Part 1: "Wives Submit To Your Husbands.

When it comes to the topic of "wives submitting to their husbands," we have a terrible distortion of scripture that is often at play.

It usually starts with Genesis 3:16, where God says to the woman about her husband, "Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you." Taking this as "God's command" is not hearing what God is saying. God is describing a list of consequences of sin.

This is marking a shift from the original, harmonious partnership in Eden to a new, dysfunctional dynamic of conflict and hierarchical struggle.

Many will also cite "order of creation" as a key to men bing in authority because they were "created first." But with that logic, the entire animal kingdom and plant life were created before man, so they should have authority over him.

This also ignores that God didn't create men first in Genesis 1. God created humanity, both male and female together in God's image then bestowed authority on them both over creation in Genesis 1:26-28.

Many also miss that the Hebrew word for humanity transliterated into English is "Adam." So in Genesis 1:26-28, God created humanity, "adam" in God's own image, male and female. Not just a man.

Then we come to the writings of Paul on marriage, which are most often quoted in this debate. When we approach them not as isolated commands, but as part of a larger vision of life in Christ, we see them more clearly. Too often, a few lines have been lifted out of their ancient context and made to bear a weight they were never meant to carry.

The words in Ephesians 5:22 is "Wives, submit to your husbands." Many have stop there, as though Paul were establishing a rigid hierarchy. But Paul does not begin there. He begins in v21 with a call to the whole community: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." This is the root. This is the foundation. Mutual submission, not domination, not control, but a shared yielding shaped by love.

In the ancient Greco-Roman world, household codes were common. Philosophers like Aristotle taught that the male head of the household held absolute authority over wives, children, and slaves. Women were not seen as equals; they were often treated as property, their voices diminished, their agency denied. Into this world, Paul speaks, but he does not simply echo it. He transforms it.

Notice what he does. Yes, he addresses wives, but then he turns to husbands, and what does he say? Not “rule,” not “command,” but “love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” In that culture, no one was telling husbands to die for their wives. No one was calling men to cruciform love, self-emptying, sacrificial, tender, and honoring. This was not reinforcement of hierarchy; it was a quiet revolution.

The Greek word often translated “submit” (hypotassō) carried a range of meaning, including a voluntary yielding for the sake of order and love, not coerced subjugation. And importantly, in Ephesians 5:21, the verb applies to all believers toward one another. The instructions that follow are an unfolding of what mutual submission looks like in specific relationships.

But history and the present shows us what happens when this is misunderstood, or perhaps, when it is bent to serve power. These texts have been used to silence women, to justify control, even to excuse abuse. Women have been told to endure harm in the name of “submission,” to remain in unsafe homes, to suppress their God-given dignity. Entire systems have been built where men claim divine authority while neglecting the Christlike call to self-giving love.

This is not a small misreading, it is a grievous and dangerous distortion.

For when mutual submission is replaced with hierarchy, love is replaced with control. When Christlike sacrifice is replaced with entitlement, the gospel itself is obscured.

We must also remember that Paul worked alongside women leaders like Phoebe, a deacon; Junia, noted among the apostles; Priscilla, a teacher of the faith. These were not silent, sidelined figures. They were co-laborers in the kingdom of God.

And above all, we look to Jesus.

Jesus consistently elevated women in a world that diminished them. He spoke with them publicly, taught them as disciples, received their ministry, and entrusted them with the first proclamation of his resurrection. Where others imposed shame, he restored dignity. Where others enforced boundaries, he extended welcome.

In Christ, the old hierarchies begin to fall away. “There is neither male nor female, for you are all one.” This is not the erasure of difference, but the end of domination.

So as Christians today, we are not called to defend systems that diminish. We are called to embody the love of Christ, a love that lifts, honors, listens, and gives itself freely. In marriage, this means partnership marked by mutual respect, shared sacrifice, and deep care. It means rejecting any teaching or practice that enables harm.

If our interpretation of Scripture leads to the subjugation of one made in God’s image, we must return to the heart of the gospel and read again.

