The Role of Women at Our Church 

If you look around Cahaba Valley Church on any Sunday, Wednesday or Saturday work day, you'll see women working alongside men, girls with boys and everybody equal in the sight of God. That's true when our elders meet to pray for our church and in the classes where adults and children learn about the Bible.

Keep reading if you want to know more about why we believe what we do. This comes from the Bible, just like everything else in our Statement of Faith, and we put the WHOLE thing in here to remind us where we came from and to nourish others who continue to struggle with this issue. Actually, some of our own members still struggle -- that's why we call this a faith journey with God, and we are not all in the same place every time.

But if you just want to experience a place where women read, preach, teach, lead, work, sing and worship together, in full and mutual respect for the different talents of every individual, don't bother reading this. Just come on over and see for yourself.. 

The report to the whole congregation, January 1990

INTRODUCTION:
This document will be a brief review of the discussion that we as a church have had about the role of women. We think that it is important that every member of this church be informed about this discussion that has been going on and that every member do their part to help all of us discern God's will for us as a congregation and as believers in this area.

THE SITUATION:
At Cahaba Valley we have tried, as an expression of our belief in the Gospel,  to be a caring congregation and that people can come here and find healing from the pressures and the history of their lives, sometimes including their past religious experiences. We have exerted great effort as a church not to impose heavy burdens on anyone, and we have tried to keep our minds open to what we might learn from listening to others. We have therefore avoided condemnation of what seemed new and different. Many times what seemed new and different turned out to be more Biblical than we could have ever dreamed at the start.

This courage of exploring and maintaining Christian freedom has been of great benefit to all of us we believe. And while at times we have all been uneasy about what might come out of this searching, every time we have all found out more about God and each other as a result.

One of the areas that has lately been included in this search for God's direction at CV is the role of women. The reason for this is a question about whether Biblical teaching about the role of women has been used in inappropriate ways in many instances in Christian history, with the result that women have been assigned a role based more on prejudice and tradition than on the Bible.

What this means is that now the women at CV have been invited--and the men along with them--to discover for themselves what is the role of women as God envisions it. This is a discussion that is very important for our church and for our church's ministry since how we view sexuality and gender has deep implications for how we conduct ourselves in marriages and parenting.

From our discussions about this issue over the last several years and especially from our church-wide discussion this past fall, it seems that three considerations are now coming into focus as the key issues that must be resolved for a coherent picture of female roles to emerge. The first is the Biblical data, the second is the principle of what will edify the church in the judgment of the elders and ministers, and the third is the necessity of love.

An Overview of the History
Jesus entered a world that was completely dominated by men. Religious and political power belonged exclusively to men, and women were in a position of being property belonging to their husbands or fathers. Jewish ethics of neighbor love did much to ease situation of women in Judaism, and so often women were treated with great respect and dignity in spite of the prevailing culture.

But women were still powerless legally and were often in poverty because of it. They often found their lives ripped up by marriages over which they had no control followed by divorces over which they had no control. Women were not taught to read, nor were they taught the law. Since they could not be circumcised, they were viewed as not fully participating in the blessings of being Abraham's children--except through their fathers, husbands or male children.

Jesus played havoc with much that he found in Jewish and Roman society. He claimed women as his friends, included them among his followers, and often protected them from male mistreatment. He asserted the dignity of women religiously, and he condemned the use of women as expendable property in marriage. Women seemed to have been Jesus' most loyal disciples and probably their financial support enabled him to do much of what he did. Around the cross, it is the women who are present, as at the empty tomb. And in the Gospel of John, it is a woman to whom the risen Jesus first appeared. This would have been unthinkable based on what the society dictated regarding the value of women.

The early church continued Jesus' attitudes toward women. Very often it is women who were the first converted in a city, and they provide the support necessary for the Gospel to be preached in the area. There is evidence of women teaching and acting as church leaders in Acts and the epistles of Paul.

But the early church lived in a ticklish situation. They had as their marching orders to preach the Gospel and do what they could to bring people to faith. And the world in which they lived was one that was very foreign to the Gospel in most ways that one could name. Paul found it necessary time and again to restrict his own personal Christian freedom in order to gain the hearing of those in a given society. People had to come a step at a time into the new life established by Jesus.

