Intimidating

“Cady, I know that having a boyfriend may seem like the most important thing in the world right now, but you don’t have to dumb yourself down to get guys to like you … I know, how would I know, right? I’m divorced; I’m broke from getting divorced; the only guy that ever calls my house is Randy from Chase Visa. And you know why? Because I’m a pusher. I push people. I pushed my husband into law school; that was a bust. I pushed myself into working three jobs. And now I’m going to push you, because I know you’re smarter than this.”

Mean Girls (2001)

 

Ah yes, pushing square glasses down the nose, a sure-fire means of increasing the intimidation factor.

Some possible answers of mine, varying in earnestness, to that spear-in-the-guts of a question, how are you still single?:

1)      Beats me, mate. I mean, personally, I think I’m great company, clever, beautiful, and pretty low-maintenance, plus I can bake and I know how to fold a fitted sheet, so you’d think the fellas would be falling over themselves to court me. But, you know, I also think that pineapple on pizza is really tasty, The Last Jedi is the best Star Wars film, and teaching oneself to read Ugaritic is a fun way to spend a free afternoon,¹ so I’m aware that my opinions of things don’t necessarily align particularly closely with those of the general populus.

2)      I think of it as an act of service to my sisters in Christ. You must have noticed the dire shortage of men in the Church, especially young and eligible ones, so I’m simply doing the other ladies a favour by letting them have the gentlemen instead of pilfering one for myself. How terribly selfless of me, don’t you agree?

3)      Well, you know, I’m not sure I really want one of these husband things anyway. They sound like rather a lot of trouble to take care of, and what would I even do with one? Well, all right, I’ll admit I have a few ideas … like, use his income to pay off a mortgage twice as fast. But I seem to have managed all right so far without one and see no reason I shouldn’t go on doing so.

4)      Go and read my May 2017 post ‘The Astonishing Adventures of Captain Oblivious’ and all shall become crystal clear. I now have the odd other example to add to the story, as well. Like the time when I didn’t realise I was being deliberately introduced to someone even though the introducer and myself had been talking about the necessity of some level of deliberacy in pursuing romantic relationships literally directly beforehand. Or the time when, something having suddenly dawned on me more than a year after the pertinent event, I asked a friend of mine, “Wait, hang on, if my married friends invited me and a single guy over to theirs for dinner and a Studio Ghibli film, does that mean they were trying to set us up? And does that mean I probably shouldn’t have suggested that they ought also to have invited another female friend of ours who also likes Studio Ghibli?”²

5)      I can only assume that men are intimidated by my height and/or intellect. One of which is only marginally more towering than the other.

And you know, I wish that last one were as stupid as it sounds, but in case you were under the misguided impression that it actually was, allow me to tell you a tale.

Oxford. Early June. Christian conference on textual studies. Mainly American delegates. Salmon for lunch. Round tables. Anticlockwise from me round ours, I overheard a comment I couldn’t let slide. “Sorry, hang on,” I interrupted. “Did you just say that you’re the only woman in your biblical languages class?”

She confirmed that I’d heard correctly. Nobody else seemed to think this fact worthy of any great comment, but I for my part was at least mildly flabbergasted. Plus, I have a vested interest in trying to figure out why people do or don’t choose to study the biblical languages as part of theology-related degrees, given that last academic year, in the spring term, I taught a Biblical Hebrew class that had halved in size since it began in September. So I had plenty of motive to ask a follow-up question: how come? Why do you think women aren’t choosing to study the biblical languages?

 

Like, who wouldn’t want to be able to read Hebrew?

To answer that, she began by establishing the context that there were plenty of women in her seminary overall; they were just choosing to study other things – like counselling, or intercultural studies. Why this aversion to the biblical languages? The first explanation she could think of was that an awful lot of women go to seminary in the hope of finding a husband.

What, I said, and guys aren’t into women who are into the biblical languages? She looked at me as if this were common knowledge. Did I know, she wondered aloud, how many guys had told her they found her intimidating because of her learnedness in that sphere? (She’s a New Testament text critic, by the way, which means she looks at variations in the text found in different manuscripts and tries to work out why they exist.) “You?” I blurted in sheer disbelief (not, perhaps, particularly tactfully, but hey, I was flabbergasted, cut me some slack). “But you’re awesome!” I followed up in the hope of clarifying my point. She is, too. She’s really interesting to talk to, perceptive, articulate, caring, totally beautiful, with an adorable slighty-southern-States accent – what’s not to like? Intimidating, because she reads Greek and Hebrew? This was all most unfathomable.

