Dr. Mike Jones

Women In Ministry: Doing Their ‘Thang’!

A Theological Paper Commissioned by Church Organization(s)

By: Dr. Mike Jones
Minister of Teaching

When debating the interpretation of scripture, the principal rule is to always trace the content of the passage in question to God’s original intent.

In the book of beginnings (Genesis), God’s original order was for man (ish) Adam and woman (isha) Eve to rule together as a couple, with Eve supporting God’s man Adam.

However, both Adam and Eve sinned, bringing a curse upon God’s original design for a man and woman, as outlined in Genesis 3:16; “To the woman He said: I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

This verse is a constant reminder that a woman gave birth to sin in the human race and passes it onto all her children. She can be delivered from this curse by raising Godly children, as indicated in 1Timothy 2:15. When it speaks of her desire being to her husband, but he shall rule over her, this makes reference to the sin nature in both Adam (man) and Even (woman), and they will face struggles in their own relationship. Sin has turned the harmonious God-given relationship of man and woman into a struggle of one trying to dominate the other. They will need God’s help in living a peaceful coexistence. Until the woman receives Jesus as Lord and Saviour to return to humility and meekness, her desire will be to rule her husband, but the husband will rule by divine design as outlined in Ephesians 5:22-25.

I will discuss later how the Old Testament leaders continued their dominance over women as the curse continued until Jesus came and broke the curse over anyone that would receive Him as Lord and Saviour. After His death, burial, and resurrection, He re-established the Father’s original plan for man (ish) and woman (ish) to work together in the unity of the Spirit. As one Christian leader so eloquently stated, “the ground is level at the cross.” There is no difference in the spiritual standing between men and women. A Christian woman has as much access to God as does a man!

If the Apostle Peter found certain statements by the Apostle Paul “hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16), then it is no surprise that we, who came along 1900 years after the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, would share Peter’s struggle in interpreting some of Paul’s inspired writing. And we, like Peter, must respect and love our salvation for standing before God.

Points to consider:

(*) In the Old Testament (Hebrew text) – women’s roles were highly restricted; they rarely held positions of power; they were often considered as property by their “owners”—their fathers and husbands.

(*) Then Jesus comes on the scene and completely violates first century customs in Palestine by treating men and women as equals. If you isolate the 70 others that were sent out 2 by 2 (because it wasn’t the custom to send men and women out together), other than the twelve apostles, most of Jesus’ inner circle solely consisted of women that supported His ministry.

(*) The Apostle Paul appeared to have also treated women in the early Christian movement as equals, as deserving of positions of authority, as co-workers. It’s estimated that Paul mentioned 40 different names in his epistles; of those 40 people, 16 are women. Scholars acknowledge that’s a considerable proportion of women involved in Paul’s missionary efforts.

Let’s look at a few of these co-workers:

(1) Phoebe (Romans 16:1-2): Pheobe (that name means bright, radiant) deaconess of the church in Cenchrea; she was well respected by the Apostle Paul and many other noted Christians that she assisted in ministry. It’s obvious she was a woman of reputation because Paul said in verse 2 “Ye assist her in whatever business she had need of you: for she had been a helper of many, and of me also.” (Some interpret this “helper of many and myself also” to mean that she, as a woman in the early church cared for the sick, prison, poor, strangers, and instructed other women as outlined in Titus 2:3-5. Other scholars believe the Apostle Paul refers to Pheobe as a “deacon in the sense of a preacher, a minister, because he uses the same word for himself. He calls himself (in a number of places, in 2 Corinthians, a servant of the new covenant.) See Ephesians 6:21 also.

(2) Priscilla (Acts 18:26): Priscilla and her husband Aquila are often exhorted by the Apostle Paul for their ministry work as a team. Together, they were pastors of a church in Ephesus, and were responsible for teaching the full gospel to Apollos. Scholars noticed that Priscilla is sometimes listed ahead of Aquila when their names are mentioned in scripture. Many scholars attribute the first name mentioned as the dominant figure in the story. This has led some to speculate that of the two, she was the primary teacher and her husband oversaw the ministry. Regardless of whether she was the Senior Pastor or not, we do see her in a very prominent position of teaching and pasturing. (Other references to Priscilla and Aquila are found in Acts 18:2; Acts 18:18; Romans 16:3; and 1 Corinthians 16:19.)