Socially, then, the church had to maintain its beliefs without rushing its society beyond what it could understand. And so in the matters of paying taxes, marriages, family life, jobs, allegiance to the empire, and class status the church had to formulate ways to live that were true to the Gospel and still made sense to the community it was trying to persuade to become believers. It took most of the church's energy to do this in the years after Jesus' resurrection. Our New Testament is largely the result of people asking, "What do we do? How do we live?"

Two areas that were particularly troublesome for the church were slavery and the role of women. Rome had severe laws about any tinkering with society as they formulated it. And slavery and an inferiority of women were two strong dynamics in their policy. It was hazardous for the early church to re-write much of what Rome did. And so they had to make sure that what they did was something that would really advance the cause of the Gospel.

At times the church challenged the society. At times, it took advantage of the freedom they had under Rome. And at times, they restricted their personal freedom as Christians in order to advance the cause of the Gospel. And in the first century, this was true of every Christian alike. But perhaps slaves and women paid the dearest price.

As the message of Jesus reached into communities with its love of God for all human beings, male and female, Jew and Greek, slave and free, the questions were sometimes difficult. The early church, probably by hard experience, had to find out what would make the most sense given a church's context. In some instances, women's new freedom so troubled the society that it caused great tension and controversy to the point that the message of the Gospel was being overwhelmed by the furor. In other instances, a new role of women was a welcome change and became a way that a message of God's liberating love was demonstrated to a community. And at other times, it seems that women were perhaps guilty of flaunting their new freedom and were led to some revenge for years of male domination.

What the early church did about this varied from church to church. This is perhaps a new thought to some of us. But it still seems to be the testimony of Scripture. In some areas and at some times, the freedom of women was very much visible and open. At other places and times, women were asked to restrict their freedom for higher purposes. And when the church was in crisis, as in I Timothy, there seems to have been a strong need for very clearly defined lines of authority and order.

After the period of the New Testament itself, still more changes went on in the church. The driving force here seems to have been the continued contact with the dominant culture of Rome. As the church was forced to accept that Jesus would not return as quickly as first expected, it had to come to terms with living with Roman society and trying to preach to it. And in many instances, in order to allay Roman suspicion or pressure, the church adapted itself to Roman ways of doing things, sometimes at the expense of Christian belief. Certainly as the church received full respectability under Constantine, Roman forms of organization and thinking pervaded the church.

Scholars have shown how this "Romanization" of the church effected virtually all aspects of its life. As early as the Gospel of Luke, one can see the concern to explain oneself carefully to Rome. But as regards the role of women, there is little doubt that the church's thinking changed noticeably the longer it was in contact with Rome. The result was that by the time of the middle of the second century, celibacy becomes the church's ideal. Women were more and more seen as threats to male morality and to social stability. These attitudes fostered an attitude of male superiority which in turn shaped the church's traditions for centuries to come.

When we sum up all the Biblical and historical data, then, we see a diverse and changing picture. For us today, this means that no one today has all the evidence on "their side" regarding the role of women. There are passages that show women doing virtually everything that men do in the church. And there are passages that commend and at times command a quieter role for women. The deciding factors seem inevitably to be that women are full human beings and not the least inferior to men--and as Christians their role in church must be that which will most enhance the life of the church and the proclamation of the Gospel.

Important Passages on the Role of Women in the Early Church

a. Acts 2:17-18

"And in those days, it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. And your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams. Yes, on my menservants and my maidservants in those days I will pour out my Spirit and they shall prophesy." 

This is a very strong statement found in the sermon of Peter on the Day of Pentecost itself, the day the long promised Spirit of God came upon the apostles and the gift of the Spirit was poured out on human beings willing to turn to God and confess faith in Jesus as the One in whom God has acted and is acting to transform, redeem and reconcile us all to God, regardless of who we are.  

b. Galatians 3:28

Paul is making a very strong statement in this passage, and it surely caught people's attention when he said it. He is saying that the way the society of his day divided people up and ranked them according to importance and power was fundamentally wrong in light of the Gospel. We are simply not allowed as Christians to look down on other people or in any way view them as inferior to ourselves. Paul spent his whole life breaking down religious arguments that would have left some group able to claim innate superiority to another.

