Ep. 399 Preston Sprinkle Returns - What Does the Bible Really Say About Women in Leadership?

In this episode, I sit down with Preston Sprinkle to walk through one of the most debated questions in the church: women in leadership. We trace the story from Genesis to the prophets, through the ministry of Jesus, into Romans 16, 1 Corinthians, and 1 Timothy 2, asking what the whole sweep of Scripture actually says about authority, teaching, and the nature of leadership in the kingdom of God. Preston shares his multi-year journey of wrestling with the text, where he lands, and why he believes we need deeper study and better conversations around this issue for the sake of the church and our witness in the world.

Dr. Preston Sprinkle is a biblical scholar, speaker, podcaster, a New York Times bestselling author, and is the co-founder and president of The Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender. He earned a Ph.D. in New Testament from Aberdeen University in Scotland (2007), and has taught theology at Cedarville University (OH), Nottingham University (U.K.), and Eternity Bible College (CA). Preston is an international speaker who’s written over a dozen books including Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage? and his most recent book: Exiles: The Church in the Shadow of Empire. Preston currently serves as the president of The Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender, an organization that equips Christians to engage questions about faith, sexuality and gender with theological faithfulness and courageous love. And he’s also the president of Theology in the Raw, which includes the popular “Theology in the Raw” podcast and the annual “Exiles in Babylon” conference.

Preston's Book:

From Genesis to Junia

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Transcript

Preston Sprinkle: 0:46

That's when Jesus gives His beautiful, absolutely, stunningly counter cultural statement about leadership in the kingdom of God. The Gentiles lord it over you. But in my kingdom, the least of these will be the greatest. The servant is the one with authority. I'm paraphrasing Mark 1042, to 45 okay, so service. Service is the hallmark of leadership in Christ's kingdom. Well, in Mark's gospel, the only human figures who serve, linguistically, diacono, the verb for to serve. The only people to serve are women. You Josh,

Joshua Johnson: 1:35

hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, today on shifting culture, we're stepping into one of the most debated, emotionally charged and consequential conversations happening in the church right now, women in leadership. This isn't just a theological side note. It shapes how we read the Bible. It shapes how we understand authority. It shapes how we structure our churches, how we raise our daughters and sons and how we reflect the character of God to the world around us. And too often, this conversation begins with assumptions instead of curiosity. It begins with lines drawn instead of Bibles opened. For years, this issue has divided churches, friendships and movements. But what if, instead of starting with assumptions, we started with scripture? What if we slowed down long enough to wrestle with Genesis, with Deborah and Huldah, with the women who follow Jesus, with Romans 16 and Junia with First Corinthians and yes, with First Timothy two? What if we let the whole story speak in this episode, I'm joined by Preston sprinkle to walk through his multi year journey of studying this question from the ground up, not reacting, not posturing, but carefully, patiently asking, What does the text actually say? Where are we importing modern assumptions about leadership and what kind of authority does the kingdom of God actually affirm? So join us. Let's see what the Bible really says about women in leadership. Here's my conversation with Preston. Sprinkle Preston, welcome back to shifting culture. Excited to have you back on. Yeah, thanks for having me back on. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I'm excited to dive into women in leadership and your book and your process for years and years trying to wrap your head around this issue as we walk into it. Why do you think it's an important issue that we we tackle in the church, that it's not just a side issue, but it's one of the most important things that we're

Preston Sprinkle: 3:38

dealing with? Well, that's a great leading question. You know, as two men talking about this topic, I do what I immediately say this. This topic affects half of the population of the kingdom of God. Not that every woman wants, wants to be a pastor or teacher or whatever, but, yeah, it affects a lot of people. It's been a highly debated topic, and it involves some really rigorous exegesis of Scripture. It's actually, it's, you know, just on a biblical level, aside from all the practical implications there's, there's just a lot of exegetical complexity, and we just need a lot of thorough study, a lot of patient thinking in the topic. And, you know, sometimes people approach a topic not that way, but we need, I think we need better conversations across different perspectives too. And in my study, I saw that I do think there's, you know, people who hold really passionately to one side or the other. They don't always represent the other side well. And I think we should have better humanizing, affirming conversations, you know, with with the with the topic, you know, so,

Joshua Johnson: 4:49

and I think you did that in this book, from Genesis to Junior, as you're you're walking through your own process. You're bringing us into your process of trying to figure it out. And I really love the perspective that you take, that you say, hey, let's come on this journey with me, and we're going to figure it out together. And so you did a fantastic job doing that. Yeah, I think when, when we disagree, when Christians disagree about women in leadership, do you think it's really a disagreement about the Bible itself, or about how we interpret the Bible?

Preston Sprinkle: 5:21

Oh, for sure. It's a disagreement about how we interpret and that would be one so and I'm going to be pretty I hope I may be really fair with the different sides here. One of the problems, I think, on the more complementarian side, that says women should not occupy leadership roles, or at least teaching and preaching, or at least elder roles. One of the assumptions that I think is is can be inaccurate, is that. The egalitarian position, which says all leadership roles are open to women, that they're just not taking the Bible seriously. If you would just read First Timothy two, if you had just read first Corinthians 14, if you just recognize the obvious fact that there's 12 male apostles and onron it goes, then you would arrive at a complementarian view, if you were just being biblical. And is it the case that some egalitarians will read into the text what they want to see or try to wiggle around certain hard passages? Sure, I would say it happens on both sides. It could happen on both sides. So I think we need to be more, maybe more charitable about people's assumptions, and not begin the conversation saying, I have the biblical view. You don't. All right, let's have a conversation. That's typically not a really good way to start a conversation.

