What Does the Bible Really Say About Women in Leadership?

I've been trying to get myself canceled for the last fifteen years, and no matter how hard I try, it's just it's nothing sticking. So I just want to understand what the Bible says. My wife's not a pastor, you know. I'm not. I'm not working for an egalitarian seminary or a complementarian seminary. There's nothing. I have nothing financially, socially, economically, riding on where I land. I truly want to write a book where it's just kind of tracing my theological journey. I'm like, look, there are strong and weak arguments on different sides. I just my best reading of scripture, I concluded. You're listening to the Provoke and Inspire podcast. What's up everyone? This is Ben from Provoke and Inspire, and today I had the privilege of talking to Preston Sprinkle. This was the second time. And for those of you who are unfamiliar with his work, he touches the subjects that everyone avoids. In fact, on this episode he says he's been trying to get canceled for years, and so far it hasn't worked out. He's written on hell, on homosexuality, on war, the kinds of topics that our culture is constantly fighting about. And he has devoted himself to asking, what does the Bible actually say? Now, on today's episode, we talk about his new book, From Genesis to Junia, an honest search for what the Bible really says about women in leadership. So just another light topic, and this is something we all need to wrestle with because I think we bring so many assumptions, so much baggage, so much of our background to this subject. And he spent thousands of hours wrestling with the text, learning from experts looking at history and culture. And I think you're going to be pretty surprised where he lands. So you're going to want to check out this entire conversation. And just a reminder, this podcast is part of a missions organization called Steiger. We're in hundreds of cities around the world, and our heart is to reach those who are lost, those who will not come to the church looking for answers, and who have so many negative ideas of who Jesus is. And so we go to them. We raise up young missional leaders who are not content to see their generation go unreached. And we proclaim the gospel and we disciple and we start movements in cities. It's a very compelling mission. If you go to Steve, you can learn more and you can get plugged in, because I think you're really going to be inspired and want to get involved. Lastly, and as always, if you could share this pod with somebody, that would mean the world to me. We are committed to having conversations that would lead to all of us being more faithful to Jesus outside of the church, and that is why we do everything that we do. And if you would invite others into this community, that would mean the world to me. All right, let's get on to the conversation with Doctor Preston Sprinkle. All right. Well, we are rolling. Preston. What's up man? Thanks for coming back on the pod. I am honored to be back on, man. Thanks for having me on. All right. So hell, transgender identity, homosexuality, pacifism, among other things. And now women in leadership. My first and most important question is why do you choose such easy topics to write on, bro? Like, come on, could you dig into something with a little meat, please? I've been trying to get myself canceled for the last fifteen years, and no matter how hard I try, it's just. It's nothing's sticking. So, um, you know, the women in ministry, women in leadership in particular, it's been a question that it's been in the back of my mind for ever, really. I mean, I was raised in a super strong like John MacArthur Complementarian, you know, and it totally made sense to me. Um, you know, I'd read the passages through that lens and it made sense. But then over the years, I started to meet a lot of amazing Christians and scholars who didn't take that view. And I'm like, well, wait a minute. Like, you seem to be a really good interpreter of Scripture. You don't. You're not like, you don't hate the Bible and yet you're arriving at a different view. How do you get there? And I was kind of confused a little bit. So I would say over the last several years, I just said, you know what, I would need to dig into this issue for myself to know where I actually land. So I've kind of just been on the fence, like, you know, I don't I don't know what I believe, but it's it's been something I've gotten asked about a lot. And I just said, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. They're like, well, can you find out? Because I want to, I want to I really want to know what you think about this topic, because I think, you know, a lot of people are looking for, um, maybe a guide they can trust in the conversation. So I finally got some time a few years ago to carve out some time to study it, and, uh, yeah, that that took a while, man. It's, um. And I'm sure we'll get into content here in a second, but just on an exegetical interpretive level, it's it's complex, man. I know some people listening are like, no, it's not. It's super easy. Just read this passage and that passage, like, I like I read all the passages, I've looked at all this stuff. It's it takes a it takes some time to really sort through the arguments and the, the word studies and the background and, you know, so it took about three and a half years for me to research and write the book. And it's, it's I'm finally giving birth to it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it sounded like it was painful, fittingly. Um, it's it's such a funny paradox, just the meta conversation about digging into something