CNLP 800 | Women in Ministry: Preston Sprinkle on What the Bible Actually Says

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
Episode: CNLP 800 | Women in Ministry: Preston Sprinkle on What the Bible Actually Says
Date: April 23, 2026
Host: Carey Nieuwhof
Guest: Dr. Preston Sprinkle

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into one of the most significant debates in contemporary church leadership: the biblical view of women in ministry and church leadership. Carey Nieuwhof interviews Dr. Preston Sprinkle—a biblical scholar who, after deep study, shifted from a complementarian stance to an egalitarian one regarding women’s roles in the church. The conversation models thoughtful, scripturally grounded exploration and challenges polarized tribalism within the church.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Preston Sprinkle’s Background & Approach

• Personal Journey: Raised in a strong complementarian context (e.g., John MacArthur’s College), Preston initially accepted the traditional view that only men should lead.
• Commitment to Scripture: Preston described an openness to let Scripture guide his conclusions, stating, “If God said only men can be leaders and God said it and I believe it and that settles it, as my grandma said…” (05:10)
• Inductive Method: The conversation and Preston’s book model starting with questions, not conclusions: “I begin, I don’t begin with a conclusion because I didn’t have one. I didn’t know.” (04:58)
• Openness as Faithfulness: Both Carey and Preston critique closed-mindedness and theological tribalism, advocating for ongoing “always reforming” engagement with Scripture. (06:08; 12:02)

On Mindset, Tradition, and Openness

• Fear of Change: Both discuss how fear or cultural loyalty can override true fidelity to biblical text. “I’m going to stand before God, not man, at the end of the day… Did you rightly divide my word? Not did you adhere to all the traditional… viewpoints that you were told when you were 19 years old?” (08:19)
• Learning from History: Using Peter’s vision regarding Gentiles (Acts 10), Carey reflects on how Scripture often calls leaders to overturn tradition for the sake of the gospel. (10:04–11:37)
• Tribalism: Both lament increased tribalism and less curiosity/charity in church debates today. “The tribalism within the broad stream of Christianity seems to have gotten stronger. The walls around each tribe seem to have gotten thicker.” (12:02)

On Biblical Sexuality vs. Women in Ministry

• Consistency in Study: Preston applied the same inductive rigor to biblical sexuality (13:39)—remaining non-affirming—and to women in ministry, landing (carefully, and differently) on egalitarianism.
• Slippery Slope Argument: Addressing concerns that one shift (e.g., affirming women) leads to others (e.g., affirming same-sex marriage), Sprinkle separates these as distinct biblical issues: “If you affirm women in leadership, then you’re gonna be affirming of same sex relationships. And I’m like, we’re dealing with two different issues.” (16:24)

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Deep Dive into the Scriptural Evidence

Old Testament Foundations

• Genesis 1–3: Preston challenges standard complementarian arguments based on Adam’s priority (primogeniture), Eve as “helper,” or Adam naming Eve; he finds these arguments scripturally tenuous:
  • “God often overturns primogeniture throughout scripture…The last will be first, the first will be last.” (24:30)
• Women as Models of Faith: Though women are numerically less prominent, they are often shown as exemplary (e.g., Hebrew midwives, Moses’ mother and sister, Zipporah, Deborah, Huldah).
  • “When women do come on the scene, they often model the radical faithfulness and sacrifice and courage that Yahweh demands… oftentimes in contrast to the men around them.” (28:14)
• Deborah and Huldah: Both held formal leadership as judge and prophet (32:40). “Prophets held the most authority in ancient Israel… king makers and king breakers.”

New Testament Evidence

Jesus and Women

• Jesus’ Posture: Not just valuing women personally, but the Gospels depict women as models of “radical courage, sacrifice, faithfulness that Jesus demands… oftentimes in contrast to the 12 [disciples].” (36:38)
• Servant Leadership: With reference to Mark 10, Jesus redefines leadership as servanthood. Notably, in Mark’s Gospel, only women are explicitly described as “serving” Jesus (diakonia)—at both the start and end. (37:41)

Early Church Leadership Structure

• Fluid Categories: Contrary to modern assumptions, church leadership terms (elder, overseer, deacon, etc.) were more fluid and less structured than assumed (40:29).
  • “Paul only mentions overseers and elders in three of his 13 letters… but he identifies leaders everywhere, using terms like those who manage, co-workers, those who work hard in the gospel…” (40:29)

Women in Leadership Roles: Key Figures

• Romans 16 – Phoebe, Priscilla, Junia
  • Phoebe: Called a diakonos (servant, deacon) and a benefactor/patron. She likely read and explained Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. (45:42)
    • “The letter carrier would have not only carried the letter, not only have read the letter, but… be responsible for embodying the message of the one who wrote the letter.” (45:43)
  • Priscilla: Alongside her husband Aquila, involved in teaching and correcting Apollos (Acts 18).
  • Junia: Explicitly called “outstanding among the apostles” (Romans 16:7).
    • “The weight of evidence points to Paul identifying her as an apostle.” (48:07)

“Problem Passages” and Their Meaning

• 1 Corinthians 11: On head coverings, does not address leadership directly; Paul both acknowledges the cultural norm (male ‘headship’) and then relativizes it in Christ. (51:09)
• 1 Corinthians 14:34–35: “Women be silent”—Preston argues this refers to disruptive interruptions, not a universal prohibition of female speech. (53:51)
  • “Paul can’t be saying women can’t utter a peep in church because he just said they’re praying and prophesying… he’s probably addressing a situation where there was a group of women… interrupting prophets.” (53:51)
• 1 Timothy 2:11–15: The classic “I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man” passage.
  • Key insight: The rare Greek word (authentein) for “exercise authority” most often means to “dominate”—i.e., “I do not permit women to teach in a dominating way over a man.” (60:45)
  • Contextual clues support the view that Paul addresses a local issue in Ephesus, not setting a universal restriction.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Openness:

  “I think it’s profoundly unbiblical [to never question one’s views]… Because the text is central and because we are fallible, we need to consistently be bringing our previously held views back to the text of scripture…” – Preston (06:08)

• On Tradition vs. Scripture:

  “I’m going to stand before God, not man, at the end of the day and say, you know, were you faithful? Did you rightly divide my word? Not, Did you adhere to all the traditional or whatever viewpoints that you were told when you were 19.” – Preston (09:18)

• On Jesus’ Model:

  “The one who serves is greater than the one who is served… Jesus sees serving as a key component of leadership. Who’s serving in the Gospels?... Both times are describing women bookending the entire gospel.” – Preston (37:41)

• On Leadership Terminology:

  “If we come to this issue saying, well, show me where women are elders… Elder is one of many leadership terms Paul uses… we have a wider vocabulary of leadership we can work with.” – Preston (40:29)

• On Cultural Context and Authority:

  “Based on available linguistic evidence… the best way to translate [authentein, 1 Tim 2] is ‘dominate’… Paul is prohibiting women from teaching in a dominating way over men.” – Preston (60:45)

• On Humility & Unity:

  “I could totally see where complementarians…read this passage. It’s a complex passage, but I do think there’s better ways to interpret it… I don’t browbeat.” – Preston (64:41)

• On What’s At Stake:

  “I believe there are women who are gifted and called to leadership that have not been able to use those gifts. And I think both women and men miss out when that’s the case.” – Preston (69:00)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Preston’s Background, Complementarian Roots: 03:39–05:06
• On Mindset, Tradition, & Openness: 05:33–13:07
• On Biblical Sexuality vs. Women in Ministry: 13:39–18:08
• Genesis 1–3 Discussion: 22:15–27:54
• Women in the Old Testament: 28:14–34:17
• Jesus’ Attitude & Gospels: 36:05–39:59
• Early Church Leadership Structure: 40:29–43:06
• Key Female Leaders in Romans 16: 43:31–50:27
• Addressing “Difficult” NT Passages: 51:09–64:41
• Limits, Practical Takeaways, & What’s at Stake: 65:17–69:00

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Conclusion & Tone

• Preston Sprinkle demonstrates hermeneutical humility, open inquiry, and a preference for scripture over tradition or cultural pressure.
• Both he and Carey model respectful disagreement and curiosity.
• “If you’re in a complementarian church and you’re not [empowering and learning from women], I don’t think that’s a healthy complimentary church.” (68:03)
• Carey summarizes: the episode isn’t about forcing a change, but about modeling how faithful Christians can reason together with both conviction and kindness.

