An Honest Search for What the Bible Really Says about Women in Leadership:

Portland! I know you are hearing this because my data guy tells me that you're one of my top cities for downloads. Well, I will be in your neighborhood March 8th and 9th, 2026 for the Portland Faith Sexuality and Gender Conference, and I am hoping to see you there. The full conference is designed to equip pastors, educators, and church leaders to engage the LGBTQ conversation with Grace and Chief. You also have the option to register for just the 2.5 hour introduction to the LGBTQ conversation that's taking place. The first you'd mean on Sunday, March 8th. Just head over to CenterForFaith.com/Events and select the Portland Conference. We also have incredible group pricing so you can bring along your friends and fellow pastors and church staff. Okay, so once again that's CenterForFaith.com/Events/Events to sign up for the Faith Sexuality and Gender Conference on March 8th and March 9th. Can women serve in positions of leadership in the church? This is a topic I've been interested in for a long time, but I haven't studied it out for myself until recently. As many of you know, I know many of you have been following my journey. As I've talked about it on the podcast, but over the last 3 and a half plus years I have been spending loads of time researching, thinking through and writing about the topic of women in church leadership. I've documented my journey in this conversation in my forthcoming book from Genesis to Junia, and on a search for what the Bible really says about women and leadership. You can watch it on YouTube. Here is the cover. I thought it turned out pretty cool. Shout out to whoever designed this over at Daviesie Cook. Got a team over there that I think did a really good job on the cover. And it comes out, yeah, March 3rd, you can pre-order it now. And what I want to do in this podcast is I want to read my introduction to the book and then summarize the contents. And then I will tell you where I land on this question. Well, I'm not going to tell you where I land in this podcast, but I will tell you where I land in the book. So my name is Preston Sprinkle. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. Okay, before I read the introduction to my book, let me just give a couple pre-liminary thoughts on what this book is all about. First of all, my focus, my approach in this topic and the book is deeply exogetical. Meaning I simply want to know what does the Bible say about it to the best of my understanding. I don't deal with modern day church structures. I don't really, I don't really deal with more subjective kind of arguments. I want to know what does this ancient religious text that we call the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament. What do the scriptures say about this? So it's not a comprehensive book in the sense that, you know, like a lot of my other books, I deal with, you know, exegesis and theology and sometimes philosophy and psychology. And then I get into like modern day application. I don't do that in this book. There's other books that deal with different aspects of this conversation. The book is simply focused on the exogetical arguments. And that's really my passion. I really want to know what the Bible says about it. You know, that some people that have told me, you know, I don't need to figure out what the Bible says. And many, many amazing female preachers, many amazing female leaders. And this confirms that women should be preachers and leaders. And you know, I appreciate that. I've met many female scholars and pastors and preachers and leaders over the years too. And I have deep respect for them. And I don't want to discount the strength of one's experience. But these kind of arguments they do put experience over the text. And I just, I don't take that approach. I don't want to discount the importance of experience. But my focus is simply on the text of scripture. Some other arguments I've heard, you know, are drawn from kind of one's personal calling, you know, I've heard women say I feel a deep profound calling from God to be a pastor. So, and sometimes that can become the main reason why some women want to be in leadership and want to be a pastor. And again, I appreciate the power of one's calling from God. I don't want to discount this. But it, you know, I, I would say that, you know, a subjective sense of calling must also match what scripture teaches on the topic and whatever we're talking about. You know, in my work on sexuality, I've met several same sex couples to say almost the exact same thing, almost the exact identical wording. You know, we feel called by God to get married. And I'm like, well, okay, I, I, does that calling match what the text of scripture says I can neither confirm nor to die. You know, that you have felt this calling from God, all I can do is say does it match up with what scripture teaches on this topic. So I, you know, I try to treat all issues this way. And that's what I did with the topic of women in leadership. So let's get into my introduction to the book. I will read this verbatim. And then I will, I will summarize chapter one. I'll get in the chapter one, deal with that a little more thoroughly. And then I will more briefly summarize the rest of the book. So you know what it is all about. So here we go. Chapter of the introduction may the entry is May 2022 my journey into the women in leadership debate. I'm writing this introduction in real time. It's May 2022. And I'm about to embark on a theological journey to figure out what I think the Bible says about women in leadership. I'm a bit nervous about this journey since I don't know my destination. I honestly don't know where I'll end up authors typically write their books introduction later after they've written the rest of the book and figured out their conclusion. That's how I've written most of my previous books, but this one's different. I'm not going to start with a settled conclusion and then write the book in order to convince you of that conclusion. Rather I'm inviting you to peak over my shoulder as I journey through scripture to figure out what I believe it says about this contentious issue. Now most Christians I know have strong opinions about the matter and I used to be one of them. I grew up in a staunchly complementarian context where only men could be pastors and leaders. And I believe this was the only valid biblical position in any view that allowed women to teach and preach was a direct violation of God's word. Over the years though, I've seen some problems with this view. Some arguments seem solid and while others seem forced and unconvincing. I'm not sure it's wrong. I'm just not sure it's right. The same goes for the egalitarian view. I've come across some compelling arguments for women in leadership, but I've also seen some pretty terrible arguments too. So for the last several years, I've remained undecided about what I think the Bible says about women in leadership. Why stay undecided for so long? Well, I'm a bit obsessive when it comes to research and a topic, especially a hotly disputed one. I want the depth of my study to determine the strength of my conclusion. I never want to give thin answers to fit questions. And there are a lot of thick questions surrounding this issue that I haven't had time to thoroughly research until now. This fall 2022, I'm taking a sabbatical and setting aside my other ministry responsibilities to focus on the question of women in leadership. I doubt I'll be able to finish the book in six months, but at least I'll have a running start. After this sabbatical is over, I'll keep researching the topic until I feel like I can land on a view with some level of confidence. I can't promise you that I'll be an unbiased researcher. Nobody is totally free from bias. What I can say is that I don't have any external pressures, a job, a church, relationships that are nudging me toward one view over another. So, for instance, if I was teaching at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which is staunchly complimentary or at fuller theological seminary, which is firmly egalitarian, I'd have a lot of financial and practical reasons to arrive at a certain conclusion. Or if I were a pastor at a complimentary church, I'd need to agree with its view unless I was looking for a job change. If my wife were a senior pastor, my motivation might seem tainted. If all my friends were on one side of the debate, my perspective might be clouded. But I don't work for a church or a seminary. My wife would rather stroll