Customer Reviews

Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul's Letters

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Philip Payne's new book is an extraordinarily well-done study of Paul's letters, in the area of women's roles in the church. Payne has studied this subject in detail for several decades. His knowledge of the 1st century AD background, of New Testament Greek, of textual criticism, and of the theological issues is extensive. His viewpoint is thoroughly evangelical. He zeroes in on several controversial passages in Galatians, I Corinthians, Ephesians, and I Timothy. He shows convincingly that Paul desired that all social groups be equal in status and potential role in the early church: Gentiles as well as Jews, slaves as well as masters, AND women as well as men. His tone is irenic, although he often quotes the views of those who believe in hierarchy and/or patriarchy. He shows how careful exegesis refutes the views of those who believe that women must remain in non-leadership roles in the church. His discussion of I Corinthians 14:34-35 is outstanding, demonstrating that these two verses are almost certainly an interpolation that came into the NT text a few generations after Paul wrote his original letter. Regarding the 1st letter to Timothy, Payne discusses the fact that there are NO masculine pronouns in Paul's lists of requirements for overseer, elder, or deacon roles that would limit these roles to males, showing rather that "anyone" or "whoever" fits the characteristics (such as trustworthy, hospitable, gentle, being above reproach, etc.) could aspire to one of these roles, which is said to be a "noble task."
Dr. Payne originally started his studies of these passages from an adversarial viewpoint, attempting to prove the hierarchical stance, but after prolonged study found that he must come to opposite conclusions. I highly recommend this marvellous book. It does require close attention in reading but is worth the effort. Definitely five stars.

Whether or not readers align with Payne's conclusions, his research is comprehensive and fair-handed. Anyone who takes seriously the teachings about women in ministry and the Word of God will find here a biblically faithful, historical responsible, and culturally insightful defense of evangelical egalitarianism. To ignore Payne's research is to miss some of the most important findings to date on a topic that continues to divide Christianity in North America. I very much appreciate the author's commitment to all the relevant biblical data. While he shows appreciation for the cultural and social backgrounds surrounding the Pauline corpus, Payne does not "foreground" them unnecessarily such that they eclipse God's holy Word. His high regard for Scripture is evident on every page and he plainly states his full belief in inerrancy of Scripture. Moreover, he takes on the loudest voices from the other side (Wayne Grudem, Douglas Moo, Andreas Köstenberger, et al.) and graciously engages them without compromising his findings. Quite simply this is the best treatment today.

This is a strong scriptural look at the unity of women and men in Christ according to Paul's writings. Dr. Payne wrote this for the Evangelical Free Church so that they would reconsider their stand of not ordaining women. He cogently argues from Galatians 3:26-29, 1 Corinthians 12:12, Colossians 3:11, and elsewhere that Paul's uniform vision is Jew and Gentile, man and woman, slave and free, united and equal in Christ. No problem there.

Dr. Payne goes on to expound some controverted texts in 1 Corinthians. He argues at length that wherever the word kephale (Head) shows up in 1 Corinthians 11:1-10, we should interpret this to mean source rather than leader or authority. Therefore, Paul is not saying that the leader of every man is Christ, and the leader of the woman is man, he is saying that the source of every man is Christ, and the source of the woman is man, and the source of Christ is God. He gives parallels in ancient literature, but the argument is strained. The head covering debate is really a hair covering issue rather than a hat covering issue according to Payne, and this may be right. He also shows from 1 Corinthians 11:5 that both women and men can pray and prophesy in church.

Payne then goes into 1 Corinthians 14 and gives a painstaking, 42 page deliberation on why verses 34-35 were interpolated into the text centuries later. He argues forcefully for this, because he knows if Paul really did say that women are to be silent and submissive in the churches at all times, this shoots down Payne's position that women can pray and preach and lead in church.

Payne shows that these verses were not quoted in the first couple of centuries of the church, and when they show in later texts, they are not always in the same place. He also demonstrates that Paul says elsewhere that we are not under the law, but under grace (Rom 6:14), so why would he invoke the law to keep women from speaking? No where else does Paul invoke the law.

After a long, passionate discussion, I must say that Payne has finally persuaded me in the end that these verses could very well have been interpolated.

There is also a long discussion of Ephesians 5:21-33 where Payne reminds us that the word "submit" cannot be found in Ephesians 5:22, and there is an intense, scholarly, cogent exegesis and exposition of 1 Timothy 2:8-15, where Payne interprets Paul as saying "Since women are the targets of the false teachers in Ephesus and since they are helping to propagate this false teaching, I do not permit (right now) for a woman to teach or assume authority over a man, she should learn in quietness and silence. We need to remember that Adam is to be respected as the one who is the source of women.Moreover, just as Eve was seduced by false teaching in the garden of Eden, so also the Eves of Ephesus are being seduced by false teaching. But women will be saved through the childbirth of Jesus Christ if they continue in faith, love, and holiness,with propriety." Payne may be right again!

