Audio Transcript

Good Monday, and thank you for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast. Well, male and female roles in the local church are clearly defined in the Bible. We believe those roles are clearly defined in the Bible. But do these roles hold outside the church, and particularly in a parachurch ministry structure? Increasingly, parachurch organizations are saying no. But that’s the open question for you today, Pastor John, who joins us remotely over Zoom.

The question is from a man inside a parachurch right now. “Pastor John, hello. I work for a global parachurch organization which is well-known. Recently our leadership decided that all positions of leadership within the organization will be opened to women. This includes campus leadership, regional leadership, and national leadership. Women will be permitted to teach men from the Scripture, to be in positions of spiritual authority over men, to shape and correct doctrine within the organization, and to mentor men in their ministry roles. Previously, these positions of spiritual authority over men were reserved for men alone. The reason given for this change is that a parachurch organization is not the church. Therefore the commands addressed to churches about the role of men and women in relationship to one another do not apply in this case. How do you see it?”

Well, that’s sad to hear to me, but it’s not surprising and it’s not new. The position that the teachings of the Bible concerning sexuality have no bearing on human relationships outside the church or the home is naive. Actually, to call it naive is perhaps too gentle because it could also be called culturally compromised. In other words, the pressures of our culture to view maleness and femaleness as having no built-in, natural, God-ordained differences that would shape our different relationships and responsibilities, those pressures — those cultural, societal pressures — are so great that many Christians today surrender to them rather than looking like fools in the eyes of the world.

Rejecting Authority

The world today is in a free fall of denial that nature teaches us anything about what maleness and femaleness are for. And that denial used to be — back when I was in the early days of fighting these battles — that male and female personhood teaches us nothing about what God intended our roles to be. But now the denial is that our bodies, not just our persons, teach us nothing about what life should be as male or female. You can cut off breasts; you can cut off the penis; you can cut out the uterus; you can replace estrogen with testosterone; you can grow facial hair on a female cheek.

“The world today is in a free fall of denial that nature teaches us anything about what maleness and femaleness are for.”

So at the root of the rejection that nature teaches us that men and women should relate in certain ways is the absolute refusal in our culture, by and large, to allow our individual freedom to be limited in any way by an authority outside our desires. Whether tradition or God or Bible or nature or instinct or society, we will not let anything infringe upon our autonomy and the sovereignty of our desires. So if God designs women to be women and men to be men, both in their bodies and in every cell of their bodies, and if his designs are written on their hearts, these God-given designs must be absolutely rejected because they infringe so obviously upon the autonomy of my sovereign self.

So at the root of the rejection that nature teaches us that men and women should relate in certain ways and not other ways is the old reality of Romans 8:7–8: “The mind that is set on the flesh” — that is the natural, fallen human mind — “is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law” — whether that law is in the Bible or written on the heart — “indeed, it cannot [submit]. Those who are in the flesh” — that is, who are merely human, apart from regeneration and the work of the Holy Spirit — “cannot please God.” Or 1 Corinthians 2:14: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly” — they are foolishness — “to him,” which is why the person who holds my understanding today would be regarded as foolish.

Headed for a Fall

The culture as a whole is in a free fall of denial. Nobody in this free fall has on a parachute. It’s all going to end tragically, the evidences of which are all around us. They make you want to weep when you see what’s happening to young people, what’s happening to relationships, the kind of remorse and regret and carnage that is being unleashed on our culture as a penalty for the free fall denial of God and his ways.

And the gravitational pull of this free fall is in almost every movie, every online drama, every advertisement, every newscast, so that a person who stands up and draws attention to God’s word or the teaching of nature and questions the wisdom of undifferentiated sex roles will not only be thought a fool, but also unjust and, very likely, soft on abuse, even though all the while the sex-leveling egalitarian impulses wreak havoc at every level of our culture, mocking and distorting the very kind of strength and responsibility and leadership that we so need from men.

All of that to say, the argument that the biblical teachings on manhood and womanhood don’t have any bearing on roles outside the home and church is both naive and culturally compromised.

God and Nature Teach

Let me offer two reasons for thinking this way. One is that when the apostle Paul gave his instructions that only spiritually qualified men should teach and exercise authority in the church, his argument was not based on culture or on family or church or structures — ecclesiastical structures or any others. It was based on two things: (1) the order of man and woman in creation and (2) the dynamics between man and woman in the fall.

He said, “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” And here comes the argument: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve.” That’s argument number one. And two, “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Timothy 2:12–14).

