Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 01:3 (Aug 1987)
Article: A Plea for Restraint
Author: Richard Kroeger

A Plea for Restraint

Richard Kroeger

At the evangelical colloquium on women and the Bible, October 9-11,1984 in Oakbrook, Illinois (see the published papers in Women, Authority, and the Bible, ed. A. Mickelsen, Inter Varsity Press, 1986), I introduced the section on biblical hermeneutics (the art of interpreting Scripture) by saying that the most crucial issues for evangelicals in the modern world of biblical studies were not in the arena of the so-called “Battle for the Bible” (inerrancy and authority). Important as these considerations may be, the hermeneutical issues are still more critical.

In terms of the on-going debate between evangelicals who limit the role of women in church and society, and the “evangelical feminists” who do not, these issues are central. The process of interpreting Scripture and of making an application to life today is the crucial source of difference between the camps. Within this process lies the key to the resolution of what has frequently been called a “critical evangelical impasse.” This is quite clear in terms of three Pauline texts which most apparently prevent women from teaching, preaching, or assuming positions of authority in the Church: I Co. 11:2-16; I Cor. 14:33b-35; I Tim. 2:8-15.

The point of this excursus is to urge caution and restraint in our frequent evangelical tendency to absolutize elements within these texts and to find within them indisputable reason for limiting women’s exercise of authority. By “absolutize” I mean to declare mat this commandment is always to be enforced in every situation. A little thought will show that a number of New Testament commandments are no longer practiced by modern Christians (Acts 15:20,29; Rom. 16:16; I Cor. 16:20; II Cor. 13:12; I Peter 3:3; 5:14). The church came to understand that these directives were given to be enforced in specific situations which no longer exist today.

Let us note a few general reasons for restraint. Two of the texts with which we are concerned (I Cor. 11 and I Cor. 14) occur in a segment of an obviously “occasional letter” (written to address certain local church conditions). This section primarily confronts various disorders in the worship of the Corinthian congregation (I Cor. 11-14). This in itself should suggest mat since historically conditioned and culturally limited situations are the chief...