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Resources & Further Engagement

• Preston Sprinkle: theologyintheraw.com, Theology in the Raw Podcast
• New Book: From Genesis to Junia
• Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast: careynieuwhof.com

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This summary distills the key themes and arguments for leaders who want to think biblically and charitably about the role of women in ministry—whether or not they agree with the episode’s conclusions.

Transcript

[A]

The Art of Leadership Network. I was never really impressed with the egalitarian arguments. I'd see just the ones that kind of came across in passing to like, well, Mary Magdalene, you know, she preached the resurrection. She's the apostle to the apostles. And I'm like, well, I don't know a single complimentarian who says, no, women can't talk about the resurrection in front of men. Like, I don't. I don't think that's what they were saying. And you know, Jesus really valued women. And like, of course non leaders are valued too. You know, that doesn't mean they should be ordained or whatever. But when I look deeper into it.

[B]

Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast. I'm so glad you joined us. Today we're going to have a conversation that I think is meaningful on two levels. First of all, we are going to talk about women in leadership. This is something you asked for. We identified it as a trend that women are leaving the church. And so we want to talk about women in leadership. And I've got a guest today who actually changed his mind on the subject. He grew up complementarian, but really studied the scripture and said, maybe, maybe I was wrong. Now he did the same thing for sexuality and concluded that a historic understanding of sexuality and gender is something that the Bible teaches. So, you know, this is not somebody who's just going left or turning woke or anything like that. Dr. Preston Sprinkle is going to be a really fascinating host. But the second thing, and probably, probably the deeper reason I'm even more excited to bring you this conversation is because his project on women in leadership really shows openness, and I think that's lacking in the church dialogue today. I think more and more people are just like, here's what I believe. I'm gonna find all the evidence I possibly can to support my belief. And Preston Sprinkle is willing to be wrong and not wrong because culture says something, but wrong because perhaps his understanding of scripture was incorrect, which I think, as a Christian is really important. So I am excited to bring you that conversation for those reasons and more. And I would encourage you to listen to the end before you drop a comment. Don't just take your preconceived views, either pro women in leadership or a complementarian view, and drop them into the comments without listening to this conversation. Deal? Okay, that sounds good. Well, Preston Sprinkle is a biblical scholar, a speaker, podcaster, New York Times bestselling author, and the co founder and president of the center for Faith, Sexuality and Gender. He is also the president of Theology in the Raw and hosts the popular Theology in the Raw podcast. So I think you're really going to enjoy this. Let's go into my conversation with Dr. Preston Sprinkle. Well, Preston, I'm glad we finally connected. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

[A]

Thanks for having me on, Carrie. I'm honored to be here. Been a fan for a long time. So excited to be with you.

[B]

Well, I'm glad we've connected. And you really surprised me. I got your book on women in leadership, and I thought, wow, an actual inductive journey. Like, you don't really find that today in the intellectual circles in the church. I mean, you do in academic work, but in more popularly consumed work. And so I'd love you to back up the story a little bit. Tell us how you were raised, because one of the big debates or discussions in the church is complementarian versus egalitarian leadership, right? Do men and women complement each other? Are they equal in the sense that either can fulfill any office or role, et cetera, et cetera? And it's still an issue that we talk about on this podcast from time to time. But I was really impressed with your work, wanted to have this conversation. So let's back up the bus to your childhood. How were you raised? Were you raised with a particular viewpoint around that?

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I was raised in a really strong complementarian context. I mean, I went to John MacArthur's College and Seminary, and.

[B]

Oh, so that's about. Yep, there you go.

[A]

That's about as complimentary as you can get. And, you know, that view made perfect sense to me. It was. To me, it was. Was just that's what the Bible says. And, you know, I'd read First Timothy 2, and it seems to say that in other passages and 12 male apostles. And that was the environment I grew up in, and that was the lens through which I read Scripture. And it made sense to me. But as I got older and, you know, over the years in ministry and teaching in colleges, you know, I'm getting to know other scholars who also love the Bible, also love Jesus and didn't hold to that view. And I'm like, well, they're offering faithful interpretations of the text on other issues. Like, what are they seeing that I haven't been told yet? And so every time I wanted to dig into the issue, I just got overwhelmed with the pile of literature that's been written on it. I said, oh, I need to wait until I have some time to really wade through this issue as thoroughly as I can before I can say for myself, here's what I think the Bible says. So, so I, I kind of pled the fifth. I, I just said I don't know what I think up until last few years when I got some time to dig in and, and devote a substantial amount of time to, to researching it. And so that's the book begins with that journey. I begin, I don't begin with a conclusion because I didn't have one. I didn't know.

[B]

Yeah, you wrote this in real time. This has sort of come with me as I try to figure this out.

[A]

Right. Yeah. And I didn't have a leaning one way or another. I, I'm very centered on the Bible. Like if God said only men can be leaders and God said it and I believe it and that settles it. As my grandma said, you know, or if, you know, these passages have not been interpreted correctly, you know, in terms of the so called traditional view, then go with what the text says. So that's the spirit in which I started.

[B]

Yeah, it's interesting to me because, you know, I want to dig a little bit deeper because we live in an age where people tend not to be open minded or open mindedness is a sign of unfaithfulness. You know, as soon as you're child starts to rethink things or read from a different stream, a lot of parents panic. It's like this is what we taught you and it's almost a badge of honor. As in this is where I sit on the ideological theological spectrum and I'm not budging. And now all of my evidence supports my current view.

[A]

Right.

[B]

What are the problems with that as you see it?

[A]

I think it's profoundly unbiblical and it goes against the spirit of the reformers who were not just reformed, but as the saying goes, always reforming. Because the text is central and because we are fallible, we need to consistently be bringing our previously held views back to the text of scripture to see if these things are so, so yeah, people that are scared, I mean, yeah, being open minded doesn't mean just believe whatever latest thing you hear it means. Because I believe in the authority of Scripture, I'm going to keep testing, keep testing, keep bringing my views back to the text of scriptures. So I think that's the way Christians should go about being biblically centered.

[B]

Although I'd probably call myself, if you're like put yourself on a spectrum, I would be on the conservative side. Just that's probably where I fall. Some people might disagree with that because they have a particular understanding of conservatism or whatever. But I find as a conservative generally on most issues, that sometimes there can almost be a fear of opening your mind. In other words, we're conservative because we're conserving the past. We're conserving what we believe, we're conserving orthodoxy, we're conserving all the things that are important to us. And anybody who challenges that status quo is a threat. Did you, particularly, growing up in MacArthur's world, was that ever a factor for you? Were you just wired differently, or did you see that? I'm curious.

[A]

That's funny. That's a good question. That. That environment. And like any environment, there's.

[B]

I mean, it could switch the name out. Okay. There's a lot. It's not. I'm not picking on MacArthur. I'm just saying he's a good example.