deeply. Because the irony is, it seems like I don't want to say you're more uncertain, but there does seem to be an irony in that, having devoted so much diligence to studying it, it's not like you've arrived at this perfect little soundbite certainty, which more typically lends itself to someone who just has a superficial opinion and kind of Prooftext one verse, have you found that? I mean, it's like, oh, is there is it discouraging at all that like the more you seem to dig into something, perhaps the less certain you ultimately are? Well, I so whatever. I set out to write a book and this is going to answer your question, but I need to back up a little bit. Whenever I set out to write a book, I always ask the question, does this book need to be written? You know, and the topic of women and leadership has been exhausted and exhausting. Lots of books written on it. And so when I kind of thought about it, I was like, I don't need to. It's art. Whatever book I would have written has already been written, right? Um, but as I started reading, I just found that most books in this area, they begin with a really strong, passionate conclusion, and then they show you why their conclusion is right. Um, and I'm like, I, I don't know my conclusion. So if I, if I, if you just kind of front load, here's where you have landed and you're going to try to convince me that that's the right view. That's, that's a I've written books like that. So no, no, no shame. But you know, when you read books on different sides with that approach, you're kind of like, oh, well, wait a minute. It seems like sometimes your passion for the conclusion is kind of blinded you to some of the, the problems with your, your viewpoint. And same thing that I'll go read a book over here and same thing. It's like I could tell you're so driven by your passion, your by the passion for your conclusion that sometimes you don't maybe treat a passage as fairly, or you don't deal with some of the pushbacks, or you misrepresent the other side because you just are really trying to convince somebody of your viewpoint. And so when I started my research, I genuinely and people say, no, you know, nobody's you know, everybody has a viewpoint somewhere in the in their, in their head. But I'm like, I genuinely was like, I don't know, I don't know. I love the Bible. Um, I will go with the text leads wherever that leads me. I just want to understand what the Bible says. Um, I don't my wife's not a pastor. You know, I'm not. I'm not working for an egalitarian seminary or a complementarian seminary. There's nothing. Right? I have nothing financially, socially, economically, riding on where I land. You know, nothing really. Um, so I'm free to go with the text lead. So that's where I said, you know what, I, I truly want to write a book where it's just kind of tracing my theological journey. In fact, the first chapter I wrote three years ago. Yeah. And in the conclusion of the first chapter, I was like, here's, here's where I'm going to go, and I don't know where I'm going to end up. Um, so it's written in kind of real time. It's kind of like it kind of just lays out as I'm working through the text, you know, um, of Scripture and, and I do have a conclusion in the end. So. Right, right. And we will we'll leave that as a little tease. But could you I think it might be helpful to frame kind of the debate. I feel like the words you even threw out, I think most followers of Jesus would have at least a superficial understanding, but maybe they're just like, you know, complementarianism again, like, what are these things? What? Just give us the high level overview, because I think that would help people wrap their minds around the discussion we're going to have here. Yeah, yeah. Uh, it's pretty straightforward. I mean, uh, if the egalitarian view and there's different terms people might use mutualist or others, but egalitarian is the most familiar. That just says that all positions of leadership and ministry are open to men and women alike. There's there's nothing there's no position or leadership role in the church that only men are called to occupy. Complementarian there's variations to the Complementarian view, the two big variations. One would be, for lack of better terms, you know, like a traditional or strong Complementarian view would say, um, women cannot exercise any sort of teaching, preaching or leadership role over men. Um, in the church, they might be able to host a Bible study, but they can't lead a Bible study. They might be able to give an announcement on Sunday morning but not preach a sermon. Um, maybe they would be able to read Scripture. That would be, you know, some strong Complementarians would not be okay with that. Um, the so-called soft complementarian view would say women can teach and preach and exercise certain levels of leadership over men, but it still is under the ultimate authority of male leadership, typically like a male led elder elder team. So male elders, women can teach and preach, but it's under the authority of the male elders. So you still have a certain levels of quote unquote, the highest level of leadership reserved for men. So those would be the two kind of broad, you know, egalitarian, egalitarian doesn't have a strong and soft. It's just kind of like women could do anything men can do in the church, leadership wise. Um, the Complementarian has these kind of two variations. One of the things that among the many things you said that I found compelling is that the New Testament, the picture of leadership. It's far more diverse and contextual than a lot of the modern structures of our churches. Yeah, I would love if you