Fred Sanders of Scriptorium Daily
writes of the Bible Women who, a hundred years ago, did missions work door-to-door and set up Bible classes in the Los Angeles area. Their work was great and their influence powerful.
it wouldn't do justice to the Bible Women to say that they did their work quietly or out of the spotlight or behind the scenes. They were aggressive. They were the ones making the difference. In many ways, because of their radical vision of the priesthood of all believers, they were the leading edge of the Bible Institute's* impact on the city.
Try to picture a Los Angeles before national women's suffrage, with these teams of women combing the neighborhoods, "Bibles in hand," witnessing and teaching and counseling. In fact, they were very aware of the opportunities and limitations that belonged to "the fairer sex." Men could not go door to door expecting intimate conversation about domestic issues; the Bible Women could and did.
Yet,
it is worth remembering that the Institute's Bible Women all understood the Bible to teach that there were limits placed on the amount of relative authority that could be properly held by women in the congregation. They were all complementarians rather than egalitarians, to use a later evangelical distinction. Were they inconsistent to knock on doors, lead Bible classes, confront doctrinal error, and do that whole range of things that made up their work? Try telling a Bible Woman that, if you dare.
The article does not say whether the Bible Women spoke only with other women while "canvassing, teaching, counseling, and doing 'much of a personal nature,'" although a report states that they sought "to rescue the misguided women who fall so easily prey to the snares of the enemy." By necessity, would they also have spoken with men, or did they indeed speak only with women, or address the men only indirectly through the women?
I am also wondering how having authority to do heavy-duty missions work in the community corresponds to having limited authority in the congregation. What are the lines, and where are they drawn? (How far does the priesthood of a woman go?) Can women teach non-believing men? (Can a woman teach a man outside the church but not within the church?) Was it assumed that women would first learn at church from men's teaching and then take that teaching to the community? Was there oversight from men?
I'm also wondering why women can teach (or lead) other women yet not other men. Would they not pass error on to other women, or lead them wrongly as easily as they would men? How do we separate counseling, or explaining, from teaching? Finally, if women are trusted to teach children in a church setting, at what age does a boy become too old to receive the teaching of a woman, and how and when is that decided? Should a son stop receiving his mother's teaching at some point? Why is such teaching adequate for a child (or a woman) but not for an adult man, if the training received in childhood is to lead the child to adulthood?
(I hope these questions are not viewed as impertinent; they are honest.)
*The Bible Institute later became known as Biola University.
