Women were the first witnesses of the resurrection, led early house churches, and bankrolled Paul's missions — so why does the church still argue about whether they're allowed to speak?

• NS

  Noah S.2w ago

  I was an elder in a Southern Baptist church for eleven years. My daughter graduated seminary with honors. She cannot preach in our denomination. A man who dropped out of community college and went through a six-week certificate program can. I love my tradition but I am not going to pretend that sits right with me anymore.

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• NB

  Noah B.1w ago

  I'm a female pastor. I've been doing this for 22 years. I have seen God move, people healed, marriages saved, addicts set free, the dead mourned with dignity. If my gender makes my ministry illegitimate, then someone needs to explain to me and my congregation why God keeps showing up anyway.

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• L

  Leo2w ago

  I grew up in a church where women weren't allowed to read Scripture from the pulpit but they could teach Sunday school, run the nursery, organize every single ministry, and basically hold the building together with their bare hands. Make it make sense. The real rule seems to be: women can do anything as long as a man gets the credit.

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• T

  Taylor1w ago

  I'm a 68-year-old man who spent decades believing women shouldn't preach. I changed my mind slowly and painfully and not because of culture pressure. I changed it because I kept reading the whole Bible and I couldn't make my position work without special pleading on every passage that didn't fit. I'm not saying I'm definitely right now. I'm saying the case isn't nearly as airtight as I was taught.

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• RR

  Ravi R.1w ago

  Comparing a female pastor to Balaam's donkey is not the slam dunk you think it is my friend

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• T

  Theo2w ago

  The 12 apostles argument never made sense to me. Jesus also chose 12 Jews. So should all pastors be Jewish men? Why do we apply the gender part but quietly drop the ethnicity part?

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• S9

  Sam 921w ago

  I left a complementarian church last year after fifteen years. The thing that finally broke me wasn't the theology debate. It was watching the women who did everything — the visitation, the counseling, the benevolence ministry, the children's programs — get absolutely no voice in ANY decision the church made. The theological position created a culture where women's wisdom was considered decorative. That's not a church I recognize from the New Testament.

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• M_

  Maya _x1w ago

  i keep seeing people say 'the Bible is clear on this' about both sides and guys the Bible is clearly not clear on this or we would not have had 2000 years of smart faithful Christians reading it and landing in very different places

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• ML

  Marco L.2w ago

  The complementarian position isn't about silencing women. It's about God-ordained order in the home and the church. 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14 are not cultural footnotes — they're apostolic instruction. The moment you start calling Paul's letters 'just for Ephesus,' you've handed yourself a tool to dismiss any verse you personally find inconvenient. Where does that end?

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• OS

  Omar S.2w ago

  As someone who has studied Koine Greek for fifteen years, the translation of 1 Timothy 2:12 is genuinely contested. The word 'authentein' appears exactly once in the entire New Testament. Exactly once. It almost certainly does not mean ordinary teaching authority — it carries connotations of dominance or even violence. Translating it as 'authority' and then building an entire ecclesiology on that single unique word is, at minimum, exegetically reckless.

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• RR

  Riley R.1w ago

  Something nobody mentions: the women who stayed at the cross when the men ran. The women who prepared the body. The women who were told by an angel to GO AND TELL. The first evangelists in history were women commissioned directly by the resurrection itself. If that doesn't count as divine authorization for women to proclaim the gospel, I genuinely don't know what would.

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• R

  Reese2w ago

  If you think letting women preach is progressive compromise with culture, explain to me how a 1950s American suburban ideal of gender roles is somehow more 'biblical' than 1st century Roman household codes that Paul was also working within. Complementarians are following their own cultural moment just as much as egalitarians — they just don't realize it because it's their culture.

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• M9

  Marco 921w ago

  What gets me is that the same traditions that say women can't preach because of Paul have no problem telling women to share their testimony, lead worship, or give 'a word of encouragement' from the platform — which is... preaching... but with a different label on it. It's theological whiplash every single Sunday.