could expand on that as it relates to this. Oh man, that was part of my research journey that I didn't anticipate, but I think became looking back, might be the I don't know, it's hard to weigh it, but I mean, the most significant part of the book, or at least a significant part of the book, specifically, what was leadership and what was church like in the first century? Um, and we often think, you know, we often take our modern church structures and just kind of read that into the New Testament. Well, they had, you know, a senior pastor and an elder board and deacons, and it's just kind of really ironed out. And the more I looked into first century House church leadership, because that's all that, you know, they met in houses. Churches were twenty, thirty, maybe forty people, you know. So we're talking like, well, we almost think about almost think of like a Bible study. Um, and I found that the leadership structure, according to the New Testament was a lot more diverse, uh, messy, uh, ironed out than most people assume. Um, in fact, I mean, a lot of people know this, but maybe some don't. That the word pastor as a noun, referring to a leader in the church, only occurs in one passage in the entire Bible. Ephesians four eleven talks about, actually, it's a combination. It's like a pastor teacher. Uh, the verb to to pastor or to shepherd as applied to a leader that sees a few more times. But, you know, in our churches today, pastors like the go to title like you don't unless you're like Catholic and you have priests or whatever. Like typically it's like you don't have a church unless you got a pastor. Uh, maybe several pastors or certainly a lead pastor. And so we have these ironed out categories, largely, that revolve around the term pastor with the New Testament just does not have that. Um, you also have terms like elder overseer. Um, but even these terms, uh, I was shocked to find out that in Paul's thirteen letters, he only refers to elders or overseers in like, two. Well, elder, uh, twice in two different letters and overseer in three different letters. Like the majority of his letters, he's writing to churches who have leaders in the churches, and he never even uses these terms. But he does use other terms like coworker, um, or uh, even describes leaders like or servant. That was fascinating. But I did a word study on where and why does Paul ascribe the term servant to other people doing work in the church. In almost every case, he described somebody. He was doing leadership things like Timothy or Titus or Epaphroditus or Epaphras and some of these people, you know, people, these names people aren't familiar with. But as I did research, it's like a lot of these people are doing like their church planting, their founding churches, their leaders and churches. They're doing leadership things, but they never called like a overseer or pastor or elder. They're called a servant. So you have this kind of just conglomeration of ways in which Paul identifies leaders. So this is where I thought I thought the book would be easy because I would just say, okay, does Paul ever call a woman an elder pastor overseer? And the answer is a qualified no. He does refer to one woman as an apostle, which is interesting. Um, but he does call women. He does describe women by other terminology that when he describes men with the same, same terminology, there clearly functioning as leaders. So that's where it just gets messy. I mean, I think we need to broaden our scope of questions we're asking when we're saying, what evidence is there that women were performing leadership roles in the church? So, um, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a fun that chapter. So it's chapter four in my book where I really open up leadership and church in the first century. And probably the most, you know, as a scholar, I just love to do research and discover new things. And that was probably the most exciting research, uh, researched chapter and it took probably the longest because I was just, I, I realized that there's like loads of scholars that are they specialize in just like first century Christian leadership, like that's that's what they do. And there's all these debates going on with that in that world, you know? So it was fun to kind of enter into that. Yeah. There are deep, deep ponds of Nerdery out there. Oh, yes. Yes, that appeal to some and terrify others. Um, here's the challenge. Like I, I try to step outside of this and a lot of my lens is cultural. It's evangelism. So I'm dealing with a lot of people outside of the church, not so much in the deep nerdery that you speak of, though. I have great respect, and I really believe it's a vital part of the body of Christ. But so because of that, naturally I'm often thinking through the lens of just what does culture think of this conversation? And and to be honest, like from the outside looking in sort of the patriarchal or cultural or self-preservation aspects of this conversation seem so obvious in terms of like, well, of course they would find a reason to maintain a system that would put men in a position of dominance. It seems almost obvious to discredit it. So trying to be charitable from their perspective, what is the most compelling scriptural reasons to believe in the more complementarian perspective on this, because I just feel like if you kind of have a vague understanding of theology, it would seem it would seem very obvious to find reasons why the current structure would want to preserve itself in that way. Well, um, that's a fantastic question. I love how you're bringing a missional lens to it. I mean, at least in the West, certainly a