Some have tried to portray this as an issue of basic fairness or morality. But there is no Biblical command enjoining ordination for women, so a failure to ordain is not a violation of a Biblical injunction. On the contrary, there is a command in the New Testament that the church should not appoint women to the headship role of pastor/teacher, a role upon which ordination is normally conferred. Should we violate that injunction?
The principle set forth in Galatians 3:28 is that all Christians are of equal value in the eyes of Christ. To say that this puts us under moral obligation to ordain women is to fail to see the difference between worth and function. For all to have equal worth is not the same as all having identical function. The doctrine of spiritual gifts argues eloquently against equality of function.
Paul expresses it this way: “If the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,' that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? . . . But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as He chose” (1 Corinthians 12:16-18). “But God has so composed the body, . . . that the members may have the same care for one another. . . . Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers
. . .” (1 Corinthians 12:24-28). Not all have the same function, but all are equally needed and important to the body. This is how God has arranged it. Immoral? Unfair? No, His design. And His appointment of different ones to exercise the gifts does not override the instructions in His Word regarding their exercise.
- Adventist Affirm, Answers to Questions about Women's Ordination - Ordination of Women and Paul |