166 FEMINIST VIEWS BASED ON UNTRUTHFUL CLAIMS
that the authorities suspected might happen. But that does not prove that
Jason was ruling over the meetings of Christians in his house, and even
over Paul and Silas when they conducted those meetings!
Belleville would have us believe that homeowners could bypass all
the qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, and, simply by
virtue of having a church meet in their home, become overseers or elders.
She would also have us believe that Lydia, who was a brand-new con-
vert and who had just been baptized, became the overseer of the church
at Philippi simply because she said to Paul, “come to my house and stay”
(Acts 16:15).
This claim is going far beyond the evidence in Scripture. The extra-
biblical references that Belleville cites do not prove anything about
homeowners having such a leadership role in the churches either.^3 This
claim is speculation with no facts to support it, and several factors in
Scripture contradict it.
But by making this unsubstantiated claim, Belleville leads readers to
think that “Mary (Acts 12:12), Lydia (16:15), Chloe (1 Cor 1:11), and
Nympha (Col 4:15)” were “overseers of house churches.”^4 She leads
readers to believe that several such women were overseers or elders. And
so she makes these verses say something they do not say. This leads peo-
ple to disbelieve or seek some way to explain away the passages that
restrict the office of elder to men, and so it undermines the authority of
Scripture. Therefore this claim takes another step on the path to
liberalism.
(^3) For additional comments concerning this claim see Wayne Grudem, Evangelical Feminism
and Biblical Truth (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 2004), 262-263. Belleville makes similar claims
about women homeowners in “Women Leaders in the Bible,” in Discovering Biblical Equality,
ed. Ronald W. Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2004),
122-124.
(^4) Belleville, “Women in Ministry,” 95.