The Extraordinary History of the Extraordinary Call

In June of 1771, John Wesley commissioned Sarah Crosby (1729-1804) as the first female lay preacher in the Methodist connection. He recognized something in Crosby that he identified as “an extraordinary call.” (Before his death in 1791, Wesley recognized forty-one such women.) Prior to Crosby’s appointment as a lay preacher, Wesley had received a letter from one of her ministry partners, Mary Bosanquet. Mary Bosanquet (1739-1815), Sarah Crosby, and Sarah Ryan (1724-1768) had been leading small group gatherings for spiritual growth called “class meetings” and, as women, had received some criticism for it.¹

In her letter to Wesley, Bosanquet says her critics often referred to Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 2:12: “A woman ought not to teach or take authority over a man.” She agrees that a woman ought not to take authority over her husband. But Scripture does not teach that “she shall not entreat sinners to come to Jesus, nor say, come and I will show you what God has done for my soul.” She goes on to say that not every woman—or man—was called to preach, but “some have an extraordinary call to it, and woe to them if they do not obey.”²

In the article just cited, it is implied that Mary Bosanquet introduced John Wesley to the idea of the extraordinary call. However, in his Explanatory Notes on 1 Timothy 2:12–14, first published in 1755, Wesley writes: “Let your women be silent in the churches—Unless they are under extraordinary impulse [italics added] of the Spirit. For in other cases, it is not permitted for them to speak—by way of teaching in public assemblies.”³ For this reason, some have suggested that it was Wesley himself who created this terminology in order to “interpret and adapt” Paul’s restrictions on female leadership to his particular needs.⁴ In reality, neither Bosanquet nor Wesley invented the extraordinary call. It has a much older lineage.

History of the Term

Its Protestant usage dates back to John Calvin in the sixteenth century. (In his closing remarks in his commentary on 1 Timothy 2:11–15, Martin Luther says, “If the Lord were to raise up a woman for us to listen to, we would allow her to rule like Huldah.”⁵ So, he too acknowledges the possibility of an extraordinary call without using the exact terminology.) Calvin uses this terminology, with some elaboration, in his commentary on 1 Timothy 2:12:

But I suffer not a woman to teach. Not that he takes from them the charge of instructing their family, but only excludes from them the office of teaching, which God has committed to men only. On this subject we have explained our views in the exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. If anyone bring forward by way of objection, Deborah (Judges 4:4) and others of the same class, of whom we read that they were at one time appointed by the command of God to govern the people, the answer is easy. Extraordinary acts of God do not overturn the ordinary rules of government, by which he intended we should be bound. Accordingly, if women at one time held the office of prophets and teachers, and that too when they were supernaturally called [italics added] to it by the Spirit of God, He who is above all law might do this; but being a particular case, this is not opposed to the constant and ordinary system of government.⁶

We learn here that Calvin acknowledges the extraordinary call as a valid call, coming directly from God. It may actually supersede “the ordinary system of government.” We will explore the meaning of the extraordinary (versus the ordinary) call later in this article. The important thing now is to establish the prevalence of this terminology throughout early Protestant history. It appears to be the preferred way of reconciling Paul’s prohibitions against female teaching and preaching with the biblical record of such activity as well as with the broad egalitarian vision Paul casts in Galatians 3:28. The following examples are just a few of many.

During the tumultuous 1640s in England, we have record of numerous female “prophetesses” and preachers, especially among the more radical Puritan groups. This would include women like Sarah Wight, Elizabeth Poole, Anna Trapnel, Jane Turner, Katherine Sutton, and Anne Wentworth, all Particular (thus Calvinistic) Baptists.⁷ London General Baptist minister, Edmund Chillenden justifies such activity with the following statement:

because the Apostle doth restrayne woemen from preaching, or others speaking in the Church, from whence it is playne, that this prophesying is ordinary, and lies in common to all the servants of Christ, for woemen that are extraordinarily gifted [italics added] I affirme, and the Scripture cited with me might preach.⁸

Numerous other Puritan divines reference the extraordinary call. In his Commentary on the Holy Bible, Matthew Poole (1624–79) makes the following remarks on the 1 Timothy 2:12 passage:

But I suffer not a woman to teach; not to teach in the public congregation, except she be a prophetess, endued with extraordinary gifts [italics added] of the Spirit as Mary, and Anna, and Huldah, and Deborah, and some women in the primitive church, concerning whom we read, 1 Cor. Xi. 5, that they prophesied. Nor to usurp authority over the man: ordinary teaching of the woman was a usurpation of authority over the man, who is the head, which the apostle also forbade in 1 Cor. Xi. 3, and here repeateth. It is probable that the speaking of some women in the church who had extraordinary revelations [italics added], imboldened others also to aim at the like, which the apostle here directs his speech against.⁹

Poole does not tell us how to discern between those who are endowed with extraordinary gifts of the Spirit and those who are usurpers, but he does appear to give considerable latitude to those women with an extraordinary call. In fact, elsewhere, when discussing women in the church, Poole repeatedly supports women with an extraordinary call.¹⁰

Well-known Puritan commentator Matthew Henry (1662–1714) has also weighed in on the extraordinary call. In his commentary on 1 Corinthians 14:34–35, we hear echoes of Poole and Calvin:

Or, why should they have this gift, if it must never be publically exercised? For these reasons some think that these general prohibitions are only to be understood in common cases; but on extraordinary occasions [italics added], when women were under a divine afflatus, and known to be so, they might have liberty of speech.¹¹

Cotton Mather (1663–1728), a Puritan clergyman and theologian in colonial New England, was also acquainted with the idea of the extraordinary call. In his commentary on 1 Corinthians 14:34–35, Mather writes:

To speak, more strictly signifies, to discourse and Debate with Men publickly, about the Points then agitated. In the synagogue, it was usual for any Man that had a mind, to demand of the Teacher, a further Explication of what he had said. This was not permitted unto the Women. But still, as Dr. Lock observes, They had liberty to speak, when they had an immediate Impulse [italics added] and Revelation from the Spirit of God.¹²

It is interesting to note that Mather, best known for his involvement in the Salem witch trials (1692-93), was also open to allowing women to speak with spiritual authority in the church.

Ordained an Anglican priest some years earlier, Thomas Scott (1747–1821) became an evangelical Christian through his association with John Newton. Scott’s widely read commentary series was published between 1788 and 1792. In his treatment of 1 Timothy 2:12, he says: “This rule admitted of an exception, in the case of those who spoke by the Spirit of prophesy.” He again refers to women “under an extraordinary impulse [italics added] of the Holy Spirit” in his explanation of 1 Corinthians 14:34–35.¹³ Like the others mentioned above, Scott believed that in the church God sometimes does things that are contra mundum—in defiance of general opinion.

These are only a few prominent voices that preceded Mary Bosanquet and John Wesley in referencing the extraordinary call. Perhaps the most widely read NT commentary to emerge during the early Methodist period was written by Adam Clarke (1762–1832). In his comments on 1 Corinthians 14:34–35, Clarke reconciles the seeming inconsistency between the biblical record and Paul’s instructions in 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2 as follows:

Both places seem perfectly consistent. It is evident from the context that the apostle refers here to asking questions, and what we call dictating in the assemblies. It was permitted to any man to ask questions, to object, altercate, attempt to refute, etc., in the synagogue; but this liberty was not allowed to any woman. St. Paul confirms this in reference also to the Christian Church; he orders them to keep silence; and if they wish to learn anything, let them inquire of their husbands at home; for it is perfectly indecorous for women to be contending with men in public assemblies, on points of doctrine, cases of conscience, etc. But this by no means intimated that when a woman received any particular influence from God [italics added] to enable her to teach, that she was not to obey that influence; on the contrary, she was to obey it, and the apostle lays down directions in chap. XI for regulating her personal appearance when thus employed.¹⁴

This sounds a bit like Mary Bosanquet’s admonishment to those who have received an extraordinary call: “and woe to them if they do not obey.” The women whom Wesley appointed as lay preachers preached full-length sermons. These were sometimes built on a biblical text and at other times were evangelistic. They were preached to hundreds of people.

Some contemporary complementarians would lead us to think otherwise: “So Wesley permitted women to say a few words, or ‘exhort’ audiences of both men and women at public gatherings on occasion while remaining in the traditionalist [complementarian] camp.”¹⁵ No, these women were preachers, in every sense of the word. It is true that there were also early nineteenth-century Methodist theologians who opposed women preaching like Sarah Crosby did but even so, they acknowledged the existence of an extraordinary call.¹⁶ It should be clear that the people of God, at least up into the early nineteenth century, had a general familiarity with this terminology. So then, exactly what was an extraordinary call?

