The question of women in ministry has been ongoing since the earliest days of the Church of God. R.M. Evans, Church of God missionary to the Bahamas, published the following article in the October 15, 1910 issue of The Evening Light and Church of God Evangel (page 3). A.J. Tomlinson editorialized that Evans’ teaching was “good for us.” (I have reproduced the text with only one correction – a misspelled word.)
Through your courtesy I have in answer to this public banter been enabled to present the truth on this much wrested scripture, the 14th chapter of 1 Corinthians. See also 2 Pet. 3:16. I wish now to present a few thoughts on the 34th verse, “Let your women keep silent in the churches.” Nearly every whiskey and tobacco soaked formalist know this scripture and look at it from the same standpoint, and many of them seem to think themselves fully competent to teach the sisters at home and some also at Church. In the verses 1 Cor. 14:34 and 1 Tim. 2:11, 12, the leading thought seems to be to restrain coarse females from using authority, and pressing into undue display. In construing scripture the only safe rule is to make it harmonize with all other scriptures. Turn to Joel 2:28, 29 “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” All flesh means much more than the Jews, and the Apostolic Church. Then Peter said in Acts 2:39 “The promise is unto you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” He also quotes in Acts 2:17, “your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,” etc. Leaving out the Old Testament examples of greatly blessed and used womanhood, I simply give a few examples in the New Testament. Phillip the evangelist had four daughters that did prophesy. Acts 21:9, Paul honored him with a sojourn at his home on his way to Jerusalem, but we hear nothing of his reproving them, like some of his modern disciples, and the inspired writer says nothing of their being out of place. Some shallow souls tell us that Paul annulled the inspired teaching of Joel and Peter on this subject, but is the kingdom of God divided against itself? Any person capable of putting two thoughts together, knows that not only was their teaching inspired of the Holy Ghost, but was universal, and as durable as time. Others equally shallow declare that females should exercise only among women, but the Lord evidently did not consult them when he poured out the Holy Ghost upon male and female together on the day of Pentecost, and they were filled and spake with tongues. Acts 1:14, 2:4. Then 1 Cor. 14:34, and 1 Tim. 2:11, 12 are evidently addressed to a mixed congregation. If Paul did not think it appropriate for females to pray and prophesy, why did he instruct them to do so with their heads covered? 1 Cor. 11:4, 5, and why did he commend Priscilla his helper in the Lord, and in Phil 4:3, he exhorts the Church to help those women which labored with him in the gospel. In Rom. 16:1, 2, he commends Phoebe as succourer of many, and of himself, also. How is this apparent conflict to be reconciled? John Wesley, whom Talma calls the greatest man since the Apostles, construes 1 Cor. 14:34 from the original Greek to mean, “unless they are under extraordinary impulse of the Spirit” they are not permitted to teach in public assemblies. This harmonizes Joel, and Peter, and all other scriptures on this line. The Church of God, to which we belong, does not ordain females, or give them a voice in Church affairs, but when God puts His Spirit upon them for His glory we dare not presumptuously put our hand upon the Ark, or throttle the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, as some Uzzahs, who seem to have very little spiritual life left, and whose services remind one of “hark from the tomb a doleful sound.” Yours in love for the simple truth, all the truth.
R.M. EVANS
I offer the following observations:
- Evans’ position on the issue predates by decades a modern feminist hermeneutic which minimizes inspired scripture.
- Evans resisted the formalist (literalist) interpretation of those who reject women in ministry.
- Evans insisted that Spirit-baptism is the proper hermeneutic for understanding the issue.
- Even as he admits that the Church of God does not ordain females, Evans warned against those who would limit the voice of Holy Spirit baptized women, likening them to Uzzah who perished because he touched the Ark of God (cf. 2 Samuel 6:6-7).