[A]

But I'll speak honestly about my journey. I mean, yeah, there was that kind of fear that, you know, the conclusions that that environment came to, those are. Those are the biblical conclusions. And if you don't hold to those conclusions, you're not being biblical. But, you know, I was. So the reason why I wanted to study in that environment was because I believe so strongly in the authority of the Scriptures. If the God breathed stars into existence, breathed out his word, then I want to orient my life around the Bible. And so I. It's because they built in me this passion for the authority of Scripture that I was excited to go where the text leads. And when I found myself, you know, agreeing with some things that they were teaching me and maybe starting to disagree with some things they were teaching me, it was all because of the text of Scripture. So I took the spirit, the core of what they built into me, but I ended up not landing on all the issues that they said I should land on. So, yeah, I didn't. Did it bother me? I don't think it did. Maybe I'm wired differently. I'm just. I'm going to stand before God, not man, at the end of the day and say, you know, were you faithful? Did you rightly divide my word? Not. Did you adhere to all the traditional or whatever viewpoints that you were told when you were 19 years old? Like, God's not going to ask me that question. So I'm just. I don't. I don't mind departing from tradition if I'm convinced that the Bible says. Says it, you know.

[B]

Well, you know, I'm glad we're going there. I wasn't planning on talking about this with you. But, you know, the older I've gotten, I've read the Bible through in a year, for the most part, for the last 28 years, thereabouts. Started in the late 90s. And as you get older, I mean, I find parts of it more shocking than I ever did. And so where I'm at, like, I'm now in the Ooh. I don't know that I land on the right side of Scripture. Like, if I'm in these stories, am I a religious leader or am I the sinner looking for repentance? I'm very worried I might land on the wrong side of history. And then you get to Peter and the birth of the early church, and you get to him having the vision on the roof that the Gospel is also for the Gentiles. And he sees these things that he has been raised in that he is not allowed to touch or even think of or see or enter his house. All this unclean food, these unclean animals. And he gets this vision at three o' clock in the afternoon. And God says, no, it's clean, you can touch and eat. And he wakes up and he obeys. I would be like, I think that's a bad dream. I know I'm raised in this. Do you know what the Old Testament says? And of course, New Testament hasn't been written yet. And then he knows immediately it's not about food, it's about the Gentiles. Yes, how does he know that? And then it gets confirmed by Cornelius. But Cornelius, he's never let a Gentile into his house before. Now he lets a Gentile into his house. And I'm like, ooh, I don't know that I would be that open minded. Like, I think I would have been just on the wrong side of history. I don't know, it's just really interesting because we think of, like, I'm holding to the view as our understanding of orthodoxy. When Jesus completely upended what Orthodoxy was, the people who were out were in. And I know we preach that stuff, but when you actually look at it, it's like, ooh, like, I don't know. Any thoughts on that?

[A]

What's funny about that story is Peter ended up getting a lot of flack from his conservative Jewish, you know, brothers who wanted to maintain tradition. He capitulated. And Paul had to confront him on it. Right. In Galatians 2, it you are used to eat with Gentiles. No, you're not. And he says, you're not walking in step with the truth of the Gospel. So it's Maintaining traditions that God wasn't wanting him to maintain was a departure from the gospel. So.

[B]

Yeah, so it's really interesting, you know, open mindedness as a cardinal sin. I don't think that's, that's a great framing. And we live. I don't know whether you've seen this or not, but we've both been around leadership for a little while. I would say perhaps in the church, we feel a little more closed minded now in this season than we were 20 years ago. Does that seem right to you or not?

[A]

Yeah, it feels that way to me. It's hard to measure it, but I think the tribalism within the broad stream of Christianity seems to have gotten stronger. The walls around each tribe seem to have gotten thicker. And conversations across different tribes, again within orthodox Christianity, do seem to be not being had as much. These healthy, curious conversations, even across differences. I don't know, you know, we maybe, you know, we could blame it all on social media. Their Internet politics is a big play, you know, So I don't, I don't know the root cause, but it certainly feels that way. And that's, I don't know, I just have never operated that way. Like I, I love talking to people at different viewpoints and learning and finding blind spots in my own viewpoints. You only do that if you get outside your echo chamber and curiously engage other people. Doesn't mean you agree with, it just means you can't really unders, you can't really refute somebody unless you truly understand what they're trying to say, you know.

[B]

So, yeah, it's not so much fidelity to what I know or what I've known. It's fidelity to the gospel. I think you frame that really well. Not, not fidelity to what I once thought or once believed. Okay, so back to where you decided to pick up this journey, your more recent book, your recent book before this was on biblical sexuality and you really wanted to explore that. Now on that one, you came out with a historic understanding of human sexuality that is not affirming.

[A]

Correct, Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And that one, I approached that one. Like any topic, I want to be open to what the text says and I knew what I believe, but I didn't know why I believed it. You know, growing up, homosexuality is a sin, blah, blah, blah. But I didn't really, I wouldn't be able to defend that from scripture. I didn't even know where the Bible says it, you know, So I did a thorough study of the text. What does the Bible say about marriage? What does it say about same sex relationships. And I concluded that, yeah, here I think tradition got it. I got it right. Like marriage is between a man and a woman. The sex difference is an intrinsic part of what marriage is. It's built into the fabric of creation. It's part of the storyline of scripture. As marriage as a metaphor participates in God's covenant love for us. And sex difference is necessary for that metaphor to work. Whenever same sex relationships or sexual relationships are mentioned, they're always prohibited. So I did. I tried to understand the affirming view the best I could and say, if it's biblical, then let's go with it. But I just didn't see it in Scripture. So, yeah, I landed on. Not just landed, but I think this is a very important doctrine that, you know, that marriage is between a man and a woman. And so I've been, yeah, I've written a few books defending that. Where some people maybe got thrown off is I said, and also we should embody the radical kindness of God that leads to repentance toward LGBTQ people. And that's where some people, they're like, we're on board with you theology, but this kindness and love and understanding, we're not so sure. But I'm like, it comes from Jesus. You know that, right?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Well. And, you know, some people would react to the kindness and love, some people would react to the repentance. There's no need to repent. Right. Welcome to the era that we're in. But what's interesting about that to me, and this is why I really wanted to have this conversation, if it was just based on, well, I met some really smart people and they changed their mind on this issue or they hold a different view. There are some very smart people who have changed their views or hold a different view, an affirming view of sexuality. I know some of them, I haven't changed my mind on that either. I'm not affirming at this point, but I wanna show the kindness and et cetera, et cetera. I just can't get away from the scripture on that issue. But usually what would happen is you would come out affirming and then come out egalitarian and then et cetera. But what I find really interesting is your biblical study on sexuality led you to affirm the historic understanding of man and woman, et cetera, and sexuality. But your biblical understanding on women and leadership led you to embrace a different position from where you had started, right? Yeah.

[A]

People try to throw out the slippery slope thing. Like, if you affirm women in leadership, then you're gonna be affirming of same sex relationships. And I'm like, we're dealing with two different, two different issues. And I make it really clear in my book that we shouldn't diminish sex differences, male, female differences, in order to achieve a view where women can be leaders in a church. The question isn't, are men and women different? Of course they're different. The question is, do those differences determine who can be in a position of leadership or not? So we're really dealing with different things. And yes, anecdotally, every affirming person I know is also egalitarian in terms of those who confess Jesus. But the slippery slope has two sides too. I want to remind people.

[B]

What's the other side of the slippery slope?

[A]

Well, I mean, if you think just defending a complementarian view, if it's not the best interpretation of scripture, like the slippery slope is, you're not allowing half of the kingdom the opportunity to be in positions of leadership when God may be calling them to leadership. And not that this is true of all complementarian contexts, but it could foster a kind of misogyny or devaluing of women. I've been in complementarian churches that don't do that, and I've seen some that do, you know, so just because you maintain tradition and maintain your conservatism doesn't mean you could also that you're immune from not aligning with scripture in the other direction.

