmoni- Like every other key aspect of Trinitarian doctrine, perichoresis ously toward the accomplishment of the will of the One True has its roots in the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. God—persons who, though distinct, are fully equal in divine es- Consider Jesus’s response to Philip in John 14:8–11: sence and power and authority, and who do not function as mere lackeys of some superior. Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be The key to this interpretation is both in what is said and not satisfied.” Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, said in the first clause of 1:27. God said “Let us make human be- Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who ings in our image,” not “We will make human beings in our im- has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to age.” This subtle difference is of the greatest import. If it were true show him to you? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and as that there is a hierarchical structure or order within the Triune the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but my God, with the first person (the Father) being supreme over the Father who lives in me does his work through me. Just believe second and third persons (the Son and the Spirit), who must do that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least be- his bidding—as Arius and the “new evangelical subordination- lieve because of the work you have seen me do.” (John 14:8–11) ists”14 have taught—we would expect the Scripture to say “We will make” rather than “Let us make.” In what is known as the Upper Room Discourse, Jesus speaks For example, the chief executive officer (CEO) of a company, about the coming of the Holy Spirit and giving the disciples wis- exercising his superior will and authority in a company decision, dom and insight into God’s work of redemption and reconcilia- would never say, “Let us do this or that.” Such language refers to a tion through the death and resurrection of the Son: decision made on the basis of discussion, mutual agreement, and There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it consent by equal members of an executive board before the ac- now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into tion can be implemented. On the other hand, “We will do such- all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what and-such” is indeed the language of a CEO in complete charge he has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring who determines what will or will not be done. Therefore, in an me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me. All that analogous sense, the other-centered love of the Triune God and belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said, “The Spirit the covenant of creation are the basis for the creation of both will tell you whatever he receives from me.” (John 16:12–15) the universe and humanity as described in Genesis 1–2, not some executive decision on God the Father’s part in which the Son and Now these texts regarding the relationships and works of the Spirit had no say, but simply had to obey.15 three persons are nearly impossible to understand unless peri- The trinitarian doctrine of perichoresis has to do with the choresis as defined by Guthrie is true. This means that, even in communal, interpersonal indwelling and sharing of life and work those places in Scripture where it seems that one person, such among the three persons and has an important bearing on the as the Father, appears to be the primary speaker and actor, the trinitarian covenant of redemption. Perichoresis literally means other persons are participating as equal partners in loving, mu- “dancing in a circle.” In a sense, according to the great theolo- tual consensus. No one person exercises a superior will, power, gians of the Eastern church such as Athanasius and Gregory of and authority over the others. Nazianzus, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are like three ballet So, what is the true significance of perichoresis for us in the dancers holding hands, performing together in harmonious, joy- church? Again, Guthrie makes this insightful and powerful ex- ful freedom. Shirley Guthrie explains the meaning and signifi- planation: cance of perichoresis as follows: Now there is no solitary person separated from the others; From the perspective of Western monotheism, this image of no above or below; no first, second, and third in importance; God seems to suggest not one but three personal gods. But no ruling and controlling and being ruled and controlled; no perichoresis invites us to think a new way about the very position of privilege to be maintained over against the others; meaning of “one” and “personal.” The oneness of God is not no question of conflict concerning who is in charge; no pos- the oneness of a distinct, self-contained individual; it is the sible rivalry or competition between competing individuals;

Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2032 • 27 no need to assert independence and authority of one at the Covenant, the Davidic Covenant, and the New Covenant) come expense of the others. Now there is only the fellowship and to fruition in Jesus Christ, culminating in the age of the Spirit- community of equals who share all that they are and have in birthed and empowered church in which every member of the their communion with each other, each living with and for body is involved in Christ’s ongoing ministry of reconciliation the others in mutual openness, self-giving love, and support; based on the calling and gifting of the triune God—not on race, each free not from but for the others. . . . gender, nationality, or social status (cf. Gal 3:26–4:7; Rom 4:1–17; If in God’s own deepest inner being God is such a community- 1 Cor 12:1–28; Eph 2:11–22; 4:11–16). However, do not miss this seeking God, then that is also what God is in relation to us. important point regarding salvation history as we have described Gone is the hierarchical, monarchical, patriarchical God who it: All of this is the outworking of the trinitarian covenant, made asserts, defends, and maintains sovereign freedom and power before the creation of the universe and humanity, according to at the expense of God’s creatures. The freedom and power of the foreknowledge of God—this and this alone. the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is freedom and Notes power not to dominate and control, but freedom and power to be God-with-us and for us. It is not freedom and power 1. R. K. McGregor Wright, The Two Trinities: A Study in Apologetic Strategy (Johnson City, TN: Worldview Heritage Press, 2011), 5–6. to do anything and everything God pleases, but freedom and 2. Loraine Boettner, Studies in Theology (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyte- power to be a loving and just covenant-making God who wills rian & Reformed, 1964), 118, 120–21. only our good. It is freedom and power exercised not to keep 3. For a careful, well-documented, and practical presentation of us dependent and powerless slaves but set us on our feet and what the Scriptures actually teach regarding the unity, diversity, and empower us to be God’s faithful friends, companions, and equality of the three persons, I highly recommend James R. White’s The Forgotten Trinity: Recovering the Heart of Christian Belief (Minneapolis, partners. The freedom and power of this God, therefore, is MN: Bethany House, 1998). Designed to help Christians refute the her- not something we must fear, secretly resent, and rebel against esies regarding the Trinity propagated by Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mor- because it robs us of our human dignity and freedom; it is the mons, it is also helpful in dealing with some of the arguments promoting source of true human dignity and freedom.17 the erroneous doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son. 4. Wright, The Two Trinities, 7–8. Another important text is Genesis 3:15, known as the protoevan- 5. All Scripture citations are from the NLT except where noted. gelium, the germinal pronouncement of the Gospel. This is fur- 6. The Greek word is pros, which is normally translated as “with” in English versions. However, “face to face” is a more accurate and mean- ther expanded in Genesis 12:1–3, then 2 Samuel 7:4–17 and Psalm ingful translation, especially in this Johannine text and its counterpart 89, then Isaiah 7:10–14 and 42:1–7, finally culminating in the ex- in John 1:1. planations of the incarnation of God the Son as Messiah, the Sav- 7. John Jefferson Davis, “Book Review: Who’s Tampering with the ior and Lord of all in Matthew 1:18–25 and Luke 1:67–75 . Trinity? by Millard Erickson,” Priscilla Papers 25, no. 4 (Autumn 2011): 29. After God pronounces his judgment on Satan for his lead- 8. Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons (London: T & T Clark, 2001), 77–78. ing Adam and Eve into sin, he then declares, “And I will put en- 9. See Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Reason- mity between you and the woman, and between your offspring ing from the Scriptures (New York, NY: Watchtower Bible and Tract So- and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” ciety of New York, 1985, 1989), 218, which states, “Reasonably, then, the (Gen 3:15 NIV). The chief speaker here is “the Lord God.” At first archangel Michael is Jesus Christ.” 10. White, The Forgotten Trinity, 114. glance, this appears to be a reference to God the Father, who in 11. “Prototokos, Firstborn,” Dictionary of New Testament Theology, turn seems to speak independently of the other persons, appar- vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1979), 669. ently without their mutual consultation and agreement. Howev- 12. L. T. Jeyachandran, “The Trinity as a Paradigm for Spiritual er, to understand this text in that manner would divorce it from Transformation,” in Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend, ed. the controlling framework of its immediate context as well as Ravi Zacharias (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007), 240–41. 13. C. Baxter Kruger, The Shack Revisited (New York, NY: Hachette, from the controlling principle of the divine perichoresis. 2012), 62–63. Consequently, the designation “the Lord God” has a double 14. “New evangelical subordinationists” is a designation used as a reference in Genesis 3:22–24: first, to God the Father who, speak- shorthand description for certain evangelical Protestants who argue ing on behalf of the entire Godhead, assesses the consequences that there is an authority-subordination relationship between the Father of the fall, and, seeking to prevent further defilement and corrup- (who is supreme in rank and authority) and the Son and Spirit (sec- ondary in rank and authority) that is eternal and unchangeable and is tion, counsels and urges the others that immediate action must reflected and recapitulated in the role relationship existing between men be taken. “Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing and women in the church, home, and society. good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of 15. This analogy from the business world, of which I have some life, and eat it? They will live forever!” Second, in 3:23, when “the knowledge and experience, is given with reservation. All analogies, as Lord God” banishes Adam and Eve, the three persons in mutual the Nicene Church Fathers pointed out, have severe limitations when applied to the being and works of the Triune God. Furthermore, the au- consent act together to halt the degenerative process set in mo- thority structure in businesses has shifted in the last twenty years or so tion by human rebellion. from a more hierarchical and centralized form to a more decentralized So, contrary to what some would have us believe, the Father and shared form of management. Still, I think this analogy does point does not act unilaterally and independently of the Son and the out a flaw in the arguments of the new evangelical subordinationists. 16. Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, rev. ed. (Louisville, KY: Spirit. As we follow the flow of salvation history from Genesis Westminster John Knox, 1994), 91–92. 3:21 to Acts 3:21, the covenants of promise (i.e., the Abrahamic 17. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 93.

28 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No.4 ◆ Autumn 2013 Book Review: How I Changed My Mind about Women in Leadership Edited by Alan F. Johnson (Zondervan, )

