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Hi There,

I have a friend who goes to your fellowship, and …I wanted to ask a very sincere question. Having received the URL to the \"messages\" page, I quickly noted that sometimes there are girls who teach for TD. Thus, I was wanting to know what your Scriptural argument is for allowing these girls to teach over both men and women in a church setting (even a Bible Study), especially considering Paul's warnings in the pastoral epistles…

Again, it is by no means my intention to offend anyone. Actually, I am impressed by your answers I see to questions such as those on free will. So, I hope this email is not received as hate mail. I hope that God would strengthen your ministry and grow us all in truth.

If you could email an answer to me, or even post the answer (and let me know), it would be greatly appreciated.

Blessings to you and your ministry!

A Brother

Hi!

Thanks very much for your email, for taking Scripture at its word, and for politely asking the question about women who occasionally teach in TD. It's a legitimate question, and one I'm glad you asked.

As a pretext to my answer, let me state that I believe Paul does teach that women are not to be in a position of ecclesiastical authority over men, nor are they to be teachers exercising teaching authority over men. As the head of teaching in the English department of my church, I do not appoint women teachers for college and above. I do, however, have some women teaching at the high school level.

My persuasion is that high schoolers in our cultural context are still children. Older children, but still children. When a woman occasionally teaches in TD (usually my wife, once a year), my justification is that while these boys are male, they're not men yet. I do recognize that the juniors and seniors may almost be men, but high school is where I've made the determination.

As for our college SS class, I do have a woman in there (I call her a facilitator) to "be there" for the sisters in the class. I'm sensitive to having a female voice and perspective for our sisters. I don't want her to teach the class, but to be in the class while it's being taught, in order to bring a woman's viewpoint or angle that may add value to the truth being taught.

Yet, if the topic were uniquely suited to hearing from a woman - i.e. A Woman's Perspective on ..." - there, I would be comfortable with a woman sharing in SS, fellowship, or even Sunday service, as long as it wasn't authoritative doctrinal teaching, but rather, sharing, or a testimonial, or something that it only makes sense to hear "from the horse's mouth" about, if you know what I mean.

Another example might be what I did with our Summer Electives last year. Each year, we offer summer elective SS classes for high school and adults (incl. college). I've never had a woman teach the adult class. However, last year, we offered a course entitled, "Love, Sex, and Lasting Relationships." I was the main teacher, but I had my wife, Sandra, get up and address the class on occasion, particularly to share how the truth taught applies from a female's vantage point. It wouldn't be right for me to teach what women feel and think, when we have women right there who could share that.

In that class, we often broke up into gender specific groups. For one of the classes, Sandra and I switched groups in a Q&A session so the guys could have a chance to ask Sandra some questions as it related to females.

I've actually asked the same question you asked me to my friend, Joni Eareckson Tada, who has obviously spoken to men before, including at Grace Community Church (MacArthur), Bethlehem Baptist (Piper - the co-founder of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood), Ligonier Ministries' national conferences (RC Sproul; MacArthur actually was the one introducing her on one occasion). Her answer to me was that it was always done under the authority of the male leader, usually the pastor.

If you've heard Joni speak, she's powerful ... and biblical. Yet, when she shares, it's really more sharing and testimony, and bringing in her unique viewpoint than teaching or preaching. Joni submits to male leadership for that. You probably know that she and MacArthur are best of friends, and he whole-heartedly endorses her ministry. In fact, he spoke at the Joni and Friends International Disability Center's Grand Opening. My wife and I had a chance to converse with him there.

A month ago, Helen Rosevare shared the speaker's stage at John Piper's National Conference with MacArthur, John Piper, Jerry Bridges, and Randy Alcorn.

I must also point out that Scripture does not teach that we are not to ever learn anything from women, or that women can't and don't teach men things. The fact is, we do learn an awful lot from our sisters, our mothers, our daughters, our wives, our friends. We'd be lopsided, imbalanced, and incomplete if we didn't. Scripture also doesn't say that my wife can't sit me down, confront me on something, and/or teach me something God has taught her. She does, and I learn so much from her. I have heard MacArthur, Piper, Sproul, and Swindoll share the very same things. Paul's instruction is for the local church.

Lastly, as for TD, in particular, while I don't consider the boys men yet, I do recognize that they're quickly heading that direction. So, women teaching in TD is purposely limited to that end.

I hope this gives you a better idea of my thought process here. Please let me know your thoughts. My pet peeve is writing thought out answers to people's questions, and not getting any response in return.

Blessings to you!

Arthur

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Total Devotion is the High School Fellowship at Mandarin Baptist Church of Los Angeles.

Total Devotion meets on every Friday night from 730 PM to 10 PM in Room 131 except for the last Friday of each month.