Wesleyans, Women, and the Age of the Spirit

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

Wesleyans are Holy Spirit people. Although John Wesley did not primarily formulate his understanding of Christian perfection in terms of the book of Acts, John Fletcher saw a potential connection fairly quickly. Would not full surrender to God be a prerequisite for the “fullness” of the Holy Spirit? Being filled with the Spirit seemed to Fletcher an apt expression of entire sanctification.

 Pentecost and Acts 2 have thus loomed large in the story of American Methodism. Although historians debate about exactly how American Pentecostalism relates to the holiness movement, it is at least certain that they were both growing in the same soil in the early 1900s. Wesleyans and Pentecostals are both Holy Spirit people.

 Accordingly, it is no surprise that the Wesleyan and Pentecostal traditions have always tended to see the full participation of women in ministry and leadership. Women featured prominently in the ministry of John Wesley in England. Similarly, long before it became trendy in American culture, Wesleyans were leading the charge not only toward women in ministry but toward women’s rights. A Wesleyan Methodist by the name of Luther Lee preached the first ordination service of a woman in the United States in 1853. Similarly, the women’s suffrage movement started in a Wesleyan Methodist church in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.

 Nestled into Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost are those crucial words from Joel 2: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy” (Acts 2:17). The coming of the Spirit is the great equalizer. Though the bodies of women and men may differ, we find no difference between us in the level of the Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us of several women prophets, ranging from Miriam (Exod. 15:20) and Deborah (Judg. 4:4) in the Old Testament to the four daughters of Philip in Acts (Acts 21:9).

 Galatians 3 captures this dynamic well: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:27-28). While it is true that Paul is talking about justification, there is a principle of the Holy Spirit involved here. While our bodies may differ, it is the same Spirit that fills and empowers both men and women. We should not be surprised to find that women fully partake in spiritual leadership and ministry in an age when all believers are equally filled with the Holy Spirit.

 Indeed, this is the trajectory of the kingdom. It is easy to miss the full import of Jesus’ response to the Sadducees in Mark 12:25. They have more or less asked him which husband would “own” a wife in the resurrection who had been married to seven brothers without having any children. Jesus responds that in the resurrection women “neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Mark 12:25). Apparently, women have a fully equal status in the kingdom that is free of all patriarchy. It will be free of all domination by husbands.

 It is worth noting when this “domination” of wives by husbands began. Genesis 3:16 suggests a point when this situation started. As a consequence of Eve’s sin, “your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Clearly male domination over the wife is presented as a consequence of the Fall. Before this point, both male and female are co-created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27), and the wife is described as the husband’s “helper,” a term used of God in relation to humanity in Psalm 54:4. Thank God that Christ has redeemed humanity from the sins of both Adam and Eve! If we can see the undoing of the consequences of the Fall now, why would we not? 

 The story of salvation is thus also a story of redemption from the curse of Eve. We see this salvation from the consequences of the Fall peek through in the Old Testament. Deborah is the highest political and spiritual authority in Israel over all men (Judges 4:4-5). When the Book of the Law is discovered in the days of King Josiah, the high priest takes it to the prophetess Huldah to verify its authenticity (2 Kings 22:13-14). In other words, a woman is of higher spiritual authority than the high priest, the senior religious figure in Israel. 

 The domination of wives by husbands was thus a consequence of the Fall, yet even in a fallen world, the pattern of male leadership and ministry was never absolute. There were always exceptions to the fallen pattern, even in the Old Testament. Redemption was peeking through!

 Authorized by the atonement of Christ, the age of the Spirit explodes the consequences of the Fall. The full restoration of humanity comes into view in the ministry of the early church. Junia is an apostle, someone to whom the risen Christ appeared and sent as a witness to the resurrection (Rom. 16:7). By this definition, Mary Magdalene herself was the very first of all the apostles (John 20:17).

 Priscilla is often mentioned before her husband—a noteworthy fact in the very male-oriented world of the ancient Mediterranean (Acts 18:18, 26; Rom. 16:3; 2 Tim. 4:19). She is mentioned first when Acts tells us about the discipleship of Apollos (Acts 18:26). Yes, a woman is mentioned first in the training of a male minister in the early church. This fact should be no surprise to us in the age of the Holy Spirit. 

