Today I'm thinking about two assumptions we bring to the NT text re: women's ordination: 1. We tend toward translation choices that prefer male-only ordination. 2. We write our own contemporary understanding of ordination onto the NT church 🧵1/?

NEW EPISODE on “biblical womanhood” with Dr. Philip Payne, author of several studies on women in ministry, including, The Bible vs. Biblical Womanhood: How God's Word Consistently Affirms Gender Equality (Zondervan Academic). Check it out! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…

Paul values both marriage and singleness, for men and women alike. In 1 Cor 7, he encourages Christians to stay single to be more devoted to God's work, but also blesses those who desire to marry and describes how Christian marriage should work: mutually, not hierarchically.

Paul has been castigated as a stone-faced misogynist. Yet, his letters reveal that he accepts women as ministry leaders and respects and honors women who labor for the Lord, not as his subordinates but as his partners and equals.

Jesus is crucially important for our theology of man and woman. Since Christ treated women as equal to men, any theology of woman that does not do similarly is not Christian.

I just saw that the ebook for The Bible vs. Biblical Womanhood is on sale for $3.99 right now! amazon.com/dp/B0B5CVBJ4R

Paul never distinguished the freedom of men from the freedom of women. For Paul, arbitrarily stratified social status is repugnant, whether determined by race, nationality, economics, or gender.

The classic statement repudiating ethno-religious, socioeconomic, and gender discrimination in the church is Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male more female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

Paul's praise of his female coworkers in the gospel (for example, Romans 16) shows that he didn't just pay lip service to the equality of men and women–he refused to perpetuate social hierarchy in the church.

Fascinating. James Dobson’s grandmother and great-grandmother were ordained ministers.

We should not infer from the Bible’s descriptions of patriarchal societies that it endorses patriarchy any more than its descriptions of polygamy endorse polygamy.

Important typo correction! It is 7pm PST, not EST. 10pm EST.

My Zoom talk tonight at 7pm PST/10pm EST will be recorded, with a link sent out to all registered participants, so you can sign up for it even if you can't make that time. eventbrite.ca/e/lets-talk-ab…