Paul’s restriction on women certainly elicited criticism then, just as it does today. So, as in nearly all other references to distinct male-female roles, Paul immediately supports his instruction with Scripture: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Tim. 2:13–14). Paul anchors his instruction firmly in the Genesis account. Like Jesus, Paul takes his readers back to creation, back to Genesis, back to the first man and woman (Matt. 19:3–9). Paul does not appeal to local culture, the lack of women’s education, or the supposed problems of heretical female teachers. He simply appeals to God’s original, timeless creation design and mandate (Gen. 1:27–28).

Editor’s note: The following essay appears in the Fall 2023 issue of Eikon.
There are many books and articles on leadership. Too many. But few courageously address the issue of male only pastoral leadership and why it is necessary. The Bible teaches that the church’s elders are to be men, yet this foundational, biblical truth is relentlessly attacked and deemed totally irrelevant by most people.
In this brief article, I will focus on Paul’s instructions to his beloved church in Ephesus. Ephesus was one of the four major epicenters of early Christianity and where Paul labored in the gospel for nearly three years. What Paul writes to this believing community is Holy Scripture and essential to our theme of a male-only church eldership.
Male Leadership in Marriage and the Home
While in prison in Rome, Paul wrote his magisterial letter to the Ephesians. In this letter he makes this stunning and authoritative statement about husbands and wives in Christian marriage:
For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Eph. 5:23–27)
“As Christ Is the Head”
Paul’s basis for the husband’s headship (leadership) is not first-century Greco-Roman culture. Instead, it is Christ and his church. This is the most compelling argument that male headship in Christian marriage is not cultural, but of divine origin: the husband is the head of the wife (and here is the analogy), “as Christ is the head of the church.”[1] Certainly, Christ’s headship over the church is not a relic of an ancient cultural patriarchy. Furthermore, Christian husbands are to love their wives “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). One cannot love his wife as Christ loved the church and cruelly use and abuse her. Scripture speaks clearly here of loving, Christlike family leadership, not selfish narcissism. Thus the Christian husband leads, protects, and provides.
“As the Church Submits to Christ”
So too, the basis for the wife’s submission is not first-century Greco-Roman society. It is Christ and his church: “As the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” (v. 24). In Christian marriage, the wife represents the church that freely and willingly submits to Christ’s headship; the husband represents Christ, the self-giving, loving head of the church.
Thus headship-submission in the marriage relationship is not culturally conditioned. On the contrary, “it is part of the essence of marriage.”[2]
The Home Supports the Church and the Church Supports the Home
Since the family is the fundamental social unit and the man is the established family leader, we should expect that men would also be the leaders of the extended church family, “the household of God” (1 Tim. 3:15). The local church family should be a model of godly male headship from which individual families can learn how to follow God’s design for the family. Stephen B. Clark succinctly states the principle of male headship in the home and in the church:
If the men are supposed to be the heads of the family, they must also be the heads of the [church] community. The [church] community must be structured in a way that supports the pattern of the family, and the family must be structured in a way that supports the pattern of the [church] community.[3]
To this statement, Paul would say: “Amen.”
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My dear friends, glory is our reward with the Lord. “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the Spirit of the glory of God rests upon you.” We need to get our eyes off of this earth and off the temporary problems we have, and on the eternal reward day that is coming. The payday is coming. And God is no man’s debtor. whatever you have suffered, however, we have been faithful to him, that will all be brought up at the judgment seat of Christ. Again, eternal rewards are ours. Let us be faithful. 

So far, we have pondered on the reality of suffering in the world, and have seen from the Bible that suffering is to be expected for Christians, especially since we are engaged in spiritual warfare. Remember that we are not only to teach these truths faithfully, but also to model them in our own lives.
The third thing we need to continually teach our people about is the divine perspective on suffering. If you have your Bible, I do want you to see this yourself. I want you to open 2 Corinthians 4. Now, here’s a passage of Scripture, that I am not exaggerating when I say I’ve used it hundreds of times in my life, it could even be 1000! And I want you to use this when we face suffering and when we help other people, because we do not just deal with our own suffering, as shepherds. Along with that, we have to be faithful to help others through suffering. In fact, I think we spend more time helping other people through suffering than ourselves. And we need to know what Scripture text to go to.
