Women In Ministry
Glenville New Life Community Church Life-Sharing
Many Christians are divided over different roles that women should fulfill in the life of the church. That division will probably continue until Jesus returns. Our intents is to look at the passages of Scripture that support the role of women in the full life of the church as well as those passages which seem to go against women being in the full life of the church. The controversy is centered not around the spiritual gifts that a person may receive, but rather the specific offices that may be held in the church, such as elders, deacons, and bishops.
Our study should start in Galatians 3:26-29 Gal 3:26-29 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
1. It is clear from this passage that when Paul uses the word sons, he’s talking about women and men.
2. In Acts 1:14, we are told that the women were meeting with the disciples constantly in prayer. Therefore in Acts 2:1-4, when the Day of Pentecost came and tongues of fire settled on everyone present, they must have fell upon the women as well. Even though the men said, "are not all these men who are speaking Galileans "in verse 2:8, when Peter addressed the crowd, he specifically mentioned that what the men had seen was a fulfillment of the promise that God would pour out his spirit on both men and women and they would prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18).
3. In our study on spiritual gifts, we saw that the word prophesy, was very similar and in some cases meant the same thing as to preach or to speak forth for God. In Acts 21:8-9, we see that Philip the evangelist had four unmarried daughters who prophesied.
4. In our study of spiritual gifts, we saw that gifts were given to people not based on their sex, but on the grace of God. We saw that some gifts could be developed within a person, and that some people were born with natural tendencies in the so called personality gifts in Romans 12.
A. When we study Scripture, there are some ground rules that we have to follow and questions that we have to ask?
1. What is going in this particular passage, and what problem is being addressed?
2. Why is this particular admonition being given?
3. If this is followed all the time, will it contradict other parts of the Bible?
4. Does this writer say something else in another situation?
5. If you follow everything in this passage with the same literalism, will you have sound theology.
B. Let’s look at some of the passages that Christians have used to divide themselves over this issue. Our focus is not going to be on husband /wife relationships, but on women as leaders in the church.
1. The only time the word ministers is used in the New Testament in the NIV, it is used to refer to all of us .2 Cor 3:6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
2. The only time the word pastors is used in the New Testament in the NIV, it is used in connection with spiritual gifts, which God bestows on any person as he chooses to do. Eph 4:11 " It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers,"
a. Isn’t it unusual that some who will okay women being evangelists or teachers, will say that women should not be pastors, even though the words are all found in the same verse with no distinction being made between men and women. Isn’t it strange that some ok women teachers in high school and college, but not in Bible Class after the same person they have taught for years turns a magical age. (Sin is never based on age, but on a specific act)
3.1 Cor 14:34-35 women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
a. Some have taken this passage to literally mean that a woman should never speak in church.
b. The context we find this in, is that Paul is dealing with order in the worship service. For some reason, the women speaking in the church must have been causing disorder. Keep in mind that this was the first time that women were allowed full access to a worship service. They may have not understood a lot that was going on, and was interrupting the speaker to ask questions..
Paul specifically says that, the questions they were asking, should be saved until they got home. The word woman in this passage is not the usual word for woman, but rather for wives. Could it be that the disgraceful thing about a wife speaking in church was that it exposed that her husband was not teaching her at home. Deu 11:19 " Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." If a husband was doing this, his wife may have not needed to ask.
c. We also know that Paul could not have intended for a woman to never say anything in church because in verse 11:5, he instructs that women who pray or prophesies ought to have their head covered when they do so. He said in verse 14:1, He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. If a woman could have the gift of prophecy, what good would it be, if she could never use it in the church, which is the reason God would give it to her in the first place. Remember in Acts 20, Phillip had four daughters with this gift.
d. Also Paul says that the Law forbids a woman to speak. The law he is referring to does not come from the Old Testament, but from somewhere else. Even in the Old Testament, there were women who were prophets. 2 Ki 22:14 -15 Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to speak to the prophetess Huldah, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the Second District. She said to them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me,
(Even though Huldah is married, the priest went to her, to find our what the Lord was saying to the people. This would not have been possible if God had barred women from speaking.)