Joshua Johnson: 6:31

Well, that's how we in America have been starting conversations for a lot of years right now, is like, I'm right, you're wrong, and this is our conversation. You know, that's not the right posture to be able to take, especially in this this thing, you know, one of the things that you said you didn't want to do was actually drape the New Testament in modern western church language or definitions of leadership, of what that looks like. What did it look like for you to put that aside, of what we think leadership looks like, is definition, and actually just see what the Bible says about leadership.

Preston Sprinkle: 7:11

That was honestly one of the most eye opening parts of my journey that I didn't really expect to play such a significant role in my book. I ended up devoting a whole entire chapter, chapter four, to understanding what was the first century church like, what was leadership like in the first century house church movement, I found that I think we bring a lot of modern assumptions about church, about leadership, to the text like we have, we assume our certain structure, and then we ask the question, Can women fill these roles that we have In our church today. And then they, I think, you know, maybe purposely or not, they kind of assume the New Testament is speaking about leadership structures the same way we are speaking about them the class. The classic example is just the term pastor. You know, pastor is the go to, most widely recognized leadership term for our modern churches today, and the Protestant church, at least, but it, you know, the noun pastor, in terms of describing a leadership role in the church, only occurs in one single verse in the entire Bible, in Ephesians, 411 where it talks about apostles, prophets and Pastor teachers. It's actually not even it's combined with kind of a teaching role. That doesn't mean people weren't pastoring. It just means that this wasn't necessarily like the go to title, you know, which doesn't mean it obviously, doesn't mean it's wrong. Doesn't mean, you know, bonded churches shouldn't call call their leaders pastors, but it just kind of goes to show that our modern assumptions about leadership, you know, they don't always align perfectly with with the New Testament. I mean, the one of the main leadership terms that Paul uses throughout all of almost all his letters is the term servant. Like he often refers to people who are doing leadership things in the church as servants. You know, I think it's used over a dozen times to refer to leaders in the church. So I, you know, as you know, if you read that chapter, I mean, I think there's a lot more diversity in New Testament leadership terminology, and I don't think it has an ironed out, like lead pastor, that underneath him is a bunch of elders, and underneath them is deacons, and then underneath them are all the non leaders. You know that just is very as a pyramid, hierarchy, structure, which, which actually did, you know, the second century church did kind of develop some of that. But I just don't see that ironed out in such a way in the in the New Testament,

Joshua Johnson: 9:39

as you started to look at this, this debate, and you started to study it, a lot of it originates in Genesis, one through three, the creation, what that looks like, what were, what are some of the things that people start to say from Genesis one through three, that says, this is a good complementarian view of male female authority Relationships.

Preston Sprinkle: 10:06

Yeah, yeah, Genesis one and two, if you've dabbled in the topic, you know that this is a really important passage, and I spent a lot of time looking at it. And I grew up in a very complementarian context. And so I just, when I read Genesis one and two, I just assumed that kind of structure. You know, Adam was created first. He names Eve woman in chapter two. God gave him the command first and not, you know, there's various other arguments. And so I always grew up believing that that means Adam is the authority over Eve. So when I started my study three, three and a half years ago, I really, truly was. Wanted to, like, sweep aside my assumptions and just look at the text on its own terms. And I realized that I could see where someone would read the text that way. I read it that way for for many years. So I don't say they're just, how could you ever see, you know, male leadership in Genesis one and two. But I, as I work through all of the main arguments, I realized they're, at best, they're a lot more ambiguous than people make them out to be. At worst, they're not. It's not establishing Adam as the authority over Eve. And by implication, every man has authority over his wife, or, you know, establishing male authority in the church. Like, I think some of the logical conclusions drawn out from Genesis, one and two are, I think they're just, I think they're a stretch. For instance, let me just give you one example. You know, Adam being created first. And you know, some scholars will say, Well, this is reflecting the ancient principle of primogeniture, where the oldest son, when the father dies, would become the patriarch, he would become the leader of the home, which is true that that is a principle in the ancient Near East. But I began to think about it. I'm like, this, does this? Does the creation of Adam and Eve reflect prima genitor? I mean, they're both. They're not born, they're created. Their brother, and they're not brother and sister, let alone brother and brother. Like, it's not like Adam's older brother and assumes authority over his other brothers. This is, this is wife like that doesn't reflect primogeniture, and the Father's not dead. Like, you know, primogeniture is when the father dies, then the authority is passed on to the firstborn. But if there's a father in the story, I guess it's God, and he's still alive. So I, you know, I Oh, and most of all, when we do see the principle of primogeniture play out in the biblical narrative, especially in the book of Genesis, God often overturns it. It was a cultural norm, but God often overturns it and work through the last born David being the classic example, or, you know, Isaac and Joseph and so. So we all have to say, like, is it possible that Adam's first born or first created status means he's authority? Okay, possible, but I think it's much less likely than people make it out to be.

Joshua Johnson: 13:05

I think another example there is the word Ezer, a helper, suitable for him. That Eve was a helper. What was that? What does that word actually mean?

