Saturday, May 1, 2010

Women in Ministry - May, 2010

Biblical Moorings

Although the twelve apostles play an important role in the Gospels, emphasis is consistently placed on the larger group of Jesus' followers, a group that included both women and men. This larger group presumably numbered about 120 (Acts 1:15; cf. Acts 1:14 for the inclusion of women). It is important to stress the inclusion of women in the group of Jesus' disciples, since the Twelve have often been used in the history of the church to argue that only men can exercise authority and leadership in the church.


Jesus indicated clearly that discipleship was a higher priority than gender roles. Both Luke 8:19-21 (cf. Mark 3:31-35; Matthew 12:46-50) and 11:27-28 place obedience to the word of God above the role of mother/motherhood. Thus, it is not surprising that Jesus' group of disciples included women. They traveled with him in Galilee (Luke 8:1-3; cf. Mark 15:40; Matthew 27:55; Luke 23:49) and were present at the crucifixion and at the tomb on resurrection morning (Mark 15:40-41; 15:47-16:8; Matthew 27:55-56; 27:61-28:8; Luke 23:49; 23:55-24:12; John 19:25-27; 20:1-18). In fact, the names of eight women who were followers of Jesus are known from the gospel accounts: Mary and Martha of Bethany, Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, the so-called other Mary, Susanna, Joanna, and Salome.


David M. Scholer, “Patterns of Authority in the Early Church”
From Servant Leadership, Volume One: Authority and Governance in the Church (1993), p. 47.


The New Testament texts referring to women present a view that is markedly different from the negative view of women predominant in ancient societies. Women in biblical times usually were not educated, and rabbis warned against teaching the law to females. The limited information from ancient sources indicates that women who were considered respectable did not take part in public life. Rather, such women were expected to spend most of their lives within the confines of the home. Women were viewed as temptations to sin. They were not counted in the number of persons needed to have a synagogue, nor was their testimony accepted in a court of law. But Jesus' attitude and practice was in direct contradiction to that of his contemporaries. He initiated conversation even with unrespectable females like the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). Because of her witness, many of the townspeople believed in Jesus. Jesus had women disciples who accompanied him from Galilee to Jerusalem and helped finance his ministry (Mark 15:40,41 and Luke 8:1-3). Jesus taught Mary and defended her choice to learn (Luke 10:38-42). Women were the last at the cross and the first at the tomb. After his resurrection Jesus appeared first to women and gave them the task of telling the good news to the disciples (Matthew 28:7).


The new-found freedom and role of women in Christ is clear also in the writings of the early Church. The book of Acts frequently mentions the presence and activity of women in the founding of the Church. From the praying in the upper room (1:14) to the persecution by Saul (8:3) to the reception of the Gospel by Greeks (17:12), women were involved. Of major importance is the quotation of Joel 2:28-32 which is used in Acts 2:17-21 to explain the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost. With this event the promise had been fulfilled that God would pour out his Spirit so that both sons and daughters would prophesy. The church at Philippi was founded on women, and one of them, Lydia, obviously played an important role in the origin and growth of this church. The four prophesying daughters of Philip, who are mentioned in Acts 21:9, are further examples of the ministry of the Holy Spirit through women.


Board of the Ministry, A Biblical and Theological Basis for Women in Ministry (Occasional Paper Number 1, 1984-87), p. 2.


The ministry of women becomes...clearer in the writings of Paul. In Christ, racial, societal, and sexual barriers have been broken down so that all are made one. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is not male and female, for you all are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). This newly found oneness does not refer merely to our standing before God or to a oneness to be found at Christ's second coming. It refers also to the present, for it is the basis of Paul's rebuke of Peter's hypocrisy in no longer eating with Greeks in Antioch (Galatians 2:11-21). In the American Civil War era some people argued that this verse had no social implications for the question of slavery, but most Christians have come to see the error of this judgment.


There is nothing in Christianity that relates only to our salvation; our faith relates to all of life, including the roles of male and female. The issue is whether our attitudes concerning race, social class, and gender will be determined by our oneness in Christ in the new age or by the barriers and values of the old age.


