Dru Johnson (00:00)
What if we’re asking all the wrong questions about men and women in church leadership? Well, this week we’re talking to Dr. Preston Sprinkle, who wrote this book, From Genesis to Junia, An Honest Search for What the Bible Really Says About Women in
think there’s a lot of surprising exegetical twists and turns in there. He talks about how much more complicated things are in scripture. And he talks about a lot of things that most people miss when they’re thinking about…
gender and roles in scripture as well. I force him to think about some things that maybe he hasn’t thought about. I chastise him for not including my comments in his book and more. Stay tuned. If you enjoy what you’re seeing or listening to, you can like and subscribe. You can rate us if you’re going to give us five stars. Otherwise, keep your fingers shut. You can also give to us at thebiblicalmind.org.
Preston Sprinkle (00:50)
Yeah. That is probably the most unique thing about the book is that it’s a, it’s an exegetical travel log. That’s a, that’s a good, good word. haven’t thought about it like that, but, you know, I say years, a few years ago, I set out on a journey to figure out what I think the Bible says about women in leadership, but did not have a position.
I grew up complementarian, like a lot of people, and that was kind of my default. But over the years, know, as you, you know, kind of broaden your horizons in biblical scholarship, whenever you come across people who are like, yeah, but what about this? What about that? What about this? What about that? Like, gosh, I don’t know. I just, this is a view that I was told to believe and I read the first Timothy two, made sense and never really questioned it. But as you know, you progress in ministry and scholarship, you realize, ah, maybe this is more complicated than I’d realized. So.
Dru Johnson (01:17)
Mm-hmm.
Preston Sprinkle (01:44)
Long story short, I just kind of said, I don’t know what I think about women in leadership. need to study it out. So a years ago, I said, all right, I’m going to study it out. And I know there’s a pile of literature and tons of text to work through. So I’m not going to have a conclusion until I feel relatively competent that I have my mind around what the Bible says. And so, that started back in May 2022. I just kind of, the book is laid out. It’s kind of like,
be journeying through the text of scripture and just kind of weighing the various arguments for and against women in leadership. And so, yeah, don’t begin with, here’s my conclusion. I’m going to try to prove you of it. I begin by saying, I’m going to go on a journey. with me and see if you are reading these texts in the same way that I am.
Dru Johnson (02:37)
I think the, you know, whether it’s sexuality in the Bible, which I think you kind of went through a similar journey of like what’s going on. Let me rethink everything, ⁓ along with other people in scholarship. ⁓ I think, you know, when you look at books like this on the shelf, like if I were just at a seminary bookstore and I saw a rack of books on women and leadership, my assumption is generally the person started the book already wanting something to be true.
Preston Sprinkle (03:06)
Yes.
Dru Johnson (03:06)
This
Preston Sprinkle (03:06)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (03:06)
is a very ungracious assumption of mine, but like, you want women not to be in leadership, so you’re going to find a way to get there. You want women to be leadership full, so you’re going to find a way to get there. I felt like that style of travelogue and the fact there’s advantages to you’re not ordained in a particular denomination where you have to tow the line. We talked last time, I don’t know if you remember, but what’s the role of
Preston Sprinkle (03:09)
No, that’s true though. I have the same assumption.
Right.
Hmm.
No, no.
Dru Johnson (03:34)
the theology of podcasting and kind of like what’s our role in the universe. so I’ve thought about that a lot more since a year or two ago when we last talked about that. And I think your kind of position where you are free floating is a necessary voice. And you’ve always had this route. I mean, lot of there’s some patristics that were just out there doing their own thing as well, right? ⁓ So I wonder, know, before we get into the details of how you land, what
Preston Sprinkle (03:36)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (04:03)
What do you take to be, what were you hoping the influence of this book would be? Is that people would come along with you and go, ⁓ Preston’s right, ⁓ therefore, or to just have another view in the fire or something else?
Preston Sprinkle (04:08)
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that’s a great question. ⁓ So let me be clear. When I began this project, I wasn’t thinking about even
like writing the book. it was, this is the first time I was like, I’m going to do this research on my own. Um, I remember even kind of talked to my publisher. I’m like, nobody’s going to read a book like this. There’s so much written on it. This discussion was, you know, has been over since the nineties. Everybody’s kind of settled in position. I’m not seeking to add something to the conversation. I’m just trying to figure out for myself. So I don’t have any original contribution I’m trying to make or any kind of angle. I’m just like, I’m going to do this research. And they’re like, well, might as well.
Dru Johnson (04:38)
Okay.
Preston Sprinkle (05:02)
just published a book anyways if you’re doing all the work. So I didn’t plan the book as a book. The book happened because, yeah, why not put it out there? So I didn’t have any agenda with what I wanted the book to be. It really was just documenting my exegetical journey. Now, as I kept writing and started thinking about, OK, well, what can this book contribute? I do think with all the stuff that’s written on the topic,
books. Most books do begin with a conclusion the person is trying to convince you of and you and I, you know, you and I know sometimes
when you are really passionate about the conclusion, you can be maybe more prone to maybe not steel man opposing arguments, not representing people, or just highlighting the strengths of your view and maybe not highlight as much as strengths of the other view. maybe if there is any, again, I didn’t really plan, this wasn’t kind of the plan, but maybe the inevitable result is, ⁓ would hope that my book would.
Dru Johnson (05:58)
Mm-hmm.
Preston Sprinkle (06:16)
just really, really fairly represent both sides. Because I know so many people that are like, just want to know, what does the Bible say? Don’t try to convince me. I just want to know, what are all the best arguments? ⁓ What are the strengths and weaknesses of both? me sort through the best arguments, because there’s just so much out there and so much to work through. So if my book does have a unique contribution, maybe it would be that. Somebody could read it. And obviously, I’d
Dru Johnson (06:22)
Mm-hmm.