barefoot through a room filled with broken glass than to be a pastor. And I have friends on all sides of this debate. And since my friends are real friends, I won't lose them if I end up on the quote wrong side of this issue. But what I conclude in this book, I expect to keep all my jobs and ministry roles, make the same amount of money and keep speaking at both egalitarian and complimentary churches, which I have been doing for less 10 years. I won't lose my ordination status because I'm not ordained. And I won't be kicked out of my denomination because I'm not part of a denomination. My wonderful publisher doesn't need me to uphold a particular position. They publish books that examine all sides of this issue. And even personally, and I guess you just have to take my word for it, I really don't have any major leanings and either direction. As I said before, I see strong and weak arguments for each view. And all my thoughts and questions so far are really half baked and under researched hence this book. Maybe I'll become more convinced of arguments I found unconvincing and maybe I'll see problems with arguments I thought I previously thought were strong. I might even be embarrassed by some ignorant things I've said in this introduction. Oh, I hate that for sure. Although I don't know exactly how this book will unfold, here are some key topics and passages that I plan on studying. I'll need to spend some time on Genesis 1 to 3 in the relationship between the first humans. Adams alleged headship over Eve forms the bedrock for the complimentary view that I grew up with and I'm eager to see if the text actually supports this view. I'm also curious about the rest of the Old Testament. What does it say about women in leadership, especially how it portrays certain female prophets like Hilda and Deborah? But since my main focus is on church leadership, I'll probably devote more time to the New Testament. Even here I have to be selective. I know I want to look at how women participated in the ministries of Jesus and Paul. I'll also spend a good deal of time in three important passages. 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 2 to 16, 1 Corinthians chapter 14 verses 34 to 35, and 1 Timothy, of course, 1 Timothy, chapter 2 verses 8 to 15. I'm pretty sure I'll study the so-called household code in Ephesians 5, 22 to 33, since church roles and household roles are sometimes related in the first century. And I want to understand the nature of New Testament prophecy since women were clearly prophesying in the early church. If prophecy or is prophecy akin to preaching or teaching, is it an authoritative activity? There are, these are significant questions I'll try to address. In a study like this, it's important that we don't understand things like leadership and church from a modern perspective. I don't want to simply drape the New Testament in the robes of modern Western church structures and call it the same thing. Whatever Paul was saying to Timothy in the first century, it probably didn't involve deciding whether a woman could step under a bright stage lights next Sunday and deliver a polished sermon to an audience of 5,000. My aim in the study is to step back into the dusty streets and crowded homes of the first century believers and explore the question of women in church leadership according to their understanding of church and leadership, not ours. What today's church is choose to do with that portrait lies beyond the scope of this study. What do I mean by leader and leadership? I'm hesitant to start with an overly precise definition and then project this definition onto the text of scripture. I'd rather have the Bible itself shape our understanding of leadership as we journey through our study. But since I'll be using the term leader from the get go, here's a general definition of what I mean at this early stage of our journey. A leader is a person who one holds a recognized title or position of authority such as king or elder, two guides and directs a group of people toward a specific goal or mission, or three speaks or acts in a way that expect others to follow their direction. I offer these descriptions only as flexible frameworks, not fixed barriers. Again, our understanding of leadership should arise from the text, not be forced upon it. I'll be sure to revisit and fine tune this definition as we get the portions of the New Testament that deal with leadership in the church. In indicates, I'll try to be clear where and why I think someone is considered a leader based on this general definition. A few quick words before we dive in. First, I'll be waiting through lots of academic literature on this topic. But I plan to write in a conversational tone. I want this book to represent the scholarly debates responsibly, but I also want it to be readable for people who don't have a seminary degree. If you're a scholar, you might find my tone to colloquial. And if you're a non-scholar, you might be annoyed by the copious footnotes. Either way, I hope this book can bridge the gap between the academy and the church. Second, I know the terms egalitarian and complementarian are highly disputed, some have ditched these terms for others like mutualists instead of egalitarian and patriarchal instead of complementarian. But while egalitarian and complementarian may be frayed, the other labels have their own loose threads. Whichever term we use, I believe the most respectful approach is to call a view what it's proponents. Call it. In other words, I don't think it's helpful when egalitarian's label the other view patriarchal if it's proponents don't use that label. Likewise, it's misleading to slap feminist on the opposing view if they don't use it themselves. That term carries connotations that many egalitarians reject. Since most complementarians seem to prefer this term, this is the one I'm going to use. And while mutualist is gaining traction, I think egalitarian is still the more recognizable term. So I'll use egalitarian throughout the book. But I want to be clear about what I mean by each word. So in this book, egalitarian refers to the view that women can serve in all areas of church leadership. And complementarian refers to the view that certain positions of church leadership are reserved for men. Both terms can carry lots of other implications and assumptions. But when I use the terms here, I mean nothing more than what I just said. There are of course variations within both groups. For instance, soft complementarians believe that women can teach and preach and churches as long as they are under the authority of male elders. Some egalitarians believe that men and women are equal in every way. While others are happy to celebrate the differences between men and women. I'll tease out these variations where they're relevant. Lastly, my study will be strictly exogetical in nature. We'll focus on what the Bible says about women in church leadership in its own context. I'm not going to offer modern applications. Nor will I address the modern day problems that sometimes develop in complementarian or egalitarian churches. These issues are worth addressing. But it would take a whole other book to do so. And I'm not sure I'm the right person to do that. My goal here is to provide an honest evaluation of the biblical arguments. I'll leave the application questions to other scholars and other readers like you. Okay, I just ordered a truckload of books which should be here in a couple of days. I'll spend the next few months reading as deeply and widely as I can. And then once I've taken copious notes, maybe I'll start to think about putting pen to paper. See you in a few months or a few years. Wow, that's so fun rereading my introduction that I wrote in May 2022. I remember, I vividly remember writing this and not knowing what the next several, end up being several years would entail. I didn't know how long it was going to take to write the book. I really didn't. I knew it would take more than that, you know, that false sabbatical that I had. That did give me a running start just to have several weeks of just uninterrupted time to research and think and chase rabbit trails. Oh, my word that I chase rabbit trails. For instance, you know, some of you might have followed my study on the Greek word, "Cafelet," translated head. And as many of you know, it's used in two key places in this debate, Ephesians 5, 23, and 1st Corinthians 11, 3 where it says on some level, you know, man or husband, his head over the woman or his wife. And I was thinking like, "Oh, I'll spend about a week looking