What this says to us is that Christians do not believe that any person is superior or inferior to another. But it also seems to be the case that there will be temptations on the part of people to claim superiority. The church then must take a firm stance against assigning roles to people based on ideas of superiority or even worth. In Christ, the new principles of love and grace are the basis for all human relationships. Anything else destroys the Gospel and the truth of justification by grace through faith. In the churches of Galatia then, the Christians were being called on to change the society's traditions and do something different.

c.   I  Corinthians 11:3-5

The discussion in which this passage is found is regarding a series of instructions about problems in the worship assembly of the church in Corinth. We can learn several things about the role of women in Corinth from these three verses. First of all, the debate is on proper attire in worship and not on worship activity itself. We can see some of the problem the early church had that was mentioned in the review of the history section above. Corinth was a typical ancient culture. Women were to be veiled at all times as a sign of modesty and subordination to men. Women were not allowed to speak in public in this culture. Usually, if men were in the same religious group with women, then women would never speak there. But in the church in Corinth, change has occurred. Apparently, the women have heard Paul's teaching about the Gospel and its love for all people, Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. The result is that they are coming to church and participating in ways that the society would never allow. They pray and prophesy publicly. Paul sanctions this.

The problem is the veil. The women, apparently as a sign of their new found freedom, are also removing their facial veils at the time of the assembly. This was causing a scandal inside the church and was upsetting the assembly itself. Removing the veil was a sign of being a prostitute in the ancient world. But more than that, it was indicative of an attitude of flaunting one's freedom at the expense of those who were more traditional, i.e, weaker. And Paul, whether it is the veil or what food you eat or what gift you have, never endorses flaunting one's freedom in someone else's face. At the same time, Paul does not say that the problem is freedom the women have to participate in the worship--it is their attitude that must change. The wearing of the veil does not prevent a woman from worshipping as effectively as a man.

Therefore, Paul uses the discussion to emphasize that the sexes are interdependent. Men are not independent of women, nor women men. Neither is allowed to exalt their gender at the expense of the other. Their relations should reflect the relationship between God and Christ. God is the head of Christ, but it is not domineering or competitive or controlling. Christ is equal to God, but he submits freely out of love, not compulsion. So, also man was historically created first and was the source of woman. But man is dependent on woman too. Each must respect the other.

As a further aid in helping the women cope with continuing to wear a traditional head-dress that the men do not, Paul argues in vv. 7-15 that the veil is actually a sign that women are NOT inferior to men. This had to be a new thought to the women in Corinth. Since woman was created from man, Paul says, an unveiled face shows woman as man's glory. But when the woman is veiled, and the woman prays and prophesies, the glory of woman is God's glory alone since "what was created from man" is covered.

In summary, then, what I Corinthians 11 tells us is that women publicly spoke (prayed and prophesied) in the worship assemblies of the church in Corinth. The new role took adjustment on the part of the women and the men. Roles must reflect mutual respect and interdependency, not competition or contempt.

d.   I  Corinthians 14:33b-36

This passage is difficult to understand, coming as it does, only a few chapters after I Corinthians 11, where women do pray and prophesy in church. How are we to understand this dilemma?

Some people have tried to solve it by assuming that women's role in I Corinthians 11 was silent prayer and prophecy that came in the middle of a ecstatic experience, and therefore not really under the woman's control to keep silence. But this seems difficult to accept in light of what Paul says about prophecy elsewhere in the same book, if for no other reason.

Others have tried to find the solution in the context of I Corinthians 14 itself. They have argued that the instructions are given to the wives of the prophets who are being discussed in the chapter. (The Greek word for "woman" and "wife" are the same.) If so, then women are still allowed to pray and prophesy publicly as I Corinthians 11 indicates, but the wives of prophets are not allowed to disturb a church service with questions. This would mean the passage is designed to answer a local problem in Corinth itself.