Preston Sprinkle: 13:19

Yeah, as many, many scholars have pointed out, I mean, all you have to do is do a quick word study in your Bible software, and you see that the word Ezer, it's translated helper helpmate is often used to describe God helping Israel in a military battle. So clearly, God is not subservient to Israel. And people kind of wiggle around that I talk about this in the book. They say, Well, you know, it's kind of like a father stepping down and helping his kids with homework. You know, he's helping them, and he's like, I'm like, okay, but he's still in authority just because he's helping his kids with homework. He may meet us where we're at. He may get on his knees and, you know, like, help us in that sense, but he's not relinquishing his status. So it's just, it's hard to, I think it's a really tough argument to say that Eve's status as Adam's helper establishes some sort of hierarchy, that Adam's an authority. Eve is subservient to Adam. And you know, if you look in the context, you know Genesis, one where God gives the creation mandate to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. Okay, so the male and female who they're not named in chapter one, they're they're called to procreate. And chapter two, I think, is kind of reflecting that, like Adam is there. He's all alone. And when he looks at the animals, you know, he's like, there, there was not found for him, a helper suitable for him, which I in the context, it seems. And we, if we ask the question, help with what was probably help with carrying out the very central command he was given in Genesis, one, to procreate. Now, you know, if anybody the audience wants to say the woman plays kind of a lesser role in procreation. I won't, I won't quote Jim gaff again here, but I'll let people Google what he thinks about the male contribution to procreation. You know, so I don't know. Again, it's just these arguments to establish male authority in Genesis. One to three, they're just again, at the very least, more ambiguous than people make them out to be at at worst, I think they're reading into the text something that's just not, not there. Yeah.

Joshua Johnson: 16:37

I think that's helpful as we start there with creation, where the male and female roles in their authority and where they're at some. Great arguments here in the book, I want people to go and and read it and discover it for themselves. I think I'm like you, as I looked in Genesis one through three, and then said, Okay, let's jump into, you know, the controversial passages, especially within Paul, because those are the things that we are sticking points. But we have to look at, really the broader breadth of what is happening, not just, I think, in the New Testament, but even in the Old Testament. What were female roles in authority and leadership in the Old Testament? Were there those types of roles, or was it really just continuing, just a male centric leadership model constantly.

Preston Sprinkle: 17:32

You know, it's interesting that men are named 10 times more often than women in the Old Testament, 10 to one. So just statistically, you kind of would think like, Well, women are, or, sorry, men are, clearly, you know, the main actors in the story, and in some sense, yeah, men dominate the story. Of course, that's just statistically true. But what's fascinating is when women are mentioned, they often embody the radical, courageous faithfulness that Yahweh is demanding of his people that he's not finding in men. The classic example that I didn't notice for years. I'm ashamed to say I literally never noticed this for so many years of reading the passage over and over and over, but I didn't notice that in Exodus one to four, you know, a pivotal point in redemptive history, God going in to rescue his people from slavery in Egypt, bring them into the Promised Land, give them the law, and so on and so forth. Well, in those early chapters, all of the human heroes in the story are women. I mean, obviously, God's always the main hero, but when it comes to human agents, it's the two midwives in chapter one, it's Moses's mother, it's Moses's sister, it's Pharaoh's daughter, and it's Zipporah who, when God was going to kill Moses for not circumcising his son. I kind of forget that she comes in with her Flint knife and does something pretty, pretty graphic there. So, yeah, I mean, think about this was written in a profoundly patriarchal context. That's, that's, mind blowing, that God would work this way, and that the biblical writers would record and highlight the agency of women in pushing back against the Imperial Egypt. So yeah. So you have that a lot throughout the Old Testament, aside from the specific leadership role, you have women demonstrating faithfulness, in contrast to men Rahab, in contrast to Aiken, Abigail, kind of in contrast, obviously, to her husband, Nabal, but even to David. They, you know, if there was one hero in the story of David and Abigail, it really is Abigail. She is just a profound character. So, so you have, you have that element in the Old Testament when you get to the specific question of, well, okay, are women exercising a leadership position, like a specific role? Because Abigail, if you just look at the story and you just leave aside your biases, if there's a leader in the story, it's Abigail, like she's she's intelligent. She's calling the shot. She's saying, Do this, do that. She's preventing David from doing something really horrible. And like, she's, she's the leader in the story. But it's like, Well, she didn't have a leadership position. Like, okay, she didn't. The one kind of obvious place where a case can be made for female leadership in the Old Testament is you have the reference to a few female prophets, Deborah, and hold the being the main ones. And I don't know. Man, I honestly tried to look at those stories considering both arguments. Because some people say, Well, no, these are private ministries. These are exceptions. These are or some people say like, well, Deborah wasn't really a leader in the story, which I, I tried to steal. Man, that I just I it just seemed like they were just dancing around the clear fact that she is a leader in the story. So, but some people say yes, but the priests were all the kings are men, all the priests had to be men, and priests were the teachers in Israel. And I'm like, There's no way around that. Absolutely, priests were the teachers in Israel. They were all men. But the question is, what is the rationale? Is it because they're male? Well, again, here's one of those arguments where it's like, okay, I could, I could see where someone would, would, would get there. But you know, Israel operated within a patrilineal context. I don't want to get into that, but where the male line determined the genealogical people just they documented genealogical descendants through the male line, and the priesthood was a patrilineal. Neal institution. It wasn't just men, it was Levites, Levite males. And so the rationale for their sex could be because of male only leadership, or it could simply be because that society was a patrilineal society, and because this is a patrilineal institution that traced the line through the male descendant, that's why they were men. It's kind of a three. It's like, okay, I could steal both sides. But the one key thing to note in the Old Testament is who had the most authority of any office in the Old Testament, it was the prophets. In fact, contrary to other ancient Near East cultures, the prophet would rebuke the king, as Nathan did to David and many others that's that's profound, like, that's very counter cultural. So the fact that you do have some clear instances of female prophets, to me, I don't again, I tried to see it. What are the counter arguments? You know, am I missing something? But I'm like, this seems to be a clear instance of women exercising the highest authority in the land. So people, well, it's an exception to the rule, maybe. But God doesn't condemn these exceptions, you know? So I don't know. I could keep going on and on.

