Women Against Public Blasphemy

My husband and I recently visited South Africa for a five-week speaking tour. As our host drove us to a meeting, he became quite agitated by the constant traffic jams in the clogged streets of Johannesburg. At yet another snag, he exclaimed, "Now what!" But soon he was all smiles. "Look! It's Christians demonstrating against public profanity!"

Christians naturally cringe when our Lord's name is defamed. But there is more to blasphemy than swear words in the media. The apostle Paul offers us strange advice about countering blasphemy. He specifically tells women how to help. Paul tells the young pastor Titus that

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled [blasphēmētai—"blasphemed"] (Titus 2:3-5).¹  

Elsewhere, Paul gives a similar instruction to slaves: "Let all who are under a yoke as slaves regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled [blasphēmētai]" (1 Tim 6:1). Conversely, slaves who respectfully submit to their masters "adorn the doctrine of God our Savior" (Titus 2:10).

The Greek verb blasphēmeō is often translated as "revile," "speak evil of" or "slander." Most English translations use "blaspheme" only when God's name or character is in question. In the above texts, "blasphemy" seems more appropriate for two reasons: (1) Paul uses this verb, as well as the related noun and adjective, throughout his first letter to Timothy to speak of blasphemy in its strongest sense:

• In 1:13, he refers to his own violent resistance to the gospel ("though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent").
• In 1:20 he speaks of Hymenaeus and Alexander's damnable resistance to the gospel ("among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme").
• In 6:3-5, he describes the false teachers, whose message produces evil consequences ("If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander [blasphēmiai], evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth").
• In Acts 26:11, Paul describes the torture he applied to Christians ("And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them I persecuted them even to foreign cities.")²

(2) The second reason is that in these two passages (Titus 2:3-5; 1 Tim 6:1) Paul designates what is being blasphemed: God's word, God's name, and the teaching. To speak against these three things is surely blasphemy in the strongest sense of our English word.

Today, Christians (even leaders and pastors) consider the role of men and women to be a secondary issue, but Paul ties a woman's decisions about home-making to the very heart of gospel witness.³ Did Paul get carried away? Can he simply mean that Christians should not upset the status quo?  Surely not, as Paul was hardly one to worry about status quo! His words are strong and his meaning clear: our lack of submission to his teaching about women opens the gospel to blasphemy. Why does Paul feel so strongly about this, when he leaves other issues, like meat consumption and feast days, to the exercise of our conscience?

In "the New South Africa," post-apartheid laws have brought together a huge variety of culturally diverse peoples. Christians are trying to lead the way by breaking down cultural barriers in the church. How does a Christian Afrikaner with a background in strict Dutch Reformed traditions worship with a Christian Zulu, who has been exposed to animistic spirituality, fortune-tellers and animal sacrifice? Paul, the world traveler, was familiar with such problems in his time, especially as the church tried to bring together Jew and Gentile. Jews were raised on the Law of Moses, while Gentiles were steeped in pagan spirituality.  Paul learned to be "all things to all men" and encouraged cultural flexibility in many things: "Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ" (Col 2:16-17).

Paul denounces false teachers who command Christians not to "touch" or "taste" certain things, since all is good and comes from God's gracious hand.⁴  He resists the Judaizers, insisting that circumcision not be imposed on Gentile believers, and defends eating food sacrificed to idols, since an idol has no power.⁵ 

Let us think briefly about blasphemy in these three ways: (1) against the word, (2) against the name, and (3) against the teaching of God as it relates specifically to Paul's teaching on women.

God's Word Blasphemed

Because of Paul's keen respect for cultural variety and his strong defense of the personal conscience, we need to pay special attention when, in his apostolic authority, he formally sets down specific rules for living in God's church. We might expect Paul to say, "Women, let no one pass judgment on you about how you dress or what role you choose to play in your family and church, for these are a shadow, but the substance is Christ." But Paul does not say that. He dictates principles for dress, jewelry, home management, gossip, the age of remarriage for widows, alcohol consumption, hairdos, and activities in the church.  Paul seems rather to harp on the subject of women. His constant commands cannot be dismissed as culturally determined.

For Paul, these issues are determined not by culture but by the Word of God. I have taken some liberty in separating the "Word of God" from "the teaching," because in general Paul seems to refer to the foundational Old Testament revelation in speaking of God's Word,⁶ while his term "teaching" refers more directly to the doctrinal and practical instructions Paul has given to the churches with apostolic authority and is now "the deposit" left to its future pastors.

