DISCLAIMER: When I recorded this episode, I had no idea it would be released during the same week the Southern Baptist Convention would once again be debating the role of women in church leadership. The timing makes this conversation especially relevant, but this episode was not created in response to current events. The views shared reflect my understanding of the New Testament and its first-century context. As with any discussion of Scripture, I encourage listeners to study the text for themselves and engage thoughtfully, whether they ultimately agree or disagree with my conclusions.

Have you ever wondered what the New Testament really says about women in leadership? This episode dives into the overlooked stories of women who carried letters, taught apostles, and led early churches—roles that challenge many of today’s assumptions. The discussion explores how translation choices and church traditions have shifted the spotlight away from female leaders, even though their names and deeds are clearly documented in scripture. If you’re ready to question long-held beliefs and reexamine what the New Testament actually shows about women’s roles, this conversation is for you.

"Using scripture to tell half the church they have no place in leadership is not protection—it's spiritual bullying." - Tim Winders

Access all show and episode resources HERE

Episode Resources:

• NT90 Hub – This is the central website for the 90-day New Testament reading plan, with downloadable, printable plans, background information, and links to all episodes and resources.

Episode Highlights:

00:00 Women in Romans 16

02:51 Why This Matters

09:20 Reading Without Bias

11:55 Phoebe Carried Romans

18:44 Priscilla and Aquila

19:55 Junia Named Apostle

21:27 More Women in Romans

22:34 Beyond Romans 16

23:01 Lydia and House Churches

24:05 Women Leaders Elsewhere

26:09 Elect Lady and Authority

28:03 Lois and Eunice Legacy

28:34 Faith Shaped by Women

28:59 Tabitha the Disciple

29:36 Names Edited Over Time

30:30 Why Hebrews Is Anonymous

33:26 Case for Priscilla

36:32 Pattern of Erasing Women

37:09 Two Verses Objection

38:51 Silence in Corinth Context

42:25 Authority in Ephesus

47:15 Three Kingdoms Backdrop

49:16 Kingdom Breaks Ceilings

51:46 Live the Text Today

53:48 Final Challenge and Next

Paul ends his letter to the Romans with a list of names, 28 people he

knew personally, loved, and trusted.

At least 10 of them are women.

One carried the letter.

One taught a man who became one of the most important voices in the early church.

One was called an apostle, and over the next several centuries, their

names were changed, their roles were softened, and their stories were

quietly moved to the background.

But the text is still there, and it says what it says.

Welcome to Seek Go Create.

I'm Tim Winders.

I have recently read the entire New Testament in 90 days in the order

it was written, not the order in your Bible, the order the letters

actually went out to the audience.

And what I found surprised me, challenged me, changed the way I understand

scripture, and this series is kind of like an add-on to that, and it's where

I'm kind of just sharing things that jumped out at me, things that were

surprising to me, things that challenged me, things I still have questions about.

And, so I'm just kind of sharing those discoveries with you in

these episodes that follow.

I believe this is, like, the 10th one.

I don't know when this will end.

I started laying out some other topics just recently, and I think

there may be at least 10 more.

I don't know.

At some point, I'll get back to interviews and some other things.

But, for me, this is just a challenge for me.

It's something that I'm enjoying, and I'm hopeful that you are following along at

least on some of these topics and just, maybe digging into the scripture yourself.

And so I do encourage you to do that.

If you want to do what I did or get the reading plan that I developed,

just go to k2m.foundation/nt90, and you could download that free reading plan.

There's a lot more information there, some background.

We did podcast episodes for every book in the New Testament, all 27

of those, and those links are on that page at k2m.foundation/nt90.

So a lot of resources there, and again, including the downloadable reading plan.

Read it.

Read through the New Testament in order, in context.

There's a lot of notes and things that'll kind of help you, I mean, truthfully

immerse yourself in the first century.

That's kind of my goal of this.

It's what I've been doing, and I really find it valuable for me

and hopeful that you do the same.

So anyway, download it, see what you find.

The link's down in the show notes.

Before we kind of get going with this episode, you can kind of tell

from the, the, intro that, the, the title is about women, and this is the

title I've got, Women Were Leading: The New Testament Shows It Clearly.

This is not meant to be controversial.

I know in today's world, at the time of recording, there are some preachers

and teachers out there, men, that are preaching things that go something

to the effect of women are not meant to be in ministry, women are not

meant to be in leadership positions.

I'm not like a gung-ho f- feminist or anything like that.

but that stuff kind of bugs me occa- especially when I read through the New

Testament and I see all the examples of what I consider leadership there.

So, anyway, this is a little bit, I don't wanna say- personal or anything like

that, but I gotta be honest with you, as I watch these men stand behind a pulpit,

tell women they should not be h- standing behind one, and, and then also let me

kinda throw this curveball here, not even in my notes, and that is we see men

failing in leadership time and time again.

