50 Crucial Questions - Question 35

If God has genuinely called a woman to be a pastor, then how can you say she should not be one?
We do not believe God genuinely calls women to be pastors. We say this not because we can read the private experience of anyone but because we believe private experience must always be assessed by the public criterion of God’s Word, the Bible. If the Bible teaches that God wills for men alone to bear the primary teaching and governing responsibilities of the pastorate,
then by implication the Bible also teaches that God does not call women to be pastors. The church has known from its earliest days that an individual’s personal sense of divine leading is not by itself an adequate criterion for discerning God’s call. Surely God sends chosen ministers (Romans 10:15), but God also warns against those who thought they were called and were not: “I did not send them or charge them” (Jeremiah 23:32).
Probably what some earnest Christian women discern as a divine call to the pastorate is indeed a call to ministry but not to the pastorate. Very often the divine compulsion to serve comes upon Christians without the Holy Spirit specifying the precise avenue of service. At this point, we should look not only at our gifts but also at the teaching of Scripture regarding what is appropriate for us as men and women.