The Word of God in the Old Testament is the Word that created and structured the world. The creative Word of God spoke the world into existence, differentiating animals from humans, dark from light, men from women, and, above all, God from his creation (see Rom 1:25). Within those creation structures, the roles of men and women are clearly delineated. God created Adam first, then Eve—taken from his body, his equal, his companion, his helper. Creational authority structures as determined by God's Word in Genesis are a cornerstone in Paul's discussion of women and their role. In his discussion of women in worship (1 Corinthians 11), Paul argues his case from creation principles: "For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man" (vv. 8-9).  In the same passage, he appeals to the authority structures in the universe: "That is why a wife ought to have [a symbol of]⁷ authority on her head, because of the angels" (v. 10).⁸ Again, he calls attention to the natural order of things: "Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering" (vv. 14-15). When commanding women not to teach or hold authority over men in the church, Paul appeals yet again to the original creation order: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve" (1 Tim 2:12-13). 

In 1 Cor 14:34-35, where Paul commands women to be "silent in the churches," he says, "They are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says." Though this specific command nowhere appears in this form in the Old Testament, Paul draws his conclusion from creational principles and from his assumptions about Old Testament revelation. After specifying how this principle is to be worked out, he asks the Corinthians, "Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? . . . What I am writing you is the Lord's command" (1 Cor 14:36-37 NIV).

In Ephesians, as well, Paul goes back to the text Jesus used when dealing with divorce.⁹ Paul discusses the submission/headship/love principles of marriage and concludes with a quote from Gen 2:24: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh" (Eph 5:31). Paul grounds his practical commands about women on the Word of God as expressed in the Old Testament and derived from the creative Word that brought men and women into existence. To argue that Paul's instructions are culturally irrelevant in our time is to refuse God's clear creation Word of authority. Our deep-seated sexual differences are not, as our society would like us to believe, determined by our whims or desires, but come from the mind of God.

Women, Paul insists, are to pour themselves into their calling as wives and mothers. They are to raise children, feed the poor, love their husbands, care for the sick, exercise hospitality, refrain from gossip, show mercy to many, and "wash the feet of the saints." God has designed women for these activities from the very beginning. These commands are not popular in twenty-first century America, but that does not matter. If we do not obey them, we deny the authority of the Word, thus eliciting blasphemy from unbelievers and from the evil authorities in the heavenly realms, who observe our inconsistent lives.

God's Name Blasphemed

Paul's statement in 1 Tim 6:1, about the relationship of a servant to his master, is parallel in some ways to Titus 2:3-5 (as well as to 1 Tim 5:14). In both texts, refusal of submission causes the name of God to be blasphemed: "Let all who are under a yoke as slaves regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled [blasphemed]" (1 Tim 6:1). The third commandment forbids us to take the name of God "in vain." Taking God's name in vain is not limited to speaking certain syllables frivolously. God's name means his person—including his character, his reputation, his revelation, and his acts in history. 

Christians are baptized into the name of God, and thus represent that name, corporately and individually. When God lays his name upon us, we are his children and represent the family name. While living in France, we occasionally disciplined one of our children for a particularly serious infraction by keeping that child home from school.  On our "excuse" note, we would write that the child was not well behaved enough to represent the family name that day. Needless to say, the teachers thought we were peculiar parents! As Christians, our behavior conforms not to our old, irreverent and idolatrous style, but to our new identity in Christ.

Why is God's name blasphemed when slaves are ornery with their masters? Because God's created authority structures reflect his ultimate authority over us and over the whole universe. As countercultural and anti-democratic as a rebirth of authority sounds, the Bible is clear. Authority is given by God himself—even the authority of a slavemaster. The goal of the church is to obey Christ in all things, and in so doing, we are to respect the authorities under which God has placed us.¹⁰ Jesus tells Pilate, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above" (John 19:11). The one who wields authority answers to God for the way he wields it, and the one under authority answers to God for his behavior under that authority.

In Paul's day, slaves made up nearly 40 percent of the population. Many members of Paul's churches were doubtless involved in slavery either as slaves or masters (see Paul's letter to Philemon). Paul is not commending slavery as a necessary creational structure, for he encourages slaves to acquire their freedom, whereas he never encourages wives to get free from marriage or children to escape the authority of parents. Christians see their work relations as a part of their gospel witness, as they pour themselves out in self-sacrificial love, serving even evil masters as if serving the perfect master, Jesus.¹¹ In so doing they honor the name and reputation of God. Their behavior aligns itself with their confession, showing self-sacrificial love, humility, and the joy of serving others. In this, they are like their Savior who submitted himself to his father's will.

