Gender Roles and the House Church

Recently I was talking to a man about the role of women in the church. He felt like women had received a second class citizenship in the church. This matter is one that has long been on my heart. In this article I am attempting to show you, the reader, what I see through my eyes after much research, contemplation, and prayer.

First of all, the church in the first century offered women a higher status than their societies, whether Jewish or Roman, offered or ever had offered. Women were given a place with Jesus. He honored and respected them, mentioning their great faith. In the New Testament, we see the women following Jesus, Jesus talking with them and defending them. It was through a woman that has set herself apart for God that Jesus was born, it was the women that supported His ministry, and it was women who were still there with Him at the cross. It was the women who were the first to see the empty tomb.

Paul says that there is neither male nor female, but we are all one in Christ. There are references to women serving even in the New Testament, as prophetesses, as deaconesses, and as host, if not leaders of house churches. We see Priscilla, along with her husband, taking Apollos the preacher aside to teach him the Word more accurately.

The early church tended to meet in homes, though they also met in rented facilities. There were no church buildings as we have today. It is important that we get that and see them in their culture and not ours. In their culture, men's domain was the public square, women's domain was the home. Even in the home the woman was to be subject to her husband, but the formal rules that applied in public were not in play there.

Older women were to teach the younger women. Women served the church in various ways without which the church would have not been able to fulfill its ministry of taking the gospel to all the world. It is important to note that it was the husband's role to train and admonish his children and not pass that off as a sole responsibility of the wife. Over 50% pf our homes today are led by a single parent female without the male role playing his part. Lack of responsibility on men's part is destroying our society. This is also pushing women to the front as leaders in the public realm more than ever before.

Paul speaks against women taking speaking roles in the church assembly. That is, authoritative roles. This goes back to Adam and Eve, with Eve as the helper to Adam. This is the way God established the earth. This is the pattern that He intended and intends to be in place even to this day. The reason I believe that this idea is so repulsive to women is that men have not played their role appropriately and have lost the respect of women. I might say, rightly so. Men who are followers of Christ must once again look deeply into God's Word and begin to live out their call to be who God created them to be. When this happens, women will be glad to give them the respect that position calls for. However, to demand or expect that respect when we as men have not followed God's plan for our lives, is ludicrous.

In the meantime, while men get their acts together, women should be busy sharing their faith with others. They should be diligent in their study of God's Word and see to it that their lives reflect it's teachings. If we will once again make the home the center of our faith rather than some building constructed by men to offer a place for worship for two hours a week, we will begin to experience a faith that is the center of our lives and our homes. We have been duped by Satan in believing that our whole relationship with God is centered in an hour or two at a building apart from our homes. We need to once again be inviting people into our homes to study God's Word and to worship Him until it becomes a natural part of our lives. Then our assemblies in church building can be a time of celebration of our various parts coming together to celebrate what God is doing in our lives and in our homes.

May God raise up men who will honor His Word and live out the call He has on their lives. May He raise up men who women can respect and support as they lead our corporate worship. And may He give us a clear understanding of what roles He would have us play in the church. Whatever we do, may it be all for His glory!