David Lipscomb on the Roles of Christian Women, 1892

In October 1892, David Lipscomb set out to define what Churches of Christ should teach and practice regarding the roles of Christian women in church and society. He began by quoting New Testament passages restricting the activities of women in Christian assemblies (1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:11), and passages that call on Christian wives to submit to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18; and 1 Peter 3:1-6). Lipscomb insisted that the teaching of these verses "does not degrade woman." He also insisted that, aside from contemporary influence to the contrary, the divine teaching must be obeyed. To see what can happen when women lead churches, one would need to look no further than the Congregationalists of New England who had drifted far from their staid Puritan past. Lipscomb concluded by referring to the Disciples' General Christian Missionary Convention, held that year in Nashville, where women had spoken from the stage in full assemblies. "That meeting," he said, "should be regarded a sin against God and an offense to the Christian womanhood of Nashville and of the South."[1]

Note

[1] David Lipscomb, "Woman and Her Work," Gospel Advocate 34 (October 13, 1892), 644.

Coverture and Its Legacy in Oklahoma

A carryover from English common law, coverture was an American legal idea and practice whereby "wives were understood to be 'covered' under the civil identity of their husbands."[1] As the English jurist Sir William Blackstone expressed it in 1770, "the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing."[2]

Coverture meant that a married woman's identity was subsumed into that of her husband's. Ideally, his duty was to protect and support her. Her duty was to obey and serve him. He would work for a salary or wages and represent the family in public. She would keep the home and nurture the children. According to this arrangement, women were not legal, political, or economic actors, at least not directly. They were domestic workers. More specifically, coverture meant that a married woman could not enter into contracts. As historian Richard White puts it: "The marriage contract . . . was a contract that took away a wife's right to make future contracts." Consequently, "only an unmarried adult woman had legal standing and full control over her property."[3]

Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, state laws typically called Married Women's Property Acts began to erode the older laws of coverture. Yet, as historian and legal scholar Linda K. Keber has pointed out, in spite of these legal changes "most people continued to think as the rules of coverture had taught them."[4] The cultural assumptions and legal traditions of coverture were slow to die. Along this line, Kerber points to two examples from Oklahoma history. According to one law established in Oklahoma Territory in 1893, "The husband is the head of the family. He may choose any reasonable place or mode of living and the wife must conform thereto."[5] Kerber's second illustration comes from the mid-twentieth century. Although by that time women had long since gained the constitutional right to vote in federal elections, women in Oklahoma were not permitted to hold statewide office until 1942.[6]

Notes

[1] Linda K. Kerber, "Why Diamonds Really Are a Girl's Best Friend: Another American Narrative." Daedalus 141, no. 1 (2012): 91. Accessed December 25, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23240304.

[2] Ibid., 96. Kerber, in her footnote 18, cites Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England: In Four Books (1770; Washington, D.C.: 1941), vol. 1, chap. 15, 443.

[3] Richard White, The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 100. 

[4] Kerber, "Why Diamonds Really Are a Girl's Best Friend," 94.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., 97.

Alexander Campbell, "Woman and Her Mission" (1856)

This post summarizes and makes a few observations about Alexander Campbell's address to the students at Henry Female Seminary in Newcastle, Kentucky, on May 30, 1856. The speech, "Woman and Her Mission," appears in Campbell's collection titled Familiar Lectures and Addresses. The full bibliographic entry appears below.

Given the time of year, this might have been a commencement address. However, the transcription does not include any of the typical references to graduates that one would expect if this were a graduation speech.

Many parts of Campbell's address have nothing to do directly with his topic. His remarks include some of the his favorite points and observations. For example, when commenting on the creation of woman, Campbell sets out to undermine philosophical materialism. He contends that there exists no proof, nor even a way to imagine, that matter somehow generated spirit.

Campbell also denies that the first two chapters of the Bible are separate creation accounts in conflict with one another. He describes them, instead, as a general creation account in Genesis 1, followed by an expansive sequel in Genesis 2. The second chapter focuses on the sixth day of creation, especially the making of the first two humans, the zenith of God's creative work.

The early part of the speech also includes what I see as one of many statements in the writings of Campbell that implicitly deny the charge that "Campbellism" was a system of water-and-works salvation, merely baptism followed by a life of good deeds:

It is essential to our redemption, that some supernatural interposition should have been originated and instituted, else our escape from this condition would have been, so far as our reason or resources are concerned, wholly impossible (214). 

He positively asserts that neither human reason, imagination, nor creativity could have ever brought salvation to humanity. "Revelation alone meets the present conditions of our being" (214).

After these and several other preliminary remarks, Campbell turns to the theme of his title. In speaking about "woman," he makes a case for different gender roles that is deeply rooted in the biblical doctrine of creation. Citing Genesis 2:18--"And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him"--Campbell observes that "woman was created to be a companion, perfectly suitable to man." But this raises the more specific question, "For what was woman created and made?" (219).