So Paul saw in the Genesis account of God’s word that built into creation from the beginning, before the fall, was a peculiar responsibility of men to bear the burden of leadership and care. And he saw in the way Adam was present and silent as Satan drew Eve into deceit that the abandonment of this leadership — in that case, Adam’s passivity and silence — bears very bad fruit. So the fact that Paul gave instructions for how this original design relates to the church in no way implies that it is limited to the church or the home. That was one application of many.

And you can see this again in 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul is helping the church preserve the dynamics of manhood and womanhood. He says at one point, “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him?” (1 Corinthians 11:14). Now, what I take that to mean is this: “Has not God put in man, by nature, the impulse that to take on culturally feminine symbols is disgraceful?” And we should agree with him. Nature teaches that it is disgraceful. The Bible teaches and nature teaches.

We might say today, “Does not nature teach you that for a man to wear a dress and stockings and high heels and lipstick is a disgrace?” Yes, it is. And nature teaches that. It is written on the heart. Millions are suppressing this truth of nature, but it is there. It is inescapable.

Parachurch Application

With regard to men and women in parachurch organizations, I think Paul would say, “I have taught, Moses has taught, nature teaches that it goes against man’s and woman’s truest, God-given nature to place a woman in a role of regular, direct, personal leadership over men.”

Now if you wonder, “Well, what do you mean, Piper, by ‘regular, direct, personal’?” then since this is a short podcast, I have to refer you to my little booklet What’s the Difference?. You don’t have to buy it. You can download it for free. And on page 58 and following, I define “regular, direct, personal” so that it will, I hope, make sense.

These are days of great shifting in people’s convictions and alignments on this issue of how men and women should relate to each other. So I pray for our brother who sent us this question, and I pray for myself and all of us, that God would guide us into truth and give us the courage to stand for it.

I had never thought of myself as passive. Throughout high school and college, and all throughout my twenties, I had been the driven dreamer and achiever. I thought of myself as the organized one, the proactive one, the disciplined one, the visionary. I was the one who initiated next steps, important meetings, needed changes, group plans, hard conversations.

And then I married, and marriage showed me sides of myself I had never had to see.

A man does not change much by making vows and putting on a ring, but an awful lot changes for a man that day. The apostle Paul tried to prepare us: “The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided” (1 Corinthians 7:32–34). Divided me was not as put-together and proactive as single me had been. And as the pressures rose and the cracks began to show, I suddenly saw just how tempted to self-pity and passivity I could be.

What God Expects of Husbands

Over the first year or two of marriage, the passivity of Christian husbands went from a foreign and somewhat perplexing problem to a profoundly familiar and personal and humbling one. Vision and initiative were easier, in some ways, when they were fenced into certain parts of my life. Now, as two became one, all of life required a leading love.

Will I give myself up for her good again today (Ephesians 5:25)? Will I keep pursuing her, studying her, wooing her? Will I develop and carry out a vision for our family? Will I consistently open the Bible and pray with them? Will I lead our family in loving and serving the church? Will I lean into conflict with patience and love, or will I withdraw? Will I anticipate our family’s needs and preserve space to rest? Will I discipline our children, even when I’m tired? Will I bring up difficult conversations and make tough decisions? Or, like Adam, when God comes calling, will I hide and point the finger somewhere else (Genesis 3:12)?

God expects much from husbands. As my senses have been heightened to my own tendencies to passivity, stories of husbands in Scripture — good and bad — have come alive with greater gravity and relevance for marriage.

Weak and Wicked Example

God often trains men to be faithful husbands and fathers by giving us great examples to follow — the faith of Abraham, the conviction of Moses, the leadership of Joshua, the wisdom of Solomon, the heart of David. Sometimes, however, God trains us for faithfulness by showing us just how wicked men can be. He trains us to love by showing us men who failed to love, to lead by showing us men who failed to lead, to fight by showing us men who refused to fight, to die for others by showing us men who saved themselves.

And as husbands and fathers go, few were as corrupt and shameful as King Ahab.

“Sometimes God trains us for faithfulness by showing us just how wicked men can be.”

When we first meet the man, Scripture tells us, “Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him” (1 Kings 16:29–30). The kings before him were a cauldron of evil — conspiring, deceiving, stealing, murdering, and in it all, insulting God by choosing idols over him. Ahab, we learn, was worse than them all.

And his marriage was at the center of his rebellion. “As if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him” (1 Kings 16:31). He first mocked God by marrying an idolator, and then — as God warned would happen — he caved and bowed in submission to her and her god.

The facets of Ahab’s wickedness are worthy of much reflection, but here I want to focus on a scene that exposes the allure and peril of his passivity.

