A Feminist Take on St. Paul

wrestling with one of the greatest disciples

This Saturday is the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul.

If you’ve been around these parts for any length of time, you know Peter’s my guy. I get Peter. I understand being thrust into leadership when you’re pretty dang unqualified, but saying yes anyway. I understand asking Jesus, “look, to whom else shall we go?” I understand insisting you, too, can walk on water with Jesus’ help, but immediately getting distracted by crashing waves. I understand feeling the call to put out into the deep while struggling with doubt and despair. I understand denying Jesus three times, only to jump out of a boat and run towards him full-speed.

Peter makes sense to me.

Paul, on the other hand, makes me nervous. He is that guy in the corner I keep glancing warily about. I’ve heard good things, but—you know how it is. Keep an eye on it.

Paul’s words are ones that many women dance around. Those Bible verses aren’t ones we put in Instagram captions; they’re ones that make us squirm. I have many dreadful habits¹ but nobody can claim that I shy away from difficult Bible verses, and so I present these eye-rollers to you here:

1 Timothy 2:11-14: “A woman must receive instruction silently and under complete control. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. Further, Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed.

1 Corinthians 14:34-35: “Women should keep silent in the churches, for they are not allowed to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law says. But if they want to learn anything they should ask their husbands at home. For it is improper for a woman to speak in the church.”

And these are only two examples.

I mean, yikes. He seems like a stereotype of the Most Obnoxious Trad we know. The one that wants women to sit down, shut up, and make a sandwich while they’re at it.

And yet, the church claims him as a great saint and some of the most beautiful writing in the Bible comes from his pen.

So what do we do with this? How can we, as women, turn our hearts towards Paul, when it might feel like he doesn’t even want us in the church in the first place?

I’d like to put forth the argument that Paul is not nearly as misogynistic as some Christian women have feared him to be for centuries.