This is written for people in our movement. I say this because my comments about Preston’s book reflect my theological convictions around church government and organization generally. I don’t think your typical Baptist or Presbyterian would have the same flexibility (or creativity) in terms of how to respond to Sprinkle or apply the scripture’s teaching on female contributions to church life. This is also written for someone who has read the book. Perhaps the easiest way to understand my comments would be to read them either as you read Sprinkle or just after you read each chapter. 

Preston is not a liberal. He is thoroughly committed to the final and full authority of scripture.
He wants to know what scripture teaches. This book is not proof of him caving to cultural pressure. He has demonstrated his commitment to scripture and strength to withstand cultural pressure by writing a book advocating pacifism while living in Idaho and a book arguing for traditional sexual ethics while living in America.

This book showcases passion for God’s word, humility in our search for truth, and honor toward those with whom we disagree.
Christians need to learn how to debate secondary issues in godly ways. This book gives a good example of how this can be done. He does painstaking work on the text of scripture, spending four years in research and writing, having dozens of conversations with world-experts on each aspect of the argument, and subjecting his findings and conclusions to scrutiny from all sides. Preston honors others by presenting some of their best arguments, speaking highly of them, and commending them as fellow believers and faithful exegetes even when he disagrees with their conclusions. We need more writing like this.

I lament how “the debate” is engaged.
Big picture, I grieve this debate. The reason is that it feels like a power struggle when Jesus wants us to “be slaves of all” (Mark 10:44) and to “outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10). The NT tells us to pursue humility and service, and we’re clamoring to get people leadership, to be in charge, to have authority, to get titles. The book feels this way at times, even though it pushes hard toward Jesus’ definition as well.

The first third of this book grieved me by its constant reference of “leadership,” authority,” and “being in charge.” Preston did ease my tension later, but the book would be improved by restructuring.
1. “The debate” always begins in Genesis and the OT, where we aim to show whether Adam was “in charge” or women “had authority.” Preston follows this pattern.
2. In the first chapter on Genesis, he argues that Adam was not “in charge.”
3. In the second chapter on women in the OT, he argues that women “had authority.”
4. I’ll address these chapters in more detail in my next points, for now I want to suggest an improvement.
5. In the third and fourth chapters on women in the ministry of Jesus and leadership in the early church, Preston shows how Jesus challenged prevailing notions of leadership. He wanted his people to serve and to seek greatness through sacrificial service rather than pursuing authority or practicing dominance. I was relieved by these chapters’ focus on service and humility and wished that Jesus’ teaching would have found its way into the first two chapters of the book.
6. If I were to write a book on this topic, I would begin with Jesus. I would show that greatness is service. “Leadership” as an idea is nearly invisible in the NT, because it hides behind the idea of being imitable. In the NT, you “lead” not by having authority but by presenting an example of Christ-likeness (in word and deed) that others ought to follow. Jesus seemed to want his people to be less interested in “being leaders” than in “being great.” True greatness is being a slave/servant of all.
7. If you begin with this definition (imitate Jesus so that others follow) and then return to Genesis, you will discover a very different approach to the question of “leadership.”
8. God called both Adam and Eve to be imitable, to create a culture of godliness by representing him well.
9. They needed each other to accomplish this task, for you cannot imitate the God who loves without having someone to love.
10. God called both men and women in the OT to be imitable, sadly very few took him up on the call. Shining examples like Samuel and Abigail hearten us to the reality that at least some of God’s people want to create a godly family, culture, and nation. But their influence failed to multiply.

