Should Women Preach? with Dani Treweek and Ellie Wiener - SUMMER REPLAY

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You guys are listening to the "Confronted Christianity" podcast, and I'm here with two friends in completely different time zones with, it's going to say completely different accents, but I suppose just different accents, both of whom are friends of the Confronted Christianity podcast in that they have been on the podcast before, so I'm going to do very brief introductions. We are joined by Danny True Week, who is based in Sydney, and therefore it's almost midnight her time, so we all need to be thankful to Danny for staying up for us. I'm generous as you listen to me, bumble my way through and be nice. You're pretty great. Danny holds a PhD in theology, where she was actually exploring the theologian and history of singleness and how we can reflect on that. She's written a really great sort of more academic book called "The Meaning of Singleness," and she is soon to publish a more popular book called "Singlaver After." That's a bonus. That's the first time anyone said it out loud. There you go, so send the public number. Oh wow! Okay, and you've got to invent a visual. Where does that come out? September. September of this year, so 25. And Danny has served it in multiple capacities in the church in Sydney, you know, God's people within Sydney. She, like me, comes from an Anglican background, and unlike me, has stayed Anglican. I've been hanging out at a Southern Baptist church for the last 16 years, but Danny is an Anglican, and I sometimes call Danny Deacon Trouweak, because she is formally within the sort of Anglican communion recognized as a Deacon. We are also joined by my friend Elie Wiener. Elie is working on her PhD on the book of Job at Cambridge University. Listeners may know Elie as Job Girl, because that's how I was referring to her when she and I recorded an episode on the book of Job a few months ago, everything blurring in my mind, but it was sometimes said of late 2024, I think. And I've really enjoyed getting to know Elie, not only myself, but also, listeners may know, I have a beloved firstborn who is a 14-year-old avid Hebrew scholar. And whenever I meet somebody who is fascinated by the biblical languages and by the scriptures, I ask them if they would be kind enough to connect with my daughter, and Elie's been very kind to. Connect with Maranna has been a great inspiration to her. In fact, Maranna is now sort of learning various books of Bible under Elie's inspiration as well. So thank you both for joining me today. I often say at the end of Confronting Christianity episodes that if you want to leave a review on iTunes and mention there a topic that you would like to see explored in a future episode, then we will take that into consideration. And in this instance, actually, somebody had specifically requested an episode on topic they were exploring today, which is whether women should be preaching in church. And it's a question that I've often been asked sort of understandably, because I often sort of speak and write on questions of sexuality and gender and sort of various adjacent topics. But this isn't something that I've personally particularly kind of written about or have any particular sort of expertise on. And so what I wanted to do was bring in two friends who both are very serious about scripture, both very seriously recognize the Bible as God's Word and as our authority on all matters of faith and practice, and who have landed in actually somewhat different positions on this question. And I think this is sort of something that will probably come out in the course of our conversation. I think I'm probably somewhere in between the two of you. So we're going to start in just a minute by each of us just sharing kind of where we are at in terms of our understanding on the exact this is exact question or whether women should preach in church. And then I'm going to sort of take a little bit of a step back and have Danny and Ellie talk us through how they've reached the conclusions that they've reached. And the purpose of this conversation is not for Danny to give it to Ellie or for Ellie to convince Danny. The purpose is for you guys as you're listening to hear two people who have thought really deeply on these questions, explain what conclusions they come to and why. I think this is a question that often people come to with a whole bunch of sort of preconceptions one way or another. Sometimes we'll find we're holding positions for actually not great reasons. And so I'm hoping that this will be a conversation that helps all of us. And I include myself in this as we as we listen in to think better about this question, regardless of where we land. And as just one more sort of preliminary remark before I ask Danny and Ellie to start telling us a little bit of where they've landed, I want to make clear a few things that we have in common and a few things that this conversation said isn't about. So number one, as I said, we all have in common that we believe the Bible is God's inspired and authoritative word. We actually all in the same place when it comes to the roles of men and women in marriage that because marriage is meant to picture Jesus' relationship with his people that husbands and wives are actually called to different roles rather than just a sort of interchangeable roles in the marriage context. None of us think that the question of whether women should preach in church is fundamentally a question about sort of power and privilege versus service and sacrifice. And this is again something that I think often as we come into these conversations about the role of women in church, we're sort of quick to move into a mode which says, OK, well, clearly, you know, whoever's preaching is in a position of sort of praise and superiority, sort of innate superiority over those who they're speaking to. And I'm always reminded of Jesus, you know, having to tell his disciples not just once, but multiple times it seems that in his kingdom, leadership is actually not about power and privilege, but about service and sacrifice. And so I wanted to sort of get that out there. And also, none of us have reached the conclusions we've reached on the basis of women's and men's sort of relative, like capabilities. So this is not about whether sort of women are incapable of teaching God's word. Well, it's not about, yeah, it's not about a sort of capabilities question like that. And again, that's that's sometimes how people understand this question, you know, sometimes how people come to me and say, oh, you know, I used to think that it wasn't a capable woman to preach in church. And then I heard some women who are doing it really well. And so I changed my mind. And I feel like, well, that's, there's actually not a great reason to change your mind because it's not about capability. And I mean, not that couldn't factor in in one way or another, but it's not, this is not fundamental question of capabilities and capacities. It's a question of, what does God's word say and how do we understand it in the context that we're living in today? So yeah, maybe, Ellie, do you want to kick us off and give us a sense of just a sort of the shortest version of your position, I guess, when it comes to women preaching? Sure. Yeah, I suppose I'll just apologize at the outset that I have the objectively inferior accent among the three of us. So you'll have to bear with my American voice. I just living in the UK right now. I just, I wish it were rubbing off on me. I think some words are. But anyway, if you just started talking in Hebrew, that would all be really impressive. Yeah. There we go. There we go. At some point. I know there might be kind of like speaking in tongues. I don't know. We'll keep it. All right. Anyway, yes. So I admittedly kind of dimmer at the conventional terms that are used to demarcate different positions on this issue. However, in so far as someone who has a bit of context for the set of questions around women in the church, yeah, has a familiarity with the terms. I would be what one might call an egalitarian. So I hesitate to say that somewhat because I feel like the word complementarity is still really important one. And in fact, it's precisely because I do think that there is real difference between men and women that I think it is good for them to be in full and equal partnership in all roles and ministries