This is a guest post by Andrew Bartlett, author of Men and Women in Christ: Fresh Light from the Biblical Texts (IVP Books, 2019).
New Testament scholar Preston Sprinkle has created quite a stir with his new book, From Genesis to Junia: An Honest Search for What the Bible Really Says About Women in Leadership. Formerly ‘complementarian’, Sprinkle has changed his mind. Though he did not initially know where his study would land, after three years of intensive study of Scripture, he concludes (page 288):
The Bible says that women can teach and exercise leadership at every level in the church.
The Gospel Coalition are committed to the view which Preston Sprinkle has decided is mistaken. The day before the book’s publication, they posted a review of it. The reviewer is Tom Schreiner, who declares he’s not persuaded by Sprinkle’s argument and has said why. Sprinkle has responded.
Sprinkle’s response praises Tom Schreiner as sincere, gracious, and a top-tier scholar. Having read Schreiner’s writings, and having done a joint three-hour session with him at the Evangelical Theological Society, I agree.
I’m not going to discuss the details of Sprinkle’s response. Here is what most interests me: Schreiner’s review exposes some of the gaping holes in complementarian exegesis of Scripture.
When we say that Schreiner is a top-tier scholar, that is not empty praise or polite flattery. He has impeccable scholarly credentials, and he has published extensive scholarly work in support of complementarianism. For the review, he has chosen his five best points for defending it against Sprinkle’s book. When one of the best scholars chooses his five best points and encapsulates them in a short review, that is a great opportunity to assess the biblical strength of complementarianism, which I will now do.
1. The sequence of creation in Genesis
Complementarians say that the sequence of creation – Adam first, then Eve – calls up the ancient Hebrew custom of primogeniture. In that custom, when the father of the family dies, his firstborn son inherits a double share of the family property. Socially, he may also be acknowledged as having greater authority than his younger siblings. Schreiner is convinced by this complementarian argument. He finds it “mystifying” that Sprinkle is unconvinced.
Schreiner says: “The narrator in Genesis, under God’s inspiration, crafted the story with great care, and the order of creation clearly has significance.”
To which we say, yes indeed, the sequence has significance. The carefully crafted story shows that woman is man’s indispensable partner. But why does Schreiner think that it calls up the custom of primogeniture? He does not tell us.
Every choice of words made by the writer fails to call it up:
- There is no father who dies. Adam is created by God.
- He is ‘formed from the dust of the ground’.
- He is not described as the firstborn, or even as ‘born’.
- Eve is not a sibling born from the same womb but is fashioned from Adam’s side.
- There is no unequal inheritance of property.
In the way the story is told, there is not one element which calls up the idea of primogeniture. The carefully crafted words show no connection with that idea.
Did we miss it? If so, we are in good company. No Bible author speaks of Adam as the firstborn. From Genesis to Revelation, he is not described as the firstborn or as the eldest son. He is not connected with the idea of primogeniture anywhere in the Bible.
Someone may say: “But what about 1 Timothy 2:13?” Well, look at the words. Paul remains faithful to the text of Genesis. He does not say anything about a father dying, or about Adam being firstborn, or about Adam having the rights or authority of an eldest son, or about property being inherited in unequal shares. In short, Paul does not use any words which point the reader to the ancient Hebrew custom of primogeniture.
Schreiner is mystified by Sprinkle’s view. But I am mystified by Schreiner’s. I believe I’ve read everything which he has written on this subject. He has never identified for us the carefully chosen words in the Genesis story which supposedly call up the custom of primogeniture. This is an empty hole in his interpretation. It is a hole which cannot be filled, because words which could call up that custom are not in the text.
2. 1 Corinthians 11:8–9
Schreiner rightly accepts Sprinkle’s view of the Hebrew word for “helper” which is used of Eve in Genesis 2:18, in her relation to Adam. The Hebrew word does not imply any particular relation of authority between the one helping and the one helped. God is often Israel’s “helper”. When God helps Israel, that does not mean that Israel has authority over God. When this word is used, we have to look at the particular context to see the nature of the relationship between the helper and the helped.