I remember I was training this young man in our church about visitation, going to hospitals dealing with people’s problems. And I remember the first time we went out and an issue came up with the people we were talking to, and I took them to this passage. And this young man said to me later, when we left, “You know, I literally had no idea what Bible verse to open to?” He said, “I’m glad you showed me.” I said, “Well, that’s why I brought you along. So you know how to open your Bible and comfort people who are suffering and help yourself.” Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 4. Second Corinthians, is an amazing book. It is the most autobiographical of Paul’s books, and there is no other book in which we get these insights into Paul as a shepherd of the Lord’s people. And you see at one moment his severity and next moment, tenderness unlike anything else So in verse 16, he says, “For we do not lose heart.” Well, my friends, if anyone should lose heart and get depressed and discouraged, it was the Apostle Paul. He had more problems than all of you put together and multiplied. This man had every problem there is. I have never been whipped, I have never been left at sea, never been hungry. I mean, this man experienced everything. He sat in jail, he had people trying to stone him to death, whip him to death. “We do not lose heart!” Oh! I want to find out why he doesn’t lose heart, because I lose heart so easily.
“Though our outward self is wasting away.” Now if you’re over 55 you know what this means. The outer nature is wasted away. Well, you lose muscle, your skin sags, you have to have glasses, you go get hearing aids, some people get wigs (I look better this way!). And then we have knee replacements and hip replacements. Replacements seem to be nowhere near what they can repair in your body. The outward nature is wasting away, and well, it will end in your death. Now, this is my verse for my philosophy of aging. Are you ready? “Although the outward nature is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” If you’re over 50, you better know this verse. Although the outward nature is decaying (you can do some things to slow it down, but it is going to win), the inner man, the new man in Christ, in the Holy Spirit who lives within us, every day he is being renewed. Well, that is an amazing truth, isn’t it? Your inner man is being fed and he is growing, he is expanding, he is maturing. That should be your philosophy of life.
[In fact, I was going to speak to you about this whole thing: About being a growing leader, a maturing leader. Sadly, many stop growing when they get to be about the age of 40 and older. They do not read anymore, they do not go to conferences, they do not have a greater vision for the world. That is a very, very big problem. But this text says, the inner man is being renewed every day. He is growing. He is learning and expanding. That’s what I want to do as I age.]
Now I want you to get the balance hereof words very beautifully balanced. I wish I had a scale to show this but you can imagine a weighing scale. “For this light momentary affliction…”  or  suffering “is preparing for us…” Well, that’s good to know. “An eternal. weight of glory beyond all comparison.” In other words, these are not comparisons. This is what happens. It is an eternal weight of heavenly glory. Here on earth what we face is a light, momentary affliction. That’s the divine perspective. And he says it is not comparable. So in this life, you have many afflictions, sorrows, heartaches, setbacks, losses, and sometimes very severe, and they really can hurt. But the divine perspective says it is light and it is momentary, lasting a very short time. A whole life here on earth is a very short time. But it is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory.
Now, if you want to know a little bit more about this glory, you go down to Chapter 5 verses 1-10.
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We need to teach our people that there is a spiritual war, which is as real as the ground I’m standing on. There is a heavenly force. There is an eternal battle, which will be ended by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, when he destroys Satan just by the word of his mouth, and he will be condemned with all his followers, to the lake of fire, never again to bother God’s creation.

In the first part, we briefly surveyed the reality of suffering because of various causes, and we concluded by saying that as pastors, our responsibility is to prepare our people both by our teaching, and by modeling the things that we teach. In this part, we will look at truths which we should know and hold to as we prepare for and face suffering.