REVIEWED BY Shirley L. Barron

Alan Johnson, emeritus professor of New Testament and Chris- Th e contributors come from tian ethics at Wheaton College (Illinois), has put together auto- denominations as varied as Bap- biographical accounts of twenty-seven evangelical leaders, both tist, Plymouth Brethren, An- men and women, from many denominations. Th ese stories re- glican, Mennonite, etc., mostly count journeys from belief in a restrictive role for women to a re- American, but also Armenian, alization of freedom for women to use all their gift s and callings Swiss, British, and Canadian. for God’s kingdom. In many of these accounts, the implications Some of the people who con- for Christian marriage are brought out: a side-by-side partner- tributed to this book are Stuart ship of mutual love and submission, where no one is “boss” and and Jill Briscoe, Stan Gundry, no one needs to dominate. Tony Campolo, Bill and Lynne Th e book’s intended audience is twofold. First is the lay evan- Hybels, Ron Sider, Roger Ni- gelical Christian who may not know that there are numerous cole, Alice Mathews, Walter and faithful, Bible-believing Christians who believe that subordi- Olive Fleming Liefeld, Gilbert nation of half the human race is wrong, but who may not have Bilezikian, Cornelius Plantinga heard the many credible, committed evangelicals who have come Jr., I. Howard Marshall, John Stackhouse, and the editor himself. to understand that faithful adherence to Scripture does not re- Th eir stories are highly engaging, upbeat, and positive. Th e writ- quire this restrictive view. Th e second purpose is to encourage ers do not use polemics or blame, but revel in the joy of freedom women and men who have come to know that God intends both from the old restrictions. A recurring theme for many of the genders to serve freely in his kingdom and mission. writers is the presence of strong, knowledgeable, godly women Th e contributors have each written a 10 to 15 page account of (mothers, aunts, Sunday School teachers, etc.) in their early lives. their own experience, usually starting with childhood memories Oft en, these women functioned within a very repressive frame- of their parental families, proceeding to eventual questioning or work, but their eff ectiveness gave the lie to the restrictive rules. confusion about gender roles, and then of a searching of Scrip- However, the inconsistency was noticed by the young person and ture for God’s will in this area, concluding with their realization oft en led to confusion and questioning of the restrictions. He or that the whole sweep of Scripture is toward redemption from the she then usually searched the Scriptures for the truth. fall and the curses caused by sin and toward freedom (for both Th ere is very little that one can say that would be negative genders, all races, and all social conditions). about this interesting collection of personal accounts. I have heard that one reader was critical of the book because detailed scriptural analysis of controversial passages is not included. However, that is not the book’s purpose. Th ere are a number of other books that provide such detail. Th is book fulfi lls its stated purpose very well indeed. In summary, this is an extremely readable collection of per- sonal stories by twenty-seven prominent evangelicals, recount- ing their journeys from gender-restrictive views to views that women, as well as men, should have the freedom to serve God in whatever ways he may call them, without male supervision, and that, in marriage, mutual submission is the appropriate re- lationship between husband and wife. I highly recommend this excellent book.

sHIrLeY L. BArron holds an MA in biblical studies from Wheaton college (Illinois) and an Md from the University of Kentucky college of Medicine. she has practiced medicine in public health, pathology, and general practice. she is a faculty-mentor for columbia evangelical semi- nary, Fairview, Washington, teaching Greek and new Testament studies. she has taught Latin at Wheaton college and basic Koinē Greek to inter- ested members of her local church.

Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2032 • 29 Nativity II—Child of Highest Heaven

Behold a child is softly crying Nativity I—Incarnation who will save a world lost and dying, the wooden trough where he is lain As night gives birth to a billion stars precursor to a cross of pain. when day is gone darkness is ever destined to be The sorrow of God will soon be known the herald of dawn; wholly to him when he is grown out of a place where hope is not that many might come to the throne of grace must hope be born. men and women of every race,

So may the eye that is dim with tears Spirit-led and reconciled or doubt or pain by the daring mission of this child or some dark grief, rejoice to see now to the eye of faith resplendent the Lord again; Infant, Savior, Love Transcendent. Into a world where God is not must God be born.

Mary Waiting on Easter Morning

Like Mary waiting on Easter morning regretting a dream she thought was dead in a world whence God had seemingly fled leaving her weeping, perplexed, forlorn, but daring to ask “Where is the Lord?” and hearing at last the holy word,

We stand and wait by the empty tomb knowing our hearts are dark and cold sealed by the stone of doubt and gloom refusing like Mary to be consoled. Then we discover the One we seek standing beside us and hear him speak.

rUTH HoppIn is the author of Priscilla’s Letter: Finding the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. she lives in the san Francisco, california, area, where she has coordinated a poetry and short story contest to provide a forum for local poets and writers. These three poems are from her latest publication, Spinning the Arrow of Time. Image: esA/Hubble & nAsA

30 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No.4 ◆ Autumn 2013  Christians for Biblical Equality Christians for Biblical Equality is an organization of Christian men CBE Membership Application and women who believe that the Bible, properly interpreted, teaches the fundamental equality of believers of all ethnic groups, all economic ______classes, and all age groups, based on the teachings of Scripture as name refl ected in Galatians 3:28. ______Mission Statement street address ______CBE affi rms and promotes the biblical truth that all believers—without city regard to gender, ethnicity or class—must exercise their God-given gift s with equal authority and equal responsibility in church, home, and world. ______state / province / country zip / postal code Core Values ______We believe the Bible teaches: phone email address • Believers are called to mutual submission, love, and service. • God distributes spiritual gift s without regard to gender, ethnicity, or class. 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Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2032 • 31 32 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 27, No.4 ◆ Autumn 2013