For the Spirit of Christ does not crush, it restores. It does not dominate, it serves. And in that Spirit, both women and men are called to flourish, side by side, in the fullness of God’s grace.

Part 2: “Women must keep silent in churches” & “I do not permit a woman to teach or assume authority over a man.”

There are few things more damaging to the body of Christ than when Scripture, which is meant to bring life, freedom, and truth, is used to bind, silence, or wound.

Let’s begin by doing a little thought exercise and reverse the roles here.

Imagine if Luke 1:18-25 were used as “proof” that God doesn’t permit men, especially clergy, to speak when women are speaking and prophesying.

The words of Paul are given a lot of weight when it comes to the role of women in the church, but here in Luke, God’s very own messenger, the angel Gabriel, strikes the priest Zechariah mute as a consequence of his unbelief when told his aged wife, Elizabeth, would bear a son. He then had to sit there in silence as Elizabeth and Mary spoke freely and rejoiced about their pregnancies. Then Mary prophesied about the dismantling of the empire (Luke 1:46-56).

Can you even imagine what it would be like in our churches today if whenever a male pastor was “skeptical” about God’s call on a woman, he then had to practice “holy muteness” and listen to her call from God? What a church that would be!

So, if we would push against Luke 1:46-56 being applied to all male clergy, as that would contradict other parts of the Bible, then we must do the same with the claims that “women must keep silent in church” (1 Corinthians 14:34) and that a woman “cannot hold authority over a man” (1 Timothy 2:12).

These passages have so often been lifted out of their historical and literary context and turned into universal prohibitions, but when we read these passages carefully, within the whole counsel of Scripture, and with attention to the original language, they tell a far more nuanced and pastoral story.

Let’s begin with 1 Corinthians 14:34–35:

“Women should keep silent in the churches…”

At first glance, this seems absolute. But just a few chapters earlier, Paul assumes that women are speaking in church:

“Every woman who prays or prophesies…” (1 Corinthians 11:5)

Paul is not contradicting himself within the same letter. In 1 Corinthians 14, he is addressing disorder in worship, people speaking over one another, interrupting, creating confusion (see 14:26–33). The Greek word for “keep silent” (sigao) is used multiple times in this same chapter, not just for women, but for anyone who is speaking out of turn (14:28, 30). It is not a permanent silence, but a call for order.

Many scholars note that the specific issue in Corinth likely involved disruptive questioning, perhaps uneducated interruptions during the evaluation of prophecy (14:29). In that context, Paul instructs certain women to refrain from interrupting and instead ask questions in a more appropriate setting. This is not a universal ban on women speaking; it is a pastoral correction for a specific situation of disorder.

Now consider 1 Timothy 2:12:

“I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man…”

Here again, the Greek matters. The word translated “assume authority” (authentein) is rare and does not carry the normal sense of healthy, servant leadership. It can imply domineering, abusive, or self-appointed authority. Paul is not forbidding all forms of teaching or leadership by women; he is addressing a harmful kind of authority, likely in response to false teaching spreading in Ephesus (see 1 Timothy 1:3–7).

This fits the broader context: women in that culture were often denied formal education, and some were being drawn into false doctrines (2 Timothy 3:6–7). Paul’s instruction is corrective and temporary, aimed at restoring sound teaching, not a timeless ban on women in leadership.

And we must not ignore the overwhelming testimony of the rest of Scripture.

Women are not silent in God’s story, they are central to it.

We see Priscilla teaching alongside her husband and helps instruct Apollos, a learned man (Acts 18:26). Notably, her name often appears first, suggesting prominence.

We see Phoebe is called to be a deacon (diakonos) of the church in Cenchreae and a patron (Romans 16:1–2), a term indicating leadership and support.

We see Junia is named as great among the apostles (Romans 16:7). Early church fathers universally recognized her as a female apostle.

We see Philip’s daughter’s prophesy (Acts 21:9), fulfilling the promise of Acts 2:17: “Your sons and your daughters will prophesy.”