I suspect the problem probably runs deeper in the American Church, but I don’t think we in the UK are entirely uncontaminated by it either. For example, in my end-of-programme pastoral chat at the end of my first summer working at Tyndale House, the programme director, among lots of very good advice about things like establishing a good work-life balance now so as to be able to stick to it later, mentioned that it was worth bearing in mind that, if I did get married, I’d very likely be more highly theologically educated than my husband. Which is true, so fair comment and all, but like … why does it matter?

Intimidating. I’m reminded of a bit of Aisling Bea standup I saw recently, in which she discusses the sorts of things people have said to her since she and her boyfriend broke up.³ “The other thing that people would say,” she recalls, “you’d hear them say it often – would be, um, ‘Oh, do you think it’s because men are intimidated by funny women?’” She gasps. “Men are intimidated.” She assails a random audience member with a suitably make-you-jump sort of noise. “Intimidated, threatened, by funny women. Um, do you know, do you know what women are intimidated by? Uh, the fact that men can kill us with their hands.” She says it in this blithe, amused, happy-go-lucky sort of tone, with a couldn’t-care-less smile that makes it both funnier and more startlingly poignant. “Ah, and that’s a fair swap, isn’t it,” she continues. “Isn’t that a fair swap? That’s, I mean that’s fine, of course. Um, and now I joke, but in fairness, Powell” – here she addresses, possibly, the not-so-random-after-all-as-it-turns-out audience member? The clip doesn’t come with enough context to determine – “I have no idea what it must be like, from my privileged position, to be walking down a lay way at night, potentially after a comedy gig, and you’ve had a few beers and you’re very nervous and your phone’s gone dead – why didn’t you get an Uber at the time, you idiot? – and you’re walking down a lay way at night, and you’ve got your keys out, because at any moment a woman might jump out of a hedge and tell you a joke!”

 

I mean, who knows what might be lurking in a hedge.

Men are intimidated. As Ms. Bea so entertainingly expresses, the very notion of it is absolutely blooming crazy. That men should feel threatened by women who are funnier than them – or cleverer than them, or know more about the Bible than they do. That Christian men, in particular, should feel threatened by women who read the biblical languages because, my gosh, at any moment one might jump out of a hedge and tell you about New Testament manuscript variations! Help! The sheer extent of the power she wields! The unthinkable damage she might inflict on your poor innocent self! How could you ever even consider getting romantically involved with a creature of such might and potential to harm you?

It baffles me. I hasten to add that I am, of course, not concerned for myself – you’ll have gathered that I have concluded that it matters precious little to me whether I ever end up in a romantic relationship or not (to my mind, getting married and not getting married are both equally terrifying prospects; if anything, the former has the edge) – but I tell you whom I am concerned for: all those young women going to seminary to study something, anything, just as long as it’s not the most valuable, most fundamental, most transformative key to understanding the scriptures in greater depth that a Christian can be given.⁴ Not that, not the languages, because that, heaven help us, might scare the blokes away.

Forgive me, but exactly how pathetic does a man have to be to be intimidated by a woman who can read and understand the scriptures in their original wording? What possible harm does that actually threaten him with? Would it not rather be to a male Christian’s benefit, if he can’t read Greek annd Hebrew himself, to have a wife able to correct and encourage him in his scriptural study with regard to the original wording? Would that not be a great asset to their family? Would this means of gaining increased understanding of scripture not be something to value and nurture, for the sake of both the woman’s holiness and her capacity for ministry to others? Intimidated, by enhanced opportunity for growth in godliness? Really?

I don’t get it. I hate to think so ill of my brothers in Christ, but are they just determined that they have to be, to put it crudely, better than their wives as far as the knowledge of God is concerned? Do they think that that’s what being the head of the body means, being as Christ to the Church? Do they think that a wife who’s more highly theologically educated than her husband is incapable of respecting and submitting to him properly? Do they think that it is only the proper and natural situation that women should be less knowledgeable than men about scriptural matters? Do they not view women as co-heirs of eternal life and entitled to the full revelation of God’s mysteries that comes with it?⁵

