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note, he weighs in on whether women should cover their heads in church. It is difficult to reconcile these views with Paul’s statement that in Jesus there was “neither male nor female.” He seems to want it both ways. But in assessing Paul, there are two important points to recall. First, the early Christian communities and Paul himself were dependent upon the efforts of heroic women who helped keep the church alive by opening their homes as churches, preaching, and providing the material comforts, like “daily bread,” that every good apostle needs. The names of Lydia, Phoebe, and Priscilla, for instance, are not as well known as those of Peter and Paul, but they were crucial players in the life of the early church, just as some of the heroines of the Hebrew scripture were in their day. Lydia appears as one of Paul’s first converts in Acts who opens her home to Paul, in essence founding an early “church.” In Romans, Phoebe is called a “deacon” and is singled out by Paul as “a helper of many, and of myself as well.” Prisca, or Priscilla, is also a prominent preacher. Expelled from Rome for her activities there, she forms a church in Ephesus. In fact, in Romans, Priscilla is credited with risking her own neck to save Paul’s life.

It is also important to remember the historical setting. Paul was writing in a particular time and place. Readers of the Bible must take into account the role of women in the first century, just as they must look at ancient customs when considering the earlier Hebrew scriptures and their treatment of women. As Peter Gomes wisely puts it: “In the three worlds of which Paul was a citizen, the Jewish, the Greek, and the Roman, women’s societal roles were dictated by the subordination principle. His teachings on women, therefore, while reflecting the mores of his time, are no more relevant to an age where those more no longer apply than, say, first-century standards of dress, of social etiquette, or of dietary rules. Paul is a social and political conservative…. So we should understand him, his social teachings, and those who imitate his teachings…as writing from within the social assumptions of the age of which they are a part.” (The Good Book, p. 139)

As for Paul’s views on homosexuality, which he condemns in his letter to the Romans, Gomes, himself a homosexual, makes a similar point: “The homosexuality Paul would have known and to which he makes reference in his letters…has to do with pederasty and male prostitution, and he particularly condemns those heterosexual men and women who assume homosexual practices. What is patently unknown to Paul is the concept of a homosexual nature, that is…something that is beyond choice, that is not necessarily characterized by lust, avarice, idolatry, or exploitation…. All Paul knew of homosexuality was the debauched pagan expression of it. He cannot be condemned for that ignorance, but neither should his ignorance be an excuse for our own.” (The Good Book, p. 158).

BIBLICAL VOICES

“Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all the nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us.” (Acts 17:22-27)

YOU HAVE MAIL!

THE EPISTLES OF PAUL

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. (1 Cor. 13:1)

The early Christians were forced to improvise, working from “word of mouth,