[B]

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[A]

That was the conclusion, yeah. Conclusion.

[B]

You're on a plane, but at the beginning, you're starting out and you really don't know. And normally you write a book after you've figured it all out. This is like, let's go for the ride. So you start in Genesis. What did you learn about men and women? One of my mentors early on in ministry, he said, everything I need to know about God and life, I Learned in Genesis 1:3. And the more I think about that, the more I'm like, yeah, there's a lot there. What did you learn in Genesis 1 through 3?

[A]

It's cruel. I mean, this passage is really important for the debate. Some people say the entire debate rests on Genesis 1 to 3. I think that's a little too far. But clearly it's an important text. And especially in my, you know, in my complementarian upbringing, you know, I often heard of the arguments. You know, Adam was born first, therefore he is in authority over Eve. Eve is his helper. Therefore Adam has priority. And Eve exists to help her husband, but he's really kind of doing the main work, you know, and. And. And this is a paradigm for all future, you know, male, female relations. And there's other arguments that people draw out of Genesis 1 to 3. And so I kind of went back to the text of Scripture, and I just wanted to really see what are the arguments for the different views here, and do they hold exegetical weight? And so I kind of considered a lot of the main ones, you know, like, yeah, Adam being born first. I looked into that. And a lot of people will point out that there's a principle in the ancient world called primogeniture, where the firstborn son would take over leadership of the family when the father dies. So he is kind of in authority over the rest of his siblings, the rest of the household. And I'm like, okay, well, that helped

[B]

in the 19th century in caste societies and maybe is still active in some cultures today. Primogeniture. And inherited the lion's share of everything.

[A]

Right? And you see that as a. You see that in ancient Israelite culture, for sure. But then, you know, I started looking at the situation of Adam and Eve, and I was like, well, Adam and Eve are spouses, not siblings. She is not his younger brother. And there's no father who has died to pass on the inheritance. So, yeah, he's created first. But to just say, oh, this is a primogeniture, it's like, well, is it, though? Like, it doesn't seem to match up. But most importantly. And this is something that I kind of knew intuitively, but I just read through all the passages, and it's like, man, God often overturns primogeniture throughout Scripture.

[B]

I was gonna say that's Joseph. That's Jacob and Esau. Right.

[A]

Herod and Uzzah and David and his brothers. I mean, you can go on and on. This seems to be something that. Yes, it was a cultural norm, but God often challenges this culminating in Jesus mantra that he said. So often, you know, the last will be first, the first will be last. The last Adam is better than the first, you know, so it's just to say, like, simply because Adam is born first, this is primogeniture. He has priority over the woman, therefore, women shouldn't be in church leadership. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That. There's several theological leaps and assumptions going on there that just aren't there clearly in Genesis. So. Yeah, well.

[B]

And there's a blame game, too, right? It was Eve who was deceived. Right. I've heard that one. What did you make of that?

[A]

That would. That would. I did talk about that. That was one of the weaker arguments. You know, it's like, you know, I even point out. I'm like, you know, it took the most craftiest being in the universe to deceive the woman, and she sinned. What did it take for Adam to sin? His wife offered him some fruit.

[B]

You know, he's like, yeah, the dumb silent type. Like, okay, looks good to me. I'm hungry.

[A]

If we're gonna say this is like a kn. Someone's intellect, then it could go. We can get all off the rails and saying Adam was, you know, you know, way dumber than Eve. Whatever, you know? So I just, like, I don't. I don't think. Again, I'm asking a question. Is a text trying to tell us something intentional about authority, structure, and leadership in the way they're retelling the story of Adam and Eve. And that's where, with all these arguments I just said, I mean, maybe I just don't see the biblical author really trying to promote that. Another one is, you know, Adam names his wife, you know, in Genesis 2:23, you shall be called woman, for you are taken out of man. And you do have. In the ancient world, when somebody names somebody Else. Or changes the name of somebody else. Like Nebuchadnezzar was changing the names of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Is that right? Yeah, no, that was.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah, right, yeah.

[A]

I'm like, okay, yeah, you see that in scripture. But then you see cases where the person doing the naming isn't demonstrating authority over the person being named. Like in the case of Hagar, who names God in Genesis 16, or there's a story in Genesis, I believe it's 26, where the naming, giving a name to the place where the well was dug is actually a way of kind of relinquishing authority. It's kind of an odd passage, but it's like, okay, so. And he doesn't really. He doesn't name her Eve there. He does that at the end of chapter three. But that's in the context of the fall in 2. 23. He just calls her woman. Is that a naming? Is he naming her? Well, it's not too clear. And just because he names her, it's not always the case. That's a demonstration of authority. So again, with all these arguments, I was like, okay, you know, it's kind of like, maybe, but there's problems with that argument. And other arguments were like, I don't think this really holds weight at all. So, you know, I just say, I don't. I don't think there's a clear intention from the biblical author trying to promote kind of male authority over woman in Genesis 1 to 3.

[B]

So the old Testament, you continue, right? Like, if it was clear in there, you're trying to do exegesis rather than eisegesis. Right? You're trying to draw meaning out of the text rather than import your own perspective into the text, which you can easily do with any passage. I mean, preachers have done it for years, but you move on to the Old Testament. What else did you discover?

[A]

So I just, you know, I really wanted to get to the New Testament because that's really the heart of the debate. But I'm like, man, you got two thirds of the Bible here. And the Old Testament was the early church's Bible. The New Testament wasn't written yet. So what did it say about women? Well, that's a big question. So I wanted to see what are some ways in which women appear in the Old Testament story, as has been pointed out by many people. And if you just read the Old Testament once, you would get this impression that men outnumber women by far in the biblical story. Right. And statistically, it's actually for every one woman that's named, 10 men are named. So men out there, 10 to 1. 10 to 1, yeah. And you got, you know, all the, you know, all the patriarchs and Moses and Aaron and, you know, David and all the kings and, you know, so it's like, yeah, it's, it's, it seems like a drama between God and men, and it largely is. But when women do come on the scene, they often model the radical faithfulness and sacrifice and courage that Yahweh demands sometimes, oftentimes in contrast to the men around them. My favorite is the early chapters of Exodus. This is something I didn't see for years, but the early chapters of Exodus, you know, this, this major turning point in redemptive history where God's going to go redeem his people. And we always think, yeah, and he used Moses and Aaron to go down and do that. I'm like, yeah, but let's revisit the early chapters. Exodus 1 to 4. It is all women who are carrying out God's plan of redemption. You got the two Hebrew midwives in chapter one who with, you know, thumb their noses at the king's edict, you know, risking their lives. And then chapter two, you have, it's Moses mom and then Moses sister and then Pharaoh's daughter. And then in chapter four, you have my favorite story in the Bible, Zipporah, Moses wife. You know, God's gonna kill Moses because he forgot to circumcise his son. So Zipporah busts out her flint rock, circumcises Gershom and throws it at Moses feet. And the author needs to tell us that. And it touched his feet, you know, so it's. But that's. Think about that. This is written, this essential part of the storyline of scripture is written in a profoundly patriarchal context. And the authors are highlighting all of these courageous women who are carrying out God's plan, redemption. And where's Moses? Well, he's kind of fumbling and stumbling. He's scared, he's reluctant. God does end up using him. And Moses goes on to do great things. But it's like, man, the women here are just, you know, they're the star of the show at early on in Exodus. And you see this all throughout the Old Testament with Abigail and, and Ruth and Rahab and other and, you know, some female prophets, Deborah and Holda and others. So quantity isn't the same as quality. While men outnumber women by far. Gosh, God's giving us a glimpse of women just being rock Stars for the kingdom, even early on in the Old Testament.