It makes me furious to think that I have sisters in Christ out there who feel a need to hold themselves back from the ‘harder’ realms of theological study because they have been told, however explicitly or implicitly, that to pursue such things is to make oneself unattractive to men. I lay a certain amount of blame on both doorsteps. Christian women should take God’s words seriously when he tells them that pursuing him is more important than pursuing anything that will only last as long as the present age, marriage included, and that actually singleness is more blessed because it enables an unadulterated focus on him.⁶ But Christian men, blimey O’Reilly, Christian men should be the first to encourage their sisters to strive after greater knowledge of the Lord by whichever means are available. I’m not saying that that must, for everyone, mean studying the biblical languages, but surely, surely, in a seminary populated around half by women, the number of them who feel inspired to attend a biblical languages class ought to exceed one. Christian men should not be telling women that knowing the Bible really well is an unattractive trait – is intimidating. They should be encouraging them in godliness, nurturing their gifts, willing them to thrive and be excellent. Is that not what Christ does for the Church when he sends his Spirit to sanctify her?

Perhaps this is a misplaced rant. Perhaps the problem I describe infects far narrower confines than I have supposed. But that conversation in Oxford last June was never going to not turn into a blog post. And regardless, the following still applies. Sisters, brothers, pursue greater knowledge of God by whichever means are available to you; don’t let anyone tell you you shouldn’t, especially not for superficial reasons that pertain merely to the judgement of other human beings. Brothers, sisters, encourage one another in that endeavour; prioritise one another’s godliness without thought for your own greatness by worldly measures; see greater knowledge of God in others as something to be celebrated, increased, and emulated, not envied or pushed away. Our time is short. Our Lord is coming. Knowing and loving and serving him better matters too much not to pursue it in every way we can, and urge on our fellow-believers to do the same.

Footnotes

¹ It’s a Semitic language with a cuneiform abjad. Huehnergard’s grammar, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Introduction-Ugaritic-Huehnergard/dp/1598568205, was recommended to me by an expert, and is very good if you already have experience with a Semitic language or two.

² Studio Ghibli is partway through making its films available on Netflix at the moment, huzzah! https://www.netflix.com/search?q=studio%20ghibli

³ Here’s the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjQSJPadGYM. It’s worth watching rather than just reading my transcription, because so much of what makes it so hilarious is in her delivery.

⁴ That a Christian can be given, because of course the most fundamental thing that enables a person to understand the scriptures is the Holy Spirit dwelling within her. See also my thoughts on this in ‘Dear Fellow Belivers Who Don’t Read the Biblical Languages’, under September 2017 in my blog archive if you fancy it.

⁵ A few scriptural allusions in this paragraph, but I’ll give you the 1 Peter: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Peter+3&version=ESVUK. That’s right, gentlemen, your prayers are hindered if you are not showing your wife the honour due an heir of eternal life. God, like all good fathers, really cares about his daughters being treated well.

⁶ Matthew 6:33, Matthew 22:30, and 1 Corinthians 7 throughout: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+corinthians+7&version=ESVUK.

Those Two Awkward Passages About Women Being Silent

“I don’t want to be Catholic any more … They have all these silly rules about women, and I think it would have been hard for me to become Pope.”

Outnumbered S4 E4, ‘The Parents’ Evening’ (2011)¹

 

Self-explanatory, for once. Thanks to photostock at freedigitalphotos.net.

Believe it or not, the post I’m now sitting down to write is actually the post I originally sat down to write on Tuesday, until I realised that there was another post I really needed to write before I got to this one. I wanted to write about the end of 1 Corinthians 14, but in order to do that I had to write about the beginning of 1 Corinthians 14, and in order to do that I had to write about 1 Corinthians 12, and in order to do that I had to write about Ephesians 4, and, well, you get the picture. I’m kind of just picking up where I left off.

Strive after the higher gifts, Paul exhorts the Corinthians at the beginning of chapter 14. Strive after prophesying, he says in the penultimate verse. Same thing. This whole chapter is enveloped in the context that Paul really, really wants his addressees to be speaking comprehensible gospel truths to one another for the edification of the body. He wants that to be their next obsession after love in terms of how they do church. And in that context, he now gives three scenarios in which it’s more productive to shut up than to speak.²

1) If anyone speaks in a language, (let there be) two at a time or at most three, and each in turn, and let one person interpret. And if there be no interpreter, let him be silent in assembly, and let him speak to himself and to God.

2) And let two or three prophets speak, and let the others make a judgement. And if (something) is revealed to another sitting, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one at a time, so that all may learn and all may be encouraged, and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets – for God is not of disorder but of peace – as in all the assemblies of the saints.

