Women as Spiritual Fathers? The analogy between the church and the family helps us understand why the Bible precludes appointing a woman to serve as the representative spiritual father and shepherd of a congregation. The reason is not that women are less capable than men of piety, zeal, learning, leadership, preaching, or whatever else it takes to serve as a pastor, but simply because such a role is perceived in the New Testament as being that of a spiritual father and not of a spiritual mother. The New Testament emphasizes the importance of respecting the functional role distinctions of men and women established by God at creation. These role distinctions, we have noted, do not imply superiority or inferiority, but reflect a divine design and concern for well-ordered and harmonious relations within the home and the church.

Men and women were created not superior and inferior, but rather different from and complementary to one another. What God made woman to be and what He intends her to do make her different from but not inferior to man. This difference is reflected in the different roles men and women are called to fulfill in life. The woman is to be wife and mother, while the man is to be husband and father. As a father, a man is called to be the caring head and guardian of a home. This divinely established role in the natural family must be reflected in the church, because the church is the extended family of God. This means that to appoint a woman to serve as elder or pastor is analogous to assigning her the role of fatherhood in the family.