The minister of a church that dismissed a female Sunday School teacher after adopting what it called a literal interpretation of the Bible says a woman can perform any job - outside of the church.
The First Baptist Church dismissed Mary Lambert on Aug. 9 with a letter explaining that the church had adopted an interpretation that prohibits women from teaching men. She had taught there for 54 years.
The letter quoted the first epistle to Timothy: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent."
The Rev. Timothy LaBouf, who also serves on the Watertown City Council, issued a statement saying his stance against women teaching men in Sunday school would not affect his decisions as a city leader in Watertown, where all five members of the council are men but the city manager who runs the city's day-to-day operations is a woman.
"I believe that a woman can perform any job and fulfill any responsibility that she desires to" outside of the church, LaBouf wrote Saturday.
I'm not a Bible scholar, so I won't even try to come up with the rationale as to why Paul would have written that to Timothy (maybe Mark, John or Andrew would want to tackle that). However, I can't believe that in the 21st century such an admonition by Paul could be considered binding on today's churches, or for that matter the least bit wise. In my church if they banned all women from teaching, the children's deparment would quickly meltdown (in fact the head of the children's department is a woman).
I think sometimes we see what we want to see in Biblical scripture. Clearly most churches wouldn't agree with the pastor from this story, and the lady in question no doubt had a heart for God and for teaching His word.
In a statement, the board said other issues were behind Lambert's dismissal, but it did not say what they were.If there are other issues, the board needs to make known what they are, otherwise it looks like they're hiding behind a Bible verse to justify their dismissal.
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