In Paul's letters we encounter a significant number of women who were engaged in the work of the Gospel. We are not told the details of what any of these women did in their ministries, but the same language that Paul used of himself and his male helpers is used of them. Romans 16 mentions ten different women who were engaged in various kinds of ministries. Phoebe, who was probably the person who delivered the letter to the Romans, is described with the Greek word diakonos (which can be translated as “deacon” or “servant”) and as one who helped many, including Paul (Romans 16:1,2). Prisca, also referred to as Priscilla, is called a fellow worker of Paul in 16:3. She and Aquila, her husband, had a church in their house, and the two of them instructed Apollos in Christian doctrine (Acts 18:26). Mary, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, and Persis were all women that Paul described as ones who labored in the Lord (Romans 16:6 and 12). It is also probable that Romans 16:7 refers to a woman, Junia, as an apostle, rather than to a man named Junias as in many translations of this text. (Since there is no evidence of this name being used for a man, the charge of a male bias in some translations is difficult to avoid.) In Philippians 4:2,3 two other women, Euodia and Syntyche, are said to have struggled along with Paul and his other fellow-workers in the Gospel. Such evidence cannot be discounted.


First Corinthians 11:5 is one of the most important passages regarding women in ministry. This text is often overlooked because of other questions, but it is clear that women were praying and prophesying in the early Church. The only concern about their activity was for proper decorum in the way they dressed. We cannot easily argue that women were allowed to prophesy but were not allowed to preach or teach. The New Testament does not make such a distinction between prophesying and teaching (See 1 Corinthians 14:3 and 31).


Board of the Ministry, A Biblical and Theological Basis for Women in Ministry (Occasional Paper Number 1, 1984-87), pp. 2,3.


Nowhere in the NT is this manifestation [of spiritual gifts] limited by gender. On the contrary, both Paul (Romans 12:3-8, 1 Corinthians 12:1-31, Ephesians 4:7-16) and Peter (I Peter 4:7-11) in their treatment of spiritual gifts emphasize God's sovereignty in the giving and the responsibility of the recipient for faithful use. “Each one should use whatever gift they have received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms” (1 Peter 4:10). Men and women are equal recipients of God's grace; men and women are individually accountable to God for the exercise thereof. When Paul does raise the question of distinctions, it is only to categorically affirm that in Christ societal differences such as Jew/Gentile, slave/free, and male/ female cease to exist (Galatians 3:28). Some would insist that Paul in the broader context of Galatians 3 is arguing for soteriological, not ecclesiastical, equality. This, however, is to overlook the fact that for Paul to be "in Christ" is to be “in the body of Christ.” The inseparable union of Christ with his church is evident from such passages as Acts 9:4,5, where to persecute the church is to persecute Christ, and 1 Corinthians 1:10-13, where to divide the church is to divide Christ.


God’s equal gifting of women and men for service in Christ's church is a foundational truth that must inform any concept of leadership. It is sometimes argued that while women and men are spiritual equals--that is, equal heirs of salvation--there are nonetheless functional differences. But the NT teaching that gift precedes and gives rise to function makes this distinction an impossibility. No place is this brought out more clearly than in 1 Corinthians 14:26-33, where worship is defined in charismatic terms: “When you come together,” Paul states, “each should have a hymn, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let everything be done with a view to edification.” Worship happens not because authority is exercised, but because gifts are used. This by no means excludes variation in worship style or format. But what must not be lost sight of is the equation Paul makes between worship and the exercise of gifts to strengthen the body of believers.


Functional distinctions drawn on the basis of gender also flounder on examination of male and female roles in the NT, where the language of leadership is used indiscriminately of men and women. This can be seen especially in Paul, who in the course of writing ad hoc letters to various churches refers to numerous coworkers and their roles without gender qualification. Romans and Philippians are particularly informative in that leadership language is used almost exclusively of women. Phoebe is commended for her role as a “deacon” (diakonos) and a “helper” (prostatis) of the church at Cenchrea (Romans 16:1-2); Priscilla is called a “coworker” (v. 3); Junia is hailed as “outstanding among the apostles” and as “a fellow prisoner” (v. 7); Tryphena, Tryphosa, and Persis are applauded for their “hard labor” (kopiao) in the Lord (v. 12); and Euodia and Syntyche are referred to as “coevangelists” (en to euangelio sunethlesan moi, Philippians 4:3). The language of “coworker" and “laborer” is especially important because it is to "such as these” that Paul calls the church at Corinth to “submit” (hypotassesthe, 1 Corinthians 16:16).


Linda L. Belleville (1950- ), “Male and Female Leadership Roles in the New Testament”
From Servant Leadership, Volume One: Authority and Governance in the Church, James R. Hawkinson and Robert K. Johnston, editors (1993) , pp.27,28.


Personal and Organizational Models

Josephine Princell [1844-1937] praised a woman named “Miss Anna” for the forethought
she had in preparing to be a hostess. Miss Anna always kept extra food on hand to be prepared to serve unexpected guests. In keeping with their status as ethnic Americans working up the ladder to economic security, Princell pointed out that Miss Anna served her guests things that were tasty but not rich or expensive. Anna also did not eat dinner to insure that the guests got plenty of lamb chops. Though the meals served were not fancy, Princell declared that they were “fit for a king.” Mrs. C.J. Ledin also commented that her carrot pudding was worthy of being offered to the president of the United States.


