Leadership #9 - Women in Ministry -
About this sermon
Dean Odle argues that passages commonly used to silence all women in church must be interpreted grammatically, historically, and in harmony with the rest of Scripture. He points to women prophesying in Acts and 1 Corinthians, studies the Greek word gynē in its contexts, and contends that Paul’s restrictions address disorder and marital authority rather than a universal ban on women speaking or ministering.
Chronological teaching outline
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Odle begins with hermeneutical principles: a passage must be read grammatically, historically, contextually, and alongside the Bible’s other teaching. A humorous reference to reading ordinary signs shows why words cannot be detached from their setting without producing an absurd meaning.
Acts 2 and 21 are used to show daughters and women prophesying in gatherings where the Spirit is poured out on both sexes. Peter’s Pentecost quotation about sons, daughters, servants, and handmaidens and Philip’s four prophesying daughters establish the positive evidence first.
Because Paul regulates both tongues and prophecy in gathered worship, Odle argues that ‘silence’ cannot mean women may never speak at all. Paul tells tongue-speakers and prophets to keep silence in defined circumstances, proving that the command is temporary and situational rather than absolute.
A study of the Greek gynē and the instruction to ask husbands at home leads him to read the disputed passage as addressing wives and marital disorder. The instruction to learn from one’s own husband would be impossible for an unmarried woman or widow if Paul meant every female attendee.
Odle applies the same contextual approach to ‘I suffer not a woman to teach,’ interpreting authority in relation to a wife and husband rather than every woman and man. He argues that the passage concerns a wife taking wrongful authority over her own husband, while other texts clearly permit women to pray and prophesy.
Phoebe, Priscilla, and other New Testament women demonstrate active service, instruction, patronage, and labor in gospel ministry. Romans 16 commends Phoebe’s service and Priscilla’s labor; Odle treats these names as evidence that women were not passive spectators.
He distinguishes headship in marriage from a prohibition on spiritual gifts and argues that women may preach, teach, prophesy, and lead ministries. Examples from joint husband-and-wife ministry show how a woman’s public gift can operate without erasing the order of her marriage.
Romans 16’s Andronicus and Junia and terms for service or oversight are examined as evidence of significant female ministry. Junia’s standing among the apostles and the range of New Testament ministry terms challenge a narrow restriction of every leadership function to men.
Biblical examples are joined with Aimee Semple McPherson and other Christian women whose preaching centered on Jesus and produced enduring fruit. McPherson’s preaching of Christ crucified, risen, saving, and healing is assessed by its gospel content and fruit rather than dismissed because of her sex.
The conclusion warns churches not to suppress women whom God has called and thanks the Lord for women used powerfully in ministry. Odle ends by arguing that resistance to all female ministry may reflect dead tradition, while Spirit-led service should remain accountable to Scripture.
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- 0:00:01
All right, good morning everyone. We want to welcome our students to Fire and Gray School of Ministry. This morning we are in our second semester and this is our leadership block, block number six. And today we're going to address the controversial topic of women in ministry. Women in ministerial leadership is that permissible? Women teaching and preaching, prophesying in church, is that permissible? The reason we have to address this, of course, is there's a couple of passages that sound like it's forbidding that. But we have other passages that, of course, show the opposite of that. So whenever we have what appears to be a contradiction or just terms that are situations that seem to be completely opposite, that's always a sign that either we're going to have to dig deeper into the original languages. We have to dig deeper maybe into context or the culture or the historical issues there. But today we're going to resolve this issue because there's a lot of misinformation, misinterpretation, bad hermeneutics, and all kinds of stuff pertaining to women being in the ministry, particularly in leadership and preaching, teaching, operating, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit in church. So let's address this today. Again, this is women in ministry. And so we're going to start today here with this. I want everybody to write this down or screenshot this. I want everybody to memorize this. This is so, so very important. Of course, we covered hermeneutics in this class a few weeks ago, the laws of biblical interpretation. I think I gave you six laws of biblical interpretation. Of course, this is one of them, comparing scripture with scripture. But I just thought that this statement was very, very good. And I have to give credit where credit is due. Brother Kenneth E. Hagan many, many years ago, back I think back in the 70s or so, he wrote a book called The Woman Question. Very, very well done. But this is a direct quote from him in this book, but it is so true. And of course, he was quoting another well-known theologian of his day, quoting this. But anyway, says here, every scripture or every scripture passage, you could say,
- 0:03:03
