Thank you Doug Batchelor

Posted March 19th, 2010 by David Newman

On February 6, 2010, Doug Batchelor, the senior pastor of Sacramento Central Seventh-day Adventist Church and speaker-director of Amazing Facts preached an hour long sermon against women serving as elders and pastors.You can read more about it in our latest report here.

He was very kind in his introduction when he said, "A volatile subject. I want to generate more light than heat. Not everybody here I'm sure is going to agree with my understanding and my interpretation of these passages we are going to consider. I want you all to be good anyway. Ok? You can disagree, don't be disagreeable."

It is in that light that I want to disagree with his interpretation of the Biblical text. I am not going to go text by text and look at his exegesis because that is not the real issue. The real issue is the way we interpret the Bible. We call it hermeneutics. There is no such thing as a literal reading of the Bible. Everyone interprets the Bible whether they realize it or not. However, we seldom if ever sit down and discuss the rules by which we interpret God's word.

There is no Bible study developed by the church which includes as one of its studies rules of interpretation. It is assumed that everyone knows what the rules are. Most people are not even aware that they are using rules. The most common way most of us approach the Bible is to accept a passage literally unless it causes a problem and then we re-interpret for our time.

Agreement on rules is necessary for any kind of intelligent discussion. In England where I come from there are the sports of Rugby League and Rugby Union. Each sport uses the same ball and the same goal posts but Rugby Leagues uses thirteen players to a side while Rugby Union uses fifteen players to a side. If these two sports decide to play each other there will be absolute chaos if they each play by their rules. The side fielding thirteen players will cry foul when the other side uses fifteen players. No! They must first agree on the rules before they can play a game.

This applies just as much to understanding the Bible. Some years ago I sat down with a former Adventist to learn why he no longer kept the Sabbath on the seventh day. I suggested that we first agree on the rules for interpreting the Bible. We agreed that the Bible was the word of God, that it should be interpreted in its context and culture. After we had agreed on five rules we came to number six on his list. According to him the New Testament was a superior revelation of God than the Old Testament. In the New Testament we learn about God through the life of Jesus. Therefore any command from the Old Testament that the New Testament repeated was to be followed. But any command in the Old Testament not repeated in the New Testament was optional.

Now the fourth commandment is not listed in the New Testament so end of discussion. Since I did not agree with his sixth rule there was no way we could have a meaningful discussion about the validity of the seventh day Sabbath.

And that is what is happening regarding the issue of the ordination of women. I have titled this review of his sermon "Thank you Doug Batchelor" because he has exposed a huge double standard in the Adventist church. He says,

"I am sorry to say a lot of those changes and of course in North America not so much in other parts of the world now women are being ordained. They call it commissioned but it's really the same thing as being ordained as pastors. And it's you know you can call it commissioned but in every other way it's the same as ordination with the rights, privileges. . . . Just changing the label of something doesn't change the definition of it."

Batchelor gives more examples of this. And he is quite right. I was a delegate to the 1990 General Conference Session in Indianapolis. There we reached a compromise regarding women serving as pastors. We agreed that women could serve as pastors as long as they were not ordained. Some were unhappy that women would be able to do everything that men could do so Elder Neal Wilson engineered two areas that women pastors could not participate in. They could not ordain local elders (Church Manual, 2005, p. 50, 51) and they could not organize new churches (Church Manual, 2005, p. 209). Otherwise they are free to preach, chair meetings, marry, lead communion services, baptize, and so on.

So Batchelor is quite right that women pastors are practicing all the important rights of being a pastor. And he is quite right that we need to solve this issue. Batchelor's solution is to stop having women pastors and elders. But is this what the Bible says?

We need to realize that all of us come to the Bible with certain assumptions. These are unprovable. I hold the following assumption. Since the whole Bible is inspired communication from God and since all of it in its totality is "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16) even our reason must be subject to Scripture. While the use of the mind is necessary for the application of Scripture, reason cannot decide which parts of the Bible are profitable or inspired and which parts are not.