[B]

Right. So that's the Old Testament. And in your mind, if it was just an Old Testament story, where did that leave you?

[A]

Well, it's one thing for women to demonstrate faithfulness, you know, I mean, all Christians should be faithful leaders or non leaders. So just because you're being a really awesome Yahweh follower doesn't mean, doesn't necessarily mean therefore you should occupy a formal role of leadership. So I did, and this is how, this is really the spirit of how my whole book lays out. I'm typically not drawing a one to one correlation between this passage and therefore women should be leaders. It's just kind of an unfolding cumulative case that's building. But there are two, well, at least two people in the Old Testament that do contribute to this conversation, of course, Deborah and Huldah. Who. Deborah is a prophet and a judge and is, you know, I considered all the counter arguments. People try to get around it, but man, she is occupying a formal leadership role in Israel at that time. Huldah, same thing. There's no. The author makes no, he just kind of mentions her like, of course, yeah, they went to Huldah and you know, Josiah sent an elite delegation to go to Huldah to seek the Lord. And what's interesting is Jeremiah is in Jerusalem at that time. He doesn't go to hold that. She's like, here's the word of the Lord and they move on and you know, big revolution happens. So. And yeah, and Deborah too. And people say, well, they're not teachers. You know, the priests were the teachers. And that's true. Priests were the commission teachers of the law. But prophets held the most authority in ancient Israel, which was kind of very countercultural. I mean, you know the famous scene in 2 Samuel 12 when Nathan comes and rebukes the king. There's no other ancient near east culture where the king would receive a rebuke from anybody, you know, but here the prophets were king makers and king breakers. And so the fact that you have two female prophets and the biblical author doesn't hoe and hum or you know, they just kind of mention them, that that's. Again, I don't want to end the discussion. Women can be elders, whatever, but like that's like, well, if God had etched into creation, only men should hold authority over women. Even these few clear exceptions are like, well, either this is sinful Deborah and Huldah, or maybe God didn't lay this out in creation to be upheld for every place in all time.

[B]

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[A]

Yeah, briefly with Jesus. I mean, by the time I got to the Gospels, I was still like, man, I'm seeing things here that I didn't see before. And I'm kind of like, this is interesting. But I wasn't. I still was like, I'm still not sure where I'm going to land the ministry of Jesus. You know, I've never. Up until my study, I was never really impressed with the egalitarian arguments I'd see, just the ones that kind of came across in passing. To like, well, Mary Magdalene, you know, she preached the resurrection and she's the apostle to the apostles. And I'm like, well, I don't know a single complementarian who says no, women can't talk about the resurrection in front of men. Like, is that. I don't, I don't think that's what they were saying. And Jesus really valued women. And like, of course non leaders are valued too, you know, that doesn't mean they should be ordained or whatever. But when I look deeper into it, there's some interesting things going on in the Gospels. The way the Gospel writers retell Jesus's interaction with women, you know, kind of like the Old Testament, oftentimes women are modeling the radical courage, sacrifice, faithfulness that Jesus demands, the rigorous cruciform way of Jesus. Women are, again, they don't appear as often, but when they do, they're modeling it oftentimes in Contrast to the 12 who are doing not that, don't getting it wrong.

[B]

It's like, I didn't mean to cut off the ear, but I got so mad, you know.

[A]

So again, I don't want to draw a straight line between that and leadership. But it's like, wow, okay, this is still part of this unfolding redemptive story. But there is one place that really caught my attention. The one place where Jesus comes as close as he comes to talking directly about leadership is in Mark 10 and the parallels where James and John want to occupy positions of leadership in God's kingdom. And, and then so Jesus gives him his kind of kingdom perspective on authority. And he says, you know, the Gentiles lorded over you, but that's not going to be this way in my kingdom. It's going to be the servant. The one who serves is greater than the one who is served. It's like, okay, so Jesus sees serving as a key component of leadership. Who's serving in the Gospels? And here's what I did. I've never seen this before, and there's a couple articles that kind of pointed out in passing. But the only two followers of Jesus who serve in Mark's Gospel occur at both ends of the Gospels. Peter's mother in law is healed, serves Jesus. And at the very end, Mark 15, you have the Galilean women who followed Jesus and served him. That word diakonia, diakaneo is only used in describing people other than Jesus, only used in these two places. And both times are describing women bookending the entire gospel. And at the heart of this gospel is Mark 10, Jesus overturning the Kind of hierarchical structure in the Greco Roman society. So that's where I'm like, okay, does he call them elders? No. Does that determine the. Do we end the discussion? No. But women were therefore, according to Jesus's definition of leadership, the only ones modeling leadership type qualities in the Gospels. So that got the wheels turning. But for me it was really chapter four, chapter five, where I talk about leadership in the early church. And then Romans 16 where I talk about Phoebe, Priscilla and. And Junior. I'm like, I think, I think there's women doing some leadership stuff in the church.

[B]

Well, let's go there. Let's talk about the early church. So I mean, I think anybody would say Jesus honored and elevated women. I mean, from the Samaritan woman to Mary Magdalene. And then there's that little verse in Luke that says it was the women who supported him financially, the whole patronage thing. And then you can move into the New Testament church. And Lydia was probably a patron of the Apostle Paul, et cetera. So where does that go in the early church?

[A]

Yeah, so this was a chapter I didn't plan on writing and it might be the most important chapter in my book, at least more significant to my argument. It's one that I don't often see explored as often in the conversation. So I wrote a whole chapter I wanted to dive into. What was the early church like? The first century house churches? What was leadership like? You know, I just assumed that Paul had an ironed out structure of you have senior pastor, elders, deacons, and you know, you read first Timothy, Titus, and it seems, you know, yeah, here's the leadership structure that Paul's working with. But what I found was it was way more fluid and messy and not so ironed out. Paul only mentions overseers and elders in three of his 13 letters. I never even knew that. Philippians, Titus and Timothy one, Timothy. But he identifies and describes leaders all throughout his letters. He'll use other terms like those who manage or care for their church. The Greek word proustami. He talks about co workers. He talks about those who work hard in the gospel, which seems, okay, they work hard. But in almost every case, and maybe every case, when he identifies somebody as working hard in the gospel, when we corroborate evidence, like we look at that person elsewhere, they're all leaders, you know. And in four places in Romans 16, he identifies women who are also working hard in the gospel. If he's not describing leaders there, it's the only place where this phrase isn't describing a leader or Paul's favorite Leadership term that he uses most often of himself and other apostles is the word servant, which makes sense. Mark 10. It's the one who serves. So this is where I think if we come. And this is where I even changed the questions I was asking. If we come to this issue saying, well, show me where women are elders. I'm like, that's a question. But elder is one of many leadership terms Paul uses. And you don't have a hierarchical structure of senior pastor elders and then deacons. We have that in the second century, Ignatius and others. So. But it's just not ironed out like that in the first century. So then I said, okay, we have a wider vocabulary of leadership we can work with. And then when we bring that wide vocabulary to the text, we're like, oh, yeah, Paul is identifying women with leadership terminology in various places throughout the New Testament.

[B]

So there were three in particular. And I hope I got this right. Phoebe, Priscilla, and Junia that were. I mean, you even put Junia in the COVID of your book, the title of your book. But what was in particular about those three women, Phoebe? Because a lot of the arguments are Mary Magdalene and, you know, so on and so forth. So what was it about those three? Or even Chloe, et cetera. What was interesting about Phoebe, Priscilla, and Junior?