but every scripture must be interpreted in the light of what other scripture says on the same subject. It must harmonize with all scripture. There are no contradictions in scripture. Okay, that's something we need to get a hold of. There are no contradictions. God does not contradict himself. Now, sometimes it does appear that he says, do something here. But then over here, he says, do the opposite. Well, again, what is that? Sometimes it's context, you know, sometimes it's, it's proper to use the bathroom in the bathroom, not in the sanctuary. You know, that's, I could tell you use the bathroom and you could say, well, see, that means I can use the bathroom anywhere. No, context. Don't use the bathroom in the sanctuary. Use the bathroom in the bathroom. Right. And that's what happens in scripture a lot. We need to, we always have to make sure we understand the context of where something is. But I want to put that back up again. I just want to drill this home this morning. Every scripture or every scriptural passage must be interpreted in the light of what other scriptures say on the same subject must harmonize with all other scripture. Whenever a person, pastor, preacher, teacher, Christian, doesn't matter. Anybody that tries to take a passage and say it applies across the board when there's other passages that are talking about it and may have different little nuances, then, you know, you're being dishonest or you're just that ignorant. I don't know which one it may be, but you just, every time somebody does that, they, they take one passage. They don't consider the rest of the passages that talk about the same subject. They always come out in error. And when you get in error, you hurt people because misunderstandings, misinterpretations, wrong doctrine hurt people. In particular, a lot of women get hurt over this subject because there's a lot of prejudice. There's a lot of doctrines of men, traditions of men, and just like I said, bad interpretation, bad understandings. And so in the process, a lot of women get hurt. Some, some that have been called to the ministry by God have been discouraged from even trying, have walked away. And, and thus the body of Christ has been hurt and people that they would have, you know, edified and strengthened and built up and equipped or, or brought to know Jesus as Savior, you know, that's been hurt. So we don't want to hurt people, but of course we don't want to violate scripture. So we need to understand how it works. All right. So let's, let's continue on. I want to just review a little bit real quickly, of course, from the hermeneutics class a few weeks
- 0:06:03
ago. I'm not going to read all of this, but the laws of law two of biblical hermeneutics or biblical interpretation. The second crucial law of biblical hermeneutics is that passages, Bible passages must be interpreted historically. Interpreting a passage historically means that we must seek to understand the culture, background, and situation that promoted the text. So that's very important. We must understand the culture, the background, the history. So that's one of the laws that must be interpreted historically, culturally. And then also there were law number three of biblical hermeneutics. We're supposed to interpret a passage, Bible passage grammatically. This requires one to follow the rules of grammar and recognize the nuances of Hebrew and Greek. So very important. We're going to be doing these things today when we study this. Law four, the fourth law of biblical hermeneutics is that scriptures must be interpreted in context. Context is everything, everything, everything, okay? And again, understanding God will not contradict Himself. So if there seems to be a contradiction, an apparent contradiction or conflict, then it's something we don't understand, not something that God did wrong in His holy inspired scriptures. Law five of biblical hermeneutics that we covered was the fifth law of biblical hermeneutics. That scripture is always the best interpreter of scripture or comparing scripture with scripture. So let's get to that this morning in this context. All right, so the question, you know, can women be in the ministry? Can they be in leadership? Can they preach, teach, prophesy? We're going to get to the verses that seem to appear to say that they can't, but let's just look at this first here because this is Acts chapter two verse 16 through 21. This is on the day of Pentecost, and let me just say this too in context of this. This was in the first few verses in the Acts chapter two. In the day of Pentecost, there was 120 people in the upper room, men and women, and when the Holy Spirit came upon them and they were all baptized in the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance, that was women. Women were included there in the church service speaking in tongues out loud. So in the beginning of the church, women were speaking in church. Right? So just remember that one as we progress through this. Obviously, God didn't have a problem with women speaking in tongues in the church assembly. Remember the church is just where two
- 0:09:07
or three are gathered together in the name of Jesus, right? That's considered a church. It doesn't matter what kind of building you're in. It doesn't matter if you're outdoors. If the body of Christ, a group of people gathered together in the name of Jesus, that's considered church. All right? Assembling together. But he goes on here and this is a prophecy from the book of Joel concerning the last days. Peter quoted this on the day of Pentecost, you know, a little while after they received the baptism and the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And he said this here, but this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, and it shall come to pass in the last day, saith God, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. So that means men and women. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your daughters shall prophesy. That is so very important to get a hold of this. Your daughters shall prophesy speak by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Now I'm going to show you in a second. The gift of prophecy, it says, is very clear, is for the edification, the building up, the strengthening of the church. God's not going to have women prophesy, you know, as hermits in the desert somewhere. The gift of prophecy is for the edification, the building up, the strengthening, the exhortation, the encouraging, the correction even of the church, which contains, guess what? The church contains men and women. So this right here, he says, I will pour out, God said, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. And then he says it again, and all my servants and all my handmaidens, that's women, females, or as we call them here, femaleis, right, dudettes, all right, all my servants and all my handmaidens, I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy. And he goes on to say, and I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood before the great and notable day of the Lord come. There's come to pass, and whosoever shall call in the name of the Lord shall be saved. So he is talking about not just in that time of the first century, but he goes on to talk about the days when the sun will be darkened, going all the way to the end to the second coming of Jesus. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your handmaidens, femaleis, dudettes, too. All right, so let's keep going in this. Let's see if it will. Okay, here's Acts 21, 7 through 11 here.
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