This is the outworking of the Spirit poured out on all flesh. The new covenant does not restrict gifting by gender.

Historically, the early church did not uniformly exclude women from leadership either. In the first three centuries, we have evidence of women serving as deacons, house church leaders, patrons, and in some regions even holding titles associated with episcopal or priestly functions, though the terminology and structure were still developing and different from how we understand church leadership today. This was not rebellion against Scripture, rather it was faithfulness to the Spirit’s gifting and the apostolic witness.

So what changed?

As Christianity became more institutionalized, especially after its legalization under Constantine in the 4th century, it began to mirror the hierarchical and patriarchal structures of the surrounding Greco-Roman world. Cultural norms increasingly shaped church offices. Over time, leadership became more formalized and restricted, and women were gradually excluded, not because of a clear biblical mandate, but because of external social pressures and evolving institutional concerns.

But when we return to Jesus, we see something radically different.

Jesus consistently dignified, listened to, and elevated women:

He receives instruction from his mother at the wedding in Cana and responds to her request (John 2:1–11).

He welcomes Mary of Bethany to sit at his feet, a traditional posture of a disciple, and affirms her choice (Luke 10:39–42).

He engages the Samaritan woman in deep theological conversation and entrusts her as a witness to her community (John 4:7–30).

When a Syrophoenician woman challenges him, and he even used language shaped by the ethnic tensions of the day towards her, he listened to her rebuttal, commends her faith, and heals her daughter (Mark 7:24–30; Matthew 15:21–28).

He and his ministry was also is supported by wealthy women business owners and leaders within their communities (Luke 8:2-3).

Women are also the first witnesses to the resurrection and are commissioned by Jesus to proclaim it in all four gospel accounts.

Again and again, Jesus does not silence women or reject their authority. He listens to them, treats them as equals, and affirms God speaking through them.

So when we read Paul, we must read him as a servant of this same Christ, not in contradiction to him. His letters address real communities with real problems. They require discernment, context, and humility.

The gospel does not shrink the voice of women, it releases it.

And any teaching that results in silencing the hurting, excluding the gifted, or diminishing the image of God in women is not aligned with the trajectory of Scripture. For in Christ: “There is neither male nor female, for you are all one” (Galatians 3:28)

The church is healthiest when every voice God has called is heard, when every gift is welcomed, and every wound is given space to be named and healed.

Some of the most influential theologians, pastors, and leaders in my life have been women, who followed God’s call on their lives, even in spite of having that call constantly questioned, challenged, and criticized. Simply because of their gender. 

Genesis 1:27 tells us that God created humanity in God’s image, both male and female. When we refuse the voice and leadership of women, we are not only refusing to witness the fullness of humanity, but the fullness of God.

Part 3: “The Proverbs 31 Woman.”

Proverbs 31 has often been used as a measuring rod for women and a template given to men who are looking for the “ideal wife.”

When you read through the attributes, you feel like you are reading about a super woman, who is not only a diligent wife and mother, but also an entrepreneur, agriculturalist, and social influencer. Comparing yourself to this ideal woman will make you feel like a failure at life before you even get to the end of the passage.

This is why it’s such a harmful thing to see Proverbs 31 as a description of the “ideal woman.”

In fact, it’s just incorrect to see this as a description of a literal woman at all.

It is a description of wisdom as a woman, which is the culmination of what the entire book of proverbs does from the beginning.

From the beginning!of the book of Proverbs, the wisdom of God has had a voice and is personified as a woman. She calls aloud in the streets (Proverbs 1:20–21). She invites the simple to learn and the wise to grow (Proverbs 1:5). She is described as more precious than jewels (Proverbs 3:15; 31:10), a source of life and flourishing for those who embrace her (Proverbs 3:18). This is deliberate language. Wisdom in Proverbs is embodied, relational, strong, and compelling. She is the wisdom of God.

So when we encounter the figure in Proverbs 31, what we are seeing is not a narrow prescription for womanhood, but a poetic, expansive portrait of wisdom lived out.

