Preston Sprinkle in his analysis of Romans 16 picks up that women are frequently described as those who “work hard” (kopiaō).
I want to avoid hasty conclusions based simply on word associations, and we still need to work through other passages that might exclude women from leadership (like 1 Tim. 2:8–15). But my complementarian seminary professors. under the leadership of John MacArthur always taught me to figure out a Greek word’s meaning by looking at how it’s used elsewhere in the Bible, especially by the same writer. The fact that Paul uses kopiaō throughout the rest of the New Testament to describe the ministry of church leaders—and never once to describe the ministry of non-leaders—is significant. Following the rules of good exegesis, this sure looks like strong textual support for women leaders in Paul’s ministry.[1]
Now, whatever we conclude about women as elders in the church, we have to ask whether or not this is an example of good exegesis. First of all, I don’t want to take John MacArthur’s word for it.
There are two problems with Sprinkle’s approach here. First of all, whilst it is helpful to see how a word is used elsewhere, that doesn’t mean that meaning in another place dictates meaning in the place you are looking. We also need to look at the specific context because words have a semantic range, meaning and tone can be affected by who is addressed and what is happening around the use of the word. We need to be careful that we don’t flatten out the meaning of Scripture. We can do this when we refuse to allow a text to speak for itself. Indeed, we end up in a circular argument kind of context where we conclude that Paul only describes leaders’ work as “hard work” and so this text must refer to leaders which then means that no text about hard work
Here’s the second problem. Whilst we might want to use other examples of the word kopiaō to work out what kopiaō means in Romans 16, this is not in fact what Sprinkle does here. Rather, he is looking at who is described as working hard elsewhere and linking that to who the word kopiaō is used in relation to here.
I am inclined to add a third problem which is this. Sprinkle is assuming that some people are described as working hard because they are leaders. Could it be though that they are leaders, or have prominence in the work of the Gospel because they work hard at it? They give their time to evangelism, teaching, discipleship, pastoral care etc and so they set an example which others follow. Note too, that Sprinkle seems to be collapsing leadership in the church into the office of elder. What if there are other ways of leading and other types of leader.
By turning kopiaō into a technical leadership term, Sprinkle risks giving the impression that Paul only considered leaders to be the ones that worked hard for the Gospel. This risks creating an unhelpful clergy/laity distinction which I’m sure Sprinkle would not want to do. As with his approach to those who hosted churches in their houses, Sprinkle creates unintended and unfortunate consequences.
[1] Sprinkle, Preston. From Genesis to Junia: An Honest Search for What the Bible Really Says About Women in Leadership (p. 121). David C Cook. Kindle Edition.
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