Gender Roles Within the Sacrificial System

by Perry Hall

Gender requirements were specified in the Mosaic sacrificial system. We will reveal how this is important to our topic of gender roles within the church. Before that, let's examine 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 for the animals being sacrificed?

• Burnt offerings had to be males (Leviticus 1:3,10).
• Peace or Fellowship offerings could be male or female (Leviticus 3:1,6).
• Sin offerings had to be males for leaders (Leviticus 4:3,14,23), but females for the common people.
• Guilt offerings were males (Leviticus 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 requirements, that is not the point. God declared it. Therefore, that is valid enough.

Second, patriarchy 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 sometimes 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, some exceptions were made when the person was poor. They could offer certain birds that 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, 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 to be sacrificed, then no one had the right under God's law to restrict.

Today, within the church, God has gender-specific roles. The determining factor is not whether males and females are equal; it is God. The sacrificial system in the Law of Moses demonstrates this principle.