[A]

Yeah, so these are three of. I think there's 10 women that are named in Romans 16 in a list of so many greetings. And I've even had somebody recently tell me on social Media, well, Romans 16 is insignificant, and Paul's just greeting a bunch of people. I'm like, yeah, you don't understand ancient letter writing. The end of a letter in the first century, where you greet people is one of the most crucial parts of a letter. It captures the theological themes of the letter. It's really significant. So. So this is not just a fringe appendix to Paul's mighty Roman letter. You know, it's like this is. This is really crucial to his how he sees ministry. And, yeah, he names a bunch of women three in particular. He gives some pretty interesting descriptions. And here's where I just look at the. What's the terminology Paul's using when he's describing Phoebe and Priscilla and Junia? And my conclusion is. And I try to be Carrie, I tried to be. So, like, okay, what about this? What about that? Like, weigh everything. And at the end of the day, if you take the cumulative case of these three women, I think all three were doing leadership things in the church, you know, Phoebe. Okay, so Phoebe, she's called a patron or Benefactor. She's a wealthy woman. She's called a servant of the church in King Crea. And again, servant could mean somebody. Paul likes to use that as a leadership term. The word itself doesn't mean leadership. So we're not sure here. But as a wealthy, high status woman who's also the servant of the church man, that, you know, I'm like, okay, I'm still trying to push back on myself. I'm like, okay. She, Phoebe, would have been seen as a leader in her Greco Roman world because if you had high status, you're wealthy, she owns a home, you know, she's funding other people. Like she would have been viewed as a leader. Would she have been viewed that way in the church? The fact that Paul calls her not just a wealthy high status woman, but she's a servant of the church. She's not just holding her authority over people. You know, it's like.

[B]

And vice. Servant. Is that Doulos? Is that what Paul called himself?

[A]

That's Diaconos. Diakos. Diaconos, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a word he often uses. Yeah. To describe himself, to describe Jesus, you know. And again, the word itself, servant doesn't always mean leader. He just likes to refer to leaders by, by that term. But then the big one for me too is like Phoebe was the letter carrier. She's the one that carried the letter to the Roman Church. And that's. Nobody disputes that. But then I did a whole deep dive on what was it like to carry a letter in the first century. And there's been a lot written on this. Cicero talks about it a lot. The letter carrier would have not only carried the letter, not only have read the letter, but scholars in this area like to talk about proo. Forming the letter, embodying a letter, hand gestures, intonation, you, you are responsible for embodying the message of the one who wrote the letter. And as Cicero talks about, he talks a lot about letter carriers in the first century. They would be put. They. It was not uncommon for the letter carrier to be called upon to explain things. They would ask questions, what about this, what about that? So they had to really be familiar with the letter. And this letter is crucial to Paul's ministry. If we take history seriously, I mean, she probably sat down, they probably went over it, over it. She probably knew it inside and out because she's going to have to not just monotone, read the letter. She's going to have to perform the letter to the church and possibly be called upon to answer questions and offer an interpretation Interpretation. Did she answer questions? Did she offer an interpretation? The text doesn't say. What we do know is that Paul had no problem putting this woman in a position where she very well could have been called upon to ask, to answer and interpret the letter. So if Paul was very much against women interpreting Romans in a public setting, he wouldn't have put her in that position. So all that to say, and I'm being a little long, you got to, well, sum it up. You know, you kind of take all these cumulative things with Phoebe, and it's like, I just. The weight of evidence suggests that she would have been viewed as a leader in the church. And same thing with Priscilla and, of course, Junia, who he calls an apostle.

[B]

So that was just the same word he would use for the other apostles. He called her apostle.

[A]

It's the same word for apostle. There's two major debate. There used to be three debates. One of one. One of the first debates was whether Junia is even a woman. That's been pretty much settled now. I don't. There's, like, one scholar I found that doesn't think she was a woman. The two debates are whether he says that she is an apostle or highly esteemed in the eyes of the male apostles. And I worked through the Greek grammar there, and there's been a lot written on this. And I kind of went back and forth, back and forth. But the more I looked at how this phrase is used throughout Greek literature, the weight of evidence points to Paul identifying her as an apostle. In fact, you know, I'm not fluent in Greek. You're not fluent in Greek. Probably nobody is listening. Well, they can't, you know, Koine Greek is not their native tongue. Okay, even. Exactly, exactly. So it's like classical Greek. So we're trying to analyze this ancient stuff. But then, you know, you look at some early fathers, like Chrysostom, who was a native Greek speaker, and he comes across Romans 16:7, and he's, like, blown away. He's like, gosh, Paul is just praising Junia. And she's not only, you know, an apostle, but she's highly esteemed as an apostle. A native Greek speaker read this as. Yeah, Paul.

[B]

That's what it means, right?

[A]

And Chrysostom. And probably most church fathers, they would have no problem saying, yeah, this woman is on apostle. It's like they were okay with that. You know, they were kind of shocked by it, you know. So, yeah, so I. And then some people say, well, yeah, apostle. Just, you know, she's not one of the 12, like, well, obviously neither is Paul, neither is Apollos, but they're still apostles. Well, maybe she's just like a missionary or a messenger. I'm like, there's two passages where Paul refers to messengers from a church with the word Apostolos, but he says she's highly esteemed among the apostles, as many scholars point out. It just seems like she's identifying her as part of this group, not some generic reference to messengers of a church. So, yeah, I think, you know, I think we have to wrestle with that passage for sure. I think the weight of evidence says he's identifying her as an apostle.

[B]

So what I appreciate is, you know, what does the text do, which I think often gets overlooked because we focus on what the text says, if that makes sense. So in the early church, here's how it was functioning. This is what they were doing. I'd never thought about until this conversation that maybe the first time the letter of Romans was read aloud was through the lips of a woman. A woman read that for the first time. That is a new thought for me. And of course, everyone's waiting for this moment. It is shameful even for a woman to speak in church. Must have her head covered, you know, submit to your husbands all of those passages that get quoted again and again. So what is your take on those passages? And those have been well debated over the years.

[A]

So there's three passages. You mentioned them. 1 Corinthians 11, 1 Corinthians 14, and 1 Timothy 2. The first one we can cover quickly because 1 Corinthians 11, the whole head coverings passage, it actually doesn't really speak directly to women in leadership because the only two ministries mention prayer and prophecy. Paul assumes women and men are doing that. He doesn't have any problem with that. Where the passage gets tricky is there's a debate about whether the head covering represents the husband's authority over his wife. So at most, what we can say is that Paul is advocating for women praying and prophesying, doing ministry in church while still being under the authority of their husbands, not under the authority of elders. Because some of my soft complementarian friends will say, yeah, see, you have male elders, and women can teach and preach under that. And that may or may not be true. But this passage, there's no elders anywhere. So at most what we would say is still recognizing a husband's authority over his wife. But the passage is far more complex than that versus and here I'll just reference people and we can go on to another one. Because I spent A lot of time in my book on this chapter. But he says all this early on, head coverings, man came from. Or woman came from man, not man from woman. But then he turns around in verse 11 and says, however, in the Lord, it's like, you know, man is. Woman is not independent from man. Man's not independent from woman. For just as woman came from man, all men come from women. So he kind of like, it almost sounds like he disagrees. Yeah, he flips it, or at least he bounces it out or gives another perspective. But he, he, he, those first few words, however, in the Lord, it's like, well, wait, so there's something that you have just been saying all along, Paul, that's not in the Lord. What does that mean? Long story short, I think Paul is advocating that women should adhere to a social custom that does symbolize male authority. But then he turns around and gives kind of a new creation perspective. However, in the Lord, there is neither male nor female and we're all in Christ. You know, so a little bit maybe

[B]

like his marriage argument, it's like, look, I wish you were all single and then we'd have population zero. But, you know, for those of you who are burning up with desire, go ahead and get married. Just be careful. Right.

