Do You Use Bible Commentaries Written by Women?
00:00:00.000 | A pastor writes in to ask, "Pastor John, would a pastor who uses a biblical commentary
00:00:09.640 | written by a woman be placing himself under the biblical instruction of a woman?
00:00:14.640 | If so, would this not go against Paul's instruction in 1 Timothy 2.12?"
00:00:20.600 | It might be.
00:00:22.320 | He may feel it that way, and if he does, he probably is not going to read it, he shouldn't
00:00:26.160 | read it.
00:00:27.160 | It doesn't have to be experienced that way, I don't think, and here's my reasoning.
00:00:33.160 | The point of Paul in 1 Timothy 2.12 where he says, "I don't permit a woman to teach
00:00:38.720 | or have authority over men."
00:00:41.760 | That's a key text, 1 Timothy 2.12.
00:00:43.560 | "I don't permit her to teach or have authority."
00:00:46.680 | Those two things together, I think, constitute the eldership office, teaching and authority.
00:00:52.560 | There should be men elders in the church who are spiritual and humble and kind and loving
00:00:58.760 | and Christ-like in their servant heart towards the men and women in the church.
00:01:05.120 | I think the point of that text is not to say you can never learn anything from a woman.
00:01:11.640 | That's just not true.
00:01:12.640 | It's not true biblically, and it's not true experientially, because the reason for saying
00:01:18.360 | that I don't permit a woman to teach or have authority over men here is not because she's
00:01:22.800 | incompetent.
00:01:23.800 | It's not because she can't have thoughts.
00:01:26.400 | In fact, the women in your church and the woman you're married to have many thoughts
00:01:31.780 | that you would do well to know and learn from, and so the issue there is not she doesn't
00:01:40.040 | have thoughts that you wouldn't benefit from or she can't teach you anything.
00:01:46.480 | The issue is one of how does manhood and womanhood work?
00:01:53.860 | What is the dynamic between how men flourish and women flourish as God designed them to
00:02:01.000 | flourish when an act of authority is being exerted on a man from a woman?
00:02:08.360 | So I distinguish between personal, direct exercises of authority that involve manhood
00:02:17.520 | and womanhood because it's personal.
00:02:19.080 | She's right there.
00:02:20.080 | She's woman, I'm man, and I'm being directly pressed on by this woman in an authoritative
00:02:26.560 | way.
00:02:27.620 | Should she be doing that?
00:02:28.780 | Should I be experiencing that?
00:02:30.200 | And my answer is no.
00:02:31.560 | I think that's contrary to the way God made us.
00:02:34.040 | So those two words, personal and direct, here would be an example of what I mean.
00:02:39.640 | A drill sergeant that gets in the face and says, "Hut, one, hut, two, keep your mouth
00:02:45.080 | shut, private, get your rifle up here, turn around, lock a set," I don't think a woman
00:02:50.120 | ought to be doing that to a man because it's direct, it's forceful, it's authoritative,
00:02:56.320 | it's compromising something about the way a man and a woman were designed by God to
00:03:01.280 | relate.
00:03:03.280 | The opposite would be where she is a city planner, she's sitting in an office at a desk
00:03:09.160 | drawing which streets should be one way and which streets should be two way, and thus
00:03:14.320 | she's going to control which way men drive all day long.
00:03:19.280 | That's a lot of authority, and it's totally impersonal and indirect, and therefore has
00:03:24.720 | no dimension of maleness or femaleness about it, and therefore I don't think contradicts
00:03:31.120 | anything that Paul is concerned about here.
00:03:34.640 | So I would put a woman writing a book way more in that category of city planner than
00:03:40.960 | of a drill sergeant so that the personal directness of it is removed and the man doesn't feel
00:03:49.440 | himself and she wouldn't feel herself in any way compromised by his reading that book and
00:03:55.760 | learning from that book.
00:03:57.520 | So that's the way I've tried to think it through in society and in the academic efforts
00:04:03.680 | and in the church.
00:04:04.680 | So that's reading and benefiting from a woman's exegesis in private.
00:04:09.280 | Would you have any reservations about quoting from that commentary by a woman in a public
00:04:13.200 | sermon?
00:04:14.200 | I think that's just an extension of the same principle.
00:04:17.000 | Here's a truth, a woman saw it, she shared it in a book, and I now quote it because I'm
00:04:25.360 | not having a direct, authoritative confrontation.
00:04:32.280 | She's not looking at me and confronting me and authoritatively directing me as woman.
00:04:39.160 | There's this interposition of this phenomenon called book and writing that puts her out
00:04:46.480 | of my sight and in a sense takes away the dimension of her female personhood, whereas
00:04:53.760 | if she were standing right in front of me and teaching me as my shepherd week in and
00:04:59.480 | week out, I couldn't make that separation.
00:05:02.000 | She is woman and I am man and she is becoming to me my shepherd week in and week out, which
00:05:08.040 | is why I think the Bible says that women shouldn't be that role in the church.
00:05:13.480 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:05:17.000 | Please email your questions to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:05:21.000 | You can find thousands of other free resources from John Piper.
00:05:24.680 | I'm your host Tony Ranke.
00:05:25.680 | Thanks for listening.
00:05:26.320 | [END]
00:05:27.320 | 1.
00:05:28.320 | John Piper's "The Church in the West" is a book by John Piper.
00:05:29.320 | It was published in the United States in 1982.
00:05:30.320 | It is a book that was written by John Piper himself.
00:05:31.320 | It is a book that was written by John Piper himself.
00:05:32.320 | It was a book that was written by John Piper himself.
00:05:33.320 | It is a book that was written by John Piper himself.
00:05:34.320 | It is a book that was written by John Piper himself.