Then Payne takes great pains to show us that the instructions to elders and deacons in chapter 3 apply to both women and men. But if he is declaring that women ought not to teach at the present time, it's hard to imagine that they would be given instructions on how to be elders and deacons, especially since one of the big requirements is to be "able to teach - 1 Timothy 3:2). Also,the reference to elders and deacons being the husband of but one wife cannot easily be swept aside, as Payne tries to do.

At the end of the day, I believe that Payne has shown that the ordination of women into pastoral ministry should not be forbidden, but it is not a slam dunk. Much hinges on whether or not Payne is correct about the interpolation of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, and the temporariness of the injunctions in 1 Timothy 2:11-15. This is an important book and is probably going to be considered the benchmark for the egalitarian position regarding man and woman in Christ.

Payne's new book is an incredible work. He gives very good insights into the "gender" verses in the Bible. If you think you know what the Bible says on gender but have not read this book, I strongly encourage you to read it.

Payne has a blog where he answers questions and responds to reviews, most recently to Schreiner's negative review.

As a fairly young Christian, I read Bertrand Russell's "Why I am not a Christian." I always have and still do believe reading works from a different perspective is healthy and necessary to know why you believe what you do.
For that reason, and because of the many positive reviews, I was excited to buy and read Man and Woman, One in Christ by Dr. Philip Payne. This whole debate on the gender issue I consider to be an intramural debate and I in no way mean to be disrespectful to Dr. Payne in disagreeing with his approach to this topic. However, I frankly did not expect to be so disappointed with his book.
In the interest of brevity, I will just list only a few of my issues:
1. On pages 43 through 52 he lists 11 wrong interpretations which complementarians impose on Genesis 2, most of which are quite legitimate. However, he does not say why Genesis 2 is even there. That chapter, in contrast to chapter 1 is heavily male-oriented. Try reversing the genders in the narrative and see if that does not radically change the chapter. If it were egalitarian, reversing the genders would change nothing. It is easy to say what a text does not mean and he made that clear. He did not say what it does mean, and he should have. It begs interpretation why chapter two was added to the completely egalitarian chapter one.
2. He repeated describes a hierarchical structure in marriage as one in which the husband controls the wife "in every respect." Pg 273,and 3 times on pg 275. That is a straw man and does not represent the whole Biblical teaching on marriage.
3. He says that "authority" cannot be the definition of "head" in I Corinthians 11 because that would imply that Christ is the authority over men, but not women and so undermines the universal lordship of Christ. (pg 130). That interpretation in itself is questionable. But exactly the same problem presents itself if you define "head" as "source". He says no, because verse 12 "implies" that God is also the source of every woman. But apparently that same implication cannot be drawn for the definition of head as authority. I fail to understand why.
4. He is correct in observing in Ephesians 5:22 there is no command for wives to submit to their husbands, but takes the verb from verse 21, and also in observing that in a Christian marriage, there will be some mutual submission. However, he ignores the effect to cause relationship between wives submitting to their husbands in verse 22 because the husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church in verse 23. For an egalitarian, that structure begs explanation.
5. He observes that I Timothy is an ad hoc letter and even quotes a commentary which observes that since it is a letter, its "essential import relates immediately and directly only to the situation that dictated their composition". Wow. Chew on that one. One of the many problems with that statement is that Galatians is also an ad hoc letter and so 3:28 only relates immediately and directly to the situation that dictated its composition which means that 3:28 should be limited to the situation that dictated its composition. He said (pg79) that limiting the practical consequences of 3:28 to salvation makes it redundant. "No one held the view that Greeks, slaves, and women could not be saved . ." Well, yes, they did, and that is the point of this intense letter requiring men to be circumcised before they could become Christians.
6. He spends numerous pages on why women were not incompetent to teach (which is not the issue in I Timothy) but barely 1 page on the real issue-why Paul prohibited them from teaching men. The reason for that, he says, (pg 394) is that Paul would not have established a rule that would be impossible for Timothy to monitor, namely, teaching by women when no men were present. Sorry, but that seems so lame to me.

There are many more issues.
I came away from reading Russell's essay more convinced that Christianity was true and I came away from Dr. Payne's book convinced that his position was not correct. Not that there are not many good points and legitimate issues in the book. There are.
But it is no "slam dunk" and does not, as the cover says, have "the potential of uniting the church on this contentious issue."

While the churches have argued about Pauline passages for centuries, and the vitriol within certain churches around the subject of women and church leadership has been toxic, an exacting scholar has now given us all what may well be the definitive scrutiny of all of the relevant passages in the New Testament Pauline letters. Philip Payne has applied exacting scholarship in ways that should finally tone down the arguments against women in church leadership.