Preston Sprinkle (06:46)
land on a view, ⁓ but I hope that as they’re reading along, they’re not feeling like blackmailed into, emotionally blackmailed into making sure you line up here, otherwise you’re a bad person, know? Like, that’s not the way I approach it.
Dru Johnson (06:56)
All
Well, that’s a helpful way of thinking of at least your book offers one resource when you’re sitting between these two, what are clearly sides, right? ⁓ of somebody who can at least point to the strengths and weaknesses of both sides. The, ⁓ here’s, I’m just going to riff openly on you. Here’s a thought that I always have, ⁓ is that a lot of the discussion isn’t actually talking about scripture at all.
Preston Sprinkle (07:07)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (07:26)
A lot of the discussion is wrapped up in American religious views. I don’t mean Christian views. mean, the American religion of freedom and that, that freedom and hierarchy and you kind of like a really resistance to hierarchy just as Americans. ⁓ we don’t sing God save the King, ⁓ in our churches anymore. I hope not. And, ⁓ and when you have that, you know, that resistance to hierarchy in this view of individual, absolute libertarian freedom.
Preston Sprinkle (07:26)
Yeah.
Hmm. Hmm.
Yeah.
You
Yes.
Dru Johnson (07:55)
You get some wonky views about what humans are, what community is, what that should look like. And so then the discussion becomes, should women be in ministry? Actually kind of almost instantly becomes, should a woman be an executive pastor of a church or ⁓ the head pastor of a church? Where that might not even be a question the biblical authors are that interested in. ⁓ And so I wonder how you sift out the, I noticed you didn’t use it in the, I had the advantage of having the PDF so I could search through for key terms.
Preston Sprinkle (08:09)
Yes.
Yes.
Right.
Dru Johnson (08:24)
⁓ You didn’t use the term, ⁓ heterarchy, ⁓ which, ⁓ Cynthia Schaeffer Elliott uses, like, it’s not patriarchy, it’s heterarchy, it’s mixed that women and men have different, even though you talked about Carol Meyers work. ⁓ but I wonder how you assess what I said, if I’ve gotten that right or wrong, that we’re not actually often talking about what scripture wants to talk about. We’re talking about our own cultural problem and then dragging scripture to the, to the issue.
Preston Sprinkle (08:34)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I actually
did use heterarchy and cited Cynthia’s, Cynthia, that what you say? Sorry. And Carol, I think adopts it as well, doesn’t she? ⁓ I did cite it in earlier drafts. I had to whittle my book down from 500 pages to 300 pages. ⁓ in earlier, that section on the Old Testament where I talk about women in the social context of ancient Israel, thanks to you, you turned me on to that part of the conversation and I just devoured. ⁓
Dru Johnson (08:55)
Yeah, Cynthia Schaeffer Elliott, yeah.
yeah.
Preston Sprinkle (09:21)
Carol Myers’s work, had her on my podcast, and just became a huge fan. Oh my gosh, she’s amazing. And other people in that world. But yeah, that section on women in the social world of ancient Israel just had to be way shortened because as much as I found it fascinating, interesting, and helpful, I needed to stay more focused on the specific questions at hand. so all that to say, I had a long section on heterarchy and patriarchy, and I just.
Dru Johnson (09:25)
Yeah, she’s great.
Preston Sprinkle (09:50)
towards the end of the editorial process with my editors, like, this is really interesting, but you’re kind of bogging down where you need to go. And some of this isn’t absolutely essential. So all that to say.
Dru Johnson (10:01)
Yeah, if it were an academic book, then great. Throw 50 pages of that in there, yeah.
Preston Sprinkle (10:03)
Yes, 100%. Oh,
yeah. It was hard to cut that. I think I’d cut like 15 pages on the social world of the ancient Israel. yeah, so to your point, that was a big concern of mine, not to read modern categories into the biblical text. This is why, if you did a word search on the word equality, I don’t. I think I mentioned it a couple of times in a more of a negative kind of.
passage, ⁓ don’t. Because some people would say, because men and women are equal, therefore women should be leaders in the church. Anything else is dehumanizing and oppressive towards women. I just feel like that has a lot of modern Western assumptions built into the very premise there. And so I don’t think the biblical authors would have.
would have reasoned that way. ⁓ So, and that does set my book to be different from other people that land where I end up landing. Because I want to honor the way the ancient writers would have conceived of male-female relations and not assume a modern Western perspective. Not saying I did it perfectly or well, but I was sensitive to those issues.
Dru Johnson (11:09)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, and it’s difficult because that line of reasoning, we’re all equal as humans, therefore we can all equally do everything. It’s an understandable line of reasoning. It’s an understandable first line of reasoning. You just have to keep going, right? Because that feels to me like children saying, well, I’ve got four kids. I think you have three four kids, right? Yeah. So them kind of saying,
Preston Sprinkle (11:35)
Right.
Right, yeah.
I got four kids, yeah.
Dru Johnson (11:54)
you need to love us and treat us equally, exactly the same, one for one, each one. like, well, we can’t treat you equally. And you wouldn’t like that because you wouldn’t like the birthday present she’s going to get because you don’t like any of that stuff, right? ⁓ So there’s kind of a naive version of it. I’m not talking about the people who work in this field. I’m talking about the kind of the truisms that get floated out there.
Preston Sprinkle (11:58)
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, yeah.
Dru Johnson (12:16)
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Dru Johnson (13:05)
Okay. So when you, of course, I thought the Old Testament section was, ⁓
like saddeningly short. ⁓ again, to your point, the goal, like you were trying to help people with the real issues and at the end of the day, they’re gonna want to work through those New Testament passages. ⁓ But if we could just talk about the Old Testament for a little while. I’ve said this before, I think on this podcast, but when I’m at SBL, I often ask my Old Testament colleagues, ⁓ who looks better in the Old Testament, men or women?