Genesis doesn’t prove everything but it also doesn’t say nothing.
1. Preston tilts the debate in the first chapter. He asks whether Adam and Eve exercised “mutual rule.” He poses this option in opposition to hierarchical rule. But, to my mind, complementarians have always agreed with the idea of “mutual” rule. We’re called “complementary-ans” for a reason. We believe that men and women complement one another in their God-given commission to subdue the earth.
2. Elsewhere in the chapter, his word-choice verges on the hyperbolic. He asks if Adam was “in charge”? He concludes the text doesn’t indicate that Adam is ruling, leading, exercising authority, and or putting Eve into subordination. Some complementarians claim to see this kind of dominance in Genesis. I’m with Preston, and I can’t see domination here. But I do see difference.
3. In each of the five points Preston explores, he concludes that either a complementarian reading is wrong or that it’s not sufficient to prove that Adam was in charge. To me, it sounds like he’s saying it’s either got to prove everything or it proves nothing. But, I see it differently. I think Genesis hints at something true about the nature of our partnership as men and women.
4. Genesis 1 speaks of man and woman working together to have dominion and subdue the earth (1:26-28). They can’t do it alone. They must have each other. But, it’s also true that that they can’t do the exact same job and hope to fulfill their calling. At the very least, men must impregnate and women must become pregnant, otherwise there’s no fruitfulness and expansion. The text doesn’t say they have different roles, it simply knows that they do. Preston doesn’t mention a possible comparison with the sun and moon. He says the only “rule” language speaks of mutual rule of humans, but there is other “rule” language in reference to the heavenly bodies (1:16-18). Do both rule the heavens? Yes. Do they rule in exactly the same way? No. There is difference and there is interdependence. The job cannot be done by one alone, nor are the two heavenly bodies interchangeable.
5. Adam was created first. Does this mean he has authority over woman? Preston presses the point further than need be done. “I don’t think Genesis alone demands that Adam’s first-created status establishes male authority over woman.” (23) True. But this, and the next three points, can combine to be suggestive. Complementarians should not say that Genesis 1-3 demands that Adam (men) has authority over Eve (women). But, they can say that there are hints and suggestions that the differences between the sexes indicate different responsibilities for men and women. For my part, I’d like to step away from the word “authority” and speak instead of responsibility. Adam being created first indicates he has responsibility before Eve shows up.
6. Eve being a “Helper” doesn’t diminish her importance or make her subordinate. True. It’s easy to show that “Helper” in the Bible most often refers to God who comes to assist his people in need. So, “Helper” in reference to Eve doesn’t mean she’s worse or weak in some way. But it might suggest that Adam has responsibility and she’s there to share it with him. When God shows up to help Israel, it’s because they have a responsibility to do something and can’t make it happen on their own. They need a partner.
7. Adam naming animals and Eve doesn’t mean he’s “in charge,” but it does mean he has responsibility. He was supposed to bring order and naming animals helps do this. It was an expression of putting things in order. When Adam names “woman” (a derivative of “man”), he puts her into order—next to him, from him, with him, for him (in partnership). Can we abandon the pyramid shaped hierarchy picture and think instead of a complex system? Everything in nature needed to take its place in order for the system to thrive. Birds must go up, fish and worms must go down, seas go this far and no further, woman comes out of man but stays really close by. Birds aren’t better than worms because they’re up instead of down. Each thing in its place makes the world system flourish. It’s not a pyramid but a web of interconnected relationships.
8. “He shall rule over you” (Gen 3:16) is not the bedrock of good complementarian theology. The verse is very difficult to interpret. I found Sprinkle’s interpretation helpful, but I disagreed with his conclusion. In biblical interpretation, we look to the closest context to decipher words’ meanings. For Gen 3:16, the nearest parallel is 4:7. It’s troubling that this text speaks of sin desiring Cain but Cain needing to rule over it (desire and rule are the same words from Gen 3:16). No one wants to compare this to woman’s desire for her husband and his need to rule her. Preston concludes that her desire to rule/dominate is a bad thing (like the sin in 4:7), but he says that the husband’s response (rule) to this bad desire is also bad. I disagree. Cain’s conquering/ruling of sin is good. A husband’s ability to prevent his wife from dominating the relationship would be a good thing too. If she wants to transgress boundaries, the loving thing to do is to stop her. 
9. Preston’s conclusion is that Genesis 1-3 doesn’t demand that Adam has authority over Eve or that men naturally have authority over women. I would agree, but then pushback that the various clues are suggestive of differences in responsibility.

