CAN WOMEN SERVE AS ELDERS?

At Mercy’s Door, we believe that the office of elder is reserved for biblically-qualified men only. This belief is rooted in our understanding of biblical teachings that emphasize distinct but complementary roles for men and women within the family and the church, in particular as they pertain to Christlike headship and Christlike submission in God’s good design for His people.

Christlike Headship

The primary passage of Scripture that usually begins the conversation about whether God has reserved the office of elder for men is 1st Timothy 2:11-14. Paul writes these words immediately before he is about to lay out the qualifications for elders.

In placing a boundary upon the way the Church is to function, Paul lays a foundation that goes all the way back to creation and the ruin of that creation in the fall of Adam and Eve. He says in verses 13–14 that the reason why he is limiting women from exercising authority and teaching over the men of the church is rooted in the Garden of Eden.

“For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.”

Paul is arguing that the authoritative teaching role in the church, that is, the role of an elder, for which he is about to lay out the qualifications in the subsequent verses, is to be filled by spiritually mature and gifted men because God established, in the first two chapters of Genesis, a distinct leadership responsibility for Adam as part of God’s design for manhood and what it means to be male in his family and in the world.

Deceiving Eve

We can see this design for man’s distinct responsibility in leadership confirmed by the way it falls apart in the moment of Satan’s temptation and the way God follows up with Adam and Eve after the fall. Genesis 3:6 says that Adam was with Eve at the temptation; he didn’t show up later. But Satan, being subtle and deceptive, totally ignores the person that God had made responsible for the life of the garden — the man. Satan attacks and undermines God’s design and turns the woman into the decision-making spokesman leader for humanity. Both Adam and Eve fall for this.

Adam remained totally silent when he should have stepped in and taken responsibility in this dangerous moment.

Eve willingly assumed the role of responsible leader.

The results were disastrous.

So when Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:14, “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor,” he isn’t saying that Adam is guiltless. Paul wrote in Romans 5 that it was actually Adam’s disobedience that brought down the curse on humanity. So the point of saying “Adam was not deceived” is that Satan undermined Adam’s headship role by not targeting Adam for deception, but targeting the woman instead. Adam was with Eve, and he was responsible. But he stood there while his wife was tempted, and then followed her into her disobedience, rather than leading her away from the lie and toward the Lord. In targeting Eve, Satan attempted to make Eve the head at the moment of deception. In his passivity, Adam permitted Satan to succeed.

The point, in the context of 1 Timothy, is this: when the roles of men and women are subverted, at the very point where headship matters most, things go very badly for families. And Paul understood the Church as a family.

Where Is Adam?

God confirms this understanding of what happened by the way He calls Adam and Eve to account. A few verses later, God comes to find them in the garden. Genesis 3:9–11 says, 

The Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat?”

Why didn’t God seek out the woman first since she ate the forbidden fruit first? Because God made man first and built into him a sacrificial responsibility for leadership and protection and provision. He is responsible for what just happened. That’s the reality of headship. 

the curses laid by god

After this sequence of events, in Genesis 3:16-19, God declares a series of curses upon the man and woman that would carry forward into the fallen world outside the Garden of Eden. For the woman, one of those curses was “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”

The curse was not that her husband would have headship over the family, for Adam possessed that responsibility before the fall of sin, and the New Testament teaches that in our redeemed state, the husbands, fathers, and elders of the church are to continue to model Christlike headship. The curse was that her desire would be bent against that headship. She was no longer going to be able to painlessly submit to his headship as his helper, but now because of the curse of sin, it was going to be very hard.

To the man, one of those curses was “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.”

The curse was not that Adam would no longer bear protective and providing responsibility in leading his family, but that this headship responsibility would no longer come easily or painlessly. Now, because of the curse of sin, it was going to be very hard.

the christian church and family

In light of all this, Paul calls husbands, fathers, and church elders to take up the responsibility of Christlike, sacrificial headship in their families and churches that was abandoned by Adam in the garden. He calls the New Testament church to display the reversal of the curse of sin— to be distinct from the world in this way. Men are to no longer sidestep their God-given responsibility to lay themselves down in sacrificial leadership of their families. Women are to no longer contend with the men to wrestle that responsibility from them.