Preston Sprinkle (13:13)
you
Yeah, yeah.
Dru Johnson (13:38)
And 100 % of the time they say women, right? ⁓ Women coming out looking a lot better. ⁓ As the wise ones, the ones who intercept men and their emotional anger, who can’t control themselves, they speak coolly and rationally to them. They are correct when they do it and the men acknowledge you are correct, right? They also do some really bad, they do just as bad things as, you know, they rape men, ⁓ they kill, they devise. So like they do all the bad stuff as well. ⁓
Preston Sprinkle (13:41)
Right, yeah.
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (14:08)
I always ask my class, you know, when we’re at the end of an Old Testament survey class, I say, okay, when you get to the New Testament, you’ll notice there’s this weird vibe with women where it’s like Jesus shouldn’t have been talking to a woman. And you can see that women are almost treated as lesser creatures. But we’re finishing the Old Testament. Do you get that vibe off of the Old Testament? And they’re like, no, not at all. Women, know, like are clearly like at the key junctures, as Ingrid Faro has pointed out in her book, that the key junctures in salvation history.
Preston Sprinkle (14:38)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (14:38)
What do you attribute that what seems like a downshift for the role of women and just the kind of the almost an upshift and inferiority of women that you get in the New Testament that you just don’t have to deal with in the Old Testament?
Preston Sprinkle (14:51)
Hmm… Man.
take a book to respond to. I don’t know if I’d be the right person to write that. I guess I would want to make a distinction between.
Dru Johnson (14:59)
Yeah.
Preston Sprinkle (15:06)
cultural norms of ancient Israel that are sort of assumed and maybe even being challenged or critiqued or sometimes upheld by the biblical text. And same thing in the New Testament, cultural norms. I would say, as you mentioned, I agree with everything you said, ⁓ that women looked…
Dru Johnson (15:14)
I’m gonna end.
Preston Sprinkle (15:27)
They occur a lot less. There’s 10 men are mentioned for every one woman, named men, named women in the Old Testament. But when they do occur, yeah, at critical junctures of the Old Testament story, they play fundamental key, sometimes glowing and almost mythical roles. I have a quote from somebody that says, Abigail’s portrait in First Samuel 25 is so exquisite. It borders on mythical. It’s like she’s just like this. It’s like she came from Rivendale or something.
Dru Johnson (15:43)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Preston Sprinkle (15:57)
And so yeah, I think that that’s, you because I’m an evangelical, I believe God is sort of, you know, planting the seeds for something that’s going to grow more fully under the new covenant. I do see like the women in the gospels, this is why I think my chapter, I don’t know if I didn’t even say this explicitly in the book, but how many bad did?
everything we just said in the last five minutes about women in the Old Testament, you see something very similar in women in the ministry of Jesus. There’s a lot fewer women named. There’s 12 male apostles, blah, blah. But when women do occur, they often embody the kind of radical faithfulness and courage Jesus demands in contrast to the male disciples. Very similar to the women of early parts of Exodus in contrast to Moses and Abigail in contrast to Nabal and even David to some extent. ⁓ So you see that same pattern being developed. ⁓
Dru Johnson (16:42)
Yep. Yep.
Preston Sprinkle (16:54)
And I don’t want to, you know, I try to be cautious exegetically. So I don’t want to draw, you know, I didn’t end the book after chapter three, my chapter on the gospel saying, therefore women can be elders and deacons or pastors and whatever. But it is interesting when you just kind of swim in the rhythm of the text of scripture and how it’s just really subtly, sometimes not so subtly, oftentimes very creatively.
portraying women in the storyline of scripture against the backdrop of a culture that maybe, you know, it would have been challenging, ⁓ provocative at the very least for ancient readers of the Bible to kind of read how women are being upheld in contrast to men so often. ⁓ And yeah, don’t, I, I always, even now, like, so what does that mean for women in leadership? Like, I don’t, I don’t know. I don’t want to even answer that question yet. Just, just, just, just.
living that for a bit, know, like just feel that flow, that narrative. And so that when we get the first Timothy to another, you know, like, like we have momentum of what God has been doing throughout the storyline of scripture, you know? ⁓ So.
Dru Johnson (18:06)
Yeah, I think that kind of work you do in the book, I mean, it’s something we value highly at the Center for Hebraic Thought, this idea that you’re trying to think about how do the biblical authors talk about this topic? How do they develop a topic? How do they shade it? How do they bring contours to it of what counts and what doesn’t count? ⁓ And so if you ask them, can women be leaders? You know, there’s really pate answers like, well, Miriam,
was clearly in the leadership triumvirate of Israel, like at its most key juncture, right, the formation of the nation itself. So simply, yes, women can be, and it seems that God has designed the world in such a way that that’s not ⁓ anathema to God himself. ⁓ Although he does chasten a man and a woman for trying to be Moses, right, Aaron and Mary. And I think that
Preston Sprinkle (18:43)
Right.
Right, yeah.
Dru Johnson (19:02)
that what you do in the book really well, as you say, that swim in it for a while. Let’s bring their questions to the next question rather than holding the text hostage to our question, which is.
Preston Sprinkle (19:07)
Yeah.
Yes.