Schreiner makes his contextual argument about the meaning of “helper” not directly from Genesis 2 but from 1 Corinthians 11:8-9. The underlying premise of his argument is unremarkable: we can take it that the apostle Paul, who describes himself as “a Hebrew of Hebrews” (Phil. 3:5), has a good understanding of the context in Genesis 2. Schreiner says that “Paul picks up on the idea of women being helpers in 1 Corinthians 11:9” and that verses 8–9 show “the unique authority of men”.
The problem is, in these verses Paul does not say anything to the effect that women being helpers shows the unique authority of men.
Schreiner provides links to the ESV. Here is what the verses say in that version:
8 For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.
Verse 8 is about source: woman was made from man. Verse 9 is about purpose: woman was created for man. But neither of these verses says anything about authority.
Schreiner seems to regard “the unique authority of men” as being somehow apparent from the fact that woman was created for man. But that supposition confuses purpose and authority, which are two different things.
To see the difference, we can consider some illustrations:
- If humans have need of a Saviour, and so God provides for humans a helper – a Saviour – for the purpose of meeting that need, this does not imply that humans have authority over the Saviour.
- If my son has a need to learn French, and so I provide for him a helper – a tutor – for the purpose of meeting that need, this does not imply that my son has authority over the tutor.
In the same way, if the man has need of a helper because he is alone, and so God provides for the man a helper – a woman – for the purpose of meeting that need, this does not imply that the man has authority over the woman. It simply doesn’t follow. There is a hole in Schreiner’s interpretation.
3. Paul’s Greek verb authentein in 1 Timothy 2:12
For this rare verb, English versions offer more than twenty different translations. The ESV has it as “exercise authority”. In this verse, Paul is not permitting a woman to do it to a man.
Schreiner complains of Sprinkle’s view that this verb “doesn’t fit with Jesus’s understanding of authority, where we serve each other instead of dominating one another”. Schreiner finds Sprinkle’s argument “astonishing”. He says: “Sprinkle imposes on the text his conception of authority and then declares the authority described is bad because it doesn’t fit with Jesus’s understanding of authority.”
In short, he takes issue with Sprinkle’s position that this word is unsuitable for the proper exercise of authority within the fellowship of the church.
But there is plenty of evidence to support Sprinkle’s understanding of authentein, and Schreiner doesn’t even seem to disagree with it. So, his complaint seems strange. After all, complementarians interpret 1 Timothy 2:12 as Paul’s prohibition of women carrying out functions which should be reserved for a male church elder. So, it is important to consider whether this word is suitable to describe the proper action of a male church elder.
Schreiner refers to a detailed word study by Al Wolters. One of the best examples of this word, close to Paul’s time, is in Ptolemy’s astrological anthology, Tetrabiblos. In Wolters’ translation, Saturn ‘has gained mastery [authentein] of Mercury and the moon’. Another translation says ‘dominates’. A similar meaning for authentein is given in some of the early versions which translated Paul’s letter into other languages. In the Vulgate, the Latin verb used for authentein in 1 Timothy 2:12 is the same as in 1 Peter 5:3, where Peter forbids church elders to ‘lord it over’ the flock. It is not within the job description of a church elder to gain mastery over the flock, to dominate them, or to lord it over them. That is something that an elder definitely ought not to do!
The point is simple: if this word is unsuitable to describe the proper action of a church elder, it follows that in 1 Timothy 2:12 Paul is not talking about who may properly exercise authority within the church. Instead, he is prohibiting bad behaviour. The complementarian interpretation, that Paul is forbidding a woman to do what a male elder ought to do, does not fit Paul’s choice of words.
4. Teaching or false teaching in 1 Timothy 2:12
In 1 Timothy 2:12, Paul is not permitting a woman “to teach”. Sprinkle argues in his book that “to teach” in this verse has a negative meaning.
Again, Schreiner says he is “astonished”. He observes that this word “only has a negative meaning if indicated by further contextual information”. He says that Sprinkle’s claim of a negative meaning in 1 Timothy 2:12 “has no evidence to support it”.
But Schreiner’s astonishment is itself astonishing. There is plenty of information in the context which shows that the meaning is negative:
- Paul is forbidding the teaching, so evidently Paul disapproves of it.
- The parallel activity authentein is also forbidden by Paul, and is something that even a church elder ought not to do.