The passage itself is an acrostic poem, each verse unfolding in ordered beauty, suggesting completeness, a vision of wisdom from A to Z. And within that vision, we see a life marked not by confinement, but by remarkable breadth.

She considers a field and buys it (Proverbs 31:16). She perceives that her merchandise is profitable (31:18). She trades with merchants (31:24). The language here echoes earlier descriptions of wisdom’s involvement in economic life (Proverbs 3:14), reminding us that wisdom is not detached from the practical world, it moves within it, shaping it.

She is prudent and discerning (compare Proverbs 1:4; 8:12 with 31:16). She builds up her household (Proverbs 14:1; 31:21–27). She works diligently with her hands (Proverbs 31:13–20), and her labor bears fruit (compare Proverbs 8:19; 31:16, 31). Those around her call her blessed (Proverbs 3:18; 31:28), not because she has fit into a narrow mold, but because her life radiates wisdom.

And at the center of it all is this: “a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” (Proverbs 31:30). This echoes the very foundation of the book, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 1:7; see also 1:29). This is the thread that ties everything together. Not a description of a gender role or the expectations for women, but of a life oriented toward God’s wisdom.

When we see this clearly, it becomes difficult to reconcile this expansive vision with the much narrower framework often presented under the label of “Biblical womanhood.”

In some modern teachings, women are told their faithfulness is measured primarily by their ability to remain within the home, to serve quietly, to defer completely, and to depend entirely on their husbands for provision. Their world is drawn small. Their agency is limited. Their calling is reduced.

But this is not the world of Proverbs 31.

The woman of this passage moves both within and beyond the household with wisdom and authority. She engages economically, socially, and relationally. She exercises strength, a word that elsewhere in Scripture is used of warriors (see 2 Samuel 22:33, 40). She is described with the same kind of dignity and honor attributed to pillars of the community, even soldiers (Proverbs 31:10; compare Ruth 3:11).

Even her “gain” carries the language of hard-won victory (Proverbs 31:11), echoing the spoils of battle. This is active, courageous participation in the fullness of life.

And perhaps most strikingly, her husband’s standing in the city gates is dependent on her (Proverbs 31:23). Her life does not shrink to elevate his. Rather, her flourishing contributes to the flourishing of all.

What we begin to see is that Proverbs 31 is not about limiting women, it is about revealing wisdom. And wisdom, as Proverbs presents it, consistently stretches beyond our categories. It refuses to be confined.

In fact, the personification of wisdom as a woman invites us to do something profound: to look beyond gender stereotypes and focus on the attributes being revealed. Wisdom calls all people into a life marked by courage, diligence, compassion, creativity, and reverence for God, humanity, and creation.

To reduce this to a rigid template for women is to miss that point entirely.

And more than that, such reduction can do harm. When cultural expectations are given the weight of divine command, they can be used to bind, subjugate, silence, and abuse.

Doing so contradicts how Proverbs 31 itself begins. It is a collection of advice from a mother to her son, King Lemuel. After telling him that it isn’t right for a king to be a selfish drunk, she says one of my favorite proverbs. She tells him: “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” (8‬-‭9‬)

Proverbs 31 is a woman is telling her son to use his position of power to lift up the lowly and advocate for others and then describes the wisdom he must always seek to have as a woman. Powerful.

There is nothing wrong, of course, with a woman who chooses a life centered in the home. Scripture honors care, nurture, and the building of a household. But choice is the key. A life freely given is very different from a life rigidly prescribed.

Proverbs 31 does not demand uniformity, it paints the possibility and flourishing that can come through the attributes of wisdom.

It invites us to imagine what it looks like when wisdom takes root in a human life and begins to bear fruit in every direction. It calls us to pursue that wisdom, not by imitating every external detail, but by embodying the heart of it.

So perhaps the question is not, “Does my life match this description?” but rather, “Am I growing in wisdom? Am I living with strength and dignity? Am I walking in the reverence of the Lord and my fellow human beings?”