We've got some great leaders that are out there.

And, a- and some of them, many of them are Some that are speaking

against women in leadership.

And, you know, my thinking is this: leadership's hard enough as it is, let's

allow people to stand up and, and be leaders when they believe that they are

called to that or are purposed to that.

So anyway, I, I, I get a little miffed about that.

In the next episode, we're actually gonna be talking about leadership

principles that we see in the Kingdom of God from the New Testament.

It's gonna be an interesting episode.

But this one is focused on women, and it bothers me when the claim is the Bible

says that women are not to be in ministry.

It just kinda bugs me.

And I gotta add this in.

I have been married to Glory for 38, at the time of recording this, 38 years.

We've been together and, and around each other, knowing each other for over

40 years, and I'll tell you, without a doubt she has incredible leadership

potential, and she is a mighty woman of God that can teach and share things that

are of Biblical nature as well as anyone.

I also have a grown daughter who is in her 30s, and she's married, and she's a

mother, and she is a bright young lady.

And in fact, she gets to hear these episodes before anyone else because

she edits them, cleans them up, does the graphics and things like that.

So thank you, Dulcie, for that.

And, and she's phenomenal.

So, I mean, she's a woman, bright woman leader.

And, you know, here's kind of the big one.

Not to take away from any of those other two women, but I've got two

granddaughters, Dulcie's daughters.

And you know what?

those young girls, they're young, you know, they're under six years old, but

man, I can tell that they are spunky, they're bright, and they're going to

be moving into some leadership, and they're gonna have some things to say.

I do not want- anything to take away from their potential.

and especially not someone saying something to the effect of women

should not lead, and it's in the Bible.

And, I'll just keep going here.

W- I was joking recently.

It wasn't joking, I was actually just stating a fact.

In our workplace that we have, we've got a, not a large company, but

we've got a decently sized company.

we actually have hired recently, and when I look around at, at not

necessarily the leadership, but just the, the things that are getting done

within our company, a big chunk of it is being done, the heavy lifting,

the real work is being done by women.

And so I, I just say I'm, proud and pleased to say that women have

a place, and I don't want anything said that the Bible doesn't.

And so, I know that I could come across often myself as a cocky male in

more ways than I would care to admit.

But, again, the thing that's really kinda nagging at me here, and I'm

hopeful that I'm making this point early on, is using scripture to tell

half the church or half the population that they have no place in leadership.

It's not protection.

It's not being biblically accurate.

It's really spiritual bullying.

And when I read the New Testament in order, in context,

I found out it's not accurate.

It's false.

And we're gonna spend some time in this episode today,

I believe, proving that out.

You listen, you read it, you study it on your own, and you tell me if

you believe this is right or wrong.

This is not a political episode.

I wanna make sure of that.

In fact, I'm doing all that I can to get away from these, what I call

fairly petty political type arguments.

This is not about modern gender debates either.

I don't even wanna get into that.

This is really- Simply, what does the New Testament text actually

say about women who did real things in the first century church?

I'm not really ... I mean, you can tell I'm passionate about this.

I'm not really going to try to prove the position.

I'm just gonna show you the names, the Greek words, and what happened

to all of that over time, then you can decide what to do with it.

You can study it yourself.

That's what I encourage you to do throughout all of these episodes.

I'm not trying to be Tim the Answer Man.

I'm just trying to get people thinking and share what I believe

I've found, which is some cool stuff when you read the New Testament in

the proper context and in the order.

So same rules that I've been talking about in all these episodes throughout this

entire study is don't take my word for it.

Read it and study for yourself.

All right.

So let me back up a little bit and tell you how this came to be, because I was

not reading through the New Testament going, "Ah, you know what? I need to prove

a point here." I was actually attempting to read through the Ne- New Testament

with as clear a mind as I could, because I realized that many of us have to purge

things to get in the proper context to really see what the scripture says.

We go looking for something to prove our beliefs instead of reading the

text to mold our beliefs, and I know most of us have been guilty of that.

But here's what happened.

I was making notes, had a lot going on when I was reading through

the New Testament in order and in context in my reading plan.

I was doing it kind of compressed in 90 days.

And I'm about halfway through it and I'm in Romans.

You know, many people say it is, like, one of the most theologically rich and

deep books that Paul wrote that, that really is in the New Testament scriptures.

And then you get to the end of Romans, Romans 16, the last chapter, and

I've actually got my Bible open here.

I mean, it's a long chapter here.

It's a healthy chapter of about, you know, a good half a page here, and I know

I've done it- You may have done it too.

You get there, and all of a sudden Paul starts rattling off a bunch of names.