(A.) Euodia and Syntyche (Philippians 4:2-3): References are made to two women the Apostle Paul labeled “true yokefellow” who labeled with me in the gospel.

(B.) Junia (Romans 16:7): In this verse, the Apostle Paul sends greetings to Andronicus and Junica, his “fellow prisoners” who are noted among the apostles. (Notice, Paul called then “fellow-prisoners” meaning, they were jailed as a husband-wife team for preaching the gospel; and the apostles honored their ministry.

Noted scholar, Dr. Helmut Koester stated, “most of the 16 females the Apostle Paul mentioned in his epistles are not simply personal friend of Paul in the church of Ephesus, but associates and co-workers. This is shown by the repeated references to their functions. The fact that such a large number of women appears in Paul’s epistles is clear and undeniable evidence for the unrestricted participation of women in the office of the church in the Pauline congregation.”

It must be obvious at this point that the Apostle Paul isn’t contradicting himself, therefore, there must be elements of misunderstanding that were reading into the two passages that are frequently read concerning women’s role in church ministry.

One word that’s overlooked is found in the first passage that’s often quoted, 1 Corinthians 14:33-40. At first reading it, it appears that Apostle Paul simple teaches that women are not allowed to speak in the church in any leadership role. They are to be subordinated to men (verse 34); it is shameful to speak out (verse 34). The key word in this entire passage that is misinterpreted is “LAW”.

The first part of the passage states, “Let your women keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but to be under obedience, AS ALSO SAITH THE LAW”. The question becomes, is there such a “LAW” in the Old Testament that exist that says women should keep silence?

Scholars have determined that there is not trace of such prohibition in the Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi, nor is there a single word in the whole “Law of Moses” dealing with women keeping silent. Therefore, the phrase, “They are not permitted to speak…as also saith the law” is a phrase someone created outside the scriptures. The truth of the matter is that the Jews used this phrase when they quoted the ‘ORAL LAW’.

The ‘Oral Law’ is an oral re-interpretation of the Mosaic Law with respect to daily life. In other words, and oral law is a code of conduct in use in a given culture or religion, by which a body of rules of human behavior is passed down through traditions verbally and are generally respected. Jewish law is based on a ‘written law’, for example, the books of Moses (Torah), and the rest of the Old Testament, while the ‘oral law’ is based on the rabbinic Judaism traditions that were passed down from generation to generation. (Believe it or not, at one time in early history, it was forbidden to write and publish the oral law because the writings would be incomplete and subject to misinterpretations.

In the Mosaic Law, the Jewish community recognized many procedures mentioned without explanation or instructions; this is where the rabbinic leaders added oral laws and these traditions continued from generation to generation. Jesus put an end to the power of the Oral Law over the Mosaic Law during his sermon on the mount—and notice he took three chapters (5-7) in Matthews gospel to destroy all the traditions that were passed down from one generation of leaders to the next. Every time Jesus corrected a teaching the Pharisees had made a law, He started out by saying, “You have heard it said, …”!

My studies indicate that the rabbinic traditions of Judaism that were written in the Oral Law to keep women silence were written specifically with reference to the participation of women in public prayers. Women were allowed to be present at public prayers, but since she was under no obligation to participate, her presence did not count; thus she was not permitted to lead in prayers. The rabbis taught that her place was to develop an inner spirituality, and they insisted that her primary role was to be domestic. In the setting of her home, she had the chief responsibility of instructing the children, but when she was in the synagogue among men, she was to keep silent.

