Originally posted by Dr. Bob Griffin:
I understand "the times they are a'changing", but please give me one NT scripture verse that shows an ordained woman.
If (third class conditional) there are none, then it is all opinion and tradition.
If you mean by being ordained as set aside for a particular task then it is easy to name some. Phoebe was a servant of the church. In the Early Church Fathers we see evidences of women doing ministry (deaconesses)with the instrucction of women and children and serving the needy. Never did a pastor counsel a woman directly. This is still taboo in some of those same countries where Christianity spread to shortly after Christ.
a. We know that Phoebe in Rom. 16:1- 2 is called a diakonos
Rom. 16:1 2 - "I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea; that you receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and that you help her in whatever matter she may have need of you; for she herself has also been a helper of many, and of myself as well."
She obviously was a servant in the church. Paul refers to her as a servant, a diakonos, the same word used for deacon. As we look at Paul's writings he does not emphasize the office, but rather the function.
b. In Hebrew there is no word for wife. The way it was expressed was "the woman of him." This very same expression is used in the NT. In Greek there is only one word for woman and it can mean either woman or wife.
Of the 215 uses of the word for woman, only one seems to be controversial in its translation.
In the text it will have the woman of him or the woman of a man's name to denote a wife
It is clear from the context that it is someone’s wife that is being talked about.
The word used ofr "Woman" is always clear from the context
c. In the Greek text there is not a definite article before women or at least a genitive pronoun following the word "woman". This would lead one to translate that word "women" and not "wives"
d. Another point is this: if Paul did mean wives of deacons, then why did he not include a corresponding set of qualifications for the wives of pastors?
e. There is plenty of evidence that the early church utilized women in ministry. There were women whose responsibility was to work with other women and children. They performed pastoral work with the sick and the poor and helped at baptism. From the earliest times deaconesses visited the sick, acted as door-keepers at the women's entrance to the church, kept order among church women, taught females in preparation for baptism and acted as sponsors for homeless children. They also carried official messages. There was a clearer line drawn between the sexes than there is today. Women deacons were not on the same level as men deacons. They could not teach and minister to mixed groups of people or men, and they were not ordained.
For the first 1200 years of Christianity there is loads of evidence of woman deacons in the church. However, the Western Roman Catholic church never had them. Whereas the eastern church did
Almost every country outside of the U.S. has women deacons in Baptist churches.
f. The emergence of deaconesses is unclear. But in the third and fourth centuries the office deaconess developed greatly. In a letter dated 112 A.D. Governor Pliny wrote a letter to the emperor Trajan. 'In it he mentions a couple of deaconesses. (Book X, XCVI, 8, 289)
In the typical chruch of that day and even in some today if the pastor wants to communicate with a woman in the congregation he will go through a deacon who speaks to the deaconess who speaks to the woman. The pastor never speaks with a woman directly at first. He goes through the chain first. If it something important he goes down the chain first. I know this is even practiced today in some of the countries nearby that area of the NT. In some of those countries the women sit on one side and the men on the other. I saw this even in the US among the elderly because so many women are without a husband and there are few men.