It's kind of like the credits at the end of a movie.

And Paul mentions names at the end of many of his letters, and, and others

do also, but this is like super long.

And, and so it was real interesting.

I found myself doing the same thing, but I slowed down just a little bit.

And then the, the thing that's interesting is when you, when you

then try to immerse yourself in it and picture yourself maybe sitting there

in Rome when the letter arrives, and maybe you hear your name or you hear

another name, it makes you perk up.

Just like most of us, we like hearing our names, right?

So anyway, like I said earlier, re- it's sort of like the credits, and

when you read it in context, it really tells you more about what the early

church actually looked like than almost anything else in the New Testament.

He wrote ... Listen to this.

This is the thing I have known for some time, so I was sort of looking for this.

Paul wrote what many would say is the most theologically dense letter in history.

I mean, Romans is deep.

And then he handed it to a woman You heard me right.

We have Phoebe here.

In Romans 16:1-2, Paul mentions two things about Phoebe.

There's a Greek word called diakonos.

I think I pronounced that right.

That's the same Greek word that Paul uses for himself and for Timothy.

Not a softened version, not a feminine form of it.

It is the same word, and when it is applied to Paul, we translate it minister.

Oddly enough, when it's applied to Phoebe, many translations say servant.

Same word, different translation, and I can guarantee you that as

you've read through that text, as you probably have done many times, you

have seen examples where we call Paul minister, but yet we see that Phoebe,

same Greek word, is called servant.

Now, we can go through the argument that a minister is a servant and

a servant can be a minister, all of that, but you have to admit it

changes the way we can look at Phoebe.

It tells you more about the translators, in my opinion, than about Phoebe.

Second, there's a word prostatis.

In the Roman world, a prostatis was a patron or benefactor,

someone with resources, okay?

This was a person of means.

They would have had some stature, and they have a social standing.

They've got some influence.

Paul says that she has been a prostatis of many and of myself as well.

So two big words there to describe Phoebe.

And then here's something that I, I've just always been fascinated by this.

Phoebe was responsible for carrying this incredibly important letter.

Now, over the last 2,000 years, it may have gained importance To us and others.

But I don't think that Paul thought it was just a, oh, here's

a note, carry it along in your bag.

No, I think this was a significant piece of work for Paul, and he gave

it to Phoebe, and she carried it to the Romans from Corinth to Rome.

In the first century, this is what it typically meant.

Now we're making an assumption here, but this is what it typically meant.

Carrying a letter meant far more than just being a delivery person.

There was no postal service.

The carrier traveled with the document, then gathered the

recipients and read it aloud.

Almost all instances we, we see the person carrying it was the

one responsible for reading aloud.

They were also, in all likelihood, present when the person was writing

or finishing or sealing up the letter.

So Paul likely had Phoebe there, possibly giving instructions,

sealing it so that she could carry it and deliver it and then read it.

When the audience had questions, usually the carrier was the one who

could speak to what the author meant because that person, in this situation

Phoebe, was present as, if not the entire time it was being written, as

it was being finished and prepared.

If Phoebe followed the pattern we see across the ancient world, she did not

just deliver this letter to the Romans.

She probably read it aloud to the house churches in Rome.

And again, the most theologically sophisticated letter in the New Testament

traveled across the Mediterranean in the hands of a woman, and she was

likely the one standing in front of the room when it was first heard.

Now, this is me speculating, so do not make this a doctrine, but let me just

tell you, almost every time I have read Romans, I have had questions.

So picture being one of the first in a room to hear Romans read.

Would you have, when the time was right, maybe not have interrupted, would you

have raised your hand and say, "I've got a couple of questions about what Paul

was saying in this letter he just sent"?

And like we said earlier, in all likelihood, Phoebe was the one

that, if it could be addressed, would've addressed those questions.

That is leadership.

And Phoebe, I put her in high regard because I can't answer a lot of

those questions in Romans, and I just, I admire that whole role.

Paul greets also in, Romans 16 Priscilla and Aquila, in the same

chapter, and mentions the church that meets at their house, Romans 16:5.

So picture this, Phoebe delivering it.

Paul mentions Priscilla and Aquila there.

And so it was probably the case that Phoebe was hand-delivering this

letter to Priscilla and Aquila's church that met in their home.

They were in Rome.

They were running a house church, which means that Phoebe, like I said,

just walked into their congregation, unrolled that scroll, and read the

letter to a room led by Another woman.

We'll talk about that in just a moment.

So, you know, we see this was the, capital of the known world at the time, Rome, and

these, were two women that were in what I would definitely call a leadership role.

We can't really prove that.

We're speculating some.

But Paul names both women in the same letter, in the

same city, at the same time.

One carried the letter, the other hosted the room.

That is a strong connection, and it's right there in the text.