within the church. would then include preaching. And yeah, I guess I should also say that I wouldn't merely argue for sort of the bare minimum that women can if they really want to or they should be forced to, but rather I would argue positively that yes, be unleashed according to your spirit giftedness and calling by the Lord. Women if you have those gifts, do exercise them because it will be in the terminology of Ephesians 4, all the gifts are given to the church in order to build up the body of Christ so that we can attain full maturity in the fullness of Christ. And the way I would come about this, which we'll discuss in more detail later, but in broad strokes, I would take a sort of creation, new creation, theological framing, starting with Genesis 1 and 2 to say men and women are fully created in the image of God. And from the beginning called to be equal partners in this task of ruling over creation. And then in the in the new creation kingdom of Jesus that's birthed by his resurrection and empowered by the spirit that yeah, women as well as men are filled and gifted and commissioned by that spirit. Yeah, for for the good of God's people and the advancement of God's mission in the world. And I see that happening in an equal plane for men and women with regard to particular texts in the New Testament, which again will come to that are seen as restrictive for women in ministry. I would take those not as disclosing a universal principle for all time, but having a particular application to the local church context to which they were addressed in the first century. Obviously not making them irrelevant for us today, but meaning that we have to exercise nuance and care as we figure out what we translate into our current context. And I would also point out that I think throughout the scriptures old and new, you see women in positions where they are proclaiming God's word learning teaching, prophesying. We'll have to talk a bit more again later about what exactly we mean by preaching, but I think we have lots of precedent in the scriptures for women exercising these voices for the exotation and instruction of God's people. Thanks so much, Ellie. That's probably not as short as short. Yeah, that was great. Yeah, I should say if I didn't already, Ellie is based in Cambridge in the UK. So even though I'm English and I'm English and living in Cambridge in America and she's American, I living in Cambridge in England. So it's all very confusing. And I miss it. I miss Australia living in Australia. That's true. You're so straightforward, Danny. Danny, tell us then what position you've come to and the sort of, as Ellie has given us, the sort of brief elevator pitch for your position before we take a little bit more. Oh, gosh, the brief elevator pitch on this topic is so hard. Ellie, well done. Can I say? I'm so glad the pressure was on you there first and not me. I want to say like Ellie, I would at least hear in my context in Australia happily describe myself as using the language of complementarian. But I'm increasingly aware of what a contested term that is in different circumstances and situations as well. So, you know, sort of as, as Ellie said, if we're going to sort of talk about those kind of egalitarian complementarian spectrum, I would be at the complementarian of that. But I think I always, as I talk about being a complementarian, I feel like I need to couch it with a thousand qualifications these days, particularly as I'm talking to people in an American context versus my own Australian context. I think there's just a bit more. There is quite a, I've discovered quite a distinction there in many ways. So, I've started sort of talking about myself as being a Danvers complementarian. Now, what that just means is there's, when complementarianism was kind of coined in the late 80s, there was a theological statement that was developed that defined what complementarianism is. And that's called the Danvers statement. And so, I take my understanding of what complementarianism is from Danvers, rather than from various permutations that have kind of risen in the years since then. And particularly, I think, over the last 10 years or so. And one of the things about the Danvers statement is that it is quite specific that men and women are created equally in the image of God, in dignity and significance and meaning. But with distinctions between their manhood and their womanhood, particularly in certain roles. And the Danvers statement is quite clear that the roles that it is prescribing are significantly different are the ones that scripture specifically talks about that being male headship in the home and male headship through eldership and oversight of the church. So, I'm not a complementarian who thinks that men are in charge across all levels of society. I actually don't think that that's what authentic complementarianism is. So, just to kind of couch that. And I also think that authentic complementarianism. And certainly what we see in the Danvers statement is about the partnership of men and women in the ministry of the church. It's not just about what women can't do. It's about what men and women are actually called to do together as fellow workers of the gospel. And like Ellie said that throughout the New Testament, there's all sorts of wonderful examples of women who are making significant contributions to the life and ministry of the church that I think can be very easily overlooked in a lot of conversations about complementarianism today. But to wind that up, that would mean from my position and my understanding of complementarian theology. I'm someone who understands, you know, preaching. And by that, I mean preaching to a mixed congregation on a Sunday gathering of the local church to be the the function of the elder and the the overseer who has been appointed to that office. I understand scripture to say that that is an office that's reserved for qualified men. And so that by implication means that I don't I personally don't and I don't think the Bible permits women to preach in that context. But to do lots of other very important ministry, including preaching to women alone. Can I say I've done that multitudes of times. And I still think that is preaching. It's just preaching to a particular demographic within the church, rather than the mixed gathering on a Sunday. So I think I've covered everything I need to there. I will stop at this point, I think. Thanks so much, Danny. Yeah. So I think I mean broadly speaking from what Danny's just said, I would consider myself in that category as well. I wouldn't sort of preach myself on a Sunday morning. The church that I go to is one where we don't have women preach. And we have male pastors and elders and considered both the sort of pastor and elder to be two ways of saying the same thing in our in our congregation. But we do have women read scripture and pray and sort of take other roles in the Sunday service. And there'll be people. And again, I just want to say this from the outset, there'll be people who will land in different places, theologically. And it doesn't necessarily mean they could actually have a very good Jesus loving hearts behind wherever they've landed. And I think sometimes in these conversations, people can become very skeptical and assume ill intent on behalf of people who may land in a different position to them. And that can go in both directions. So, you know, there are some people who would say, oh, how how absolutely terrible, like you must be total misogynists for not having women preach in church. And I'm thinking, well, no, I mean, A, I'm not a misogynist. To be sort of rather odd if I was B, the pastor of our church is the polar opposite of a misogynist, incredibly supportive of the women in the church who are taking on various kinds of ministry roles. And in fact, our church has a little sort of preaching program, like training program for both men and for women under an umbrella category of the Simian Trust as a great sort of Bible teaching network. And our pastor particularly invests in training the women of the church who have interesting and sort of capability to be really good Bible teachers. So, this is not about misogyny and sort of conversely, I think sometimes people will look at folks who land in a more egalitarian place and assume, oh, well, they must have no regard for the authority of Scripture. Or they, you know, they'll sort of put all sorts