In the end, this passage is not about creating a narrow vision of womanhood. It is about revealing a wide and generous vision of wisdom, one that welcomes all of us to step into the fullness of who God has created us to be.

Part 4: “God Our Mother.”

I’ll never forget the reaction to one of my first-ever sermons on Mother’s Day weekend.

I was fresh out of seminary, and I couldn’t think of a more fitting weekend to share all the feminine and motherly aspects of God described in the Bible. To not only show that the theme from the very beginning, of God creating humanity, both male and female, in God’s own image, is continued throughout the entire Bible through the way God interacted with people, but also to share how the Bible depicts God as so much bigger than the narrow masculine gender categories we often hear used today.

The response to my sermon was very mixed.

Some found it so refreshing and inspiring, as they had never heard many of the depictions of God from the Bible that I shared. One individual told me with tears streaming down their face that they had always struggled to pray to God because they only saw God as a stoic and easily angered “father.” Their own human father had been abusive, and that shaped how they understood God as “father” as well. They then shared how seeing the motherly aspects of God opened an entirely new way of praying, seeking the comforting and nurturing qualities of God they had never thought were possible.

Others were deeply offended. One individual told me that Jesus taught us to pray to God as our father, and that my preaching contradicted Jesus. Another individual told me that referring to God as feminine in any way makes God appear as weak, and they would never feel comfortable praying to a God like that. Others just told me I was reading too much into the Bible and seeing things that weren’t there.

What I found unsettling was not only that some of the negative comments came from women, but also that we were a church in the Wesleyan tradition, and that upholding the Biblical call to empower, affirm, and support the leadership of women was central to who we were as a denomination. Yet there was deep resistance from many that Sunday to even consider the feminine aspects of God. Later on, I would hear several comments from longtime church members that, while they believed women could be pastors, they were always more comfortable with a man as their pastor. One woman told me directly that “the Bible just sounds clearer and more authoritative when it’s read and preached in a man’s voice.”

I was dumbfounded to say the least.

Women have been preaching in the Wesleyan tradition since the 1760’s, before the United States was even founded. Mary Bosanquest Fletcher was the first woman to preach widely within the Wesleyan movement. Women have also been ordained with full rights as clergy within the Wesleyan tradition since at least the 1840s, before women had the right to vote in the United States. According to many, Anna Howard Shaw is considered the first officially ordained minister in the Wesleyan tradition in 1880.

Alongside Quakers and other Christian traditions, Wesleyans were also on the forefront of advocating for women’s suffrage. In fact, the first formal women’s rights convention, which launched the suffrage movement in July of 1848 was held in the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls. This chapel belonged to the Wesleyan Methodist movement, which broke off from mainstream Methodism in support of the abolition of slavery. This liberation spirit made it more open to host a “controversial” gathering on women’s rights.

The Wesleyan movement isn’t perfect by any means. It split over slavery, as many other Christian traditions did, and many denominations within the movement haven’t always fully embraced this core conviction of advocating for gender equality. I even remember fellow ministry majors at my Wesleyan university raging against the book “The Shack” because the author dared to depict God as a Black woman and the Holy Spirit as an Asian woman. As a man, I have to continue to work to untangle my perspective from patriarchal hierarchy every single day. Yet gender equality remains a core theological and Biblical principle of who we are. Of who I am. It is one of the core reasons I have remained in the Wesleyan tradition.

After just learning this history, I was stunned that there wasn’t more openness to consider the feminine aspect of God among many that Sunday morning.

It taught me that even when a global denomination’s official stance is gender equality, living that out and allowing even our imaginations to be formed by that belief is another thing entirely. The patriarchy can be deeply rooted even within movements that claim to stand against it.

With that said, I want to share with you some feminine depictions of God in the scriptures and invite you to at least keep an open mind. One of the most beautiful things about the Bible to me is how it invites us all to wrestle with God over our current theology and perhaps come away with the blessing of a deeper understanding of God and one another.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, the language used for God stretches beyond the confines we tend to impose. While God is frequently addressed with masculine titles, there are also deeply feminine images woven into the text.