complementarian viewpoint is not a really attractive, right selling point to Christianity for many people that you're you might be trying to reach now. Now, I specifically said West, if you go into other cultures, it might be the opposite, right? In fact, it would be the opposite. Where, if where if you had a bunch of women running around leading and churches and you tried to invite non-Christian people with a patriarchal mindset, they're gonna be like, what the heck is this? Yeah, yeah. So, uh, so it really, um, it really would depend on your culture. I will say and emphasize, and I really mean this, and it's going to sound nerdy or whatever, but like me personally, I just I'm so driven to understand what the text says that my missional I want to make sure I word this correctly and maybe you can help me out. I want to make sure my my missional concerns aren't driving my interpretation of scripture. Yeah, because that could be a temptation for sure, especially if you have such a massive heart to want to see people come to Christ like it. Oh, you're gonna be tempted, right, to say, gosh, if this is going to be a turnoff, I might want to not really talk about that, or I might want to kind of like make it sound more palatable than it is, you know? So. And I just want to I feel like my narrow lane in the kingdom of God is really to help people understand the scriptures and give people, give people who are doing the hardcore frontline missional work resources to, to run with. But, um, so I really wanted to make sure that my interpretation wasn't fueled by a concern for how would this land on either the broader culture or within the church. You know, I mean, when people find my conclusion, some people are going to love it and some people are not going to love it, and you know, that that's I just I can't be driven by how is this going to land on people I have to be driven by? Am I being faithful to the text of Scripture? Yeah. Well, and frankly, our worldview, scripture, being faithful to Scripture, is radically countercultural. And so if culture is your lens, then then, yeah, you're going to find some things that are completely incongruent with culture. And so what? Because God's way is different. I was watching a documentary about some I don't even know what it was necessarily, but I don't think it was talking about Christians. It was talking about Mormons. But this psychologist was being interviewed and she said, yeah, you know, there's these in their church they will frown upon things like, uh, you know, premarital sex and pornography. And she was saying that, like, how terrible. And I'm sitting there going, well, yeah. I mean, I don't know if that was the biggest, like, chunk that you just had on their church that they're against unfaithfulness or premarital sex or pornography. So, so I guess to me the reason why I bring that up is because it's like, yeah, culture is not going to be a good judge. Right. They're gonna they're gonna misunderstand the beauty of God's design, and they're going to go too far in this. I guess I'm like you, or perhaps probably even more where so much of my lens is missional that that I have to be careful not to try to smooth out the harsh edges of what Jesus actually says or what Scripture actually says. But that's more where I would lean. So I guess I come to you to say, help me understand where I might be leaning too far purely as a reaction to culture. Yeah. That's good. And I do want to. While we shouldn't hide or be embarrassed by aspects of the gospel that are true, I do believe strongly in contextualizing the gospel understanding, making sure that the Christian concepts which might be foreign to your target audience are translated correctly and sometimes, and that's where you have to really understand where somebody's coming from. Let's just say you had a somebody who you're trying to reach with the gospel. Maybe they were raised in a church. Maybe they were raised in a extremely unhealthy, male dominated, abusive church context. I mean, I'm sure we could swap stories on people we talked to that were in those contexts. Yeah. Then then, um, if you just jump in and start talking about, like, male only leadership, if that's your view, I mean, you got to be really because that other person's just going to hear Domination, abuse, you know. So, um, even if the complementarian or a version of the Complementarian view, let's just say that that's that's the true view. Man, I think and I'll get I'll, I'll give a perspective to the egalitarian side, to Complementarians need to make sure that, however they structure their church, that women are equally valued and have tremendous worth and are influential in the church. Like if women weren't doing the things they were doing in this church, this church would not work. It would not succeed. It would not be effective for the kingdom. Because even if you say only men can be elders, pastors, teachers, clearly this is not disputed. Women played a significant role in the ministry of Jesus. They played a significant role in the life of the early church. They demonstrated faithfulness when men were unfaithful. We see this everywhere in the Gospels, where the men are just screwing up, and the women are the ones that are faithful and trusting in Jesus doesn't mean they necessarily need to be leaders, because non-leaders need to be faithful. Okay, so um, so that's where complementarian churches have a challenge. So if a non if you brought your non-believing friend to your Complementarian church and maybe they were maybe, maybe a complementarian viewpoint might be a hard pill to swallow. They better see women being valued and