of things into people's mouths. And one of the reasons I'm excited to have both of you guys in this conversation is because, you know, I'm hoping that people will see and in both of you women who take God's Word very seriously and who aren't coming to these conclusions for sort of nefarious reasons of one kind or another. So, Danny, what do you want to kick us off in having a little bit of a deeper dive into how you've reached your conclusions and why? Because, you know, some people would look at you and say, hey, Danny, you have a lot of theological education. You have a gift that would enable you to teach well. So, why not exercise that gift in the sort of Sunday morning preaching context? Yeah. I think that is an important qualification that we are talking about a particular context here, which is the gathering of the church. You know, we do it on a Sunday, but there are lots of other places that I do teach, whether that's teaching expositionally from God's from the Bible or whether it's teaching, you know, church history or thinking about ethical reflection or all sorts of things. So, just want to reiterate again that as we're talking about preaching on a Sunday morning to the mixed congregational gathering of Christ, that does of God, that does not mean that there's not an abundance of other ways in which women are called to contribute to the life and ministry of the church. I think, you know, probably the pivotal passage in terms of preaching, as we've just talked about it, for me, is one Timothy. I'm like Ellie who, as I'm sure she'll talk about it more, who sees this as a particular teaching from Paul to the church at Ephesus in the first century with what was going on there. I see this passage as being certainly ridden to that church, but with principles that are actually apply transculturally across time and space for all of God's household. And so in that passage, we, actually, should we read it Rebecca? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Do you want to read it? Do you want to or I'm happy to if you want to tell me where you want to start? You go, you read it so that I can work out what I want to say. Lovely. Do you want me to read from verse eight or from verse 11? Go from eight. Why don't we go from eight? Yeah. Yeah, I'll go from eight. Okay, so it contexts the better on this. Yeah. So this is for those who are not familiar with as much with the New Testament. This is a letter that Paul is writing to Timothy, who is a guy he's sort of mentoring and Timothy is, is pastoring a local church. So Paul writes this, "I desire then that in every place the men should pray lifting holy hands with that anger or quarreling. Likewise, also that women should adore themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, rather she has to remain silent. For Adam was born first then Eve and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through child bearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control." So there's a lot in there. There is a lot in there. Well, let me just do a quick fly by. And I mean, obviously we could talk about just two of those verses for an hour. So we're talking very speedily here, but I think it's important to recognize that the context of what's going on here in one Timothy is Paul exhorting Timothy about life in the church, conduct in the household of God. So that's what's on view here. It's the body of Christ here. And the same Paul who wrote one Timothy two wrote a bunch about the passages in the New Testament, including passages like Romans 16, where there's 10 women in just that passage alone, who he speaks of so highly as fellow workers in the Gospel. So we just need to keep remembering that we read scripture interpreted by scripture in the context of scripture as well. Yeah, I think it's just jumping ahead sort of particularly to verse 11 where really the contentious issues start to kick in. I think it's really important to recognize that women are called to learn. We're not called to be passive members of the body of Christ. We're called to be learners of God's word. And the other thing to note there is it talks about learned quietly with all submissiveness. That word quietly, if we'd actually gone back further in context in this chapter, if we'd started at verse 1, we'd actually see that in verse 2, the same word has been used. And it's it's not about absolute silence. It's not about not having any voice, any say, any contribution. You just have to be mute in church. It's actually a word that talks about orderliness and dignity and peacefulness. And so that's my understanding of the word quiet there rather than mute. It's about an ordered relationship that we then see with the language of submissiveness. And again, the language of submissiveness and the New Testament is about ordered relationship to authority that is properly instituted. So women are being called to submit to a particular thing or person here. And as we read on, I think we discover that the opposite to learning quietly with appropriate submissiveness is teaching and exercising authority over a man. Now those two activities teaching and exercising authority are not kind of just two words saying the same thing. They are different words. But my understanding of the passage is that there's actually a connection. When you look at the great grammar, there's a connection of kind of logical progression through those two words. And so a friend of mine, who's a New Testament scholar named Lionel Windsor, he translates that verses, "I do not permit a woman to teach so neither to exercise authority." So there's a link between the act of teaching and authority that's on view here. And again, we get used to remain quiet. That is, again, it's about orderedness and dignity at that point in the way that the household of God operates. And I'm just trying. Well, and then, of course, we go to wife, which is for Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived. But the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. So many people wrongly assume that what Paul is saying there is that women are more easily deceived. And so that is why they not permitted to teach. I do not think that is all what Paul is saying, because if Paul was saying, based on Eve, who was easily deceived, no woman, well, all women will be easily deceived. What you'd also have to acknowledge is that Adam, based on Adam, or men are apparently willing to flagently disregard the word of God, which is what Adam did, because he was the one who was given the instruction not to eat from the tree. He just ignored that and went ahead and did what he wanted. So if you're going to apply to, from Eve to all women, you need to apply from Adam to all men. And that makes no sense saying that the ones who just flagently disregard God's word should be the ones teaching it. So that's just not what is going on there. What we see, I think, in verses 13 and 14, is that the order that God created men and women has implications for ordered relationships in the church. And at the fall, those that order was disrupted. And so verse 14 is kind of the flip side of verse 13, it's not making a different point. I feel like I'm sort of rambling on here. No, that's super helpful, Danny. And just to interject there with one comment, it's interesting how here, when Paul's talking about men and women in the church, he goes to Adam and Eve. And when Paul in Ephesians 5 is talking about men and women in marriage, he goes to Christ in the church. It's in Paul's mind. However, we end up sort of exactly unpacking, you know, what this means for us today. He tends to reach the different roles of men and women in certain contexts in a sort of theological reality. It's not exactly what that looks like. But yeah, that there is a sort of theological weight to being a man or being a woman. And that's kind of going to be tied to a theological reality that isn't about the particular individuals involved in this scenario. Oh, I'm so tall now as to whether, pardon me, wants to sort of hear Ellie's side on this passage. Do you know what, actually, let's do that. Sorry to scramble things a little bit. I think Danny, you've given us a really helpful sort of perspective on this passage from from how it sort of fits in with or how it's a shape, I should say, your understanding. Maybe let's sort of pop over to Ellie for a minute to hear your thoughts on this. And so I'm going to pose a question