13: EXPERIENCE TRUMPS SCRIPTURE 121planting churches, but then encouraging indigenous male leaders to
assume governing and teaching roles in those churches.^4 And I certainly
have no objection to women teaching the Bible to large groups of other
women. What the Bible does not allow is women serving as elders or
pastors over a church or teaching the Bible to an assembled group of
men and women, but many other ministries are open to women and God
does bless those ministries.^5
B. THE DANGER OF LOSS OF GOD’S PROTECTION AND BLESSING
If a woman goes on serving as an elder or pastor, I believe she is doing
so outside the will of God, and she has no guarantee of God’s protec-
tion on her life. By continuing to act in ways contrary to Scripture, she
puts herself spiritually in a dangerous position. I expect that eventually
even the measure of blessing God has allowed on her ministry will be
withdrawn (though I cannot presume that this will be true in every
case).
One example of this is the tragic story of Aimee Semple McPherson
(1890–1944) at the end of her ministry. Ruth Tucker recounts the story
as follows:
Aimee Semple McPherson, one of the most celebrated evangelists in
the early decades of the twentieth century... was a crowd-pleaser
who played up to her audiences with a dramatic flair, never seeming
too concerned that her eccentricities might demean the cause of
Christ. Nor was she particularly careful about her personal life: she
left her first husband to go on the road as an itinerant evangelist, later
remarried, and finally claimed to have been kidnapped—a story chal-
lenged by reporters, who insisted that she was hiding out with
another man.... She cannot be excused for apparent moral lapses... but her ministry does demonstrate the power of God that often
prevails despite sin and failure.^6
(^4) See Grudem, Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 2004), 84-
101, for a long list of ministries that should be open to both men and women, and see 77-78
for a detailed example of a local male leader naturally assuming the teaching role in a church
planted by a woman missionary.
(^5) See Wayne Grudem, Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth, 84-101, for a longer discus-
sion of many ministries in the church that are open to women.
(^6) Ruth A. Tucker, Women in the Maze (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 187.