Preston’s chapter on women in the OT reveals very interesting insights but also demonstrates an over-fixation on “power” and “authority.”
1. I love to celebrate the heroes of the OT, many of whom are women. It is true that by percentages women are far godlier than men in the OT.
2. If Preston took my advice and grounded “authority” and “leadership” in the gospel definition of Jesus, he could show all the ways women were truly great through their service. Most women (except some of those with titles, like Jezebel) expressed true greatness by representing God well in service.
3. But instead, we hear constant mention of “power.” For example, women can make bread which means they have power in the home (42-43). Rephrased through a gospel lens, women are truly great because they serve their families through the grueling service of bread-making. Another example, women have “sexual power” over their husbands in the Song of Songs. Rephrased through a gospel lens, this wife is truly great because she gives herself fully and freely to her husband (as he does to her). 

Showing that women were “leaders” in the OT should help complementarians mature their approach to women in the church.
1. The second half of chapter 3 talks about female leaders in the OT. It doesn’t contradict the kind of complementarian that I am. I’m happy to embrace the fact that women served in all kinds of important capacities in the OT and that many of these capacities have a parallel in the church.
2. My trouble is, again, with the over-fixation with the word “leaders.” It smacks of American-ism. We want people to be on the top of the pile. I would much rather talk about the valuable contributions women made, their inspiring examples, the culture they helped to foster, the ways that they represented God. That is, I would rather shake off the word “leader” and instead describe godly, gospel shaped greatness portrayed by women.
3. Deborah was awesome. She heard from God, exhibited courage, inspired the people, and partnered with God. As a prophet, she provides a fitting example for NT courage and partnership with God.
4. Huldah was another excellent prophet. Sprinkle takes issue with Schreiner who suggests that her prophesying “did not obstruct male headship” (60). Prophecy is leadership to Sprinkle because it has authority. It’s true that prophecy has authority, but authoritative prophecies still have a place in the social order. They contribute to God’s leadership of the people. They stand in tandem with scripture, wisdom, and other prophetic contributions. They’re one item in the system rather than being the top of the pyramid. Huldah is great because she wasn’t trying to dominate but to serve.
5. Sprinkle suggests there was a hierarchy in the OT, with prophets at the top. They had “more authority” than priests and kings (61). I disagree. I think priests, kings, and prophets were designed to work together in a mutual/complementarian kind of way where each contributed their unique perspective and God-given authority.
6. Our fixation with and warped understanding of “leadership” makes us ask the wrong question, namely, “Were women leaders?” We would do better to ask, Did God equip women to contribute to the health of the community through prophecy? Yes. Did God equip women to contribute to culture making by making them godly? Yes. Did God give women vital, irreplaceable roles in the thriving of Israel? Yes.

Contrary to Sprinkle’s conclusion, the all-male priesthood demonstrates that God can demarcate some roles for some types of people and not others.
1. Since priests were the primary teachers in ancient Israel, complementarians point out that their being an all-male group points to the priority of men teaching in the church.
2. Preston explores some rationales for the all-male priesthood before concluding the rationale doesn’t matter. Then, he dismisses the complementarian argument because both men and women are considered priests in the church. Therefore, he concludes the door should be open for female teachers.
3. But in so quickly dismissing this point, I think he overlooks another option. God’s selection of male Levites for the priesthood doesn’t mean that only male Levites can teach the church. But it does demonstrate that God can choose one type of person for a role and not have to give us a reason for doing so. God can choose women to have babies and not men, the Kohathites to carry tabernacle furniture not the Gershonites, etc.
4. Preston’s conclusion to chapter 2 seems to go beyond his argument. He concludes that male only leadership follows cultural norms rather than God setting a precedent (64). But, as far as I can tell, God selects patriarchs, leaders, kings, and priests on purpose. He doesn’t seem shy about bucking tradition. If God wanted to be egalitarian in the ancient world, he could have done so. Would having a queen have been more counter-cultural than Sabbath or sex laws? I doubt it.

Preston’s chapter on women in the ministry of Jesus recounts the glorious contributions of women and their alignment with God’s heart.
1. He shows how women “suffer” and “serve” in just the ways Jesus idealizes of great people. Preston inserts “leader” in place “great one” several times in this chapter. I think this makes sense to modern Americans, but I think it obscures Jesus’ richer point.
2. Jesus commends women more often than men.
3. In all the gospels, women appear to fit Jesus’ picture of the ideal disciple, learning, serving, suffering, believing, communicating the truth. They testify/bear witness and are the first to proclaim the resurrection.
4. “But are they “leaders”?” Sprinkle asks. I doubt the women cared. They were called (as are all Christians) to be servants and they met that ideal.
5. Sprinkle answers the question carefully, by saying that technically they weren’t given titles or positions like the twelve apostles. But, nevertheless, they fit the character qualifications of leaders and they communicate the gospel as leaders do which is “suggestive of women proclaiming messages about Jesus to a community of men gathered in a house on a Sunday” (85). In my kind of complementarianism, this isn’t a problem. I’m happy to have female prophets and evangelists (perhaps even apostles) proclaiming the truth about Jesus.