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• I

  Iris1w ago

  If you are okay with women never being allowed to preach or lead based on their biology alone — a factor they did not choose and cannot change — explain to me how that is categorically different from any other form of discrimination the church has had to repent of. I'm genuinely asking. Not being snarky. I want the best answer the complementarian tradition has because I grew up in it and I'm still working through it.

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• R9

  Riley 922w ago

  my grandmother preached in a Pentecostal storefront church in rural Georgia in the 1940s. nobody had any theology degree. nobody cared about greek words. people got saved because God showed up when she preached. i dont think God was confused about her gender.

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• K

  Kofi1w ago

  Acts 2:17 — 'your sons AND YOUR DAUGHTERS will prophesy.' The Holy Spirit was explicitly poured out on women for public proclamation. If the Spirit gifts women to prophesy — and prophecy in the New Testament is public, edifying, and directional — then what exactly is the difference between that and preaching? Someone needs to explain that distinction to me because I have never gotten a satisfying answer.

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• F

  Feli1w ago

  Deborah. Y'all wanna talk about Deborah? She judged all of Israel. She led a military campaign. She's listed as a prophetess. Barak — a man, a military commander — refused to go to war unless she went with him. She is one of the most significant leaders in the entire Old Testament. And the text never once frames her leadership as a problem or a judgment on Israel. It just... describes it. Approvingly.

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• O

  Omar1w ago

  I went to seminary at a complementarian institution. They taught us that Priscilla's correction of Apollos happened 'privately' and therefore didn't violate the 1 Timothy passage. And I sat there thinking — the early church MET in private homes. There was no public/private distinction in the same way. We were drawing lines that the New Testament doesn't actually draw.

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• S

  Sam1w ago

  The 'slippery slope to affirming gay marriage' argument is a logical fallacy and I'm tired of seeing it deployed every time someone wants to shut down the women-in-ministry conversation. The Episcopal church and the Southern Baptist church disagree about BOTH issues for completely different reasons with completely different exegetical histories. Connecting them is a rhetorical move, not an argument.

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• LL

  Leo L.2w ago

  People forget that Phoebe is literally called a 'diakonos' — the same word used for male deacons throughout Paul's letters — AND a 'prostatis,' which means leader or patron. Paul commends her at the opening of his letter to Rome. Rome. The most important church he ever wrote to. Why would he send his most important theological letter with a woman if women had no authority to interpret or deliver it?

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• N

  Noah2w ago

  The Pentecostal/charismatic tradition has had women preachers since literally its founding at Azusa Street. Aimee Semple McPherson founded a whole denomination. This idea that restricting women in ministry is somehow the historic Christian consensus is... not accurate. It's the consensus of certain reformed and Catholic traditions. Not all of Christianity.

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• RK

  Riley K.1w ago

  The standard complementarian response to Deborah is that she was an exception during a period of crisis when no qualified man would step up. But that argument is never once stated in the text. They're importing it. The text says God raised her up. Period.

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• M

  Marco2w ago

  okay but Junia. JUNIA. Paul literally calls her an apostle and everyone just kind of... quietly changes the subject. If we can explain that away then we can explain away anything.

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• I_

  Iris _x1w ago

  Can we just be honest that a lot of this is about power and not Scripture? Men have controlled the institution for a long time. That's not a spiritual arrangement — it's a sociological one. The texts got recruited to justify what was already in place.

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• S

  Sam1w ago

  at some point you have to ask yourself: is my interpretation of these verses producing good fruit or bad fruit. churches that are genuinely egalitarian — where women and men serve alongside each other with full dignity — seem healthier than churches where women are managed and tokenized. Jesus said you'll know the tree by its fruit. that's not a perfect argument but it's not nothing either.

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• JK

  Jordan K.2w ago

  Here's what I don't understand about the egalitarian side. If Paul's restrictions are just cultural, what standard do you use to decide which of his instructions are cultural and which are timeless? You need an actual hermeneutic, not just vibes and discomfort. Because I find plenty of Paul's instructions uncomfortable. That doesn't make them optional.

