Why I Support Women In (Every Area of) Ministry

By Rev. Patrick Adair

Board Member and Pastor of The Crossing Baptist Church, Mesquite, TX

When I was asked to serve as a board member for Texas Baptist Women in Ministry, my teenaged daughters astutely pointed out, “But you aren’t a woman!” 

“That’s true!” I said, “But I support women in ministry, and I am especially honored, as a man, to be asked to help advocate for and encourage women in ministry.” I support women in every area of ministry, including in roles of church leadership like pastor, teacher, evangelist, deacon, and more. The reason I support them is not in spite of the Bible’s teaching on the role of women in the church, but because of the Bible’s teaching on the role of women in the church. 

I was saved in, baptized in, and raised in a Southern Baptist church. I had women Bible study teachers as a child, but not as a teenager. I never heard a woman preach from the pulpit of my church, youth camp, or the Christian college I attended. However, as a student studying for ministry I learned principles for interpreting Scripture. These principles helped me see more in Scripture than was contained in the body of tradition and interpretation in which I had been raised. 

One of the most helpful approaches I have encountered to answer the question, “How does the Bible teach us?” was given by the late Richard Hays in his ‘Moral Vision of the New Testament.’ I will paraphrase his method, and expand it to include the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the New Testament. According to Hays, Scripture teaches us in four major ways: 

1. Rules (‘Thou shalt not,’ etc.)

2. Principles (Not rules, per se, but broader guidelines - ‘Do unto others,’ etc.)

3. Examples (The Bible is mostly a narrative, and is filled with both positive and negative examples - as Christians, our primary example is Jesus)

4. Worldview (The big picture - what is God doing in the world?)

Most of the time, when people ask the question “What does the Bible say?”, they actually mean “What are the rules?” They want to know, “Can I or can’t I?” This makes sense because  rules are, at first glance, the easiest to understand and interpret. They seem to provide us with the kind of immediate, practical guidance that most people are looking for when they turn to Scripture. So on the issue of the role of women in church leadership, let’s start there - but, as you’ll see, we should not end there. 

The Rules 

Both of the most explicit ‘rules’ for women’s role in the church comes from the letters of the Apostle Paul. The first is 1 Corinthians 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." (NIV)

The second, more commonly referenced passage is in 1 Timothy 2:11-12 “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.” Both passages appear to present an uncompromisingly clear answer to the question of women in roles of leadership in the church. It seems it would be impossible to fulfill those roles, as women are to be silent and not be in positions of authority over a man.

However, a closer look at the context of these rules, and questions about how they should specifically be applied, make the rules much less clear. You can probably come up with your own list of application questions, but let me suggest a few. 

Exactly how silent are we talking? Total silence? No praying out loud? What about leading in singing? Sharing a testimony? Reading scripture? The rules don’t explicitly say.

How old is someone when they are no longer a boy but become a man? Could a woman be Youth Minister as long as all the 17-year old boys move up to the Young Adult class on their 18th birthday?

What of a woman who is single, or widowed, or divorced? Which man should she ask to come to her house and answer her questions?

And then there are other interpretative problems. In 1 Corinthians 11:5, in the same letter as the rule of silence, is the instruction that women are to cover their heads when they pray or prophesy in the congregation. It is easy to imagine someone praying silently, not so easy to imagine someone prophesying silently. How can these verses from the same letter be reconciled with each other? 

In the same paragraph as the rule not to teach or exercise authority in 1 Timothy 2 is the instruction of verses 9-10 that women should not wear ‘elaborate hairstyles, gold, pearls, or expensive clothes’ to church. Who wants to volunteer to tell the women of your church that their clothes are too expensive and their hair too elaborate, while you ask them to leave their jewelry in the car?         

The most obvious response to the verses about gold, pearls, and elaborate hair is that these things meant something in the culture of 1st century AD Ephesus that they do not necessarily mean today. Likely they meant extravagant wealth, with the implication that the church was an inappropriate place to flaunt such things (a principle that we perhaps have too quickly pushed aside). But why should we automatically assume that 1 Timothy 2:9-10 does not apply today, while 1 Timothy 2:11-12 (and the rationale of the order of creation given in the following verses) should continue to universally apply in all churches for all time? 

This is why we must look beyond the rules. Clearly God intends for the people of the Kingdom to follow the orders of the Ruler. But God has not only communicated in rules. God has communicated in examples, and in a wonderfully broad vision of what is going on in the world.  

