Is It Time For Complementarians To Change Their Minds?

The topic of women in church leadership is well worn by now. Ecclesiastes reminds us there’s nothing new under the sun (1:9), and that seems to apply to debates about women in the church. Yet sometimes scholars still change their minds. When they do, it’s worth considering what convinced them.

In From Genesis to Junia: An Honest Search for What the Bible Really Says About Women in Leadership, Preston Sprinkle, president of The Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender and host of the Theology in the Raw podcast, explains his change of heart in an engaging, irenic, and accessible style. Though Sprinkle doesn’t provide new arguments for egalitarianism, his book will probably be referred to often because he changed his mind on the issue and states his views clearly. Nevertheless, I’m not persuaded by his argument.

In my judgment, the book hinges on Sprinkle’s interpretation of 1 Timothy 2. At the same time, his interpretation of Genesis 1–3 sets the direction for the entire book. After reading that chapter, I knew the way the book was going to travel. His exegesis of these two key passages reminds us that sometimes the best answer to doctrinal questions isn’t the newest.

Rethinking Genesis

Complementarians, like me, think it’s significant that Adam was created first—his creation before Eve signifies a particular role of authority. Paul appeals to this pattern in 1 Timothy 2, where he says a woman shouldn’t teach or exercise authority over a man.

The argument from creation has always been a linchpin for the complementarian interpretation, but Sprinkle finds it unpersuasive.

Disregarding Creation Order

He gives three main arguments against it. First, he claims that primogeniture (the priority of the firstborn) can’t represent a transcendent word from God that applies today. After all, primogeniture in the Scriptures applies to siblings, not wives. Second, primogeniture only applies after a father dies. Third, and most important for Sprinkle, God often overturns primogeniture, choosing, for example, Jacob over Esau and David over his brothers.

Sometimes the best answer to doctrinal questions isn’t the newest.

None of these arguments accounts for the text as it’s actually written in Genesis. Honestly (picking up a word from the title, and I hope with charity), Sprinkle explains away instead of explaining. Finding exceptions with reference to primogeniture elsewhere doesn’t mean there are exceptions here in Genesis, especially when Paul cites this text in 1 Timothy 2 to prohibit women from teaching and exercising authority (more on this below).

There’s a common saying that exceptions prove the rule, but for Sprinkle, the exceptions nullify the rule. In addition, noting that primogeniture in other texts applies to siblings and only occurs after a father’s death is interesting. However, such observations are irrelevant since Genesis 2 isn’t about fathers or siblings. The narrator in Genesis, under God’s inspiration, crafted the story with great care, and the order of creation clearly has significance. Such observations scarcely cancel out what’s said in Genesis 2, and it’s mystifying why Sprinkle thinks they do.

Defining ‘Helper’ 

Another issue Sprinkle engages is Eve being created as a helper in Genesis 2. For those new to the debate, Sprinkle restates the standard egalitarian understanding: God often helps Israel, and he isn’t subordinate to Israel. Sprinkle also emphasizes that the man and woman mutually rule the world under God’s lordship, thus verses 18 and 20 show that women are fully human and equal to men.

Sprinkle is right on both these points. The word “helper” is often used of God, and Genesis emphasizes the mutuality of men and women. We can all agree that the mutuality and equality of men and women are often taught in the Scriptures. And this is carried over into the New Testament in Jesus’s treatment of women, and in texts like 1 Corinthians 7:3–4 and 11:11–12.

Still, the question is whether such equality and mutuality cancel out different roles and responsibilities. Sprinkle seems to think they do, but such a move flattens the biblical text and the beautiful differentiation between men and women in the Scriptures.

Egalitarians are on target when they point out that God’s role as “helper” demonstrates that the one helping isn’t necessarily under authority. When God helps, he’s still the sovereign Lord. On the other hand, context is king, and words must be interpreted in context. It’s fallacious to say that since God helps, the term “helper” can’t designate help that comes from one under authority. The term is also used of those who assist someone who is their superior (e.g., 1 Chron. 12:1, 22–23).

The issue centers on what Genesis 2 means in its own context when it describes the woman as being a helper. Crucially, Paul picks up on the idea of women being helpers in 1 Corinthians 11:9, where woman was created for man’s sake.