That’s a great
way to put it. That’s absolutely great way to put it. Yeah. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (19:16)
So
yeah, you’re doing all the kinds of things that we’re constantly telling people they should be doing in developing. But I also want to note that what you’re doing is really hard. I mean, you you started in 2022, like started actually working on it. It does mean you have to kind of sidebar the idea that you’re going to come to an answer quickly. you felt no pressure, but there are men and women trying to make decisions in churches today about what they should let people do. I have…
Preston Sprinkle (19:20)
Okay, yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
You
Dru Johnson (19:45)
several ⁓ mentees that are women who are trying to figure out what should I be doing in the church? Should I be pushing harder about what I should be allowed to do? When you get a pro, I’m sure you’re getting emails every day now about situations. What’s your kind of token advice for people who are trying to think through this topic ⁓ as far as like, what do we actually let people do? What do we encourage them to do? What do we commission them to do?
Preston Sprinkle (19:52)
Hmm.
Ha ha.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, of course, as a fellow biblical scholar, I’m going to say, let’s let’s I would encourage people to make sure you have a thorough understanding of what the text says, you know, like, like, be confident in ⁓ what you think the Bible says about this topic so that our kind of practical application or pastoral response is rooted in the thing that needs to be rooted in the text of scripture. ⁓
So that would be my first, second, third, fourth, fifth piece of advice. ⁓ In terms of kind of the practical, yeah, I am getting asked, okay, so now what? Now you landed on this view, what are you gonna do now? And my response is I don’t know. In fact, I think it would be dishonoring to the people that have been engaging this contemporary conversation for decades for me to come along.
Dru Johnson (20:44)
Right. Right.
Preston Sprinkle (21:12)
know, study the Bible and then say, all right, team, here’s what we need to do. You know, like, so I, I, want to, I’m a big fan of patience and slow reflection and long obedience in the same direction. You know, like, so I, I, um, I know, you know, internet age, seems absurd, but what if I took a few years to even really think about what’s the best thing for us to do now, or to even give advice on a woman near
you’re talking about five years is a blip on the, and I’m not saying I’m taking five, but I I don’t think I need to rush into being the leader in the kind of modern day, how do we empower women in the church conversation? There’s so many people that have been doing this work for years and years years and years and years. So right now I’m just kind of learning and asking questions and reflecting and yeah.
I I hope my very narrow contribution is helping people think through the Bible in a thorough, clear way. Not that they’re all going to agree with me or agree with all my arguments, but at least hopefully they will have some accessible clarity on some of the exegetical complexity and be encouraged to keep doing their own study on that. So that’s my one sliver of a contribution right now. What that means long term, I will be slowly figuring that out.
Dru Johnson (22:35)
⁓ Okay, let’s turn to some of the exegesis then. And again, we don’t, I don’t want to give away your book because there’s lots of good content in here, but in your section on the Old Testament, ⁓ we talked a little bit about some of these and unfortunately I had to bail on you because I could not spend the time considering it closely, like all the kinds of things that you were dealing with. But I did notice one of the things that I insisted upon that you completely skipped out on.
Preston Sprinkle (23:02)
⁓ I
can’t wait for this
Dru Johnson (23:04)
Yeah, I immediately
went to that section and said, did he do it? Did he do it? ⁓ And let’s see, I’m looking for the page here. Yeah, so when, and again, I’m not pushing in any direction. This is just an exegetical issue. So in the Garden of Eden, ⁓ which is where I’ve spent a lot of time doing my work, when it goes wrong, when they run and hide,
God calls out for the man. He speaks to the man. He questions the man He doesn’t question the woman until he’s done with the man. Then he moves on to the woman. But you write One line about that when God confronts them he addresses both of them So I’m wondering do you think that that because that’s where a lot of people are gonna sink in and go well God actually went to the man first and said Why are you hiding?
Preston Sprinkle (23:54)
Yeah. So
he addresses both of them just not at same time. He addresses one first and then the other. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (24:00)
He does, yes. So, but that’s where
a lot of people are going to go and say, but he addresses the man first and he addresses him with who told you it’s all in the masculine singular. It’s clearly addressed to him. ⁓ And then, and then he moves on to her and then, and then he refers back to the command that he gave to the man in 317, because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate of the fruit of the tree, which I commanded you masculine singular, and intimating what was before she was constructed. I’m just wondering, do you see.
Preston Sprinkle (24:05)
Yeah.
Yeah, Yeah. ⁓
Mm. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (24:30)
that is maybe more trivial than some people are making it? Or do you see that as significant but factors differently than people are thinking? Because obviously that’s going to be where people are going to point for male headship.
Preston Sprinkle (24:34)
Yeah.
Yeah, it’s, you know, in my reading of like, complimentarians, some brought that up, usually as kind of a secondary argument. It didn’t fact, you know, I deal with kind of five of the top kind of complimentarian, I think five in Genesis one to three. And that one, maybe surprisingly wasn’t among the top arguments that I was seeing. And that doesn’t mean that maybe, maybe it should have been, maybe it’s one of the top, you know.
Dru Johnson (25:03)
interesting.
Preston Sprinkle (25:08)
Usually it’s out of being created first, Eve being called a helper in other parts in that story. Yeah, so the question in my mind is, and this is something that kind of underlined my whole study of Genesis 1 to 3, like.
What are?
What’s the rationale for why the story is being told the way it is? What are simply elements of what happened or the order of events or, you know, they’re just describing what happened versus…
What are the parts that the narrator is describing in such a way to establish some kind of greater theological rationale? The firstborn of Adam, that’s the biggest one, right? Adam was created first. And people say the rationale behind that, and it has to do with the prima genitor principle, and he has authority over everybody who comes after or whatever. I question that.
logic. But even with the point you’re making, Adam being given the command and being addressed first, ⁓ is that ⁓ doing something? Is there a theological rationale that the author’s trying to establish there?
Dru Johnson (26:29)
Right. Is it?
Is it what they call a prescription disguised as description? Yeah.