You can come to Scripture believing that it is a human document so that the reports of miracles are simply stories without historical validity. Or you can come to Scripture believing that it is a divine-human book made up of supernatural elements as well as human elements.

Since you cannot "prove" the Bible to be infallible it is an assumption we make when we come to Scripture. Someone who sees the Bible as a fallible document will, of course, interpret it differently from the one who sees it as infallible.

But even the term "infallible" is used differently by people. Some use the term to mean that every word in the original documents came directly from God. Others believe only the thoughts came from God. Then there are those who believe that when the Bible speaks of spiritual and theological matters it is inspired but when it speaks of scientific and historical matters it reflects the prevailing culture of the time.

Rules for Interpreting the Bible

Let me make a stab at outlining what I believe are the basic rules we must agree on when it comes to understanding the Bible. There are many rules and I have never found anyone to agree on everyone of them. So I am just going to give four basic of rules

1. Principle and Application

When studying the commands of Scripture we need to distinguish between the principle and the application of that principle. A principle is a statement of truth in abstract language that is applicable anywhere in the world, the what. An application is the stating of the principle in concrete terms, the how.

Take the principle of greeting. Greeting is a universal truth that where ever you go people believe there are appropriate ways to welcome or introduce people to each other. But the application, how you greet each other, varies from culture to culture. In some places we shake hands. In other places we give a bow or courtesy. In still others we embrace and kiss on one cheek and in others we kiss on both cheeks. The same principle is involved but the way it is expressed varies from culture to culture.

This means that for every command in the Bible there is a principle behind it. We need to always look for the principle behind the application in order to find out if the application still is meaningful for us today. Principles are universal, applications are not always so and often change due to differences in time, culture, and the maturity of the people affected. When God told Moses to take off his shoes because he trod on holy ground at the burning bush we do not apply that command today. Instead we look for the principle-reverence in the presence of God-and apply it to our Anglo cultural context which means taking off our hats before entering the sanctuary. However, there are Adventist churches where the people take off their shoes before entering the sanctuary.

We believe in the principle of sexual morality. So when God told the children of Israel not to give their daughters to be prostitutes we apply that command just as literally today as in the days of Israel because we believe that that application is still valid no matter the culture.

Deciding what applications of principle still apply today from the hundreds of commands given in Scripture is not easy. Neither is it always easy determining what the principle behind the command is. That is why some churches still insist that women not speak in church and cover their heads when they worship God. Other churches refrain from using musical instruments and sing only the psalms and paraphrases of Scripture. Before we judge those groups too harshly we may find that we are applying other portions of Scripture in the same way.

For example. That Adventist church practices three levels of ordination: deacon, elder, pastor, which are not found in the New Testament, but come directly from the Roman Catholic church.

2. Cultural Context

Biblical interpretation entails a "spiral" from text to context, from its original meaning to its contextualization or significance for the church today. We must look for both meaning and significance. We often forget that the Bible when first written was given for the people of its day not our day. It was written in the thought patterns of that culture. It spoke to the issues of that culture. It used the idioms of that culture not ours. One of the issues agitating the Jerusalem council was eating meat offered to idols. In most societies today that is a non-issue. But we can discover a principle behind the specific issue that still applies today. Any behavior that suggests placing anything before God is prohibited.

Thus the very first question every Bible student must ask is: What did this passage mean to the people who first received it? Only after we have asked that question can we safely proceed to asking: What does it now mean for us today? We often fail this principle. And even worse we will apply some parts of the passage literally and explain away other parts of the passage.

Batchelor quotes from 1 Timothy 2:11-15 "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing-if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety."

This is one of the texts for Batchelor against the ordination of women because he says that women cannot have authority over men. But he does not say that only women who bear children will be saved. If women are not "to teach or to have authority over a man" and that is literal then you must take the whole passage literally and say that women who do not bear children cannot be saved.

Batchelor fails to take into account the role of women in Bible times. Women did not have the same rights as men. They could not even worship together. When men and women came to the synagogue on Sabbath the men sat at the front and the women and children sat behind a screen at the rear. We need to take this into account when trying to understand what Paul was saying.

