We are to be subject to such people how? To be subject to their needs and supply them with practical aid? Or to obey their rule and follow their teaching? As Paul distinguishes between the proper functions of men and women, it is reasonable to conclude that subjection to a male co-worker that exercises teaching and ruling functions wouAll Postsld not entail the same things as subjection to a female co-worker laboring in material aid, or whose teaching and leadership was restricted to women.

All doctrine is “apostolic,” whether recognized by them or revealed through them: “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), said Paul. When Wells says “the ‘authority’ [Paul] restricts is the binding, adjudicative oversight that belongs to pastors/elders (1 Tim 3:1–7; cf. 1 Tim 1:3–5; 5:17, 19–20; 2 Tim 1:13–14; Tit 1:9; 2:15), not the wide range of leadership, influence, and ministry exercised by spirit-gifted persons throughout the New Testament,” we ask: in what sense can women influence and lead men when Paul says “let a woman.”

If anyone doubts that the controversy concerning women’s roles in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) imperils sound exegesis, he need only consider a recent article by Kyle Wells. In a section titled “Women Served Alongside Male Priests in the Temple,” he says:

From Genesis 2 forward, Scripture presents a male priesthood with female partnership. Adam’s charge to “work and keep” the garden-temple (Gen 2:15) uses priestly language (Num 3:7–8), and Eve’s title ʿēzer (“helper”) frames her as assisting him in that vocation, not as a priest, but as a temple-assistant (cf. Exod 18:4; Ps 33:20). Later, women “served at the entrance of the tent of meeting” (Exod 38:8; cf. 1 Sam 2:22), indicating a pattern of female assistance in sacred space.

The appeal to Gen. 2 means little as to what is permissible now, given that woman’s punishment after the Fall included submission to male leadership (Gen. 3:16, “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”). Some think this is abrogated in Christ, but its other element (“pain in childbearing”) continues, and Paul grounds woman’s submission in the church to her actions during the Fall (1 Tim. 2:14).

Also, the “priestly language” of Gen. 2:15 and Num. 3:7-8 does not always have such application: in Gen. 30:31 it refers to keeping sheep (see here). Ex. 18:4 does not refer to Eve as a “temple-assistant” but of God as Moses’s helper (“‘the God of my father was my help’”). Thus also Ps. 33:20 (“Our soul waits for the LORD; he is our help”). Whatever Wells’s point in mentioning them, those passages prove nothing viz. female assistance.

One struggles to find “female partnership” in scriptural accounts of priests. There is none in the accounts of Abram’s altars at Shechem and Bethel (Gen. 12:7&8); Melchizedek (14:17-20); Abraham sacrificing Isaac (22:1-19); Isaac at Beersheba (26:25); Jacob at Bethel (35:1-15); Jethro (Ex. 18:12); or, indeed, in the Law’s prescriptions or accounts in Leviticus. As for the women at the entrance to the tent of meeting, there is no explanation what their service included: many commentators believe it entailed physical tasks (mending, sewing, washing) regarding associated materials like the fabric of the tabernacle. It is not agreed whether they did this freely or as part of a formal order.

Above all, there is a crucial difference between saying that women “Served Alongside Male Priests in the Temple” and that they “served at the entrance of the tent of the meeting.” One need not know Hebrew to see that serving at the entrance is a different thing from serving in the interior of a sacred building, and that Wells’s summary risks misleading readers into the erroneous conclusion that women had part in the sacrificial elements of the priestly service. They did not.

Wells’s subsequently says that “throughout the Old Testament, women are portrayed exercising real, Spirit-authorized authority as prophets and leaders without being incorporated into the male priesthood.” This is exaggeration. There are only three examples, recorded briefly and occurring across a span of several centuries. Ex. 15 says that Miriam’s prophetic service was to lead the women in song:

Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. And Miriam sang to them.[1]

Wells concludes of Deborah, Huldah, and Miriam that “these ministries are presented not as disruptions of Israel’s order, but as recognized forms of leadership operating alongside a priesthood that remains intact.” That is debatable. Miriam may have had regular place, but, again, that may have been in reference to women only. Huldah and Deborah appeared at times of crisis, in which the normal order was corrupted: the former when ignorance had spread so far that the Law itself had been lost (2 Kgs. 22), the latter during the days of the Judges, when there was such confusion and lawlessness that “every man did what was right in his own eyes” (Jdg. 21:25). That and the sparsity of their tales in comparison to the extended accounts of male leaders and women in other capacities (e.g., Ruth) could just as easily be interpreted to mean that they were exceptions rather than rules. (Comp. Isa. 3:12: “My people—infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, your guides mislead you and they have swallowed up the course of your paths.”)