Preston Sprinkle (26:36)
Sure. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think prescriptive and description can be a lot more messy than people make it out to be. think there’s, ⁓ you know, Hebrew narrative can be very prescriptive in its description. know, so that’s not always easy to sort out, but I just, yeah, I wasn’t.
Dru Johnson (26:46)
Yeah. Yeah.
Preston Sprinkle (26:55)
Yeah, so I guess I’m not convinced that there is a deeper theological rationale that the author is trying to establish based on the order events. ⁓ Adam created first, given the command first. Is that because God wants men to be the teacher of women? Or is it because he was created first and so God gave him the command? ⁓
Dru Johnson (27:23)
And there could be
a simple parallel there. Creative first, commanded, ⁓ built second, addressed second, you know?
Preston Sprinkle (27:28)
Yeah.
Isn’t there kind of a chiasm there in the order where it’s like man, women, snakes, snake, what’s that? I mean, maybe some poetic ⁓ artistry that in how, the order of events that are, it’s not just kind of random.
Dru Johnson (27:34)
Some people like the… The chias- Maniacs would tell you yes.
Yeah. Yeah.
Certainly that. And the same thing
with ⁓ the other part that I ranted to you about on that voice message I sent you, ⁓ is the artistry between the parallel. You have two pieces ⁓ of poetry here and in Genesis 4, right? Your desire will be for your husband and to him, supposedly, right? And it could also be translated to it, the desire. ⁓
you’ll be, will rule over you. And that’s exactly how it functions in the only other place where that construction happens in Genesis four. Sin is crouching at your doors, its desires for you. And it is hu with tshuka. So, okay, getting nerdy for a second. So it’s a masculine with a feminine word, but it turns out that they use hu for masculine things in Genesis three prior to this, right? So this is a common thing in Genesis where hu gets used with ⁓ a masculine ⁓ pronoun gets used with ⁓ feminine.
Preston Sprinkle (28:24)
Right. Right.
Dru Johnson (28:44)
words. So it’s not completely unheard of, even within Genesis three, this happens just a few verses prior. So I think there’s a way in which you could, you could even see that headship isn’t, it’s not actually about a man ruling over her, but this disordered desire, which rules over her, which you could argue that the rest of Genesis actually gives you lots of fodder for that, that women with disordered desires are, are being ruled by these desires and then coming to some incorrect conclusions about things. ⁓ okay, my rant is over, but
Preston Sprinkle (28:50)
Okay, yeah.
Mmm.
Interesting.
Dru Johnson (29:14)
⁓ And here’s why I’m ranting about this. And you can tell me whether you think this is ⁓ too bold or not. I feel like we have like a light switch approach to this topic at this juncture, which is the man has authority over her or not. And that’s it. We don’t really have any other axes by which to judge what’s going on here versus clearly the man is created first, is commanded.
Preston Sprinkle (29:18)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (29:40)
names the animals figure. He also discerns his wife from the animals. Like it’s an act of knowing that goes on there too. So it’s an epistemic. ⁓ And the wife, they just do different things. Like it’s actually establishing the fact that they’re not, you know, they’re male and female and they are as their kenegdo their kenegdo, they’re opposite of each other, but they’re not identical of each other in some way. And that’s really all it’s trying to do. And the approaching the man fits with
Preston Sprinkle (29:46)
Right. Yeah, yeah.
Right. Yeah. Can I go? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.
Yes.
Dru Johnson (30:09)
what his task was in that scenario and approaching the woman fits with what was her task in that scenario.
Preston Sprinkle (30:13)
Yes. Yeah,
so that’s a great, yeah. And I might have integrated your feedback and get an earlier drafts because a lot of this sounds very familiar. I’m like, that’s not in the book. right, maybe I could. So yes, I do think male-female differences are clearly being established. ⁓ Whether or not those differences are intended to establish universal, quote unquote, roles.
Dru Johnson (30:23)
Okay, sorry. These are all my rants.
Preston Sprinkle (30:43)
between men and women for all time. That’s where I just get really hesitant. And we also need to, with these, everything you’re saying about the order and everything in Genesis 2 and even 3, you have to put that in conversation with Genesis 1, right? Where, yes, Adam was given the command in Genesis 2, but male and female were both equally commanded to rule, ⁓ the run the explicit kind of authority language pre-fall applied to them. And they’re both.
Dru Johnson (30:59)
Thank
Yep. Yeah.
Preston Sprinkle (31:12)
sort of given the command. mean, it’s different lenses and male, female. It’s not out of it, you know. But we add all that up together. It’s just like, this is where I just like, just don’t see male authority leaping off the pages as evidence of the authorial rationale for why he’s telling the story the way he is. Could it be? Yeah, it could, you know. But I just don’t see it leaping off the pages. And that’s kind of where I conclude Genesis 1 and 3. It’s not like.
This chapter is clearly egalitarian. It’s just kind of I just don’t see a really compelling case that there is kind of authority structure being established between men, male and female.
Dru Johnson (31:54)
Yeah, it’s interesting too that Thomas Aquinas, when he’s confronted with Aristotle’s view that a woman is a fetus gone wrong, which is a common view in Hellenism, right? ⁓ He’s at pains to say that Aristotle is wrong, because he loves Aristotle so much. But he actually comes to this passage ⁓ and says, but they’re both made in God’s image, male and female, so the philosopher must be wrong.
Preston Sprinkle (32:14)
Ha ha ha ha.
Wow. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (32:23)
He comes back to Genesis one and two and says,
okay, ⁓ this is the one thing that we actually have to stand on. So he actually does see it as kind of ontologically egalitarian that we’re in our very essence. are ⁓ equal. Yeah, yeah. It’s a fascinating, it’s really fun just to watch them squirm to have to say that Aristotle is wrong, which he does. He’s got a, yeah, crazy one. That’s what I, I often wonder too, if that’s.