What was an Extraordinary Call?

The seventeenth century Puritans wrote extensively on the extraordinary call. We will look at their writings first since they give us some idea of how the general Christian populace might have understood this term. Prior to the Reformation, there appear to have been references to an extraordinary call, but they were much more restricted and, if valid at all, had to be accompanied by miracles. The idea that God would raise up leaders outside the Roman ecclesiastical hierarchy was usually anathema. However, by the seventeenth century, Protestants had significantly altered and expanded the extraordinary call to create a rich body of theological discourse on this topic. After looking at the seventeenth century, we will go back to Calvin, whose views, if properly understood, were truly revolutionary. We will then close with Wesley, who clearly acted on the extraordinary call, adding to the dynamic expansion of evangelical Christianity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The extraordinary call was not limited to women. It had a broader application and was especially important to early Protestants who found themselves operating outside traditional ecclesiastical structures—sometimes even in opposition to those structures. Again, perhaps the best source of information we have is of the seventeenth-century Puritans.

The “extraordinary” call is frequently contrasted with the “ordinary” or “common” call. Simply put, the latter is a call to ministry that operates through traditional ecclesiastical structures, usually culminating in the ordination or appointment of the called individual to a position of authority in the church. The extraordinary call operates outside human-made structures of authority and comes directly from God. An “extraordinary call” is often coupled with an “immediate call.” We think of “immediate” as “sudden” or “instant,” but in this context it means “direct.” Protestants affirmed two equally valid ways of being sent by God—by an immediate and extraordinary call or by a mediate (indirect) and ordinary call by the church.

The early Reformers and seventeenth-century Puritans referenced a host of biblical examples of an extraordinary call including Moses at the burning bush, John the Baptist, the Samaritan woman at the well, Philip in Acts 8. Jesus himself was thought to have had an extraordinary call, as he clearly operated outside of contemporary channels of religious authority.¹⁷ Think of the many times Jesus was asked, “By whose authority do you do/say these things?”

One wonders how these seventeenth-century believers held accountable contemporaries who claimed an extraordinary call. The general route was to hold them to a standard of right living and right doctrine, referencing passages like Isaiah 8:20: “Consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn” (NIV). Much of the emphasis was personal and subjective. One would recognize an extraordinary call if the one called labored under the Spirit’s conviction that “his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones” (Jer 20:9 NIV).¹⁸

Concerning seventeenth-century applications of the extraordinary call, the Puritans sometimes differed among themselves. Presbyterians recognized its legitimacy only in situations where there was no duly constituted church body (operating within ordinary ecclesiastical structures)—on the American frontier, for instance—whereas Congregationalists allowed laymen and women to exercise an extraordinary call within an established church body.¹⁹ If we consider puritanism as a continuum of ecclesiastical structures, Presbyterians were on the conservative end, followed by Congregationalists/independents, Separatists (the group Americans know as the Pilgrims), Baptists, and finally, on the “leftwing” of puritanism, the Society of Friends/Quakers. The less hierarchical the ecclesiastical structure, the broader the application of the extraordinary call. Southern Baptists today who oppose women in spiritual leadership positions are breaking with well documented historical precedent.²⁰

Most importantly (to the seventeenth-century Puritans), the extraordinary call gave ecclesiastical legitimacy to the Reformation. They spent a good deal of time discussing whether the early Reformers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli) were called by ordinary or extraordinary means. They believed Luther, for instance, received an ordinary call when he joined the theological faculty at the University of Wittenberg. After the Diet of Worms, however, when his teachings began to circulate in the world outside of Wittenburg, his call became extraordinary.²¹

Now and then these seventeenth-century theologians commented specifically on women. The general principles established above applied to laymen and women who were otherwise excluded from church office and spiritual leadership by the “ordinary” rules of government, where “ordinary” means indirect, mediate, man-made.

Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661) was a Scottish Presbyterian minister and influential theologian. He was also one of the Scottish commissioners to the Westminster Assembly. He defined the extraordinary call as follows: 1) that which is immediately from God without other intervening cause; 2) that which is contrary to the law of nature; 3) that which is outside of divine positive law; and 4) that which is against corrupt, wicked and superstitious forms of an ordinary calling.²² (Not all four criteria needed be met.) Rutherford, a Presbyterian, would have been on the conservative end, yet he established a broad arena in which women—with an extraordinary call—can operate. He made the following comments specifically about women:

• “But a woman in no case is capable of administering baptism or the Lord’s Supper, except she were extraordinarily and immediately inspired to be a prophetess.”²³
• “But [1 Cor. 14] v. 34, he sets down a new canon about women who took on them to prophesy publicly, and he inhibits so much as ordinary prophesying, yea so much as speaking in the church; and I deny not but Irenaeus, Eusebius, yea and Tertullian, Cyril, Chrysostom, Theophylactus, with warrant teach that always women extraordinarily inspired may prophesy, for in that God immediately exalts them above men.”²⁴

In the seventeenth century, the degree of liberty a woman had to exercise an extraordinary call was more closely associated with church government (ecclesiastical polity) than systematic theology.

John Calvin

Now back to Calvin. Calvin used the terminology of an extraordinary call without defining it in detail. However, his use of the words “common” and “ordinary” (system of government) tell us a good deal about how Calvin categorized prohibitions against women speaking in church. Calvin taught that “the spiritual kingdom of Christ and civil government are things very widely separated.”²⁵ When it comes to the role of women in civil government (the temporal kingdom), Calvin appeals to the created order and natural law. These two sources, Calvin proposed, clearly establish women as inferior.²⁶ The kingdom of God, however, is characterized by a liberty and equality that is completely alien to the temporal kingdom. So, how does the organized church operate as an outpost of the kingdom of God in an alien culture? Are women free to exercise their gospel liberty (to teach, preach, and exhort) within the body of believers? Calvin says “no,” as such activity would be considered immodest and therefore violate principles of order and decorum and cause the gospel to become offensive to some. In his commentary of 1 Corinthians, Calvin addresses the meaning of headship as he seeks to reconcile 1 Corinthians 11 with Galatians 3:28:

Hence as regards spiritual connection in the sight of God, and inwardly in the conscience, Christ is the head of the man and the woman without distinction, because, as to that, there is no regard paid to male or female, but as regards external arrangement and political decorum, the man follows Christ and the woman the man, so that they are not upon the same footing, but, on the contrary, this inequality exists.²⁷

Elsewhere in the same commentary Calvin says, “In the meantime, however, he [Paul] does not disturb civil order or honorary distinctions, which cannot be dispensed with in ordinary life. Here [in 1 Cor 11], on the other hand, he reasons respecting outward propriety and decorum—which is part of ecclesiastical polity.”²⁸ So, while civil order and political decorum are all a part of ecclesiastical polity, Calvin makes it clear that only Christ’s commands are binding on a believer’s conscience. Ecclesiastical laws and observances, in general, fall into the category of human governance that Christians will assent to for the sake of unity and peace, knowing in the end that they are nonessentials, things that Calvin calls “indifferent” (in Greek, adiaphora).

He also applies these two-kingdom standards to 1 Corinthians 14:34–35. After affirming Paul’s instructions for women to be silent in church, he concludes: “However, the discerning reader should come to the decision, that the things that Paul is dealing with here are indifferent, neither good nor bad; and that they are forbidden only because they work against seemliness and edification.”²⁹ Calvin reiterates this position in his Institutes by citing the example of women’s silence in the church as something that might be completely changed (“inverted”) in the future if the edification of the church requires it.³⁰ Princeton Professor of Historical Theology, Jane Dempsey Douglass, summarizes Calvin’s position as follows:

The commentary and sermons on 1 Corinthians explicitly echo the Institutes. Calvin goes far beyond what the text would require to insist on placing Paul’s limitation on women’s freedom in the context of human governance, not divine and eternal law.³¹

Calvin fills out our understanding of the extraordinary call and moves beyond it. He suggests that when the kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven, the hierarchy of men over women established by the created order and the fall will disappear. In addition, God is presently, through his church, making all things new.³² The extraordinary call is a glimpse into that new order. The problem with Calvin is that, to our knowledge, he never acted on the extraordinary call. For that, we will now turn to John Wesley.