honored and listened to in that church, because if not, then that would be a really distorted picture of the gospel. Uh, on the other side, egalitarian churches, they might struggle celebrating the beautiful differences between men and women. Sure, they may struggle with wanting to put a woman in a leadership position who might not be qualified. Okay, maybe not because she's simply a female, but maybe because she's just not qualified, you know? Right, right. Um, so. And they need to sell, I think, egalitarian churches, they they might need to, you know, make sure they're not, uh, diminishing the beauty of masculinity, not the toxic forms of it, but genuine masculinity, you know, like biblical masculinity, um, which is a good thing. And femininity is a good thing. And so, um, and egalitarian friends, they, they would agree with these things. You know, no, men and women are still different. We're not erasing the differences, but some egalitarian, egalitarian churches might, might, um, be more challenged by making sure they emphasize those and celebrate those differences. Yeah. So, yeah. And it feels that, you know, I was going to kind of have a emphasis here on on what hills do you die on, but but just to continue to go with what you're saying specifically related to this topic, now more than ever, our world needs a guide in terms of what real masculinity is, what real femininity is, what what gender roles actually look like. I mean, so, really it is in a peripheral topic. There is an incredible burden, I think, for the church to model this correctly, because on either end of the extreme, whether it's domineering or whether it's erasing all distinctions, we just amplify the confusion on both ends. So that's a significant responsibility, right? Yeah, yeah. And, you know, we spent so many years with unhelpful forms of masculinity, you know, um, men doing things they shouldn't have done, um, silencing women. And then you had a big, you know, in the wake of MeToo and church, too. And, um, you know, um, I think some of that, a lot of that being called out. But then there could be some cases that pendulum, as often happens, swings too far to where now if a guy's like, yeah, I like sports and I love, uh, you know, um, whatever, check off all the masculine boxes and they all of a sudden they, they're made to feel ashamed because they resonate with stereotypical masculine things, you know? So, yeah, it's, uh, we're in a maleness, femaleness, masculinity, femininity. These are these are huge, huge cultural topics. And I think the church has a wide open door to really model a, a healthy way where we celebrate male female differences. Um, while not playing into these cultural stereotypes, you know, that, you know, if you're a gentle, kind, uh, humble, tender man, you're not a real man. It's like, well, no, these are all biblical virtues, actually. You know, or if you're a if you're a strong, courageous woman, it's like, whoa, whoa, you better calm down, you know? Right. Getting a little assertive here. You know, it's like, oh no, those are biblical virtues. Those aren't female virtues. So yeah. Okay. You mentioned in your, in your book that you don't see this as one of these core issues, right? Like the Trinity or the deity of Christ. And I completely agree with you. Yeah. And it would seem that in light of the implications of the extremes, perhaps a more agnostic, maybe that's the wrong word, to put it, but a more middle ground perspective would be more helpful in light of a watching world. And in theory, the church is for edifying the body, but it is also for, you know, making witnesses and disciples. Um, and kind of a story to illustrate this, that I think is fitting here is it's a different controversy. But I was with a friend and we were we were traveling, we were in a plane and we were having a debate, a whole classic Calvinism, Arminian debate. Right. And I won't for the sake of the audio. Well, they know where I stand on this, but let's just we'll just leave it ambiguous about where I was on that. But they so we're having this debate and probably being a little louder than we should have been, not realizing. Right. As tends to happen in a conversation like this. And then I'm walking out of the plane and my buddy's walking behind me, and I'm like, looking back. And he's like reading a note. I'm like, what is he doing? Well, it turns out this lady behind us had overheard our our conversation and she wrote this note like, I can't believe you would have this disgusting. It was in Europe, this disgusting conversation in a public place. Keep your Bleep to yourself. And you know we laughed about it. But at the same time it did make me kind of go are living out these debates in a public way when they're not, as you say, central to our faith when they come with so much baggage. I mean, you think about what what a Calvinistic perspective sounds like to an atheist right before you were born, you were destined for hell, right? Imagine what that sounds like. Jeez. Um. And that's so I felt guilty, right? That we were having that conversation in front of her. But. But did you see how that illustrates what I'm talking about here? Like, to a watching world? How much should we be, like, pounding on the table on YouTube being like, ah, women shouldn't be in leadership or on the other end of the spectrum. And the world's sitting there going, wow, this is what you guys are about. I like, what do you what do you think of all that? That's a great question. I, um, you'd probably know better than I would about that. Um, I do think there are certain topics within the Christian faith that are that are kind of more insider conversations. I mean, predestination is one of them, right? You never see, I don't think you ever see as part of an evangelistic preaching, uh, Paul or Jesus saying, you know, you know, repent and turn to me because maybe God preordained you to be that way, you know, like I don't. Or if you don't choose God, he's already chosen you for hell anyways. You know, like there there insider conversations, believers reflecting on the role of divine and human agency in their salvation. So they're not designed to be missional. And so maybe that should alert us to be sensitive to certain topics that aren't designed to be public like that. The hard thing is the world we live in. Everything's public. I know you know, my my meal last night is public because it's I posted on Instagram. You know, it's a good meal. It's a great meal. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Um, so yeah, I don't know, I, I, I do wonder if since everything's public now, people's sexual identity is public. Their voting inclinations are, you know, we live in a very public environment because of the internet. So I wonder if there might be some unavoidable ness of being public with what we're talking about. But I think the manner, man, the manner in which we go about these conversations or because nobody knows how to do this well, especially in political discussions. I mean, when's the last time you heard people at different political perspectives be curiously listening to the other person humanize the other person? You know, Fox News people like really humanizing Democrats or CNN people really humanizing people who voted for, you know, that just doesn't happen. So I think the church has a wide open door to model a really shockingly different way where we can humanize each other, be humble with our beliefs, and get along with each other. Even in the midst of, of of disagreements, like, I think I think that could have emotional, emotionally compelling component to it. When people see the church just acting different and more beautiful than than the world. Yeah. And maybe I think, as you said, maybe it's just a a posture towards that layer of the conversation. It's not like we'd have antagonism or hostility about the core issues either. But certainly those are more like, look, we I love you. I'm going to present this gently, but this is this is a hard line, right? This is the truth. And but maybe when it comes to these kinds of conversations, if inevitably they have a public component to it there, we sort of model grace and charitably in terms of the way we interact with each other to a watching world. Because because ultimately these are not salvific issues. And by definition, I think we should have grace. But one image I think I would love for you to expand on that was I found really compelling was that the church needs mothers and fathers. And I think in a world devoid of fatherhood a lot, this kind of flips it into the other side where our church is devoid of of mothers. And I know, you know, my bias is out on the table. You know, my dad's a very strong leader, but so is my mom, and she plays a very strong role in our in our ministry. And, um, and I know in the absence of her leadership and influence on our mission, we would not be as strong, along with the many other women in our ministry. And so could you speak a little bit to the. Yeah, how we need both to be a strong body? Yeah. That, that, uh, I talked about that very briefly at the end in the last chapter of my book. It was more reflective. It wasn't like a main tour argument. Um, but it was something that, as I kind of landed on my conclusion, I kind of reflected on just kind of a wide angle lens. Why I think this, you know, they could further support this, this, this conclusion. And, yeah, this idea of mothers and fathers like I, um, I remember when I was on staff, I was on a preaching team at a complementarian church. Um, it was actually the church uh, Francis Chan was part of for a number of years. And then he left to go plant churches and San Francisco. And I was part of a preaching team that had to fill the shoes of Francis Chan. It's tough. It was horrendous. Terrifying. Um, but I remember we, um, you know, all the preachers on the team would get together, like, on a Tuesday. And whoever was preaching that week, they would kind of share the direction they're going and get all this feedback, you know, and it was all men. Um, but then they said, okay, we're complementarian, but we could have. Can we not have women come and be a part of this to kind of share? Like, how is this landing on with you as a woman? And I think we started with, like, one woman. She was like the the women's leader, you know, whatever the token woman, the token woman. And oh my word, we would share illustrations and stuff this, that. She's like, yeah, you know, as a if I was a single woman, this is how I'm hearing that. Or if I had been a woman that was like, I. Okay, this is gonna be so embarrassing. I remember in a sermon I was going to use the word rape as a metaphor for, like, um, taking something that doesn't belong to you or something like, don't you? You shouldn't rape, rape, God's word for you or whatever. And she's like, yeah, you know, for the twenty percent of women listening this Sunday who have been actually raped, that word's gonna they're gonna shut down after they hear I'm like, oh my word. Yeah. Oh my word. Like I'm so like, what would I do without you? And every week it was like that. It was like her input. We were like, oh my gosh, I have to go read my rewrite, my sermon, because I didn't even think about that so that I don't know. So that if and this