Joshua Johnson: 22:58

I know this is great. So since you're talking about the Prophets the Old Testament, there, they have authority. Is it the same type of thing in the New Testament. How about New Testament prophets? What were women doing as prophets in the New Testament in the early church, and what kind of authority were they exercising that?

Preston Sprinkle: 23:19

Okay, so this is a massive, massive topic, aside from the women in leadership question, there's been so many studies, as I found out on New Testament prophecy. In fact, all throughout my study, I found myself, you know, opening a door of a whole wide research world of something I didn't know existed, and then within that door, opening another door. So this is one where, you know, I opened the door on New Testament prophecy and realized there's like been a 50 Year conversation happening among scholars about the nature of New Testament prophecy. So all that to say that there's complexity here. And one of the questions that comes up is, do New Testament prophets, or people who are prophesying, is it the same as like Old Testament prophets, prophecy? I think there's similarities and differences. Quite honestly, there's a lot you know, the New Testament talks about prophecy in pretty diverse ways, you know, like in First Corinthians 14, probably Paul's longest conversation about prophecy, you know, he says, make sure you consider whether the you know, yeah, the gift of prophecy, yeah, the gift of discerning the Prophet. And just because the Prophet says something, you know, you need to weigh and evaluate it, he tells the Thessalonians, make sure you weigh the prophecy. So you think, Oh, that doesn't seem very authoritative. It seems like it's like kind of very subjective. But then you have other references to prophets and prophecy that seems much more Old Testament to, you know, like Agabus in the book of Acts is described just like an Old Testament prophet or Anna. Anna in Luke chapter two. You know that, you know the Gospels are kind of like picking up with Old Testament left, left off, and Anna is described in the same way an Old Testament prophet would. And for me, the most fascinating example is the book of Revelation is called a book of prophecy. It was a prophecy that was written down and it John, you know, John, the author doesn't say, hey, consider whether you think this is true. He's like, if you mess with this, God's gonna, you know, punish you, or whatever he says, you know. So I third, I think we have to understand there's, there's diversity within how the New Testament talks about prophecy so but the one clear thing is the few times women prophets are mentioned, Anna Phillips daughters, Corinthian women in chapter 11, First Corinthians 11, there's no they're not described as exercising non authoritative prophecy while men are exercising authoritative prophecy. So there's just based on the evidence we have, which is not a ton, yeah, I think a prophet not always, but sometimes engaged in scriptural interpretation and spoke authoritative words that were meant to be heeded, and maybe other times, their prophecies needed to be weighed and considered. So, yeah, I think, I think female prophets, that's a that's a pretty strong argument in favor of women teaching and preaching prophecy, and prophets weren't exactly the same as teachers and preachers. But I what I say the book is it seems like there is a functional overlap between what we call teaching and preaching and what Prophets did in in the early

Joshua Johnson: 26:28

church, two things that we've touched on so far that the New Testament, I think, would would say something maybe a little bit different. One, I think Paul describes us as the priesthood of all believers, that we're all priests now, I would assume would include females in. And all believers that would be everybody. And then also, you know, as we, we talked about, you know, the the authority of the the the firstborn over everyone else. We still have the Father, and the father is still not dead and who will never die. And so is there authority that actually then moves into humans at all, or Is God really the ultimate authority that that was interesting to me as I'm looking at like, Okay, well, hey, the father is still around. He has that authority. So let's go into the priesthood of all believers first. And okay, so why do you think that would actually, then be maybe an argument for women in leadership that

Preston Sprinkle: 27:41

you know that that's an argument I did not really consider. I did. I did mention that briefly when I was wrestling with the fact that the Old Testament pre priesthood was all male. And I already said, you know, I think the rationale for their sex there's, you know, there's different views there. But I did mention, at the end of the day for our ques, for our question about New Testament teaching and leadership, it's irrelevant for the point you brought up that there's a priest of all believers. So there's, there's obvious discontinuity or difference between the Old Testament priesthood and the New Testament priesthood. I so I did not push that argument further, though, and consider is the priesthood of all believers, not just a refutation that God was establishing male only teachers in the Old Testament. It could it be a positive argument in favor of women teaching and preaching in the New Testament? I hadn't, honestly, I have not thought through that. I think that's a really intriguing example. What do you think? I mean, it sounds like you've thought about this a little bit.