- In the last phrase of verse 12, Paul contrasts these two bad activities (the teaching and authentein), which he is not permitting, with the good behaviour which he does want a woman to do: “but she is to remain quiet”.
- In the next two verses (13-14) Paul refers to the woman being deceived in Genesis 3. How was she deceived? By the serpent’s false teaching. Paul certainly views such teaching negatively.
- Throughout 1 Timothy, Paul’s number one concern, repeatedly expressed, is about false teachings and false teachers.
The context provides ample information to support Sprinkle’s position. In light of all of these negative indications, how can it seriously be claimed that Paul is viewing the teaching in verse 12 positively? This is a gaping hole in Schreiner’s interpretation.
5. Does Paul rely on the Genesis story for a general creation principle or as an illustration of the local situation?
In 1 Timothy 2:13-14, Paul provides support from the Genesis story for what he has said in verse 12. Sprinkle explains in his book (page 267):
He doesn’t bring up Eve to make a universal or general point about women. Rather, he mentions Eve’s deception to illustrate something about the local situation in Ephesus (as he did with the situation in Corinth in 2 Cor. 11:3). We know that women in Ephesus were being deceived by false teachers, so it makes sense for Paul to appeal to Eve as an illustration of a woman being deceived like the Ephesian women were.
Schreiner is unpersuaded. He holds to a role-reversal theory. He reads verses 13-14 as grounded in the idea that the sequence of creation establishes Adam’s “role of authority”. He says:
Satan subverts the created order by tempting Eve instead of Adam. The Serpent doesn’t approach Adam first but Eve, even though Adam had primary responsibility as the spiritual leader in the first family. On this understanding, verses 13 and 14 are both grounded in the created order. The point of verse 14 isn’t that women are more apt to be deceived but that the order of creation was subverted when the Serpent approached Eve instead of Adam. It seems to me, then, that the prohibition of women teaching or exercising authority (v. 12) is followed with the same reason (the order of creation in both verses 13 and 14).
But how is the Genesis story actually written? God’s command was not to eat fruit from the forbidden tree (2:17; 3:3). There was no command about Adam’s authority over Eve or about Adam having primary responsibility as spiritual leader. After the disobedience, what sin is apparent from God’s pronouncements? It is the eating of the fruit, in disobedience to God’s command: see Genesis 3, verses 11, 12, 13, 17. God says nothing about the order of creation being subverted, whether by the Serpent, the woman or the man.
Some have tried to justify the role-reversal idea from the opening words of 3:17: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it’”. But listening to his wife and eating the fruit are not two separate sins. There is only one sin. There is disobedience only because the fruit was from the tree which was the subject of God’s prohibition. If Eve had given Adam fruit from any other tree in the Garden, that would not have involved a sin by either of them.
So, Schreiner’s role-reversal theory does not arise out the text; it is inappropriately fastened onto it. This leaves another gaping hole in complementarian interpretation of Paul’s words.
If verses 13-14 are not about a general creation principle of male-over-female authority, is Sprinkle right to see them as an illustration of the local situation? Broadly, without endorsing every detail of his analysis, I believe he is. Paul’s prohibition in verse 12 is targeted at some particular women who were deceived. To paint a full picture, we must attend to what we can learn from both 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, from Acts 19 – 20, and from historical and cultural information. There is not room for that here. I intend to publish a full account in my forthcoming book True Complementarity: Men and Women in Christ (IVP Books, due out in October 2026).
Part of Sprinkle’s explanation of Paul’s illustration involves the cult of Artemis of the Ephesians. Schreiner believes there are no clear pointers to Artemis having any relevance. I consider there are many such pointers in the letter. However, for present purposes, this is a side issue. Sprinkle makes clear in his book that his exegesis of 1 Timothy 2 rests primarily on the text itself, not on the cultural context (page 278).
Holey Exegesis
Preston Sprinkle is not the first person to take a deep dive into the complementarian-egalitarian debate and to firmly change his mind as a result. Terran Williams did the same, as his How God Sees Women shows. This keeps happening, because the complementarian position depends on holey exegesis.
I commend From Genesis to Junia as a thoughtful exploration of the debate. It is written in a lively style and is easily accessible.