Early, these women were trying to emphasize the importance of breaking down class differences. They broke away from the fiercely held class and status barriers in nineteenth-century Sweden--barriers evidenced by the types of food one ate or was able to afford. Princell's praise of hospitality came from two characteristics of the background of this group of Swedish Americans. First, they were an immigrant people who needed to retain the practice of hospitality in order to help other immigrants coming from Sweden. Second, these evangelicals came from a religious tradition that depended on itinerant ministers traveling from village to village to meet with groups of people in their homes. This religious organization demanded that believers open their homes to guests frequently in order to perpetuate revivals and the establishment of a new religious tradition.


Cynthia Nelson Meyer (1962- ), Creating a Swedish-American Woman: the Views of Women in the Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant Church, 1915-1920, (Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Indiana University,1998), pp. 144,145.


Förbundets Veckotidning was published until 1955 as part of the Covenant Weekly. In 1955 the denomination dropped its Swedish publication and continued to publish the church’s paper but entirely in English....


Among the news from Sweden [until then], articles on church issue materials for Christian education, the women of the church had the column, Kvinnan och Hemmet: En avdelning för våra kvinnor [“The Woman and the Home: A Column for Our Women”]. I studied the column from the first issue of the paper on December 7, 1915, through 1920. In those years I read weekly columns for 224 weeks being unable to look at total of thirty-nine issues due to gaps in the collection. In those 224 columns, 467 pieces--meaning poems, letters, short stories, or essays--appeared contributed by 204 different people. The editor of the column, Josephine Princell, filled 20 percent of the columns with pieces she wrote. Another 46 percent of the columns contained items sent in or written by people who contributed at least twice and not more than sixteen times. Finally, 34 percent of the items were sent in by people who only contributed once to the column. Out of all of these writers and pieces, only eighteen contributors or 10 percent were males. Most of the time the poems or essays written by men were sent in by women readers. On only a couple occasions did male readers send materials to be published that they thought the women should read....


Princell’s first essay made it apparent that the “experts” to be called on were the women themselves and not the clergy or other authorities in the culture.... The column was intended and indeed became a forum for women to talk about their concerns regarding their lives, faith, and church women’s associations.


Cynthia Nelson Meyer (1962- ), Creating a Swedish-American Woman: the Views of Women in the Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant Church, 1915-1920, (Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Indiana University,1998), pp. 22,23,26,27.


The channel open to women in the early years was an auxiliary. With dedication and zeal women of the Covenant Church undertook project after project as suggested to them by the denominational leadership. They did this even when money was saved from minimum allowances and earned through sales. The auxiliary furnished status and society for these women.


While classified as an auxiliary, and later as an organization, Covenant Women was more accurately a movement, with activities that moved toward specific goals. Although the organizational structure was periodically adjusted to meet the needs of the day, Covenant Women remained focused. Working through their projects, Covenant Women sought to educate women regarding the progress and ministries of the Covenant Church.


During the war years, noble and knowledgeable sacrifices were encouraged. The social changes of the 1960s were the signal to develop new attitudes. In the 1970s, when the women's movement was gaining credibility, Covenant Women gave new and courageous leadership to bring women into the mainstream of leadership in the denomination. In September, 1979, the organization became a department of the Covenant Church at the national level, with corresponding participation at the conference and local levels. This new status enabled women to fully realize a part in the ministry of the church.


Erma G. Chinander (1914- ), Covenant Women Heritage, 1916-1980 (1989), p. vii.


When the ordination of women was being considered by the denomination in 1976, the Covenant Women national board formulated a resolution to support the motion. It was read at the 1976 annual meeting. Covenant Women believed that the resolution became a major factor in support of the motion that carried the day.


Over the years, encouragement has been given not only for women who felt called to the ministry, but also for laywomen's participation in the life of the church at local, conference and national levels. Witness the following resolution, which was adopted, at the 1980 Covenant Annual Meeting: “The Board of Women's Work, with the approval of the Executive Board, recommends to the Ninety-fifth Covenant Annual Meeting the following resolution for adoption: ‘In response to a matter raised at COLECO II in November, the Board of Women's Work recommends to local congregations that when positions of leadership are filled, consideration be given to selecting the best qualified person, whether that person is male or female. This is not the legalistic approach of quota, but it does allow for that half of the church who are generally women to be represented in leadership by some of their number who are capable and qualified.’”