to you a little bit like I did to Danny and we can sort of start here. Ellie, you see in black and white here, I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, rather that she must remain quiet. So how can you enlighten this? Like, isn't isn't God's word enough for you here to say, actually, I shouldn't be preaching. I'm any, I'm putting this aggressively like I did to Danny just say that, you know, we're flocking it. Because this isn't you know, real questions that people don't have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, thank you. I'll just give a bit of framing before I go into some of the exegetical weeds here. I've often heard from the more complementary inside things now again with Danny recognizing that that term often unhelpfully encompasses a very broad range of people. So I don't want to, I don't want to in any way unfairly kind of flatten that into one monolithic entity, right? Because it's much more nuanced than that. But oftentimes it can come from that side like it, but it's just clear. Like I'm trying to take the Bible seriously and I'm trying to take the Bible literally. And that's where I would just firstly want to put the breaks on and say, okay, wait, let's recognize actually that every single time we encounter the Bible, we are necessarily interpreters interpreters from the get go because we're reading it in English. You know, and we're distanced by, you know, millennia from the actual writing of this text. And so there are just really significant forms of cultural and temporal distance that we have to reckon with. Now let's add to that the fact that Paul is not the systematic theologian we might like to pretend that he is. As in when you're reading the letters of Paul, it's not as if you're reading him, you're not reading him gives sort of this topical arrangement of his comprehensive views on every issue of church polity and practice. What you're seeing him do is respond to churches who are living in the first century trying to work out the implications of the gospel in their context. And he's responding to them with pastoral insight and yes with apostolic authority. So I'm that's not to say, oh, this is written a long time ago, we can just kind of do with it what we want. No, not at all. It's just to say it's much more complicated to hear Paul well. And just as Danny's already flagged, I mean, let's bear in mind, what else has Paul written about his partnership with women? Well, how about for instance, someone like Junia who he mentions in Romans 16. Junia who is certainly for one a female name, sometimes that's been translated as a male name, but there's not good reason to do it is a female name, which is well attested in the [BLANK_AUDIO] century. And it says that she was prominent among the apostles or or to the apostles. You can debate that grammar, and there have been reigns of literature written on that. But even in a very early church father tradition, Junio is being read actually as an apostle herself. So okay, well, let's pause. If we have Junia being called an apostle by people like, let's see, by origin, by John Chrysostom, Abroziaster and Theodorant, like we have these church fathers from like the second to the fifth centuries who are recognizing Junia as an apostle, that should give us pause. You have CB who's a deacon and who is in all likelihood the letter carrier of the book of Romans, which would mean not just hand delivering mail, but actually being part of the mediation of Paul's message to the church in Rome, in essence being like the first interpreter of the letter and in some sense representing Paul as this letter is delivered to the church in Rome. Yeah, you have Priscilla with Aquila who are teaching this very well-educated eloquent Alexandrian Jew called a Paulus. And in that context, in Acts 18, it's Priscilla who's named before Aquila. And that happens actually four to five times that that couple has mentioned Priscilla is referred to first, which does seem to suggest that she may have kind of had a front foot in this instruction and in ministry leadership in the other church. And similarly with Junia, there are early church fathers who are who are reading Priscilla in that way. This isn't just sort of an invention of radical liberalism in the West, you know, in the 21st century. Okay, I know. So that's just to say, okay, let's take pause when we come to a text like 1st Timothy 2 to say it's just obvious women be quiet. And if you have women acting in an authoritative and a teaching role, elsewhere in the New Testament and in the Old Testament as well, yeah, that ought to situate how we read Paul here. Okay, so let me now kind of head straight for 1st Timothy 2 and say as a kind of overarching remark that in 1st and 2nd Timothy, which are letters written by Paul to his ministry protege, if you will, Timothy who's working in Ephesus, there's a pretty significant emphasis on false teaching across both of the books. It's a very primary concern. We need to combat this false teaching Timothy. And so here's some of the ways that you need to take action. Here's some things to look out for. And not only that, but in 1st and 2nd Timothy, you even have this mention that false teachers are specifically targeting women. So for instance, in 1st Timothy 5 or 13, some of the women are being referred to as busy bodies and spreaders of nonsense. And in Greek literature, that word for spreaders of nonsense has connotations of disseminating false teaching in a in philosophical context. And then in 2nd Timothy, chapter 3, speaking about false teachers, it says, for among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burn with sins and let us stray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. So this here's a reference to some women who are learning, but to know spiritual profit, thus they're still liable to falling prey to this false teaching. I'd also just note that in Titus, chapter 1, Paul warns that those who belong to what he's calling the circumcision group, a particular group of Jews who are distorting the gospel with regard to how it relates to love Moses, he says they need to be silent. You know, so like this is actually just a way that Paul refers to nipping false teaching in the bud. We're not going to permit this. We need to be really stringent and take action. The church is young, the gospel is precious, and we need to guard the good deposit to put it in his words from elsewhere. Okay. Now, yeah, I'll pause on verse 11 first like Danny did and then we'll go to verse 12. Yeah, just as as Danny's, I think, really hopefully pointed out this quietness and submission that's referred to here is not an inherently demeaning thing like women just be in submission because that's what you're made for. Actually, quietness and submission would characterize every novice in the Greco-Roman world. It's not that they somehow ontologically befit women, particularly. This is just what all learners do. This is the posture of a learner. This is the way to do it. And that also went into, I think, that women could learn their way. If you're learning, what is it for? It's not just for sort of your own, I don't know, therapeutic help. But actually, you're you're learning for purpose and those who learn are hopefully competent to teach someday. And especially if you're trying to combat false teaching, well, if these women are susceptible to false teaching, let's have them learning. Let's fortify them against these threats. Yeah, again, not because they're women and so they're categorically incompetent to learn or to teach, but actually because this is an apt word for this scenario. Now, okay, let's yeah, talk about this teaching and having authority. So firstly, interestingly in light of the false teaching emphasis that I was just mentioning. So you have two Greek infinitives to teach and to have authority in this verse. And to teach is actually fronted. So it's right at the beginning of the Greek sentence, which could fit really well with this, yeah, this effort to counter false teaching to have that right at the beginning or kind of headlining with that. And then the other verb is just bizarre. Okay, so our thentine is what biblical scholars would call a hapox logaminon, which is just a really fancy and technical way of saying it only occurs once in the New Testament. Not only that, but across the corpus of ancient Greek literature, the word occurs a handful to two handfuls of times