Examples 

The examples of women in significant roles of leadership in the Bible make for an inspiring list. In both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, there are prophetesses. Like their male counterparts, a prophetess was not primarily a proclaimer of what would happen in the future, but someone who received a message from God and delivered it to its intended hearers, usually the people of Israel. Moses’ sister Miriam is the first named prophetess, leading the people of Israel in worship after the crossing of the Red Sea (Exodus 15). Deborah is both Judge and prophetess (Judges 4-5). Mrs. Isaiah, whose name we do not know, is ‘the prophetess’ who gives birth to a prophesied son who heralds a change in the fate of Judah’s enemies (Isaiah 8:3). Huldah is the prophetess who the Temple officials approach for guidance when they found the neglected book of the law during the reign of Josiah. (2 Kings 22:8-20) Anna is the prophetess who sees the newborn Jesus (Luke 2:36). The four daughters of the evangelist Phillip were prophetesses (Acts 21:9). 

Acts 18:24-26 records the teacher Apollos, who knew the Hebrew Scriptures, ‘the way of the Lord,’ and the baptism of John, being taught “more adequately” by Priscilla and her husband Aquilla. In Romans 16:7, Paul commends Phoebe to the Romans as a ‘deacon’ - often translated ‘servant,’ but the word is deacon. He commends her because she was chosen to carry the letter of Romans, in the same way in which Tychichus carried Ephesians and Colossians, Titus carried 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Epaphroditus carried Philippians. In all likelihood, she would have been expected to read the letter to congregations, speaking on behalf of Paul. Romans 16:7 refers to Junia as an ‘apostle.’ For Paul, this meant a witness to the resurrection and someone sent by God to proclaim the gospel. 

Speaking of witnesses of the resurrection, the first was Mary Magdalene, and the other women who braved standing at the foot of the cross, and facing an immovable stone guarded by soldiers while the disciples were hiding and afraid. Mary Magdalene was the first evangelist, sent by Jesus to tell His followers He had risen. 

Now, it is true that there are no examples of female pastors in the New Testament. There are also no examples of male pastors in the New Testament. The role is referred to only in Ephesians 4:11, along with apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers as those gifted to the church by Christ to build up the body in unity. In the New Testament, at least one woman is mentioned as serving the church in each of those other roles, and in addition, in the role of deacon. 

Worldview

The worldview of the Bible is in one sense the easiest teaching to find, but in another sense more difficult. It is the easiest because every book, and nearly every chapter speaks to what God is doing in the world. It is difficult because worldview, as some wise person once said, is like your glasses or your contacts. You don’t think about them when they are working correctly. You think about them when something feels off, or looks wrong, or breaks, or you realize you are missing something. Worldview is usually what we take for granted until challenged with something that makes us see things differently. The key to any understanding of a Biblical worldview is not ignoring or waving away the things that challenge our own comfortable ideas, without expecting God to have something to say about what really matters. So, at the biggest level, what does God have to say about women, and what does that mean for the role of women in the church? 

First of all, and this should be a non-controversial statement, God is not a man. Though the Bible primarily uses male pronouns and metaphors for God, God is not biologically male. God is Spirit. Scripture also occasionally uses female metaphors for God. My favorite is Boaz’s blessing of Ruth, when he pictures God as a bird under whose wings Ruth has come to seek refuge. Jesus used this very metaphor when he lamented over Jerusalem. God is not, it also must be said, female. From the very beginning, Genesis 1:27 declares that God created ‘mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.” 

There are three male pronouns for God in that verse - an accommodation to our understanding of people, and especially to a patriarchal world like the Bible was written in, and in large part the kind of world in which it is still read. But the more important thing to notice is that both male and female are created in the image of God. This means that neither gender has more of a claim on identification with God than the other. It means that women are, from the beginning, made for and capable of the same kind of relationship with God as men.         

The prophet Joel spoke the word of the Lord, fulfilled on the day of Pentecost that,

 I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy,

  your old men will dream dreams,

  your young men will see visions.