isn't an argument necessarily for an egalitarian view, I think even complementarian churches, they might have a harder time with this because of certain, um, you know, roles obviously, that are there that are limited to men. But whether it's a commentary, egalitarian church, I do think the women's voices need to be heard. Obviously, this is going to be easier on an egalitarian church, but they just are like the beautiful diversity that God has created, uh, men and women to embody like that. I think that's necessary for discipleship in the same way that a dual parent household mother and father is the best case scenario for a children to be raised. And I was raised by a single mom, you know? So yeah, there were there was a whole father aspect of my life that I missed out on, you know, and I've realized over the years, as I've spent the majority of my time in Complementarian churches, I'm like, man, as I've gotten to know other female leaders and scholars and super just or just wise women, you know, it's like, man, I didn't benefit from that growing up because it was, you know, women's voices were largely silent, not just because they couldn't be pastors and stuff, but they were just, you know, men ran the church all, you know, through and through. And I just think that that is actually a hindrance to discipleship. So. Yeah. Um, yeah, I guess that could be it. Yeah. People who are egalitarian are like, yes, exactly. That's why we need women pastors and stuff, you know? But yeah, maybe. Yeah. And I think, I think your respect for scripture and finding. I don't know if I want to say compelling reasons for either side, but just for a and I don't even know if the word balanced is right, but where did you ultimately how did you conclude in this? Did you conclude, did you even feel it necessary to? Yes I did, yes. Um, I concluded egalitarian, I would say. I think I'm not sure if I even gave this said this in the conclusion, but in the conclusion where I kind of lay out, I kind of bring it all together. I'm like, look, there are strong and weak arguments on different sides. I just my best reading of scripture. I think the, um, arguments for an egalitarian view, um, outweigh the the best arguments for a complementarian view. And I think the complementarian pushbacks to the egalitarian view. I think there is a good, solid, reasonable egalitarian response to those, whereas I didn't see that so much. Vice versa, meaning like the, um, can complementarians respond to some of the best egalitarian pushbacks that view? I found those responses to be less compelling. So I don't know if I, you know, I'm not a if you want to do percentages, you know, maybe like if someone said, are you one hundred percent sure of that? Are you ninety percent sure? You know, I'm definitely not one hundred percent sure on anything, right? You know, I'm ninety nine percent sure we're not living in the matrix. But, you know, there's that little possibility, you know, um, I don't know, maybe seventy, eighty percent, you know, I mean, it's, um, I feel, I feel, I feel I think I've waded through all of the best arguments, uh, read, you know, hundreds of books and spent thousands of hours researching this and articles and tried to give a fair shake to it all. So I don't think there's huge glaring things that I missed, but maybe I did. You know, I'm still human. Um, or maybe, as I research further, I might shift my view on certain aspects. You know, if I come across more compelling arguments that I didn't meet. So I always want to hold to something with an open hand. And even in my conclusion, I say, this is not my etched in stone conclusion. This is my entry into the conversation. Right. And I want to I truly want to listen to critical feedback. At the end of the day, I want to know the truth. I want to go with the text leads by three and a half year study led me to land on the egalitarian view. But like you said before, I don't think it's a matter of orthodoxy. Um, while it's while it's a really important issue for half of the church, you know, maybe not half because not it's not like every woman wants to be a leader or something, but. Right. Um, well, but I don't certainly, by extension, they represent half the population who in many cases are excluded from leadership. So certainly it affects them indirectly, at the very least for women that feel called to leadership have gifts that would seem like they should be leaders. This is a really big issue, right? Um, the only reason why I say I don't think it's a matter of orthodoxy or it's it's more of a less primary theological issue is largely because of just the exegetical complexity of this. You know, like, it's just there's, you know, um, I made a big part of the complementarian view rest not only argument, but, you know, there's a Greek word in, in first Timothy two twelve that's translated authority that a woman cannot teach or exercise authority over, over man. But that word authority, it's a Greek word that's never used anywhere else in the Bible. Both testaments. It's only used like seven or eight times in Greek literature. It's really hard to know exactly what this word means. And, you know, um, and so it's like, gosh, can't we at least respect the fact that we're dealing with some uniquely complex exegetical issues? So I think we all should have a bit of humility on where we land. So yeah. Um, yeah. So that's why I think it's it's not a matter of orthodoxy I want to be sensitive to, you know, maybe I'll, I'll rethink my position as I come across other arguments and viewpoints and stuff. So. And yet and I wasn't anticipating asking this, and yet I can't, I can't help but