Wells says that “Paul assumes that women ‘pray and prophesy’ in gathered worship (1 Cor 11:5),” an unproven and highly disputed inference. It’s not clear this refers to corporate worship rather than smaller meetings. Many have thought the latter are in view, and that 14:34 prohibits speaking in corporate gatherings but not smaller ones of women only. Others say Paul recounts what was occurring without passing judgment on it till he spoke of the matter further, pronouncing against it in 14:34.

When Wells says Paul “later defines prophecy as instruction, edification, and exhortation to the gathered body (1 Cor 14:3–4, 12; cf. Acts 21:9)” we might rejoin that a) Acts 21:9 does not say when or where Philip’s daughters prophesied, and many commentators conclude that it involved foretelling events, not public teaching (Gill, Poole here); and b) in 1 Cor. 14 what is in view is this extraordinary gift of prophecy, which we believe has ceased. Hence Albert Barnes (hardly a favorite commentator with our more ‘confessional’ brethren) says that only women who prophesy by the Spirit in that extraordinary sense may teach corporately.[2] Hence also, when Wells says “according to Paul’s own categories, women were exercising a Spirit-governed, public, instructional ministry,” we might rejoin that this assumes that public instruction was in view, and that it did not involve the extraordinary gift of prophecy.

Wells asserts that “Women Served as Co-Laborers to whom Submission is Commanded”:

Paul names women among his synergoi (“co-workers”: Rom 16:3, 6, 12; Phil 4:2–3): the exact same term he uses for male ministry partners (Apollos, 1 Cor 3:9; Timothy, Rom 16:21; Titus, 2 Cor 8:23; Urbanus, Rom 16:9; Epaphroditus, Phil 2:25). In 1 Corinthians 16:16 he commands the whole church: “Be subject to such people and to every synergounti (‘co-worker’).” Thus, Paul explicitly includes women among those whose ministry the church is called to honor with ordered, voluntary submission.

We are to be subject to such people how? To be subject to their needs and supply them with practical aid? Or to obey their rule and follow their teaching? As Paul distinguishes between the proper functions of men and women, it is reasonable to conclude that subjection to a male co-worker that exercises teaching and ruling functions would not entail the same things as subjection to a female co-worker laboring in material aid, or whose teaching and leadership was restricted to women.

On that last point Wells says that “Phoebe Exercised Recognized Authority,” because “Paul commends Phoebe as ‘a diakonos of the church in Cenchreae’ and his prostatis—a patron/benefactor/advocate/leader.” Wells finds authority where servanthood is named, and he interprets prostatis as meaning ‘leader’ when most lexicographers say it means helper/patroness/benefactress in the sense of one who provides social, legal, or material aid. Wells says further:

Paul directs the Roman church to ‘assist her in whatever matter she has need,’ signaling that her role carries a form of ordered authority appropriate to her recognized ministry. Far from incidental, Phoebe is presented as an emissary whose work the church is obligated to support.

Telling the Romans to provide her with support does not mean she has ‘ordered authority’ if that term means she had teaching or ruling authority, even if she was a deaconess formally. Most significantly, Wells transmutes deacon/servant and patroness into “emissary,” as though her role included teaching or were equivalent to an apostle: the only time we find such spoken of is when 2 Cor. 5:20 and Eph. 6:20 speak of apostles as “ambassador(s)” of Christ. [3]

Wells says that “Paul’s Prohibition in 1 Timothy 2:12 Is Theological, but not Absolute,” because “he assumes that women pray and prophesy in the assembly (1 Cor 11:5) and commands all believers to teach and admonish one another (Col 3:16).” Actually, the assumption is Wells’s, as above, and the activity commanded in Col. 3:16 does not entail women teaching men. The particular (1 Tim. 2) should interpret the general (Col. 3), not the reverse. Hence, to use another example, we know that we are not to rebuke older men, 1 Tim. 5:1 clarifying Titus 2:15 and showing how the duty of rebuke is to be exercised. When Wells says “women exercise real spiritual and practical authority in his congregations: Phoebe as a prostatis (Rom 16:2), and multiple women as synergoi—co-laborers—whose ministry the church is commanded to honor (Rom 16:3, 6, 12; Phil 4:2–3; cf. 1 Cor 16:16),” we ask: exactly what spiritual authority did they exercise? Paul’s other statements indicate that any spiritual authority they may have exercised was in regard to other women (Tit. 2:3-5).

