L
ltwin
Guest
Most Pentecostal churches permit women to be ordained. We’ve had women pastors, evangelists, and ministers since the beginning of the movement in the first decade of the 20th century and even earlier through the Holiness Movement.
I say that to emphasize that Pentecostals did not ordain women in response to a feminist or liberal agenda, but based on our reading of the whole Bible in context and our experience of the Holy Spirit’s work. It was promised that the Holy Spirit would be poured out on all flesh, and this promise is being fulfilled.
In an 2000 issue of Enrichment Journal, Pentecostal scholar Craig S. Keener writes in “Was Paul For or Against Women in Ministry?” the following:
. . . In any case, here Paul also forbade women to “teach,” something he apparently allowed elsewhere (Romans 16; Philippians 4:2,3). Thus he presumably addressed the specific situation in this community. Because both Paul and his readers knew their situation and could take it for granted, the situation which elicited Paul’s response was thus assumed in his intended meaning.
It is probably no coincidence that the one passage in the Bible prohibiting women teaching Scripture appears in the one set of letters where we explicitly know that false teachers were targeting and working through women. Paul’s letters to Timothy in Ephesus provide a glimpse of the situation: false teachers (1 Timothy 1:6,7,19,20; 6:3—5; 2 Timothy 2:17) were misleading the women (2 Timothy 3:6,7). These women were probably (and especially) some widows who owned houses the false teachers could use for their meetings. (See 1 Timothy 5:13. One of the Greek terms here indicates spreading nonsense.)25 Women were the most susceptible to false teaching only because they had been granted the least education. This behavior was bound to bring reproach on the church from a hostile society that was already convinced Christians subverted the traditional roles of women and slaves.26 So Paul provided a short-range solution: “Do not teach” (under the present circumstances); and a long-range solution: “Let them learn” (1 Timothy 2:11).
Today we read, “learn in silence,” and think the emphasis lies on “silence.” That these women were to learn “quietly and submissively” may reflect their witness within society (these were characteristics normally expected of women). But ancient culture expected all beginning students (unlike advanced students) to learn silently; that was why women were not supposed to ask questions (as noted above). The same word for “silence” here is applied to all Christians in the context (2:2). Paul specifically addressed this matter to women for the same reason he addressed the admonition to stop disputing to the men (2:8): They were the groups involved in the Ephesian churches. Again it appears that Paul’s long-range plan was to liberate, not subordinate, women’s ministry. The issue is not gender but learning God’s Word. . . .
This does not forbid women from being overseers. Paul, like many writers then and now, is using the universal masculine. Women can meet all of these requirements: they can be above reproach, the wife of one husband, etc.
This passage is also addressed by Keener:
Paul elsewhere affirmed women’s role in prayer and prophecy (11:5), so he cannot be prohibiting all kinds of speech here. (In fact, no church that allows women to sing actually takes this verse to mean complete silence anyway.) Since Paul only addressed a specific kind of speech, we should note that the only kind of speech he directly addressed in 14:34—36 was wives asking questions.19 In ancient Greek and Jewish lecture settings, advanced students or educated people frequently interrupted public speakers with reasonable questions. Yet the culture had deprived most women of education. Jewish women could listen in synagogues, but unlike boys, were not taught to recite the Law while growing up. Ancient culture also considered it rude for uneducated persons to slow down lectures with questions that betrayed their lack of training.20 So Paul provided a long-range solution: The husbands should take a personal interest in their wives’ learning and catch them up privately. Most ancient husbands doubted their wives’ intellectual potential, but Paul was among the most progressive of ancient writers on the subject.21 Far from repressing these women, by ancient standards Paul was liberating them.22
This text cannot prohibit women’s announcing the word of the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:4,5), and nothing in the context here suggests that Paul specifically prohibited women from Bible teaching. . . .
Simply put, for those Christians who do not have the notion of a “ministerial priesthood” women can be laborers in the Gospel, which include preaching, teaching, pastoring, “serving” (i.e. the diaconate), and prophesying.
but I would expect a city like London to have a whole host of churches. In fact the vicar of a CofE church said to me, that’s one good thing about London - you have lots to choose from!