Women and Word, Part V
Over the past 2 months, I have looked at the teachings of Jesus, and the teachings of Paul in regards to the role of women in ministry. We have seen thus far that Jesus had women disciples, Paul worked with women leaders, and that the most famous scriptures used to ban women from leadership and ministry are often misinterpreted, taken out of context, or mistranslated. (See parts 2-4 of this blog series). Often, Christians will cite the Old testament (Hebrew scriptures) as a justification of prohibition of women in leadership. This is fair ground, as all scripture is inspired by God (II Tim 3:16). What is clear, is that there is not a single command in the Mosiac law or the entire Hebrew scriptures that forbids women from being in leadership or teaching. In fact, to the contrary, God used women in leadership despite the deeply entrenched cultural view in ancient Palestine that women were inferior or incapable of leading. Judges 4:4-7 Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappi