We just
received a letter from a dear brother who had
been asked, “Where in the Bible is there authority for a Christian
woman to
teach a Christian man, or any man in public?” Part of my response to
him was,
“If a person asks a ‘fuzzy’ question, he can not expect anything but a
‘fuzzy’
answer.” First, what does he mean by “in public?” If a man sees a woman
on the
street corner and asks her, “What does a person need to do in order to
be
saved?” are they “in public” and can she properly tell him? If an
unsaved
neighbor moves into the community, and a Christian woman invites them
over for
dinner and the man asks her the same question, are they “in public” or
can she
talk about anything the Bible teaches? If they are in a Bible study in
the
church building, and both the unsaved person and the Christian woman
are
students in the class and the teacher asks the question, may the
Christian
woman answer? If they are engaged in the “worship service” and the
Christian
woman is obeying Colossians 3:16 which commands her to teach and
admonish, and
she has as her visitor her non-Christian friend, is she disobeying some
other
command which prohibits her from teaching “a Christian man or any man
in
public”?
In our
judgment, the simple Bible answer to all of
these questions is that all Christians are to be involved in teaching
others,
both men and women, Christian and non-Christian what to do to be saved
and to
live the Christian life. The Great Commission, as well as such passages
as
Colossians 3:16 involves all of us. So, the Bible gives the authority
to do so.
The only limitation of which we are aware is that in the church, she is
not to
“teach or exercise authority over a man” (1 Timothy 2:12). It
does not
forbid her teaching a man, whether Christian or sinner.
To illustrate:
If there is a Bible class in a
congregation, there is nothing that forbids a woman to teach it.
However, if a
man is in the class as a student, and she is teaching, she is teaching over
a man, which she is not authorized to do. If she is in the class as a
student,
and there is a man in the class who needs information, and she makes a
comment
about a Bible passage that teaches him, she is not teaching over him,
for the
teacher of the class is the one who has authority in the class to raise
questions, limit discussion and be in charge of the class in general.
So, any person that forbids a
woman to
teach what God
authorized and commanded her to teach has gone beyond what God has
taught and
should repent of his error. Our experience has been that it is very
difficult
to get any person who is teaching that false doctrine to study more
deeply into
the subject and forsake his error. However, it is our responsibility to
“speak
the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15), preach the Word with longsuffering
(1
Timothy 4:2). Elders, especially, have the responsibility to “exhort
and
convince the gainsayer” (Titus 1:9). If he cannot be convinced, his
mouth is to
be stopped (Titus 1:11), but all that is done should be done in love.
Fuzzy Questions