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Gender Roles and the Sacrificial System
Gender Roles within the Sacrificial System
Within the Mosaical sacrificial system, gender requirements were specified. How this is important to our topic of gender roles within the church, will be revealed. Before that, let’s notice the gender specifications.
The priesthood and the Levitical ministers were all males. This is undisputed, and must be meaningful since pagan religions had both male priests and female priestesses. Either pagan religions were more enlightened, or less enlightened.
There is another aspect worth considering. Were there gender specific requirements of the animals being sacrificed?
• Burnt offerings had to be males (Lev.1:3,10).
• Peace/Fellowship offerings could be either males or females (Lev.3:1,6)
• Sin offerings had to be males for leaders (4:3,14,23), but females for the common people.
• Guilt offerings were males (Lev.5:15; 6:6).
What is the point of this exercise?
• God specified males for both the priesthood and Levitical ministers.
• God specified when he wanted male only sacrifices.
• God specified when sacrifices could be male or female.
First, regardless of whether there is a reason we can decipher as to why God had gender specific requirments is not the point. God declared it, therefore that is valid enough.
Second, partriachy is often negatively described as a power play of male domination over women. However within the sacrificial system, we see a different dynamic of males at times being prioritized – sacrifice, not domination.
Third, whether a sacrifice was male or female did not determine the intrinsic value of the animal. The point was not value within gender. The value is ultimately found in faithfully following God.
Fourth, now some exceptions were made when the person was poor. They could offer certain birds which were not gender specific. However, no one had the authority to make the exception the rule. No one had the right to argue that if a female bird was acceptable for some, then why not a female cow for atonement for all?
Fifth, if God specified only males for certain sacrfices, who had the right to add female sacrifices? Likewise, if God allowed male or female animals for sacrificing, then no one had the right under God’s law to restrict.
God today, within the church, has gender specific roles. The determining factor is not whether males and females are equal. The determining factor is God. Looking at the sacrificial system in the Law of Moses demonstrates this principle.
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