NXR Podcast - QUESTIONS - What If Your Husband Is Theologically Inferior To You?
Aired: 2022-08-04
Duration: 10:21


=== Men Lead Households (03:12) ===

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[00:00:21]  How far should we apply Paul's instructions that women should ask their husbands at home any theological questions they have and not be outspoken in the church?
[00:00:31]  Great question.
[00:00:32]  Let's read it one more time.
[00:00:33]  This is from With Love, Jillian.
[00:00:36]  How far should we apply Paul's instructions that women should ask their husbands at home any theological questions they have and not be outspoken in the church?
[00:00:46]  All right, great question.
[00:00:47]  So this comes from 1 Corinthians 14, comes from a lot of passages.
[00:00:51]  We see the principle at play.
[00:00:52]  So 1 Timothy 2, verses 9 through 15, right?
[00:00:57]  I do not permit a woman to have any authority to teach or exercise any authority over a man, she must be silent.
[00:01:05]  Um, you know, and so Paul goes into that.
[00:01:07]  She needs to be in submission, and then he makes a he pulls on the created order to uh to bind his argument so it's not cultural.
[00:01:14]  He doesn't say, uh, because you know, in our particular culture, you know, we want to be winsome, and and people want to they'd see this as as radically feminist.
[00:01:22]  And no, that's but Paul doesn't argue like Tim Keller, so uh, he argues biblically, and so he roots it not in some winsome cultural argument that that would come and go and be subject to change, but he roots it in a timeless, unchanging principle before sin ever even entered the world.
[00:01:38]  Namely, the created order, right?
[00:01:40]  Adam was formed first, then Eve.
[00:01:42]  Adam was made from the dust of the ground, but Eve was made from Adam and for Adam as his helpmate.
[00:01:48]  So he uses that argumentation to talk about why men should lead, they should have authority, and men should teach, and a woman should not, right?
[00:01:57]  And he's making that argument with the church, but I do think that there's a broader principle in society, even outside of the home and the church, right?
[00:02:04]  I'm not merely complementarian.
[00:02:06]  I am patriarchal.
[00:02:06]  I think that that's right.
[00:02:08]  Biblical.
[00:02:09]  I think it makes no sense to say men should be the head of their households and wives should submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ.
[00:02:16]  And men should lead the church as elders, and I would argue also for a male diaconate, and women should not function as elders and they should not be preaching on the Lord's day.
[00:02:25]  And so in the church and the home, it is led by biblically qualified men.
[00:02:30]  Women are not leading, they're not in positions of authority over men.
[00:02:33]  But then when we come into society, whether it be the political realm or the cultural realm or whatever, any other institution, academia, Something outside of the home in the church, all of a sudden we flip that order on its head.
[00:02:46]  That just makes no sense.
[00:02:48]  If men are leading households, if households, right?
[00:02:51]  Because what is a society?
[00:02:52]  Think about that.
[00:02:53]  What is a society but a gathering of households?
[00:02:57]  Societies are made up by households.
[00:02:59]  And you might say, well, not everybody's a part of a household.
[00:03:01]  Not everybody's married.
[00:03:02]  They're single women.
[00:03:03]  Great.
[00:03:03]  They're under their father then.
[00:03:05]  There's no woman who is not underneath the headship of a man, whether it be her father or whether it be her husband.