into the meaning of "Cafelet." Well, a week turned into two weeks, two weeks turned into two months, two months turned into about six months. I think I spent researching just a word "Cafelet." And this has got a typical how the book turned out. My summary of that six week, or sorry, six months study of "Cafelet" ended up being about two pages in the book. Now I did, you know, I wrote a long blog series on "Cafelet." And I actually went back and edited all those blogs, refined them and posted those blogs in one long document summarizing all of my research on "Cafelet." It's posted at TheologyNaraw.com. You can download it for free. It's like a 20 plus thousand word tedious document. But I just wanted to have my research just publicly available so that people can see why I arrived at certain conclusions that I did. You know, the book is just over, it's about 300 pages. But that's the final draft ended up being 300 pages. Earlier drafts were like 500 pages. Much to my publishers, Shagran. I was contracted for a book. I don't know, the original contract, 50,000 words, which is, you know, 250 page book. And I told my publisher kind of early on in my research. I'm like, "Yeah, I don't think I'm going to be able to make that word down. I need some grace here." So they gave me some extra, you know, it kicked me down, an extra 10 or 15,000 words. So the book came in longer than contracted, but much shorter than it could have been. In fact, yeah, I remember looking at an earlier draft of the manuscript and I kid you not. It was like 120,000 words. I'm like, "Okay, I need to shave off 60,000. I need to cut this thing out." So what I ended up doing is, you know, there's some stuff that I just flat out cut. And it is, I'm not really great at keeping track of stuff I cut. So there's things that are just lost in the sands of time, as they say. But there's other chunks of my research that I ended up putting posting on my website. I think I have like four or five different lengthy papers of extra research on my website, the Allgen Raul, which you can check out. They are much more scholarly. Some of them are just absolute snore to read. But I just, again, wanted to make public, okay, here is some extra research that I only had space to summarize in the book. So I'm training for my first marathon. And it's actually a half marathon, but that's still a long distance from me to run. I'm 50 years old. So I've been looking at a bunch of different supplements and protein powders to help me with my endurance and my recovery. And here's what I found. There's a lot of brands out there promising you the world, but since it's such a low regulation industry, a lot of these brands cut corners, skip testing and don't disclose the ingredients that they're using. That's exactly why I've partnered with Momentus. 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As I researched this passage, as I read books on women in ministry, as I read books just on Genesis 1 to 3 and many journal articles, I came up with what I think is kind of like the five or six main arguments surrounding the question of women and men and the question of authority. Does man have some kind of authority over a woman based on the creation account? This is very significant question. Some people say it is the main passage. Like everything stands or falls on how we read Genesis 1 to 3 or 1 to 2 in particular. I think that's a little overstated, but it clearly is very significant. In fact, Paul in two key passages refers to the creation of Adam and Eve in a way that would seem to suggest that man has some kind of authority over women. So I'm thinking of 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 8 to 9. The 1 Timothy chapter 2 verses 13 to 14. The Paul refers to the order of creation, only refers to the fact that woman was created from man, not man, for woman, from woman, and woman was created for man, not man for woman and in 1 Corinthians 11. And I dive into those passages at great length in the book. In fact, the long, the longest chapter in the book is on 1 Timothy. I think it's been like 50 pages on 1 Timothy chapter 2 and 3 because it's a really important chapter. And lots of lots of research done on that chapter. I had to wait through just piles of literature and do a ton of, you know, word studies and syntactical analysis and all those fun things that Bible nerds like me like to do. So I do get into those two Pauline passages. And for chapter 1, I just wanted to read, you know, I wanted to understand Genesis 1 to 3 on its own terms. What was the author trying to communicate here in terms of male, female relations? So one of the arguments I look at the first one is, you know, that Adam and Eve are exercising mutual rule according to Genesis 1. So a lot of egalitarians point this out that, you know, they criticize complimentarians for just kind of rushing to Genesis 2 to determine man's authority over woman and a lot of egalitarians are right. I think to say, well, what about Genesis 1? What does Genesis 1 have to contribute to our conversation here? And egalitarians point out that, you know, in Genesis 1, male and female are created completely equal, mutual, they're, you know, they both created God's image, male and female he created them. Genesis 1, 27, both are, both are commissioned to rule over creation. The birds in the sea and the animal kingdom in particular. And so the only ruling or language that occurs in Genesis 1 or 2 really, ascribes mutual rule to Adam and Eve and there is no hint of any kind of like hierarchy in Genesis 1 of a man ruling over woman. It's just male, female together ruling over creation. You know, I think that's a great argument. Certainly Genesis 1 precedes Genesis 2. And yeah, you know, complimentarians, they read Genesis 1 and 2 and they agree that Genesis 1 establishes ontological equality between man and woman and both call them mediate God's rule. But complimentarians were argued that the chapter doesn't detail how man and woman will collaborate to subdue subdue and rule the earth. That comes in Genesis 2 where their individual roles are spelled out. And man's authority says, the complimentarian, man's authority of a woman exists within a framework of ontological equality. And I think that so I, yeah, to show my cards a little bit, I don't, I personally haven't been and I'm still not impressed with arguments for an egalitarian position that stem from ontological equality. It goes something like both are created equal, both bear gods image. Therefore there can be no authority between man and woman. They must both be quote unquote equal. And I just, I don't think ontological equality necessitates or demands that there couldn't be some authority structure between man and woman. I mean, think about this way like we have authority structures today. We have bosses and non bosses and leaders and non leaders, but both a pastor and non pastor are both ontologically equal. If you work a secular job, your boss is in charge of you, right? Or has authority over you on some level, but you're both ontologically equal. So I don't think ontological equality demands that there cannot be some kind of authority structure. So all that to say, I could, I don't know with this first argument, I could see, I could see both sides. I don't, I don't think this just settles the issue. Okay, look at Genesis one, both male and female are ruling over creation. Therefore, whatever happens to Genesis two, it must be irrelevant for any kind of argument that a man is in authority over the woman. At the same time, it is interesting that the only explicit ruling language will get to some implicit possible ruling language in Genesis two, but the one clear ruling language is described to male and female, both in Genesis one. And Genesis one occurs before Genesis two, even if you think these are two different creation accounts, literally, canonically, it comes before. So yeah, I don't know. I feel like I was kind of just undecided with this argument. I don't think it can determine the issue. I do think we need to wait through some of the issues in Genesis two. Okay. The first, this is the second argument I deal with, you know, why was Adam created first? This is, I'm going to say probably the main argument for a more complementary view that the creation account ascribes authority to Adam over Eve. And this is not just for Adam and Eve, but this creates a principle, a pattern. for You can say the rest of Humanity or you can maybe say more specifically for the people of God if you want to go that route But either way there's some