Was Paul a Misogynist?
If you are like me, reading passages of Scripture that seem to restrict women left me feeling hurt and confused. I would never admit it out loud, but I wondered to myself, is Paul a misogynist? Could this really be God’s attitude toward women? But like most women I just accepted what pastors and teachers told me. After all, I don’t have a Bible degree (yet), they must know more than I do. I just begrudgingly accepted what the Bible said about women...or does it? I have found that many women are afraid to broach the topic. Especially in an academic setting where the majority of professors and theologians are men. When you get into the nitty gritty details of historical background and Bible translation, it can be rightfully intimidating. There is A LOT to unpack on this topic and cannot be done in a single post. I also believe that the Bible is the Holy inherent Word of God, and I desire to approach it reverently and humbly when studying its contents.
With that being said, I want to lay a little groundwork for those who may be new to studying the Bible and help put into context how I am reaching the conclusions I come to. I think a big trap that many fall into is reading the Bible as if it is all one genre, mainly law, and instructions on how to live. However, the Bible is made up of many genres. Stories, history, poetry, songs, letters, prophesies, to name a few. It was written by 40 different authors from shepherds, tax collectors, fishermen, doctors and kings. It was written over a period of 1,450 years in different countries and cultures. Now with this great breadth of time and place, God did not feel it necessary to have someone pen something about women’s place and restrictions. Not until, seemingly the Apostle Paul. However, as we will discover, it is not silencing women at all.
We must know the genre and the context first and foremost, and then look to understand words which may have various meanings and connotations and have been translated from an ancient language into English. Basically what I am saying is, the Bible was not written in a day by a white evangelical, American Christian, man.
You know how realtors harp on location, location, location? When it comes to correct, exegetical, Biblical interpretation, we could say it is context, context, context. These troublesome passages come from three epistles (the epistles are letters that were later canonized as Scripture) written by the Apostle Paul to the early Church. These epistles were written to the likes of Jews, Greeks, and Romans. They were written to specific people, at specific times. They reference prior correspondence that we do not always have records of. Something noteworthy is, each of the three troublesome passages were in letters written to Greek Churches in Ephesus, Crete, and Corinth. These were Greek cities where female goddesses were worshiped and female priests held power. The letters including restrictions on women were written only to Greek cities where female deities and female power was a problem. There are no records of Paul asking for restrictions to be placed on women in any other regions. I will get into what these problems were in another post, but suffice it to say, this should grab your attention, this is not happenstance.
Some may argue that though Paul’s letters were addressed to particular churches, they were still intended for all churches. In Kris Vallotton’s book Fashioned to Reign, he brings a lot of understanding to this. He explains it like this. It is true that many churches would circulate Paul’s letters to other churches for encouragement. However, there is no way any Church had anything close to what we now call our New Testament. Rather Churches would have fragments of books, psalms, and letters that they would read when they gathered together. Paul did not write and tell the disciples to make copies of his letters to send to every church. Instead he wrote them as personal letters, responding to questions and concerns of those specific churches. To be sure there is great wisdom to be gleaned, and churches could benefit from their encouragement. However, they were not written with the intention of being read to every Christian. The epistles we have are letters of Paul that were preserved, though we cannot account for many that have been lost such as other Corinthians letters which Paul refers to but have never been found.
It may be helpful to contrast the epistles with the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch is the first five books of the Old Testament, believed to be written by Moses. These books were intended for Israel, God’s chosen people, before Jesus brought the new dispensation of inclusion into God’s family. The Pentateuch was written as Israel’s book of the law, and guide book for life, and Jewish people today continue to treat it as such. However, Christians relate differently to the epistles. Yes, it is the inherent Word of God. However, it is not a book of law, such as the Pentateuch, and we should not read it as such. The epistles are specific instructions to specific churches and
situations at that time. To be sure we can gain insight from these on how to deal with specific problems in a certain setting, but as Vallotton says, “you cannot superimpose God’s situational counsel over universal circumstances and have it be redemptive in every situation.” I think this sums up the issue. Now that these letters have been preserved and circulated in Bibles translated in languages all over the world, we can gain insight into God’s thought on these specific situations, but we cannot make them into universal law. The problem is when people approach the Bible disregarding the key components. The context is either misunderstood or ignored all together. Then as the trend of ignoring or misunderstanding the context continues throughout history, we end up with hundreds of years of traditions and beliefs based on misunderstanding
or ignoring context. Now, on this side of history it is difficult to pick up the pieces and recover the true meaning and context of these long misused verses. It’s a job, but one worth the headache of pursuing. You would think Bible verses that seem to be oppressive, unredemptive and disempowering, would cause Christians to pause. However, the stronghold of traditional beliefs is difficult to unravel.
One of the most powerful verses on our new freedom in Christ is Galatians 3:28:
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
This verse is powerful in and of itself, but Jewish men would have recognized something even more radical in it. Jewish men understood salvation t
o come through circumcision and the observance of holy days. Women could not participate in these things so they could only gain status by affiliation with males through marriage or bearing sons. Paul is telling them in Jesus there is no differentiation! There was a common morning prayer recited by devout Jewish men in which they thanked God that they were not created a Gentile, a slave or...you guessed it, a woman. These people were disqualified from privileges that were exclusive to free, Jewish males. Paul, being a former, Christian killing, law keeping, Pharisee knew this well. Galatians 3:28 served as the Magna Carta of the equalizing freedom found in Christ, in direct contradiction of this commonly said prayer.
I have heard some theologians argue that this verse is only to be understood soteriologically (which is a fancy theological term meaning things that refer to salvation). However, if this is so, please explain to me how one can be on equal standing before God in regards to their salvation, and yet be limited in regards to thei
r roles in the Church. Why then, the limitations? If God sees us as equal, if He says there is no male or female in Christ, and Christians are indeed in Christ, hence the name Christians, then why on earth are they restricted in Christ’s house? In the house where they are told that Christ does not distinguish them differently? If Gentiles can now preach and exercise authority in the church the same as a Jew, why not a woman as freely as a man? If Onesimus, the former slave, is now to be considered a brother and equal of his former slave owner Philemon, why are women not now given equal rights and power? (If you are unfamiliar, I suggest you give the book of Philemon a read, it’s only one chapter!). I am unconvinced that any part of the Christian faith isolates who we are before God, apart from the rest of our lives.
So in short, no. Paul is not a misogynist. In fact, according to Galatians 3:28, I’d like to say he is a woman’s liberator.
I hope this puts things into perspective for you as you study God’s Word. This is vital for correct Bible interpretation, not only for how it pertains to women, but all of the life giving truth it holds. In upcoming posts I will dig deeper into these troublesome passages to discover what was really going on there.