We do not represent God's name only as individuals. The family unit itself represents God's fatherhood. In Eph 3:14-15, Paul says, "I bow my knees before the Father [patera], from whom every family [patria] in heaven and on earth is named." God has designed an integral relationship between his "Fatherhood" and our human "fatherhoods" (families). If English followed the pattern of the Greek, we would call a family a "fatherdom," something like a "kingdom."  The name of God the Father is incorporated into the structure and identity of our human families. The radical feminists are right in saying that if we want to topple "fatherdom" (what they would call "patriarchy"), we must first topple the ultimate Father (patriarch). An authoritative, kind, and merciful father in a Christian home reflects the fatherhood of God and thus beautifies ("adorns") the Father's name, rather than opening it to blasphemy.¹²  I love to watch my son-in-law with his children. A most tender-hearted father, David nonetheless inspires an amazing awe in his children. If little fifteen-month old Emma is not going off to sleep, he has only to enter her bedroom, and she lies down without a sound! But she will cuddle up in the crook of her daddy's arm whenever she gets the chance. We surely have such immense discipline problems in our schools because we have denied this loving authority to fathers.

The name of God is also carried by the larger family, the church, which is the "fullness of him who fills everything in every way"  (Eph 1:23 NIV). The people of God and the name of God are integrally related. In the book of Revelation, the final glorious city, the bride of Christ, is identified with the church of all time and also with the name of God: "[The beast] opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven" (Rev 13:6). Do you see the equation here? To breathe out blasphemies against God, the evil one blasphemes the church. Because we are his temple, his dwelling ("living stones," as the apostle Peter puts it), God's name is blasphemed when we his people are blasphemed. The Old Testament taught us this already, since God sees his own name blasphemed when Israel's enemies mock her.¹³

Paul is arguing that because we bear God's name, those who "revile" or "slander" us are actually "blaspheming," because they are speaking not only against us but against God himself. If we want to avoid God's name being blasphemed in this way, we need to glorify that name ("adorn the gospel") by behaving in a way consistent with the gospel we profess. Paul tells the church how to honor God's name. Pastors, elders, and deacons must lead godly lives.¹⁴ Men must rule their own households with firmness and gentleness, instructing their wives and children in the gospel and not treating them harshly. Children must submit to their parents as to the Lord. Women must submit to and love their husbands, love their children, cease to gossip, work energetically in their homes, give themselves to works of mercy and seek to serve other Christians in every possible way. In the church, they must not teach men or exercise authority over them.

Our families and our marriages are the visible picture on earth of the beauty of God's family, of his name. It is for this reason, too, that we cannot consider these to be secondary issues. Whether we like it or not, the Christian family and the Christian church must be structured as Paul tells us, so that the name of God is not blasphemed.

The Teaching Blasphemed

Paul tells us in the same command to slaves that their behavior will keep "the teaching" from being blasphemed. Generally speaking, when Paul uses the term "teaching," he is referring to his own apostolic doctrine. Many people draw the conclusion that Paul's teaching can be dismissed as culturally slanted, to be taken with a grain of salt. But Paul's words have as much weight as Christ's words and Old Testament revelation.¹⁵

Paul commends the Corinthians for "holding to the teachings, just as I passed them on to you" (1 Cor 11:2 NIV). He drives home his instructions about women with a blanket warning: "If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God" (1 Cor 11:16). (Notice that all the churches, no matter what their social context, are to have the same practice.) In another passage, exhorting women to be silent when church disciplinary issues are at stake, he concludes his argument with similarly absolute words: "Was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized" (1 Cor 14:36-38). There is ample evidence that Paul considered his apostolic authority to be equal to the very words of Christ.