But even the part about not teaching and learning in quietness is too much for Batchelor. He forgets the cultural situation. He wants to know does that mean that women cannot teach a Sabbath school class? Can they never preach? After all Ellen White was quite the preacher. No, says Batchelor. Paul meant that women could do everything the pastor does as long as "they're doing it under the authority of the pastor. They're not usurping that authority." This is one of the most amazing pieces of interpretation that Batchelor makes. Nowhere. And I repeat nowhere does Paul say that a woman can teach if she is under the authority of a man. You have to read that into the text. Where does he get that from? What authority of man was Deborah under when she commanded Barak to lead the army of Israel? She was in charge, a woman, not Barak. In fact Barak was not prepared to even lead the army unless Deborah came along.

Then he speaks approvingly of Paul referencing Adam and Eve and the text in Genesis 3:16 "To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.'"

He takes the part of the husband ruling over the woman as literal but ignores the part that says a woman's pain in childbearing will increase. If the second part is to be taken literally then the first part should also be taken literally which means it is wrong for women to take any medication that might relieve her pain in giving birth. On what contextual basis do we decide what is literal and what is not literal within the same text?

But there is a more important point to be made. We can look at this passage as either description or prescriptive. Is God simply describing what the results of sin will be? If He is then we are allowed to do anything that might mitigate sin in this world. However, if God is giving a prescription which is something He ordains then we must apply the whole verse including keeping women in pain when giving birth.

The Bible does not tell us whether this was a prescription or a description.

Then Batchelor quotes from 1 Corinthians 14: 34 about women keeping silent in church. Here he suddenly finds that the cultural context is very important. He quotes approvingly from Adam Clark who says about this verse, "It is evident from the context, the apostle refers here to asking questions and what we call dictating in the assemblies. All the apostle apposes here is their questioning, their fault finding, their disputing, together with the attempts to usurp authority over the man."

Here is what the passage actually says, "As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church."

Where does it say that asking questions is "attempting to usurp authority over the man?" Where does it say that they are "dictating in the assemblies." Now if you come with the assumption that women cannot have authority over men then you will see everything in that light.

Some of the arguments that Batchelor makes are quite unfathomable. He says, "You do not have any example in the Bible of women serving as apostles. Why did Jesus choose twelve apostles, men only? Well he was conforming to the customs of the day, it would interrupt the work if he had chosen any women. Nonsense, Jesus died because he would not conform"

If that is valid then all our leaders must be Jews because Jesus chose only Jewish men, no Gentiles were included.

God gave the Israelites instructions about how to treat their slaves. We would never follow those instructions today. God ordered the Levirate marriage. We do not follow that practice today.

The cultural context also applies to time and place. In Luke 10:4 Jesus says "Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: and salute no man by the way" as he instructed them on their first missionary journey. I have met some people who consider this a universal absolute (see number 4 below) but those same people forget that later on in the same book Jesus said "When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing. Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one" (Luke 22:35, 36)

Here Jesus is saying the very opposite of what he told them earlier in his ministry. Unless we take the time and place and circumstances into question we will be in deep trouble making sense of what seem contradictory commands.

3. Bible Passage Context

In the original manuscripts there were no chapters and verses. Everything read as one continuous piece. A text out of context is but a pretext. It is better to study the Bible paragraph by paragraph rather than text by text. The division into texts is foreign to the original manuscripts. What is the meaning of the passage? To what issues is it speaking? How does it relate to the rest of the book? To the rest of the Bible?

Let's take the passage in 1 Timothy 2 that Batchelor uses. What is the immediate context. If you begin with verse 1 you will find that Paul is talking about behavior when people gather to worship. This is why in verse 8 he says "In every place of worship, I want men to pray with holy hands lifted up to God, free from anger and controversy" (NLT). Instead of following this verse we actually discourage people from raising their hands in worship. Then in the following verses Paul describes how women are not to come to worship decked out in such a way that they draw attention to themselves and how they are to relate to men in worship. This is in a culture where men were the teachers, where they were still shifting from a priest dominated culture to "an everyone a priest" culture. Paul was not one to rock the boat.