as a verb. So it is extraordinarily rare. And it is striking that Paul goes for this word given its rarity. Now, it's rarity means a bit harder for us to figure out what it means. But it also means that it's quite a deliberate move. There are lots of other ways Paul could have said, have authority in a neutral or positive sense. But this word actually only comes to have a more neutral connotation centuries after Paul actually right around Paul's time, this verb and its nominal cognate. So the noun version from this kind of same root have to do with sort of usurping or imposing your will on another person. So I wouldn't take this as just sort of a a neutral like exercising pastoral shepherding and servant leadership. No, I think this verb from what we can tell is specifically invoked here by Paul again, a very deliberate choice to refer to women evidently in the decision church who were a ill equipped because they weren't well taught and susceptible to false teaching and be trying to sort of engage in this battle of the sexes whereby they're actually trying to subjugate men rather than their being at this yet this vision of partnership and unity between the sexes within the church. Yeah, there are women who are trying to muscle up and lord it over the men. That's how I would take that. I've heard it said sometimes that oh, we can just take these two infinitives together to mean sort of authoritative teaching. Okay, I'm an Old Testament girl, right? But I've learned some Greek grammar. If someone wants to push me on this, okay, but I have not seen anywhere where it would be reasonable to take negative correlative conjunctions, the Greek version of neither nor for words that are separated quite a bit in the sentence and call that a hand diodes, which is two verbs having kind of a joint or two words having a joint function to mean authoritative teaching. That would be a different syntax construction in Greek. So I do that to say I think this verse is actually prohibiting something very stringently. And so if you're going to absolutize this and say this applies to all women across time, then I think that puts you in quite a hermeneutical bind when you look at these other examples of women who are teaching, prophesying, speaking, in ministry, leadership and partnership alongside Paul. To me, that seems quite difficult to square. And then when you get to the Adam and Eve analogy, I think it's important to note that where that analogy is heading is the rationale for why women can't be teaching right now in this context. And so it's actually heading for Eve's falling into deception. So I don't think it's Adam being created first and then Eve is like almost prologom now to describe how it is that Eve came to fall into deception. And if you want to say that this again applies to all women across time, then it's a bit difficult for me to see how you don't come out of this saying, well, then women just can't teach because they are more prone to falling astray. And if that's the case, then my goodness, don't let them at the women and children to teach them. You know, so yeah, I do think that there's something very stringent going on here, but I think it's it's almost like crisis mode in the Ephesian church. We need to take swift and strong action to combat this false teaching. I'll just point out one parallel as well. In second Corinthians 11, the Eve analogy is used with regard to all the Corinthian Christians. And it again is Eve was led astray by the serpent's cunning. And this is being used as sort of this paradigmatic example of someone who went astray. But now being applied to all of the Corinthian Christians, men and women. So that to me again suggests we kind of take pause to draw a line from creation order, Genesis, two and three, and fall order to what happens between men and women and within local church dynamics across all time. Super interesting. Thanks a lot. For those just as a sign up for those who may not be as familiar with the story in Genesis two and three. So Adam is given a prohibition from God that you can eat from any tree in this beautiful garden, but there's one tree you can't eat from, tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And then in Genesis three, it's the serpent sort of targets Eve who actually hadn't yet been created in the narrative when Adam received that commandment. And it's sort of fascinating because you see this conversation between the serpent and Eve. And then you realize Adam was there all the time because it says and her husband also was who was who was with her. And you're like, oh, wait, what? Why? He was just standing there like not saying anything, not doing anything. What's the deal here? Just sort of interesting site night for those who are less familiar with that story. Danny, I'm passing the mic back to you. We can stay if you want to comment further on first Timothy, great. Maybe we can move to another passage because I feel like we've sort of had a decent amount of fear for thought on those verses, but feel free to chime in. I'll take us somewhere. Yeah. I think, I think let's head in a moment maybe to one Corinthians 11. But let me just say so much of what Ellie, how Ellie understands that passage, putting aside sort of the her understanding of the passages being specifically and perhaps only relevant within the Ephesian church in the first century, what was going on right there? So much of how she exaggerated that passage would very much align with how I exaggerated, possibly also the deception thing putting that aside for a moment. I do want to say I, I think as I said earlier, I think the teaching and exercising authority and not just two ways of saying the exact same thing, but there's a parallel construction when Jesus talks about thieves breaking in in order to destroy to steal. I think it is thieves breaking in in order to steal. I think there is a logical progression that's going on there that the teaching is done with a particular view to what comes next that is in exercising authority. And so in the context of one Timothy and also the pastoral pistols, pistols more broadly, my perspective is that the, I think we have to be clear here, which is why I think going to one Corinthians is a helpful thing at this point. There is the exercise of teaching is not necessarily, and I don't think is the same as the exercising of prophesying or praying or what Priscilla did, for example, I absolutely agree about with Ellie's comments there about Priscilla being sort of put first in that construction as well. Priscilla and Aquila, she with her husband took a policy side and explained the word of God to him more clearly so that he became a more faithful and effective preacher. So there's certainly very clear examples of women engaged in the act of, I don't know what word we want to use. Educating, growing, maturing other disciples, I think where I would just separate from Ellie is that what I think is on view here in one Timothy too is the act of teaching, which is the function of those who have been appointed to oversight within the church. And I think we see, and again, Ellie will have a different view on this, which is already explained from the pastoral pistols, my understanding is that that role, that function, that office is reserved for qualified men, therefore that automatically excludes women from undertaking that functioning of teaching. But will we go across to one Corinthians? Yeah, let's go to one Corinthians 11. And maybe while we're pulling that up, I'll just remind our listeners as well, one of the differences between our situation now today in the year of our Lord 2025 and the situation that Paul was writing into was that we have the New Testament and they didn't to bid it bluntly. I mean, that's maybe a slight overstatement because letters were being circulated and before long sort of gospels were also being circulated. So it wasn't that there was no sort of written record, but that the first century believers who were being addressed in these letters and not people who can open their Bibles and read from sort of Matthew to Revelation as we can today, I don't think that decides the question in either direction, it's just sort of worth as I think kind of nebbing and reflecting on the fact that as we transition to thinking about what is preaching, how does it relate to this language of prophesying that we're going to talk about in 1 Corinthians 11? It's just sort of useful