First of all, Christians should never be surprised by suffering, problems or persecution. From the very beginning of the Bible, as early as Genesis 3:14-19, we are told that as a result of an Adam and Eve sin, a curse was placed upon this earth, it is real, and it touches everything we do. A friend of mine always says, “The fingerprint of the curse is upon everything.” It is! It is upon our marriages, our health, our minds, the work of the Lord: it touches everything. This is a fallen, broken, cursed world. And we should never be surprised by problems or by suffering. We should see it as just a normal part of the Christian life. In fact, that is when the Christian life shines its best. When we face suffering, by being faithful as those young girls in Nigeria say, in the midst of suffering.
John 16:33 is a verse that comes to my mind many times, “Jesus said, ‘In this world, you will have trouble but take hard for I’ve overcome the world.’” So our Lord Himself said, you will have tribulations in this world. And then we have some other very, very important verses. We have 1 Peter 4:12, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” Now, there is nothing strange happening. This is what it is like living in the fallen world, and especially being a Christian. We face even worse suffering and trouble. And then James 1, “Count all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” And then a very important verse is 1 Thessalonians 3: 3-4, “You should know this well. But no one Let no one be moved by these afflictions. For you, yourself, know that we were destined for this, for when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand, that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, just as you know.” Then in Acts 14:22, Paul speaking to the very first Christians on the very first missionary journey, says, “Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.” And 2 Timothy 3:12, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” So we are destined for trials, suffering, etc. The Lord has given us ample warning. And this is why we as leaders need to prepare the people by telling them what Jesus said, and what Paul said, what James said, what Peter said. Many people do not know these great statements or the promises, and the rewards that come which we’ll look at in just a little while.
As Christians knowing that the world is cursed, and that we are in enemy occupied territory, we should never say, “Oh! Why did this happen to me? Why did I get cancer? Why did my loved one? Why did my church go through this terrible trauma?” We shouldn’t ever ask that. What we should say is, “Why shouldn’t this happen to me? It occurs worldwide, why shouldn’t I get cancer? Why shouldn’t I see a loved one? Why shouldn’t I have serious divisions and problems in my local church? Why? Why shouldn’t it happen to me?” That’s the attitude we should have.
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Everything that’s happening to us today is right there in the Scriptures, and happened to the very, very first Christians. They all suffered persecution. So let us prepare ourselves, and the way we prepare ourselves is to teach what the Bible says: what Jesus taught, what Paul taught, what Peter taught. And they all taught a lot about preparing for persecution.

If you were to visit me in my office, you would see little statuettes of shepherds, which I have collected from around the world. I like to collect shepherds, because the Lord said to me, “Alex, shepherd my sheep.” Of course, I do it with other brothers. But we’re still all shepherds. One of my favourite ones is King David, as a teenager holding a lamb over his shoulder. That’s one of my favourite ones. But anyway, I use these to remind myself to be a good shepherd, like the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, I think it’s almost universally agreed that believers throughout the world right now are suffering in a way that has not been true in a very, very long time. In fact, I’m reminded of a verse, here in 1 Peter 5, where Peter talks about universal brotherhood and suffering. He says this 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober minded and watchful your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood, throughout the world.” A wonderful verse, in which he looks at the whole Christian church, a brotherhood, a sisterhood, and they are going through various kinds of suffering. I see this true in two ways today. One is we see an increase in persecution against believers in a way that we haven’t seen maybe in hundreds of years. I don’t know if you know of the open door ministry, ‘World Watch List’. In the 2018 version, there is a list of the 50 countries where it’s the most dangerous to follow Jesus. And by the way, the statistics here are really staggering of how many thousands of believers have been martyred for Christ, how many have been marginalized, can’t get jobs, or are facing persecution. So we are seeing suffering in the area of persecution.
In fact, I have an article here that’s very, very touching. It’s an article about the young ladies in Nigeria who have been captured by Boko Haram, and how they have stayed faithful. In fact, they have a statement that they make, when they get discouraged, and they just say together, “Just be faithful.” It’s become actually a famous statement, now: “Just be faithful.” They say that to one another, and they have some Bibles and Scriptures, they write out that as they hide to encourage one another. And they have been able to write letters and get them out of the place of captivity to other people in the world. Let’s remember these dear young ladies captured by Boko Haram, and their faithfulness to the Lord suffering persecution.
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