In addition to understanding the inspired nature of Paul's authority, we must grasp his purpose in writing the epistles of First and Second Timothy and Titus. He is consciously establishing working structures for the church, with a view to his own death. He instructs his successors to codify practices that will protect Christians from falling into the "snare of the devil."¹⁶  These young pastors are to "insist" on such practices and "rebuke" false teachers "sharply." Titus "must teach" the older women to take the younger wives in hand. He is to "teach" slaves to be in submission. Paul says to Titus, "These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you" (Titus 2:15 NIV). Timothy, too, is to "command certain men not to teach false doctrine" (1 Tim 1:3 NIV). "If I am delayed," Paul says, "you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15 NIV). Timothy is to "command and teach these things" and not to let anyone look down on him because he is young  (1 Tim 4:11-12). "Command, rebuke, insist," Paul repeats. With this drumbeat in our ears, can we still say that the roles of men and women are a "secondary" issue?

Yet we must consider the particular aspects of Paul's teaching that come under attack due to a slave's disobedience, a woman's laziness, a deacon's drunkenness.

Paul's Teaching about the Goodness of Creation

We have already discussed the creational roots to Paul's thinking about women. False teachers are threatening the church both in Ephesus and (apparently) in Crete. They forbid marriage and the consumption of certain foods. Paul counters such arguments with creational reasoning: everything is good; nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. Paul passionately pleads with Timothy¹⁷ to preach the truth, rather than "the teaching of demons" spread by these false teachers. True holiness means living in the body—with all its functions, including the sexual functions.¹⁸ Eating, marrying, giving birth, working for a master, caring for an elderly widow—this is the stuff holiness is made of, not the "godless chatter" and "false knowledge" that enemies of the church are proposing, whether such knowledge is from legalistic Judaizers or mystical pagans (1 Tim 6:20).

The anti-creational arguments of the false teachers sound spiritual, but drag Christians away from presenting themselves as living sacrifices, faithful to their creational calling until they stand in the last day to answer for the things "done in the body."  This is what true holiness consists of until Jesus comes again. All the rest is at best fluff and at worst heresy. Paul cares about the nitty-gritty of life. Though Ephesians begins in the heavenlies with Christ, it ends with the Christian soldier on the front lines.¹⁹ What battle rages in the middle of the book? How to maintain unity in the church; how to submit to husbands, parents, and bosses; how to conquer lying and stealing.

Christian women are all called to serve God as women. Our world (and sometimes our church) tells us that we have better things to do with our time. Linda Hirshman, on ABC's "Good Morning, America!" scolded women for dropping out of the corporate scene to stay home with their children. According to Hirshman, they are "letting down the team."²⁰

Allow me a short aside. Within the church, similar arguments tell women to "use all their gifts." My oldest daughter just had her fifth child. In a rare moment of quiet, she and I began to muse about what career we would have chosen had we not been wives and mothers. We each decided on "pediatrician" and agreed that each of us had ample gifts for it. "In another life," laughed my daughter.

It is impossible to use all our gifts because God is so liberal in his distribution. There is not one person on this earth who has used all his gifts. Every time you make a choice, you eliminate the use of certain gifts. Today, I could exercise musical gifts by practicing the piano, or the gift of encouragement by calling ten people, or the gift of determination to weed my garden. But I chose to write this article. That is the first problem with gifts. You will drive yourself crazy if you try to use all your gifts in this life. You will have to wait for heaven.

Secondly, we use our gifts within the calling God has given us. In a certain sense, even Jesus refrained from using all his gifts when he was on earth, because his Father (in authority over him) had a particular way in which his Son was to use those gifts. The devil tried to get Jesus to use his gifts in the wrong way, but our Savior stuck stubbornly to the written word and to God's plan for his life. Jesus wept over Jerusalem and longed to rescue, comfort, and shepherd his people. But he refrained from using his gift of power to oust the Roman oppressor because he had a greater enemy to conquer: death and the devil. He refrained from using his gift of authority to command angels to take him off the cross. Instead, he bore blasphemy, suffering, abandonment, and death. Our Savior said, "Not my will, but yours, be done" (Luke 22:42), and "he learned obedience through what he suffered" (Heb 5:8). In a sense, Jesus was also saying, "Not my gifts, but your calling." If Jesus was not free to choose the most obvious and "satisfying" way to use his gifts, but submitted to the will of his Father, how can we be so arrogant as to dictate the terms for the use of our gifts, when our Father has made it clear to us women where he wants us to serve? The normal womanly way to exercise our gifts is to get married, love our husbands and our children, fill our lives with works of mercy, service, and self-sacrifice. (This always involves some suffering.) This is the way of the "name," the way of the "word" and the way of Paul's "teaching."

