Sometimes people read the stories of Scripture and draw conclusions from them without paying attention to the Bible’s accompanying didactic parts or commands. A common example: a reader deduces approval for polygamy because certain Biblical characters had multiple wives. In that case, even features of the narrative are overlooked in drawing the false conclusion. In its extreme forms, this narrative-focused interpretation can lead to advocacy for teachings opposite to what the Bible teaches. This happens especially when the narrative details are sparse.
One finds an extended case in point in the 2023 book, Tell Her Story, by Nijay K. Gupta. Seeking to correct his childhood errors in thinking of women as inferior, and evidently working through mistakes in his home church’s teaching, Dr. Gupta sets out to compensate. But he does not do so carefully or with pastoral wisdom. His method is to focus on the narrative portions of Scripture about women, of which there are plenty because the Biblical writers understood women as the image of God. And he seeks to marshal material for women’s equality, which is not hard because the Bible supplies ample such evidence.
But the professor reads his sometimes sparse narratives—combined with a great deal of speculation—while studiously ignoring the dogmatic portions of the apostolic writings. He acknowledges in his second appendix that Paul’s straightforward gender admonitions are off-putting to him. He cannot celebrate those portions of Scripture. So, he conducts his speculations about what women were doing in the early church without the admonitions, instead relying on certain Greco-Roman practices, presuming that the early church adopted the ones of which Dr. Gupta approves and rejected those he does not.
By picking out some details of a story and maybe not mentioning others, one can reach the place one wishes. In this case, one can see equality and miss the other important gender principle of the Bible: asymmetry. Thus, this author passes over the apostolic readings of the Genesis creation account and denies the asymmetry of the first-born there. He claims, “nothing in Genesis 2 clearly establishes headship, female submission or unique male ruling authority [in marriage].” Gee, Paul seems to think so. That is why the apostle repeatedly refers to this text in his statements about headship (Ephesians 5:22-33, 1Corinthians 11:2-16, 1Timothy 2:12-13).
Instead, Dr. Gupta relegates Paul’s didactic instruction, where he is definite about how men and women should love each other, to a “bonus” appendix. You know, an appendix is something you really do not have to read if you do not wish to. Dr. Gupta begins many of his book’s sentences with the words, “We can easily imagine…” Instead of allowing these didactic texts about ministry relations to guide his imaginings, he ends with ammunition for getting around what they prescribe. His ultimate answer, for marriage, is that poor Paul (and the other apostles) were locked in their patriarchy, unable to even conceive of what we, in our enlightened state, know to be true. After all, we understand marriage so much better today. (We know that from marriage statistics.) From our lofty vantage point, the Bible’s gender commands “cannot be and must not be the liberative end point.”
The church will never get gender right by this kind of exegetical isolation. We would arrive at a better accounting of the early church if we allowed all the Scriptures to speak to us.