A previous resolution urging that more women be named as candidates for the Covenant Executive Board and other administrative boards was read and included in the minutes of the 1976 Annual Meeting, and is recorded on page 161 of that yearbook.


Erma G. Chinander (1914- ), Covenant Women Heritage, 1916-1980 (1989), p. 13.


Issue of Authority

Often when people are opposed to women in ministry, the real issue is not the Bible, but authority. They argue that women ought not be in positions of authority. Such people need to ask themselves what authority really is and why men may have it and women may not. Misunderstood texts dealing with husband-wife relationships have wrongly been applied to the question of women in ministry. For example, people have viewed the term “helpmeet” in Genesis 2:18 as a basis for arguing for the inferiority of the woman. The words in question, however, mean “a helper suitable for him” and do not suggest inferiority, for the same word “helper” is also used of God (Deuteronomy 33:7). Similarly, people argue that women are not to be in positions of authority because in Genesis 3:16 Eve was told that her husband would rule over her. However, these words are descriptive of life after the fall, not descriptive of what God had intended for humanity.


The biggest offense is that people have assumed this world's understanding of authority and applied it to the Church, but in Christ authority must be understood differently. The classic text dealing with authority is Matthew 20:25-28 in which Jesus instructed his disciples that the world's views on authority and greatness ought not be their view. Rather than leaders lording over and having authority over others, the leaders should be their servants. This teaching is valid, not only for the ministry, but for family relationships and all other kinds of leadership roles.


...In recent times some people have granted that women may minister, but argue that women ought not be in positions of ultimate authority. Such a distinction cannot be defended, for no biblical texts indicate two levels of authority in ministry. We do not need a view of authority that will keep women from functioning in ministry. We need a view of ministry that subverts what this world understands by authority. Mutual submission is the Gospel in action.


Board of the Ministry and Covenant Ministerium, A Biblical and Theological Basis for Women in Ministry (Occasional Paper Number One,1987), p. 7,8.


Needed Gifts

Ephesians 5:22... is often used to argue that women should not be in authority since wives should be in submission to their husbands. It is questionable whether texts dealing with the marriage relationship should be applied to the question of women in ministry. But apart from that, the more important point is that Ephesians 5:22 is one of the most abused texts in the Bible. The submission of wives must be seen only as one example of the mutual submission that is required of all Christians in 5:21. In fact, in the manuscripts of 5:22 followed by most editions of the Greek New Testament, the word “submit” is not even present; it is assumed from verse 21. From this world's perspective mutual submission does not make sense but it is merely another way of expressing the point of Matthew 20:25-28. In the context of the ancient world, wives were instructed to submit to their husbands because Christianity with its call of total commitment to Christ was viewed as a threat to the family. In Titus 2:5 wives are asked to submit “so that the word of God is not blasphemed.” Husbands are referred to as “head” in Ephesians 5, but only to place greater responsibility on the husband in caring for the wife. He is to give himself for her in love as Christ gave himself for the Church. Both in the family and in the Church mutual submission is the controlling principle.


In recent times some people have granted that women may minister, but argue that women ought not be in positions of ultimate authority. Such a distinction cannot be defended, for no biblical texts indicate two levels of authority in ministry. We do not need a view of authority that will keep women from functioning in ministry. We need a view of ministry that subverts what this world understands by authority. Mutual submission is the Gospel in action.


Board of the Ministry, A Biblical and Theological Basis for Women in Ministry (Occasional Paper Number 1, 1984-87), p. 8.


Our society faces numerous problems, many of them related to sexual roles and distinctions. These problems are also problems in the Church. The extremes in our society create fears about a deterioration of family structures or other changes that might occur. The encouragement of women in ministry does not derive from these extremes and should not contribute to the fears. Women in ministry not only will release the energies of the Church for the proclamation of the Gospel, but having women in ministerial roles will also help the Church deal honestly and much more wholly than before with what it means to be a man and with what it means to be a woman.


The ministry of the Church is an enormous and sometimes difficult task. The gifts and abilities of women are needed as much as those of men. Women will encounter the same kinds of problems that men do, but the Church cannot afford to erect additional obstacles that will inhibit their ministry. It is time to let the Spirit of God work through all of God's people, including women. Enjoying the freedom of the Spirit will not only mean that women are allowed to minister, but that God's people will also allow themselves to be ministered to by all those who are gifted and called by God.


Board of the Ministry, A Biblical and Theological Basis for Women in Ministry (Occasional Paper Number 1, 1984-87), p. 10.

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Nearly seventeen years into retirement, I am enjoying the opportunity to share thoughts and life experiences on a regular basis. This blog is part of a larger personal website at www.rootedwings.com. Your comments, thoughts, and life experience responses are not only invited but welcome!