The Men-as-Suffering-Servants Argument
for no women in leadership
The Argument: “In Ephesians 5:25-27, Paul instructs husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. This scripture shows husbands how to sacrificially love their wives. Being servant-leaders in the church is one of the ways God uniquely calls men to sacrifice for women. This means taking on the responsibility and stress of governing the church body so that women don’t have to suffer through the stress or carry that burden. Through this division of labor, God cleanses and makes holy both men and women in different ways.”
Counterargument 1: This argument jumps to a conclusion unsupported by the rest of the scripture. It also embellishes Paul’s words. Paul isn’t arguing that men ought to save women from the stress and responsibility of church leadership. Rather, Paul is saying husbands are to love, sacrifice, and contribute to Christ’s cleansing work of making their wives blameless and holy. Nowhere does the Bible teach that certain people in Christ’s kingdom need to be saved from the responsibility of taking care of the Church.
Counterargument 2: Paul does not give the specifics for how husbands are to sacrifice for their wives in this passage aside from what Christ does: wash, cleanse, make holy, present to Christ, etc. In different cultures at different times, the application of this will be different. If a wife is unwilling, frightened, or simply not called into church leadership, a husband may indeed step into leadership in place of his wife. But to turn such an application into a moral absolute supporting the claim that God doesn’t call women into leadership or that men ought to exclude women from leadership is not consistent with the rest of scripture.
Counterargument 3: This argument inadvertently permits wives to give stressful servant-leader responsibilities to their husbands. Servant-leadership’s responsibilities prompt growth. Thus, if women aren’t allowed to be servant-leaders and give their most stressful responsibilities to their husbands, they will decrease their opportunities to grow. The less women stretch and grow, the less capable they’ll become of taking care of the family of God and themselves. This is to do the opposite of what Paul calls husbands to do in this chapter. Therefore, relieving women from the responsibility of church leadership doesn’t prepare them for the kingdom of heaven; rather, it keeps women in a fearful, child-like state of irresponsibility.
Counterargument 4: This line of reasoning encourages men and women to divide labor not according to their gifts from the Lord or how the Spirit might be leading, but according to gender. This is not how Paul describes how to conduct the church, as seen in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12.
Counterargument 5: This alters the attitude of church leadership to be about men “rescuing” women instead of discovering how men and women might better work in unity to further His kingdom. This also discourages women from being active participants in improving leadership systems in the church.
Counterargument 6: This argument ignores Paul’s statements elsewhere about how both men and women are responsible for the growth of the Church. Paul does not say that women are allowed to be less responsible for the body of Christ than men. Likewise, Paul does not say that one part of the body is less responsible for the other parts. Everyone is responsible for sacrificing everything for others for the growth and maturity of the body.
Counterargument 7: This line of reasoning breaks the golden rule. That is, if men do not want women to sacrifice everything for men, then men ought not to sacrifice everything for women.
Example: Allow me to use The Gift of the Magi as an illustration of this. In this story, a young couple, Della and Jim, buy one another gifts for Christmas. With only $1.87, Della sells her cherished long hair to buy a platinum watch chain for Jim's prized pocket watch. Meanwhile, Jim sells his watch to buy tortoise-shell combs for Della's hair. To say men only may lead for the sake of women is to say that Jim may sell his watch for Della, but Della may not sell her hair for Jim. Total sacrifice for one another is what Christ taught.
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