Joshua Johnson: 28:46

I mean, it seems to me like, if there's a priesthood of all believers, there's a priesthood of all believers. That's just, it's just very simple, and I think then the rest of it is kind of like wordplay to me. But in First Corinthians 11, as I was reading your chapter on First Corinthians 11, again, one of the things when I was like, Okay, maybe Paul, when he's talking about the head, he just wants, like, like literary wordplay to make things sound very similar and fun. And he was maybe he, he didn't make, make the actual authority type of statement that people think he's trying to make. Maybe he's just trying to play with words, word play, I don't know.

Preston Sprinkle: 29:34

First Corinthians 11, it said verses two to 16. It is the single most difficult passage in all of Paul's letters, and that's not that's something virtually every New Testament scholar says. So whatever we do with this chapter, we shouldn't like build a theology on something where it's just, it's just so many difficulties. We don't even know if he's talking about head coverings. It could be talking about long hair, or some scholars say he's talking about a testicle, believe it or not. That's a viewpoint up there. So I wouldn't even I need to get into that one first. And then you have, yeah, verse 10 is notoriously difficult, where he says a woman. And translations are going to be very different. Here, some translations will say a woman ought to have authority over her own head, you know, of course, because of the angels, other translations will say a woman ought to have a symbol of authority on top of her head. And if you, if those of you who know Greek, you can look at it, and you'll see that the word symbol is not there. And man, I wrestled, I went back and forth, back and forth. Is he referring to a head covering as a symbol of the husband's authority over his wife, or is he telling a woman you have authority over your own head, and he's not even thinking about a husband there, I literally went back and forth. Different drafts of my book took different views. I actually think there's some something to the whole symbol of authority on the woman's head there in my you know, it's hard to summarize it briefly, how to interpret the passage, and there's 18 different ways to interpret the passage, and, you know, 16 are pretty credible. I think Paul is encouraging women to cover their heads, because in the first century that married women, if you were married, a head covering symbolized that you have a husband and that you are under his authority. So Paul is encouraging women, married women, to keep your heads covered, because if they uncover their head, that would signal that you're a married woman looking to have. Have a sexual relationship. You're it's like taking off your wedding ring. You know your wife leaves on a trip and she leaves her wedding ring. Like, wait, wait, what's going on here? You know you're looking to hook up. So Paul says, Keep your head coverings on. And he even goes to the creation account in verses 11, 789, to show that they should do this. But verses 11 and 12 are absolute key, because he continues on and says, however, in the Lord, women is not independent of man. Man is not independent of woman. You know, for like every, every man was actually born of a woman. So he actually, he actually interacts with what he just said, because he just said, you know, woman came from man, not man from woman, and, you know, and so it's like, oh, he seems to be prioritizing men here. But then he turns right around and says, however, in the Lord, there's mutuality. So I think that's significant, because there's something about verses seven to 10. That is not according to Paul in the Lord. So what I think is going on is he's telling women to embrace this social custom, which might come with this kind of hierarchy of men over women. But then he says, but in the new creation, that's old creation we need to live. We're still living in the old creation, but in the new creation, there is mutuality. So I think I wouldn't take, I wouldn't take a bullet for that interpretation. I think it's the best of the other options on how to interpret the passage

Joshua Johnson: 33:17

that's helpful as people start to dig into that and go through their 1000s of different interpretations to figure out this very difficult, difficult passage. You know, when I look at the ministry of Jesus, as I'm trying to look at Jesus, see who he is, I see him do a lot of incredible things for women. We see women are participating in his ministry as disciples, not the 12 Apostles that are there, but they are part of the wider group of disciples you have, have Mary actually, then giving the message of the resurrection of Jesus to the rest of them. There. She's the apostle to the apostles. Yeah. But is there anything that we could touch on when it comes to the women in leadership question not just how Jesus treated women and gave them dignity and respect and lift them up more than anybody did around that time, that era, but is there anything to do with leadership?

