104 FEMINIST VIEWS THAT UNDERMINE SCRIPTURE
elders, so they surely don’t think that women need any approval from
male elders to teach the Bible!
But this view comes up fairly often in phone calls or e-mails to the
Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) office, and I
often hear it in personal conversations and discussions of church policies.
Is it really true that a woman is obeying the Bible if she preaches a
sermon “under the authority of the pastor and elders”?
The question here is, what does the Bible say? It does not merely
say, “Preserve some kind of male authority in the congregation.” It does
not say, “A woman may not teach men unless she is under the author-
ity of the elders.” Rather, it says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or
to exercise authority over a man” (1 Tim. 2:12).
Can a pastor or the elders of a church give a woman permission to
disobey this statement of Scripture? Certainly not! Can a woman do
what the Bible says not to do and excuse it by saying, “I’m under the
authority of the elders”? Would we say that the elders of a church could
tell people “under their authority” that they have permission to disobey
other passages of Scripture?
What would we think of someone who said, “I’m going to rob a bank
today because I need money and my pastor has given me permission, and
I’m under his authority”? Or of a person who said, “I’m committing adul-
tery because I’m unhappy in my marriage and my elders have given me
permission, so I’m still under the authority of my elders”? Or of someone
who said, “I’m committing perjury because I don’t want to go to jail and
my pastor has given me permission, and I’m under his authority”? We
would dismiss those statements as ridiculous, but they highlight the gen-
eral principle that no pastor or church elder or bishop or any other church
officer has the authority to give people permission to disobey God’s Word.
Someone may answer, “But we are respecting the Bible’s general prin-
ciple of male headship in the church.” But Paul did not say, “Respect the
general principle of male headship in your church.” He said, “I do not
permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man” (1 Tim.
2:12). We do not have the right to change what the Bible says and then
obey some new “general principle of the Bible” that we have made up.
Nor do we have the right to take a specific teaching of Scripture and
abstract some general principle from it (such as a principle of “male
headship”) and then say that principle gives us the right to disobey the