feel if I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of a woman. Like the conflict of interest of of two men saying, yeah, well, we don't know for sure, but well, you know, we can we it's cool. Like, because like, we're, it's almost like a weird version of the Pascal's Wager. It's like, either way, we win. Like, either way we get to maintain our grip on leadership. So. Right. So even that absurdity has to at least be acknowledged. Right? The fact that the implications of this one way or other way far more heavily, not far more, one hundred percent on those that it impacts. And so even in light of that, I want to show at least some humility in this. Yeah. And acknowledge how that comes across. Yeah, I worked really hard. I always write my books in community, in the sense that I send out early drafts to dozens of people, scholars, people who I know will disagree with where I'm going. Not me, man. I just form an opinion, shallow opinion, and I point it out to the internet. It goes, I mean, but most of my books go through like five or ten drafts. This one went through about ten drafts. So I did have lots of, uh, women scholars, um, you know, uh, read it to make sure I wasn't, like you said, like just saying things that just like, oh, clearly you're being you're kind of tone deaf to the fact that you're a man saying it like this, so. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, again, we can wrap things up. I will say, though, that I found it very convicting to hear you say, oh, you know, I just did a three years and a thousand hours on this, and I'm no expert by any means. And yet, you know. By all means, bro, you're an expert. I mean, like like, think about the standard of expertise in our world today is so absurd. And and the fact that we live in a culture now where it's like I read a headline and now I jump on a podcast and give my thoughts on it, and it's very it's very convicting because on one level it's like, huh? Am I completely, uh, disqualified from the conversation in the absence of a thousand hours of research that, I mean, certainly as a podcaster, that would make me pretty lame. Um, you know, I just have to be silent ninety nine percent of the time. It would probably be helpful for everyone, but you know what I mean? Like, how do we navigate that tension? Can I just borrow from your labor? That's what I want to know, Preston. It's good, though, and. Oh, man, that's a good point. And no, I don't think you have to be an absolute expert with a PhD to have an opinion on a certain topic. I do try to live by it. I think everybody should live by them. My motto that the strength of my passion should be matched by the depth of my study. Okay, does doesn't mean you don't have opinion. I just think, be honest with us. How much thinking and research and study have you done on a certain topic? You know, like are you a socialist or a capitalist? It's like, well, how many economic books have you read? Like, I don't know, capitalism seems like it makes more sense than socialism. Socialism seems to have led to the death of millions of people. Um, but I don't know. When I read the Bible, I see some socialists like, like, principles and stuff, and I've seen some a lot of greed and God, so I don't know. Right. It's like that clip in The Simpsons where Homer wants to go into marketing and he first he has advanced marketing in front of him, then that ends up in the trash. Then it's beginner marketing that ends up in the trash. And then it's just the dictionary that says marketing and then still nothing. And then he ends up just shooting a gun in the air and yelling, bowling, bowling, get your bowling. So yeah, maybe that's a metaphor. And I do want it. Look, I am obviously, you know, I am a Bible scholar. That's what I trained for. You know, I would expect a a neuroscience with a PhD in neuroscience to do a lot more study on neuroscience and be more cautious. And he would take more time. Doesn't mean I can't have an opinion about it. But it's like, yeah, if somebody is like, this is their field and they are teaching and leading others in this topic, like, I have a responsibility. Me personally, I have a responsibility to be way more thorough and careful than maybe the average person who is going to have an opinion on the same topic. And it's only getting worse, man. Like the supposed expertise that are being amplified by our our tools and ChatGPT. And it's if the if doctors thought Google was annoying, they ain't got nothing on ChatGPT. That is insane. God, that's another podcast conversation. All right, so from Genesis to Julia, An honest search for what the Bible really says about women in leadership. We are going to, through the magic of time travel. It's out right now. Or actually next week. I'll do all of that stuff at the beginning, at the end, in the description and all the places. But go get it and we can all wait with bated breath to see if you get canceled this time. Uh, the betting money is. I think you'll be okay. I think you know what I feel like if the other ones didn't get you canceled, right? Yeah. I think you're gonna be okay. I think you can ride off into the sunset. I hope so, I hope so. We'll see. We'll wait to see what the next topic of choice is. And one of these days, I'll call you from exile. So right on, president. Thank you. Man, this has been fun as always. I knew it would be. I thank you for doing this. And, uh. Yeah, let's do it again. When the new one comes out and the new controversy emerges, I'll send an email out right away. Sounds good. Thanks for having me on, Ben. Really appreciate it.

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