Women should not preach sermons in church. That is the main argument of this book. By "in church," I mean the corporate assembly of the saints for worship and edification. By "preach sermons," I mean publicly teaching and exhorting from the Scriptures. While this sounds shocking to modern Christians, it really should not be controversial at all. It is not a personal opinion but rather a simple and straightforward application of the Apostle Paul's prohibition in 1 Timothy 2:12, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain silent."

Why do so many Christians find this verse to be confusing or offensive? We live in a culture steeped in feminism-an ideology that insists there should be no differences whatsoever in the roles and duties of men and women. I Do Not Permit a Woman to Teach aims to boldly and graciously confront the unbiblical ideology of feminism and demonstrate from Scripture, church history, and natural revelation that 1 Timothy 2:12 still applies today, and that Christians ought not promote what Scripture does not permit.

Why is this issue so important? Historically, one of the marks of a true church is that the Word of God is rightly preached (An Orthodox Creed, Article 30; Belgic Confession, Article 29). How the Word is preached matters, and the Lord gave rules through his apostles about how his Word is to be preached, which include 1 Timothy 2:12. We confess in the Nicene Creed that we believe in "one holy catholic and apostolic church," but if a church permits what the apostles have expressly forbidden, it cannot rightly be called apostolic. We cannot claim orthodoxy while denying apostolic teaching. The subject of women preaching, then, is no peripheral issue, but concerns the purity of the Church and her faithfulness to apostolic doctrine.

We cannot keep pretending that men and women are interchangeable. God created us male and female, with natural differences in our bodies and distinct duties related to those differences. God created men to protect, provide, and preside over others-to bear rule for the good of others. God created women to be helpers and nurturers, as mothers in the home and spiritual mothers in the church. Preaching God's Word to the church is a masculine duty, reserved for qualified men, as a means of protecting the church from error, providing the church with sound doctrine, and presiding over the church in truth and love. Churches do not honor women by inviting them to imitate the offices given to men, but by protecting them from unbiblical burdens and encouraging them to flourish in the distinct roles which God has assigned to them in His Word.