Ben Witherington has a post up today on Why arguments against women in ministry aren’t biblical. I shall assume that in his discussions of the arguments offered by evangelicals on the basis of specific texts he knows what he is talking about. I find them rather bizarre but I imagine he must have those arguments quite often. His heart is in the right place on the ministry of women – I’m not entirely sure about his head judging by the way he understands the catholic argument. He certainly articulates it poorly,
Women can’t be ministers, because only males can be priests offering the sacrifice of the Mass etc.
and he rebuts it with a lazy cliché much beloved of evangelicals
The root problem with this argument is that the NT is perfectly clear that apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists, elders, deacons ARE NOT PRIESTS IN THE NT. There is no need for a separate order of priests in the NT because Christ’s sacrifice made obsolete the entire OT sacerdotal system of priests, temples and sacrifices. The only priesthoods we hear about in the NT are: 1) the priesthood of all believers, which of course includes women, and 2) the heavenly high priesthood of Christ (see Hebrews).
I am only going to make one comment on the argument in relation to women. There is a perfectly respectable argument from a Catholic understanding of priesthood to the ordination of women as priests. It argues from the perspective – articulated specifically in Hebrews – that the essential qualification for Christ’s priesthood is his humanity (as articulated also in St Gregory’s famous axiom “What he did not assume, he did not heal”). If there is no necessary maleness to Christ’s priesthood, there can be no necessary maleness in those who image that priestly ministry. What is necessary is shared humanity, and in our culture that truth is, to say the least, obscured when half of humanity is prevented from participating in this ministry.
That said, let me sketch an outline of why I reject Witherington’s standard evangelical arguments against the idea of Christian priesthood. (Apart from the fact that when anyone says “the NT is perfectly clear” I instantly want to doubt what I’m told.) This is a very limited argument, and far from a full case for a theology of priesthood. I am not trying to be comprehensive, only to offer some core pointers to a fuller case.
So here are (in very nugatory and underdeveloped fashion) some of the key points.
- The word priest (ἱερεύς) in Jewish culture implies not simply a function but a family – it is not a question of appointment or ritual but of heredity. Indeed, it is possible to read the letter to the Hebrews as evidence of just how difficult it was in Jewish circles to apply the term priest to someone who did not share the Aaronite lineage. The silence of the New Testament concerning the presence of priests in the church may mean nothing more than that comparatively few priests became followers of the Way. Luke refers to a sizeable group (Acts 6:7) but so little of the NT is focussed on the Jerusalem church that we hear no more from them.
- The so-called “priesthood of all believers” (much better understood as the corporate priesthood of the church) is no argument against an order of priests. After all 1 Peter 2:5,9 simply echoes Exodus 19:6. It is an OT concept reapplied. If in the OT it complemented the idea of a special priesthood, it can hardly be used to contradict one in the NT.
- The argument of Hebrews is a distinct and careful one about the ministry of Christ, conceiving it quite radically in terms of priest and sacrifice simultaneously. The author does not use this argument to say anything about ministers of the new covenant. Much of the Reformation polemic comes from a conflation of Hebrews and Paul that fails to pay sufficient attention to the differences in their voices. It is just as possible to argue that if Christ’s ministry is fundamentally as priestly as the writer suggests, then perhaps there is a priestly character to all ministry.
- Paul seems to find a priestly dimension in his work. He is “a minister (λειτουργὸν – a person making a public offering) of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly (ἱερουργοῦντα– hieratic) service of the gospel of God”. (Rom 15:16) This may not be unrelated to his instinct that he can be “poured out as a libation over the sacrifice and the offering of your faith” (Phil 2:17). This is, I suggest an early hint of sacrificial and priestly language that begins to develop in a variety of ways very quickly, coming to focus particularly both on the principal ministers of the church and the principal service of the church in readily complementary ways.
- Already by the time the later books of the NT were being finished, Clement of Rome was already articulating aspects of Christian ministry in terms of offering and priesthood (1 Clement 40). Only a little later Ignatius of Antioch is urging people only to come together for common prayer with the bishop and presbyters “as to one temple of God, as to one altar” (Magnesians 7:2) This is particularly true of the Eucharist (Smyrneans 8).
- In the mid second century we have Justin Martyr speaking of the Eucharist (which practice he also describes – First Apology 65-66) comments about ” those Gentiles, namely us, who in every place offer sacrifices to Him, i.e., the bread of the Eucharist, and also the cup of the Eucharist” He builds this on what was to become the early Church’s favourite eucharistic text from Malachi, that a pure offering would be made in all the nations (Mal 1:11).
My intention here is not to argue for a particular view of priesthood. I do, however, believe that the above pointers are sufficient to question any assertion that the NT is in any sense clear about it. I think it is also clear that one cannot do what Witherington does and lay the blame for language of priesthood and sacrifice on the Constantinian era. We also need to remember that this way of looking has got itself well into the heart of the church as it wrestles with the question of which books are scripture, which books are valued in themselves and consonant with the faith and practice of the church. They debated many things furiously and often bitterly. This one seems to have grown in both a more universal and less contested way than most. That alone should give us pause before we assert a novel 16th century understanding to be “perfectly clear”.
{ 6 comments }
It is good that you note Paul’s offhand comment in Romans 15. He is by his own admission not of the line of Aaron, but of Benjamin. He also asks that we ‘present our bodies a living sacrifice’ (12:1) as a response to the truth of the prior 11 chapters. This individual offering seems to me to be plural severally rather then only a plural corporate. Is that a reasonable thought?
I’m not entirely sure how one would distinguish between “plural corporate” and “plural severally” nor what the import of that distinction might be.
Plural corporate means the Church as a whole but seen as comprised of many members, none acting individually. Plural severally is each one though of many acting in singular ways. No – one could not distinguish these grammatically, but your statement 2> The so-called “priesthood of all believers” (much better understood as the corporate priesthood of the church) is no argument against an order of priests … implies that you yourself are distinguishing between the corporate role as priest and the individual role as a member of the body as priest.
Malachi 1:2 is a good example of plural ‘you’ with the same ambiguity. Does God love Israel as a whole or each of the many individuals who reads the prophecy?
Ellen Van der Wolde makes the same distinction, I am told by Joel, in image and likeness. The image is individual, the likeness corporate. (I am not heading in this direction but it may have some merit.)
Thanks for this; I much appreciate the points you make here. I, for one, recognise my own tendency to overuse ‘clearly’ in exegesis. We do have the same problem that the author of Hebrews has: that the classical priesthood of the Pentateuch is normative rather than a first-century actuality. I’m sure that one element of Paul’s perceived ‘hieratic service’ is a continuation of early rabbinic understanding of themselves acting as priests in the dissemination of Oral Torah. This is seen in the mishnaic instruction that atonement was through keeping of halakha. Perhaps it is no wonder then that Paul describes the priestliness of his mission in the context of the Gospel.
I hadn’t reflected on alternative Jewish “priestliness” so thanks for that comment. I guess there’s more than one way to consecrate a cat.
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