Women teaching men?

[laurat99]

My husband and I co-teach a Sunday School class at our SBC church. What it means is that he is the usual teacher and I fill in when he isn't able. We are a mixed class of men and women.
When our new Pastor came, we asked him if he had a problem with women teaching men, and he said no (it was also no problem with the previous pastor). I've had the opportunity for the last 3 weeks to teach and I really enjoy it.

My question is, if you are a man, have you ever been in a church sanctioned class with a woman teaching? Did you have a problem with a woman teaching, or was it no big deal?

Ladies, if you are a church teacher, have you taught a group of men and women and how did you feel? Or do you feel uncomfortable with the idea of teaching men?

[Elijah Craig]

Southern Baptist churches vary on this point. The more fundamentalist ones typically will not allow women to teach a Sunday School in which there are men. From the Biblical text, the only way I see to justify the practice of a woman teaching men is to argue that Paul was accomodating to culture when he forbid it.

There is a position held by some traditionalists that think Paul's concern is not that a woman might teach a man, because there are examples of that in the New Testament at least in a private context. It is that if a woman speaks with authority in a public setting on a matter, she is usurping her husband's authority (and that the practice would encourage other women to do so). This gets around the accomodation argument, because Paul anchors a husband's authority in both the nature of the Trinity (Gal 5) and also in the natural order (1 Cor 11).

[pastor's wife]

I've never belonged to a church that had women teaching men. I even knew of some who disliked women giving testimonies, because if the testimony involved Bible verses that would mean the woman was preaching.

I like the idea of a couple co-teaching a mixed class. I have no problem with women publicly addressing the church. I used to do a short presentation on Sunday nights about Heroes of the Faith, often combining the story with music that fit the theme (or was written by the person if I was highlighting a songwriter).

One thing that bugs me to death are churches that refuse to allow women to teach boys over 12 on the assumption that a boy is considered a man at age 12. (Interestingly, in Exodus as well as the historical books, the age of legal responsibility seemed to be 20.) In my opinion, forbidding women to teach adolescent boys is a pretty sure way of cementing arrogance and misogyny in a boy.

[Darrell]

Theoretically, I'm a complementarian. In reality, I think a lot of men in and out of churches would do well to listen to what the wise women around them have to say. And the women would do well to listen to what the wise men have to say as well.

All truth is God's truth regardless of the genital configuration of the person speaking it.

[redhot]

Our church only lets women teach boys up to 5 years old. Then they go to separate classes. We currently need three boys SS teachers, and three women volunteered, and the pastor wouldn't let them. This is for 2, 3, and 5 grade.
In our high school, the youth pastor said that I should not do devotions in senior high Home Room because there were "men" (boys 18 or older) in the class; therefore, I was teaching men. (Completely off topic, but his wife left him, and when he found out I'm separated, he called and asked me out. I declined LOL)
Our principal did have all the teachers on a rotation for staff devotions, but 2 of the women refused, saying they were not comfortable sharing the Bible with the male teachers.

[Tiarali]

This is a difficult topic for me. I grew up with the idea that women should be silent in church. Not just not teach. The bible says they are to be silent, so they should be silent.

Now I think that in churches where women aren't allowed to speak, women are abused. If you want people to be cared for, you need to give them a voice.

[myotch]

I was a member of an SBC church where the Pastor fired the "Music Minister" because ministers are to be male. They still live somewhere around here, because I keep running into the music minister's son. They were a good family.

Oh, and within 6 months of firing her, the pastor left the church.

I've had women as teachers, Bible teachers, Sunday School teachers, all through my IFB and SBC church-going life.

It doesn't bother me, but I haven't known anything different. Since I was a teen, I've always known there was a controversy with women as teachers and leadership in the church.

[Persnickety Polecat]

(04-23-2012 06:53 PM)redhot Wrote:  Our church only lets women teach boys up to 5 years old. Then they go to separate classes. We currently need three boys SS teachers, and three women volunteered, and the pastor wouldn't let them. This is for 2, 3, and 5 grade.
In our high school, the youth pastor said that I should not do devotions in senior high Home Room because there were "men" (boys 18 or older) in the class; therefore, I was teaching men.

My question would then be: What about mothers of boys who are 18 or older? Do they get a free pass, or are they required to submit to the "authority" of their sons?

[redbeardiam]

(04-23-2012 04:20 PM)laurat99 Wrote:  My question is, if you are a man, have you ever been in a church sanctioned class with a woman teaching? Did you have a problem with a woman teaching, or was it no big deal?

Congrats on finding a way to serve that you really enjoy. I've been taught by women in a church setting, though not on a regular basis. I have no problem with it, and my church is fine with it as well.

[Bob M]

I was in a fundy church in 1994 and it was growing farily fast. It was in the same town as MBBC. There was a woman teaching the young adult class. I asked the pastor if that was ok according to the Bible. He said "Do you want to teach it?" I said that no. And he said "Well then, we're doing the best we can with who we have." It shut me up. He was not a wacky fundy, and I learned a lot from him.

He's the one who started introducing Contemporary music and the president of maranatha at that time came to him and said "YOu can't do that. You have Maranatha Students here." the pastor replied, "This is not the school. This is an independent baptist Church." I understand all the arguments, and am generally complementarian, but there are always times when a woman is the best option.

My final answer is "Its no big deal."