Preston Sprinkle: 34:20

Yeah, that's a great question. I think we have to be careful reading too much into or out of Jesus's clear high value of women in the gospels, and try to make that a direct argument for women in leadership. He's not really, for the most part, dealing with can women be leaders in the church? Okay, so whatever we find in the gospels, it is more implication, not determinative. There's a couple things that I found in my study that were pretty fascinating, though. Number one, I'm so glad the way he worded it, it's perfect. He said, you know, of course, Jesus valued women. No one's gonna deny that. But that doesn't he values non leaders, you know, like he values everybody. But more than just valuing women, women more than men, especially in Mark's gospel, women, although they're mentioned less often, as as men, they embody the radical, courageous, sacrificial faithfulness that Jesus demands from his followers much more than men. If you read Mark's gospel in particular, the 12 Apostles are just screwing up all over the place. They lack faith. They don't get it. They didn't get the feed into 5000 and then they didn't get the feed into the 4000 you know, they just Jesus is just he just seems so frustrated with the 12. But embedded in the narrative of Mark's gospel are stories, four, in particular, four brilliant stories of women, the hemorrhaging women who was bleeding for 12 years, the SyroPhoenician women, the women who anointed Jesus, and then the poor widow who gave all she had. And this is something I talk about my book like. It's really fascinating how Mark strategically places these stories of women at key points in his narrative, and when you look at it within the wider context, these women are embodying and living out the radical obedience that the 12 Apostles are failing at. So again, does that mean? All right, well, they're the leaders. Well, okay, not necessarily, but we that is, that is pretty profound. You know, a leader should be a faithful Christian. That's kind of basic criteria. That's a great criteria, yeah. But more to the point, okay, if there ever was a passage in again, let's just stick with Mark. This is, this is applicable to the other gospels. If there was a pass. Where Jesus comes closest to addressing leadership. It is Mark 10 with parallels, and I think it's Matthew 22 where James and John want to sit at Jesus's right and left hand. They want power. They want authority in the kingdom. And that's when Jesus gives His beautiful, absolutely, stunningly counter cultural statement about leadership in the kingdom of God. The Gentiles lord it over you. But in my kingdom, the least of these will be the greatest. The servant is the one with authority. I'm paraphrasing Mark 1042, to 45 okay, so service. Service is the hallmark of leadership in Christ's kingdom, well, in Mark's gospel, the only human figures who serve, linguistically, diacono, the verb for to serve. The only people to serve are women, and the stories of women serving our book they bookend, Mark's gospel. In Mark, chapter one, Peter's mother in law is healed, and she serves Jesus and disciples. And at the very end of the Gospels, you have all these Galilean women. Mark, he almost mentions, in passing, oh, by the way, there's a whole fleet of women following Jesus around Galilee. They were following Jesus, which is a discipleship term, and serving Him. So that's I don't so I tend to take the view. I think the gospel writers were very intentional about every word they wrote, and so Mark, at the center of his gospel, this revolutionary passage about leadership is service. He bookends his gospel two stories of disciples serving Jesus. Both are women, no man, no male. You know, in Mark's gospel ever is said to be serving Jesus. So again, I still want to say, does that mean these women are elders and pastors? Not quite, but we can just factually say, observe that the one leadership trait, the closest thing we have to a specifically leadership trait is service, and only women are embodying that in Mark's gospel. So again, the women in the gospels, I think there's things that are very suggestive but not quite determinative for you know, women in positions of leadership, yeah, maybe I'm Maybe I'm being too cautious.

Joshua Johnson: 39:07

You might be a little too cautious, but that's okay. You've been struggling with this for a long time. We're coming to some great conclusions in in this as you've been walking through it. One of the things that you open up is Romans 16. And I think Romans 16 is really fascinating. It's one of my favorite things to do when I'm training missionaries and church planters is to have them study Romans 16, to really walk through who were the people, what were the roles that names are really important in the New Testament, especially New Testament letters. And so we do a study over Romans 16. It's a lot of fun. And you know, things come out. Great discussions come out. Because of that study you mentioned at the beginning that you kind of just stop after Romans 15, and you're like, okay, like he's just greeting people, and we're done. What did you actually once you actually stepped into Romans 16? What did you start to see?

Preston Sprinkle: 40:08

You know, Romans is this jam packed theological letter justification by faith. You know, the role of Adam and Israel and all these things. And, yeah, for most of my life, I kind of ran out of steam by the time I got to the bunch of names, you know, Oh, this isn't theological. Well, I quickly found out that's about the most absurd thing I could have believed. Rightly so. You know, you're reading a bunch of names, but in ancient letters, the greetings and the end of the letter often is one of the most significant parts. It captures and sums up some of the main themes throughout the letter. And the extensive mention of names is unparalleled in the New Testament. It might even be unparalleled in ancient letter writing, like it's just is it's just mind blowing. How many people he mentions, many of whom are women not I think it's still like 30 plus percent are women mentioned. So it's like, okay, more men than women. I'm like, yeah, in a first century context, to have it that close is pretty remarkable. But women are described. Paul uses more active terminology describing women being active in the gospel than he does for men. He mentions more men, but he seems to praise, you know, more more women. There's three in particular that I focus on in that chapter, three women, Phoebe, Priscilla and Junior, the subtitle or the title of my book. And again, are these women leaders in the church. There's so many debates about this, and I spent a lot of time looking at each one went back and forth. And at the end of the day, man, not only do I think that exegetically, all three of these women were i. Doing leadership things in the church. They were leaders in the church. But it was really that chapter that kind of started to put me over the the edge a bit. I still was like, I, you know, seen more and more evidence for women in leadership, but I was like, who I, you know, I still see I haven't gotten to Timothy yet. Haven't gotten to First Corinthians yet, but when I got to Romans 16. I'm like, it's, I think it's just exegetically hard to get around the fact that these three women, when you look at the cumulative arguments, are doing leadership things in the church. So, yeah, it's, it's powerful. I mean, Junior, everything's debated. I'll stop saying that. I mean, I think when you look at all the evidence, he calls her an apostle, and not just some, you know. Yeah, she's just a messenger. No, she this doesn't the word apostle in that context, does not mean just some delegate sent out by the church. It is not one of the 12, you know. So, yeah, three different categories of apostles. You have the 12, then you have others like Paul and Barnabas and Apollos, and then you, then you do have a two references in the New Testament to like delegates sent out from a church, and he uses the word apostle there, there probably just does mean messenger. And whether or not they carried authority is just unclear. But it doesn't make sense for Junia and adronicus, her husband, who are both called highly esteemed among the apostles. It's just really hard to interpret that like highly esteemed among other delegates of the church, he seems to be identifying them as part of this group of apostles, and the apostles carried authority in the church. There's no way around that. So yeah, that chapter was that. That was, it's not one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. There's just so much there. You know,

Joshua Johnson: 43:31

there's a ton there. Like, even when you're talking about Priscilla and Aquila, like naming Priscilla first is, is pretty important. Priscilla is the woman in that relationship. Aquila is, that is the man. I mean, anecdotally, I know that. You know, my wife and I have led together for many, many years, and we were missionaries in the Middle East for a while. We planted churches, and we've led a missions organization. Anecdotally, most people when they referred to us referred to us as Meredith and Joshua, and not Joshua and Meredith. And I do think that there was probably a little bit more authority within my wife than me as who were walking in, and I think people recognized it and then started to name it. And I'm okay with that. My wife is awesome. She's great. That's a good example. But what? What do you think that Priscilla naming being named first?

