Women In Ministry

 A few people have attempted to limit women from holding any leadership roles in the church such as pastors, elders, and teachers by taking a few passages of scripture out of their rightful context.

Lets briefly look at what the bible actually teaches on this area of doctrine.

1 Corinthians 11: 3-16; 12: 13, 17:  14: 34

The fact is that women prayed and prophesied (preached) in the apostolic days of the Christian church. Paul places no restrictions on the breadth of womens use of their gifts in the church. The Apostle only speaks to the demeanor in which women serve. There no scripture in the Old Testament that commands women to be silent or be in submission. The writer of Genesis does not conclude from the order of creation that women must be silent or subordinate. Paul asking women to be silent is simply an apostolic response to a local problem is clearly seen when taking the whole tenor of scripture into consideration.

1 Timothy 2: 11-12

Paul is not voicing a timeless command here, but a temporary directive to a specific situation. The problem is not women teaching in general (Titus 2: 3-4), or even women teaching men (2 Timothy 1: 5, 3: 14-15), but that certain women were putting themselves in the position of teachers before they had been properly taught (1 Timothy 1: 7). That the ban will one day be lifted, is indicated by Pauls instruction to Timothy to entrust sound doctrine to persons who in turn could teach others. Like other texts where we are admonished to teach each other (1 Corinthians 14: 26, Colossians 3: 16, Hebrews 5: 12), there is no hint that the teaching carries any gender restrictions.

Ephesians 4: 11-12

There is no evidence in these texts that the Spirit applies gender restrictions in distributing any of the gifts, including the gift of leadership. The new Testament emphasis on facilitative leadership means that leaders of both sexes best serve the church. Limiting leadership to men results in a truncated understanding of the churchs mandate. The churchs task of being the image of God can truly occur only when men and women contribute their unique perspectives and are co-equal in every area of ministry.