3) Let the women be silent in the assemblies, for it is not permitted for them to speak; but let them be subject, as the law also says. If they wish to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is shameful for a woman to speak in assembly.

Three scenarios in which particular people are told to be silent (same Greek word in each case). Now look at those first two scenarios: in neither does the command to be silent in assembly apply to any given individual all the time. Our hypothetical brother with the gift of mysterious languages is perfectly free to speak if there’s an interpreter present. Our hypothetical brother who’s right in the middle of prophesying is perfectly free to continue if no revelation is given to anyone else in the room. And likewise regarding the third scenario, even if one were initially to suppose, by some utterly bizarre logic, that Paul’s repeated exhortations to strive after prophecy applied only to the men of the congregation, that supposition would immediately collapse upon a brief glance at the eleventh chapter of the epistle, where Paul makes the case that women ought to cover their heads while praying or prophesying. I mean, that wouldn’t even be a question if they weren’t supposed to be prophesying at all, now would it? So what we need to work out is what the specific scenario is in which our hypothetical sister should be silent in assembly rather than speak.

Take a look at the given reasoning. Rather than speaking, our hypothetical sister should ‘be subject’. To what or whom is she to be subject? Well, when women as a specific category are asked to be subject to something in scripture, it’s invariably their husbands: check Ephesians 5:22, 24; Colossians 3:18; Titus 2:5; and 1 Peter 3:1, 5. (Worth mentioning at this point is the fact that Greek only uses one word for both ‘woman’ and ‘wife’, and likewise for both ‘man’ and ‘husband’, so do feel free to swap in the one or the other as seems to make most sense.) In all but two of those verses, the adjective ἰδίος (idíos) ‘one’s own’ is used of the husbands,³ which is a really emphatic way of indicating possession: often, you just get a definite article and have to imply the idea of belonging. Women are to submit to their own husbands – so the scenario in which they’re not allowed to speak must be one in which threatens that state of affairs specifically. And what do you know, the women’s ‘own husbands’ show up in the very next sentence. I couldn’t render the Greek word order in a sensible English fashion for my translation above, but it goes at home their own husbands let them ask. The emphasis, then, is first on ‘at home’ and second on ‘their own husbands’; so the idea is, if they want to ask their own husbands something, let them do it at home, not in assembly. Otherwise it would be shameful – i.e., our hypothetical sister would be bringing shame on her husband.

Scoot back to the second scenario for a smidgen more context. We’re talking about a church setup in which, when someone prophesies, the others make a judgement about what he or she has said. So suppose that married couple Bob and Sharon are in the assembly of the saints one day and Bob delivers a prophecy that Sharon reckons is a bit dodge. If Sharon were to take up her issue with what Bob said right then and there in front of everyone, it would be shameful. It’s not appropriate to have a marital tiff in front of the assembly, and as Bob’s wife, Sharon has made a commitment to submit to him, just as he’s made a commitment to love her as Christ loves the Church. So she should be silent in the assembly – but she should definitely ask him about it at home later. Plus, hopefully somebody else present will pick up on the fact that what Bob said was a little suspect, and, lovingly, say so in front of the assembly. It doesn’t shame him if the person who challenges him is some random other sister he’s not married to; she owes him no obligation of submission.

 

Bob and Sharon, maybe. Don’t ask me why I picked those names.

So, with all that in mind, let’s have a crack at understanding that other awkward passage about women in 1 Timothy:

Let a woman learn in quietness, in all subjection. And to teach, I do not permit a woman, and not to usurp authority a man, but to be in quietness.⁴

Remember that we can read ‘woman’ and ‘man’ as ‘wife’ and ‘husband’, and given that we’ve again got women as a specific category being told to be in subjection, that’s deducibly the scenario we’re dealing with here. Also, Paul’s about to make an analogy with Adam and Eve, who are basically the archetypal married couple – as well as the archetypal case of a woman teaching disobedience of God to her husband and him just going along with it. She was deceived; he wasn’t – he knew full well what he was doing – but her let her exercise authority over him anyway, and then blamed her for everything going wrong.