C. The next passage we should look at come from 1 Timothy 3:1-12 when it talks about the qualifications of overseers (elder), (bishop) and , deacons.
The word overseer means to have superintendance over or oversight over, take care of. Oversight means loving care and concern. When we think of an overseer or pastor, we think of one person in the church, but in Philippians 1:1 and Acts 20:28 there are several overseers all in the same church.
1. We saw in the beginning of our study that when Paul used the word sons, he was speaking of men and women. This passage of Scripture is usually taken to mean that women are excluded because Paul uses the male terminology of he. But Paul specifically said if anyone sets. He used a Greek word that includes the male and female anyone. He could have just as easily said, "if a man", but he didn’t/
2. When Paul says in verse 2 that an overseer must be the husband of but one wife, is he saying 1) that an overseer must be married, 2) that a overseer can not served if he has been divorced and remarried, 3) that an overseer cannot have two wives at the same time, or 4) that an overseer must be a man?
a. When Paul said, "if a man will not work, neither let him eat", did he also intend to say "if a woman will not work, neither let her eat." Is it possible then that when he says an overseer must be the husband of one wife, could he have also meant that a overeseer must be the wife of one husband.
3) Is an elder or deacon required to have children, since it specifically states a person must know how to manage his own family if he is to manage the church?.
4. Verse 3:12 in Titus states that 1 Tim 3:12 A deacon must be the husband of but one wife and must manage his children and his household well.
a. This verse taken literally would disqualify all single men, women, and divorced and remarried people from ever holding the office of deacon. Yet we know that, that is not Paul’s intention.
5. The word deacon comes from the Greek word deakonos. In Rom 16:1, Paul identifies a woman who is a deacon. The word translated servant there, is the exact same word that is translated as deacon in this passage. I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Cenchrea. The verse should read, a deacon of the church of Cenchrea. She is doing a tremendous job of working for the Lord. ( What kind of work do you think she was doing.)
In Romans 16 Paul names 9 individuals that have worked very hard in the Lord. Wouldn’t it make sense that these were the leaders in the group. 7 of the 9 are women
D. The next passage that would seem to limit women as leaders in 1 Timothy 2:11-15 1 Tim 2:11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing--if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
a. There are several problems with this passage of Scripture. First we should look at the context in which it is found. 3 verses earlier, Paul says "I wants men everywhere to lift up hold hands in prayer". Does this mean that men are suppose to always lift their hands for prayer during worship. Also the word that is translated as woman in verse 11 is not the usual word for woman, this is the specific word for wife. Is Paul speaking to all women here, or more specifically to wives. Much of this book deals with family life.
b. Is it that Paul forbid women to teach or have authority over men two permanent injunctions or two different things than can be separated? .
1) did he forbid women to teach because they had not learned enough to be capable teachers at the time he wrote this, since in verses 1:3-6, he was having a bad enough time with men that he had forbidden to teach because of the false teachings they were spreading.
1a) We know that Paul did not forbid women from teaching because he commends the work of Priscilla who was one of the teachers who help to explain the Way to Apollos, the great preacher who knew the Old Testament thoroughly. Priscilla and her husband must have had some kind of teaching ministry. They went through out many of the Gentile churches, for which Paul was very grateful and he called them his co-laborers. Priscilla had gifts of her own in an active ministry because she is mentioned. Peter’s wife traveled with him, but they didn’t have a teaching ministry together. Her gifts obviously lay in a different area.
1b) In what way was Phoebe a great help to many people as she went from one church to another. Rome was about 600 miles from her home church in Cenchrea. It is very unlikely she went that kind of a distance just to be silent in the church or to bake cookies.
2) When Paul does not allow a woman to have authority over a man, is he talking about in the church or in the home? He takes his analogy to the woman having children. Having children is a function in the home and not the church.
2a) If we took the end of verse 15, we would be stuck with the words, women will be saved through child-bearing. Does that mean a woman has to have children to be saved. Does a woman have to be married to be saved? Surely this passage of Scripture raises more questions than it answers. If Paul is addressing wives rather than women, it helps to understand a little more what he means about childbirth.