kind of authority Adam possesses some kind of authority over E because he was created first Tom Schreiner who I love Major a commentary in scholar. He says that the you know the Hebrew reader would be disposed to read the second creation accountant terms of pre-magenitor Where the first born male has authority over the younger brothers after the father dies and so since God that's unquote since God created Adam first he has authority over Eve who came after him well I Used to think this is kind of a slam dunk You know, I've I've been studied the Old Testament and very familiar with the pre-magenitor Principle and that was alive and well in the ancient Near East But you know, there's several as a tug into this. I'm like well several things don't quite match up The pre-magenitor principal had to do with the older brother in relationship to his younger brothers the older brother What you know when the father dies? Yes, he would receive kind of the patriarchal status and receive authority Delegated father after the death of the father and he would have authority over the rest of his brothers and The household as a whole A few problems though Adam and Eve are not siblings or spouses Eve is not his younger brother. They're not you know, they're not they're not he's not the Adam's not the first born. He's the first created They don't you know that there's no father who died he could say well, you know, well God's the father. Well, he's not dead I'm not dead yet. What's that from is that from Monty Python no That's not on the book I'm not dead yet So it's it's the pre-magenitor principal doesn't really map neatly upon Adam and Eve there's several Problems there most significantly though throughout scripture God often gives priority to The second born or last born not the first born so Isaac over Ishmael Jacob Nadisa Joseph not his older brothers Ephian not menacea paris not Zara and this pattern is repeated throughout the Old Testament and on into the new David is chosen over several brothers to be the king and the conduit for the Messianic promises so Yes, there was a pre-magenitor Principle in the ancient Near East, but God theologically was really fond of overturning that principal I think that's a That that raises in my mind significant questions over the scene Adam as authority over Eve simply because he was born first Poss as possible possible And that's kind of how I End up working through a lot of these arguments in Genesis one and two. I'm like, I okay, I can see where you would get that but Argument isn't really failproof. I think this one this argument about the first You know Adam being created first the one argument that thought was the strongest For a commentary position I think is actually one of the weakest. I think it has several problems at the very least We can't just say well Adam is created first therefore. You know, he has authority over Eve I think that would be a lazy and and quite naive argument now It is true that first Timothy 2 does reference the first First created you know Adam being created first Not Eve as part of his argument that women shouldn't teach or exercise authority over a man first Timothy Chapter 2 verse 12 and 13 So there is that but you know again I'm trying to deal with what is the author of Genesis? What is he trying to communicate here? I'll get to first Timothy later And maybe that's what maybe Paul is drawing primogener Primogenitor principle out of his reading of Genesis 2 but I You know there's lots of complexities in that passage so I don't want to just Again half-hazardly just say wow first Timothy 2 13 boom done deal It's like well, no we have to understand the text on its own terms and then we have to go deal with latter interpretations of that text and all the issues that surround this complex passage so So that's where I leave that argument. I don't I don't think it's clear That it establishes Adam's authority over Eve another argument that deal with is you know Eve being Adam's helper There's this imply that Adam is in charge This one I'm sure so many of you are familiar with this you know Eve was created to be a helper fit for Adam Genesis 2 18 Genesis 220 and Some have taken this to mean the Adam held authority over Eve But as many have pointed out you know the word helper Oftentimes most oftentimes the scripture does not refer to somebody with some kind of subordinate status Helping somebody in authority there are places Maybe two or three where it could mean that but The word helper Most often refers to God offering military help to the nation of Israel now Couple of materians are very aware of that and so you know in reading A lot of scholars on this to see okay well helper doesn't implies subordination that's not how the word is normally used I was curious to see how complementarians address that and I honestly wasn't impressed with how they responded um And in saying that that is a subjective statement. I'm not impressed and somebody else is well I'm impressed and my opinion is more important than yours So yeah, you can look at how I I go back and forth you know and dealing with how people address The fact that the word helper does not imply subordination um ray orland recognizes that the Hebrew word et's er Easy er is often used of God helping Israel but he says quote it is entirely possible for God to subordinate Himself in a certain sense to human beings He does this whenever he undertakes to help us. He does not ungod himself and helping us but he does stoop to meet He does stoop to our needs according to his gracious and sovereign will and orland illustrates this Point I say in that he subordinates himself to us that he ray or orland subordinate himself to his children whenever he helps them with their homework and Wayne Grudem One of the most prolific complementarians he agrees with this he says quote the person doing the helping puts himself in a subordinate role to the person Who has primary responsibility for carrying out the activity? I just I go okay Get what you're saying. I hear what you're saying. I just I don't know. I'm just not convinced of their logic here Um, the question is not whether a person an authority could ever stoop to meet the needs of somebody under their authority The question is whether the word et's et's er implies being under the authority of someone else So orland's examples still portray God the et's er in a position of authority not in a position of submitting to someone else is a Not in a position of submitting to someone else's authority Likewise a father doesn't read link wishes authority when he helps his kids with math Or maths if you're from the UK um So yeah, I I I just wasn't convinced of The argument that says that the word for helper implies or suggests or demands that Adam was in authority over over Eve And I deal with several of their things within the argument. Okay another argument I deal with is you know does Adams naming of Eve does this demonstrate his authority over her So Genesis 223 it says the man said this is at last bono my bones and flesh and my flesh She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man so they're that that Calling her woman is an act of naming and in the Hebrew mindset or even the ancient Near East world view The act of naming somebody else is a declaration of authority. This is This is true for the most part Okay, the classic example is when Nebuchadnezzar's chief unix Change the names of Daniel Hananiah Mishaiel and Aziraya to belt his belt. The shzar Shadrach Misha can abandon go Daniel 7 Pharaoh Nekko did the same thing when he changed the name of Ellie Ellie Akim to Jehoyakim and so on and so forth. They were even in Genesis 1. You have God, you know calling The day night and calling you know naming different aspects of his creation as a demonstration of his sovereignty over creation um So there's there's there's a much old testament in ancient nary's precedence for saying that the act of naming is a demonstration Authority there are two There's two I guess he got it's there are just two pushbacks the argument number one while that's true in many cases. It's not true in every case All right later on in Genesis um 16 hey guard names God we're using the same verb Karan the Hebrew She called the name of the Lord You are a god of seeing you know Genesis 16 verse 13. So I don't think hey, hey, Garz demonstrating authority over God when he names God. You see other instances in Genesis 26 where the act of naming is actually relinquishing authority over in this case, certain wells in Genesis 26. So naming could be a demonstration of