THE HOPE AND CHALLENGE OF GALATIANS 3:28

Mimi Haddad

Women have been denied teaching, leadership, and evangelistic opportunities through a selective reading of Paul. This incredible tragedy overlooks the significance of Paul’s conversion from a Jewish man who was taught to ignore the theological contributions of women, to a Christian leader who built the Church beside women. Ignoring this biblical data has had a serious impact on the vitality of the Church.

It is time to reclaim the centrality and significance of Galatians 3:28 in the life of the Apostle Paul. Apart from the empty tomb, the conversion of Saul of Tarsus into the Apostle Paul is one of the most astonishing events in history. Saul had achieved excellence as a Pharisee: circumcised on the eighth day, of the tribe of Benjamin, as to the law a Pharisee, as for zeal, persecuting the church, as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. After his conversion, however, Paul became the apostle to the untouchables. Because of this, Paul was persecuted by the very Pharisees who had trained him, and they hunted him the rest of his life.

Like Jesus, Paul challenged the social taboos of the Pharisees. Jesus ate with sinners and prostitutes; he engaged women theologically and expected them to respond as disciples. He built the Church with women, slaves, and Gentiles. Like Jesus, Paul included women among his closest “coworkers”—those who labored beside him in the gospel.

While Paul did not release women from all cultural bondage during his lifetime, nor did he overturn slavery, in his writings he planted the seeds that one day would. In his dealings with Onesimus and Philemon, and the women who worked beside him in the gospel, Paul lived out the ideals he expressed in Galatians 3:28. We find slaves, Gentiles and women serving as evangelists, apostles, teachers, all spreading the gospel, building and leading house churches in cities like Ephesus and Philippi Paul calls them his coworkers. This is what makes Paul so extraordinary! Like Paul, we live in a culture where sin creates oppression and barriers, but in Christ these become irrelevant and ultimately impotent.

Using Gal 3:28 as the cornerstone of Paul’s teachings, let us observe the work of women, alongside Paul as they established house churches in cities like Ephesus and Philippi. In Acts 16:13-14, 40 we find the first church in Philippi, also the first church in Europe. Here Paul meets Lydia, a wealthy merchant of purple and a woman of faith. Her home becomes a house church, and the Scriptures suggest she is the leader of this church. Paul’s letter to the Philippians expresses great affirmation and love for this church.

In the fourth chapter of Philippians, Paul mentions two other women who functioned as his co-workers --Euodia & Syntyche. These two women “struggled beside” Paul in the work of the gospel. Rather than silencing these women, Paul affirms and extols their work. Phil. 4:3. Clearly, leadership in the Church at Philippi was not determined by gender, ethnic or class.

Lydia was not the only woman leader of a house church. Nor was she the only woman who co-labored with Paul. There was is also Priscilla. Paul mentions Priscilla and Aquila more often than anyone else except Timothy. Priscilla and Aquila also represent a living example of Galatians 3:28.

Luke indicates that Priscilla, who is probably a Roman gentile (Acts 18:2), is married to a Jew named Aquila. When the Jews were banished from Rome, Priscilla and Aquila sail for Corinth where they met the apostle Paul. Paul, Priscilla and Aquila live together and work as tentmakers. Eighteen months later all three relocate to Ephesus.
While in Ephesus, Priscilla & Aquila gain prominence not only through the church they establish in their home (1 Cor 16:19), but also by risking their lives for Paul (perhaps during the riots mentioned in Acts19:23-41), a deed for which all the Gentile churches gave thanks (Romans 16:4).

Luke recognizes Priscilla and Aquila as skilled teachers for having instructed Apollos—who was himself well versed in the Scripture, though he lacked some theological insights, which Priscilla and Aquila provided. Apollos received Priscilla’s instruction without reservation. Far from condemning her for having taught a man, both Luke and Paul acknowledge Priscilla.

Priscilla’s authority in the early church is highlighted by Paul who calls her his “co-worker.” (Romans 16:3), a term Paul uses to identify leaders such as Mark, Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Apollos and Luke. Moreover, her name is mentioned ahead of her husband, in 4 of the 6 references to Priscilla & Aquila, suggesting she was the more distinguished of the two. Paul highlights Priscilla’s leadership when he sends his greetings to the church that meets in their house, not Aquila’s home (Rom. 16:5)

In addition to Priscilla and Lydia (Acts 16:13-15, 40), Paul tells us of the Church that meets in the house of Nympha (in Acts 16:13-15, 40), Chloe (1 Cor. 1:11), and the Elect Lady (2 John 1:1)
Then there is Phoebe, mentioned in Romans 16:1. Paul calls her a deacon or diakonos. Paul refers to himself , Apollos and Timothy as diakonos indicating the person is a leader in the Church. Commentators suggest that as a diakonos in the church in Cenchrea. Phoebe carried Paul’s letters between Rome and Greece, a hazardous stretch across rough waters and rocky terrain. She had to be strong and courageous, and Paul had to trust her. Paul also refers to Phoebe as prostates. Literally this means one who is in authority or one who presides, according to the Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon.

We must also give careful thought to Paul’s teachings on the spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 12:7 ff, Rom. 12:6-8 and Eph. 4:11). Here we also observe that ministry is gift-based and not restricted by gender, ethnicity or class: If gender were to limit ministry, the most logical place to make this clear is in Paul’s teachings on the spiritual gifts. Yet, Paul tells us that the spiritual gifts used to build up and edify the church are not given along gender lines. These gifts give rise to evangelists, prophets, pastors, teachers, and apostles. We can identify women who served the church, alongside Paul, as evangelists, prophets, teachers, and apostles.

In Romans 16, Paul celebrates many women coworkers, deacons, and even an apostle—Junia. Junia was outstanding among the apostles, for she had distinguished herself as a missionary and was imprisoned with the Apostle himself. Origen, Chrysostom and Jerome refer to Junia as a female apostle.

By enacting the gospel values of equality, Paul ministered not through the old covenant, with its gender and ethnic restrictions, but through the new covenant, where ministry is open to all who are clothed in Christ.

The birth of the New Covenant is seen clearly at Pentecost—the birth of the Church—where 3,000 come to faith and exhibit the Spirit’s gifting. “Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia . . . visitors of Rome; (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—were heard declaring the wonders of God in their own tongues . . . this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:9-16). At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out on all flesh, without regard to ethnicity, class, or gender, just as Joel had foretold.

Christian baptism, rather than circumcision, becomes the symbolic expression of the New Covenant, a reality Paul summarizes in Galatians 3:28. In Christ, therefore, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28)

Obviously Paul shared leadership with women. It should not surprise us that throughout church history women served beside men, living out their God-given gifts, demonstrating the truth that gender places no limits on service to Christ.

The legacy of Gal 3:28 continued after Paul’s death. Even a short sample of history uncovers women Bible scholars, evangelists, and martyrs.

One of the most famous missionaries in the early Church was a woman named Thecla. She heard Paul preach from her bedroom window, and though she was a wealthy Roman woman, she abandoned the comfort of her class and worked as a missionary near Antioch. She had a dynamic ministry of preaching, teaching and healing. German archaeologists excavated her large compound in 1908. Thecla is often pictured in early Church artwork seated beside Apostle Paul. Tertullian and Gregory of Nazianzus both refer to the importance of Thecla’s ministry.

Apollonia served as a deacon in the Church in Alexandria, a ministry that dates back to Phoebe. Deacons served the ill, were committed to good works, prayer, education, and played a key role in overseeing baptism, and in preparing new converts for baptism by teaching them theology. Many deacons in the early church were ordained, and one can find prayers used during their ordination ceremonies.

Apollonia was martyred in 249 AD when an angry mob grabbed her, knocked out her teeth, and built a fire where she was to die unless she renounced Christ. After a moment to consider their proposition, Apollonia lunged into the flames- ending her life. After her death, a church was built in her honor in Rome. You can read about Apollonia in Fox’s Book of Martyrs.

Few realize that a woman named Paula helped translate one of the earliest Bibles. Paula was a wealthy Roman woman and a close friend of Jerome, the great Biblical scholar. After her husband’s death, Paula gave away her vast fortune to build hospitals, monasteries, and churches. She and her daughter Eustocium moved to Palestine where Paula mastered the Hebrew language. With her own funds she purchased ancient manuscripts, and her linguistic skills were a priceless resource to Jerome as together they completed the Latin Vulgate.

In gratitude for Paula's assistance, Jerome dedicated much of his work to her. He wrote; "There are people, O Paula and Eustochium, who take offense at seeing your names at the beginning of my works. These people do not know that while Barak trembled, Deborah saved Israel; that Esther delivered from supreme peril the children of God... Is it not to women that our Lord appeared after His Resurrection? Yes, and the men could then blush for not having sought what women had found."

Women leaders like Paula, Thecla and Apollonia boldly served Christ throughout history, and continue to do so today. Visit CBE’s book service at www.equalitydepot, to learn more about these brave-hearted women.

According to Paul, there is a mutuality, a oneness, an equality among those who are in Christ, regardless of class, ethnicity, or gender. This was utterly countercultural, particularly when one considers that nearly two-thirds of Paul’s listeners were slaves, and women were mostly veiled, silenced, and largely restricted to the inner rooms of a man’s home. In such a culture, one’s dignity, worth, and sphere of service was determined by one’s ethnicity, gender, and class. To such a world, Paul declared that a person’s significance and influence were not defined by human parents, but by rebirth in Christ.
Life in the Spirit overcomes not only death, but also human pride and prejudice. Through the cross, the chains of sin are broken spiritually and socially. As Gordon Fee notes, what was true of a Jew, is now true for Greeks, what was true of all people who are born free, is also true of slaves and what was true of males is now true for females. Our relationship to Christ completely redefines and ultimately realigns our status and relationship to one another.

Christian unity and mutuality was accomplished on the cross. It is acknowledged in Christian baptism (which was open to all people), celebrated in the sharing of the bread and the cup (also open to all people) and lived out each day in the Spirit, in mutual deference to one another. This, I believe, is the new wine that burst the old wineskins, vividly lived out in Paul’s service to the Church.