for us to know that there could be some meaningful differences between sort of then and now here. So yeah, let's go to 1 Corinthians 11, reading, we could do a sort of flyover, maybe Danny, why do you give us a sense of how this passage informs your view, then I could get over to Ellie, but for those who want to so to be following along, we're in 1 Corinthians 11 and from like verse 1 to 16 would be a useful portion if you wanted to take a look at that. Let me say to start with, I think this is one of the most difficult passages in Scripture, exigenically, application-wise, like it is an incredibly complex passage, as well as 1 Timothy 2, reams and reams of paper have been spilled on all of the exogetical arguments from every side and so I don't want to sort of, I'm going to avoid getting too deep into kind of the nuance and complexities of all the exogetical arguments because we could speak for hours about that, but shorter just give you the, you know, bird's-eye view of kind of how I understand this passage or at least the significance. Let me say not even understand the passage, but the significance of the passage for this particular conversation. And really the significance, what can talk about all the other verses around it, but the significance is for us, I think, here in verse 5, well, it is not in verse 4, every man who prays and prophesies with his head covered dishonest his head, but every wife, I'll come back to wife in a moment, every wife who prays and prophesies with her head uncovered dishonest her head. Now the first thing to notice is there is an expectation that wives or women, this is one of the exogetical issues, is you talking about women, is you talking about wives, is you talking about men, is you talking about husbands? I think he's probably talking about husbands and wives in particular, but I think there are some broader relevance, relevant principles that we can sort of draw out from that for men and women more generally. But, verse 5, every wife who prays and prophesies, there is an expectation that women will be praying and prophesying in the church. And we get that in one Corinthians, is it 14, we're talking 14, we're talking 33 or 35. Well, no, no, there's another verse where Paul talks about pursuing the spiritual gifts, especially prophecy. I think it might be the beginning of one Corinthians 14, 14 verse 1. That's right. So the spiritual gift of prophecy was something that Paul actually thought was incredibly important in and to the community of God's people, for the sake of the building up of the body. And I find it very difficult to believe that when Paul says, you know, pursue the spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy, he's just talking to the men in the church. And we certainly see that here in one Corinthians, verse 5, he expects women to be praying and prophesying. But all the verses around that then couch, again, a particular that goes back to a broader theological principle that's informing his practice here, that there is an appropriate way in which women are to contribute to the life and the ministry and the one another ring of the body of Christ through prayer and prophesy. And in this passage, it's got to do with head coverings. Now, again, very complicated. And I actually think this is a perfect example of what Ellie was talking about before that here we see a principle in scripture that describes a particular practice in the first century that was designed and in that particular context very clearly communicated something significant within that context, which was about headship, the relationship between a husband and wife, just as the relationship between a man and Christ and Christ and God. There's some sort of connection of relational order and honor and glory going on there, which in the first century Corinthian church was very clearly and obviously for them represented through what you wore on your head, if you were a woman, what you didn't wear on your head, if you were a man. For me, this is an example of what Ellie said, how do we actually take what is going on here? The principle of a wife giving honor to her head, that is her husband, in the context of the church when she's praying and prophesying, in a way that actually is meaningful and communicates that in our day and age, wearing a head covering today for, if I turned up a church in my church with a head covering, people would have no idea what was going on. More broadly, head coverings have certain other levels of communication in 21st century culture that have nothing to do with, oh, hang on a second, this is her attempt to quote, unquote, honor her head. Often it actually, for many people, it seemed to be a sign of oppression to women, rather than anything to do with glory and honor. And so this is an example I think of where we need to go. What is the biblical principle that's going on here for when a wife prays and prophesies in the church? How do we actually apply that in our day and age? And so some people have suggested, for example, the wearing of a wedding ring, you know, is a kind of parallel or a suitable appropriate analogy for what that looks like today. That doesn't help me as a single woman, but then again, maybe this passage isn't about me as a single woman, just so, you know, just to give a little bit more broader significance to the passage. A lot of what I do in my ministry, as I go around speaking at places, I really undertake as a ministry of prophecy. That means that I approach it as building up the body of Christ in a way that is not authoritative prophecy is what we will see, we can see one thing is 14 to be weighed and to be evaluated by the appropriate people. And so, I actually go into my ministry with an attitude of I'm here in a prophetic sense. I expect to those who have been appointed in pastoral eldership over these people to be responsible for guarding the sound doctrine of these people, for evaluating and weighing my prophecy where that's necessary. And so, there's things that I do that I sort of take as a principle from this passage when I do that. So, I try to signify my femininity. I don't turn up sort of wearing very androgenous clothing. I'm not wearing a full, you know, dress with kind of flowers and frills going on either, but I try to actually just amplify the fact that I'm a woman who is prophesying in this situation. I do things like I like to ask the, if I'm speaking at a church event, the pastor of that church to introduce me, to introduce me to actually signify that what is going on here is me not taking his role and his office of preaching here, but actually a appropriate biblical role for a woman to prophesy to the congregation. I like there to be a Q&A time, which I think is where prophecy can be really evaluated well, particularly if someone who has been appointed to a position of authority in that church is part of that Q&A time. So, that's what I met before when I said even as I think this passage is about husbands and wives. I think there is broader application of the principle that we can take more broadly in the church today, but the key thing I want to emphasize here is that women, Paul was expecting women to be praying and prophesying in the church. I think that's a really, really important thing for us to be taking away. Yeah, thanks so much, Danny. Yeah, and I think one of the questions in this whole conversation is when we talk about preaching in our sort of modern contexts. So, for example, I'll show up at church on Sunday and we will have a passage from the Bible read. And then somebody who is most often or lead pastor sometimes or associate pastor, sometimes a guest preacher, you know, for example, last week, we had a guest preacher who came out and spoke on a passage from Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. After the reading of Scripture, that person's job is sort of applying, like explaining and applying that passage to this congregation. So, one of the questions that sort of swells around this whole conversation of whether women should be doing that is whether that is prophesying, you know, in the sort of New Testament terms that we have here, where the prophesying is something different, like exactly how those two concepts relate, because as you point out, Danny, it seems here that Paul is very much expecting that women will be praying and prophesying and giving sort of instructions for how that should be done in an orderly