Sprinkle downplays the importance of an all-male apostleship, whereas as I see it as another demonstration that God can demarcate some roles for certain types of people (without satisfying our desire for a rationale).
1. He shows how often these men fail and yet the women in the gospels live up to Jesus’ standard. He thinks this might hint that the apostles aren’t held up as a paradigm of godliness which would make way for women to be so regarded.
2. I think this is a misreading. The gospels portray the failures of the men in order to communicate that God uses the weak things of the world to shame the strong. The gospels portray female success to prove the same point; God selects unlikely ones to be his heroes.
3. Sprinkle is right that the all-male apostleship doesn’t mean “only men can be leaders.” But it reminds us that God sometimes selects certain people or types of people for roles. It’s something of a pattern—Levites, kings, apostles. (Matt Hosier pointed out that whenever God chooses representative covenant leadership in biblical history, he always chooses men: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus.)

Jesus recasts “church” and its authority structure in light of his character.
1. This chapter is super insightful and helpful. There’s tons to commend about rethinking leadership and authority in light of the gospel. As I’ve said before, I wish chapters like these came much earlier in the book.
2. Preston begins by reminding us of Mark 10:42-45 and Jesus’ redefinition of greatness. Again, Sprinkle inserts “leadership” and “authority” where Jesus says “greatness” and “first.” Jesus points his people toward greatness more than leadership, service rather than authority. Sprinkle’s word-exchange subtly reinserts the very thing Jesus tried to challenge, namely a lust for “authority.” I’m sure Preston doesn’t want this, but it’s my contention that the way this whole debate is framed causes exactly this problem. Instead of encouraging people to service, we’re trying to find out where the authority can be found.
3. In the next few pages, Sprinkle vacillates between searching for authority in the NT and recalibrating it in light of Christ. He notes that Paul eschews the use of common leadership terminology. Paul also “proves” his apostolic authority by reference to his suffering rather than supremacy.
4. He shows that “elder” was more like an honorific (a complementary title) rather than official office.
5. He then demonstrates how women and men use their gifts to build up the church in various ways. My trouble with this section is that we feel compelled to constantly call people leaders, as if this is what Jesus would want us to do. Jesus, for his part, seemed to say “Call no man father or teacher” because he saw the danger in our obsession with preeminence.
6. Sprinkle shows that there was a general call to Christians to care for, manage, and lead the church. Various types of people did these roles (e.g., 1 Thes 5:12). The same terminology refers to elders in 1 Tim 3 and Titus 1. So, he begins to suggest, overlapping roles probably means that any qualified person regardless of gender could do any job in the church.
7. But, I see it differently. Yes, there is tremendous overlap in pretty much all the titled roles of the church (apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, elder, teacher, deacon). But that doesn’t mean there’s never differentiation or that some people would be admitted and others not. Apostles had to be hand (of God) selected—just because you could “do the job” didn’t make you an apostle. I compare it to Levites being selected for the priesthood; most men and women in the ancient world were really good at butchering meat, they all had that skill and could do that job, and yet God chose only Levites to do it (not because they were especially good butchers, by the way).
8. Sprinkle demonstrates that women were excellent servants (a term for leader), evangelists, coworkers, laborers, and prophets. Praise God! For my kind of complementarianism, this poses no threat. I happily embrace these gifts without feeling like they conflict with the notion of a male-only eldership.
9. He argues that house church hosts were default leaders of the churches. This was true in the culture generally, that the male or female head of household ran things in the home. But, I think we have reason to think this didn’t carry over directly to the church. At least, we can say that heads of households weren’t elders by default. Being rich enough to own a home does not qualify you for Christian eldership (then or now). Paul lays out clear requirements for elders and I think it is because he doesn’t want us to default to what the norm was in Roman culture (111). It’s possible, as Sprinkle says, that heads of households were leaders of some sort, but this doesn’t conflict with a male-elder view of leadership. Females could be head of home and the church still has all male elders. Both the head of home and the elders contribute to the strengthening of the church.
10. Since Preston believes (as I do) that the church is a home and family, I believe his interpretation of Ephesians 5 (a text about in-home relationships and order) should have carried more weight. We’ll discuss this later.

