The Ministry of Women - Glenn Conjurske
The Ministry of Women
by Glenn Conjurske
The first thing which must be understood is that in the New Testament all ministry is based upon spiritual gift.
“As every man”—-or rather, “every one,” for “man” is generic here, and there is no word answering to it in the Greek—-“as every one hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another.” (I Pet. 4:10).
“Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering; or he that teacheth, on teaching,” etc. (Rom. 12:6-7).
The question then arises, Do women have such spiritual gifts? Unquestionably, they do. On the day of Pentecost Peter said,
“This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel: And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:16-18).
Again, in Acts 21:9, we read concerning Philip the evangelist, “And the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy.”
On the other hand, Paul forbids the ministry of women in the church, saying, “Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.” (I Cor. 14:34-35). This is plain enough—-indeed, forceful enough—-whether we understand Paul’s reason for it or not.
But observe, he contrasts a woman’s speaking with her being under obedience. How is this? What has the one to do with the other? To answer that, we must understand that God has joined ministry and authority together in the church. Thus we read in I Cor. 16:15-16, “I beseech you, brethren, (ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints), that ye submit yourselves unto such, and to every one that helpeth with us, and laboureth.”
Again, in Hebrews 13:7, “Remember them which have the rule over you, which have spoken unto you the word of God.” This also clearly associates public ministry in the church with authority in the church. These scriptures explain Paul’s antithesis between speaking and being under obedience. In the same vein, Paul also says, “Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” (I Tim. 2:11-12). So closely does Paul associate a speaking or teaching ministry in the church with authority over the church.
And observe, the Greek word which Paul employs here ( j v ) does not mean merely to usurp authority, as our Bible has it. It’s proper meaning is to exercise authority, whether usurped or not. So Ellicott, “not `to usurp authority over,’ Auth., a further meaning not contained in the word.” Bengel, “to use authority.” So Tyndale (1526) renders the verse, “I suffre not a woman to teache/ nether to have auctoritie over a man,” and this translation was retained by Coverdale, Matthew, and Taverner. Coverdale’s Latin-English Testament (1538) has, “I do not permytte a woman to teach, nor to vse [use] authorite ouer the man.” The word “usurp” was first used in the Great Bible (1539), for what reason I know not, and was thence taken into Jugge’s edition of Tyndale’s New Testament (1552), and thence into the Geneva Bible. It was also the reading of the Bishops’ Bible, and so of the King James Version. But Tyndale’s New Testament was more accurate. And though the practical difference may not be great, what Paul forbids is not a woman usurping authority, but a woman having authority. And as God has joined this authority to the ministry of the word in the church, the woman is proscribed from both.
But for failure to give due weight to all of these scriptures, two extremes of doctrine exist in the church of God. On one side, because of the scriptural doctrine (and the obvious fact), of woman’s giftedness, some would give to woman the same place of ministry which God has given to men. On the other side, because she is forbidden to minister in the church, some would forbid her from ministering at all.
When we turn from the doctrinal to the historical portions of the New Testament, we unquestionably find women in a place of ministry beyond marrying and bearing children. The daughters of Philip the evangelist have been mentioned already. They possessed a spiritual gift, and they used it. They “did prophesy.” We are not to suppose they did so in the church, for Paul forbids it, but there are obviously numerous situations outside the church where such a gift may be used.
And we are told of Priscilla that she was used of God on one occasion to teach the great Apollos. For “he [Apollos] began to speak boldly in the synagogue, whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.” (Acts. 18:26). They took him, and they expounded to him the way of God—-for both verbs are plural. And why not? I know cases enough in which the wife has both better understanding of the way of God, and better ability to communicate it, than her husband has, and is that understanding given to her only for herself—-to be shut up and wasted, because she is a woman? Not so, for on the day that the church came into being the Lord said, “On my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.” What if some women are too forward, ignorant, and proud, and take upon themselves things for which they have no fitness? The same is true of many men. The answer to the difficulty is not to suppress the ministry of women, but to guard and regulate it, the same as we must do with the ministry of men. So Paul says, “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man [Greek, every one, as in I Pet. 4:10] that is among you, not to think of himself more highly that he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man [every one] the measure of faith.” (Rom. 12:3). And James says, “My brethren, be not many teachers, knowing that we shall receive the greater judgement.” (James 3:1, Greek). Such regulation is as necessary for men as for women.
But to return to historical facts, we read of two who prophesied in Jerusalem when Joseph and Mary brought the child Jesus to present him to the Lord. One was a man, Simeon, and the other a woman, Anna. Of Anna we are told, she “departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.” (Luke 2:37-38). And it plainly appears that of these two, the woman had much the wider ministry, for Simeon spoke only to Joseph and Mary, but Anna spoke to all that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. And mark, she did not speak of children and chicken dinners, but “of him.” And the Lord records this in the Scriptures without the slightest breath of disapproval. Nay, the fact that it is recorded at all indicates his approval of it.
Paul also speaks of “those women who laboured with me in the gospel.” (Phil. 4:3). Paul speaks too of “Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 16:3). “Helpers” here is v , “fellow-laborers.” This is the same Priscilla who, with her husband, taught Apollos the way of God more perfectly, and here, in greeting them as his fellow-laborers, Paul places Priscilla first. We might wish that Paul had told us something of how these women had labored with him in the gospel, yet we must suppose that the Spirit of God was wise in leaving this undefined. If Paul had mentioned anything specific, there would be plenty of folks to tell us that those specifics defined the limits of a woman’s labors in the gospel, and that nothing other than that was to be allowed to her. But the matter being left indeterminate in these texts, we may suppose it legitimate for women to engage in whatever labors in the gospel their love for the souls of men and their devotedness to the cause of Christ may prompt them to. That whatever they do ought to be done with that meekness, gentleness, and reserve which naturally belong to them, goes without saying. A woman who is forward and officious makes herself and her cause odious. But a woman acting in a becoming spirit may accomplish great things—-perhaps even some things which a man could not do.
Abigail is a beautiful example of this, when she went to meet David, and turn him back from avenging himself upon Nabal. “And when Abigail saw David, she hasted, and lighted off the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my lord, upon me let this iniquity be: and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the words of thine handmaid.”
(I Sam. 25:23-24). This is her spirit, and her words which follow are full of wisdom, faith, and persuasive power: “The Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord fighteth the battles of the Lord, and evil hath not been found in thee all thy days. Yet a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul: but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God, and the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, as out of the middle of a sling. And it shall come to pass, when the Lord shall have done to my lord according to all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel, that this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence of heart unto my lord, either that thou hast shed blood causeless, or that my lord hath avenged himself.” (Vss. 28-31).
The Geneva Bible heads this chapter “Nabals foolishnes” in one column, and “Abigails wisdome” in the other. Yet there have been men enough of Nabal’s wit in the world to coin and perpetuate an old English proverb which says, “When an ass climbs a ladder, we may find wisdom in women.” David certainly found wisdom in a woman, and such wisdom as he did not find in himself or all his mighty men. And mark, it was not merely personal advice which she offered to David, but a solemn declaration of the message of God, and a powerful application of the doctrine of faith. David recognized it as such, and he thus replied to Abigail’s pleading: “Blessed be THE LORD GOD of Israel, which SENT thee this day to meet me, and blessed be THY ADVICE, and blessed be THOU, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with my own hand.” (Vss. 32-33). Yet what would all of Abigail’s wisdom have been worth if she had kept it to herself, under a mistaken notion that her only business was to stay at home and take care of the babies?
With all of the above scriptures before me, I cannot believe in the suppression of women’s ministry. That some women need to be suppressed is no doubt true—-and so do some men. With sorrow we confess that such women as have little ability, little spiritual gift, and little spirituality, are often the most forward to speak—-yea, and to write, and to print—-seemingly all unaware that the Bible says, “Be not many teachers.” But alas, all of the same is also true of men. That women have a great need for discretion in all that they do is no doubt true also—-but is not the same true of men? That there are some spheres which a woman ought to enter only with the utmost caution, and some probably not at all, is no doubt also true—-and again, the same is true of men.
But while we confess all of this, the fact remains that Paul counted certain women as his fellow-laborers in the gospel. “The woman at the well” was also a great evangelist, and not to women only, for she “went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? Then they went out of the city, and came unto him. … And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did.” (John 4:28-30, & 39).
And though, as far as we know, God never employed a woman to write a book of the Bible, yet some portions of the Bible are the work of women. We have the song of Hannah, and the song of Mary, and both of them filled with such deep understanding of the ways of God as I dare say many men and preachers have never entered into. And some of the best of the songs in our hymn books, both words and music, were written by women. A number of excellent biographies on our shelves are also the work of women. Those who will read such songs in the Bible, sing such songs in the hymn book, or read such books, must allow the same liberty to women today. Take away all that women have written from the Bible, from the hymn book, and from our bookshelves, and we would all feel a very serious loss. Not that we would encourage most women to take such things upon themselves. Certainly not—-no more than we would encourage most men to do so. But when a woman is gifted of God for such things, and can produce a song or a book of solid worth, we will receive it with thanksgiving, the same as we will when a man produces something of solid worth.
But if all of these things are true, why should not women be permitted to teach or to speak also in the church? Because Paul forbids it. What Paul’s reasons are, we may never understand. The prohibition itself is too clear to be mistaken, and whether we understand it or not, we have no right to ignore it, or to set it aside, for Paul immediately follows it with, “What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.” (I Cor. 14:36-37).
Glenn Conjurske