Bible Question Answered - What Does The Bible Say About Women Ministers?

What does the Bible say about women as ministers?  

What does the word "minister" mean in the Bible?  Let's look at the example of Phoebe.  At Romans 16:1 Paul introduced her as "our sister, who is a minister of the congregation."   Some read this to mean that she stood in front of the congregation taking the lead over religious services.  Is that how you picture this?  Let's look at the Bible (our source of guidence).  The Contemporary English Version at Philippians 4:2,3 Paul writes about certain women "worked together with me....in spreading the good news."  And in Acts 20:20 the Bible describes how this good news was done, "publicly and from house to house."  The Bible has other examples of woment fulfilling this type of  ministry work.  Paul also spoke of "aged women" to be "teachers of what is good, that they may recall the young woment to their senses to love their husbands, to love their children." - Titus 2:3,4  So these women were given the assignment to teach the younger women in gaining maturity.

It is noteworthy that nowhere in the Bible are women to take the lead in standing before a congregation to teach.  In fact, Paul instructed women to "keep quiet in the meetings."  What did he mean by that?  Did he mean women are really not to speak?  NO.  It's simply that God assigned men adn women different roles.  The Bible clearly sets out qualifying standards that must be met to teach the congregation (with God's blessing).  Those are found at 1 Timothy 31-13 and Titus 1:6-9.  God has ordained that only men are to serve in position of spiritual teaching authority in the congregation.  Women are not to have spritual authority over men.

Headship is set out in the Bible at 1 Corinthians 11:3.  "The head of every man is the Christ; in turn the head of a woman is the man; in turn the head of the Christ is God."  There are circumstances in the Bible that describe the arrangement when a woman prays or prophesies in the congregation, occupying a position God as arrigend to the man, she should have on a head covering.  This is a temporary assignment only when there were no dedicated, qualifiet male christian present. - 1 Corinthians 11:5-16.

This would logically then preclude women from serving as pastors to men.  This does not make woment less important, but rather gives them a ministry focus under God's arrangement to preach the good news as ministers, not pastors. - Psalms 68:11.

Sometimes when a question has been answerd it leads to more questions, like: What does God require of us?  I offer a FREE BIBLE STUDY course that will answer these quesstions and others you may have.  Please use the comment section below to request information.