Text Box: Publish Bimonthly by Pilgrim’s Bible Church Timothy Fellows Pastor VOL. VI No. 5 MAY, 1979
 

THE MONSTROUS REGIMEN OF WOMEN

(Special thanks to John Knox for the title he chose for his work against Mary, Queen of Scots)

Throughout our society and reaching even into the Divinely ordained institution of the Church, women today are popularly seeking for positions of authority. No position, it seems to them, is too masculine. They seek employment as construction workers, telephone linemen, and mechanics. Positions are open to them to serve as mayors, judges, while some church denominations have opened to them positions as pastors. ALL such women are possessed with a perverted sense of authority. They have forgotten that God is the author of authority, and have discarded the reasons why He has delegated it to men and why He has pronounced upon them, the sentence, "Thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over you." -- (Genesis 3:16)

Text: "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man~ but to be in silence. -For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman, being deceived, was in the transgression." --I Timothy 2:11-14

Matthew Henry declares, "According to the Apostle Paul, women must be learners and are not allowed to be public teachers in the church, because teaching is an office of authority." 1 It is an act of authority and power supposing the persons that teach to be of a superior degree, in a superior office, and to have superior abilities to those who are taught by them. For this reason, "women are not to teach in church."2

According to Hebrews 13:7, 17, preachers are rulers, guides, and captains, and "one duty of ruling is to feed the church with knowledge and understanding. For a woman to take upon herself to do this is to usurp an authority over the man, this therefore, she ought not to do, but to be in ’silence’ to sit and hear quietly, and silently, and learn, and not teach."3

John Brown of Haddington also refers the passage to mean the bearing of ministerial rule in the church saying, "Let no woman dare to preach in public assemblies or in any case usurp authority over her husband or his sex, but learn according to the dictates of nature and the law of God, to be duly submissive and obedient."4 Dr. Gill also refers the meaning to those things that relate to the government of the church. 5

1Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentaries.                          2Dr. John Gill, Dr. Gill on the New Testament.                         3Ibid.                                                                4John Brown, of Haddington, Brown’s Bible.                                5Dr. Gill.

 

 YOU ARE INVITED TO ATTEND

THE PILGRIM’’S BIBLE CHURCH

In the Chapel of the Bon Air Residential Hotel

SUNDAY-11:00AM, 7:00PM; WEDNESDAY-7:30 PM

 

Philip Doddridge casts in his lot as well by applying the text to such a woman who would dare to officiate under the character of a preacher, and declares, "I charge her to be in silence at such a time."6

In the beginning of the church, the Apostle charged women to be silent and to display subjection in the assembly. As the representative of Christ, he would not allow a woman to teach since that would be usurping authority over the man. Women were to show their willing subjection by silently receiving instruction. 7

Someone will argue, "In our small church, you cannot get a man to volunteer to teach the adult class or conduct the choir. It would not get done if women did not do it." Then, rather than to live in disobedience to the clear command of Scripture, dissolve the adult class or the choir until a spiritual man can be found. As Jamieson, Fausset and Brown reiterate, "learn --not ‘teach.’ She should not even put questions in the public assembly -- ‘with all subjection’--not ’usurping authority’;'to lord it over the man.’" 8

Henry Alford translates the text to mean, a woman is forbidden to be an "autocrat," 9 and most commentators apply the verse to mean more than simply her conduct in the church. Adam Clarke declares a woman should attempt nothing either in public or private that belongs to man as his peculiar function.10 "All wise men," says Calvin, "have always rejected the government of women as an unnatural monstrosity." Justinian, who codified Roman law, declared, "Women are precluded from all public offices; therefore they cannot be judges, nor execute the function of magistrates." 12

As women are not to seek authority in the ecclesiastical realm, or in the civil and political realm, so too, they must not be authoritative in the realm of the family.13 As Frances Quarles once wrote,

 Ill thrives the hapless family that shows,

A cock that’s silent and a hen that crows.

I know not which live most unnatural lives,

Obeying husbands or commanding wives."

"A prudent wife," says John Trapp, "commands her husband by obeying him as Sarah." 14

THE REASON FOR THE COMMAND: "Women must be silent, submissive and subject, and not usurp authority," wrote Matthew Henry. "The reason given is because ’Adam was first formed, then Eve’ out of him, to denote her subordination to him and dependence upon him; and that she was made for him to be a help-meet for him. And as she was last in the creation, which is one reason for her subjection, so she was first in the transgression, and that is another reason.... Here are two very good reasons given for man’s authority over the woman and her subjection to the man--she was created for the man, and the man for the woman, and she was deceived, and brought the man into the transgression." 15 It would be contrary to the original state of things at the creation for the woman to usurp authority over the man." 16

The subtle serpent knew she was "the weaker vessel." He therefore tempted her, and not him. She yielded to the temptation of Sense; he to conjugal love. 17 "being deceived" --The oldest manuscripts read "Having been seduced by Deceit" implying how completely Satan succeeded in deceiving her." 18 This consideration was suited to teach the women, that they should not affect authority or presume to be public teachers." 19 "She was made for him, and not he for her, yet being first seduced by the Devil... and made the primary instrument in the ruin of mankind, is a further reason for her humility and subjection."20

"Paul is not taking from women their duty to instruct their children, but is only excluding them from the office of teaching which God has committed exclusively to men." 21 This is the position also of John Wesley. 22 ...The reason that women are prevented from teaching is that it is not compatible with their status which is to be subject to men.... Women are born to obey....and the Apostle gives two reasons why women should be subject to men: first, that God imposed this as a law from the beginning, and also that He inflicted it upon women by way of punishment.... God did not create two ’heads’ of equal standing." 23

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(The Editor trusts it will not be necessary to confess as John Knox did, that The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment (Regimen, i.e. "rule") of Women had "blown away all his friends in England.")

6 Philip Doddridge, The Family Expositor.                                                                                                                              7Thomas Scott, Family Bible.                                                                                                                                                8Jaimeson, Fausset, Brown, Commentary on the whole Bible.                                                                                                   9Ibid.                                                                                                                                                                                 10Adam Clark, Clark’s Commentaries.                                                                                                                                   11John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries.                                                                                                                                 12Clark.                                                                                                                                                                                         13 Dr. Gills.                                                                                                                                                                           14John Trapp, Annotations upon the Old and New Testaments.                                                                                                 15Henry.                                                                                                                                                                                      16Scott.                                                                                                                                                                              17Jaimeson.                                                                                                                                                                       18Ibid.                                                                                                                                                                                        19Scott.                                                                                                                                                                            20Brown.                                                                                                                                                                             21Calvin.                                                                                                                                                                                    22John Wesley, Notes on the New Testament.                                                                                                                   23Calvin.