I can hear the protests: "But I'm longing to be married. It's not my fault if I'm not!" "I have a horrible husband; how do you expect me to live out these instructions?" "Are you saying women should never work?" "Do you mean we should accept the stereotype of ‘women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen'?"

Of course, I am not saying a woman should never work outside the home.²¹ Jesus himself received the help of independently wealthy women, and we go through stages in which work might be appropriate. I am not saying that all women should only cook and bake in the church (though I do not see why women should be kept from doing so). Of course, you are not less of a woman if you are single. (Paul implies that you have an even greater honor—to serve your Lord without distraction.) But Paul makes the normal pattern clear. The New Testament church does not supersede creational structures for men and women, but fills those structures with the post-Pentecost power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

Catherine Clark Kroeger argues that women need to feel "called" to be mothers or they should not have children.²² She seems to place mothering (last?) on a long list of possible career choices. Of course, her argument could only be made in a post-contraception society. Seeing motherhood this way is an easy cop-out for women who do not want to bother bearing and raising children. They are not "called" to be mothers.²³

God has called women to be wives and mothers—to serve him and his church in this physical, creational way. But bearing children is a spiritual act of worship as well. Paul ties marriage, family, and childbirth not only to creation structures, but to the salvation message.

Teaching about Salvation

In 1 Timothy, Paul declares that a woman should not teach or have authority over a man. This is not because he respects women less, but because the gospel message is intimately tied to women accepting their calling to love their husbands, to be in submission to them, and to carry on in their God-given task of bearing and mothering children. This does not mean a woman is only a "womb." God looks on the heart, not on the womb! But God asks women to be a "living sacrifice," which includes her womb, whether he chooses to open that womb or not. God looks on the heart and loves each woman for who she is—a beautiful reflection of the image of God.

Women as women are intimately involved in the salvation story. God enters the world via the womb of a woman. Mary says to the angel who announced her unique pregnancy, "I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38). Christian women can still answer God with those same words. No woman can now anticipate the privilege of mothering the Messiah, yet we mother him as we mother the children he gives us. We participate in the salvation project as we continue to obey the creation mandate to fill the earth.²⁴

It is surely this overall sense that we must take from the difficult passage in 1 Tim 2:15: "Yet she will be saved through [the childbirth]—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control."  I favor the interpretation that sees "the childbirth" as referring to the birth of Christ.²⁵ But without insisting on such a reading, we can still say that, in the context of the letter, Paul desires women to take their mothering seriously and to live out their salvation by quietly getting on with their (often unsung) service in the church and in the home. We "adorn" the gospel in our obedience to God's will for us as women, just as a servant "adorns" the gospel in his role of service. As Paul says to the Colossians, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving" (Col 3:23-24 NIV).  As women serve their husbands, families and churches, they serve Christ.

Even the imperfect Christian home shows the beauty both of God's creation and his salvation order. Women who are "busy at home" are busy doing the work of evangelism, for our homes shine forth the glory of the gospel to all who enter it. If you invite people to your table, you are, in a sense, sharing the table of the Lord. If you care for a lonely widow, you are showing the world God's mercy and kindness. If you pay attention to your neighbor's children, you are obeying Christ's command to let the little ones come to him. Even as you wipe your child's sore knee, you are bandaging Christ's wounds, for he himself says, "If you do it for the least of these my children, you do it to me."

The Christian home is a gospel witness that testifies not only to a watching world but also to those authorities who rebelled against God's order. The wicked "principalities and powers" are watching God's people to see if God's love and mercy is really as grand as it claims to be. Our marriages are God's chosen illustration of Christ's love for his church. As we make godly decisions in the privacy of our own homes, we are a part of God's people, "proving out the wisdom of God" before our neighbors and the principalities and powers (Eph 3:10).

Do you see why Paul does not make male-female relationships a matter of individual conscience? There is much yet to understand about the connection between our behavior as separate sexes and God's gospel, but we do not have to understand everything before we obey. Women offer their bodies in spiritual service to Christ by marrying, serving our husbands as constant and trustworthy helpers, and gladly accepting the place God has given us, whether single or married, widowed or childless. In so doing, we will gain a reward from our Creator and Savior, who pours out glory and love on our heads.

Do you want to shut down blasphemy and adorn the gospel of Christ in our culture? Rather than demonstrating in the streets, follow God's commands:

Be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. . . . Teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be [blasphemed] (Titus 2:3-5).