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• OS

  Omar S.1w ago

  The Priscilla and Aquila situation genuinely deserves more attention. In Romans 16, Paul lists Priscilla FIRST — before her husband. In ancient literature that ordering is meaningful. She apparently had higher standing in the community. And she's the one who explained the way of God more accurately to Apollos — a man. In a private home, yes, but Apollos was a public preacher. She corrected a preacher. Does that not count as authority?

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• C

  Casey1w ago

  The fact that we are still having this debate in 2024 is not a sign that the question is hard. It's a sign that one side has too much institutional power to give up without a fight. I've sat in enough church board meetings to know exactly what that looks like.

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• F

  Feli1w ago

  With all due respect to the pastor above — God used a donkey to deliver a prophetic message. The effectiveness of ministry doesn't automatically validate the form of it. I know that sounds harsh and I don't mean it to demean anyone. But effectiveness is not the same as obedience.

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• TB

  Taylor B.1w ago

  Responding to the above — I do think it has relevance. I think it's relevant to any situation where women are being used as vectors for false teaching because they haven't been properly educated in the faith. Paul's solution in context seems to be: teach the women. Let them learn. Which is actually radically PRO-woman for the first century. The restriction is transitional, not eternal.

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• J

  Jordan2w ago

  Nope. Hard disagree with the whole framing. Jesus himself chose 12 male apostles. That was a deliberate decision. He could have chosen women — he clearly had no problem blowing up social conventions in every other area. The all-male apostolate is intentional and the church ignores it at its peril.

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• M

  Maya1w ago

  The Bible is clear. Clarity does not equal unanimity. People have also disagreed for 2000 years about the nature of Christ, predestination, and the atonement. That doesn't mean those topics aren't addressed clearly in Scripture — it means humans are stubborn and influenced by our contexts. Disagreement is not proof of ambiguity.

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• Y

  Yuki1w ago

  I'm Catholic so we have a different framework entirely. But I will say — the Protestant churches that went egalitarian didn't seem to get holier or more scripturally sound afterward. In many cases, women's ordination came in the same generation as blessing same-sex unions. I'm not saying it's a direct cause. I'm saying the pattern is real and worth discussing honestly.

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• K

  Kofi1w ago

  The answer to that last question is that complementarianism isn't about capability or worth — it's about role and design. Women aren't restricted because they're inferior; they're restricted in a specific function because of how God ordered creation before the fall. Whether you find that convincing is a separate matter. But the framework is not equivalent to racial discrimination, which has no grounding in creation order. Conflating them muddies a real theological distinction.

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• D

  Drew1w ago

  Honest question for the egalitarians in this thread: Do you believe the 1 Timothy 2 passage has ANY continuing relevance for the church today? Or is it entirely a situational address to a specific first-century crisis? If the latter, how do you determine that with confidence when we know almost nothing about the actual false teaching in Ephesus?

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• D2

  Diego 211w ago

  That's an incredibly cynical reading of church history and I don't think it holds up. The Fathers who restricted women's ordination were not primarily motivated by power hunger — many of them also voluntarily gave up wealth, families, and their own lives. Reducing everything to a power analysis sounds sophisticated but it actually explains nothing.

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• A

  Avery1w ago

  The 'fruit' argument cuts both ways. Plenty of churches that expanded women's roles also shrunk, split, or lost theological coherence. And plenty of healthy, growing, gospel-faithful churches remain complementarian. Anecdotes aren't data.

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• D

  Drew1w ago

  okay the complementarian answer to that Acts 2 point is usually that 'prophecy' and 'teaching' are two different gifts with two different levels of authority. i've heard that a thousand times and i still don't fully buy it but i want to be fair and put it on the table so people can engage with the actual argument instead of strawmanning it

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• HL

  Hana L.1w ago

  If you think women are being 'silenced' in your complementarian church and that's a problem — work to fix the culture, don't blow up the theology. The abuse of a principle doesn't invalidate the principle.

  38Reply

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