3: 1 Timothy 3, Women Leaders and a Response to John MacArthur

Well, here it is! I must say Allison and I are getting pretty good at this!

In this episode, we tackle 1 Tim. 3:1-13 and show that it cannot be used in isolation, nor can it be used to exclude women from the office of 'elder' and 'deacon/minister.' We also respond to two main comments by Pastor John MacArthur, and refute his arguments for a male leadership interpretation of this passage. Since MacArthur agrees with us about women deacons (although we do not know how this works out in practice in his church), we did not respond to his comments on women deacons.

Rather than being an exclusion of women from either office, 1 Tim. 3:1-13 affirms women's desire to "aspire for these offices in conjunction with God's gifts and God's call in their lives.

For resources on this topic, particularly the issue of women deacons in Rom. 16:1-2, 1 Tim. 3:11 and church history, see the work of Jamin Hübner's A Case for Female Deacons (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2015).

For a modern and compact commentary that is concerned with the dominant masculine translations of 1 Tim. 3:1-13, see Aida Spencer's 1 Timothy (Eugene: Cascade, 2013).

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