 Phoebe is a deacon, a minister (Rom. 16:1), not a deaconess. This is the same word used of Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:6. Women also seem to be house church hosts and co-workers. We have Lydia in Acts 16:15. Paul mentions women like Mary (Rom. 16:6), Tryphaena and Tryphosa (Rom. 16:12), Euodia and Syntyche (Phil. 3:2-3), as workers in the church.

 None of this should be surprising. Male anatomy clearly gives no advantage when it comes to spirituality or moral leadership. Female anatomy brings no spiritual or moral disadvantage. However, the Holy Spirit fills all equally. The Holy Spirit is the great equalizer and empowerer.

 What then are we to make of the objections? They demonstrate the continued power of the Fall trying to exert itself over the Spirit. Paul speaks of a similar problem in Galatia, where these congregations are in danger of using even Scripture to “turn back to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits” (Gal. 4:9). The situation that is a consequence of the curse is confused with the kingdom God has birthed in the church.

 As we enter difficult hermeneutical waters, we cannot lose sight of the end game of salvation. The Fall will try to cloud our vision, turning our eyes back to passing situations and the age that is passing away. “In Christ there is no ‘male and female’” is a key spiritual truth we must keep in mind.

 We must keep this overall clarity of Scripture in view as we approach unclear passages and passages where God met people where they were at particular times and places. What of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35: “Women should be silent in the churches”? Context is everything. Remember that women are praying and prophesying in public worship in 1 Corinthians 11 (e.g., 11:5). Accordingly, whatever vv. 34-35 were about, it was not spiritual speaking. The context of 1 Corinthians 14 suggests Paul is talking about disruptive speaking in a time of worship gathering. Therefore, even aside from the fact that these verses may not be original, these verses have nothing to say about women in ministry or leadership. 

 It is true that Paul assumes husband-headship in 1 Corinthians 11. Husband-headship is also a feature of the New Testament household codes in Colossians, Ephesians, and 1 Peter. 

There was nothing uniquely Christian about husband-headship in the New Testament. Aristotle assumes the same family structure in his Politics, some four hundred years earlier. It is where the Bible is pushing against the culture, where it is distinctive, that we are most certain to hear the movement of God. What is uniquely Christian in the New Testament is the empowerment and full participation of women in the mission. 

 We finally come to 1 Timothy 2:12: “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.” Against the weight of all we have seen in Scripture to this point, this one verse must qualify as the unclear verse. Indeed, it is really the only verse in all of Scripture that sounds at all like it might prevent a woman from ministry or leadership. It is not the only unclear verse in Scripture. When we come across these verses, we often have to make peace with the fact that we simply do not have the full context of the whole Bible.

 It may help to consider the likelihood that this verse is still about the husband-wife relationship, not the interaction of men and women in general. The Greek words used typically have that connotation when they are in proximity as here. Further, both of the supporting arguments in 2:13-14 relate to the husband-wife relationship of Adam and Eve. As such, we have verses about the family that are tangential to the question of women in ministry and leadership.

 However, even here the arguments are a little puzzling. The Greek of 2:14-15 reads, “Adam was not deceived, but the wife, having been deceived, has come to be in transgression. But she will be saved through childbearing, if they remain in faith and love and holiness with sobriety.” Clearly this argument references the Fall as a reason for the situation. 

 Yet Christ has redeemed women from the curse of Eve. We would not insist a man not use farming equipment or that a woman not use pain-relieving medicine in childbirth. Why would we perpetuate a structure of patriarchy brought on as a consequence of the Fall? Similarly, the argument from birth order in 2:13 has a cultural dimension to it. Plants and animals were created before Adam. Must he submit to them?

 In the end, there must be something going on in the context of 1 Timothy to lead such a sledgehammer to come down. The context of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus is often suggested. Whatever it might have been, this one unclear verse cannot be used to dismiss the preponderance of clarity in the rest of Scripture.

 The Wesleyan tradition has long recognized that we are living in the age of the Spirit, the great equalizer. In this Pentecostal age, let us not resist the Spirit, but let us continue toward this full understanding that both women and men are called to preach and lead. If the church, let alone the world, can move closer to the kingdom, why would we settle for less?

Ken Schenck is Vice President for Planning and Innovation at Houghton College.