But the language of the passage itself is hard to square with this. And so another solution has presented itself. And that is that Paul did not write these verses. This whole idea usually bothers people at first, but the truth is that our Bible we carry around is the product of comparing all sorts of ancient copies of the New Testament, all of which differ from each other to some degree. Normally the differences are very small. As an example, take a look, however, at Acts 8:37. Unless you look in a King James Bible, you won't find it, except in a footnote. I John 5:7 in the King James is much longer than in other Bibles. And if you look at Mark 16:9-20 in a modern translation, you will see yet another instance. Actually, modern Bibles try to minimize footnotes, but the discussion of how any verse in the Bible should read EXACTLY can be seen in the footnotes in a Greek New Testament. In an attempt not to scare people and to keep from bothering people with information they may not want, footnotes are kept to an absolute minimum.

In this case, however, a footnote would be helpful. Because the fact is that manuscripts do read differently in this passage. And this supplies some evidence that these verses might not come from Paul, but were perhaps added later to make I Corinthians agree with I Timothy. Or, they might have been written in the margin of a manuscript by a copyist, and then copied by a later copyist as part of the text. This suggestion is also supported by the fact that if you read verses 37-40 directly after 33a, the passage makes perfect sense. Further, no one can find a reference in the Law to support what is referred to in the passage.

A careful and cautious scholar like C.K. Barrett, recognizing all the problems, concludes that while the matter is not certain, the best conclusion seems to be that the verses do not come from Paul, but from a later time when church organization had changed along the lines found in I Timothy. (C.K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, Harper NT Commentaries, NY: Harper & Row, 1968, pp. 332-333)

At any rate, on either of the last two views mentioned above, I Corinthians 14:33b-35 is concerned with some abuse in the assembly at the time of prophesying while a man is prophesying. We may not know enough about Corinth to understand the passage fully. But the problem is decorum and right behavior while another is speaking.

Yet still another proposed solution to all this has been to view vv. 33b-35 as a quotation from a letter that the Corinthians wrote to Paul and that v.36 is his response. This would mean that someone was trying to prevent women from prophesying by using the arguments in vv. 33b-35 and that Paul gives his outraged response in v.36. (Paul does start quoting from a letter from the Corinthians in I Corinthians 7.) On this view, the passage is actually arguing, very passionately, for not excluding women from public participation.

No solution, obviously, is without some difficulty.

e.   I  Timothy 2:11-14

The letters of I and II Timothy and Titus are called the Pastoral Epistles, and virtually all scholars today believe that they were written at the same time to meet a particular situation that had arisen in the early church. They seem to be different from other letters that bear Paul's name, both in content and in the style in which they are written.

For reasons such as these and others, most scholars today believe that I and II Timothy and Titus come from the period after Paul's death, when the church--confronted by the deaths of all the apostles--began to try to gather up all the teaching of the apostles as best they could locate it in their letters and in the memory of those who heard them speak. Therefore, it was not unusual for the teachings of the early church to be gathered up and put into manuscript form. Most letters like these were not included in our New Testament, but it seems that some were. From the indications inside the letters themselves, it appears that these books came from a period around 115 AD and were put together by those people leading the churches that Paul founded in his life-time, attributing the material, as they believed its content to be, from Paul himself.

Therefore, most scholars believe that, at times, what is found in I and II Timothy and Titus reflects more about what is going on in the churches of 115 than Paul's own views. This is true of the view of the law found in these letters, along with various other teachings about faith, the church, and even Jesus himself found in these letters.

Regardless of the origin of the books, however, what they have to say about the role of women is significant. What they testify to is that the church is in deep turmoil at the time they are written. All sorts of problems have flooded into the church, with most of them being concentrated on maintaining the credibility of the church in the eyes of Roman society and on defending the church from a new teaching that is destroying the true teaching of Christianity.

The solution that is used to meet both of these crises is to organize the church very tightly around its leaders. The church is under fire and in danger, therefore, an authoritative group of leaders must come to the fore and meet the crisis with strategy and order. And this definitely impacts the way that everyone is expected to behave in the church, including the women. Roles and qualifications are assigned to every group in the church.

The role that is assigned to women is apparently designed to meet two problems at once. First, the new dangerous teaching is making most of its inroads through the women of the area. Given the fact that women were not educated, they obviously had fewer resources to discern religious matters. Unscrupulous teachers would naturally try to exploit them as much as possible.