Just go read chapter 16 now and you'll see that, or when I'm done.

Now, let's ... We brought up Priscilla and Aquila.

Let's go ahead and talk a little bit more about them.

In Romans 16:3-5, Paul mentions them.

He greets them first among the Roman believers.

More often than not, Priscilla is named before Aquila in the New Testament.

They are there multiple times.

In the ancient world, naming order signaled prominence.

They hosted house churches, Priscilla and Aquila did, in at least three cities.

Paul says they risked their necks for his life, and in Acts 18:26, Priscilla and

Aquila took Apollos aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.

So yeah, Aquila was there But Priscilla was there and taught

a man who became one of the most important voices in the early church.

I mean, kinda picture that.

That's fascinating.

I think we're gonna mention something about them again in just a moment.

But then let's look at another name, Junia, J-U-N-I-A.

In Romans 16:7, Paul calls Andronicus and Junia outstanding among the apostles,

and says they were in Christ before me.

And if we wanna look at the dates on that, Paul, we know around 33, 34 AD,

just a few years after the cross and the resurrection, is when Paul was in Christ.

So this was someone who was w- among the first, what later

became known as Christians.

Junia is actually a woman's name.

We, we know that from, from that timeframe.

Every church father who commented on this verse for the first

thousand years of church history understood Junia as a woman.

It was not until the Middle Ages that some scribes changed the

name to, listen to this, the masculine form Junias, J-U-N-I-A-S.

A name that appears nowhere else in ancient literature.

Sort of a made-up name, actually.

So we have a Jewish woman who was imprisoned for the faith, recognized as an

apostle, active before even Paul himself.

That is what the text says.

And then there's more names.

There's Mary in that list, "who has worked hard among you."

That's Romans 16:6.

And then a few names here, I hope I can get this right.

Tryphaena and Tryphosa, workers in the Lord, in Romans 16:12.

Persis, the beloved who has worked hard in the Lord, Romans 16:12.

Julia, Romans 16:15.

And then there's the mother of Rufus, whom Paul says, "Has been a mother

to me as well," in Romans 16:13.

And there are at least 10 women that we could recognize their names as

female or women names, singled out by name or role in that one chapter.

The language is active.

They work, they labor, they lead, they risk, they host, they carry the

letters, and they speak for apostles.

That's phenomenal.

That whole chapter is so cool.

Make sure you go read that after we finish up this episode, because

I think some things will jump out for you just like they did for me.

Now- We have all of those in Romans, but that's not all.

We're gonna kinda go a little bit bigger now.

Again, Romans 16 is what kind of was the catalyst for me with this

topic, but there's more, you know, you know, like the old commercials.

But wait, there's more.

So, let's, let's, let's go look at some other places, 'cause

Romans 16 is not an outlier.

We're gonna look at Lydia.

In Acts 16:14-15, she is a dealer in purple cloth from Thyatira.

The first European convert is what she's mentioned, as doing.

She opened her home, and it became the base for the Philippian church.

Paul's letter to the Philippians was written to a church that

started in a woman's living room.

And also, you know, a, a dealer in purple cloth.

this is a little bit of a sidebar.

I'm studying a lot of first century and Roman, Roman history right now.

Purple cloth was somewhat of a luxurious item, and this would've

been quite a, quite an impressive dealer, or person during that time.

I mean, it would've been like fine silks, fine cloth.

There's a reason that they said in purple cloth.

So anyway, Lydia, probably a pretty big deal.

And then there's Nympha, Colossians 4:15.

And, again, "Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters in Laodicea,

and to Nympha and the church in her house." She led a house church.

Now, later manuscripts, this is interesting, changed her to his or their.

The text originally said her.

All right, a few more.

Eu- Euodia, E-U-O-D-I-A, Euodia and Syntyche, S-Y-N-T-Y-C-H-E.

That's in Philippians 4:2-3.

Paul says they labored side by side with me in the gospel.

The Greek word is synathleo, and it means to contend or compete

together like athletes on the same team, leaders working together.

These were not background figures, they were coworkers.

And then we've got, this kind of grouped together, but Philip's four daughters

that we hear about in Acts 21:9, and it just ... Here's the comment.

He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied, and

Luke mentions them by role.

Prophesying in the early church was not background singing or anything like that.

It was actually public proclamation.

And then there's Chloe in 1 Corinthians 1:11.

Chloe's people reported to Paul about the divisions in Corinth.

She was known enough to Paul and to the Corinthians that her

name carried some authority.

She had some credibility.

This wasn't just idle gossip that some- Female brought to her know

what she said meant something, and Paul took it seriously.

It was credible because it came from her household.

This next one is fascinating to me.

It was kind of another one of these, kind of jumped out at me.