Seduction of Self-Pity

When 1 Kings 21 opens, Ahab covets the vineyard of his neighbor, Naboth, and asks to buy it from him — disregarding God’s law that prevented the permanent sale of land (Leviticus 25:23). Naboth doesn’t merely refuse because he wants to keep his land; he refuses because to do otherwise would be to disregard God. Now watch how Ahab responds, crumbling into self-pity and passivity:

Ahab went into his house vexed and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him, for he had said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” And he lay down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food. (1 Kings 21:4)

The most powerful man in the land curled up in a ball, like a brokenhearted teenager. He refused to eat. He pouted because he didn’t get his way. He’s almost a parody of passivity — almost. As pitiful as the cry-baby king seems, many husbands will know something of the temptation he indulged. Self-pity is strangely seductive, and can be equally paralyzing. It can keep a man from confessing his sin, from initiating reconciliation, from picking up the phone, from attempting family devotions, from making a difficult decision or taking the hard next step.

What happens next, as Ahab nurses his hurt feelings, compounds his shame all the more. See how self-pity imprisons and disables him.

Passivity Encourages Iniquity

Knowing his wife and what she was capable of, Ahab should have stepped up to stop her — for the good of Naboth and those who loved him, for the good of the kingdom, for the good of his own soul, for the good of his wife. A passive husband will inevitably enable and encourage the sins of his wife (and vice versa!). When Jezebel sees how miserable and pathetic poor King Ahab is, she takes matters into her own hands. She says to him, “Do you now govern Israel? Arise and eat bread and let your heart be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite” (1 Kings 21:7). Ahab’s sorry silence suggests he was all too glad to acquiesce.

So Jezebel instructed the leaders in Naboth’s city to kill him. She wrote letters (and signed them with Ahab’s name and seal), saying, “Set two worthless men opposite him, and let them bring a charge against him, saying, ‘You have cursed God and the king.’ Then take him out and stone him to death” (1 Kings 21:10). The greed, the deceit, the robbery, the conspiracy, the murdering of a blameless man. These were the weeds of wickedness in full bloom.

We could explore the devilry of Jezebel — a wife so awful Jesus himself uses her as a metaphor for immorality (Revelation 2:20). For now, however, notice how her peculiar sins were kindled by her husband’s passivity. While he wallowed in self-pity, he nurtured her iniquity. Had he had the conviction and nerve (and honor) to act as God called him to, he likely could have prevented all that unfolded here. He could have saved a good man’s life.

But he stayed in bed instead. Ahab proves that sometimes a man who does nothing is as harmful as the man who does the wrong thing.

“Sometimes a man who does nothing is as harmful as the man who does the wrong thing.”

A good husband cannot keep his wife from sinning, but he also will not lie on the couch while she does. A bad husband — especially a passive husband — will encourage her to sin all the more. In the challenging moments of our own marriages, some men will lie down like Ahab, others will rise up like the man we meet next.

Refusing the Pull of Passivity

Jezebel tells Ahab that Naboth is dead and that his vineyard is now available. “As soon as Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab arose to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it” (1 Kings 21:16). Again, the passivity. Not, What have you done? Not, How did he die? Not, Is this dead man’s vineyard mine to have? No, “as soon as he heard that Naboth was dead,” he finally found the strength to leave his bed and went to enjoy another man’s field.

“Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite” (1 Kings 21:17). As much as I despise how selfish, passive, and evil Ahab was, I admire all the more the man who stepped up to confront him. While Naboth’s innocent blood ran in the street, the prophet Elijah came knocking at Ahab’s door — notice he comes to Ahab, not Jezebel — with a word from the Lord: “You have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord” (1 Kings 21:20).

They had just killed a man for refusing to sell them a vineyard. Imagine what evil they might do to a man who accused them like this. While other men watched and stayed silent (and even participated in the injustice), one refused the pull of passivity and embraced the costs of obedience. He would rather die than sit and watch God’s law be vandalized.

Don’t miss what God says next through Elijah. Ahab’s passivity would come back not just on his own head, but on the heads of all he loved — his sons, their sons, his wife: “I will utterly burn you up, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel . . . for the anger to which you have provoked me, and because you have made Israel to sin. And of Jezebel the Lord also said, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the walls of Jezreel’” (1 Kings 21:21–23).

Ahab’s judgment is a vivid, bloody picture of how unchecked sin ruins a home. When a husband grows passive, the whole family suffers — perhaps not in judgment like Jezebel, but they will suffer nonetheless.