According to English translations of Genesis 3:20, Adam called his wife Eve, a name that is translated from the Hebrew term whose central idea is Life. From this Campbell elaborates, "But she is not only the mere life of humanity, in its literal import, but the life and the spirit of all true and genuine civilization" (219). For this very reason, says Campbell, a person can judge any society by finding out how women are treated among them.

From there, Campbell states that woman "is, or may be, the better half" of humanity. And this, he emphasizes, is where we must identify gender distinctions and roles. Woman is the "better half" of humanity "not in muscular power, not in physical strength, not in animal courage, not in intellectual rigor, but in delicacy of thought, in sensitiveness of feeling, in patient endurance, in constancy of affection, in moral courage and in soul-absorbing devotion" (222). He clarifies what this does and does not mean in terms of intellect. Directly addressing his female hearers, Campbell says:

You study physical science, physiology, pneumatology, and probably some of you have even encountered and vanquished metaphysics. Of one thing we are assured, that these studies are as much within your grasp as they are within that of half the young gentlemen of the present living age (224).

Women are as intellectually capable as men. If anything, perhaps even more so. But this is not the end of the matter, because what people learn should be based on the "special calling, or the special mission, of each individual" (225). The schooling of a woman "should be equal to her mission" (226). And what is that mission? "She was an extract of man, in order to form man; in order to develop, perfect, beautify, and beatify man" (226).

It certainly appears that Campbell is saying woman's highest calling is to the role of wife (a suitable helper) and mother; to make "the patriot, the philanthropist and the Christian" (227). To women has been conferred "the sovereignty of the human heart." This means that women do not stand "in the front rank of the battle-field" (228). To be more specific:

There is no necessity to mount the rostrum, to stand up in public assemblies, to address mixed auditories of both sexes, of all classes and of all orders of society, in order to fill up the duties of your mission (228).

The Christian woman is one "who is always in her proper sphere" (228).

Source

Campbell, Alexander. "Woman and Her Mission. Delivered before the Henry Female Seminary, Newcastle, KY., May 30 1856." in Popular Lectures and Addresses (St. Louis: Christian Publishing Company, 1864), pp. 213-30.

Interpreting 1 Timothy 2:15

9 Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments; 10 but rather by means of good works, as befits women making a claim to godliness. 11 Let a woman quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. 12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. 13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. 14 And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being quite deceived, fell into transgression. 15 But women shall be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self restraint. --1 Timothy 2:9-15, New American Standard Bible.

Disclaimer: I originally wrote what follows based on the wording of an older edition of the NASB, which appears above. I probably picked that translation because of its literal approach. As you'll figure out from my comments, I certainly don't think it's a superior translation of this passage.

I know, everyone wants to know the meaning and proper application of especially 1 Timothy 2:11-12. Maybe someday I'll talk about those verses here at "Frankly Speaking." For now, I'm content to deal with another not-so-easy part of this passage: verse 15.

Because he has spoken of Eve's transgression in the previous verse, in verse 15 Paul names the specific way by which women can gain salvation: they can do it through the bearing of children. What does that phrase and the rest of the verse mean? Of course, there's a lot more to be said than I'm going to say here. Feel free in the comments to add what you'd like. For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to quickly sketch the three main interpretations and then ask you what you think.

1. Some interpreters say that Paul meant that Christian women, in giving birth to children, will be kept physically safe. Apparently, this is the view taken by the translators of the New American Standard Bible quoted above. The translation of the NT by James Moffatt clearly supports this view: women will get safely through childbirth. The problem here is that not all Christian mothers have been preserved in giving birth. Tragically, many thousands have lost their lives. A second point against this interpretation is that Paul consistently uses the word translated preserved in the NASB to speak not of mere physical safety but of personal salvation (see, for example, 1 Timothy 1:15 and Titus 3:5). Because of this, most other translations use the word saved instead of preserved. I agree. I think saved is the more-accurate word here.

2. A different view suggests that verse 15 is pointing back to the birth of Christ. According to this interpretation, Paul is saying that when Mary gave birth to the Messiah, the transgression which was introduced by Eve began to be reversed. Salvation entered the world in the person of Jesus. The wording in the margin of the Revised Standard Version reflects this view: woman will be saved by the birth of the child. But this view also has its problems. For one thing, the verse never specifically mentions Mary or Jesus. And, as many of the commentaries point out, if Paul had wanted to make such a statement, he would likely have been much more specific and would have chosen different words.

