The following "Question" was asked by an attendee at the 2003 Shepherds' Conference (a ministry of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California), and was "Answered" by John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the CD, #SC1007, titled "General Session #5 John MacArthur - Q&A."  A copy of the CD, cassette tape, or MP3 can be obtained by going to:  www.shepherdsconference.org  ©2003. All Rights Reserved. Grace Community Church.

Questioner

In regards to the church, the women’s role in the current church, and how the men are becoming effeminate and turning that role over to the women.

John MacArthur's Answer

With regard to the women’s role, I think we can get sort of a reputation for being narrow—and I don’t think it’s true (I’m not saying just we, but all of us)—because we live in this wacky, egalitarian, feminist world. And, if we stand where we stand, there are people who would condemn us because [we] somehow limit women. I don’t want to limit them at all. I mean, our church wants women to do everything that God has designed for them to do. There are women who are wonderful leaders who can lead the women and children. There are women who are wonderful teachers who teach women and children. We just stop where the Bible says to stop. And the scripture says, “I permit not a woman to teach or take authority over a man.” So that’s where we are; I haven’t had a lot of trouble exegeting that.

And yet, a great host are the women that publish the good news! And there was Aquila and Priscilla who instructed Apollos “more perfectly in the way,” and I’m sure both of them, including Priscilla, had some things to say that Apollos needed to know as an Old Testament expert about the New Testament gospel. We want the women to express all of the Spirit-giftedness that God has granted to them individually and collectively in the life of our church. But the limits are so crystal clear. I mean, it can’t be any more clear.

Jesus chose 12 apostles; none of them was a woman. Well, that’s to say something. There are 66 books in the Bible, none written by a woman—none. There is no woman in the Old Testament in ongoing ministry of any kind. There were some women who spoke for God in a prophetic moment—Deborah and Huldah. And, in the New Testament, there was at least an occasion or so when the daughters of Phillip said something on behalf of God.

It’s very, very clear… And elders following apostles have to be one-woman men—I don’t how much more clear that could be—leaders of their own household. So, I think that the scripture is clear on that, and that is not to bury women into some subordinate position without value. That’s the whole issue of I Timothy 2, where the apostle Paul says, “While I don’t permit the women to teach, a woman is saved, delivered in childbearing.”

You know that’s an interesting thought. How in the world is a woman saved in childbearing? I was in Romania some years ago. And we were preaching—there must have been about a thousand pastors in Bucharest—and I was having a great time teaching them all week long; and they were doing question and answer. And their wives had come to be with them for this conference. I had never been to Romania and there was question and answer time and this guy says, “What does I Timothy 2:14 mean that ‘a woman is saved in childbearing’?”

And so, I don’t know what’s going on in their background, so I just launched into it. I said, “Well, I’ll tell you what it doesn’t mean; it doesn’t mean that women are going to go to heaven because they have babies.” And it just got dead silent. They were sitting on wooden chairs, and they started creaking. And the moderator looked over at me like, “You know, you just stepped on something here.”

But I went ahead, you know, waxing eloquent on the fact you know that being saved in childbearing simply means that a woman is delivered from second class status by the singular privilege of bearing children and bringing them into the world. And then, that verse says—verse 15, “continuing in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.” A woman, who has children and lives a righteous and godly life, brings to bear upon her children immense spiritual influence.

That’s how it works in our house—that’s how it works in our house. I’m the teacher; I’m the preacher. Patricia has borne the influence; her godly living, her godly love and care for her children has drawn them to her heart in very, very unique ways. They don’t want to breach my theology—and that has some containing effect on your children as they grow up. But they also don’t want to wound the faithfulness of their mother. Her legacy is not gained by getting a briefcase and a suit and going to work; it’s by investing in the children.

So, I said all that in Romania and the place got really agitated because I found out later that they believe that you can lose your salvation. And one of the ways that a woman would lose her eternal salvation would be if she did anything to prevent a pregnancy. And that’s why they all had nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen children. And if you were a pastor with just a few children, there was serious doubt about whether you were qualified because you had a rebellious wife. So somebody would have to check on your wife to see if there was some condition that she had and she couldn’t have babies.

So well, anyway, you can imagine the deal. I go through this thing about 20 minutes—details in the exegesis, the Greek—and I come out with this whole deal. And here are these women sitting there with a dozen kids. And you could just see them look at their husband and say, “You had to be wrong about that verse?”

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur's Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
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