Question: The Role of Women in the Church

I received a question regarding the role of women in the church. I will start by trying to briefly state the question: In Romans 16:1, 2 & 7, there is mention of Phoebe and Junia as servants or possibly an apostle or deacon versus 1 Timothy 2 where " I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence." How does one reconcile these seemingly contradictory passages?

First, let me assure the reader that I do not claim to have all the answers; I do believe that the Bible does, that the Bible is completely accurate, and it does not contradict itself. With that disclaimer, here is what I see; here are a few basic facts, what I believe are basic facts:

God made man, then made woman from man to be a helper to him (Genesis 2:18).

In God's eyes, all are equal. Galatians 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

In the New Testament, starting with Acts and following, as we follow the development of the church, we see that the Lord started the church with the Apostles. To be an apostle was to first meet certain qualifications. These are made clear in Acts 1:15-26. The primary qualification was to have been a direct eyewitness of Jesus. When Judas betrayed, they filled his position with another in Acts 1. Later Paul is called an apostle; and in fact he was an eyewitness of Jesus having witnessed Him on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). I would suggest that there is no other person in the New Testament who is called an "Apostle." Junia in Romans 16 is not. Junia was "of note among the apostles," but was not an apostle.

And from Acts and the following books, we see that there were other positions that were established in the churches (Acts 14:23). In Acts 20, Paul called the Ephesian elders to meet with him. In this one passage, the terms for "elder" are also called overseer, shepherd and bishop, all the same thing. This same multiple name situation occurs in 1 Peter 5. There were specific qualifications for the men of this position; these are given in 1 Timothy and Titus. But without question, these qualifications only apply to men.

In addition, there are men appointed to the position of "deacon," as recorded in 1 Timothy and Titus. The qualifications given here are specific to men. But the word "deacon" just means servant. So what I see in the NT is that there were men appointed to the position of "deacon" and also people, men and women, who were described as servants; this can be hard to distinguish; I won't try. Were there women deacons? I don't know, but there were women "servants" as I see in Romans 16:1.

In summary, what I see in the NT is that men and women were equal in God's eyes. Women did teach; we see examples of that, but not perhaps taking charge over a man. And while equal, men and women are given different roles. There were no women apostles and there were no women elders (overseers, shepherds, bishops.) There were women teachers and even women prophets. Women were, and are, important in the work of the Lord!

I hope that all of my answers here are purely Biblical, not my opinion; I have tried hard to keep opinion out of this. And I hope this helps. God bless you!