3. A third view, and one that I think has the most going for it, takes the word translated preserved or saved as a reference to final, personal salvation. It's no promise or guarantee of physical safety in childbirth. Instead, this view understands childbearing as a reference to what might be called "raising kids." That is to say, the phrase refers to all of a woman's duty, especially to her children. The rendering of the Twentieth Century New Testament expresses it well: women will find their salvation in motherhood. The salvation of women, says Paul, comes as a result of fulfilling their God-given role in bearing, nurturing, and teaching children, a major part of what Titus 2:5 speaks of as being workers at home. Of course, simply doing her duty will never save a woman. No Christian lady is going to be finally redeemed simply because she was a good mother. According to this interpretation, that's exactly why at the end of the verse Paul insists that women must continue in things like faith, love, holiness, and good judgment.

So what is this verse talking about? What do you think?

Places I've Been and What I'm Reading

When it comes to Genesis 1-3, a well-known American dichotomy says "It's either history or it's myth." But is that a faithful approach? I'm intrigued by how N.T. Wright responds to such questions in this video.

I don't particularly care for the expression, but it communicates something that many conservative Protestants think and debate about. We call it the question of "Women's Role in the Church." Whether you lean egalitarian (more liberal) or complementarian (more traditional), you might want to read Wayne Grudem's challenge: "An Open Letter to Egalitarians: Six Questions That Have Never Been Satisfactorily Answered."

I'm currently reading Hitler's Willing Executioner's: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. One of Goldhagen's most basic points emphasizes the word willing. In many of the previous interpretations of the Holocaust, the motivations of the German perpetrators of genocide have been explained along the following lines:

(a) They were coerced by the threat of punishment or even death.

(b) They were blindly following Adolf Hitler their popular, charismatic leader. Another type of this obedience theory is that, generally, people obey authority. They are even more likely to obey state authority, and this would be as true of Germans as anyone.

(c) They were subjected to high levels of peer pressure or social expectation.

(d) They were petty, callous bureaucrats who were out to make careers and provide for themselves and their families.

(e) Because the Holocaust was carried out by a series of acts that involved different people doing different things, the responsibility for such inhumanity was dispersed. According to this explanation, very few of the thousands of perpetrators, therefore, accepted that they were killing millions of Jews. Under the circumstances, it was relatively-easy to shift the blame.

Goldhagen says that these explanations or rationalizations are mostly, if not entirely, bunk. The fact is, there were many, many ordinary German people who knew exactly what the "final solution" to the "Jewish problem" was. These people were willing, responsible perpetrators. Coupled with this thesis is that most previous interpreters of the Holocaust have underestimated the depth and the strength of German anti-semitism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Too often, we have imagined that most Germans living under the Nazi regime were basically a lot like Americans living in the post-War years. Goldhagen seems to be saying, "No, they weren't. And if you don't get that, then you're bound to get the Holocaust wrong too." Has anyone else out there read this book?

And, by the way, what are you reading these days?

The Pastoral Epistles, by George W. Knight III

Every once in a while, I like to write about a book that I've read thoroughly, one that I can recommend to others (or warn them about). I've recently gone back through The Pastoral Epistles, by George W. Knight III (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992). Here's an updated version of something I wrote not long after Knight's work first came out: . . .

Over the last ten years or so, students of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus have been given several nice gifts, among them a full-scale commentary by William D. Mounce in the Word series, a similar work by Luke Timothy Johnson (but which does not include Titus) in the Anchor Bible, not to mention Ben Witherington's Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians, Volume 1: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1-2 Timothy and 1-3 John.

These latest works go a long way toward supplementing other fine books on the Pastorals like the ones by J.N.D. Kelly, Donald Guthrie, Gordon D. Fee and, of course, John Calvin.

Next on the horizon is Abraham J. Malherbe's long-awaited commentary in the Hermeneia series. While we wait for that one, another fairly-recent and very helpful treatment of the Greek text should not be overlooked: George W. Knight's The Pastoral Epistles in the New International Greek Testament Commentary series, edited by I. Howard Marshall and W. Ward Gasque.

Given the modern history of studies in the Pastorals, it comes as no surprise that the 50-page introduction focuses on the question of authorship. Knight, acknowledging the help of Donald Guthrie, fends off the arguments against Pauline authorship and upholds the traditional position. Knight argues that Paul wrote 1 Timothy and Titus during the time between his two Roman imprisonments (i.e., during the early-to-mid 60s). He wrote 2 Timothy during the second Roman imprisonment (as early as 64 and as late at 67). He was martyred in Rome around that same time.

In defending this reconstruction, Knight deals with the alleged and real differences in vocabulary, style, ecclesiology, and theology between the Pastorals and other letters ascribed to Paul. In dealing with the revived suggestion that Luke wrote these letters, Knight accepts no more than the possibility that Luke served as Paul's amanuensis.

