Recently, the Fourth Avenue Church of Christ, in Franklin, Tennessee hired a lady named Lauren King to be their preaching intern. She preached at a Sunday service, and the Fourth Avenue congregation hailed her bravery and talents. After her sermon, she was interviewed and said:
“[I]t’s been so encouraging to have men and women of older generations come to me and say ‘You are brave’. Or come to me and say, ‘My mom had the same gifts you have. She didn’t get to use them. I’m glad you get to,’ and things like that. . . . It’s happening. There’s a movement coming. And I’m just honored and humbled. . . .”
Lauren King is probably right in saying that there is an impending movement toward increased female leadership among churches of Christ. To understand any movement, we must understand its motivation. Is this movement motivated by the word of God, or by the fleshly desires of humans? The movement at which Fourth Avenue is at the forefront cannot be authorized or motivated by the word of God, because the New Testament teaches explicitly that women are not to preach in the corporate Christian assembly:
1 Corinthians 14:33-35. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.
1 Timothy 2:11-13. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. . . .
Lauren King’s movement cannot be motivated by the Bible. It can only be motivated by the cultural climate of our times,
which seems to reject any practice that seems patriarchal, such as male leadership in the New Testament church.
In the same video, Fourth Avenue’s preacher says that Paul, in writing the two passages I mentioned above, was not intending to “undo the rest of Scripture.” Such is not even a possibility, because those two passages do not contradict any other passage of Scripture. The preacher went on to pit Jesus against Paul by saying that he reads Paul through Jesus, rather than the other way around. In reality, there is no conflict between Paul and Jesus, because Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would guide the apostles into all the truth (John 14:26), and Paul stressed his authority (e.g., 2 Corinthians 13:10; cf. Galatians 1; 3 John 9