(1602 oil painting by Andreas Herrneisen, Kasendorf, Germany)
“Preaching is entrusted to the man and not to the woman, as Paul also teaches, insofar as this has to do with Christian matters.
Otherwise, it can occasionally happen that a woman gives better advice, as one reads in Scripture.
But apart from that, the offices of leading, preaching, and teaching God’s word are commanded to the man.”
– Martin Luther
“...the Holy Spirit has excepted women, children, and incompetent people from this function,
but chooses (except in emergencies) only competent males to fill this office,
as one reads here and there in the epistles of St. Paul that a bishop must be pious, able to teach, and the husband of one wife –
and in I Corinthians 14 he says, ‘The women should keep silence in the churches.’
In summary, it must be a competent and chosen man. ...Moses says in Genesis 3, ‘You shall be subject to man.’
The Gospel, however, does not abrogate this natural law, but confirms it as the ordinance and creation of God.”
– Martin Luther
“The impropriety of women’s preaching and praying in public we fully admit; we deem it both immodest and sinful.”
– Matthias Loy
“A careful exegesis always will show beyond all doubt that in 1 Cor. 14:34-36
and in 1 Tim. 2:12-14 Paul forbids the women to preach in the church.”
– J. L. Neve
“...only those who are properly called have the right publicly to teach in the church and administer the sacraments.
And the church that follows Christ’s example and obeys his word, commits those public functions to men and not to women.
Scripture plainly says that it is not permitted unto women publicly to teach in the church.”
– E. H. Klotsche
“The gifts of divine grace render all conditions of men alike before the Lord;
but they do not in any way affect the order of creation by which God made them male and female and differentiated them. ...
This view may be old-fashioned and contrary to the trend of the age, the progress of which we may not be able to stem;
but to be faithful to the Scriptures we must not be silent, but let the voice of our protest be heard.”
– C. H. Little
“It is well-known that the majority of Christians worldwide do not practice women’s
ordination.
The Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox, and many Protestant
churches
in both the south[ern hemisphere] and the north[ern hemisphere] do not believe in this doctrine.
Therefore, the doctrine of women’s ordination is an idiosyncratic teaching of a few liberal, northern Protestant churches,
and it is largely enforced through the domination of a powerful elite that brooks no dissension.”
– Bishop Walter Obare Omwanza
The last ordination at which Luther officiated, at the St. Andrew Church in Eisleben, Germany, in 1546
(1569 painting by Heinrich Göding)
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