fashion and Paul's, you know, always going to concern with orderliness within the church. It's not just something that applies to women, but it applies to men as well. Ellie, did you, I know you've referenced this passage a little bit before? Do you want to chime in on 1st Corinthians 11th? We move. Sure. I can, yeah, in brief. I'm particularly interested to circle back though to this question of what is preaching? What do we mean by that? Yeah. In our current context and biblically speaking, how do we think about preaching and what parallels their main monopoly? Just briefly, yeah, with Danny, oh goodness, this is a very challenging passage in 1st Corinthians 11. And yeah, for instance, what does Paul mean when all of a sudden, he says, cover your head because of the angels? You're like, what? Where did the angels come from? You know, so there's a, I think this is one of these places where it's particularly clear that there are a lot of contextual assumptions going on in terms of what does clothing signify what are expected relationships between men and women in public? What is this mention of angels and public worship? So again, this is a place where we're very aware of our distance from the text. I would say in broad strokes, I think the main and underlying point in this passage is that men and women need to be fully and truly their created selves that when men and women come together for corporate worship, they are putting on display something of the new creation reality. And in that new creation reality, just as in the original creation reality, there's male and there's female. And every culture and every time has ways of signaling, male-ness and female-ness. And as Danny's really hopefully articulated already, those aren't necessarily all the same cultural cues that we have today as, as there were in first century Corinth. But there's not meant to be this blurring of lines between male and female. And I think there probably are also honor-shamed dynamics going on between husbands and wives here. In across First Corinthians, you see a heavy emphasis on order in the church. There was some tumultuous stuff going on in Corinth. And so Paul keeps coming back around to in many of his different discussion threads, if you will, throughout the letter, order for the people of God. And yeah, I think this is one of the places where we see that coming through. As Danny's again already very, very helpfully intimated, when we come to First Corinthians 14, at the end of the chapter, when we see what seems at face value, to face value, to be this blanket prohibition on women saying anything in the church, you have to remember that three chapters ago, it wouldn't have been chapters if you're hearing this in the first century. But a bit ago, and on the papyrus, you heard that women are praying and prophesying in church. So clearly, when you get to chapter 14, he's not saying women don't use your voice ever in the corporate gathering of God's people full stop. If it's okay, I'd like to just, yeah, as I said, circle back around to this question of what is preaching. This has come up, especially in the discussion just now of prophecy and what prophecy is. I think if we're framing our conversation in terms of our women allowed to preach, I think we have to say upfront that there is nowhere in the New Testament where you will read in the English Bible, women cannot preach. So you have to recognize already that if you're going to come to that stance, which people do, and I recognize that people who have a high view of scripture are going to differ on this. But it's not straightforward as in there is contextual translation going on, because when we think about preaching in our modern church context, we're thinking of one person standing at a pulpit or roaming around the stage, depends on the church. And typically from like a paragraph of the Bible, giving some kind of, yeah, expositional teaching that's most meant to have this exhortative element. So proclaiming, if you will, the word of God to the people of God in this particular time in place. And there is something authoritative about that. Now if you, if you were to search the word preach in the ESV, the words you'd get underlying that English word preach in the Greek New Testament would be two verbs, kiruso and yuangalizo. You can hear in yuangalizo if you've heard of evangelism. That's where we're getting that, that word from. And both are often translated as preach. And just as an example in Acts 10, when Peter is speaking to Cornelius this Gentile and his household, both of these verbs are used. And the content of what Peter is saying is bread and butter gospel. It's that in continuity with the old testament with the Jewish scriptures, Jesus has come. He's conducted a ministry of healing and freedom on earth. He has died. He has risen again. He's been exalted and he is judge of the living and the dead. Okay. So this is like the core of the apostolic deposit. And both of these verbs preaching are being used. If that's what we're talking about, right, to say that women can't do that. It'd be like, Oh, well, okay. We'd need to give a lot of clarification or a lot of qualification if that's what we wanted to say women aren't allowed to do. So it's, I'm just trying to say it's not a one to one. You can't just say, how is preach used in New Testament? Okay, Kenner cannot women do that. Which is why then we've been talking about these related concepts of teaching and authority. I think prophecy is also a relevant related word so. And I think it's in Luke 11 when Jesus is talking about the people of Nineveh who repented at the preaching. And he uses the noun form of Keiruso. He says Keirugma of Jonah. Now Jonah, we usually think of as a prophet, but here Jesus refers to his message as preaching, right? So there there is some association between prophecy and preaching, at least lexically, in the New Testament. We've been already talking about first and second Timothy, where you have much more connection between preaching and teaching. I think that both the function of prophecy and of teaching are relevant to this discussion. I don't think there's always very clear remarkation between where one ends, where the other begins what elements of both are involved in the modern day act of preaching. To me, it can feel like a lot of exegetical hair splitting without a lot of basis to come up with a very specific role or very specific permutations of that role that women are not allowed to do in the modern nature's context. Does that make sense? Thanks so much, Shelley. Yeah. I'm going to read just for the sake of time, because I know poor Danny, we're keeping her up. What is it? I'm not out. I'm fine. I'm not out. Oh, good. You're a good woman. Yeah. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it, Danny. So I think both of you have mentioned a passage from 1 Corinthians 14, but we haven't read it. So I'm just going to read that. And then we're going to, we're going to, unfortunately, sort of go very quickly in our thoughts on that, so that we can land the plane air long. But I'm just going to read that last section with a one line of intro. For God is not a God, the God of confusion, but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, this is 1 Corinthians 14 verse 33 to 4, the women should keep silent in the churches for they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission. As the law also says, if there's anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. Ellie, why do you give us like two minutes of thoughts on that? And then I'm going to kick it back to Danny for like two minutes of thoughts. And then we're going to land the plane. I'm sorry to do that to you guys. I'll see if I can do 90 seconds. Yeah. Amazing. Yes. So the first thing I would have said is what we've already said, go back to 1 Corinthians 11. You'll see that this cannot be a blanket prohibition on women ever raising their voices. Though it could sound like that if you just drop in to these verses. New Testament scholars have pointed out that there's in a, in a first century, Greco-Roman context and Jewish context, actually. There would have been this expectation that listeners would often interrupt the speaker with questions. And so that it's a bit more participatory than what we think in terms of a sermon just being delivered at the congregation. And also, let's bear in mind what we've already talked about with 