Second, I Timothy clearly reflects concern about how Roman society is viewing the church. Everywhere there is concern about the reputation of the church and its leaders and teaching. Rome had little taste for anything new and was especially suspicious of anything that smacked of reorganizing their plan for society. In Roman society, men were divided into classes with clear expectations about their attitudes and behavior for each class. Women, slaves, children, foreigners, and the aged all had definite societal assignments. I Timothy is concerned that the church will lose its ability to preach to the society and perhaps begin to encounter official problems with Rome if it does not guard its credibility.

Therefore, women (like everyone else in the book) are assigned a definite role. Modesty, submissiveness, and good works are what they are expected to contribute to the mobilization effort. All grounds for suspicion need to be removed from the searching eye of Rome and its society. Therefore, women are instructed to match the expectations for all women generally in Rome's framework. As the church's contact with Rome increased with the passing years, more and more pressure was put on the church to conform to Rome's standard. (This may explain the addition of I Corinthians 14:33b-36 to the text of I Corinthians.) It is obvious by the middle of the first century and later that Roman views of society had heavily influenced the church. The result was that there was a discernible anti-female sentiment on the part of many church leaders that led to the formation of traditions in the church supporting male superiority on Roman lines.

All of this tends to indicate that prior to I Timothy, another way of doing things had been operative and that now a change needs to be made. It also indicates that these are measures taken in a particular situation. Interestingly, Paul in I Corinthians takes up the issue of the order of creation as a factor in male-female relations in I Corinthians 11, but there

the conclusion is different. And many scholars believe that Galatians 3:28 is also a direct reference to Genesis in its "male-female" language, again with a conclusion different from I Timothy.

So, from this passage we see that women in the early church could be called on to function in certain ways different from what we have seen elsewhere in the New Testament when circumstances required it. However, women are still expected to play major roles in the church, even in I Timothy. I Timothy 5 contains extensive discussion about an "order of widows" that were to function as full-time employees of the church, apparently assigned to teaching and serving others. And while it is not certain, it does appear that I Timothy 3:11 provides for female deacons in this church, as the Revised Standard Version so interprets it.

f.   Philippians 2:3-4

"Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others."

This passage has much to say about life within the Christian community. It openly states that there is no such thing as one Christian claiming to be superior to any other Christian. In our own discussion it means that women must not demand to be treated with special attention, nor are men allowed to hold power selfishly over them. Each Christian must do what will elevate another Christian, male and female. Christian men must elevate Christian women, and Christian women must elevate Christian men. We must not be selfish and demand our own way. Each is called to give place to the other.

g.   Ephesians 5:21-33

In this famous passage, most of what is usually picked out for discussion is the phrase, "Wives, be subject to your husbands." Given the whole tenor of Roman and Greek life, one is led to wonder why any other point of view would ever come to mind if something in Christianity did not revise the traditional domination that Roman society taught about women.

But what really stands out about this whole passage is the way that traditional terms are made to serve Christian truth. Words like "submit" and "love" and "respect" are used, all words familiar to a Roman, Greek or Jewish audience. But here they take on a new definition, because all Christians male and female are called to submit to all other Christians, male and female. Submission is a trait of Christ, therefore, all Christians are submissive. Having been dominated through the use of the word "submission", some women may have found it a weary term and even a dangerous one. Indeed, it could be just that sort of term, if the behavior of Christ were not made the definition of it, rather than the dehumanizing attitudes of many Roman moralists.

And so, there is no danger of being "done dirty" by being willing to become submissive to another, either in marriage or the church. It is what Christ did. And what accordingly keeps one person's willingness to be vulnerable and submissive to another from becoming an avenue of being manipulated and controlled is the power of love, which is likewise bound on all Christians. Roman marriage theory saw the man as king and the wife as his
obedient servant. The language would have been, "Wives, submit. Husbands, provide for." This was the basis for marriage in Rome. But Ephesians uses the language to teach Christian truth. But here again, Ephesians introduces a new definition of love, namely, Christ.

So, once again, traditional language becomes something new, because for a man to love his wife (or a woman her husband) the way Christ loves the church is to reject competition, control, domination, and brusque rule as having anything to do with love.

