260 WHERE IS EVANGELICAL FEMINISM TAKING US?
TNIV or NRSV). Such translations water down several verses that teach
male leadership in the church. The TNIV, for example, in updating the
NIV, consistently makes questionable changes that favor an egalitarian
position: it changes the “men” who will arise from the elders at Ephesus
to “some will arise” (Acts 20:30); makes Phoebe a “deacon” (Rom.
16:1); makes Junia to be “outstanding among the apostles,” with no
marginal note of any alternative translations (Rom. 16:7); disconnects
the phrase “As in all the congregations of the Lord’s people” from the
statement, “women should remain silent in the churches” (1 Cor. 14:33-
34); and changes the requirements for an elder from “husband of but
one wife” to “faithful to his wife” (Titus 1:6), thus changing the noun
“husband” for the verb “faithful” and making it easier to argue that it
is the quality of “faithfulness,” not actually being a husband (or a man),
that Paul thinks important.
In 1 Timothy 2:12 the TNIV adopts a highly suspect and novel
translation that gives the egalitarian side everything they have wanted
for years in a Bible translation. It reads, “I do not permit a woman to
teach or to assume authority over a man” (italics added). If churches
adopt this translation, the debate over women’s roles in the church will
be over, because women pastors and elders can just say, “I’m not assum-
ing authority on my own initiative; it was given to me by the other pas-
tors and elders.” Therefore any woman could be a pastor or elder so
long as she does not take it upon herself to “assume authority.” In the
footnotes to this verse the TNIV introduces so many alternative trans-
lations that the verse will just seem confusing and impossible to under-
stand. It is no surprise that egalitarian churches are eager to adopt the
TNIV (see also page 224, above).
I hope I am wrong in my prediction that the pressures and argu-
ments of evangelical feminism will push these organizations in a more
liberal direction in the coming years. But if I am right, and if the histor-
ical pattern continues, then we will see these organizations moving more
and more in a liberal direction in the coming years as they increasingly
adopt methods of interpretation that undermine or deny the authority
of the Bible. I encourage readers to pray that that would not happen in
any of these institutions.