Many Christians believe women can occupy the role of Senior Pastor in local churches (a belief known as egalitarianism), based on Galatians 3:28. It states, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Egalitarians interpret this passage to mean that God erased the gender distinctions between men and women in Christ, thereby opening the door for women to occupy the same leadership positions as men in the church. However, this interpretation of Galatians 3:28 is problematic on several fronts:
The context of Galatians 3:28 is not leadership roles within the church but justification by faith in Jesus and not the Old Testament Law (read Galatians chapter three in its entirety). As such, Paul’s point to the Galatian believers in this verse was that the lines of division between Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, and men and women in Christ have been eradicated because they are all equally “sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 3:26) and, therefore, “Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29).
Consequently, Paul’s statement about men and women did not eradicate their gender distinctions in Christ generically or universally when understood and interpreted in context. Paul simply conveyed both genders’ equal standing before God through faith in His Son, and that God saves men and women equally (regardless of their gender, ethnicity, cultural backgrounds, or economic status).
After writing Galatians (around 48-50 AD), Paul wrote 1 Timothy (around 65-67 AD), which was a letter to his spiritual son, Timothy, who was the pastor of the church in Ephesus. The context of Paul’s letter was the local church, and his instructions to Timothy were directed at what should and should not occur in the church.
In 1 Timothy (written after Galatians), Paul specifically prohibited women from teaching or having authority over men in the church, which excluded them from serving as Senior Pastors. He wrote in 1 Timothy 2:12-14, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.”
Paul’s prohibition against women teaching or having spiritual authority over men in the church was not locally or culturally based but universal, given that he cited Creation as a foundation for his directive. His reference to Creation affirmed God’s order, design, and intent for men to lead and women to follow, since God created Adam first and gave him authority over the earth (and the first command) before Eve was created (See Genesis 2:15-24). Hence, Adam obtained his authority and mandate from God, whereas Eve received hers from Adam.
Paul also cited Eve’s deception in the Garden as another reason why women are prohibited from teaching or having authority over men in the church. David Guzik commented on this fact, stating, “Both Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden...yet, the Bible never blames Eve for the fall of the human race, but always blames Adam...because there was a difference of authority. Adam had an authority Eve did not have; therefore he also had a responsibility Eve did not have. As well, Eve was deceived, and Adam was not deceived. Eve was tricked; but Adam sinned knowing exactly what he was doing when he rebelled. This means that though Adam’s sin was worse, Eve’s ability to be more readily deceived made her more dangerous in a place of authority.” (Guzik, David. “Study Guide for 1 Timothy 2.” Enduring Word. Blue Letter Bible. 6/2022. 2025. 22 Aug 2025.)
Paul also spoke about God’s leadership order in two other epistles, which he penned after Galatians but before writing 1 Timothy. In both, he conveyed that men were to lead and women were to submit to their leadership within the family unit and God’s family, the Church. He wrote in 1 Corinthians 11:3, “But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” He also penned in Ephesians 5:22-24, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”
Each of Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians and Ephesians supports his directive in 1 Timothy 2:12-14 that women are not to teach or have authority over men in the church, and both confirm that God designated men to be the leaders and not women. Yet neither passage supports nor is consistent with the notion that gender distinctions between men and women in Christ had been eradicated in Galatians 3:28. Therefore, Paul’s directive in 1 Timothy prohibiting women from teaching or having authority over men in the church is consistent with the rest of Scripture regarding God’s sovereign design for leadership, going all the way back to Creation.
Paul gave Timothy specific criteria for pastoral candidates, which identified men as the only gender permitted to occupy that role. His statement in 1 Timothy 3:1, “If a man desires the position of a bishop,” automatically disqualified women from this role because of their female gender. (He did the same in Titus 1:6 when introducing pastoral criterion with, “If a man is blameless,” which limited this leadership role to men .)
Furthermore, Paul’s criteria for married pastoral candidates excluded women from occupying the role of Senior Pastor because it required these candidates to be “the husband of one wife” (1 Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:6). This fact is significant because the Greek word for “the husband” is a masculine noun (“aner”) and always referred to men when used in the New Testament, never women.
Another requirement Paul issued for married pastoral candidates was that they be “one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?)” (1 Timothy 3:4-5). Aside from the masculine noun and pronouns used to indicate men only (i.e., his, man, and he), the qualifications themselves denote the male gender because God mandated men as the leaders and overseers of their families (see Ephesians 5:23-33).
Considering all these facts, Paul would have contradicted himself in his other epistles if his intended meaning of Galatians 3:28 was that the gender distinctions between men and women in Christ had been eradicated generically or universally—thereby paving the way for women to serve as Senior Pastors. That, in itself, creates a whole other set of Scriptural (and Canonical) problems, if true.
Furthermore, if the correct interpretation of Galatians 3:28 was that the gender distinctions between men and women in Christ have been eradicated generically or universally (as opposed to Paul simply communicating the equal standing of all people before God through faith in Jesus Christ), it would open the door for other sinful situations to be rendered appropriate. For example:
It would allow same-sex marriages between believers who struggle with gay or lesbian temptations, despite God’s requirement for marriages to consist of one biological man and one biological woman (see Genesis 1:27-28, Genesis 2:18-25, Matthew 19:4-6, and Mark 10:5-9).
It would allow believers to live as transgender people if they wrestle with accepting their God-given gender, despite God’s command against people dressing to appear as members of the opposite biological gender from what He assigned to them at conception (see Deuteronomy 22:5).
It would permit married women to lead their husbands and families spiritually, despite God calling women to submit to their husbands’ leadership of the family unit (see Ephesians 5:21-24 and 33, Colossians 3:18, 1 Peter 3:1-2, and Titus 2:3-5).
I hope you found this article informative, and it helped you understand why Galatians (and the rest of Scripture) does not allow women to serve as Senior Pastors.
(Note: God’s exclusion of women serving as Senior Pastors does not imply that they have less-than-equal importance in the body of Christ or that they do not possess the same value, importance, and worth as men. It simply means that God ordained men to be the spiritual leaders of His family, the Church, just as He ordained them to lead and oversee their families.)