Paul “worked” with and celebrated the valuable contributions of many women both in evangelism and among the churches. Ch. 5
1. Sprinkle helpfully identifies the “work” language connected to women. These types of words refer to Gospel proclamation, evangelism and discipleship, which many women engaged in.
2. Paul commends many women for their outstanding efforts and contributions to Gospel ministry (Romans 16). In fact, he shines a light on female contribution. Preston discusses Phoebe, Priscilla, and Junia,
3. Paul commends Phoebe as a patron and servant. He might have entrusted her with carrying the letter to the Roman church. At this point, Sprinkle posits some historical reconstructions to indicate her responsibilities, but I feel more cautious than Sprinkle about what to make of these (potential) roles. 
4. Patrons carried authority and responsibility over communities. However, Jesus also considers “patron” (a closely related term to “benefactor”) to be part of the “worldly” idea of leadership (see Luke 22:24-26). I would be cautious to apply all of what is entailed in that role to someone in the church. Wealth, we would all agree, is not the primary prerequisite of church leadership.
5. “Servant” (as Phoebe is called) often refers to leaders in local churches. However, “servant” might often refer to a Christian “leader”, but not always to an elder (the point with which male-elder complementarians are concerned). That is to say, I happily embrace female “servant-leaders” who are evangelists (Phil 4:2-3) and prophets (Acts 21:9) without concluding that “servant” language opens up the role of elder to women.
6. Letter carriers were usually entrusted with interpreting/applying/expanding upon the intent of the letter. I’m not inclined to build too much of my theology off what might be the case. Phoebe might have carried this letter which might have meant she interpreted it. I’d rather build my case off what is explicitly in the text. If the NT corrects, changes, or re-envisions normal, secular roles with Christian ideas (as it does with elder, oikodespotes, and other leader language), then I will not assume that just because a patron or letter carrier had certain roles in secular culture that they also had those in the Christian community. If we’re doing historical reconstructions to support our theology, then I could posit that Paul trained Phoebe about a new type of letter carrying in Christian community, one which did not conflict with his explicit teaching in 1 Timothy 2-3.
7. Paul commends Priscilla and Aquilla as coworkers in the Lord. Indeed, this couple was incredible in their gospel ministry.
8. Since they hosted a church in their home, this might have given them certain responsibilities of “leadership.” In my reading, this qualifies as “responsibility” and “service” open to any believer. We don’t know exactly what they would have done, and I don’t want a pattern of inferring from “what was normal” in those days into the church. Paul clearly differentiates overseers/elders as being more than hosts of churches.
9. Priscilla and Aquila instructed Apollos (Acts 18). Did she “teach and exercise authority over a man” in a way that conflicts with 1 Tim 2? Evidently not, since Luke doesn’t seem to have any problem with it. Again, in my reading, females can be apostles, prophets, and evangelists (without being elders). Priscilla’s role in this story could be any of these three without contradicting Paul’s intention in 1 Timothy 2-3. It is also worth noting that it is the couple who engages with Apollos. Finally, the conversation between these three seems personal (private) and intentional. I don’t know any complementarians who have a problem with women engaging in personal conversation with men about the gospel, and I know some extremely conservative complementarians. If a husband and wife together share the gospel with an up-and-coming teacher, praise God.
10. Paul commends Junia as “outstanding among the apostles” (Rom 16:7). Sprinkle spends a lot of time on this point. In my complementarian circles, we’re comfortable saying she was an “apostle.” Preston is right to follow this with the question, “What kind of apostle?” There were several kinds—general messengers, authoritative delegates of the main apostles, main apostles, the twelve. What kind was Junia? We can be honest and say “we don’t know.” Sprinkle contends that they be considered main apostles. His main reason is “the” before apostles in Romans 16:7. This seems overly speculative to me. Again, I don’t prefer to build my theology off speculation of what could have been the case. It’s possible this couple were really good messengers, carrying notes and supplies back and forth among the churches. It’s possible they were official delegates who had leadership responsibilities. It’s also possible that they completely distinguished their responsibilities among those churches, with Andronicus doing ministry among men and Junia ministering among the women. We simply don’t know. If Paul required a differentiation among the ministries of men and women, I assume that this couple maintained such a differentiation. 
11. One thing I love about this section in Sprinkle’s book is that he reclaims the centrality of suffering in the identification of apostles. Apostles risk their lives for the church. Andronicus and Junia did just this. They suffered for the gospel, praise the Lord.

