Does Scripture Hinder a Woman from Political Office?

After reading my posts entitled, Gospel Today Gets Adult Magazine Treatment, covering the topic of women pastors, a friend of mine then asked me the following:

‘I haven't seen any blog posts from you on whether or not it's good to have a woman running for Vice President. Do you have an opinion?’

I am not sure if I have made up my mind on a definite answer as of yet, but let’s consider the following…

Woman: Creation
Eve, the first woman, was created by God from the rib of the first man, Adam. The precedence of marriage was set forth here with God bringing Eve unto Adam. Thus it was written, ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.’

Woman: The Fall
Adam and Eve decided to taste the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, of which God had commanded against. Because of their disobedience, each received punishment from God. Eve’s judgment was, ‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.’

Woman: Marriage and the Home
By the account of Creation we see the man is to cleave unto his wife, and by the account of The Fall we see the man is to rule over his wife. We also see at creation, woman was created for ‘the man’ and was to be a ‘help meet’ for ‘him’. The younger women are asked to ‘marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully,’ and the ‘aged women’ are to ‘teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.’ We further find the idea of marriage, having the man love the wife and the wife submitting to the man, found in the similitude of Christ and the church.

Woman: Church
Most probably know the verses which say, ‘Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.’ We also find such scriptures as, ‘Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection’ and ‘I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.’ My second post to this blog was concerning women in the church, and there was some good discussion concerning the topic. It would probably be better if one were interested to visit that posting than for me to try and explain the entire discussion here.

Woman: Political Office
There are plenty more scripture we could visit, but this should suffice for the present. We must remember in such a discussion we are not deciding whether a woman is inferior or worth less than a man, for what we find are the roles of men and women here in scripture. Our roles have been set forth by God based on his choice, not on our worth, for He indeed called woman a ‘help meet’ for the man, not a lesser. From what I gather, I am not sure the scriptures directly reject the serving of a woman in a political office over men in the secular world, though I believe it does speak clearly as to whether that should be her goal or desire.

From scripture, it would appear that a woman’s first desire after serving God should be her husband, then her children and her home. It is also clear from scripture that the woman is not to rebel against her husband. Something which is so important that scripture says, ‘ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives.’ We also find that a woman is not to usurp authority over a man, which could be reference to just within the church, but would this even be wise in the secular world?

So, from the above, we can conclude, that a woman is not to be over the man, but in subjection to, when it comes to the home and the church for sure. This would seem to include both material and spiritual matters of both. We don’t need to take this to the legalistic extreme, but we do need to remember our example is Christ and the church. Notice the woman is able to care for the home and the children, for the man does trust her to do what is wise, though it is the man who is required to make the final decision if both are not agreed.

Therefore, I assume we are left with the following questions:

If a woman’s desire is to God, husband, child(ren), and home, would she have time left to care for the worries of political office? I mean, the man is called upon to support the family not the wife, and President or Vice President is not the same as a part-time or 9 to 5 job. I am not here advocating that a woman cannot work outside of the home, and this post has become rather lengthy already to tackle that avenue here.

If a woman is not to rule over man in the home or in the church, is it wise for a woman to seek or man to give woman an office which will put her in authority over men? She would not be usurping authority, but men would then be in subjection to her. Again, we are not discussing whether a woman can do the job, but whether it is wise or right for one to do so, according to scripture.

Possibly it all comes down to a heart issue as do all things. Why does the woman seek the office, and why does man desire to have her lead?