authority, doesn't always. So it's like, all right, do we just go with the odds? Well, many times it is an act of authority, so it must be here. Well, that's, you know, again, it's okay as possible, but I would be cautious jumping into that conclusion. Also, a second counter argument is that Adam, you know, he doesn't, he calls her woman, but he doesn't name her, he doesn't strictly name her here. In fact, he does strictly name her in Genesis 320 when he calls her name, e, even he had that pattern of a calling and naming, but there, that's in the context of the curses and the context of the fall and both complementarians and egalitarians would say, yeah, we probably shouldn't derive a lot of kind of creational principles out of the latter parts of Genesis 3, because this is now representing kind of things in the fallen order, not the original created order. So, oh, and lastly, there's another counter point that I, you know, I've seen people read too much into and some people will not read enough into that Genesis 223 of the name, you know, when Adam names Eve or calls her woman. It's followed by a statement in Genesis 224 that is a bit odd. That where the author jumps in and says, this is why man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh. Well, in Israel's culture, it was the woman who would leave her family and join the home of her husband and mother, but Genesis 224 spins it around. And the man's the one that leaves and joins his wife's home. It's just, it's just a little odd. Now, some people read way too much into this, like see the woman is a free agent, you know, and do whatever she wants. Oh, come on. I got, we're still dealing with an engineer, he's gone, takes you, okay. But it is, it is odd. It is a little disruptive here. And I kind of, I deal with, okay, how much should we read out of this passage? We don't want to read into it too much. It's not there. And yet, we want to appreciate the, the, the disruptive nature of Genesis 224 on the heels of Adam calling his, well, naming her woman or calling her woman. See the word naming isn't there. It's just calling her woman. So again, the naming could, could, could it suggest authority? I guess it could, but it's not like a, it's certainly not a failed proof argument. The last thing that I deal with in, actually, I deal with several other things, but the last main argument I deal with is Genesis 316 where the, it says, the man will rule over you. And this, this has been, yeah, this has been interpreted in many different ways. Genesis 316 is notoriously difficult. In fact, I read a whole book by Dr. Carol Myers, called Discovery and Eve that deals with, it's a whole entire book just on this verse and teases out kind of the ancient Mary's context on it. It's one of the things. Here's another like, you know, rabbit trail. I had a lot of the moments in my study, you know, squirrel about what chase the squirrel for like three months and then realized like, that was fascinating, but none of that's going to make it in the book. So yeah, I don't deal extensively with Genesis 316 even though I, I did quite a deep dive into it. But here's a case where even complex, complementarians, I mean, there's so many different interpretations of Genesis 316 is hard to get kind of a consensus. But with regard to the question of male, female relations in the home or in creation, you know, even Wayne Grudem, whose hardcore complementarian, you know, he even, he says like, this isn't, this is a distorted, a distortion of male authority. This is an establishing male authority. We should not read a complementarian view or something out of Genesis 316. Grudem says, quote, we should never try to promote Genesis 316 as something good. And I agree with them based on the study of the word rule and the word desire that occurs there. So of all the arguments for a complementarian view, I think Genesis 316 is probably the least convincing. Yeah, there's other interpretive issues I deal with, you know, briefly, God commanding Adam, not even Genesis 216 and 17, you know, or why did the serpent approach the woman and not the man in order to deceive her or Eve being created from Adam's side, which I think is that's probably another really terrible argument for, for male authority. And not a lot of people, that argument comes up. It's not like a main argument. So I do deal with it briefly. But I just, I don't think there's, there's much there. So here, let me just read to you how about my, I'll just read to you my two paragraph conclusion here. The title of this is a summary and lack of conclusion. I resonate with what Francis Watson says about male leadership in Genesis 2 to 3, quote, certain interpretive statements are possible, although not explicitly demanded by the text. And I, so that's Watson. I would probably maybe even offer slightly stronger conclusion. Genesis 1 to 3 alone does not teach male headship over women or husband's authority over the wives of some universal principle etched into creation. That, I'm not. So this is just one of a one part of a very long complex debate with regard to women leadership. So it doesn't, I don't think it stands or falls in Genesis 1 and 2. And I'm not even saying Genesis 1 and 2 establishes like an egalitarian view like it's, you know, we have a ancient near Egalitarian you know, like really establishing, you know, you know, both men women could be leaders in the church. Like I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying I don't think the passage is explicitly spelling out a creational principle regarding who's an authority over the other or what kind of leadership positions can people serve in the church. Some, I hear so back to my conclusion, some male headship arguments have more merit than others, but none of them is without problems. The two times authority language is employed. It refers to the mutual rule of male and female over creation. Genesis 1, 26, 28 and a negative kind of rule that husbands wield over the wives in a world cursed by sin, Genesis 3, 16. Still, we need to suspend judgment until we consider two Paul two of Paul's two illusions to Genesis 2. Again, 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Timothy 2. My initial glance at these two Pauline passages seems to support a complementary and reading of Genesis. But initial glance is, well, suffice for such an important topic. We need to roll up our sleeves and spend considerable time working through these texts. Before we get there, I want to keep exploring what the rest of the Old Testament says about women and leadership in ancient Israel. And that's what I do in chapter 2. So here, I'm going to be more brief and just kind of summarize where I end up going in the book. So chapter 2 is women in the Old Testament. Here, I spend a little bit of time looking at the social context of women in ancient Israel. And this was one of those sections that used to be a lot longer. In fact, it could have been a whole entire chapter looking at the social context of women in the ancient household. Because I think there's a lot of misunderstandings there. And here, I have admittedly been influenced by Carol Myers, if you're familiar with her work on women in the Old Testament. Carol Myers is a, she's not a religious person. She's, you know, a secular Old Testament scholar, archaeologist, historian. But man, she's done some of the most interesting and thorough and thought provoking work of women in the Old Testament. In fact, she, I mentioned this, I forget where it was, was in a podcast, maybe not, maybe it was on Patreon. An article she wrote where I think the title of the article is, was ancient Israel a, a patriarchal society or something? And she answers no. And look, Carol Myers is a, you know, she would, she would have every right to want to say, no, the Old Testament's profoundly misogynistic and patriarchal and all these things. And she says, actually just from a sociological perspective, calling it patriarchal is a little, she would say a little naive and doesn't really match what we know about the complexity of female agency in the Old Testament world. And I'm, you know, I had a whole section where I was like, we shouldn't use a term patriarch anymore. But then I backed off, I'm like, well, you know, I'm not an expert in this. And I don't, I think I mentioned that, you know, some scholars question even calling the Old Testament ancient Israel patriarchal. But it's the very least, Myers and others have, have established like, once you enter the world, the Old Testament world, the ancient Near East world, it's