In the commentary proper, Knight briefly introduces each section and then seriously engages the Greek text verse by verse, treating phrases and individual words. He discusses significant textual questions, carries on a conversation with the immediate and broader biblical contexts, and responds to both ancient and modern secondary literature. Instead of asserting a determined position, he discusses every exegetical alternative with thoroughness. For example, more than a page is taken up discussing whether the Greek term kyrios in 1 Tim 1:14 refers to the Father or to the Son.

In two excursuses Knight crosses the line that traditionally divides exegesis from hermeneutics. In the first, "Bishops/Presbyters and Deacons," he builds a strong case that churches of the New Testament era typically recognized the two classes of leaders (1 Tim. 3:1-13; Phil. 1:1). Indeed, sounding much like a member of the Churches of Christ, the author says that a plurality of bishops and deacons serving a congregation is the New Testament "pattern."

In the second excursus, "Motivations for Appropriate Conduct," he argues that in Titus 2:1-10 Paul insisted upon such standards not merely because their violation would be offensive to outsiders and thus hurtful to the reputation of the gospel, but also because those standards square with healthy teaching, are intrinsically right, and were recognized by many first-century Cretans as such. In taking this stance Knight rejects the view that some of the regulations (notably, the wife's submission to her husband) are purely cultural and should not be bound in more egalitarian societies like ours. (For an overview of Knight's argument on the wider question, see his article, "The Role of Women in the Church"). He also rejects the notion that the high ethical standards of Pauline Christianity and the culturally accepted norms of the Pastorals do not match. Citing the ideal of citizenship in Romans 13 and the popular ethics of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, the author denies any sort of tension between "the real Paul" and the author of the Pastorals. Furthermore, the Pastorals do not uniquely represent an "early catholicism" that upheld a sort of pedestrian, middle-class morality.

As expected, readers will find in this work any number of likes and dislikes. In my opinion, the best aspect of this commentary is its exegetical detail on the Greek text. Knight also does a better job of drawing the reader into the text than do, say, Dibelius and Conzelmann (although their commentary remains a gold mine of historical and literary parallels).

I think that the primary flaw of Knight's commentary is that its linguistic focus is so intense, other contours of the biblical text are frequently ignored. For example, on 1 Tim. 5:23 ("No longer drink water exclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and frequent ailments"), he says nothing of wine drinking in the Greco-Roman world, nor does he respond to the common suggestion that this verse gives us a glimpse into how the ascetic demands of the false teachers at Ephesus were affecting timid Timothy. Though shorter commentaries might ignore such questions, one expects a full-length work to treat them. A second criticism is that the historical notes, as well as the reported positions of other scholars, sometimes lack precision.

These quibbles aside, Knight's commentary is a significant contribution to New Testament study. An excellent supplement and balance to more liberal works like Dibelius-Conzelmann, this work will be a help to professors and other students of the Greek text. And for preachers whose Greek is serviceable, this guide is arguably the one to turn to first after working through the text itself.

Women, Minorities, and Outcasts in the Gospel of Luke

"Ten Lepers" by James C. Christensen

In both the fall and spring semesters, I teach "The New Testament." It's a basic first-year course where we focus on content. This time around, it's a night class, Mondays from 7:00 to 9:45 p.m. Tonight we're scheduled to explore a part of the NT that has become one of my favorites: Luke and Acts.

I've heard it repeated many times before: as he tells the story of Jesus, Luke puts a good bit of emphasis on how Christ paid attention to and elevated the overlooked and often-despised people of his world, namely women, Samaritans, and various sorts of outcasts. But I never realized how pronounced this was until I recently saw a list of passages that are unique to Luke. Each passage listed below is found only in that Gospel:

Women

1. Mary encounters an angel (1:26-38)
2. Mary and Elizabeth (1:39-45)
3. Mary's Song (1:46-56)
4. Jesus raises the widow's son (7:11-17)
5. The sinful woman forgiven (7:36-50)
6. Women who supported Jesus (8:1-3)
7. Mary and Martha (10:38-42)
8. Woman healed on the Sabbath (13:10-17)
9. Parable of the widow and the judge (18:1-8)

But it's not just women. Luke seems to have a soft spot in his heart for telling the stories of various kinds of people, some who were deeply despised:

Shepherds and Lepers, Tax Collectors and Samaritans

1. Shepherds at Jesus' birth (2:8-20)
2. The Good Samaritan (10:29-37)
3. Ten lepers healed, including one thankful Samaritan (17:11-19)
4. Pharisee and the tax collector (18:9-14)
5. Zacchaeus, the tax collector (19:1-10)

Luke could have told a lot of different stories about Jesus. But, writing by inspiration, he told these ones. I wonder, if Jesus had lived in our times, of all the people He might have encountered, which ones would Luke recall?