“There is a servant leadership that God specifically tasks upon men with respect to the church and also with respect to marriage, those two institutions in particular,” Ortlund said. “And so what I want to do in this video is lay out an explanation in three movements for why I think that’s the biblical view.” He went on to present arguments based on church history, the Bible, and the created differences between men and women.
“To my awareness,” said Ortlund, “all throughout premodern church history, Christians in all different traditions have perceived a difference with respect to the teaching or governing office in the church.” Historically, the Roman Catholic, Eastern, and Protestant church traditions have held that only men may hold a “teaching or governing office in the church.”
“The question that that raises in my conscience is, is a full-blown egalitarianism the result of modern Western influences?” Ortlund asked. “Because if you can’t find any instantiation of that prior to the modern era, that’s very telling.”
Sometimes people who hold to an egalitarian view, meaning a view that says men and women may serve in any role in the church, will argue that complementarianism is also new. Complementarians believe that men should hold leadership roles in the church, particularly the role of pastor, and that the man is the head of the wife in marriage.
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“Let’s assume that that’s true for the moment,” said Ortlund, referring to the argument that complementarianism is just as new as egalitarianism. “Nonetheless, if we just leave labels aside, the idea that all church offices are open to both men and women is still a novelty. And the idea that at least some church offices, at least one, is restricted to men is universal until the modern West, to my awareness.”
Ortlund believes women may serve as deaconesses, a conviction he argues is supported by the New Testament and the early church. “Recognizing these other various, absolutely essential and important roles and ministries for women is not the same as establishing that all offices are open to both men and women,” he said.
Ortlund emphasized that his position on men alone holding the office of elder is not based merely on church history, nor is he “arguing that all premodern and/or Eastern cultures represent the biblical ideal concerning masculinity and femininity.”
“What my heart longs for is the beauty of Christ, which is strong, and a church culture that reflects the beauty of Christ, and it has strength and gentleness together,” he said.
“The gospel of Jesus Christ is the most stunning, beautiful thing you could ever imagine. It’s not going to…plunk down in any human culture and just do nothing,” said Ortlund. “It’s going to challenge all of us, but it challenges different cultures in different ways.”
“But I do maintain that the nature of that challenge is not to remove all distinctions of church office,” he added, “and we do need to appreciate the way God has made men and women differently. That is just true.”