In 2 John 1:1, that letter is addressed to the elect lady.

John writes to the elect lady and her children.

Some early church fathers believed that she was a real person.

Now, I'll also say when you read the letter, it reads like something addressed

to an individual that has some oversight.

So, the, the reason why we bring that up is over time, the dominant

reading shifted to a metaphor, like the lady became a congregation and

her children became the members.

It sort of took on a different life over time.

And what's interesting is if, I'm pretty convinced of this, if John had written

it to a man, that name would've been there and no one would've turned it

into a symbol or a metaphor, but a woman trusted with doctrinal authority was

easier to explain away than to accept.

John seems to, and again, read it in context.

Don't take my word for it, please.

But when you read it in context, it just sounds to me as if John is writing it to

an individual, to the elect lady, and is providing some guidance and instruction

related to what's going on there.

Now, was there a name associated with it at some point that may have been removed

to make it a little less feminine?

I don't know.

But, anyway, seems to me that he's writing to a woman telling

her to hold the doctrinal line.

Then in 2 Timothy 1:5, we have Lois and Eunice, and that is

Timothy's grandmother and mother.

Paul, boy, Paul calls them out.

Paul says their sincere faith lived in Timothy.

So Timothy, kind of a mighty person that we have in, in the Bible and a

protege of Paul's, Paul attributes a great deal of his faith to

his mother and his grandmother.

It was passed down through women.

And truthfully, we see that today.

A lot of people are in the position they're in with their faith because of

their mothers, their grandmothers, or something like that We can't ignore that.

That's what happens.

Timothy's father was Greek and apparently not a believer.

We only hear mention of his mother and grandmother.

The spiritual formation came from a woman.

Okay, and then we've got Tabitha or Dorcas in Acts 9:36-42.

Luke calls her a disciple.

The Greek is mathetria.

I hope I pronounced that right.

Mathetria, the feminine form of mathetis.

She is the only woman in the New Testament given that specific title.

She was known for her charity and good works.

When she died, Peter raised her from the dead.

The community mourned her because she mattered.

All right, so let's, let's kind of transition here.

And I, you know, I mentioned a little bit of conspiracy stuff earlier, and

I don't wanna kind of go down that path, but you just heard the names.

Now let's look at what happened to many of them over time.

Junia, like I said before, became Junius, a man's name that does not exist

anywhere else in ancient literature.

We can't find it.

Nympha's her became his in later manuscripts.

Priscilla gets flipped behind Aquila in church tradition even

though the text puts her first.

The elect lady becomes a metaphor, and every change moved in the same

direction, away from women leading or being in a prominent position.

Now, this is

This next one I'm gonna kinda kinda be careful as we ease into this, but this

is something as I began moving into Hebrews that started nagging at me, and

some of the research I did is something that came up that I wanna mention here.

It's called the anonymous letter.

Every other major letter in the New Testament names its author.

Romans, Paul.

1 Peter Peter, James, James, Hebrews, no one.

Now, just that should make us think just a little bit.

I mean, it doesn't take away from any of the power of Hebrews.

I actually put Hebrews and Romans up as kind of like the power bookends of

letters and theology in the New Testament.

But if you've got one of those that there's no name attached to it, it just

sort of makes you go, "Hmm, I really do wonder who wrote this." the Greek in

Hebrews, very fascinating, is among the most polished in the entire New Testament.

Whoever wrote it was educated, rhetorically trained, and deeply fluent

in the Jewish sacrificial system.

That's very obvious, the content of Hebrews.

It is not a rough, corrective, pastoral letter.

It reads like someone who studied, who taught, who knew how to build

an argument that moved from the old covenant to the new with precision.

Now, here's the deal.

If you just pull Hebrews out and read through it, you know, it's awesome.

It's great.

It's got great stuff in it.

But you may not get the full context of how it fits or doesn't fit within

the New Testament narrative and story.

I, as I said at the beginning, just got through reading the New Testament

in order written and in context.

Hebrews was written around, we believe, 63 AD, towards the

tail end of all those written.

And when you read it in order, you're reading along, and you're reading some

of Paul, you're reading some of Peter, you've gotten some of the Gospels

under your belt, you've read Luke, and then all of a sudden, pew, here comes

Hebrews, and it just reads differently.

The voice is different.

The structure is different.

Some of the arguments are a little different.

It's just different.

It reads like someone who thought differently about how

to make the case for Jesus.

Now, I saw this in a few places in my research, and I couldn't

shake it out of my mind.

Priscilla fits the profile of someone that could have been the author of Hebrews.

She was a tent maker, a church planter, a teacher who corrected

Apollos on his theology.

Remember that?

And she was connected to both the Jewish and Gentile communities.

She had the training, the network- And the theological depth.

Priscilla and Aquila were in Rome.