1 Timothy 2, that there are major disparities between the education of men and women in the first century. So I would take this much more in terms of the, he is writing to a church that's in crisis, disordered, and evidently, there are women who are, yeah, being unruly and contributing in ways that are not actually useful to the body of Christ in this context. And yeah, both in Jewish and in Greco-Roman context, women are not having the same kind of education. And so I think for this context, it makes more sense for Paul to say, okay, have your questions. But let's address those at home and outside of this corporate gathering because things are chaotic and we actually need there to be an orderly manner of teaching that's going on in the church. I'll stop there. Probably. Possibly to Danny. Okay. 90 seconds. I think this is, if we'd read a few verses earlier, we, verse 29, let two or three prophets speak and let the others weigh what is said. I think this is just a helpful point to jump into what Ellie was talking before about kind of the, you know, the conflation overlapping of preaching, teaching, prophecy. Here we clearly see prophecy is to be weighed. It's not authoritative in and of itself, it's to be weighed by those who have the authority to do that. Whereas what we saw in one Timothy too is teaching is in some sense linked as an authoritative act in and of itself. So I think there is a distinction between prophecy in one Corinthians 14 and teaching in one Timothy too. I completely agree with Ellie that this is not a case of women must be mute in the churches. It's interesting to note that in that passage there's actually two other occasions where people are told to be silent. It's the, those who have made a revelation, verse 30, if a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. And there's another one, yes, they're, if, in speaking in tongues, if there's no one there to interpret, let each of them keep silent in the church. So we're again getting this indication that the silence is about orderliness. It's about how actually the church should be run in a way where, as Ellie said, there is order and there is appropriate instruction going on and not chaos and craziness. Now, I think it's really important to recognize that that verse about women keeping silent in the churches is sandwiched within the discussion of prophecy and prophecy, be prophecy, prophesying being weighed appropriately in the church. And so my understanding is the silence that women have been commanded to there is the silence in the weighing of prophecy. Dei Carson's actually got a really, really good chapter on this in the book, "Recovering Biblical Mandeldom on Hood," where he goes through all the different sort of exegetical options here and just goes one by one and shows you why what's going on here is about silence when it comes to the weighing of the prophecy. The only thing that I just very quickly mentioned is at the end of verse 33, Paul is very clear that he says, "As in all the churches, the women should keep silent in the churches." So whatever's going on here is not specific to Corinth alone. This is a tradition and a practice that Paul has in all the churches. And so whether it's, yeah, it's not just something specifically happening in Corinth. This is an instruction that he gives across the board, that he expects to characterize the life and activity of the churches wherever they are. That's more than 90 seconds. So I'll stop. Thanks, Danny. So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to ask each of you if there is one book that you could recommend because I know we've, you guys have been incredible. Thank you for so much for, I think you've given us some really helpful insights, but I've given like an impossible task of us sort of exploring all of this in the course of basically an hour. So if there was one book that you would encourage people to read or a book chapter where you think the position you've come to has been sort of most helpfully explained what would that be. So Danny, do you want to, where would you point people to? Millions of books, but the one that I would direct this particular audience to, which is a really accessible book in terms of just, you know, it's not an overly academic book but it does. Do you dive deeply into the actual text? Is a book called God's Good Design by Claire Smith. Claire is an Australian female New Testament scholar and God's Good Design kind of covers all these passages and more and the whole gamut and is not overly intense and very accessible. So that would be my recommendation. Thanks, Danny. What would you recommend people read for further insight? Yeah, so a book with a similar, similar vibe to what Danny described in terms of being substantive and accessible could be Nizier Gupta's tell her story, how women led taught administrative in the early church. Yeah, he's also a New Testament scholar and so is, yeah, it gives really helpful orientation to Greco-Roman backgrounds and, yeah, highlights particularly women who, who surface in in the New Testament. Fantastic, thank you guys. I want to end by reading a passage from the book of Acts just because, you know, I'd love for us to just end with God's word and not because it, I think this necessarily sort of answers our questions in either direction, but just to sort of refocus all of us on the Lord's word and a really interesting way in which an Old Testament passage is then sort of deployed in a New Testament context. So this is on the day of Pentecost, which is the day when God's spirit is poured out on God's people and the apostles are preaching and this is Acts chapter 2, I'm going to read from verse 14. So Peter, who is one of Jesus's closest friends and disciples, stands up and he lifts up his voice and he addresses the people who are listening that day, "Menager dear and all those who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give ear to my words." For these people are not drunk as you suppose, since it's only the third hour of the day, but this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. And in the last days, it shall be God declares that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions in your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy. I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and the vapor of smoke, the sun should return to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day and it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So just wanted to land, I'll plan there with that reminder that any and all of these conversations and the ultimate goal of any sort of preaching or teaching or prophesying or whatever it is that we are discussing today, lands with verse 21 and it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And that's something that profoundly unites me and Ellie. and Danny that we are people who are long for people to call on the name of the Lord and be saved for the gospel to go out to all nations as it started to do on that very first. So the birthday of the church in the day of Pentecost and that everyone who is a follower of Jesus would be using his or her opportunities to tell others about him. So I guess I'm going to just end by even taking this conversation out of the context of preaching on a Sunday morning and a local church and into the context of all of us if we're followers of Jesus playing our part in the great announcement of the good news of observation that Jesus offers to everybody, male or female, regardless of where we come from or who we are or what our background is that we can call on the name of the Lord and be saved. Amen. You guys have been listening to the Confronting Christian to your podcast. You can follow us on excellent Instagram. You can leave a review on iTunes and mention there a topic you'd like to see explored in the future episode as evidence today. I do take those into account. Thank you so much Ellie and Danny for sharing your deep thinking with us. I think you've given us a lot of food for thought and hopefully regardless of where people land or where people are in there thinking on these questions. I'm sure that everybody has been challenged to think better about their position and to read more to learn more to think more carefully about how God's Word applies to us today in the various contexts that we find ourselves in. So thanks again for joining me and thanks especially to Danny for staying up so so late.