Why Women Cannot Remain Silent in the Churches

Photo by Becky

The most important biblical text to understand the birth and mission of the Christian Church comes from the story of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2:17-21 — 

‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

That prophecy, originally from Joel in the Old Testament, was given to Peter to proclaim when he was filled with the Holy Spirit and preached to the people who were drawn by the commotion occurring at the house where the disciples were staying in Jerusalem.

The specifics of the prophetic message are noteworthy. In these last days, we are experiencing a time when the Spirit is being poured out on “all flesh.” That includes our “sons and daughters,” a promise that is echoed later when the Lord says that he will pour out his Spirit “on my male servants and female servants.” The message is clear: the Word of God will be proclaimed by men and women as the apocalyptic mission of the church goes forth into the world.

The presence of women (daughters/female servants) in the prophecy is significant in that the later history of missions in the Christian church was so often dominated by men. But that wasn’t the case in the earliest period of church history. We may tend to think most often about male leaders who play such a large role in the New Testament (and the Book of Acts in particular), like Peter and Paul. But if we read both Acts and the New Testament epistles carefully, we find that women had their own significant roles to play.

In the chapters of Acts that follow Pentecost, the prominence of women’s leadership is evident in many places. When Peter escapes miraculously from prison in Jerusalem, he goes immediately back to the house church that is being hosted by Mary, the mother of John Mark (Acts 12:12). During the second missionary journey of the Apostle Paul, another church planter by the name of Lydia hosts Paul and his companions in the city of Philippi (Acts 16:14-15). 

Later we encounter the missionary power couple, Priscilla and her husband Aquila. In Acts 18:26, they are described as instructing the great teacher and evangelist Apollos on baptism in Christ Jesus and reception of the Holy Spirit. Note that it is both of them who teach Apollos and not just Aquila. Paul will later refer to both Priscilla and Aquila as “my co-workers in Christ Jesus” in Romans 16:3.

Finally, on his way to Jerusalem at the end of his third missionary journey, Paul stops off in Caesarea Maritima where he stays with Philip the Evangelist. He is described as having “four unmarried daughters who prophesied” in Acts 21:9. So at the end of Paul’s traveling ministry, we get a mirror image to Peter’s words from Pentecost that “daughters” and “female servants” would have the Spirit poured out upon them and prophesy. Luke shows us that this was, in fact, the case as embodied in those four daughters of Philip.

All of these important roles taken on by women are often overlooked in a narrative that admittedly focuses on Peter and then Paul as the primary characters in the Book of Acts. But these women are all there, hiding in plain sight. They are proof positive that the Spirit was poured out on women as well as men to empower them for leadership in the early church.

Women’s leadership is not only evident in the Acts of the Apostles, either. The Apostle Paul’s valuation of women as leaders is evident from his own writing as well. Just as he mentions Priscilla in the closing greetings of Romans, so too does he mention Phoebe of Cenchreae. She is a deacon of the church and the person Paul trusts to deliver the letter to the Romans after he completes it in the city of Corinth (16:1-2). He mentions Junia as “outstanding among the apostles” and a believer longer than he himself had been (Romans 16:7). Mary, Tryphena, Tryphosa, and Persis are all women whom Paul commends as having “worked very hard in the Lord” (Romans 16:9 and 16:12). In the Letter to the Philippians, Paul refers to Euodia and Syntyche as women who “have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel” (Phil 4:2-3).

So what of the two famous (or perhaps infamous) passages of Scripture that are so often cited to suggest that women should hold no authority in the church — either as proclaimers of the gospel or ordained ministers? Those two passages are 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:11-15. The fact is that, when you encounter arguments that use them to denigrate women's leadership, they are almost always taken badly out of context. Paul’s counsel in 1 Corinthians is clearly an attempt to maintain order within services of worship in the church. It is not meant as a blanket condemnation of women’s speech in the church, which is evident enough from the fact that earlier in the same section of 1 Corinthians, Paul assumes that women will be praying and prophesying out loud in church (see 1 Cor 11:5).

Biblical scholar N.T. Wright is helpful in suggesting how we should read 1 Timothy 2:11-15. He points out that Paul is assuming that women will be learning. Indeed, he endorses the idea of women studying and learning the gospel to Timothy. This is a positive affirmation of their role in the church as disciples of Jesus and an echo of Mary of Bethany sitting at Jesus’s feet — accepted as an apprentice of the master, just as his male disciples were. Wright also points out that the larger context of this entire chapter of 1 Timothy is to encourage Timothy to teach his flock to worship and study in an attitude of humility. The likely destination for the First Letter to Timothy is Ephesus — which was a center the cult of the goddess Artemis. That cult was dominated by female priestesses whose public role would have been scandalous to monotheistic Jews and Christians. Thus, the counsel for women to learn “in quietness and full submission” is a direct counter to the pagan religious landscape that otherwise dominated the city. Christian believers are called to look and act different than the world.

The biblical scholar Ben Witherington III is famous for his aphorism that “a text without a context is just a pretext to make it say whatever you want it to mean.” Understanding the context in which Scripture was written can be hard work, but it is necessary. In this case, it helps us to make sense of why Paul would give certain instructions to the Corinthian church and to Timothy which seem, on the surface, to contradict his high valuation of women’s leadership elsewhere. Women believers were obviously an asset to Paul’s ministry. He worked with them extensively and deeply valued their leadership. He in no way sought to denigrate them or silence them from their Spirit-anointed calling to spread the gospel. So Paul’s context-specific comments in 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2 do not negate his clear endorsement of women’s leadership throughout his many years of ministry as seen in his letters and the Book of Acts.

Women will not be “silent in the churches” because the Holy Spirit does not want them to be. We are in the last days, and the Spirit is being poured out on all flesh. That includes both men and women. The most serious, evangelical reading of Holy Scripture can only lead us to the conclusion that God is raising up women as well as men to preach, prophesy, and pray in the name of Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. We should celebrate women’s calling to leadership and rejoice in the way God is using them to minister in the church.

Andrew C. Thompson is the lead pastor of First Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He holds a Th.D. from Duke University and hosts the Spirit Power & Grace podcast.