WHO CAN BE AN ELDER? (Part 2)
We are created in God’s image, and so we’re meant to reflect God’s image. For that reason, the headship of elders in a church should reflect the headship we see in the Trinity. “Headship” is a position of authority in which that authority is properly expressed in a particular context. God’s nature must be our starting point in this matter, meaning that headship should be expressed consistently, whether in the Trinity, the Christian home, or the church.
The primary example of headship in the Bible is God the Father’s headship in the Trinity, and that’s why the other biblical examples of headship, such as in families and in the church, are clearly male. This is not popular in many circles, and is debated. But as the Bible describes God primarily as a Father, and focuses on the husband when describing headship in the home, it leads us to believe that headship in the church is meant to be consistent with that.
But if we describe headship in the church (meaning, eldership) as exclusively male, it begs an important question about the role of women in the church. Clearly, God intended men and women to work together to fulfill the mandate he gave Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:27-28. Amidst all that God created, he created both men and women to uniquely reflect his nature and his likeness, and then he blessed them as he commissioned them to participate together in fulfilling God’s missional mandate for his creation. But we must read on to understand the fuller picture regarding the specific roles God had in mind for men and women on this mission.
Genesis 2 expands on the creation story by focusing on and providing greater detail about the creation of men and women. Genesis 2 draws attention to the fact that soon after God created a man, “the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’” (Genesis 2:18). That word “helper” is significant, and is often misunderstood or minimized.
The Hebrew word for “helper” is “ezer” (pronounced ay’-zer) and is a word that expresses far more strength and dignity and importance than our extremely mundane word, helper. It should get our attention when the word ezer is more often used to describe God as a Helper than women or men. Clearly an ezer is not simply a mundane helper, like some servant in the kitchen. When God called women ezers, he meant that they are “strong warriors who stand alongside their brothers in the battle for God’s kingdom” and that “Marriage is one major arena where the ezer stands with the man in battle.”* As an ezer, a woman is functionally distinct from a man, but equal in significance, value, importance, honour, dignity, and destiny. As men are called to a place of headship where they exercise authority in a sacrificial and servant-hearted manner in their home or in the local church, women are called to be a God-given source of strength and help to them, which is an honourable position as a “fellow heir of the grace of life” (1 Peter 3:7, NASB).
In Genesis 2, God clearly stated that it is not good for men to go it alone (Genesis 2:18). Men and women were commissioned to multiply and subdue the earth together (Genesis 1:28), and in the same way, God wants men and women to complete Christ’s great commission to the ends of the earth together. To do so, God calls men to provide headship as elders in the church, while women function as strong helpers, unique in function and purpose, and equal in value. That is why it is both biblical and essential for women, as ezers, to be involved on leadership teams and in leading ministries within the church, operating in the valuable spiritual gifts that God has given them.
*Excerpts from Lost Women of the Bible, Carolyn Custis James, pp.36-37.