Can women teach young men in Bible class?
Categories: Bible Questions and AnswersIs it bibically correct for women to teach, in a Sunday School class, a young boy of 10 years old who was recently baptized?
The Bible teaches that women are not permitted to teach publicly or to take a role of authority over a man (1 Timothy 2:11, 12). There are two questions we must take into consideration here. First, is the Bible class a situation where one is teaching publicly? Second, are the young men who have obeyed the gospel considered, by God, to be men?
In answer to the first question, women were permitted to teach men in private situations, such as in Acts 18:26 where Aquila and Priscilla taught Apollos the way of the Lord more perfectly. While we invite visitors to attend our Bible classes today, we make it clear that the classes are only for certain “age-groups.” So, attendance in these classes is limited to age and should be considered situations in which private instruction is occurring. Insomuch as this is the case, women would be permitted to teach men in such circumstances. Wisdom, however, would favor a policy wherein Christian young men were taught by older Christian men as opposed to Christian women.
In answer to the second question, it is not so much how we consider this young person that ought to concern us as how God considers this young person. Young men who have obeyed the gospel are considered by God to be Christians, and if Christians, then men capable of acting in all of the ways that God requires them to act as Christian men (1 Timothy 4:12). When a young man is old enough to understand God’s word and be obedient to it in baptism, then he is old enough to understand and be obedient to God’s word in others areas as well. This may not be particularly comfortable to the “pride” of our age, but young men have often been used by God to do great things. Consider Joseph, Samuel, David, Josiah, Daniel, Timothy and even Jesus; all were examples of God’s ability to work through youth to accomplish His will. One should never conclude that because a young Christian is not a “man” in the worldly sense of the word, that one is not a man as God perceives him.
So much, then, as Bible classes are private opportunities for instruction, a woman may teach a man privately. However, let us not say that merely because these Christians are young, that they are not men and women may teach them publicly.