A reader of my I Timothy 1:3-7 post asked:

In reading this I do not see the interpretation that only men may lead the church and hold positions of leadership/elders.
This is a stumbling block in many churches, and in many cases [is] the reason some [choose] to leave the church. Not their faith but the church. How can it be explained that within the word of the Bible the intent of our Lord is as you describe here. I understand you to say that it is actions, faith and purity that makes a leader and gender isn’t specific in the teachings of the Holy Spirit. Can you help explain?

Gender is clear for the leadership of the church. However, teaching and growth are not gender specific in certain contexts. There are several parts to your question and I intend to address them seperately so that the issues don’t get blurred together. I would break them up as follows:

1. Is this interpretation the only interpretation, and if not, is it the correct interpretation?
2. Male only eldership causes people to leave the church [not meaning leaving the faith]. Does this make the doctrine wrong?
3. Is this doctrine only derived from this passage or do other passages teach this? [What is the whole teaching of the word of God?]

Is this interpretation the only interpretation? If not, is it the correct interpretation?
No, the interpretation I hold to is not the only interpretation. However, using a consistent hermeneutic (interpretation process) as generally outlined in my article on hermeneutics I believe it is the most scripturally consistent view of the passage. I believe the most common views are

1. That there should be plural elders when possible, these elders should be men [the view I hold]
2. That there should be one elder, he is to be a man. This man is usually called the pastor or bishop
3. That there are to be no elders, this is just something Paul was writing to Timothy about, but is not a doctrine applicable to the church today.
4. Men or women can be leaders of the church and it is a good idea if they meet most of the requirements of this passage
5. If the men don’t step up the women should step up to lead the church

This is hardly an exhaustive list of the various types of church leadership. Some of these ideas are based on this passage and some of these ideas don’t have any scriptural backing whatsoever. Alister Begg once shared in a message I heard that he visited a Baptist church in the south where the pastor was doing verse by verse exposition and then got to that section and declaired to his congregation that since they didn’t have elders there that this passage was not for them and so they’d skip it. I think that skipping a passage based on the ecclesiology (doctrines of the order of the church) of the church is really problematic because that passage may point out an area where your ecclesiology needs to change!

I am going to use some of the details that will be in the section about the whole teaching of scripture and these two sections will overlap some. I believe that since doctrine should be rooted in the clear teaching of scripture and that doctrines that are presented in multiple places should (generally) take importance to believers in comparison to doctrines that are more vague. This doctrine is clear throughout scripture. Being a dispensationalist, that is a believer who interprets the Bible literally but understanding that the scriptures written to the Jews are for the Jews and do not have a direct baring on Christians in the current time frame of scripture, I am going to quote heavily from the New Testament and only reference the Old Testament where Apostolic precedence does so. To put it simply: I don’t think that I can justify male eldership based primarily on Old Testament passages.

Passages that teach male leadership within the church or give a clear precedence

Acts Chapters 1 and 2

These two chapters show the beginning of the church. Prior to this time the Jewish system and Law were in place for all of those portrayed in these passages (estimates are that Gentiles were rather foreign to the church until about 15 yeas into the church age). Christ gathers the men (disciples) together and instructs them in what they should do: wait. Then the Holy Spirit elected a new disciple to take the place of Judas Iscariot. One of the requirements was that it be a man who had been with them the whole time.
I do understand that these are disciples and not elders, so this is taken as a weaker reference. However, it does set a precendence and hold as a principle that leadership for the church was to be male at its inception.

Acts 14:21-34

This passage shows the apostles at work and before they left they set up elders. It would seem hypocritical for Paul to set up elders that did not meet the requirements of his letters to Timothy. Again, this is not a direct statement that men should be the elders but works in concert with later verses.

Acts 15:22

This passage clearly says that from the group of elders (presumably men), men were chosen to go. I recognize that this one is slightly more direct than previous passages, but is still not saying, “Men Only.”

I Timothy 3:1-7

This is probably one of the foundational passages that outlines the male requirements for being an elder.

It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do.
An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,
not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money.
He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity
(but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?),
and not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil.
And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church, so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

“If a man…” seems like a clear statement of gender in contrast to the roles of deacons (verse and deaconesses (verse 11). The male elders shepherd the church while the deacons (male) and deaconesses (female) serve the church. The requirements for an elder are stringent and are too clear for all of the other details to ignore the masculine gender they start out with.

Titus 1:5-9

This passage too clarifies the male nature of the role of elder. The clarity in these verses is hard to ignore. Chapter 2 clarifies that in general older men are to instruct the younger men in godliness and that older women are to instruct younger women in godliness. The leadership of the body as a whole, however, remains to the men as set before in the earlier verses.

Other verses beyond this talk about elders, but like some of the verses in the list above do not specify gender.

I cannot find one instance of a female leader of the church body in all of the New Testament. It seems consistent with the Timothy and Titus passages to have male elders only.

What about culture? If the culture of that time allowed for only men, but todays culture allows for women, shouldn’t we just attribute this male only doctrine to being cultural?
The cultural argument is a toughy because there are things like women wearing make-up that are common in todays churches. Other issues like women wearing head coverings (see I Corinthians 11) and greeting each other with a Holy Kiss (I Peter 5) have gone to the wayside. I Timothy 2:9-15 points out that Paul recognizes an order for things within the genders. This gender order does not mean doormat, second rate citizen or inferiority. A difference here does not have to create bitterness and to that end Paul wrote Colossians 3:18-25. Specifically that women are to submit to their husbands, but that husbands are not to provoke their wives (or children). The order of the church should be already working in their homes: the men should be heads of their households.