An intertextual reading supports a different role between men and women. Sprinkle appeals to 1 Corinthians 11:11–12, which emphasizes the mutuality of men and women, to discount the unique authority of men in verses 8–9, even though he thinks the word kephalē means “authority” in verse 3.

Once again, he repristinates a common egalitarian trope. Equality and mutuality for Sprinkle rule out complementarity and role differences. Such a reading domesticates the text; it yields a simpler conclusion, but it doesn’t account for the richness and fullness of what the text says. Women are equal to men and have a different role. It’s hermeneutically illegitimate to use 1 Corinthians 11:11–12 to squelch verses 3–10.

Reconsidering 1 Timothy

The other key text on men and women is 1 Timothy 2. Sprinkle again disseminates common egalitarian readings.

The infinitive authentein in verse 12, he claims, means “dominate” instead of “exercise authority.” He also says that the word didaskein signifies teaching that isn’t fitting or right. Sprinkle concludes from this that women may exercise authority and teach in fitting ways.

Several problems plague Sprinkle’s analysis.

Authority or Domination?

Sprinkle doesn’t engage in a significant way with Andreas Köstenberger’s careful study of the syntax of the phrase “teach and exercise authority” (1 Tim. 2:12), which shows that both teaching and exercising authority are positive. Skating over Köstenberger’s analysis is a serious deficiency, since that analysis hasn’t been overturned even after much discussion.

Nevertheless, Sprinkle maintains that the word authentein is negative because it’s used where masters rule over slaves or where authority is exercised by someone higher on the social hierarchy. Such authority is negative, according to Sprinkle, since it doesn’t fit with Jesus’s understanding of authority, where we serve each other instead of dominating one another.

Sprinkle’s argument here is astonishing. Of course, Jesus subverts a common misunderstanding and forbids the abuse of authority, but this says nothing about the meaning of the term authentein in particular contexts. We would all agree that a master exercising authority over a slave isn’t a good thing since slavery is wrong, but that tells us nothing about the term’s meaning in an ancient text.

For this argument to carry much force, Sprinkle would have to show that in the ancient texts where authentein was used, the authors in question thought that masters exercising authority over slaves was negative, or that those in the social hierarchy thought exercising authority over one lower on the social ladder was negative. This is historically improbable. We may agree today that their conception of authority is incorrect, but we can’t appeal to our contemporary perception (or Jesus’s understanding) of authority to define how a word is used by an ancient author.

Sprinkle imposes on the text his conception of authority and then declares the authority described is bad because it doesn’t fit with Jesus’s understanding. As Al Wolters argues in Women in the Church, there are good reasons to think that the word authentein means “exercise authority” in a positive sense.

Teaching or False Teaching?

Sprinkle makes a similar mistake with the infinitive didaskein, which means “to teach.” He states that the word doesn’t have a positive meaning in 1 Timothy 2:12.

Again, I’m astonished, since the word has a positive meaning everywhere in the Pastoral Epistles and everywhere else in Paul’s writings. It only has a negative meaning if indicated by further contextual information.

Sprinkle appeals, for instance, to Titus 1:11 to say the word “teach” may have a negative meaning, but he fails to clarify that what makes the word negative is what Paul adds to it, for he speaks of “teaching what they ought not to teach.” Context is king! When Paul wants to use a term to describe false teaching in 1 Timothy, he uses another word, heterodidaskalein (to teach falsely, 1:3; 6:3). He could have easily used that word in 2:12.

He also fails to note that when Paul uses the verb “teach” (didaskein) elsewhere in 1 Timothy, he uses it positively: “Command and teach these things” (4:11) and “Teach and urge these things” (6:2). Also, in the near context, Paul refers positively to those who are “able to teach” (didaktikon, 3:2).

Sprinkle gives two examples from other contexts where teaching may have a negative meaning, but the examples don’t prove his point. There’s nothing wrong with the Jews teaching that adultery, stealing, and idolatry are wrong (Rom. 2:21); what’s wrong is that they don’t live by what they teach. There’s nothing wrong with Paul being taught the gospel by others (Gal. 1:12); Paul simply informs them that he learned the gospel directly from Jesus.

