Found here. Our comments in bold.
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Ms. Lesley is hung up on women pastors. She has written extensively about them. However, we have discovered that she lacks the skills to write coherently about the issue.
Her first mistake is to place the pastor at the top of the leadership structure of the local church, when it should be the elders (1Pe. 5:1-3).
Her second mistake is to accept the traditional explanation of 1Ti. 2:12 as being directed against women pastors when it is not:
1Ti. 2:12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.
Though she doesn't reference or quote 1Ti. 2:12, she does vaguely appeal to it as evidence:
John would not have commended someone that Paul’s epistles rebuke.
We discuss 1Ti. 2:12 in great depth here.
Her third mistake is to carry her doctrine regarding women pastors into 2 John, which colors her interpretation of that epistle. But if John is actually writing to a church leader who happens to be a woman, then her interpretation of 1Ti. 2:12 needs to be reconsidered. So she has it backwards.
Now, it should be clear that John would not be writing to some unnotable woman. John wrote commands to her. He wrote encouragements. He wrote warnings about false teachers. He wrote about doctrine. He wanted to see her in person, face to face. In fact, he wrote to her in a similar manner to what Paul wrote to Timothy and Titus.
For some reason she thinks Timothy and Titus were pastors, which is false (see her mistake number one, above), but dismisses the possible leadership of the "chosen lady" despite the similar manner of the letters to each. Or to put it another way, her reasons in favor of Timothy and Titus are the very same reasons against the "chosen lady." This is twisted thinking.
The "chosen lady" must have been someone important in that local church. Dare we say that she was a leader? We admit we are only making a supposition, but so is Ms. Lesley. We therefore give ourselves permission to speculate in a like manner.
If she was a leader, then Ms. Lesley would do well to rethink traditional doctrines about women in leadership.
And in fact, that is what we have done. Women leaders are not prohibited in the Bible. Women elders are, however. Women pastors? The Bible has almost nothing to say about pastors in leadership, let alone women pastors.
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Is the epistle of 2 John addressed to a female pastor? (No, because in the Bible there is no such thing as a pastor leading a church.)
Q. I just read a social media debate on this topic. One poster is focusing on the “children” in the verse, seeing them as God’s spiritual children (the church) and only considering the “chosen” or “elected” lady as the leader/pastor of the church. I took “chosen or elect” to mean she’s a “godly” woman, one predestined (chosen by God) like other believers.
A. Great question! It is so important to pay attention to details like this in Scripture.
No, 2 John is not addressed to a female “pastor”. (There is no part of the NT that is addressed to a pastor.)
If it were, it would be a stern letter of rebuke because such a woman would be in egregious sin and rebellion. (We dissected this article here.)
The verses that are being twisted in an attempt to argue this fallacy are parts of verses 1, 4-5, and maybe a bit of 13:
The elder to the elect lady and her children … some of your children … I ask you, dear lady … The children of your elect sister greet you. EXCERPTED FROM 2 JOHN 1, 4-5, 13
You are definitely on the right track in your thinking. Some people think 2 John was written to a church and John was riffing off the “church as the Bride of Christ” metaphor by using this female personification of the church. “Elect” or “chosen lady” would then mean elect or chosen in the sense that the church is elect or chosen out of the world. This “lady’s” “children” would, metaphorically, be the members of that church.
Others think 2 John was written to a particular woman in the church, namely the woman who had offered her home as a place for the church to meet. Verse 10 would be a good fit with this idea, warning her that, though it was customary and good Christian hospitality to open her home to godly pastors and teachers who were traveling around and needed a place to stay, that she should not extend hospitality to those preaching a false gospel. This individual woman would be elect or chosen in the sense that every individual Christian is elect or chosen. Her “children” would be understood to be her own biological children.
Personally, I can see where a good argument could be made for both of these perspectives, and that maybe John had both in mind as God moved him to write this letter. (There is no good reason to think that John was writing metaphorically. John is very specific in writing "to the chosen lady" (vs. 1), who has children, some of which are walking in the truth (vs 4). She has a house (vs. 10). She has a sister (vs. 13). John cannot be writing metaphorically.
Further, John writes to the "chosen lady" in 2 John and to Gaius in 3 John in a very similar manner:
2Jn. 1 The elder, To the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in the truth...
3Jn. 1 The elder, To my dear friend Gaius, whom I love in the truth.
And:
2Jn. 12 I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink...
3Jn. 13 I have much to write to you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink.
Was Gaius a metaphor as well? It does violence to Scripture to take two similar letters written by the same author and call one metaphorical when the other is clearly literal.)
But whichever perspective you lean toward, one thing we know for sure is that it was not written to a female “pastor”. John would not have commended someone that Paul’s epistles rebuke. That would make Scripture contradict itself, and, thus, God contradict Himself, since He is the author of Scripture. And we know that can’t happen.
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