Hebrews thirteen twenty-four says, "Those from Italy greet you."

The letter appears to be aimed at a Roman audience.

She was there.

Adolf Von Harnack, one of the most respected church historians of the

last two centuries, made the case for Priscilla in nineteen hundred.

It was not a fringe theory.

It came from one of the top scholars in the field.

The early church could not agree on who wrote Hebrews.

They attribute it, and we've heard all of these, Paul.

They attribute it to Paul, Barnabas, Luke, Apollos, Clement of Rome.

No consensus held.

That's really unusual to me, especially when all the other twenty-seven we've

got someone, some name attached to it.

When authorship is obvious, the tradition is typically stable.

When it is not, something is missing from the record.

Here's the question.

Can't get away from it.

If a well-known man had written Hebrews, why would the name be missing?

In the first century, a letter carried more authority with a name attached.

Paul signed his letters.

Peter signed his.

The most logical reason to circulate a letter this important without a name

is that the name would have caused the letter to be dismissed before it was read.

For example, if Priscilla's name was on it, in all likelihood, we would not have

even seen it in our canon of scripture.

That is speculative.

Do not take my word for it.

I am definitely saying we don't have hardcore proof for this,

but it's just intriguing to me.

Not really proving that Priscilla wrote Hebrews here.

I'm just saying that the letter is anonymous.

The early church could not agree on who wrote it, and one of the

strongest candidates to me is a woman whose name already appears more than

her husband's in the New Testament.

If you remove the assumption that a man must have written it-

Priscilla is standing right there.

I'm not settling the debate, I know that.

I'm just asking why for most of church history we never have

really asked that question.

So think about this.

Two books, like I said earlier, carry massive theological

weight, Romans and Hebrews.

One was definitely carried by a woman and most likely

interpreted and explained by her.

The other may have been written by a woman.

Again, not trying to prove or go down a conspiracy theory route.

I'm just observing a pattern, calling some things out.

Names changed, pronouns shifted, an anonymous letter stayed anonymous, and

in every case, the direction of the change was the same, away from a woman

being shown in a leadership position.

All right.

Now, few things we wanna do before we finish up here.

We have just seen, I think we've listed over 20 examples of women

leading, teaching, hosting, carrying letters, playing a critical role in the

early church and the Kingdom of God.

Their names have been listed right there in our text for 2,000 years.

But now we need to look at the two scriptures that are most often

used to belittle and speak against women in leadership or ministry.

So again, let me recap.

We've seen over 20 examples of women that I would say are in some

type of leadership role, definitely promise- prominence and influential.

I mean, I don't think Paul and others would have listed out

names if they were going, "You know, this person's questionable.

I'm just gonna go ahead and write their name here anyway.

Somebody'll clean this up later." No, I believe it was very intentional

and purposeful to list out all of those women leaders in the text of

what has become the New Testament.

Very, very on purpose.

But let's look at what we might call the elephant in the room and see why

we have people that are attempting to say women have no place in leadership,

ministry, or, positions of prominence.

Now, those of you who grew up in and around the church, which I did

some, you already know these two passages because they've been used,

time and time again, and you hear them any time this topic comes up.

So let's address them.

I wanna look at both of them honestly.

Let's go to 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.

This is Paul speaking to the church at Corinth, and he says, "Women

should keep silent in the churches." Oh my, that settles it, right?

Eh, not so much.

This is the verse that's used most often.

I know you've heard it.

I know you have.

If you're a man, you kinda look and you go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah,

okay, that kinda makes sense."

If you're a woman, though, it can eat away at, at your core and who

you are and who you believe you are.

But so we need to look at more of what the context is.

The problem is, in the same letter, let's go three chapters earlier to 1 Corinthians

5, Paul gives instructions for women praying and prophesying in the assembly.

He doesn't tell them to stop.

He doesn't tell them, "If you've got something to say, just sit

back and shut up." No, he gives instructions on how to do it.

So he tells them how to do it properly, and so either Paul is contradicting

himself within just a few chapters within the same letter, or something else is

going on in chapter 14 Many scholars, and like I've been doing, if you're studying

a lot of that timeframe in history, there was a lot going on in a lot of places, but

I think there was a specific disruption that was going on in Corinth that was

not necessarily a universal command.

The Corinthian church, just like Corinth, it was a mess.

It was chaotic.

Paul spends chapters 12 through 14 just addressing disorder.

I mean, I don't know if they were swinging from the rafters or what, but it seems

as if there was a lot going on within this body that was gathered together.

The instruction to keep silent may have been directed at a specific

group of women who were disrupting the gathering, possibly, possibly

by asking questions that interrupted the teaching, possibly trying to have

dialogue while something was going on.

