What is your church’s  view about women leading or teaching in the church?

Answer

Our church – Grapevine – does not prescribe any distinction between men and women in Ministry or Authority in our church organisation. Currently Grapevine Church is led by seven appointed Church Leaders (which equates to the biblical position of “Elders”), four male, three female.
Our Church Prayer Leader is female.
Our Sunday School leader is male.
Our seven elected Trustees (to whom the Church Leaders are accountable) currently comprise four males, three females.
The Chair of the Trustees is female.

We realise that many churches with whom we hold close relationships either disagree with this stand, or cannot yet muster enough support within themselves to decide as we have done. So, on what do we base our position?

In the New Testament we see Christian women in very prominent roles.
This is especially significant compared to the part played by women in the rest of Middle Eastern society in the time of Jesus.

We see women as Prophets (Acts 21:9)

A woman is a prominent Teacher (Acts 18:26)

A woman is an Apostle Romans 16:7.
“Junias”, as several translations have it, is an incorrect translation of what was most certainly a woman’s name “Junia”. This mistranslation has the effect of simulating a man’s name.
The Greek form linguistically allows for either rendering, but there was no masculine name of “June”  at the time. As in our society, “June” was an exclusively feminine name.
Those who seek to render it Junias, and so to claim that this apostle was male, are allowing their theological presuppositions to influence their translation.

Jesus, in assigning his own mother to John (John 19: 26-27) gave over her care to John, but also inescapably gave her a pastoral role over him.

Women were Deacons (Romans 16:1)

Women hosted church assemblies (Colossians 4:15)

The modern church, of whatever kind, seems to have no problem with women being evangelists, for many of the men of the church have abrogated their responsibilities in that respect and left the women of the church to fill most Missionary positions.

When we compare these roles with 1 Corinthians 12:27 and Ephesians 4:11, we can justifiably ask why a woman should be barred in the modern church from ministry she could exercise in the Early Church.

1 Corinthians 12:27-28 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.

Ephesians 4:11-12 11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,

The only other criteria to consider are Paul’s remarks about women not being allowed to teach. This can easily be attributed to the fact that women of the day typically had no education.  By contrast, my wife achieved a Distinction in her three year Bible College Studies, and is easily my equal theologically. Things are different now in this respect.