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Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever
is noble, whatever is lovely, whatever is
admirable
- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. --
Philippians 4:8 |
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WOMEN IN MINISTRY |
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Study provided by Tom Kent. |
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Certain verses in the New
Testament seem to ban women from ministry positions in the church. Let's
examine these verses for the true interpretation.
Let your women keep silence in
the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are
commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law
(1 Corinthians 14:34).
Let
the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to
teach, nor to usurp the authority over the man, but to be in silence
(1 Timothy 2:11,12).
In these verses, Paul cannot be addressing women
who were in the ministry, but rather those in the congregation who were out
of order. How do we know this? We have many such proofs, many from Paul
himself. Here is a partial list of women who were all in influential
positions of leadership in the early church.
Phoebe (Romans 16:1,2): This woman was a deacon
and minister of the church in Cenchrea, who was beloved of Paul and many
other Christians for the help she gave to them. She filled an important
position of leadership. It would be a difficult stretch of the imagination
to say that the woman fulfilled her duties without ever speaking in the
church!
Priscilla (Acts 18:26): Priscilla and her husband
Aquila are often mentioned with great respect by Paul. Together they were
pastors of a church in Ephesus, and were responsible for teaching the full
gospel to Apollos. We are informed that they both taught Apollos and
pastored the church together. In fact, Priscilla is sometimes listed ahead
of Aquila when their names come up. This has led some to speculate that of
the two, she was the primary teacher and her husband oversaw the ministry.
At any rate, we see here a woman in a very prominent position of teaching
and pastoring. (Other references to Priscilla and Aquila are Acts 18:2,
Romans 16:3, and 1 Corinthians 16:19).
Euodia and Syntyche (Philippians 4:2,3): Here we
see reference to the two women who were "true yolefellow" and who labored
with Paul in the advancement of the gospel.
Julia (Romans 16:7): In this verse, we see Paul
sending greetings to Andronicus and Julia, his "fellow-prisoners" who are of
note among the apostles. Julia is a woman's name. No church commentator
earlier than the Middle Ages questioned that Julia was both a woman and an
apostle.
Though there are other women throughout the Bible
in positions of leadership, such as prophetesses, evangelists, judges,
leaders, etc., the above references should be enough to establish that women
were indeed a vital and normal part of the church leadership. Paul expected
women to speak in the church, or else why would he have given the following
directive? It would have been useless to give directions for women who were
speaking in church, if they were never allowed to do so. Furthermore, if
Paul believed that all women should never teach or speak in church, why does
he commend women who did just that?
With all this in mind, what then do we make of the
troubling verses that command women to be silent in the churches? First of
all, we must interpret those verses in the light of what we have just
established - that there were women in leadership positions of the church.
Obviously, Paul is not writing to them. He must be addressing another issue
entirely - the women who were loud and unruly during the service, causing
disorder and confusion.
When he wrote to the Corinthians, he was dealing
with a church that was very disorderly in their services. Much of the letter
was spent correcting excesses and abuses. Some of these pertained to women
in particular and some were to the entire church. Paul is not being
prejudiced against women when he instructs the Corinthian women to keep
silence. In the early church, the seating arrangement was quite different
from our modern day churches. Men were seated on one side of the church
while the women and children were seated on the opposite side. This is still
practiced in many cultures today.
The women of Christ's day were generally
uneducated and usually only the men were privileged with an education. Due
to this situation, when the church met the women were tempted to shout
across the room and |
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study: 1
2 |
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