In Deuteronomy 32:18, God is described as the one who “gave you birth” (Hebrew: yalad), a verb unmistakably tied to labor and delivery. In Isaiah 42:14, God speaks: “like a woman in labor I will cry out,” using imagery that places divine expression within the embodied experience of childbirth. Again in Isaiah 49:15, God asks, “Can a woman forget her nursing child?” and then surpasses even that image of maternal devotion: “Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.”

The Hebrew word רחם (racham), often translated as “compassion” or “mercy,” shares its root with רחם (rechem), meaning “womb.” When Scripture speaks of God’s mercy, it is linguistically tied to the womb-like tenderness, a fierce, protective, life-giving love. The compassion of God is, in its very structure, maternal.

Turning to the New Testament, written in Greek, we find similar currents. Jesus, in Luke 13:34, laments over Jerusalem: “How often I have desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” The image is not kingly or patriarchal; it is avian, maternal, and protective. The longing expressed is not domination, but compassion and shelter. This is an important balance to the argument that Jesus taught us to pray to God exclusively as “father.” In the first-century Jewish world, to call God “Father” was not to make a statement about divine gender, but to speak of origin, authority, provision, and covenantal faithfulness. It was a relational metaphor, powerful, yes, but still a metaphor. A metaphor that Jesus himself doesn’t even confine himself to, as we have just seen.

Even the Holy Spirit, referred to in Greek as πνεῦμα (pneuma), is a grammatically neuter noun, though in Hebrew the corresponding word רוּחַ (ruach) is feminine. In the opening verses of Genesis, this Spirit hovers over the waters “merachefet,” which is a verb suggesting a bird-like fluttering, a brooding presence, reminiscent again of maternal care. Like a mother hen gathering her chicks.

Some other examples from scripture are:

God comforts God’s people like a mother comforts her child (Isaiah 66:13).

Like a woman would never forget her nursing child, God will not forget God’s children (Isaiah 49:15).

God is like a mother eagle hovering over her young (Deuteronomy 32:11).

God seeks the lost like a woman, trying to find her lost coin (Luke 15:8-10).

God cares for God’s people like a midwife that cares for the child she just delivered (Psalm 22:9-10, Psalm 71:6, Isaiah 66:9).

God experiences the fury of a mother bear robbed of her cubs (Hosea 13:8).

One of the most powerful moments for me in the Bible is the very first human being to name God. Hagar, an enslaved woman, a foreigner, and one abused and cast aside to die by those with power over her, cries out to God in her moment of despair and hopelessness. God sees her and responds to her. In that moment of rescue, she names God El Ro’i, which is often translated, “the God who sees me.” The God who truly saw her, believed her, empathized with her, and rescued her. This is a theology born out of survival. Hagar speaks to God and names God out of her own lived experience.

None of this negates the masculine language present in Scripture, but it does challenge the narrowness with which God has often been portrayed. When communities insist on exclusively male imagery for God, it can subtly, or not so subtly, reinforce the idea that maleness is closer to the divine. Over time, this shapes how women are seen, how they are valued, how they are taught to see themselves, and how they are permitted or forbidden to participate in the life of the Church.

The tragedy is not only theological but deeply human. Women bear the weight of being told, implicitly or explicitly, that they reflect God’s image less fully. And yet Genesis tells us otherwise: male and female God created them… in God’s own image. The image is shared, not divided into unequal portions.

To recover these feminine threads in Scripture is not to impose something foreign onto the text, but to receive what has always been there, waiting to be noticed again. It is an act of faithfulness, not revision. And perhaps, in doing so, the Church may begin to heal, not by abandoning tradition, but by allowing the fullness of God’s self-revelation to speak more fully and clearly.

For in the end, God is not contained by our language. But our language shapes how we understand God and how we treat one another. And so it matters deeply that we listen well.

God is our father, yes, but God is also our mother.
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