Can Women Pastor ?

[Sister Alvear]

It would be nice if every one had the spirit of Ruth that said, "Let me now go to the fields and glean." Such a golden spirit to posses amidst the clashing gods and national boundary lines. Her sickle is rusty, but the golden spirit of Ruth still prevails today among many of God’s hand-maidens who take their call of God seriously. She must preach glad tidings regardless of the cost. Ruth is long gone but her notable qualities live on.
If the Lord shows you a need, it is usually His way of saying to do something about it. Dorcas, the disciple, saw a need. Deborah saw a people that needed to be led. Anna, long waited to proclaim the Messiah. Huldah saw a need to interpret God’s laws. Miriam saw a need to play the tambourine and lead a dance unto the Lord. Many of these women received messages from God and relayed them to the people. Such a responsible position represents a unique closeness to God.

[Sister Alvear]

Voices from History

The radical change that happened during Constantine’s reign when Christianity became the official religion of Rome meant that Roman culture and pagan concepts would be mixed with pure Christianity. Thus they would try to ban the use of women through their pagan ideas once again.
Secular history supports the fact that women were preachers. Oregenes talks about it in his writing that the women went to far away areas carrying the gospel.
CHRYSOSTOM of the fourth century wrote "the women of those days were more spirited than lions, sharing with the Apostles their labors for the Gospel’s sake. In this way they traveled with them and performed small ministries such as supplying the material needs of their brethren, as well as, participating in missionary work" (See Chrysostom & Theodore).
IRENAEUS, acknowledged the Gifts of the Spirits were liberally bestowed on all ranks of the faithful on women as on elders, on boys as well as on bishops.
DOWELL, in Dissections of Irenaeus says, “the gift of the spirit of prophecy was given to them besides the Apostles: and that not only in the first, second, but in the third century even to the time of Constantine men had these gifts; yea, and women too."
TERTULLIAN, one of the oldest historians was quoted in an article, The Indian Standard (a Presbyterian magazine in India): AIn the Catacombs are found representations of women clergy and they are shown presiding at the Lord’s Supper...."
TERTULLIAN, was in intolerant of women, but he acknowledged that "Holy Priscilla had preached the
Gospel." Tertullian disliked Christian women doing visitation work saying, "What heathen will suffer his wife to go about from one street to another to the houses of strangers, to the meanest hovels, indeed, to visit the heathen? What heathen will allow her to steal away to the dungeon to kiss the chain of the martyr?"
Tertullian went as far as to deny the authenticity of a baptism performed by a woman. This seems to prove that the practice of baptism performed by women was happening in his day. But this early church father came to recognize that even a woman, if she “spoke with the Spirit” had more authority in then that of the greatest bishop. He represented an empty office compared to a woman who represented the Spirit.

[Sister Alvear]

DR. ADAM CLARKE, author of the famous Clark’s Commentaries, writes concerning 1 Corinthians 14:34 and 35 that it is: The ONLY ONE in the whole book of God which even by a false translation can be made prohibitory female speaking in the Church." How is it then, that by this one isolated passage, which according to our best Greek authorities is wrongly rendered and wrongly applied, woman’s lips have been sealed for centuries, and the testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit of Prophecy silenced, when bestowed on her? How is it that this solitary text has been allowed to stand unexamined and unexplained? Nay, the learned commentators who have known its true meaning, as perfectly as either Robinson, Bloomfield, Greenfield, Scott, Parkhurst, or Locke, have upheld the delusion, and enforced it as a Divine precept biding on all female disciples through all time? Surely there must have been some unfaithfulness, ‘craftiness and handling the word of life deceitfully’ somewhere. Surely the love of caste and unscriptural jealousy for a separated priesthood had something to do with this.


DEAN ALFORD, commenting on 1 Timothy 5:9 mentions, “It is an undisputed fact in church history that ‘women sat unveiled in the assemblies in a separate place, by the presbyters,’ and were ‘ordained by the laying on of hands’ until the Church Council of Laodicea forbade it in thee hundred years after Paul had written the epistle to the Corinthians."

BISHOP LIGHTFOOT, regarding the Greek word, "deaconess" being translated as a "servant" giving strong reason for belief that the original Greek word referred to women deacons, states: If the testimony bore... to a ministry of women in Apostolic times, had not thus been blotted out of our English Bibles...Our English Church would not have been maimed of one of her hands.

EUSEBRJS, ancient church historian referring to the four daughters of Philip who prophesied, as related in Acts 21:9, declared that these godly women fulfilled the work of evangelists, To preach Christ to those who had never yet heard the word of the faith, and deliver unto them the record of the Holy Gospels. He also refers to Potomania Ammias, a prophetess in Philadelphia, and others, who were equally distinguished for their love and zeal in the cause of Christ.

JUSTIN MARTYR, who lived about 150 A. D. says A...both men and women were seen among them who had the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit of God, according as the prophet Joel had foretold."

PLINY, the youngest governor of Bithyria wrote the Roman Emperor Trojan asking advice concerning the persecution of the Christians because people from all social classes were becoming Christians.
Here is a part of his letter: “I thought it necessary to know the truth about the Christians. So, I ordered two women slaves to be tortured; these slaves are called deacons, but it isn’t anything but superstitious beliefs. So I am sending this document to you to clarify this fact because the Christians are of all ages, classes, and both sexes.”
Pliny chose two women slaves like Phoebe who were also deaconesses to show what Christianity is like. Pliny referred to these two women as deacon or women ministers.