What does God’s design for families have to do with God’s design for the church?

Everything.

This kind of built-in, creation-based design for headship and submission is confirmed in Ephesians 5.

The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. . . . He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

Paul describes the relationship between men and women in marriage as a reflection of the relationship bettween Christ and the church. Christ and the church are not interchangeable. They are distinct, although they are one! How the husband and wife relate is to show the covenant love between Christ and the church, and the husband is to portray truth about Christ as the leader, protector, nourisher, and provider.

Paul roots those roles in the original pre-fall creation account in Genesis 2:24, which he quotes in verse 31: “A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

The book of Genesis routinely demonstrates that husbands bear the primary responsibility of headship in marriage.

• God created Adam first and then Eve;

• God gave the command not to eat of the tree to Adam rather than Eve;

• Adam named the woman (Gen. 2:19-23);

• Eve is designated as Adam’s helper (Gen. 2:18);

• The serpent deceived Eve rather than Adam, thereby subverting his headship (Gen. 3:1-6);

• But God came to Adam first, even though Eve sinned first (Gen. 3:9; cf. Rom. 5:12-19).

Paul applies this created order in Genesis like this: “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it [the meaning of the distinct but united relationship between men and women in marriage] refers to Christ and the church.”

That’s the meaning of male and female in marriage: male and female modeling Christ and the church in roles of headship and submission that is meant to be a beautiful gospel theater!

And Paul is teaching us in 1 Timothy that this theater in the family is supposed to be reflected in the leadership of the church (the family of God) as well.

okay, but what is this about “saved through child-bearing”?!

First, let’s make sure we understand what Paul is definitely not saying. Clearly, Paul isn’t saying that women must have children to be saved from the penalty of their sins. That would contradict 1 Corinthians 7 where Paul encourages singleness. Furthermore, it would suggest a kind of salvation by works—birthing children. That simply isn’t consistent with anything Paul or any part of Scripture has ever claimed about salvation. So, what does Paul mean here by “saved” and what does he mean by “child-bearing?”

The Greek verb translated as “saved” in this verse is σωθήσεται (sōthēsetai) and should be understood as “preserved.” This word is a future passive indicative form of the verb σῴζω (sōzō), which means to save, keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction, to save a suffering one from perishing, among other related meanings. This Greek verb is used in many different ways in the New Testament, and not only to refer to the salvation we receive instantaneously by our union with Christ through faith by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In this verse, the verb refers to an ongoing, into the future, preservative sense of the word.

So for Paul, this topic is about spiritual preservation, a common theme in the letters to Timothy and Titus. That is, Paul here teaches that women will be preserved from falling into Eve’s error as Christian men and women walk out their God-ordained design in the home and the church.

Paul is using the term “child-bearing” as a synecdoche. A synecdoche is a figure of speech common in Greek and in Paul’s writings in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa. It's a rhetorical device used in both literature and everyday language to create a more impactful or familiar expression.

There are two primary types of synecdoche:

1. Part for the whole: This is when a part of something is used to refer to its entirety. For example, saying "all hands on deck" to mean everyone should help, where "hands" (a part) represents the whole person.

2. Whole for a part: The opposite, where the whole is used to refer to a part of something. For example, the word "bread" can be used to represent food in general, not just literal bread.

Synecdoches are often used for poetic effect or to emphasize a specific aspect of something by highlighting a notable part or characteristic. They help to create vivid, concise expressions, making them a powerful tool in both written and spoken language.

Paul uses “child-bearing” here as one part of a whole to represent one of many distinct functions that women possess.

So, what Paul is saying here is that the functional distinctions that he is laying out for men and women in the home and in the church are for good. They are for preservation. In honoring them, we can expect to be protected from falling into the same errors that Adam and Eve fell into.

Additional resources

Free e-Book
An Overview of Central Concerns About Manhood & Womanhood by John Piper & Wayne Grudem