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All Things to All People?

We can’t keep everyone happy, and it’s torture to try

For several years now, I’ve participated in a private Facebook group for women in theology and biblical studies. The group started with some of my friends from graduate school and now has more than 450 members—professors, grad students, seminarians, and pastors. We ask pedagogical questions like “What readings should I assign in my intro theology class?” and personal questions like “How can I finish my dissertation with a toddler on my lap?” One recent topic, though, generated more comments than any other topic I can remember: What do women wear when they preach or teach?

Comments poured in. One woman said that the culture at her university is very masculine, so she usually wears suits. Another said the culture at her university is very masculine, so she never wears suits. “It’s become super important not to give up my more feminine self-presentation in the classroom,” she explained. One pastor admitted that she was glad her church required vestments so she never had to think about her outfit.

Some women also posted links. A Center for Teaching Excellence workshop called “You Need a Haircut and a New Pair of Shoes,” named for an actual comment on a course evaluation. An article, “What Not to Wear: Assistant Professor Edition.” Another article: “Male TV presenter wears same suit for a year—does anyone notice?” (Answer: nope.)

The whole discussion was astonishing and rather sad. These are women with graduate degrees in theology, chattering about hemlines and high heels. But they weren’t swapping fashion stories because they’re shallow. They took pains with their appearance because they were so acutely aware of all the expectations surrounding them. Before they could stand in front of a classroom or congregation, they felt like they had to stand in front of a mirror and imagine how everyone they might encounter that day would see them, would judge them, would accept or reject what they had to say.

The idea of being all things to all people, which comes straight out of 1 Corinthians 9:19-23, falls especially hard on women in our society. It also falls especially hard on leaders in the church. My church is looking for a new pastor, and the list of traits my fellow church-members suggested to the search committee is a mile long. Someone who preaches the Word, but whose sermons aren’t too heavy. Someone who’s a good leader and also really easy to relate to. Someone who can invigorate the youth ministry and sit beside the elderly in hospice care. Someone who will shake up the church and keep everything exactly the same. In short, a pastor who can be all things to all people. Is this what Paul had in mind?

Actually, no.

We misread Paul’s message if we don’t notice that it’s explicitly evangelistic. “I have become all things to all people,” he writes, “that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings” (, NRSV). Most of the concerns that beset female teachers and leaders of congregations and, really, all of us, simply don’t rise to this level of importance. I have become all things to all people…so that my students won’t disrespect me. I have become all things to all people…so that nobody will say something mean after my sermon. I have become all things to all people…so I won’t lose any donors. I have become all things to all people…so my kid’s teacher will think I’m a good parent.

These things matter, sort of, but they’re not the gospel. The gospel is freedom and life. Worrying about impressing people is enslavement. It’s death by a thousand narrowed eyes and crossed arms. We can’t keep everyone happy, and it’s torture to try.

But enslavement is in this passage too, right? Paul writes, “For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them” ().

Martin Luther said something very similar in his landmark treatise On The Freedom of a Christian, where he wrote, “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” That sounds nice, but how does it work? How do we know whether the course of faithfulness is to be more beholden to the people around us—a slave to all—or less beholden to the people around us—perfectly free, subject to none?

This question has to lead back to the gospel, and to the true Christian freedom both Paul and Martin Luther are talking about. Because we are set free from sin through the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, because we are new creations, because we have been redeemed by a God who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, a lot of the rules we struggle to live by are actually, to use a Greek term, adiaphora, neither mandated nor forbidden. We’re free to disagree. We’re free to be different from one another. We have a lot less to argue about than we realize.

Paul uses the example here of living under Jewish law, or not living under Jewish law, which would seem to be a pretty big deal. It was, in fact, the convening question of the very first church council, the Council of Jerusalem recounted in Acts 15. There we read,

Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to discuss this question with the apostles and the elders (, NRSV).

And what did the apostles and elders decide?

“It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell” ().

Well, that didn’t exactly answer the question. There’s not a word in this decree about circumcision. We have to assume, then, that what the council didn’t say was at least as important as what it did say. It didn’t say you cannot practice circumcision. It didn’t say you must practice circumcision. To the presenting question of the first church council, the apostles and elders said, “adiaphora.” It is not a matter of salvation. We disagree only with those who say that it is a matter of salvation, those who would encumber new Christians with this burden from the old law. We vote for freedom. The Gospel votes for freedom.

To paraphrase a few more words from Paul in , “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, or whatever you wear, do everything for the glory of God. Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. Because it’s his life and work, and, ultimately, only his judgment that matter.”

Elesha Coffman is an assistant professor of church history at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, where she frequently teaches classes online. She is also the author of The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline (Oxford).


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