just, it's, it's way more complex. The role of women and female agency is way more complex than, than what people realize if they just read the Old Testament from a modern perspective. So, All that say, I had to boil down this huge section and a couple of pages or something established in that. And then I say, I wanna look at how, I wanna highlight, women don't occur nearly as often as men in the Old Testament. For every 10 named men, there's one named woman in the Old Testament. So you can read the Old Testament, say, oh, this is clearly a drama between God and men, like males. But women do show up and when they show up, it's very interesting. And I won't spoil the fun here, but I deal with all the women in the early chapters of Exodus, I deal with Abigail, I deal with, I look at the song, a song just briefly, I look at Esther, who else I look at? Oh, Rahab, I look at Ruth, again, just kind of briefly, like when women pop up at key, turning points in the biblical story, what does a text say about them, and what does that mean? And like a lot of things I look at in my book as a whole, there is, I rarely draw like a one-to-one argument for my position or whatever, I don't wanna read too much in these individual things, but I'm trying to just look at the cumulative role that women occupy in God's redemptive story and then kind of pull the pieces together. And so what are some of these are more implications, some of these are a little more explicit. So when I'm dealing with women in the Old Testament, I don't think there's a whole lot that's, gonna directly address the question of women in church leadership, but I just wanna get our arms around what the Bible is doing as it includes women in its unfolding storyline. And then I focus more specifically on female prophets, in particular, Debra and hold them, and wrestle with whether they should be considered as exercising leadership over men. And then I look at the all-male priesthood. 'Cause even if you say yes, hold it, and Debra and other female prophets are exercising leadership over men, you have to wrestle with the fact that the priesthood was the established, they were the established teachers in Israel, they were the ones who were commissioned to study and teach the law. They were the teachers and the priesthood was all male. So is there an argument there that God was carrying out? Even in ancient Israel, that while you had some female prophets and other things going on when it came to teaching the word of God, God reserved that role to men, even the Old Testament. So I wrestle with that argument. Chapter three, women in the ministry of Jesus, clearly Jesus valued women. This is something that, you know, in the past I've seen egalitarians seem like they were just like, look, Jesus valued women, women were awesome. Therefore they should be elders. It's like, well, okay, hold on. Hopefully all our churches are valuing women. Hopefully we're all advocating for and defending and promoting the full ontologically quality of men and women, we're all creating a God's image of Jesus valued women. But does that mean they should therefore be elders and pastors and preachers and teachers? Like, I mean, does God, I mean, think about the logic there. Does God only value elders and pastors and teachers? Do you only have real value if you're a leader in the church? I just think that that, the whole framework, I just think that that brings a secular view of leadership to the question. Like, until somebody is in a leadership position in the church, they don't have full value. They're not fully equal or fully ontologically valuable as leaders. It's like, well, that just imports a weird view of leadership, the leader non-liter distinction, which is, I think, foreign to the Christian worldview. So all that to say, I do dig into some nitty gritty things. I deal a lot with how the gospel writers treat women. And I, you know, Jesus does more than simply value women. There, you know, the gospel writers, especially Mark and Luke and John. Yeah, Mark, look at John. Matthew doesn't add a ton to the conversation other than his, you know, he opens with the genealogy where it includes four to five women. But the other three gospels do some very interesting and provocative things in how they're retelling, retelling the story of women. But again, does that mean, do the gospels establish that women can or can't be in church leadership positions? I don't think the gospels directly address that question, but they do raise some implications that I think are relevant to the debate. Am I being vaguen of here? (laughs) So yes, I deal with Mary Magdalene, you know, the apostles of the apostles. I deal with the female disciples, you know, Luke eight, one to three, I deal with the women from Galilee, I deal with the Samaritan woman. I deal with most of the main debated, the women that, you know, are, you know, come up and are debated in the conversation. I do bring up, I do bring up a point that I don't see considered very much in the typical like books on egalitarian, complimentarianism. I look at Jesus's redefinition of authority in Mark 10 and parallel passages and say, okay, this is the one place where Jesus most directly addresses questions of leadership and he turns it on its head the one who serves as a leader. So then I go back and look and see, okay, what is Jesus's redefinition of leadership? The one place where he got to address is the question of leadership, 'cause it's not like he's running around giving like a Titus I or 1 Timothy III list of qualifications for being a leader. But he does address it in Mark 10 and parallels. So I do kind of refract the question of leadership through the lens of Jesus and then look and see how that reshapes, how we think about men and women in church leadership. And then of course I wrestle with the 12 male apostles. I always thought that was a slam dunk for the complimentarian view. And I, you know, I think it's still a decent argument, but it, there were some problems with that argument that I hadn't seen before. So I wrestle with the significance of the 12 male apostles. Chapter four was a chapter that I did not originally plan on writing. Chapter four deals with leadership and the first century house church. And man, this was another squirrel I chased. I mean, I got so absorbed with this topic, probably read and researched more than I needed to, but I just got so fascinated with understanding the first century house church from a first century context. And, and looked at, you know, yeah, how much I want to give away here. I, okay, let me, let me say this. The whole idea that the church had a ironed out structure of senior pastor and below that senior pastor elders and below the elders, yeah, maybe other pastors and teachers and then under them deacons. That ain't there in the New Testament. (laughs) I, of course, I mean, not just according to me, but a lot of scholars you have looked in. I would say almost, you know, their scholars specialize, like leadership and house churches in the first century. Like that's what they do. Like Andrew Clark has spent like 25 years in what's his area. Well, he's a New Testament scholar, but he's been researching like leadership in the first century for 25 years. Like that's what he does. And there's other people, Robert Banks and others. Oh, who's the guy? I'm gonna book on my shelf that I can't see from here, but, oh, it's on house churches. There's several really significant books on house churches in the first century. Anyway, I got lost in this area. And the one thing that seems fairly, now there's no consensus on anything in New Testament scholarship, but one thing that seemed widely agreed upon is that Paul, or the New Testament's understanding of leadership is a lot more fluid. It's not super ironed out. Even when we come to the past orals, this whole idea that you have like elders at the top and the pastors and teachers under them, or, you know, like our modern day assumptions about the first century house church leadership structure, I think, needs correction. I'm not saying our modern day structures are wrong or right. I'm just saying they don't map very neatly upon the diversity of how leaders were identified and described in, in according to the New Testament letters, especially in the letters of Paul. So I spent a lot of time unpacking that, you know, does Paul rarely even mention, mentions overseers and elders? I think overseers and elders are only mentioned like three of his 13 letters. And yet he identifies leaders without a word. other terms, all throughout his letters. So