Preston Sprinkle: 44:27

So of the four of the six times they're mentioned in Acts, and in Paul, she's mentioned first four of the six times. We don't at the end of the day, we don't know why. We do know that that was rare. Like, that is, like, it's not just, Oh, I didn't realize I mentioned her for, you know, like that. That's, there's something going on there. There's, there's a rationale. We just don't know for sure. The two kind of possibilities are she had a higher social status. We do see some examples in Greco Roman literature of women being mentioned first, if, like, their husband was a slave, or something like had a really obviously lower social status. I don't think Paul didn't seem to play into the social hierarchy of the day. So I don't know if he would name her first, because she had a higher social status. Another option is it kind of like it'd be what you're alluding to, like she played kind of a more prominent role in the church. We don't know what exactly that was, but Well, no, we do actually, because both her and Aquila, her husband took Apollos aside and taught him the way of God. More accurately, both of them hosted at least three different house churches, and in the first century, the host played a leadership role. And you for sure can't say that. Well, she's mentioned, but he's the one that was doing the leadership in hosting the house search. I'm like, well, but she's mentioned first, like, if anything, she's playing a more prominent role. So, yeah, you add it up, you add it all together, and it's just, it's, again, I think it's hard to get around the fact that Priscilla not just by being mentioned first, but the way she's described as doing ministry with her husband. You know, these are, these are, these are leadership type activities,

Joshua Johnson: 46:11

you know, as you walk through. So you walk through going into Genesis, one and two. And you're walking through Old Testament, prophets, the ministry of Jesus and women to leadership. And we're then Romans 16, as we're talking about now, in First Corinthians. You've been, you know, walking through First Corinthians 11 and 14. The conclusion all that is like, Okay, we see women exercising leadership like we see this. But then you get into First Timothy two, and it clearly says, I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority of her man. So what do we do to. Yeah. What do we do with that, as opposed to all of the evidence that we have seen already?

Preston Sprinkle: 46:54

Yeah, well, that's, I'm glad you said that last statement. What we shouldn't do is begin with First Timothy two, build our theology from that, and then go elsewhere. I think we do need to come to First Timothy two, in light of everything we've seen thus far, we've seen female prophets. We've seen, you know, suggestive examples of women in the ministry of Jesus. We've seen clear leadership roles in Romans 16. It seems that if Paul is actually saying all women of all time should never teach nor exercise godly Christian kind of authority over men, then we got to go back and, like, because now we got a serious tension in Scripture. So my quest in that chapter, which ended up being, as you know, the longest chapter, I spent 50 pages earlier drafts, like, 100 pages with way more footnotes, but, yeah, I really want to see, like, what is going on this passage? Is it clearly saying women can't teach or preach at all, or teacher exercise authority. One of the biggest things I found is the Greek word for authority. There. This is a well known debate. What does the Greek word authentice mean when Paul says, Teach or an exercise authority? Is it a godly Christ like kind of authority that men should exercise but women shouldn't, or is it a not too Christian kind of authority that neither men nor men women should exercise but but happen to be a particular problem among women at Ephesus, based on oh so the difficulty with the word is that It's never used anywhere else in the Bible. It's hardly used outside the Bible. It's a rare word, not just in the Bible, it's a rare word, but based on the small handful of examples we do have of the word and in the book, I, part of me was like, it's just gonna be such a boring session section, but I'm like, I'm going to show people every single reference where this word is used. So you're going to be reading Greek papyri. You're going to be reading inscriptions, you know, and every, every time it's used, it refers to the authority that a master would have over his slave. Now, in the Greco Roman worldview, that's perfectly fine, but that's the very kind of authority that Jesus denounced in Mark 10. It's the Gentiles who lord it over you, who walk around like masters, who boss around their slaves. And Jesus says, no, it's actually the slave who has more authority than the master, you know. So if that's so, it seems that that's what Paul's referring to there, that he's not forbidding women from exercising a godly kind of authority that men should exercise. He's saying no, leaders in the church shouldn't be acting like masters over slaves. And I think there was, and I talked about this in the book, there's evidence in the historical context that it would make sense that women in Ephesus in particular, who had a, you know, unusually high number of wealthy women with a high social status. It would make sense that they, you know, maybe carried that posture into the church and were exercising a Greco Roman hierarchy kind of view of authority. And Paul says, No, I do not, I do not permit that. So, yeah, that's a simple way of trying to explain a really hard, hard passage. So I In conclusion, I think Paul is addressing a localized situation in Ephesus, not giving a universal prohibition for women of all time to never teach, never exercise authority over over man.

Joshua Johnson: 50:24

So as you walk through all of this, what are you comfortable telling us about? Where you land?

