With news of the Southern Baptists voting to oust two churches with female pastors (H/T: whiteguy1), we can expect an outpouring of polarization, both celebration and anger. Few people have weak opinions on the subject.
This is a good opportunity to discuss one of the passages used to justify denying women pastors: 1 Timothy 3:2. With this in mind, the article above quotes Aaron Anglin, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Vandervoort in Polk County, who stated that the ousting aligned with this scripture:
Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man.
- If men only are the target, the masculine gendered form must be used.
- If women only are the target, the feminine gendered form must be used.
- If men and women are the target collectively, then the masculine gendered form must be used.
Thus, by simple application of logic, if the masculine gendered form is used it means that #1 or #3 are correct. The use of the masculine gendered form cannot tell us any more than that.
Now let’s examine Brannan’s argument:
Now let’s examine the other half of Brannan’s argument:
When the feminine form is used, the result is always unambiguous. But when only looking at grammar, the use of the masculine form is always ambiguous, and requires the examination of context to resolve to ambiguity. Thus, the changing of form to the feminine only serves—at the very most—to emphasize that the subject under discussion is a female. If this was already known—as it was with the widow—then it doesn’t provide any particular information at all. The same is not true if the change of form is to the masculine form, which provides no emphasis at all, but is a way one might show de-emphasis—gender neutrality.
To illustrate the point directly, “one-husband wife”—as an idiom for monogamy—can only apply to women due to the language construct used. There is no ambiguity. But “one-wife husband”—as an idiom for monogamy—can apply to men only or it can also apply to women and men equally. There is inherent ambiguity. The two forms are not grammatical mirror images.
Brannan’s argument is thus logically invalid.
This is one of those cases where intuition fails in our translation. In English, we would never say “husband of one wife” or “one-wife husband” if we meant to also say “wife of one husband”—i.e. “monogamous”—but this is not the case for the Greek, where such a usage is permitted. To make the case that “one-wife husband” is not a gender neutral idiom (as translated in the NSRV), Brannan must instead use an argument which takes context into account.
Additional Reading
Fallacious examples, like Brannan’s, only serve to suggest that Aaron Anglin’s claim that “the Bible is clear on it” overstates the case, but I nevertheless remain unconvinced by the arguments presented by either side. For more information on the issues surrounding this passage, see the following articles:
- Marg Mowczko, “Paul’s Theology of Ministry: 1 Tim. 3:2 and Priscilla“
- Philip B. Payne, “Does “Man Of One-Woman” In 1 Timothy 3:2 Require That All Overseers Be Male?“
- W. Tyler Sykora “Deacons’ Wives or Deaconesses? 1 Timothy 3:11 Reconsidered“
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