Preston Sprinkle (32:36)
Aquinas does. Yeah. That’s a bold move. yeah. Cause Aristotle has some wonky views on women, man. Played. was much better, but no.
Dru Johnson (32:52)
When you get into the gospels, what makes them so counter-cultural is that you do seem to have pushback on the aspects of Hellenism, the cultural aspects of Hellenism that have crept into Judaism at that point, at least some of them, and that it was easy in Hellenistic Judea to say, yeah, women are inferior. know, supposedly that later Midrashic ⁓ saying, better is the Torah to be burned than left in the hand of a woman. Like, you can’t walk out of the Hebrew scriptures thinking that, right? ⁓
Preston Sprinkle (33:04)
Yeah, that’s true. Yeah.
Right,
right, huh.
Dru Johnson (33:22)
So something had
to happen that allowed that concept to creep in. And I say that because that is the atmosphere, or at least some of that is the atmosphere to which Paul is responding, where all of these key texts in Paul come from. So I wonder how, when you kind of collect up Paul’s thoughts, how do you see him? Because you’ve worked on Paul quite a bit in your life.
Preston Sprinkle (33:37)
Right, right.
Dru Johnson (33:49)
Well, you know, if we could sit him here or we could feed all of his thinking into an AI and just hammer away and ask questions, what would be his kind of summary nodal points do you think when he talks about men and women and specifically in their service to the body?
like kind of sidelining the issue of like an ordained minister or final authority.
Preston Sprinkle (34:09)
Yeah.
No, mean, how do I summarize? I I think, could be wrong. ⁓ Paul would… ⁓
Dru Johnson (34:17)
Yeah.
Preston Sprinkle (34:24)
men and women as doing similar leadership activities. My biggest takeaway from my study of Paul was, I wrote a whole chapter on leadership in the first century of the house church context, which might be the most important chapter of the book, chapter four, because it just kind of just reconfigured the questions we’re bringing to the table and the kinds of
evidence we would be looking for. Because I know a lot of people would say, well, show me where a woman is an elder or overseer. And it’s like, they think that that question is like, if you can’t answer that, then done.
Dru Johnson (35:07)
You could equally say,
me anywhere that a woman receives the Lord’s Supper in the New Testament. Doesn’t happen.
Preston Sprinkle (35:11)
Or I could say show
me anywhere where a man is called an overseer elder. There’s no, I mean, well, it’s assumed in 1 Timothy 3. Yeah, maybe. I think that might be correct. But all that to say, the leadership categories of the first century house church were so broader. They were in flux. They were fluid. They weren’t nailed down. I don’t think.
Dru Johnson (35:17)
Right. Oh yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah.
Preston Sprinkle (35:38)
You had an ironed out set of terminology. We often think, and this is where I think we can, this is probably one of the biggest problems in how people sometimes approach the conversation is they bring contemporary categories of pastor, teacher, elder, overseer, whatever. Are women doing that in the first century? And I’m like, let’s just scrap all of our modern questions, go back, develop the very questions we should be asking from the first century, from the biblical text. ⁓
Paul, I didn’t know this before I did my study, Paul only uses the term overseer and elder in three of his 13 letters. And yet he’s describing people doing leadership stuff all over the place using terms like coworker or ⁓ working hard in the Lord or even there’s like a historically informed things like, know, people who, you know, household leaders, like heads of households that
had kind of high status and wealth in the community who held kind of, would be looked upon as kind of leading, playing leading roles in the community. If they came to Christ and demonstrated Christian character, they would be the default leaders. Like, know, ⁓ first Corinthians 16 with the household of Stephanus, you know, his first roots of Asia. And you should submit to people like him because they’re doing the work of service and working hard in the Lord and all these things. It’s like…
Those are, that’s one of the most profound leadership descriptions. doesn’t use elders, pastor, it doesn’t use all that, but it kind of opens up a window to who would have been the leaders in the first century church. And then you see women being this, once you, so once you open up your questions and categories, then all of sudden you’re like, well women are doing all these kinds of leadership things. And that at the very least,
At the very least, you could even be complementarian and agree with this, because I think it’s just a biblical observation. We just can’t have a narrow lens and say, well, OK, First Timothy 2, can’t teach or exercise authority. Big debates about what authority even means there. And therefore, that’s my starting place. And if there’s no women overseers or elders, then I’m complementarian It’s like that’s a very narrow, and I would say.
Yeah, narrow approach that’s insensitive to the very categories of New Testament is working within. So I don’t know if I answered your question, Dru You were asking Paul.
Dru Johnson (38:04)
I think
you actually asked a better question, which is actually ⁓ how can we open up our categories to kind of reflect what’s actually the diversity of what’s going on in scripture? And I even think of things like Pliny the Younger’s letter, where you get this kind of radical outsider description of the early church, of somebody who’s like torturing people to try and figure out what’s going on inside the church, and he’s torturing deaconesses.
Preston Sprinkle (38:07)
Okay.
Dru Johnson (38:32)
⁓ And all he can find is, know, that they’re swearing to do no harm and they’re singing to him as to Christ, et cetera. ⁓ And as you said, Erin Heim wrote a great essay ⁓ in our book on gender in the biblical world, where she only looked at the people that Paul thanked or, you at the end of his letters, basically, the people he talked about at the end of his letters. And it’s an amazing picture, diverse picture that shows up there. ⁓ And again,
Preston Sprinkle (38:32)
Right, yeah.
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. I would say
Dru Johnson (39:02)
Go ahead, sorry.
Preston Sprinkle (39:02)
if we’re all say, oh yeah, to that point, I didn’t mention this. should have.
