Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Male Leadership

their faith in Him. All Christians have direct access to God as sons and daughters, are indwelt by Christ through the Holy Spirit, and share equally the eternal promises of God. As to whether the husband-wife role distinctions or gender-based roles in the larger family of God that are present in the Old Testament still exist under the new covenant, Galatians 3:28 simply doesn’t com ment. However, the author of Galatians 3:28 comments on this ques tion elsewhere. In his letters to the churches in Ephesus, Colossae, Corinth, and Crete, and to his helpers Timothy and Titus, Paul insists that even among men and women who are now “one in Christ Jesus” as a result of the gospel, there exist functional differences and distinct, gender-based roles in marriage and the local church. Biblical feminists misuse the Galatians 3:28 passage by pressing the text far beyond its intended meaning and declaring the plain, lit eral interpretation of the headship-submission passages to be simplis tic. Following the same methodology of interpretation as the biblical feminists, so-called Christian homosexuals claim the right to same sex relationships. Because the Bible says “neither male nor female,” they claim that all the specific biblical passages prohibiting homo sexuality must be understood culturally and in the light of Galatians 3228. But does Galatians 3:28 truly abolish all sexual distinctions? Can men now marry men, or women marry women? The conclusions that those who hold an egalitarian viewpoint draw from Galatians 3:28 are plainly at odds with numerous portions of Scripture. Biblical feminists wrongfully pit one group of verses on women’s submission against another group of verses on women’s equality. The historic Christian position, however, gives equal weight to both truths. Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke briefly explains the correct ap proach to handling both sets of biblical claims: “These truths regard ing the equality and inequality of the sexes must be held in dialectical tension, by allowing them the same weight at the same time, and by not allowing one to vitiate the other by subordinating one to the other.”'6 Peter, for example, holds in “dialectical tension” both husband-wife equality and husband-wife role distinctions. The wife, according to Peter, is “a fellow heir of the grace of life” with her husband and is also the “submissive” partner in the husband-wife relationship (1 Peter 321-7). Biblical feminists, on the other hand, promote a half truth— emphasizing the equality side of the male-female relationship without recognizing the subordination side. However, we understand the New

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