John's Elect Lady Is a Pastor?

Scott McKnight posted a blog entry by Alexandra Greenley that argues that John's elect lady is a pastor. Let's explore the reasons why this is the worst possible interpretation of this phrase given what we know about 2 John's context.

1. The woman is never called a pastor or elder, or talked about as one performing the job of a pastor/elder.

2. Johannine theology sees the church as a woman who is elected by God. The phrase likely refers to the church to which he is writing, and the children the individual members of the church. Evidence of this is the fact that he ends the letter by saying that the "children of your elect sister greet you" (v. 13), referring to the church at which he resides currently.

3. All evidence points to the fact that there were multiple elders in the earliest church, not one single pastor, so it makes little sense for John to be writing to one and not acknowledging the others.

4. One must believe that the Bible is errant, and that John contradicts the Pauline prohibition concerning women in authoritative and teaching roles over men.

5. John moves in and out of the singular and plural even though he is talking to the same lady and her children throughout, evidencing that he is really addressing a group of people, and not one pastor/elder.

6. He also doesn't name her, which would be hightly unusual for an epistle addressed to an actual person. The personal address is to make sure the letter gets to the right place, but is also commonstance. John employs it in the very next letter we have from him when writing to Gaius (3 John 1:1). The absence likely indicates that the term kyria "lady" is being used metaphorically.

In Greenley's interpretation, one must suppose that this is a literal woman by ingnoring all of the above, and then supplying the word "pastor" as the meaning of the word "elect" and proper referent of the children as spiritual children over which she resides. In other words, speculation trumps what is there in her interpretation, and thus, it is the worst possible interpretation to take out of these two offered.

I will agree with Greenley in her comments that this is some of the best evidence we have of women in leadership in the time of the New Testament--which is to say that there is none.