I don't think we should just, yeah, I think we need to not take an ironed out view of leadership as if it was like, we had these fixed terms and structures throughout that Paul is working with. I think it's way more messy than that. I'll also look at things like the significance of house church hosts. Some of you might be familiar with this, but in the first century context, the one who hosted a gathering in the home would assume kind of leadership and responsibility over the people in their home. And then when this raises the question, okay, well church is remedying in homes and did the host simply assume some sort of like leadership over the gathering. Sociologically would kind of say, well, sure, yeah, like why wouldn't they? But then the New Testament mentions at least four different women who hosted house churches. Mary and XII, Nympha and Colossians IV, Lady and XVI, Priscilla and various passages. And so possibly Phoebe, it's more implied than explicitly stated. So what do we do with that? I wrestle with that. There I think there's, there's, you know, that can be a pretty complex issue and I had to dig deep into the significance of first century house churches and the hosts and what that meant and how much is there anything in the text of scripture that supports our assumption about house church house exercising leadership in the gathering at their home. So I deal a lot with some sociological and historical research there. That was, that was fun. Just from a research perspective, again, probably probably maybe dove too deep into that then I, well, I don't know. Can you ever go too deep? I look at other things like so apart from like pastor elder overseer, those are kind of the three familiar leadership terms. You know, it's interesting. Pastors only use once as a noun to refer to a church leader in Ephesians 4 of 11 where you know, Paul describes prophets, apostles and pastor teachers. So that's not really a primary part of Paul's leadership vocabulary. Overseer, of course, he identifies in 1 Timothy 3 and he mentions overseers in Philippians 1-1. Elder is mentioned in Titus 1. And throughout Acts, you have to throw out Acts elders and obviously 1 Peter 5. But Paul uses a range of other terms that describe leaders. They're not leadership terms per se. Like the term doesn't mean leader, but Paul often uses various terms to describe leaders, co-worker, servant is the one that he often uses to describe a leader. Or even those who work hard in the Lord, I look into that phrase and see in virtually every case, those who work hard in the Lord through other passages we see always describing people who are doing leadership type stuff, not in every case, but in most cases. There's other terms, "Poistamee." There's a Greek word that means like to manage or care for and it's a leadership term less familiar than, you know, overseer or elder. So all that to say, we need to really step back and understand leadership according to a first century perspective and not simply map our current structures onto the New Testament, say, can women fill these roles? I'm like, well, let's, let's hit pause on doing that. Let's just look at the first century house church context and the leadership terms and phrases that it uses rather than importing our own. So honestly, chapter four is probably, I don't, maybe the most significant chapter in the book 'cause it kind of reframed how we even approach the conversation. Chapter five is all about Roman 16, where Paul names a bunch of women, a lot of them are doing things for the gospel, but just 'cause you're doing things for the gospel doesn't mean you're a leader in the church. That's something that, again, wanna make sure we're all cautious about. But I do camp out on three women in particular, where Paul describes in interesting ways, Phoebe, Priscilla, and Junia. Junia. Good old Junia. I'll show Junia again here. This is our portrait of Junia. I don't know if that's Junia, but this is cover the book. Roman 16, seven does Paul call Junia an apostle. It is more complicated and very widely disputed than some people think. If somebody just says, Paul calls Junia an apostle, therefore, she's a, you know, the woman can be a leadership. Just to know if somebody says that, wow, doesn't even sound mean. Almost said, they're naive, they're ignorant. What, whatever. Like, I think there is an answer, and I do give an answer to the question, is Junia an apostle? But man, there's some linguistic difficulties there. There's some syntactical difficulties. I had to wade through loads of cross references and Greek papyri, and again, this is another squirrel I chase. I'm like, oh, this is more, this is a common theme in my book. Oh, this is more action-gettically complex than I originally thought. And even if Junia is called an apostle, what kind of apostle? The word apostle is used in diverse ways in the New Testament. So I do rest with all that and come to a conclusion, which you can read about in chapter five. All right, so quickly, chapter six, I do with female prophets in the New Testament. It's not enough to say, there's female prophets, which obviously there are. Therefore, women can be a leadership. It's like, hold on. What's the function of prophets? What's the nature of New Testament prophecy? Is it the same, similar, different than Old Testament prophecy? Is prophecy even authoritative in the New Testament? These are issues that people, aside from the women and leadership question they have wrestled with. Chapter seven, I dive deep into Ephesians five. So I don't, my book is focused on women in church leadership, not husband, wife, male, female relations in the home, although I do think they are significantly related. But I don't focus nearly as much time, nor have I thought through us thoroughly, the question of husband and wife in the home. But Ephesians five, I do deal with the whole woman, submit to their husbands because man is authority, or man is head over a woman, and just as Christ is head over the church, I deal extensively with what Paul is saying. What is doing rhetorically with his use of Kephala head there in Ephesians five? First Corinthians 11, verses six to six, verses two to 16, or actually, I limited it to verses two to 12. This is the most difficult passage in all of Paul's letters, hands down. I am technically a Pauline scholar, if sounds nerdy, it is nerdy, super nerdy. That's my PhDs in New Testament or in Pauline theology. So I've worked through some really difficult passages in Paul. I wrote, in my dissertation, I wrote on two of the most difficult passages in Paul, Romans 9, 32 to 10, about 10, 9, and Galatians 3 verses 10 to 14, two very, very difficult passages, House Paul's writing scripture, which is log argument here, what does he mean by law? Does he contradicted himself? Lots of issues there. So I thought, I was like, okay, I'm well versed in difficult Pauline passages. And then I got the first Corinthians 11. I said, this one is just something else. And every responsible Pauline scholar that is written on first Corinthians 11 says the same thing. This is the most difficult passage in Paul. Some people wonder if Paul even wrote it. Or there's a really provocative argument by my friend Lucy Peppiott, some of you are familiar with. I didn't actually deal, I read her books and have thought through it. And I don't think my, did that make it into the book? I'm not sure if my interaction with Lucy made it into the book, but Lucy basically argues. And she's not the only one actually. I didn't know this. I thought she was the only one that has argued this, but there's been several scholars who have argued that Paul and first Corinthians 11 is interacting with Corinthians slogans. So all this stuff that really seems like really misogynistic. Well, that's the Corinthians. And then Paul responds to those seemingly misogynistic statements. It irons out the passage. I mean, like smooths it out. No doubt. If you read the passage in light of Lucy's argument and others, I'm like, "Oh, well that does read smoothly." But it's just, it's hard. It's almost like a, what do they call it, a non-falso fire. But it's just hard. Well, it's hard to prove that he's citing Corinthians slogans. Kind of hard to disprove it. It's kind of, I don't know. Like, I think the explanatory power is maybe the main strength of the argument, but I was like, you know, I don't know. I want to see if there's other ways to understand this past. Just not think I think there are. I think there are. My chapter on first Corinthians 11, kid you not went through like 15 