Rick Warren Makes His Scriptural Case For Female Elders

MARCH 2023: Celebrity pastor Rick Warren explains how he became an egalitarian and decided to ordain women as pastors at Saddleback Church during a podcast interview with Christianity Today's Russell Moore.

These clips can be seen isolated but unedited here:

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34 thoughts on “Rick Warren Makes His Scriptural Case For Female Elders

  1. Elders and pastors can’t be conflated with witnessing.
    Prophecy is speaking God’s word but it is not Eldership or pastor.
    Rick can women be men?

  2. This is not a new argument and he’s lying that MacArthur never dealt with those passages.
    55 years he preached through the New Testament verse by verse.

  3. Preaching is one thing, PASTORING is an entirely different ballpark. I don’t see scriptural support for female pastors at all. 🤷🏿‍♂️

  4. Not one of those references was part of a discussion of local church eldership.

    Every Biblical believer knows and celebrates the freedom women have through the gospel – most famously in Galatians 3:28. But within the church, in the letters we call the “pastorals,” the distinctions are made very clear.

  5. I was once told to “Shoot and score” by Bret Hull a long time ago. According to Rick’s logic, I was a part of the STL Blues henceforth…. Seriously, where’s my NHL money at???

  6. I love how he accuses his opponents of eisegesis and then immediately provides three textbook examples of himself doing that very thing. What a clown.

    1. I thought exactly this. Apparently eisegesis is now if Rick Warren doesn’t approve of it while reading his own interpretations into the Bible. Lol

  7. Teaching and baptizing is different than ‘leading’ the church (being a head / elder). The bible is very clear women can have all the roles (minus authority over a man / her husband and minus leading the church) but women CANT lead the church.

    1. @XX99N6hE absolutely he is. He is reading into the Scripture instead of pulling from. Eisegesis, not exegesis. Scripture is undeniably clear on the roles of women in the church.

    2. @Josh Higdon Exectly, scripture is clear on that issue, but why does he speak out against Eisegesis in the same interview he himself uses it to justify blatantly unbiblical positions? He must know he’s in the wrong, yet not only does it, but justifies it by means he himselfs deems to be wrong. He’s double wrong so to speak.

    3. @XX99N6hE that’s what I say about him knowingly deceiving. He has to know what he is doing. And you know he hears men like MacArthur speaking against it.

    4. Nah, he doesn’t know it. He’s a deceived deceiver. He’s proven himself to be a know-nothing for years. This is just another level of know-nothingness. We all know what does next.

  8. This almost seems like gaslighting. Either he thinks we are stupid or he is so full of himself he sees things in the Bible that nobody has seen for 2,000 years. Those verses have nothing to do with the qualifications for the office of pastor/elder/bishop.

    1. I think both are true. He is full of himself, and needs a body that large to contain his enormous ego.

  9. Tertullian the Early Church Father records that there were female prophets, who got words from God to speak immediately, but they were not elders. There is no scriptural case for female elders. There may be a pragmatic case, but not a scriptural case. This is just one example of why I gave up on professional Christians a long, long time ago.

  10. Prophesying isn’t preaching, speaking in tongues isn’t preaching, sharing the Gospel isn’t preaching. Passing on information isn’t preaching.

    Besides those points, he’s mostly correct

  11. Looking at the pastoral epistles that Paul wrote in 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus there is NO mention of women being in an overseer role.
    I’m a woman and weekly at our local church, I teach girls and boys. Never any youth or men. Rick Warren is blind to the Scriptures and twists them to make a case for himself. Praying God will open his eyes and ears to the Truth.

    Appreciate your ministry🙏🏿🌺

  12. “Culture did not change me on this issue”

    Sure, Rick. It just so happens that you changed your opinion at EXACTLY the same moment that culture was changing, and when huge cultural forces were being felt to change the way we look at things.

    What a massive, spectacular coincidence that the Holy Spirit led you to see things differently at the EXACT same moment when it became culturally difficult to stay the same.

    On Matt 28 – I love that he has not even considered the possibility that the great commission is a command, given first and primarily to the apostles. It’s ‘eisegesis’ to assume that Jesus was speaking through them, at us, and not to them, directly. Theirs is an example for their successors (ie. us) to follow, yes, but that doesn’t mean the command to ‘teach’ the gospel somehow becomes a license for 21st century women to be elders.

    As for Acts 2, how ludicrous. Let’s just assume that women were prophesying. How does he know that this involved congregational exhortation on the lords day, and/or authoritative pastoral ministry? He doesn’t. He just made that up. Out of thin air.

  13. Women preaching to the LOST is NOT the same thing as holding a position of AUTHORITY in the church

    1. There are no biblical justifications for women preaching period, whether it be to other Christians or unbelievers.

  14. Then he must believe that 1 Timothy 2:12 must be a mistake. He has become wise in his own eyes, hence his disaster of changing his mind from what is clearly and unequivocally stated by the Holy Spirit.

  15. Reminds me of an old saying I heard about Biblical interpretation a text taken out of proper context is a proof text and you end up with nonsense (paraphrsed liberaly). In short if you go by The Pastoral Epistles which were Paul’s blueprint for how the local congregation was to be run you can not argue for women in the teaching ministry. Nor could you argue for the Deaconite ministry like some so-called Complamentarians do either.

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