The role of female prophets in NT churches challenges me the most. God clearly and consistently equips women to proclaim his word (both revelation and applied interpretation of scripture) to his people. Ch. 6
1. I have always been convinced that prophecy and prophets belong in modern churches. I have also been convinced that we need to recapture a biblical definition of prophecy so that we can know what we’re looking for. Preston helps us a lot toward this goal, showing us in both Old and New Testaments what prophets did.
2. There are many named and unnamed female prophets in the Old and New Testaments (Miriam, Huldah, Isaiah’s wife, Anna, Philip’s daughters). It’s beyond dispute that women should play this role in the church (Acts 2:17-18).
3. Sprinkle concludes that NT prophecy “had a function similar to teaching and preaching” (155). The Puritans refer to preaching as “prophesying,” so perhaps there’s a similarity of idea here.
4. He builds this case from:
5. 1 Corinthians 14:3 describes the effect/intent of prophecy in language similar to teaching and preaching. In particular to the word parakaleo is used here and in reference to Timothy’s teaching ministry (1 Tim 4:13).
6. We see parakaleo (exhort) and oikodomeo (build up) language used in reference to lots of teaching, preaching, and prophesying activity in the NT.
7. “This doesn’t mean prophecy is the same thing as teaching: the two are clearly distinct gifts. But it does suggest a functional overlap between the two.” (160)
8. He also shows how prophecy “instructs” (1 Cor 14:18-19) so that you “learn” from it (14:31). Again, here’s an indication that prophecy can include something like teaching.
9. What really hit me hard is the reminder that OT prophecy often was Bible interpretation and application. Isaiah interprets and applies Deuteronomy. Daniel reads Jeremiah 25 when he discovers it’ll be fulfilled in a different-than-expected way in his day (Daniel 9).
10. This happens again with the prophecy of Zechariah in the NT. He alludes to over a dozen OT passages, interpreting and applying them as being fulfilled in the ministries of John and Jesus.
11. So, prophecy is similar to “teaching.” Next, Sprinkle wants to show that prophecy carried “authority.” This seems beyond dispute. How could prophecy not contain authority?
12. The main counter-argument would be that prophecy is “tested”. Does this indicate that we have authority over it? Or, that it is less authoritative? Not at all. All teaching should be tested as well. You sit down and compare it with God’s word, as the Bereans appear to do (Acts 17:11). Deuteronomy gives “tests” for true and false prophecy as well (see Deuteronomy 13 and 18). Once a prophecy or teaching passes the test, you immediately recognize its authority.
13. Prophets had a fundamental/foundational role in establishing the church (Ephesians 2:22) and the ongoing equipping of the church (Ephesians 4:11). Attempts to reduce their role to something beneath the office of elder seem far-fetched. Paul places apostles and prophets first and second in his commendation of these gifts (1 Cor 12:28). They come before “teachers,” so Paul clearly doesn’t relegate prophets.
14. The most personally challenging aspect of this chapter is how it impacts Sunday morning preaching. If prophecy includes the interpretation and application of scripture, then it would seem that Sunday morning preaching can at times be called “prophecy.” What I’m still wrestling with is the question “what differentiates the role of an elder from other roles, especially when it comes to teaching?” Perhaps, in general, Sunday morning preaching can be “prophesying” and therefore open to any member of the church. On the other hand, it might be the case that we see the Sunday morning moment as “something only elders do” and therefore not open to all members.