In Galatians 5:6 Paul says "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love" but in 1 Corinthians 7:19 he says, "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God's commands is what counts."

Why the seeming contradiction? If you do not take the context into consideration you can prove almost anything you want. The problem in the Galatian churches was legalism. That is why Paul stresses faith. The problem in Corinth was recklessness, sordid behavior. So Paul stresses behavior. If you only had the book of James you would be hard pressed to prove that we are justified by faith alone but with Romans we can find the balance.

4. Levels of Absolutes

I define an "absolute" as a behavioral requirement within a certain paradigm that must be followed if you are to be successful. It may operate on different levels of universality.

a. Universal absolutes

These are requirements that God has given for everyone on this earth to follow, for all peoples, places, times, and cultures. For example. The first of the Ten Commandments says that we are not to have any other gods. This applies just as much today as it did four thousand years ago. It applies to the people in China as well as the people in America.

When God said we are not to take his name in vain this applies throughout all time. When he says not to murder this applies equally throughout the world. There are no exceptions for certain races of cultures. Coveting is wrong whether you live in Greece or in Jamaica, no matter who you are.

b. Temporal absolutes

This is a requirement for all places and cultures but only for certain groups of people such as Jews, Adventists. It applies anywhere that particular group of people live but for a limited time. One example would be circumcision. Before Abraham it was not required. After the death and resurrection of Jesus it ceased to apply. Yet between Abraham and Jesus every adult Jewish male had to be circumcised. It did not apply to non Jews but it was an absolute for Jewish males. Another example would be celebrating the Passover for the whole family.

An example of a temporal absolute today for Seventh-day Adventists would be baptism by immersion. It does not matter whether you are in the middle of the Sahara desert or in a prison a person must be baptized to become part of the church. This only applies for Adventists however. Celebration the Lord's Supper together would be another example.

c. Local absolutes

A local absolute is a practice that must be followed in a limited area but does not apply outside of that area. For example, when I traveled to Madagascar I left my jacket in the hotel because it was so hot. No one in the audience at the church was wearing either a tie or a jacket. However, before I could stand behind the pulpit and preach I had to borrow a jacket from another pastor and put it on. It was forbidden for anyone to preach without a jacket. It was an absolute. Now that does not apply in America or in the Philippines where I traveled next.

In the Philippines I was told it was fine to preach in a barong yet at the same time the Philippine pastors sitting behind me on the platform were in western dress: suit and tie. I was cool they were sweating.

There is a church in South Africa that insists only circumcised males can preach behind the pulpit. When a visiting preacher arrived he was asked in the vestry if he was circumcised. He said he was. But the elders would not let him preach until he had dropped his trousers and they could personally see that he was telling the truth. That is a local absolute.

Thus one of the first questions we need to ask whenever we need to make a decision is whether this is a Universal Absolute, a Temporal Absolute, or a Local Absolute. You will find there are very few universal absolutes and many local absolutes. Universal absolutes cannot be changed since they are given by God. Temporal absolutes can be modified if great light comes to us. And local absolutes should be open to constant change.

To be a universal absolute there must be a clear Thus saith the Lord. The fact that there is so much disagreement concerning women in ministry should let us know that this is not on the same level as the Ten Commandments.

We have not even touched on the subject of spiritual gifts. The Bible talks about spiritual gifts in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4. There is no hint that any of the gifts, which include pastoring, are gender related. If this is a universal absolute God would have made it clear under the gifts he gives to the church.

Summary

We must clarify the difference between principle and application. We must always study the passage in its context both within the book and the whole Bible and within the cultural context of its time. We need to take time and place into account and then decide what level of absolute this practice or command comes under. If we can just agree on these four rules we will find it much easier to agree than without them.

However there is a bigger question which if we were to resolve would take care of the ordination issue. The bigger question is why are men ordained. I have written on that subject previously in the Winter 2009 issue of Adventist Today. That article, "Why Men Should Not Be Ordained" is now available for non-subscribers to read. Click here to consider this view.

Thank you Doug Batchelor

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