In Christianity, love is opposed to domination of others. To love another is to become that one's servant. Traditionally, male Christians have expected women to do all the submitting and always allow the men to have their way. But this is impossible to justify Biblically. The way the words are used in Ephesians, it is finally hard to make a distinction between "love" and "submit". Each command means giving ground in behalf of another. To submit takes the courage to be willing to be hurt by opening one's emotions and will up to another. To love means overriding one's own wishes to care gently for another and their wishes. Women have to overcome fear. Men, their self-centeredness.

h. Other passages indicating the role of women in church

1. Chloe is a woman significant enough in the church that both Paul and the Corinthians know who she is and that her word can be trusted implicitly. (I Corinthians 1:11)

2. Euodia and Syntyche (two women) are placed on the same level as Paul's male associates in the work of preaching the Gospel. (Philippians 4:2-3)

3. Four women, daughters of Philip, were prophets. (Acts 21:9)

4. Phoebe (a woman) is called a deacon (not a deaconess--the Bible has no such word) of the church in Cenchrae and is apparently a major financial contributor to the preaching of the Gospel. She is travelling from Paul to the church in Rome, possibly carrying the Epistle of Romans with her, but undoubtedly on a Christian mission of her own. (Rom. 16:1-2) I Timothy 3: 11 may also be evidence of female deacons in the early church.

5. In Romans 16, Paul can list off a large number of women who figured prominently in his work: "Mary, who has worked hard among you," "Tryphaena and Tryphosa, workers in the Lord", "the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord," "the mother of Rufus, who has been his mother and mine", "Julia", and "the sister of Nereus", all of whom are greeted as important people in the church. In Philemon, Paul greets Apphia, another woman, alongside Philemon and Archippus.

6. Priscilla is mentioned notably in Acts and in Romans 16:3-5 and 16:19. It is very noteworthy from the perspective of the ancient world that Priscilla's name normally precedes that of her husband and that she took part (the lead?) in teaching Apollos. "And when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more perfectly." (Acts 18:26) At the least, both Aquila and Priscilla did the teaching.

7. Lydia plays a large role in Paul's work in Philippi. (Acts 16)

8. Subtlety tells a lot sometimes. In 2 Corinthians 6, Paul is quoting from 2 Samuel, a passage that says, "I will be a father to you and you shall be my son." Paul turns it to the plural, "and you shall be my sons". But that is not enough. All on his own, Paul adds, "and my daughters." (II Corinthians 6:18)

SUMMARY
It would appear that there was some difference in the roles that women played in various individual congregations in the first century. But we do see that women prayed publicly, prophesied in church, taught both men and women, served as "deacons", and ministered in significant ways in the proclamation of the Gospel and the service of others.

There still remains the question of whether women ever served as elders. Though the feminine of the word, "elder",is used in I Timothy 5:2, questions abound about what exactly is meant there.

We have also seen that many considerations seemed to have shaped the early churches' views on the role of women. On the one hand, there was a strong concern to guard the human dignity of women from religious, social, and even relational abuse. Women are Christians to the early church. And one is to treat fellow Christians the way one would treat Christ. At the same time, there was the reality of Roman society to which the church was trying to preach, as well as a concern to keep the churches unified, particularly in their assemblies.

Therefore, in trying to follow these directions laid out in the New Testament, one must begin by affirming the dignity of all women to be the same as the dignity of all men in the eyes of God. Further, one may assert that women in the Lord may minister not only to women but also to men, as God calls them, as long as they are submitting to God's authority, the leaders of the church, and their commitments to their families. As Christians, we should seek to base our views of women's ministry function in our churches on an obedient response to the call of God and Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit to all believers, male and female.

What will edify the Church?
This is always a decision based on the best Christian wisdom and judgment available at the time. Decisions like these have to be made endlessly in the church, from when we will meet to who will preach or what will be done in time of a personal tragedy in a member's life. And in many ways, this is where the decision about the role of women lies at the present time.

First of all, Christians have an obligation coming from the Gospel itself to assert undeniably and to publicly proclaim through our preaching and our relationships that women are creatures made in the image of God and are loved by God equally with males. Whatever role for women emerges as best for the church and its proclamation, we must assert this above all else. Jesus died for women, and as such they are as infinitely valuable and to be accorded all the dignity of one for whom the Creator of the universe gave his very life.

This, however, is not a concept that is readily accepted by our surrounding culture. American history, like world history, shows a solid pattern of ignoring women, exploiting them, and depriving them of the very political and social rights that men have demanded to the point of violence. Women were still considered property of men until recently under American law, and they were not accorded the right to vote until 1920. Similarly, the staggering preponderance of the poor today are women, both in the U.S and the world. While some estimates project that women do 65-75% of the labor done in the world, they own a scant 5% of the world's wealth. And while Americans generally perceive that women in this country get whatever they want, they are still generally paid less than men for the same jobs and they are still expected to surrender personal goals for the sake of the family, without a similar response on the part of the husband.

The ministry of Jesus among women is a crying need today. Every church must be about the business of showing women (and men) the Good News for women in advent of Jesus. The church must demonstrate a God-inspired respect for women, their dilemmas, and their gifts.

Second of all, this discussion cannot be decided by a simple appeal to "rights". This is noticeably absent in all of the Scripture we have studied. Rather, the Biblical teaching centers around mutual respect, Christian freedom, and responding to the Holy Spirit's leading. In this situation, all members, both men and women, must do what will edify their other Christian brothers and sisters. This includes people who want non-public roles for women, and those who seek change in women's current roles. We do not come to church to have others do as we would dictate. Nor are we free to distance ourselves from others with whom we disagree. Otherwise, we make a mockery of the power of love and we cheapen church membership into "church shopping and dropping." We believe this is selfishness and fear instead of faithfulness and love. All members must make the will of God as it is working itself out in the lives of each of our members the determining factor in our behavior.

Thirdly, then, it is appropriate to say that the New Testament calls upon all believers to recognize the freedom of all Christians to be everything that God alone wants them to be. All Christians have the guaranteed freedom to own their own gifts, talents and worth given to them by God. And no Christian should fear any other Christian as this process of growth goes on. Nor should any Christian seek to intimidate any other Christian in the process of either or both discovering their Christian gifts and ministries.

As we move along through our discussion of what women's roles at our own church should be we ask that those who favor "traditional" roles of women at church accept in their hearts and create in their church a place for those who favor a change. We likewise ask that those who favor change in the role of women here accept in their hearts and create in their church a place for those who do not. "Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you."

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allen, C. Leonard. Distant Voices. Sweet Publishing Company, 1993.
Bloesch, Donald. Is the Bible Sexist? Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1982.
Brown, Peter. The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.
Furnish, Victor Paul. The Moral Teaching of Paul. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1979. pp. 84-114. (See additional bibliographical data there.)
Heine, Susanne. Women and Early Christianity. Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1987.
Jeremias, Joachim. Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969. Appendix. "The Social Position of Women."
Johnston, Robert K. Evangelicals At An Impasse. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1979. pp. 48- 114.
Parks, Norman. Woman's Place in Church Activity. Grand Blanc, MI: Integrity Pub, 1975.
Sandifer, J. Stephen. Deacons: Male and Female?: A Study For the Churches of Christ, P.O. Box 35296, Houston, TX 77235
Schaef, Anne Wilson. Women's Reality. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981.
Schussler-Fiorenza, Elisabeth. In Memory of Her. New York: Crossroad, 1983.
Stagg, Frank and Evelyn. Woman in the World of Jesus. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1978.
Stendahl, Krister. The Bible and the Role of Women. Fortress Press, 1966.
Thurston, Bonnie Bowman. The Widows: A Women's Ministry in the Early Church. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989.
Witherington, Ben. Women and the Genesis of Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
_____________. Women in the Earliest Churches. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
_____________. Women in the Ministry of Jesus. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1984.

Further Biblical studies:
On the role of women in Matthew, Mark and Luke, see
Achtemeier, Paul J. Mark. Proclamation Commentaries. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975, ch. 10.
Grassi, Joseph A. The Hidden Heroes of the Gospels. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1989.
Talbert, Charles H. Reading Luke. New York: Crossroad, 1982. (pp. 90-94 especially).
See also the Witherington entries above.
in John:
Brown, Raymond. The Community May 18, 2008