[A]

So that leaves us. So that passage really doesn't, it doesn't speak directly to the women in Leadership question 1 Timothy or sorry, 1 Corinthians 14. Women be silent. Clearly, Paul can't be saying women can't utter a peep in church because he just said they're praying and prophesying. So some people say Paul didn't even write these verses. I don't think that's the best approach. When I looked into that passage, this is 1 Corinthians 14, 34, 35. Some of the key words there that cause people to stumble or get upset. Women be silent. You need to submit. Sit down and learn. If you want to learn, go ask your husbands. I kind of just looked at all those kind of key words, silent and submit and learn. And it's interesting. Paul's been using these words all along in 1 Corinthians 14. And so if we just use our standard hermeneutic that we learned in first year Bible college, like, what does this word mean by the same author? Hopefully in the same context. Like all throughout 1 Corinthians 14, he's been addressing disruptive speech, speaking in tongues without an interpreter present or interrupting a prophet. Let you know, sit down and wait your turn, and let people prophesy one by one, and then he uses all these same words to speak directly to the woman. So I think. And this is one where I think, to me, this interpretation was pretty clear. The First Corinthians 11, 1, that one's hard. We need to like, man, we need to land softly on what we think about 1 Corinthians 11. This one just really made a lot of sense to me that based on how Paul's been using these words, Paul is addressing, he's not telling women, don't utter a peep. He's saying, don't interrupt, don't speak while another prophet is speaking, because that's going to prevent learning from happening. I mean, just look at the few verses before. This is exactly what he's been saying on a general level. And here he's probably addressing a situation where there was a group of women in particular that were, you know, interrupting prophets when they were prophesying. So.

[B]

And that's what was shameful.

[A]

Yeah, because in that culture, you know, Paul's sensitive to his social context. All throughout his letters, he's, you know, even in First Corinthians 14 in that chapter, he's like, what if an unbeliever comes in and sees, like, he's concerned

[B]

about how fueled a lot of my ministry is. Like, hey, church, we gotta pay attention. There's non believers in the room. Like, come on. Yeah, don't be the crazy people. Okay. Like that Fields so much of my ministry over the years.

[A]

So in the first century, and I actually read Plutarch, a first century writer has a whole letter addressed to Listening Etiquette. And it was shameful for anybody to interrupt anybody giving a public address, but it would have been hyper shameful for a woman to cut off or interrupt a man in that social context. So, yeah, that would have brought a lot of stain on the church. People would have assumed that women are being, you know, just ruling over their husbands and husbands are not being good leaders or whatever. Like, it would have really been missionally poor on the church to have that happening. So, yeah, I think it would have been extra shameful for women to be doing this. And Paul's sensitive to his cultural context, and that's. I think that's why, you know, he was singling him out. Yeah.

[B]

And culture shows up. I mean, I might be mixing my Old Testament stories here. This one isn't entirely fresh, but I think it was King David who went in and they had their clothes torn off and their buttocks were exposed. And it's like, that was bad but we actually had to let them sit out in the wilderness until their beards grew back in because it's just so shameful for men to show up without a beard. It's like, well, I guess I'm in pretty bad shape then as a Christian, so are you, Preston. Although you got some stubble there. You got some stubble there, you know. But I mean, we do see this in Scripture throughout the Old and New Testament, that there are cultural practices that just impact that. Okay, so that's that. And then there was. What was the other one?

[A]

It was Timothy 2, the famous first Timothy 2. Paul says, I am not, I don't permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over man because Adam was created first. You know, so there you do have this appeal there.

[B]

It settles it, right? You gotta be complementarian.

[A]

Case closed. What I point, I devote. It's my longest chapter. I devote like 50 pages just to first Timothy two and chapter three. So, yeah, if my take here is brief, my treatment in the book is not. One thing I want to remind people is we don't start with first Timothy 2. Like we have to kind of take the canonical progress. So, you know what's been happening so far throughout scripture up until 1 Timothy 2. So, yeah, I think people start with 1 Timothy 2, they read it quickly and then they say, okay, now we know women can't teach or preach. Now let's go look at all the other passages. And it's like, well, no, let's look at all the other passages and come to this one and see what Paul's saying here. So textually, the one thing, the one big thing for me is there's a well known debate about the Greek word translated authority here, authentine. And it's a super rare word. It's not used anywhere else in the Bible, the New Testament. It's not used anywhere else, the Greek Old Testament, not used anywhere else. And it's actually very rare in Greek literature outside the Bible. It's only used less than a dozen times a couple hundred years on either side of Paul. So it's like, gosh, all right, well, what does this word mean? It's translated different ways. And so what I did, I said, you know what? I'm going to look at every single time this word is used. I'm going to study the context and see if we can figure out, based on other usage, what does this word mean? And I found, and I lay this all out in the book really clearly. This is probably the most tedious part of the book is five pages of looking at Greek papyri and looking at the context. But I'm like, I want people to see, like, I don't. I go with the text. Don't go with me. I want you to show you why I'm arriving at my view. Every single time this Greek word occurs, it's in the context of a master exercising master, like authority over his slave or somebody of a high social status kind of dominating somebody of a low social status. It feels very much like the. The thing Jesus denounced in Mark 10. It's the Gentiles who lorded over you. That's a different word.

[B]

So it's kind of. I don't permit women to lord over or dominate men in the churches would be the sense of it.

[A]

Based on the available linguistic evidence we have, I think that is the best way to translate that word. And then if you look into the social context, women did have a. There was an unusually high number of women in Ephesus and in Asia Minor who had a lot of wealth and status and power and even occupied positions of leadership. And so it would make sense socially that in this situation at Ephesus, there would be a situation where women were maybe doing that kind of exercising more dominating authority over men, which was common in that culture with people of high social status and women high social status in that culture.

[B]

So women would culturally dominate over men if they had high social status.

[A]

You're saying it was unusual, but it was not. I mean, that's just what like queens

[B]

would do in medieval times.

[A]

I would say it was just what authority meant. In the Greco Roman culture, if you had high social status. Like, you don't serve one that has low social status. You boss them around, you tell them what to do. Like, you kind of, you don't, you

[B]

know, if you want to Study hierarchy, study 1st century Greco Roman culture.

[A]

It's really complex. Yeah, yeah. So people often. People often say like, well, women didn't have high status, men did. I'm like, well, generally speaking, that's true. But if a wealthy female had a male slave, oh, she had high status and she would be free to treat him however she wanted to, you know, so. Yeah, so. Right. All right there. That kind of changes the meaning of the passage. If Paul is prohibiting women from. And I take teach and exercise authority as kind of a expressing a single idea, which is a common way the Greek phrase works. I do not permit women to teach in a dominating way over man. And then the tricky part is he goes to creation. And this man. I spent a lot of pages Looking at how to interpret this, I used to think that Paul is clearly saying the reason why women shouldn't be doing this is because Adam, because Adam was created first. And if I'm right about the word authority, then it's like, great, yeah, women should never dominate men in that unchristian fashion. That doesn't mean they can't exercise godly authority or teach in a godly way. It just means they shouldn't exercise ungodly kinds of authority and dominating teaching. But the Greek word translated, because there it could also mean, for instance, like, it could be given an illustration, Paul could be going back to creation, not to say, you know, this is going against the creation created order. But he could be saying, for instance, you know, in the case of Adam, this, this happened. And we see Paul appeal to like the deception of Eve in 2 Corinthians as an illustration, not as kind of like a creation, a departure from a creational norm. So all that to say, I say, you know what? I could totally see where complementarians, you know, I can totally see where they read this passage like they may. It's like, you know what? That's not an outlandish way to read the passage. But I point out, I'm like, this passage, number one, is more complex than some people make it out to be. And actually, I think the complementarian reading isn't. What I say is, it's not. I don't think it's the best way. I think it actually creates more problems in the text itself than it solves. Is it possible? I think it's possible. Like, I don't browbeat complimentarily. How could you dare? You know, it's like, yeah, I mean, it's a complex passage, but I do think there's better ways to interpret it. And especially in light of everything we've said so far about women, I always see rather clearly doing leadership type things in the church.

