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Should Women Speak in Church?
| "Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence." (1 Timothy 2:11,12) NKJV |
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Let me share with you what I think Paul meant when he wrote what he did about women speaking in church. Though there is no evidence of women pastors in New Testament times, there is plenty of evidence in the Bible that God selected women for special ministry from time to time. Deborah was a prophet and a judge of Israel (Judges 4 and 5). God chose Huldah to be a prophetess from whom King Josiah sought advice in a time of great trouble (2 Kings 22; 2 Chronicles 34).
In New Testament times, Jesus was assisted in His ministry by many women. Peter raised Dorcas from the dead because she was such a blessing to the early church, Paul appreciated the help of many women as he worked as a missionary.
Through the ages, men have too often treated women as property, and even as slaves, but God created women to be a special blessing to the world. It is not His will that women should be second-class citizens. Peter in his sermon at Pentecost quoted the prophet Joel saying: "Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days." Acts 2:17,18. Paul says that in God's sight all are equal, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female (Galatians 3:28).
In the light of this Bible evidence, what could Paul have possibly meant when he counseled Timothy about women in 1 Timothy 2:11, 12? Was this counsel given for all time or was it for a specific group at a specific time?
The Scriptures exhort Christians to do everything decently and in order (1 Corinthians 14:40). In the days of Paul, custom required that women be very much in the background. Therefore, if women believers had spoken out in public or otherwise made themselves prominent, the cause of God would have suffered reproach.
However, in Ephesians 4:11-13 Paul says Jesus gives spiritual gifts. “It was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
Who decides who is to get these gifts? In 1 Corinthians 12:11 Paul says that the Holy Spirit gives these gifts “to each one, just as He determines.” If the Holy Spirit is the One who decides who is to get each spiritual gift, would it not be presumptuous of us to tell the Holy Spirit He could or could not call a woman to be a pastor or an evangelist, or to share with others her witness to what Jesus had done for her, or give her any spiritual gift He should choose?
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