Women in Ministry (3)

The New Testament gives a broad range of roles to women. The first person that Jesus entrusted with the message of the resurrection was a woman (John 20:2). If Mary had obeyed the modern teaching, we would not know about it because she should have remain silent. Or do we assume that her husband or father gave her permission to speak. That would be pointless, because no one was there to confirm what she saw.

Junia was an apostle, despite the best efforts of the translators to give her a sex change (Rom 16:7). Priscilla is another important leader in a NT church (Rom 16:3).

NT Wright points out that Paul entrusted a woman called Phoebe a minister in the church of Cenchrae to deliver his letter to the Romans (Rom 16:1). She would probably have read the letter out to the gathered Roman Christians. Some would have asked her questions about what Paul meant when he wrote some things. So the first person to do expository preaching on the book of Romans was probably a woman.

If people want to be biblical, they should be asking why they are not “loving one another”. A study of the NT demonstrates that loving one another in the New Testament church was quite different. We have nothing like that in our modern churches.