John Wesley

Throughout his life and ministry, Wesley looked on Methodism as an evangelical order within the Anglican Church. He never fully acknowledged that he had started a new denomination. He appointed a host of lay preachers but did not ordain them.³³ Wesley believed that since these lay preachers were not ordained, they could not administer the sacraments. This ensured that his parishioners would have to continue attending the Anglican Church, maintaining that connection with the mother church, at least, in theory. It is in this context that Wesley appealed to the extraordinary call.

Just as the Puritans used the extraordinary call to give legitimacy to the Reformation, Wesley used it to give legitimacy to his movement while remaining within the Anglican fold. His lay preachers were “extraordinary ministers,” empowered to preach and evangelize. On the other hand, the Anglican priests were “ordinary” and were thus called to give pastoral care, administer the sacraments, and ordain. Wesley made a fundamental distinction between pastor-priests (ordinary) and preacher-evangelists (extraordinary). He found biblical justification for this division in both Testaments: “It is true extraordinary prophets were frequently raised up, who had not been educated in ‘the school of the prophets,’ neither had the outward ordinary call. But we read of no extraordinary priests.”³⁴ Wesley believed the Holy Spirit had empowered preachers and evangelists with an extraordinary call to renew the church and expand God’s kingdom. Some of these evangelists and preachers were women.

However, Wesley’s sacramentalism never allowed him to consider the ordination of women. He summarized his position as follows:

Both the evangelists and deacons preached. Yea, and women when under extraordinary inspiration. Then both their sons and their daughters prophesied, although in ordinary cases it was not permitted to “a woman to speak in the church.” But we do not read in the New Testament that any evangelist or deacon administered the Lord’s Supper; much less that any woman administered it, even when speaking by extraordinary inspiration, that inspiration authorizing them for the one but not authorizing them for the other.³⁵

The Anglican in Wesley gave him a conservative bent, compared to someone like Samuel Rutherford, who allowed that women with an extraordinary call might baptize and administer the Lord’s Supper. However, Wesley did appoint a number of female lay preachers, putting abstract theory into practice. It would be Methodism’s more evangelical offspring—the Salvation Army and the Holiness churches—that would first ordain women. In summary, Wesley’s general understanding of the extraordinary call was consistent with what was taught for the two centuries prior.

Conclusion

For any scholar to suggest that in the Protestant tradition there is no historical precedent for women teaching or exercising authority over men in the church is disingenuous. The possibility of a woman having an extraordinary call was a widely held conviction up into the early nineteenth century and was sometimes put into practice. On the other hand, ordination, considered an indirect, mediate rite, was reserved almost exclusively for men. It was not until later in the nineteenth century that some evangelical denominations began to ordain women.

I believe that it is within Calvin’s sermons, commentaries, and Institutes that we see the most expansive and prescient exposition of the extraordinary call. His views on women in the church grew out of his understanding of the kingdom of God. The coming of God’s kingdom was not a return to Eden or creation regained. It was a new heaven and a new earth, radically egalitarian. The created order did dictate the subordination of women to men in civil government and society which, according to Calvin, was part of ecclesiastical polity. But, because it was not foundational to the kingdom,³⁶ the subordination of women in the church was a thing indifferent, a nonessential. He even envisioned a time and/or place when women speaking with spiritual authority in the church might become a normal observance.

Mary Bosanquet and many others, including Martin Luther, believed that, based on Genesis 2, the headship principle was confined to marriage.³⁷ Even then, Paul turns that headship principle on its head in Ephesians 5 by making marriage a picture of Christ’s sacrificial love for the church. In addition, Calvin rejected male headship as fundamental to life in the church. Calvin categorized it as a nonessential. In today’s world, it is often a detriment to the edification of the church and the advancement of the kingdom. At the very least, an understanding of the historic extraordinary call mitigates against the absolutist position that most contemporary complementarians/hierarchists take. We need to consider the wisdom of those who went before to inform our conversations going forward.