Note 1: One major reason I mentioned the previous information about the phrase, “as saith the law” is because the Apostle Paul has a way of making the religious leaders mad. So, when he said, “as saith the law,” he was actually being a “thorn in their flesh” for being such ‘sticklers’ of religious traditions. Even the Jews in Corinth said, Paul was teaching contrary to the law (see Acts 18:13). Throughout his epistles, Paul never appealed to the “Law” for the guidance of the church of Christ. He declared that believers are “DEAD TO THE LAW BY THE BODY OF CHRIST” (Romans 7:4); so that they might serve in the newness of the spirit and not the oldness of the letter (Romans 7:6).

Note 2: Paul was taken before the Roman Proconsul, who found no criminal acts committed by the Apostle. The Jews hated this and it drove them more angry and hatred toward Paul. To vent their anger, they beat the ruler of the synagogue (Acts 18:14-17)

Now that I’ve covered much background information of women’s role in ministry. Let’s concluded by drawing a conclusion of what the Apostle Paul meant in First Corinthians 14:34 (“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.) and I Timothy 2:11-12 (“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”)

Based on I Corinthians 11:5 (“But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.”), we can conclude that the Apostle Paul didn’t believe that all women should never teach or speak in church.

Then, the troubling verses we find in I Corinthians 14:34 and I Timothy 2:11-12, what conclusion do we draw from them? We’ve already drawn the conclusion (earlier in this paper) that there were women in leadership positions in the church. Obviously, the Apostle Paul is not writing to them. He must be addressing another issue entirely.

Image walking into the charismatic church at Corinth, where believers were prophesying, praying, and speaking out loud in tongues. What would catch your eye is the fact women were doing these things along with men. As I stated earlier, in the eyes of Jesus, allowing the women to speak out during worship was prohibited. They didn’t accept the fact women could have the same position as the men in the church, so as soon as Paul left for Ephesus, the Jews seduced the Corinthians with false teachings of keeping the women silent during worship.

Therefore, when the Apostle Paul later wrote the Church at Corinth, he was addressing another issue entirely– the women who were loud and unruly during the service, causing disorder and confusion. Why do we know this? Because much of his letter was spent correcting excesses and abuses. Some were pertaining to women in particular and some to general church order. Keep in mind, in the early church, the seating arrangement was different from modern day services– men were on one side and women and children on the other side. Women were generally uneducated and generally would shout across the room to their husbands, asking them questions about what was being taught. This constantly disrupted the service. Paul was simply telling women and their children to be quiet during the service, and ask your husband questions when you get home. Scholars believe that the Apostle Paul (through scripture) brought freedom to women in the church because in Christ, there is neither male nor female, and some women were taking their freedom a little too far, to the point of being obnoxious.

In the Apostle Paul’s letter to Timothy, who was the Bishop of the Church of Ephesus, you can make the same claim we did for the Church at Corinth, that the Apostle was dealing with a local church problem – not the Church universal.

In the city of Ephesus, which was the primary center of the worship of the goddess Diana, and the Ephesians’ Church was under attack by false teachers who were primarily directing their heresies at women. This can easily be proven by two facts: the verse we’re dealing with is found in the Epistle to Timothy – the last pastoral epistle written by the Apostle; and the statement he makes concerning women that is found in 2 Timothy 3, “In the last days, men shall . . . having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts. Ever learning and near able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (What this passage literally says is this: The Apostle Paul is saying, “Don’t be taken in by these false teachers: their motives are to creep in houses, make friendship with silly-sin barren women, then teach them their doctrine. Women like that are forever following new teachers, but never able to understand the truth.)

We can draw a conclusion from the above passage that many of the victims of the false teachings were women. And it has been suggested that goddess worship might have played a major part in the Apostle dealing so severely with the women in the Ephesians’ Church.

Again, remember, Ephesus was then the world center of paganism and many of its inhabitants worship the female deities Diana and Artemis. This cult city taught female superiority and advocated domination of the male because the females were more learned than men in this culture. The cult doctrine also taught female superiority in the sense that goddess Diana or Artemis was able to bring forth offspring without male involvement. The Ephesians society was characterized by sexual perversion, fertility rites, and the myth that genealogies were traced through the female rather than the male bloodlines.

In a nutshell, these were the issues Paul was addressing in the Church at Ephesus.