The very next verse says, if there is anything they desire to learn,

let them ask their husbands at home.

That sounds like a practical solution to a local problem, not

a theology of women's silence.

And you know, listen I, I gotta, I'm gonna bring my wife Gloria up here.

There have been many times that we've been sitting in a church

service and some man in the pulpit kind of misuses or says something

that's not scriptural or biblical.

And let me tell you what, I might have had to whisper to her, "You know what?

This is not the time to stand up and argue with the preacher.

Let's discuss it when we get home." I mean, I'm thinking of one specific

example where she was fit to be tied when a preacher was preaching on a certain

topic, and the scripture laid it all out, and this preacher got up to one point

and just stopped, and she was seething.

I was able to get her out of the building, and we got in our car, and in

the car we addressed it, the two of us.

She wasn't asking her husband, she was sort of telling me all about it.

But, uh, I don't know, I guess I'm, I'm sort of joking and

making a little bit light of it.

But listen, I, I don't really see that as being a universal command.

Now, let's go to 1 Timothy 2:11-12, and Paul says, once again, here's

Paul, the man with the plan, right?

"I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man." Ooh, that

sounds like we can't have women teaching, especially if there's men in the group.

Maybe they could lead the small little women's Bible studies, but boy, they

can't get up in front of, the entire body.

This is the other one that we see.

But 1 Timothy was written to address also, just like in Corinth, a specific situation

in Ephesus where Timothy was, where false teaching was a serious problem.

Go back to 1 Timothy 1:3-7.

And the word authority, ah, my wife Gloria and I have really seen this.

We, we actually sat and heard a lesson in Bible school where, uh, the

teacher was attempting to use the word authority To basically tell most people

in the audience to sit back, shut up, and listen to what they have to say.

And, Glory again did a deep study on that word authority, and I'm gonna

mention a couple things here, but that's not exactly what it meant

when we see that in scripture, and we're gonna talk about that.

So I've seen people abuse it, and, and, and, and I think that's

what's going on with this here.

the word authority here is doing a lot of heavy work that most people never see.

The standard Greek word for authority in the New Testament is

exousia, E-X-O-U-S-I-A, exousia.

It means the right or permission to act.

In other words, Delegated power, legitimate jurisdiction.

Jesus uses it, speaking about himself, "All authority in heaven

and on Earth has been given to me."

Paul uses it in Romans 13 when he talks about governing authorities.

It appears over 100 times in the New Testament.

If Paul had meant, "I do not permit a woman to hold a recognized

leadership role," he had a perfectly good word for that.

He used it everywhere else, that word exousia.

But listen to this.

That is not the word he used here in First- Timothy, he uses the word

authentein, A-U-T-H-E-N-T-E-I-N.

And listen, it appears exactly once in the entire New Testament.

Its root carries a sense of domineering, seizing control,

acting on your own authority in an aggressive or self-appointed way.

Some scholars trace it to meanings like to domineer or to usurp.

It's not about holding a legitimate given or earned position.

It's about aggressively grabbing power, and we need to identify it there.

When we translate both exousia and authentein as the same English word

authority, we flatten the distinction the Greek text preserved on purpose.

Paul chose a rare, specific word that was the problem in Ephesus.

The modern English translation makes it sound like a universal ban or instruction.

The Greek does not.

And I know I'm not settling these debates here in this episode.

That's not my goal really.

I'm just making some points here.

Scholars far more qualified than me have spent careers on these two passages.

What I'm saying is this, two debated verses, those are the two, written to

specific, unique situations, are being used to override the plain evidence of

what I think we shared earlier with over 20 examples of what women actually did

across the rest of the New Testament.

Phoebe carried Romans.

Priscilla taught Apollos.

Junia was called an apostle.

Philip's daughters prophesied.

Nympha led a house church.

The evidence is not two verses.

It's the entire record of the New Testament.

Now that we've looked at all that, let's ... We, we kind of see what it-

Meant then, and we're gonna look at that just a little bit more here, and

then we're gonna look at what it means today, and then we're gonna wrap up here.

So the thing we need to understand, and I don't have a lot of time to

expound on this, but in the first century When these letters were written,

when these people's names were listed out, there was some things going

on that we can't quite understand.

There's some things that are similar, but there were really three kingdoms.

There were three kingdoms that were, in existence during that

timeframe that we can categorize.

Each one had its own ceiling for women.

In other words, women, they were in a very unique and challenging

situation during this time.

The kingdom that Jesus announced broke through all of those.

Women in Rome, they could not hold public office.

They could not vote.

They could not testify in most courts.

The highest compliment Rome gave a woman was that she raised great sons.

There was also this odd thing called the Vestal Virgins.

Some of you may have heard of that.