If we’re going to ask what text gives us the best window into the role and function that women played in Paul’s ministry, by far, it would be Romans 16 against 1 Timothy 2. By far. And we have to understand the end of an ancient letter, which is one of, not the longest, letter in the ancient first century Romans. ⁓ The end of ancient letters are always
oftentimes the most important, the greetings can be some of the most important parts of the letter. We know this letter would played a fundamental role in Paul’s ministry is in establishing Rome as a new kind of Antioch where he would launch his Spanish mission. Like this Roman 16 is a wide angled lens into Paul’s ministry. And yet many people assume, let’s just kind of tag on in a chapter that is unnecessary for, you know, they just, they don’t see the significance of that. all that to say long story short.
You know, the fact that he mentioned so many women heavily involved in his ministry, and I would say at least three women there are described as leaders in his ministry. Like that’s, that’s, ⁓ that needs to be least be considered significant and put in conversation with people who say, first, Timothy two is clear. You know, it’s like, well, is it, and let’s understand how that text participates into many other.
very relevant passages.
Dru Johnson (40:38)
Yeah, there’s a great line in Lisa Bowen’s book, ⁓ African American Readings of Paul, ⁓ where there was a slave woman, and I always forget her name. I should look back at the book, but there was a freed slave woman who went down to preach. She was an evangelist, went down to the South, could risk being captured again and thrown back into slavery, preached in the black slave churches. And men were having problems with it because they’re like a woman, know, Paul says a woman should learn in submission, right?
Preston Sprinkle (40:44)
Hmm.
Wow.
Dru Johnson (41:05)
And her response to it was, any old fool who’s read all of Paul knows that he’s speaking to a particular situation. And I thought, wow, that gives you hope that it’s not just Pauline scholars who have figured out that his letters are occasional, that they speak to situations, and that no line in any letter is universal for all people in all times, unqualified. OK. So.
Preston Sprinkle (41:22)
Right, yeah.
Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dru Johnson (41:32)
thinking about, I noticed you used Sandra Glantz’s work on ⁓ Ephesus, which I thought was really brilliant stuff and eye-opening on every front. Thinking about the role of women, but I think also what Sandra Glantz’s work does, or for me what it did, was it also opened my eyes to the unique role of women that men cannot serve in the church, right? That there’s all kinds of ways, I mean we…
Preston Sprinkle (41:35)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mmm.
Dru Johnson (41:58)
We typically think of men do this job and then we’re restricting women from it in complimentary settings. But there might actually, she doesn’t advocate for this, but there might actually be roles in which ⁓ men should not be allowed as well. ⁓ And I mean, you could think creatively about a few of those, but you know, like male midwives wouldn’t be forbidden, but there ⁓ are special roles, right? ⁓
Preston Sprinkle (42:11)
Hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (42:27)
that women are going to hold and by giving birth and kind of risking their bodies, they’re actually holding a sacred role within the body of Christ as well. So there’s an interesting affirmation, egalitarian affirmation, or non-egalitarian affirmation, I don’t know what you would call that. ⁓ At the end of the day, because ⁓ again, I don’t want to give away the book, what are your hopes? Like someone’s going to read this.
Preston Sprinkle (42:32)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.
Dru Johnson (42:55)
Because here’s what here’s what’s gonna happen is I’m gonna say you should read, know, people email me all the time and I say, okay You should read Preston’s book. It’s a really good romp through the data, right? You can put that on your next book on the next video true Johnson great wrong through the data The but also I can imagine people Going like yeah. Okay. Yeah fine. But I do feel like there is this
Preston Sprinkle (43:10)
Ha
Dru Johnson (43:25)
uh, just of edge to it. Like, so therefore let us, and so maybe we could just think creatively for a second, like, what are the extents that if you’re in a complimentary situation or in a flat egalitarian where you’re not even thinking about it, just we’re all equal and everybody can do everything and everything’s just perfectly fine, right? Um, maybe what are some configurations in church? And as you were talking about it, it struck up my memory. Like it is crazy that Jesus gives no like
Preston Sprinkle (43:28)
you
Right, right.
Dru Johnson (43:54)
polity of the church. He doesn’t say, hey, you need an accountant in your church. You know, you need a comptroller. You need a, you he just kind of leaves it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He just leaves it up to the innovation and the improvisation of the, of the body, right? In some ways. But what are some configurations that you think could be faithful even in complimentary, uh, maintaining complementarity or maintaining like absolute egalitarian views?
Preston Sprinkle (43:56)
Right.
Security with guns.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I love this question so much. ⁓
Yeah, think there’s, and I’ve been in mostly, not all, complimentarian churches my whole life on some level. ⁓
I would say there are so many things, complimentary churches can do to ⁓ harness to, to listen to, to follow the influence of women, even within a complimentary structure. ⁓ And if your ministry would kind of continue unabated, if all the women left, then you don’t have a
Jesus, you know, what would Jesus’s ministry be without women? It would be with a bunch of faithless, fearful apostles who, you know, like Peter denied that he even knew who Jesus was at the end of his, you know, it wouldn’t have, it would have been catastrophic for Jesus’s ministry from a human perspective. So even if you’re like only men can be overseers, women can teach and preach, but under male elders, or if you’re like women can’t occupy any leadership.
Dru Johnson (45:09)
Right.
Numb skulls.
Preston Sprinkle (45:35)
role, you still have to have a church structure where the voice and influence of women is vital to the health and quote unquote success of the church. you know, it’s, I was at a, I was, I was at a, on the preaching team at a complimentary church years ago. It was the one Francis Chan was the lead pastor. He left. And so we had a preaching team to take over.
for his speaks preaching and I was one of the teaching ⁓ part of the teaching team. And it was strongly commentary. But they, you we had these like sermon prep times, like on Tuesday, whoever’s preaching would kind of give an overview of what he’s going to do. Here’s an illustration we use. Here’s what I’m thinking. And, and it was all, you know, men, all the, all the male teachers. ⁓ But then we’re like, well, can we invite women in this conversation? I’d love to hear a woman’s feedback on how is this sermon going to land from a women’s perspective?