[B]

So, you know, and I appreciate how you hold your conclusion. You said this isn't a first principles thing like the resurrection or the deity of Jesus or anything like that. But in the process, you went from being raised complementarian to saying, perhaps the better biblical view based on all my studying and this journey would be an egalitarian where women are equal. Do you see? I'm just curious, do you see any limits like female lead pastors or teaching, but not preaching or any of the things that you can be a director but not a pastor, all the workarounds that the church is doing these days? How would you speak into that?

[A]

That I don't, I don't see that. I respect, I would say a lot of people that I'm in sort of ministry with or churches I speak at would have that kind of view where women could do many things, but not all the things. You know, my main pushback to that, and this goes back to my chapter on leadership in the first century. I think it assumes kind of rigid modern leadership categories that the New Testament wasn't working with. You know, the word pastor is only used once in the entire New Testament in reference to a church leadership position in Ephesians 4:11. Pastor, teacher. I don't see the idea of a senior pastor anywhere. The closest we can come is it's possible that the overseer in first Timothy 3 and Titus 1 was kind of a leader of a house church. And the elders were sort of a group, kind of a broader group who were leaders, but the overseer was kind of the single leader of a house church. That's why that's really debated that, you know, it's possible. But senior pastor, then group of elders and deacons under them, again, that, that, that was crystallized in the second century. I just don't see it so ironed out in the New Testament.

[B]

You know, I can't believe this hasn't come up in all of my years in Christian leadership and being a, or even in seminary. But my view of the early house church was kind of like, oh yeah, we just opened our door and you're welcome and we just meet here. And you know, it was a little more organized than that, but it's sort of almost like we would see small group, you know, mid sized group, but very, very decentralized. And the letter would make its way around Galatia and Ephesus, et cetera, et cetera. So this is interesting. So you're of the view that there are, are solid reasons biblically for having a complementarian where, you know, women can't teach or preach or lead, and also legitimate views, legitimate viewpoints in the scripture. This is one of those issues where perhaps faithful Christians can conclude either way. Unlike in your view, sexuality, right?

[A]

100%. Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

100%. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Now you did hint at this earlier. It's no excuse for misogyny no matter where you stand, right?

[A]

100%. Yeah, yeah. And I, you know, so I, yeah, I land egalitarian in the book. I don't like that term, actually. I say that, I use it all throughout the conclusion. I'm like, you know, I actually don't love this term. What would you Call it, I don't know, you know, some people are saying mutualist. I don't think there is mutualist. I don't know, feels like you're trying

[B]

to sell me a financial instrument.

[A]

So I don't, I have not yet found a term that I actually absolutely love. But you know, at the end of the day, okay, if people, I know people will say, you know what, I don't quite agree with your conclusion. Hopefully they'll still appreciate my approach. But at the end of the day, there's a lot in the book that just celebrates the influence and the wisdom and the courage of women. And if you're in a complementarian church and you're not doing that, I don't think that's a healthy complementary church. Like, yeah, I think we can be empowering and celebrating and learning from women. Even if you say certain roles are reserved for men, what do you think

[B]

is at stake for the church as we wrestle with this issue?

[A]

Well, both sides will say something different. Yes, egalitarians, here's me being diplomatic. I should run for office.

[B]

Apparently that doesn't get you very far anymore, but go ahead, I'd love that.

[A]

I'm not on the files, I promise. Egalitarians will say, well, you're preventing half of the kingdom of God from at least the possibility of fulfilling their God given call to be in leadership position if God is calling them to that. And complementarians will say, well, you're kind of destroying God's created design. You're messing with the very fabric of creation when you, you know, mess with, or you, you abolished, you know, distinctions between men and women in, in the church. And so I think, hopefully you can hear my tone. I think both of those are a little maybe over reactive for me. You know, I, there's something to both of those sides as, as one who has landed egalitarian. Yeah, I'm very sympathetic with man. There's, I think a lot of, I, I believe biblically. I believe there are women who are gifted and called to leadership that have not been able to use those gifts. And I think both men, both women and men miss out when that's the case. I very much resonate with the concern of commentarians. You're messing with creational differences, whatever. But I'm actually not. I think men and women are different. Absolutely. And we should celebrate that. I just don't, I no longer think that those differences preclude one part of the population from being in leadership. So.

[B]

Yeah, well, I'll tell you what, I've appreciated Most. We're not trying to change anyone's mind. I think we're trying to open people's mind here just to, like, there is a thoughtful way to have the conversation. And I gotta tell you, it's a great model, I think, for how we should think. Because you've taken different issues on and been like, well, no, I'm more traditional on this one. I think that's the best reading of scripture. But, oh, on this one, I changed my mind. Best reading of scripture. So I hope we can do more and more of that. Preston, thank you. I hope this isn't our last conversation. The book is called From Genesis to Junia. It's available everywhere. And where is the best place to find you online?

[A]

Theologynorraw.com is my.1 of my websites, the one I'm probably most active on. I also have a podcast twice a week, Theology in the Raw. That's where you can find me in real time is my podcast, Theology in a Raw.

[B]

Well, it's been a lot of fun. Thank you so much.

[A]

Thanks, Gary. Appreciate it.

[B]

Well, I told you that was important for two reasons, right. First of all, I think the issue of women in leadership is important, and we promise to drill down on that because you asked us to. That was one of my church trends for 2026 women leaving the church. And a lot of you messaged me, messaged my team and said, hey, some of this has to do with our view of women in leadership. So there's a perspective I think is helpful. And we have numerous other episodes that address the issue as well. But I wanted to tackle it head on with Preston Sprinkle. So hopefully that was helpful and you may come to a different conclusion. But I think the kindness, the honoring of women is very, very important. And I think it's really interesting to hear from somebody who has one view of sexuality but has changed his mind when it comes to women in ministry. Also coming up, we have got Eric Reese from the Lean Startup, Dave Ferguson, Rich Velodis, Nicole Martin, Joel Mutamole, and if you want show notes from this or any other episode, the best place to get them is inside the Art of Leadership Academy. So you can go to theartofleadershipacademy.com and you can sign up for a free membership. We opened it up like 10 months ago, and we've had 20,000 leaders rush in. They've moved from the audience to the core, right? From the crowd to the core. Would love for you to do the same. That's where you'll find the show notes and some really intelligent, non inflamed debate. The kind we try to have on this podcast inside the Academy. So if you're looking for other leaders to run with, that's where you're going to find them. Art ofLeadership Academy theartofleadershipacademy.com and also you can just click the link in the description of this episode that'll take you there. Welcome to all of you who are listening for the first time. If you haven't given us a follow or a subscribe, please do so. And maybe if this conversation was helpful, text the link to a friend, email it to your elder board, share it with your staff and just have a meaningful discussion and maybe you change your mind, Maybe you you don't. Maybe you just have a better understanding of the issues and hopefully you're more open to being corrected by scripture. That's what I want to be in this life because I think that leads to greater faithfulness. So thank you so much for listening and I hope our time together today has helped you thrive in life and leadership.