There were six women with legal rights no other women had in Rome, and, their

price, I mean, this was their lot in life, 30 years of celibacy, and if they

broke the vow, they were buried alive.

Rome gave women religious authority exactly once, and it had a death clause

if they didn't adhere to the rules.

Now, the other system or the other kingdom was the temple system, the

Jewish temple system, that we see that originated out of the Old Covenant.

Women could not-- In that system, they couldn't enter

the inner courts of the temple.

They worshiped from a separate court, farther from the

presence of God by design.

They could not read Torah publicly.

They were not counted in the quorum that was needed to hold a service.

The daily prayer included a line where men thanked God they were not born a woman.

The system was not hostile to women.

It simply built them into a lower tier and called it order.

Now, what we've just heard about earlier with all of the names mentioned

was the Kingdom of God that Jesus brought into those two systems, and He

brought that into the New Testament.

That's really the topic of the New Testament.

When you really read the New Testament, the things we've talked about,

Phoebe and Priscilla and Junia and Philip's daughters, all of those, we

just see that the early church Did not lobby Rome for policy changes.

They didn't attempt to do anything there.

You know, did not try to reform the temple system from within.

It really operated amongst and above both of them.

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and

female if you are all one in Christ Jesus.

The same person that said that women should be silent in church,

Paul said that in Galatians 3:28.

That was not an aspiration.

It was the operating system of a kingdom that cut across every ceiling

that Rome and the temple had built.

They broke down all the barriers.

And I bring that up because I think that's important for where we are today.

When we use those two debated verses that I talked earlier about to override

the clear record of what women did, I think we're reading the exceptions as

the rule and the rule as the exception.

When we change those names, you know, Junia to Junius, change her to his,

and strip names from letters, we're not protecting the text, we're editing

it, and I think we're missing-- we're causing things to miss the point of

how we, as Kingdom of God citizens, are to be operating within these systems

and kingdoms that are still around.

That system of Rome, the world system, it's still here.

There's also still a religious system that is probably what we're seeing that

occurs when someone tries to use those texts to say that women aren't to lead,

misusing those texts, I should say.

We're still within those systems P- politics and things like that.

The question is not really does the Bible allow women to lead, the

question is why did we stop seeing that it already shows them leading?

How we treat people, how we do church, how we engage politics, how we lead at

work, the first century church looked different in every one of these areas.

The women were there.

They were leading.

I mean, possibly we could argue in some of these house churches and all, they might

have been leading much more than men.

We see more examples of women leading than we actually do of men in those situations.

The question is whether we're willing to let the text say what it says

and then apply it to the way we live and operate in God's kingdom today.

And that's kind of the challenge that I wanna leave you with because I

believe that that is what the text says when we read it in order and context.

And again, I, I've said this, I just wanna keep hammering this.

Phoebe carried the letter.

Priscilla taught the teacher.

Junia was called an apostle.

all of those were leading.

Later church changed the names, changed the titles, but the

original words are still there.

This is not really an agenda I have, it's really an encouragement.

You know, if you're a male listening to this, and maybe you

have, not fully embraced some of these things I just mentioned, you

know, it's time to do that, okay?

If you're a female and you're going, "You know what?

Tell it, Tim," or, "Yeah, no, I felt that," whatever, I mean, I, I could have

even projected that, then, you know what?

Allow this to help you in your identity and lead.

Lead where you're called to lead.

I think it's just about reading the scripture honestly.

And when you read it honestly, the early church looks different

than what most of us were taught.

One more thing before we close.

If someone's leadership style, this is going back to kinda what

I talked about at the beginning.

If one's leadership style is taking scripture and using it to discount

or discredit half of the people sitting in front of them in the room,

to me, that's not a kingdom leader.

Absolutely not a kingdom leader.

I'm just gonna leave it right there because in the next episode we're gonna

do our best to search the scriptures As we've read it in context and in order,

we're gonna search the scriptures, do our best to identify what leadership actually

looks like in the kingdom Jesus brought.

Not the Roman system, not the Jewish temple system, the kingdom of God.

What does leadership look like?

The modern church has built a leadership culture that really looks

identical to the corporate world, and it's added a Bible verse to it.

Jesus described the opposite.

That is next time.

Today was about the women, the names, the roles, the evidence that they

had a much bigger part in the New Testament than most of us were led

to believe or that we were taught.

So that's what I'm gonna leave you with.

Go and read Romans 16.

Don't take my word for it.

Go read Romans 16, all of it, all the names.

Read every name.

Look up the Greek words.

Count the number of those that are women, and then ask yourself,

"Does my church look like the one Paul described?" All right.

Go make sure you get that free reading plan that I mentioned at

the beginning, k2m.foundation/nt90, and read in order and in context.

I'm Tim Winders.

Keep studying, keep digging.

See you on the next

episode.