It was the most eye-opening, embarrassing, shameful, ⁓ my word. I find it hard to even prep a sermon anymore without passing it by a woman. I mean, we were using language. was like unintentionally offensive, if not like traumatic. like, ⁓ I think I even use the term rape as like a metaphor for, don’t rape the text and she’s like, yeah, that.
Dru Johnson (46:34)
Hmm.
Preston Sprinkle (46:59)
For the 20 % of women who have been raped, Preston, I’m not sure that it’s going to be the most helpful. Just stuff like this dumps, you know, something like that. You can have thoughtful, wise women who are knowledgeable scripture, who can speak into the life and direction of the church, even if you’re like, well, they can’t be a pastor. Can’t be, you okay, okay. ⁓
Dru Johnson (47:03)
⁓ god.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Preston Sprinkle (47:26)
Uh, so yeah, I, I would, I would, I would just really explore what are some of the many ways in which women’s voices and, and, and faithfulness can be, can play a vital role in the health of the church, even if they can’t be B leaders. Um, yeah. And I mean, if I, I would, course, as a, again, as a biblical scholar landing where I did, I would very much encourage and challenge a complimentary.
and the to take their views back to the text of Scripture and just be open to learning more. ⁓ That’s one thing I really hope my book does. Of course, I want people to be convinced of my view, whatever. But I don’t know if that’s the, is that a main, I don’t know. I would love for people to see, yeah, it was, I didn’t set out. I set out to understand for myself not to preach to the Church, my conclusion. ⁓ But I…
Dru Johnson (48:14)
Didn’t feel like a main goal.
Preston Sprinkle (48:24)
I would love for people to revisit and appreciate the exegetical complexity that surrounds the conversation so that people aren’t just saying, well, I read half a book, and so we don’t need to revisit this conversation. This is an important enough issue that I think leaders of a church should really do a thorough study. And you’re like, well, we already did that. I’m like, OK.
Okay, just be open to maybe revisiting that and have the conversation continually and being courageous to go with the text leads.
Dru Johnson (49:02)
And on the flip side, to people, so maybe there’s a church out there that’s just, everybody’s equal no matter what, and we don’t make any distinctions. We don’t even, we say they for everybody, just to make sure we’re not insulting anybody, right? ⁓ What would be your commendations there?
Preston Sprinkle (49:09)
Yeah.
haha
Yeah.
Well, know, then this relates to the previous work I’ve done in sexuality. mean, I ⁓ think the Bible celebrates sex difference between men and women. It’s wrapped up in how we bear God’s, how we are God’s images, how we image God in the world. And it’s just shot through scripture. And I would say it’s just basic kind of biology. ⁓ I,
I
Dru Johnson (49:51)
And by that, I clarify, you are not saying it celebrates prototypical American images of what a man is or prototypical of what a woman is, Which I don’t even know if we have prototypical anymore, but.
Preston Sprinkle (49:52)
Yes.
No.
No, no.
It doesn’t baptize culturally shaped gender stereotypes. ⁓ It does kind of assume some of those as just cultural norms of any culture that we work within. Men and women are expected to kind of act like this, do this, do that. But the biblical narrative often challenges those gender stereotypes. Jesus challenged gender stereotypes with the fact he was a single Jewish man of marital age. ⁓
So yeah, yeah, thank you for that clarification. ⁓
What was your question?
Dru Johnson (50:38)
Sorry,
that was my fault. I diverted you. What would be the celebrating, that scripture celebrates the difference between men and women, right?
Preston Sprinkle (50:42)
Yeah, no. Right. So the people who
kind of want to able to flatten out, we’re all the same. Yeah, no, I we can absolutely celebrate sex differences without baptizing cultural stereotypes of what that means, while also affirming that men and women can serve in all positions of leadership. I don’t think I’d.
think it goes against the grain of scripture if I feel like we have to minimize male-female difference in order to achieve equality or whatever at the leadership level. most evangelicals I know, evangelical or egalitarian, don’t do that. But you do see that definitely in the secular world. And some people might adopt that kind of. They’re just constantly minimizing male-female differences. Some women are just as physically strong as men. Well, OK. Maybe.
Dru Johnson (51:16)
Hmm.
Preston Sprinkle (51:40)
⁓ So I just don’t think we need to do that. We can celebrate male-female differences. And leadership, and this gets really convoluted, I think, when we think of leadership through masculine lenses, and then when a female kind of operates in masculine, typical ways. Like, see, she can be a leader too. I’m like, no, what if we needed more leaders that were nurturing and, you know.
Dru Johnson (51:55)
Right. Right.
Preston Sprinkle (52:08)
didn’t embody kind of masculine typical personality traits. That’s not the definition of leadership. I think we need male and female differences brought to the table because both together, I think as a two parent household, similarly, is the best fat leading people well.
Dru Johnson (52:27)
Yeah, that’s
really, that’s a good way to put it. And I think you’re right. I don’t see it that much today, but you know, my kids grew up in the New York City area. So I’m thinking about the church to come. It would not surprise me if we see a little bit more of this or also the extreme reaction to it, right? On the flip side, which we’re already seeing. Well, Preston, I just want to thank you for your work, that you shared it with us through a book that you took the time to cut out those 200 pages, because that was probably the hardest part of this book for you.
Preston Sprinkle (52:37)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
It hurt, hurt really bad. Thank you, appreciate
Dru Johnson (52:57)
But thank you for your wisdom.
