What if Men Actually Led?

One of the recent struggles we've experienced has been related to a discussion around a church constitutional amendment to permit women to serve as elders in our local congregation. On Sunday, I spoke with a former member who has just recently moved out of town, and who indicated that he had been surprised to learn of how the vote had gone: 60% in favour of retaining the existing "no women as elders" rule.

But it was his further comment that made we wonder. He said that he believed that in large measure the entire debate arose from the fact that men have not taken their responsibility for leadership seriously enough -- in the home and in the church. We had, he said, let the ladies down. If men actually led, then there would be no need for a discussion on whether women were qualified to lead in the church or in the home. From the context of his comments, I am pretty sure he meant that the exercise of leadership by women would be unnecessary if men rose to the occasion as they ought.

As I read Ephesians 5:25 et seq, I get a different perspective.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind--yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body.

If I read Paul correctly, then for me to be the leader in the marriage relationship means that I have primary responsibility for ensuring that my wife develops into all that she can be; that all of the gifts that God has given to her are nurtured and developed and expressed in all their glorious fullness. For surely that is what Paul says about Christ's love for the church.

It seems to me that if all Christian men led in this way in their own homes, then the argument over the position of women within the church would indeed be moot, but not in the way my friend thought. Instead men who exercise such headship would all see that the church is presented most gloriously when all her members shine forth with the gifts God has bestowed. Far from clinging to power, or fearing the taking of authority, men would be encouraging their wives and daughters and the wives and daughters of their brothers in Christ to be all that they could be -- in the home, in the world, and in the church.

Far from being a sign of abdication of male responsibility to be the head in the home, the exercise of leadership gifts by women in the church ought rather to be celebrated as part of the fulfillment of husbands' and fathers' collective responsibility to see that their wives and daughters truly are part of Christ's gift of leaders to the church

to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.