Again, it’s just not consistent with the broader picture given in scripture for Paul to be saying that women must never teach anyone ever: strive after the higher gifts; to each one of us – women included – was given grace; every woman praying or prophesying with uncovered head dishonours (her) head, i.e. women should be praying and prophesying, just not with their heads uncovered. If I might digress a little here, the mandate that we should all be zealous to exercise our higher gifts for the edification of the body is such a strong one that, even before I felt I really understood this chunk of 1 Timothy, I still felt compelled that I had to be teaching. After all, there are lots of little corners of scripture that I don’t feel as if I totally get, and others that I do and am then proved wrong by someone else’s loving correction; a command I see repeated multiple times in no uncertain terms – strive after the higher gifts – surely has to take precedence over a few words that seem at first glance to contradict that command? One has, after all, to do the one thing or the other.

But back to the passage, I think what must be happening is that Paul anticipates that to teach, I do not permit a woman might cause a bit of confusion given that it’s totally legit for women to be prophesying in the general sense (which includes teaching), and so he clarifies, and not to usurp authority over a man, i.e. a husband; in other words, I’d take the and not as explicative rather than additive. The contrast is between being in quietness and subjection, and usurping authority over a husband: the risk, when a woman teaches, is that she’ll step outside the bounds of the submission she owes to her husband. Suppose, again, that Sharon and Bob are hanging out in the assembly of the saints, and a topic comes up that Sharon knows she disagrees with Bob about. Let her learn – hear what others have to say – in quietness and subjection; let her not usurp Bob’s authority over her by deliberately teaching something he disapproves of. Again, it’s not appropriate to have a marital tiff in front of the assembly; they can sort this jazz out at home. Only two or three prophets are going to speak at a time anyway, so it’s no great hardship for Sharon not to be one of them on this occasion – but it’s crucial that she, just like every other saint, exercise her higher gift at some point, or else the body is cheating itself out of precious edification. So suppose the conversation moves on, and the subject at hand is one on which Sharon and Bob have no such disagreement; she can now quite happily teach on it for the edification of the body without usurping his authority.

I hope you can see why I felt why it was necessary to write my previous post before I wrote this one. If you look at these awkward little passages about women detached from the context that we all ought to be falling over ourselves to prophesy for one another’s edification, then it doesn’t seem totally crazy to conclude that women ought to shut up in church altogether. But if you look at them in that context, then such a conclusion strikes me as entirely precluded. In both 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2, the thing that’s potentially threatened by a woman speaking in the assembly is her submission, which can only be to her husband. As long as she avoids dishonouring him or usurping his authority over her, then, she’s free to say whatever she believes will edify her brothers and sisters.

Of course, all of this only applies to a woman who’s married, so my lucky single self doesn’t actually have to worry about any of it. But I think it’s worth working through anyway, if only to be reassured that God does actually think women have a valuable contribution to make to what’s said in the assembly of the saints, and only restricts them from speaking for the sake of preserving the proper Christ-and-the-Church setup of the marriage relationship. I still sometimes get it in my head that what I have to say about God and the gospel is worth less than it would be if I were a man, which is a sad and frustrating thing to get in one’s head when one burns with a compulsion to talk about God and the gospel pretty much whenever one finds oneself in the company of fellow believers. (Seriously, sometimes it feels as if everywhere I go turns into a Bible study: phone catch-ups, late-night conversations with housemates, dinners out, other people’s birthday parties, you name it, I just can’t help myself.) But women are no less included in Paul’s exhortations to strive after the higher gifts than men, and they’re not the only ones called to shut up on occasion in order to maintain good order in the assembly. The crux of the matter is that the wife plays the role of the Church in a marriage, and her husband that of Christ; and as Sharon is to submit herself to Bob’s authority, so we are to submit ourselves to Christ’s authority. And that means obeying the perfect commands he gives us – including the command to strive after the higher gifts, so that his body might be built up into a fuller reflection of his glorious image.

Footnotes

¹ As usual, thanks to Springfield! Springfield! for their goldmine of TV scripts: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/episode_scripts.php?tv-show=outnumbered-2007.

² Here’s the whole chapter again: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+cor+14&version=ESVUK.

³ If you’re thinking it looks an awful lot like the English word ‘idiot’, there’s a very good reason for that: it was used to describe people who were only interested in their own affairs instead of politics and the public sphere, and the Ancient Greeks took rather a dim view of such people, hence the sense in which the term made its way into English.

⁴ Again, whole chapter: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+tim+2&version=ESVUK. I’m not really going to deal with the Adam and Eve stuff today; I’d have to start talking about the Septuagint, and this post is long enough already.