Women Serving 'In The Church'

Does the Bible ever seem to contradict itself at times? Keyword there is “seem”. The Bible is the infallible Word of God. It is complete truth. People all down through time have tried to prove it wrong and have ended up believing in the Word.

I like to ask tough questions. I don’t mean to get controversial, but I do like to get to the bottom of things for myself. Just recently, I threw the question up on Facebook about women in ministry and in preaching roles. For myself, I have sat under some ladies and it was evident that they had studied and what they had to bring is very scriptural. Other times, I was wishing I was back at the sound board and little by little keep turning them down. I’m sitting there thinking “is this going somewhere?” I also know that women like to talk. I know that women can talk for hours and not say a thing.

All this brings up an interesting situation. Because certain verses in the Bible say that women should be silent. But then other verses say that if women prophesy, they have to have their heads covered. Seems a bit contradictory. “Ok, so you can’t talk. But if you do, you need to have your head covered.” It’s like ‘what?!?!’

A large part I think is what do we consider as a ‘church meeting’. I know Sunday mornings ‘we have church.’ First off, people are the church. A building is just a building. You can’t have a meeting without people. Try it and let me know how it works for you. Given the fact that people are the church body, that opens a new can of worms. Because then it’s like ok so when do we decide we’re ‘having church’? Is it just a Sunday morning or given the fact that we are the church, you could almost eliminate women speaking altogether! I’m not advocating that by any stretch of the imagination. But what is going on here?

To be honest with you, I’ve had some downright awesome encounters with God on a road trip in a van! We were praying and singing and people were reading different scriptures…. Is that church? Can you see how the lines would get a little blurry when you take the official meetings idea out of the picture? When you set aside the foul notion of ‘going to church’ rather than ‘being the church’ (quote from Dr. Brown… gotta give credit where it’s due).

I understand that at the time of Paul’s writings, there were certain things going on in the culture whereby he would’ve wrote what he wrote. But if it wasn’t for modern day, why put it in there then? There is a lot about the Bible that I have yet to learn. After graduating Bible school, it seems that the more you learn, the more you don’t know to an extent.

For myself, I see different ladies in the Bible who had leadership roles or positions of authority. Ladies like Deborab, Esther, Priscilla, Pheobe, just to name a few there. And I know for myself, I’ve been taught by some AWESOME ladies who have been able to really speak into my life. They didn’t hold any titles and/or positions, but they were just ladies who were mature in the Lord and I trusted to speak into my life. And their words were on the mark. But it wasn’t in any kind of official setting, but it was just a time of fellowship. So this is stuff that goes on in my mind. Just thought I’d share it w/ you all.