One last thought on the 1 Tim 2 text: Adam did not sin first… but Eve did… what is that supposed to mean? Does it give any solace to men, any special guilt to women? Who would go there today and what would it say to our theology of sin to go there? And yet it is quite the point that Paul is making. Weakness is another word used often here, in what way? Hand to hand combat in the military or in battle with Satan, want to go there? And if, as St. Paul says, there is no distinction when it comes to grace, why then in the matter of sin?
The models of ministry, pastoral and otherwise, get used against WO by recalling that there were 12 plus St. Paul men, mostly Jewish but we discount that as a model of course. And for the centuries since then until most recently the tradition has been only male ordination to the pastoral office. Of course that does say nothing about Esther or Hannah, Deborah or the BVM teaching our Lord whatever she taught him, like walking, talking, the Torah, Psalms and Prophets, how to pray maybe some of those things…. The women who first witnessed and proclaimed the resurrection are only lay-tellers not apostolic in any manner. Does not God raise up Judges for times of need? Well, modeling as theology.
Then there is model of submission. While the 1 Timothy 2 text does speak of the submission of a wife to a husband only the Wisconsin Synod has the age of boy to man down to a number (I think). And the models of submission are not given in any sort of Table of Duties in the New Testament; however, we have plenty of models of what submission has meant in households in the past where men were Lords but not sacrificial ones at all.
I know the writer who felt uncomfortable with seeing a woman in vestments undoubtedly had theological objections before what her eyes could find objectionable but I recall the first time I saw an Almy dummy (headless but breasted) wearing alb and stole at the Springfield Sem on display. No way! Or my daughter as child seeing a woman in alb and stole distributing the sacrament at a pan-Lutheran gathering saying she can’t be a pastor, why? She has earrings… of course, that also predates men with earrings and she hadn’t even seen lay women as communion assistants as yet. But the model was new, odd and different.
Can a woman be submissive to her husband (in whatever is the best scriptural sense) and yet be a pastor in a parish where the other men are not under such a relationship of submission with her as a woman, obviously not as a wife?
If a LCMS pastor (sorry to pick on you for this example) is gay and secretly has a relationship with another gay person and he preaches and celebrates HC… cannot the sermon share Law and Gospel and his hidden life not ruin the communicants reception? I am saying nothing about whether he is sinning or whether his church body would be sinning if they knew and permitted him to be a pastor. So what if a Lutheran woman pastor comes and preaches and celebrates HC and an LCMS person listens to the sermon and partakes of the sacrament, can it be a proper sermon, a Holy Communion that shares Christ’s body and blood? Again I am not saying whether or not that LCMS person should be in that church, listen or partake… but if one did…. We know that an unbelieving preacher and celebrant does not vitiate the means of grace, don’t we? What of a woman who believes?
Is it possible that God is not wild about ordained women, but will use them in the church? He may not be wild about pastors who are not good at Greek or who do not find evangelism to be their most important work but will he still use them in the church?
Harvey Mozolak