And when he says “the ‘teaching’ [Paul] restricts refers to the office-bearing task of guarding and defining apostolic doctrine (cf. 1 Tim 2:12; 3:2; 5:17), not all forms of public or spiritual instruction,” we demur. All doctrine is “apostolic,” whether recognized by them or revealed through them: “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), said Paul. When Wells says “the ‘authority’ [Paul] restricts is the binding, adjudicative oversight that belongs to pastors/elders (1 Tim 3:1–7; cf. 1 Tim 1:3–5; 5:17, 19–20; 2 Tim 1:13–14; Tit 1:9; 2:15), not the wide range of leadership, influence, and ministry exercised by spirit-gifted persons throughout the New Testament,” we ask: in what sense can women influence and lead men when Paul says “let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness” (1 Tim. 2:11)? Influence and leadership are active things, not passive or receptive ones (as submissiveness).

In his next section (“Masculine Language Does Not Mean Male-Only”) Wells asserts that “’husband of one wife’ (1 Tim 3:2, 12) functions as a moral qualification expressed in culturally standard masculine phrasing.” That seems doubtful. Unlike some male phrases which can include both men and women, the Greek anér for “husband” only ever means a male (here).[4] Indeed, does Wells suggest we can have elderesses? For he implies here that the moral qualifications are not sex-specific. And he says “the restriction of office to qualified men must come from elsewhere (1 Tim 2:12–3:7), not from the phrase’s grammar” where he had just said above that 1 Tim. 2:12 is not absolute. He opens the door to proving more than he intends: if “husband of one wife” boils down to ‘faithful spouse,’ then what other masculine (or other!) statements are just cultural expressions?

He says, indeed, that “to treat every masculine form as gender-exclusive would erase women from most commands, promises, and exhortations in the New Testament.” That is true, but it’s also non sequitur. We’re not talking about every form, but specifically of those in certain passages touching upon these matters. And Paul’s arguments in 1 Tim. 2 being clear, it is clear that men are in view in 1 Tim. 3.[5]

Wells finishes by saying “if women’s service was publicly identifiable across an entire region of first-century churches, it is worth asking whether the same visibility and recognition mark our own.” The answer is so obvious that it begs no question. Everyone knows that women serve in a wide variety of capacities in the PCA. The two largest PCA churches in my presbytery have more female than male staff.[6] Women are routinely listed on websites or otherwise reported in their church roles. They are often recognized for service in congregational meetings, etc. If he fears that we are negligent in using and recognizing women in the PCA, then he is mistaken. But his article does not savor of a concern for recognizing women’s present service, but for formalizing and expanding the realm of that service.

Tom Hervey is a member of Friendship Presbyterian Church in Laurens County, SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation, and helped modernize Volume I of James Hervey’s classic dialogue on evangelical faith, Theron and Aspasio, available now at Monergism.

[1] Micah 6:4 does not explain what Miriam’s role in leadership was, but many commentators believe it included leadership of the women. Matthew Poole says she was “a prophetess, to be assistant to her brothers last mentioned, to be example and counsellor to the women.” Jamieson-Fausset-Brown that “God sent Moses to give the best laws; Aaron to pray for the people; Miriam as an example to the women of Israel.” (Comp. Spurgeon on the latter in “Commenting and Commentaries”: “A Christian man wishing for the cream of expository writers could not make a better purchase.”

[2] “If it is now pled, from this example, that women should speak and pray in public, yet it should be just so far only as this example goes, and it should be only when they have the qualifications that the early “prophetesses” had in the Christian church. If there are any such; if any are directly inspired by God, there then will be an evident propriety that they should publicly proclaim the will, and not till then.”

[3] The Greek for “ambassador” in those verses (presbeuó) is related to the terms for elders (here: https://biblehub.com/greek/4243.htm). Emissary and ambassador are substantially synonymous, and in scripture the latter means a teacher and ruler of Christ’s church. It could be argued that Wells has made an implicit case for female elders and teachers, in other words, by implying that Phoebe was an “emissary” (de facto equivalent of ambassador/apostle) with “ordered authority” whom “the church was obligated to support.” However unintentional it might be, such is the broad force and direction of his claims here.

[4] Thus also the relevant term for woman. Some (as the notes of the ESV) say that the phrase can be rendered as “a man of one woman.”

[5] Until v. 11, of course.

[6] Downtown and Mitchell Road in Greenville, SC. Compare ByFaith’s article on the largest PCA churches here to their websites here and here.