Mercy for Passive Men

The story circles back to where it began with Ahab: “There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited” (1 Kings 21:25). The narrator wants us to see all that just happened as a clinic in iniquity, a masterclass in marital failures. The next verse, however, is one of the more surprising verses in Scripture:

And when Ahab heard [Elijah’s] words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about dejectedly. (1 Kings 21:27)

One might think this is the same man we found lying in bed, feeling sorry for himself, refusing to eat. This, however, is not the same man — not in God’s eyes anyway. Instead of lashing out in fury at the prophet, instead of retreating into more self-pity and passivity, Ahab humbles himself in repentance. He does the hard thing. He sees his sin, hates his sin, and seeks the Lord’s mercy.

“And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, ‘Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son’s days I will bring the disaster upon his house” (1 Kings 21:27–29). Consequences still remained, to be sure, but something of his sin had died. The selfish, prideful, passive husband became a humble one, at least for a time, giving hope to selfish, prideful, passive husbands.

It’s easy to hate the passivity of Ahab — a king who stubbornly mopes while his wife commits murders, who blatantly disregards, even mocks, God’s calls to lead and love, who selfishly sets God’s will below his own desires. It’s harder, however, to hate the passivity in ourselves. Will we, as husbands in Christ, practice an intentional, costly, active love? Will we keep leading when it’s inconvenient to lead? Will we receive the mercy of God, humble ourselves before him, lay down our pride and self-pity, and resist the enticing pull of passivity?

Here I sit, gentle reader, on one side of a screen in Sydney, Australia, with you (very likely) looking at another screen in some other part of the world — and I am hoping that something remarkable will happen. I am praying that, though separated by geography and time, we will nevertheless meet together for the next few minutes through words on the screen.

It’s a miracle when you think about it.

If I write this piece well, you will “hear” my thoughts and my voice, even though, in fact, you may be hearing nothing but the soft whir of the fan in your laptop. Whether it happens asynchronously (in a book or in an article like this one) or synchronously (in a Zoom meeting or on a phone call), we find ourselves able to connect, communicate, and relate to one another without physically being in each other’s presence.

Remote, Partial Joy

Humans have been connecting like this since the invention of smoke signals. God has given us this remarkable capacity to project our minds and hearts and personalities to other places, and even other times, through dispatching representations of ourselves in words or images.

The New Testament authors, of course, made good use of this blessing. They saw their letters as an important vehicle for bringing their teaching, encouragement, and admonition to the people they loved and longed for from afar.

The little epistles of 2 and 3 John are a fascinating case study. In both letters, John rejoices to discover that his people are “walking in the truth” (2 John 4; 3 John 3), and encourages and exhorts them to keep doing so. In both cases, however, he concludes by saying that although he has more to say, he’d much prefer to do it in person:

Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete. (2 John 12; see also 3 John 13–14)

There’s real joy in hearing that someone is persevering in the faith, and a joy also in writing to encourage them. But it’s a partial joy — a joy that anticipates its fulfillment when we are face to face.

Technology: Relational Blessing or Curse?

The superiority of physical presence is so obvious that it seems strange even to argue for it. Who would be so perverse as to prefer a text message from our beloved to having dinner with her at our favorite restaurant? Or who would choose a phone call with our mother over the joy of a warm embrace and a leisurely conversation?

But we are strange and perverse creatures, with a long track record of choosing lesser joys over greater ones. As a result, we not only deny ourselves those greater possibilities, but in favoring lesser realities, we end up distorting and spoiling them.

As many others have pointed out, this dynamic seems to be happening in our cultural moment with respect to the virtual world of the Internet and social media. There is a disturbing trend to underplay the joy of physical presence, and to overplay the benefits of virtuality. We find ourselves so immersed in the captivating, constantly morphing, fast-paced stream of the virtual, that we have started to lose our taste for the solid ground of physical relationship. But like so many of God’s gifts, the blessings of virtuality, when misused or overused, become a burden and a curse.

It is not my task in this short piece to explore why or how this has happened, but I will briefly mention one important theological trajectory that relates to the importance of our physical church gatherings.

Isolation of Self

As Carl Trueman (among others) has recently documented, one of the strange aspects of our modern Western culture is the psychologizing of our selves and identities.

The steady, inexorable rejection of God as Creator and Lord in Western society has eventually thrown us back on ourselves and our inner lives as the source of morality, identity, and the self. It is hardly surprising, in a culture where we define ourselves by expressing our feelings and thoughts, that we should find virtual connections so attractive.

Our alienation from God and his created order has become a kind of rebellion against the bodily, physical nature of our created selves. And this rebellion leads to dysfunction, because our bodily nature is integral to who we are as God’s creatures. We are made to relate not only to God, creature-to-Creator, but also to one another, creature-to-creature. Our bodily existence is ordered for this purpose. As D.B. Knox puts it:

The body is marvellously contrived to accomplish its ends in relationship, with all the pleasure, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual that relationship brings. The eye, the face, the language structure of our brains, are designed to express our inner being to one another. (The Everlasting God, 52)

“We are made to relate not only to God, creature-to-Creator, but also to one another, creature-to-creature.”