=== Clarity and Order in Worship (03:56) ===

[00:03:12]  If she's a Christian woman, Whether it be her male elders in the church.
[00:03:15]  So, women, God has set up his created order in such a way that men lead.
[00:03:21]  Men lead.
[00:03:23]  And so, to advocate that men should lead in the church and they should lead in the home, but then when we get away from the church and the home, then we can flip God's created order on its head is inconsistent and I believe hypocritical.
[00:03:35]  All right.
[00:03:35]  So, women asking questions of their husbands at home.
[00:03:39]  1 Timothy 2, verse 9 through 15, talks about men are the ones who are teaching the church, but 1 Corinthians chapter 14 explicitly says that in church women should be silent.
[00:03:50]  In fact, the Apostle Paul says it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.
[00:03:56]  Shameful for a woman to speak in church.
[00:03:58]  And he specifically says if a woman has questions, she should ask her husband at home.
[00:04:03]  Now, the first thing that I think Paul's addressing is this he is addressing outbursts in the Lord's Day gathering of the saints.
[00:04:12]  Women should not be objecting or interrupting, and no one for that matter, but especially women should not be objecting or interrupting as a pastor is teaching, as the saints are gathered on the Lord's Day for.
[00:04:26]  The administering of the ordinary means of grace publicly preaching the word, publicly praying the word, publicly singing the word with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and publicly seeing the word S E E I N G in the only two images that the Lord has instituted, namely baptism and the Lord's Supper.
[00:04:44]  Right?
[00:04:44]  These are the ordinary means of grace.
[00:04:46]  The church is committed, the gathered saints, they're committed to gather together to ecclesia to assemble together on the Lord's Day, the Christian Sabbath, the first day of the week, the day that Christ rose from the dead, for the administering of the ordinary means of grace.
[00:05:01]  And this is a time of order.
[00:05:03]  And this is what Paul's talking about in 1 Corinthians 14, not just in regards to women, but in regards to the gifts of the sign gifts, which I believe has ceased, but in his day, in the church at Corinth, the sign gifts of prophecy and tongues.
[00:05:16]  Paul's whole argument, saying that prophecy is superior to tongues, is because Paul wants order and he wants clarity.
[00:05:24]  He wants order and clarity.
[00:05:26]  He wants whoever is speaking to do so intelligibly.
[00:05:29]  And he talks about, even with prophecy, he says, at most, two or three should prophesy.
[00:05:33]  And he's not saying two or three prophesy at the same time.
[00:05:37]  That is an idiotic reading of the text.
[00:05:40]  He does not say that because he specifically says if to one is given a revelation, the one who is currently speaking should stop speaking so the one who's just received a revelation from the Lord, a prophetic word, can begin speaking.
[00:05:52]  Meaning what?
[00:05:53]  That the two should not speak simultaneously.
[00:05:56]  One is speaking, they stop so that the other can speak, so that only one person speaks at a time.
[00:06:01]  Why?
[00:06:01]  So that it is intelligible, so that it is clear, so that it is done in order.
[00:06:07]  Order.
[00:06:07]  And then he says two or three should prophesy.
[00:06:09]  And we know he's not talking about simultaneously because he's already addressed that.
[00:06:13]  So, what he's talking about by way of implication is that two or three should prophesy at most throughout an entire gathering, throughout a service where the church is gathered together.
[00:06:24]  Two or three men, because he later talks about women, how it's shameful for a woman to speak in church.
[00:06:31]  So, what we can assume is this biblically qualified men should speak in church one at a time and only two or three at most so that everything can be done with clarity and Order.
[00:06:42]  God is a God of order.
[00:06:45]  So, the first thing that Paul's saying when he says it's shameful for a woman to speak at church and he encourages and commands women to ask their husbands if they have any questions at home is he is setting up barriers against interruptions in the Lord's Day gathering.
[00:07:01]  Do not object and do not interrupt.
[00:07:04]  And no one should be doing that because of what Paul says earlier about how one should speak at a time.

=== The Husband as Family Theologian (03:13) ===

[00:07:08]  No one objects, no one interrupts, but especially women.
[00:07:12]  It is especially shameful for a woman who has not been given the assignment and the ministry by God to lead or to exercise authority over men or to teach men.
[00:07:23]  Again, that's cross referencing back to 1 Timothy 2.
[00:07:26]  It is especially shameful, therefore, for a woman to interrupt and to speak in church.
[00:07:31]  All right, now, asking their husbands at home, the way that I'm answering the question is this I think that it's appropriate for a woman to ask a question of her pastor, to ask a question of her male pastor who is not her husband.
[00:07:46]  Outside of the Lord's Day gathering.
[00:07:48]  Not interrupting, not objecting, not in the middle of a service, not causing a scene, not an outburst, but to reach out with her husband's permission, not against her husband, not being divisive, not undercutting his authority, but for her to reach out with her husband to their pastor and to ask him a question.
[00:08:08]  Now, here's the deal, though.
[00:08:09]  This should never be used to turn against her husband.
[00:08:12]  So the only reason that a woman should really be doing this is when she has already asked her husband and he doesn't know the answer.
[00:08:19]  And here's the beauty.
[00:08:20]  At that point, it becomes his question.
[00:08:23]  It's not exclusively her question anymore.
[00:08:26]  It's now his question.
[00:08:28]  And if the man is a godly husband, Doug Wilson says it like this He says, Not every man will be a professional theologian, but every man has the obligation of being a residential theologian, a resident theologian.
[00:08:41]  Not a professional, not all men will be professional theologians, meaning some men will be more theologically inclined than others.
[00:08:48]  Not all men will be professional theologians, but every man should be a resident theologian.
[00:08:52]  Theologian, meaning he is the pastor of his home.
[00:08:56]  He is the theologian of his family, which means his wife and his children, when they have theological questions, they should go to him and they should know this My husband, my dad, he will either have the answer or he will be committed diligently to finding the answer.
[00:09:15]  He'll either have the answer or he'll find the answer.
[00:09:19]  So I think that women should certainly not have an outburst and interrupt in the Lord's Day gathering.
[00:09:25]  But even beyond that, I think that women should ask their husbands at home before emailing their pastors.
[00:09:32]  And their husband will either be able to answer the question, or if he can't, it now becomes his question.
[00:09:39]  It's not just her question anymore, it is now also his question.
[00:09:44]  And he can lead the way in approaching one of the pastors in getting the answer to this question, or he can do some research at home.
[00:09:52]  He may not even need to approach the pastors, he may be able just to, through personal study, find the answer.
[00:09:58]  To this question, to be able to answer it for his wife.
[00:10:02]  That's how I would answer your question.
[00:10:03]  Jillian, thanks for writing in.
[00:10:05]  Thanks so much for listening.
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