Preston Sprinkle: 50:31

I land egalitarian, although I don't love that term. I use it throughout the book, but I don't it just it is a very secular term, and I absolutely honor and uphold male and female difference, because some the word egalitarian could almost feel like you're erasing male female differences, and I 100% I'm not doing that. I just don't think those differences are determinative for who should lead and not lead in the church. As I say in my conclusion that, look, this is an exegetically complex issue, while I'm utterly convinced 100% of the Trinity and the deity of Christ, you know, I might be like 70% you know, on women, 70 to 80% of women in leadership, like, I still want to say there's, there is complexity here. I can see where somebody would not land here, but based on the cumulative weight of evidence, much of what we've talked about, and when you weigh that cumulative evidence up against the like two prohibition passages, First Timothy two and First Corinthians 14, which we didn't get to, neither of those, at best, clearly prohibits women. And I actually, I think that's not really what Paul's saying. They're based on the exegesis, not because I'm. Ignore in Scripture. So I don't given that the cumulative way for women in leadership and the lack of convincing exegesis of the kind of two prohibition passages, that's kind of why I land where I do.

Joshua Johnson: 52:06

No, I think that's, that's great. And I mean, I know you said you want, like, Hey, I just need to come up with a statement. I'm going to be able to do that. But I like, I like, where you landed. But you know, as we we walk through this and we land here, what do you think the implication of this debate is not just for the church, but as this the way that we we think about leadership, the way that we think about women, the way that we think about God, what does that have to do with the way that we exercise I don't know, some some influence In the world. How does it impact society and culture, the way that we actually view some of these things

Preston Sprinkle: 52:54

so good. There's so many things here I gotta be I know sure two things. Number one, I think the nature of Christian leadership needs to change, or, I mean, I think it needs to align with the very upside down, counter cultural nature of Christian leadership in the New Testament. So I think, I think we need to take seriously how the New Testament treats, treats leadership. And secondly, I would say, even if leaders are convinced of a complementarian viewpoint, which, which I get, I totally get. I would say, you need to make sure that women are not just valued, but are playing a significant influential role in your church, to the point to where, if there were no women, there would be no church like that's just so utterly clear, regardless of the leadership question, it's so utterly clear that God's story of redemption is carried on the on the back of women all throughout so we need to reflect that redemptive arc in how we are doing church and being the church in our local context. So there's, you know, I think complicated complimentarians might have to get a little more creative. But if is your Yeah, are women playing an absolute, vital, influential role in your church to where if they left, it would, it would, it would, it would just not exist. I think that that'd be a good, good question to ask.

Joshua Johnson: 54:20

So what do you hope for your book from Genesis Junior, what do you hope that this gives to the to the church, the Body of Christ.

Preston Sprinkle: 54:29

I hope everybody will agree with me. I mean, of course, because I'm convinced that the viewpoint that I hold, I want you know, I wouldn't mind if people were like based on not me, but based on the Bible. They, they will come to that same conclusion, of course. But obviously that's not going to happen with everybody. I hope for better conversations where people who do land on different sides won't demonize each other. They will be curious about each other's position. They will accurately represent where people are coming from. And, thirdly, honestly, man, I'm like, I'm a Bible guy. I love I love it when people honor the text of Scripture. And I would encourage, I hope my book encourages people to slow down, do more study, appreciate some of the exegetical complexity, and let the the strength of their passion for this topic be matched by the depth of their study, and not just race to thin answers to some very thick questions.

Joshua Johnson: 55:26

Give me a recommendation. Anything you've been reading watching lately, you could recommend

Preston Sprinkle: 55:30

with this topic, or with anything it

Joshua Johnson: 55:36

could be, it could be, hey, you know, you have to wait a couple months, but baseball season's coming up, you know what?

Preston Sprinkle: 55:44

All right, all right. Well, I will, yes, I'm excited to watch my Los Angeles Dodgers win a Third World series in a row this year, because they have arguably the best team the game has ever seen. So I know that I probably lost all of my audience and no one's gonna buy my book now,

Joshua Johnson: 56:04

when you have billions and billions of dollars to spend, yes, yes, that's true.

Preston Sprinkle: 56:11

I'm a baseball fan first so I I have many friends who hate the Dodgers. We get along perfectly fine, most of the time, most of the time, yeah,

Joshua Johnson: 56:22

well, I'm excited for my Seattle Mariners to win their first ever World Series this year. Guys I love so close.

Preston Sprinkle: 56:29

You guys. What a season. Yeah, it was so much fun. I was hoping mariners were going to be in the World Series. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me, too. Me.

Joshua Johnson: 56:47

Too well, from Genesis to junior presses out will be out in March, anywhere books are sold. So people go out and get that. Anywhere is there anywhere? Specifically you'd like to point people to, how could they connect with you, get your book or anything else you want to. You know,

Preston Sprinkle: 57:03

my website, theology in the raw.com, would be a go to place, and especially with this topic, I've actually posted lots of extra material that didn't make it into the book. So there's actually free papers you like, really lengthy, mostly kind of scholarly stuff that is out there. So and I'll keep posting stuff as I continue the conversation. So well.

Joshua Johnson: 57:24

Preston, thank you for this conversation. Really enjoyed talking to you. Really enjoyed walking through women in leadership for two men to sit down and really go after the women in leadership debate. It's been fantastic and hopefully honoring and uplifting to a lot of the women that are out there listening as well. So Preston, thank you is fantastic.

Preston Sprinkle: 57:46

Thank you, Josh, thanks for having me on Yeah. You.