[Sister Alvear]

In recent history, the founder of the Pilgrim Holiness Church, Seth Rees claimed that "no Church that is acquainted with the Holy Ghost will object to the public ministry of women." (Hardisty, Nancy, Lucille Sides Dayton, and Donald W. Dayton, Women in the Spirit: Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian Tradition, edited by Rosemary Radford Ruether and Eleanor McLaughlin, 226-34, NY, Simen & Schuster, 1979).

Barbara J. MacHaffee states that women are truly instruments in the hands of God as they preach. She writes, "so far as Quaker women and their societies were concerned, they were simply instruments of God’s will when exercising a preaching ministry. (Barbara J. MacHafee, Her Story: Women In Christian Tradition, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1986, pg. 110).

Books could be written on women who preached in the early church. Women such as Maximilla and Prisca, who were two women preachers of the Montanist. Olympians, a deaconess of Constantinople and friend of Jon Chyposton. Sabeneana, aunt of Chysposton was also a woman preacher. Mary Greek in Sciption which mentions deaconesses belonging to Asia Minor: Nunes, Stateges Prebu and Matrona, at Axylos; Masa, Aurelia Faustina, and Paula at Loadicea; Combusta, Elaphea - deaconesses of the Encratik sect of Nevenne;
Timothea, at Koryos in Alicia; and Arte, in Aphrodesia in Caria

[Sister Alvear]

. I’ve taught this throughout Brazil so that people could understand God’s complete plan of redemption. Now others, too, may come to acknowledge the truth that women are being used as valuable instruments in the hand of God. I cringe to think that some may think I am putting men down and building up the sisters but that is not true it is only that what this book will be about is about sisters. I really feel that many sisters have stepped in because there was no man to do the job yet at other times I feel that there are those that were called from their mother’s womb. I long for the day when men and women will shake hands in agreement, together walking in Christ one mind and one accord reaching out to a hurting and dying world.
I never really “heard the voice of the Lord” call me to go “preach”, but He did call me to be a missionary. One day I heard him call my name. He told me to go to the people of Brazil. What could the word “missionary” mean? The meaning of “missionary” has various meanings to various people. One dictionary says it is a group of envoys (representatives or messengers) to a foreign country.
Well for me, it has meant going into the cities, the villages, the jungles, and telling a pagan people about the life-changing story of Jesus Christ. It has meant being challenged by witch doctors and priests, being threatened by bandits, standing before cannibal Indians, working in a leper colony as well as speaking in public schools and universities of Brazil.
It meant going into places where male preachers had never been yet they speak evil of me for being willing to go. I had to wade across alligator-infested streams just to reach and baptize new converts. Being a missionary meant mixing mortar and laying bricks to build new churches. It meant performing weddings, burying the dead, and sometimes delivering babies.
It meant teaching new converts and preparing people for the ministry. It meant seeing a work be born and grow into maturity. It meant hours of radio programs. It meant long nights without sleep, traveling in the back lands, drinking contaminated water and eating all kinds of so called foods (some of which were indescribable). It meant sharing rooms with bats, rats, and all sorts of animals that crawled and flew at night.
It meant sitting in the conventions in the homeland and listening to men who made cutting remarks about women in the ministry. It meant being willing to go against the tide and obey a call that is stronger than meager earthly ties. It meant being different from the ordinary. It meant loving souls, no matter the circumstances. It meant taking in abandoned children or children whose mother was murdered, adopting them and loving them like my own. It meant traveling down the lonely road of not knowing where the next meal would come from, nor the money to pay for the food should it come our way.
Perhaps most prophets and prophetesses in the Bible had to travel down lonely roads themselves to obey God yet they could not understand why at that moment. I, too, am at a loss for words to describe the desolate anguish I had experienced at times. Equally difficult to explain is the call of God so strong in my heart. Maybe it’s all part of being a missionary. How can you describe a feeling to deep for words, a call to sacred to play with? This burden so heavy that it never disappears. Maybe we could compare it with Jack London’s call f the wild.
While the church leaders agree all must hear and obey to be saved, the clergy fuss about who tells the story. What difference does it make which gender pulls a burning person from the flame? Or what difference does it make that a man or woman, male or female, saves the drowning persons from a torrid river?

[Sister Alvear]

Now all this comes from somene that has never said God called me to do anything other than be a missionary...

[Sam]

Sis. Alvear,
Ignore our silly nitpicking, theorizing, and wrangling and keep right on doing what God has called you to do. Your ministry has much more fruit than most (if not all) of us men on this forum.

[Sister Alvear]

I just feel for the millions that perish without one voice....and people are so carnal to fuss who takes the message and if it cannot be a man then the attitude is, let them perish...angels must be weeping...

[rdp]

Originally Posted by Sister Alvear

The so called Apostolic movement believes and follows whatever they want to...most believe Acts 2:38 but explain away the followering verses...lol...

You mean verses like I Tim. 2:11-15, or I Cor. 14:34???? Actually, the true "Apostolic" church will follow the Apostle Paul's clear teachings here! But since you've yet to engage I Tim. 2 on an exegetical plane, what else can I say, except that I believe what the Bible says over subjective experiences.

[rdp]

Originally Posted by Sister Alvear

We cannot find church buildings as we know them today in context with the church of ACTS...they followed some 200 years later...

The first church met in homes, on riverbanks and where ever...I hate to say this but many American men could not stay a week in the backlands where there is no comfort, no bathrooms and no running water...I never met one man that wanted to help me work in the leper colony...that gory place as it is called...yet I sleep with the lepers, buried their dead, ate with them and even cooked for them that THEY might be saved...

I am afraid most are far removed from the real work of the early church...

And I highly honor you for this, but I Tim. 2 is contextually speaking in a church setting, not witnessing to the lost...as EVERYONE should do. I've told you this for about the 5th time now & yet you just keep responding w/ the same thing.