Sprinkle’s claim, then, that teaching has a negative meaning in 1 Timothy 2 has no evidence to support it.

Artemis or Eve?

When it comes to the reason Paul gives for prohibiting women from teaching or exercising authority (1 Tim. 2:12), Sprinkle reminds us of his reading of Genesis. Though Paul appeals to God creating Adam first (v. 13), Sprinkle concludes that the connection is illustrative instead of providing a foundation.

Instead, Sprinkle appeals to Paul’s concern about the Artemis cult as a possible explanation for the prohibition. Rather than looking at verse 13 as the grounds for the prohibition in verse 12, Sprinkle appeals to verse 14—where Adam and not the woman was deceived—which he says doesn’t have universal application. Let me take up the last point first.

Verse 14 makes the same point as verse 13. Satan subverts the created order by tempting Eve instead of Adam. The Serpent doesn’t approach Adam first but Eve, even though Adam had primary responsibility as the spiritual leader in the first family. On this understanding, verses 13 and 14 are both grounded in the created order. The point of verse 14 isn’t that women are more apt to be deceived but that the order of creation was subverted when the Serpent approached Eve instead of Adam. It seems to me, then, that the prohibition of women teaching or exercising authority (v. 12) is followed with the same reason (the order of creation in both verses 13 and 14).

Sprinkle appeals as well to the work of Sandra Glahn and Gary Hoag to support the idea that the false teaching may be derived from the Artemis cult. Yet the deviations perpetuated by the false teachers actually point to Jewish roots: devotion to myths and genealogies (1:3–4), the Jewish law (vv. 6–11), asceticism (4:3–4), and knowledge (6:20–21).

Nevertheless, according to Sprinkle, Artemis’s influence can’t be overstated. He sees it in the word “Savior,” the practice of celibacy, women being adorned, the emphasis on childbearing, a negative view of marriage, the concern for wealth, and Artemis being the firstborn. The problem with such an analysis is that Artemis is never mentioned, which is strange if the cult exercised such remarkable influence. All the matters Sprinkle mentions are ordinary and thus don’t point in any clear way to Artemis’s influence.

Sprinkle’s exegesis is an example of a flawed mirror reading. Mirror reading occurs when we read biblical texts to try to discern the situation that occasions the writing. For instance, when we do a mirror reading of Galatians, we see that the opponents insisted the Galatians had to be circumcised and to keep the Old Testament law to be saved.

Lyn Kidson, an egalitarian, criticizes the notion that Artemis played any role in the heresy. She rightly says that the “cult of Artemis provides little interpretive power when one closely scrutinizes the letter.” Elsewhere in the same article, she says the false teaching is “a world away from the cult of Artemis.”

Egalitarians tend, as we see here with reference to Artemis, to appeal to matters not stated or found in a text to overturn what a text actually says. An extratextual feature, never seen before in history, suddenly becomes the lens by which the text is read. Steven Baugh, in his essay in Women in the Church, elaborates on the deficiencies of such an approach with reference to ancient Ephesus.

Keep to the Old Paths

From Genesis to Junia surveys the biblical narrative for women’s roles in the Old Testament, the Gospels, and Paul’s writings, covering all the significant passages. Though Sprinkle hasn’t provided any new data on the question of the relationship between men and women, his arguments may carry weight with some readers because they echo contemporary cultural norms.

His arguments may carry weight with some readers because they echo contemporary cultural norms.

Based on this data, he reflects on leaders and leadership, female prophets in the Old Testament, the marriage relationship in Ephesians 5, and the controversial texts in 1 Corinthians 11 and 14 and 1 Timothy 2. These matters have been debated ad infinitum. Even though he dissents here and there from standard egalitarian views, his overall conclusions fit comfortably in the egalitarian camp.

Sometimes people question why complementarian Christians repeat the historical arguments for distinctions in male and female roles within the church. The answer is that it’s necessary to remind believers that old wine is often better than a newer vintage. In From Genesis to Junia, Preston Sprinkle explains why he changed his mind, but he offers no new reasons for other Christians to change theirs.