This relates particularly to the redeemed relationships that God brings into being when he re-creates us in Christ. We are restored not just to right relationship with God, but also to right relationship with one another. Jews and Gentiles can now break bread together, greet each other with a holy kiss, even marry one another — all unthinkable impossibilities before Christ broke the wall of hostility that divided us (Ephesians 2:14).

Church Is a Gathered People

This gospel reconciliation is why the church — the gathered assembly of God’s people — is such a dominant feature of the new life we have together in Christ. In Christ, the Holy Spirit draws us together: to learn together from the word (Acts 2:42), to eat and drink together in Christ’s memory (1 Corinthians 11:23–26), to raise our voices together in prayer and song (Ephesians 5:18–19), and to encourage one another with loving prophetic words of exhortation, comfort, and admonition (1 Corinthians 14:1–3). All of these are creaturely activities, requiring creaturely presence with one another to fulfill their purposes.

I’ve often wondered if this thought lies behind the command of Hebrews 10:24, to not forsake meeting together. In much of his letter, the author of Hebrews emphasizes that the fulfillment of God’s plans in Christ involves a movement from the old covenant (with its physical, earthly temple and priesthood) to the new covenant of Christ’s eternal, spiritual redemption, through which we now have access to the very presence of God (Hebrews 9:14; 10:19–22; 12:18–24).

Was the author of Hebrews concerned that the obsolescence of the physical temple and priesthood might lead his readers to no longer see the need for a physical gathering with one another?

We should not speculate too far, but it’s certainly worth noting the form of his exhortation. After urging them to draw near to the heavenly holy of holies with full assurance of faith, he then says,

Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging [or exhorting] one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:24–25)

“Encouraging one another” is the counterpoint to “neglecting to meet together.” It’s an essential activity that not meeting together prevents us from doing. And encouraging each other is so because it is the means by which we stir one another up to love and good works as we wait for Christ’s return.

Given the weakness and sinfulness still present in our bodies, including the desires of the flesh that assail us, we need to gather regularly with other bodies — so that we can teach and encourage and spur each other on with our whole selves. The various activities we do with our bodies when we gather in fellowship are oriented to this purpose. They are done in the worship of Christ, and to the glory of God, but they are also very much done with and for each other — especially in building each other up in love and good deeds.

Physical or Virtual?

This vital aspect of gathering together is much diminished, or in some cases ruled out altogether, by neglecting a physical gathering in favor of virtual ones.

For example, the value and experience of sitting side by side, listening to a preacher, is qualitatively different from reading a printed sermon or watching one on YouTube — not only because we pick up different aspects (in the voice and gesture and physical presence of the speaker), but because we are in a different place and posture as listeners. We are sitting with each other under God’s word, listening together to the teaching and encouragement that his word brings us. Your presence next to me is part of my listening.

“Your presence next to me in worship is part of my listening.”

Likewise, when we sing, we sing not only to God for his glory and praise, but to one another for mutual encouragement and teaching (Ephesians 5:21–22; Colossians 3:15–16). We can sing joyfully to Christ anywhere, but only in the gathering can we sing to one another, making melody in our hearts to the Lord as we do so.

The same is true when we talk together and encourage one another around the word. When we are physically together, we not only enjoy a richer engagement with each other, but we have more opportunities to see and hear what’s going on with the people around us. We can sense when someone is troubled or joyful or heartbroken or disengaged or lonely or just new to our gathering and hoping to meet someone. We can proactively love each other, and speak the words that spur one another on to love and good deeds.

Joy of Gathering Again

Can these various goals be accomplished via email or a Facebook post or an article like this one? To some limited extent, yes — and what a blessing that is! But to allow the blessings and possibilities of the virtual to divert us from the joys and benefits of real, bodily fellowship would be a strange bargain indeed.

This has been the reality for us here in Sydney over the past eighteen months. We’ve had many months of lockdowns and other restrictions that have prevented us from gathering physically as churches. For about half of all the Sundays since March 2020, we’ve been stuck at home, trying to encourage one another as God’s people through virtual connections of various kinds. We have certainly been very thankful for these mercies (even if they have sometimes felt like small mercies).

But the joy we are now experiencing is the joy of real, face-to-face fellowship. I pray that we, and you, will continue to treasure that physical presence with each other, and never be distracted or diverted from it by the good but lesser benefits of the virtual.