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.
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 (reference Weatherly).
It was in the 5th century that Rome began opposing strongly the woman. (The First Council of Orange, canon 25)
The true Apostolic church has always recognized the ministry of women. Although we do not know the authors of several books, the Bible, some have said no woman ever wrote a book in the Bible. Perhaps not or perhaps the unnamed author of the book of Hebrews was a …um…a woman?! Now, that’s an interesting thought.
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