different drafts. Even toward the end of my writing, I was editing, you know, going through my book and I get the first Corinthians 11, like, you know what, I need to rewrite this chapter. So I'd spend a week, you know, rewriting it, rearranging, then sit on it for a few weeks and then come back to it and like, this is crap, I need to rewrite it. Re-road it, re-road it, re-road it. It is tough. It is a tough chapter. So my conclusions, my suggestive readings of that passage are held with an open hand. I think everybody's interpretation of first Corinthians 11 should be held with an open hand. But I, I feel fairly good about how I'm, I think it makes, it does make sense. It satisfies a lot of the exogetical problems. But yeah, you'll, I'll have to, yeah. See what you think. Give me a little grace, that chapter is tough, okay. The one thing is the first Corinthians 11, I mean, it clearly says women were prophesying and praying in front of men in church. That's the only ministry things, activities that are mentioned in the chapter. So on the one hand, I kind of begin the chapter saying, with regard to women in church leadership, this passage doesn't really, I mean, all it says is they're praying and prophesying and doesn't say those are necessarily, that's necessarily say those are leadership positions, but those are the only ministry positions named and men and women are doing those equally. But you do have this question of authority. Does Paul say that women can only pray and prophesy while under the authority of their husband? So with the head covering, representing the authority of the husband. And you know, some would say, yeah, okay. So it could argue for like a soft complimentarian position. Like, well, soft complimentarianism, it says women can teach and preach under the authority of the elders, not necessarily husbands and elders are nowhere to be found in first Corinthians 11. So it doesn't really contribute for or against a soft complimentarian position. So anyway, but it does raise questions about men and women and authority, which I give a suggest of response. First Corinthians 14, women be silent. Just don't say a peep in church. I wrestle with the four main arguments regarding how to interpret that passage, including an argument that says Paul didn't write this passage. Gordon Fee and Phil Payne and others. I wrestle with the view, wow, yeah, you can check it out. There's like four main approaches to that passage. This one was, okay, there's the only time I'll say this. First Corinthians 14 was among the easier chapters to write. Once I really studied it and looked at the terminology in chapter 14 versus 34 to 35, and did just kind of some word studies on how Paul uses these key words, both in the same chapter in chapter 14 and elsewhere, I'm like, oh, this doesn't. If I just read it quickly in English, it's like, oh, yeah, this is startling. Well, you know, why does Paul tell women to shut up in church? But then once you study the Greek terminology here, it's like, oh, this actually doesn't seem that difficult. Doesn't, sorry, doesn't seem as difficult as like chapter 11 or other passages. So chapter 10, the last main chapter, I deal with first Timothy, two to three. Please forgive me for the 50 page chapter. It used to be 150, okay? So even if you think this one's like laborious and tedious, what should it is? It's tough. It's a slog to get through even for me and I wrote it. I just wanted to be thorough. So many people's views on this, well, so many common tarions at least, their view, kind of not fully, but largely stands or falls in this passage or at least this is a, like, the main, one of the main arguments. I really wanted to be super, super, super thorough and clear and thorough. Probably too thorough. So yeah, 50 pages on that and then toward the end, I deal with chapter three and the whole, you know, an overseer must be a husband of one wife. So Paul seems to clearly say that in terms of being an overseer, not necessarily teacher, but being an overseer must be a man. 'Cause only a man could be a husband of one wife I wrestle with that verse and arguments, encounter arguments for and against the elder male, only elder view, the so-called soft, commentary and position. Then I conclude by laying in the plane. I literally wrote the conclusion on a plane from Heathrow to Boise, like a ten-hour flight. And so this is, okay, fun story. This didn't make it into the book, but because I travel a lot, I have a pretty high status with Delta. And as high status. Yeah, so yeah, I'm pretty high up there. And I've never, this has never happened. We probably never happened. We'll happen again. But I got a complimentary, complimentary, no, not complimentary, I got a, not can you say the word? Complimentary, upgrade to first class on an international flight. These are like $5,000 seats. Have you ever looked like, oh, it'll travel first class to London? It's like, yeah, it's like four or five grand. So good luck. And so I got upgraded for free. So I literally sat in this first class, luxury seat. It was like an office, I was just like, hold desks aside to me. The bed, or the seat would lay down. I'd just hold a compartment and probably, I turned that thing into a flying library. It was the people were looking at me all weird. I didn't recline the entire time. I sat there for eight hours with my books lined up on the window with like, you know, whatever. They even brought me dinner and I told them bring it later. Like I delayed my dinner by like six hours 'cause I was just like, I want to write this conclusion and I want to finish it before I land. So I did actually land, you know, the conclusions called into the plane. And it refers to where I wrote the conclusion and theologically where I landed the plane. I stayed really clearly where I land. So that is the book. And I hope you will enjoy it. So far I've gotten good responses from early readers of the book. The one thing I was really concerned about was, here's the main thing. I wanted to be, first of all, fair with how I'm interacting with the different issues, the arguments. I wanted to be thorough and yet readable. That was so hard. Like my bent is always going to be towards the academic. Like it was, man, I had these like, extensive footnotes just like crossing every T and dotting every I and citing 15 sources to show that I've done my homework and I had to weed a lot, not all of it, but a lot of that out because it was just the, made the book way too big. And I didn't, I just kept feeling the urge to make it an academic book. And I was like, no, I want to keep the academic precision, but I want it to be readable to people without a seven or eight degrees. I said an introduction because I think this is important topic, lots of people. I think for some, some of the more popular level books that I read on the topic, I'm like, ooh, these are academically a little thin. And the academic books I read on the topic, I'm like, ooh, I don't, I know some people they aren't going to, this is going to be just so laborious and boring and lengthy. So I really wanted to find that sweet spot of being academically, exegetically responsible, being fair to different sides, but also writing a way that is readable. And so far, the early feedback I've gotten from people that thought at seven or eight degrees is, they said, no, I was super readable. So I'm really excited about that. So anyway, comes out March 3rd, but if you want, if it's, if it's of interest, go ahead and pre order it now. It helps to preorder the book rather than buying it after. So if you know you're going to get it, encourage you to pre order it before March 3rd. So all right, folks, this is I guess the last of my three year off and on podcasts about by view of women and church leadership because after March 3rd, everybody will know where I landed. And then yeah, then I'll keep podcasting, but it'll be from that perspective. I also have a lot of interviews coming out on different podcasts. Gosh, let's see. I was on who other podcasts interview me about the book. So I was on Lisa Harper's podcast. I was on Lisa Bavaria's podcast, La Cray's podcast, KB and Amin Southside Rabbi, Mike Erie, Latasha Morrison, Lee Camp, gosh, I'll be on, carry New Hoff's podcast. And yeah, a whole bunch of others. So anyway, I don't know if you're familiar with any of those, but you'll probably see me talking about the book on various other places. So anyway, thanks for listening to you guys and we'll see you next time on The Algin Raw. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC]