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Explores the most prominent biblical, historical, and cultural arguments presented by both sides in the discussion around the ordination of women as pastors in Egypt.

This article investigates the female prophets of the OT, offering a close examination of their texts and contexts, with attention paid to the ways biblical writers, redactors, and commentators may have minimized their impact.

Women and Ministry in the Old Testament 

Here in this little letter is all the Bible tells us about the chosen lady: John had the highest regard for her as a colleague in ministry. She was well-known among the churches to which 1 John was written. She was a gracious and loving person.

The Bible sets forth an ideal and calls the ideal woman an eshet-chayil, which is the Hebrew for a “virtuous woman” (KJV) or a “wife of noble character” (NIV). This Hebrew expression occurs only three times in the Old Testament, but a study of these three passages is likely to reveal what the Bible supports as an ideal of Christian womanhood.

The conclusion of Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome includes his most extensive catalog of coworkers. In addition to Paul himself, the chapter mentions thirty-seven specific individuals, ten of them women. At the head of this list stands Phoebe:

God is not male and neither is the Spirit, but one cannot avoid the fact that Jesus was male. Does this make any difference to how Christians should think about gender issues?

Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. She used to sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the sons of Israel came to her for judgment. (Judges 4:4–5, NASB)

The epistle to Philemon begins, “Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our dear friend and co-worker” (NRSV). Paul and Timothy then also address “Apphia the sister” (Apphia tē adelphē). Throughout the multitude of commentaries on Philemon, one struggles to find a helpful description of this mysterious woman. The standard volumes concerning the evangelical gender debate rarely mention Apphia, and both hierarchical and egalitarian perspectives have done little to explore her identity. Specifically, the lack of detailed research regarding Apphia’s status may be due to the fact that, unlike other women in the NT, she is not given a now-controversial title (cf. “deacon” in Rom 16:1–2 or “apostle” in Rom 16:7). Also potentially at play is the tendency of readers to miss something they are not looking for: because Apphia is not contested ground in the evangelical gender debate, it makes sense that a work exploring her identity has been missing. In contrast, most of the detailed work on Paul’s relationship with Apphia is not by evangelical scholars.