Even on my servants, both men and 

women,

    I will pour out my Spirit in those days. (Joel 2:28-29, Acts 2:17-18)

Women and men equally receive the Holy Spirit. This Spirit gifts each believer with the ability to build up the body of Christ. None of the lists of spiritual gifts in the New Testament even hint that some gifts are limited to men. The Apostle Peter said “If God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?” (Acts 11:17)  He was speaking of the gift of salvation to Gentiles, but I believe the principle of God’s giving without partiality applies as well to spiritual gifts. The Body of Christ is a new community, whose description in Galatians 3:28 contains enough power to level any wall of separation, distinction, or privileged position.  “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Paul does not mean that these distinctions do not exist. There were and continue to be Jews, Gentiles, slaves, free, males, and females. He means that in the body of Christ, there is no hierarchy. Jews are not better than Gentiles, or vice versa. Free people are not better than slaves, or vice versa. Men are not better than women, and vice versa. In the Kingdom of God there are no second class citizens. There is one Lord, and all stand equal at the foot of the cross. This is the worldview of the Bible, from the moment of creation, and fulfilled in the inauguration of the New Creation in Christ. 

The Rules Re-examined

Why then did the apostle Paul declare so confidently that women should be silent and exercise no authority over a man? It won’t surprise you to learn that there is a lot of debate among Biblical scholars about how these rules fit, or don’t, alongside the rest of the witness of Scripture. The most likely explanation lies in the specific contexts of Corinth and of Ephesus under Timothy’s leadership. In the Corinthians letters, issues of order in the church receive a level of attention they don’t receive anywhere else in the New Testament. His statement about women ‘asking their husbands’ at home seems to be intended to help people hear what is going on in the gathering, rather than a timeless statement about women in leadership. A similar concern shows up in Paul’s concern about the correct way for the church to incorporate the gifts of tongues and prophecy in the church. The emphasis is on understanding. 

Similarly, the larger context of 1 Timothy reveals a church where a group of young widows have been using their time to take advantage of the church and go around town gossipping. (1 Timothy 5:9-16) Under these circumstances, but not in any other in the New Testament, Paul instructs a young minister not to have women in positions of authority. I suspect he did not need to explicitly say “You know exactly the women I am talking about.”

Weighing the Evidence

On the one hand, there are these two verses which declare, not that women should not be pastors, but that women should be silent. Both verses occur in church contexts where there are a lot of other problems in the congregation, and in which there are a lot of unanswered questions about how these verses were meant to be applied. To interpret these verses as prohibitions against women as pastors, teachers, deacons, or other leadership roles in the church requires picking them out of their specific contexts and applying them to all churches, for all time, everywhere. Were these verses intended by God in this way? To apply them at all, every church that interprets them as saying women should not preach or teach men must make interpretive decisions not mentioned in these verses, based either on tradition or on a worldview more limited than the one I have described. 

On the other hand the Bible presents a big picture, a worldview, of men and women created in God’s image, filled with God’s spirit, standing as one in Christ. We have examples of women as prophetesses, a Judge, as a teacher (of another teacher), a deacon, an apostle, and witnesses of the Resurrection. Beyond this, Christian history is full of women who taught, preached, prophesied, led in worship, evangelized, and spread the gospel. My own life has been richly blessed by women teachers, preachers, authors, deacons, and, without claiming the title, women who have been prophetesses, hearing the word of the Lord and declaring it to God’s people. These women, in spite of those in the church who, for whatever reason, would restrict their ministry by looking no further than ‘the rules,’ have fulfilled the promise of Pentecost.  

I would like to conclude with the example of two of those women from Christian history. No one knows their names. They are mentioned in a letter from the Roman governor Pliny the Younger, who wrote to the Roman Emperor Trajan in 112 AD. Pliny wants to know the proper procedure for prosecuting Christians. In his province in modern day Turkey, people have accused the Christians of secretly plotting rebellion against the Emperor, among other rumored evil deeds. Pliny explains that he interrogated the accused citizens about their beliefs, but they claimed they had not done anything wrong. Unconvinced, he declares: “I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition.” 

Two female slaves. Deaconesses in their church. Tortured for their belief in Jesus Christ. To people like Pliny and Trajan, who represented the power of Empire and the splendor of the kingdoms of the world, they were nothing. They were less than nothing. Yet in the church of Jesus Christ, they were servants and they were leaders. If their Lord and ours considered them worthy not only to serve and lead His people, but to suffer in His name, how can we tell any of our sisters in Christ that they are not worthy to be called by God and gifted to any role for the sake of Christ’s Body, Christ’s Church, and Christ’s Kingdom? Brothers and sisters who are the hands and feet of Jesus, let’s stop trying to serve the Lord with one hand tied behind our back.