Notes

1. Jennifer Woodruff Tait, “I Received my Commission from Him, Brother,” Christian History 82 (2004).
2. Tait, “I Received my Commission from Him, Brother.”
3. John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament, vol. 2, Romans to Revelation (Baker, 1983) n.p.
4. Frederick A. Norwood, “Expanding Horizons: Women in the Methodist Movement,” in Triumph Over Silence: Women in Protestant History, ed. Richard L. Greaves (Greenwood, 1985) 152.
5. Martin Luther, Lectures on 1 Timothy, in Luther’s Works, vol. 28, ed. Hilton C. Oswald (Concordia, 1973) 280.
6. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, in Calvin’s Commentaries, vol. 21, trans. William Pringle (Baker, 1981) 67.
7. Curtis Freeman, ed., A Company of Women Preachers: Baptist Prophetesses in Seventeenth-Century England (Baylor University Press, 2011) 17–18.
8. Freeman, quoting Edmund Chillenden, A Company of Women Preachers, 14–15.
9. Matthew Poole, A Commentary on the Holy Bible, vol. 3, Matthew – Revelation (Banner of Truth Trust, 1963) 778.
10. Poole, A Commentary on the Holy Bible, 577, 591.
11. Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Holy Bible, unabridged, vol. 6 (Kindle edition by B&R Samizdat Express, n.d.) 583.
12. Robert E. Brown, ed., Biblia Americana by Cotton Mather, America’s First Bible Commentary, vol. 9, Romans – Philemon (Mohr Siebeck, 2018) 299.
13. Thomas Scott, The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, vol. 6, Romans to Revelation (Samuel T. Armstrong, and Crocker and Brewster, 1831) 428, 187.
14. Adam Clarke, The New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, vol. 3, Matthew to Revelation (Abingdon, 1977) 279.
15. Dan Doriani, “Appendix 1, A History of the Interpretation of 1 Timothy 2,” in Women in the Church: A Fresh Analysis of 1 Timothy 2: 9–15, ed. Andreas J. Köstenberger, Thomas R. Scheiner, and H. Scott Baldwin (Baker, 1995) 262.
16. See Joseph Benson, The New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (T. Carlton and J. Porter, 1810) 197.
17. “Quotes 7+,” Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent (1565 – 73), 9th Topic, concerning Holy Orders, from the 23rd Session, Section 4, ch. 4, in Chemnitz’s Works, vol. 2: Examination of the Council of Trent.
18. “The Extraordinary Call as Understood in Congregationalism,” in The Duty of Pastors and People Distinguished, by John Owen (London, 1644) chs. 4–7.
19.  “The Extraordinary Call as Understood in Congregationalism,” John Owen, The Duty of Pastors and People Distinguished, ch. 4.
20. See https://thegospelcoalition.org/article/faqs-southern-babtists-women-ministry/.
21. “Rutherford’s Distinctions,” Samuel Rutherford, The Due Right of Presbyteries (1644), pt. 1, Question 5.
22. “Rutherford’s Distinctions,” Samuel Rutherford, The Due Right of Presbyteries (1644), pt. 1, Question 5, Distinctions 1 – 4.
23. “Quotes 7+,” Samuel Rutherford, The Due Right of Presbyteries (1644), pt. 1, pp. 454 – 455.
24. “Quotes 7+,” Samuel Rutherford, The Due Right of Presbyteries (1644), pt. 2, p. 303.
25. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 2, trans. Henry Beveridge (Eerdmans, 1970) 4.20.1. The Beveridge translation is based on Calvin’s 1559 edition.
26. “Inferior” meaning “of a lesser rank.”
27. John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, trans. William Pringle, in Calvin’s Commentaries, vol. 20 (Baker, 1981) 353–54. First published 1555–1557.
28. Calvin, Commentary on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, 354.
29. John Calvin, The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians in Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, trans. John W. Fraser, ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance (Eerdmans, 1960) 307.
30. Calvin, Institutes, 4.10. 31–32.
31. Jane Dempsey Douglass, Women, Freedom, and Calvin (Westminster, 1985) 62.
32. John Calvin, Calvin’s Sermons on Galatians, trans. Kathy Childress (The Banner of Truth Trust, 1997) 353. First published 1563.
33. Wesley did finally ordain ministers for American Methodism, citing a lack of ordinary clergy to administer the sacraments on the frontier.
34. Howard A. Snyder, quoting John Wesley, The Radical Wesley, and Patterns for Church Renewal (InterVarsity, 1980) 93–94.
35. Howard A. Synder, quoting John Wesley, The Radical Wesley, 94.
36. Calvin makes the following curious but revealing remark in his commentary on 1 Tim 2: “it will be a mingling of heaven and earth, if women usurp the right to teach.”
37.  See Luther’s commentary on 1 Tim 2:11–15.