In 2000, James Merritt, then president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said, "The scripture makes it very plain without any apology that the calling of God into the ministry . . . is for men only."

Deborah P. Brunt

 

I admire people who know lots of people - and can keep their names straight. Paul the apostle had that knack.

 

He mentioned numerous people in his letters, calling their names correctly and often identifying a specific trait or aspect of their lives.

 

How easy for us to applaud this feat, even seek to replicate it - yet fail to recognize the significance of these "pleasantries." Eager to get to the meat of the Word, we scoot right past such personal greetings, counting them as irrelevant as genealogies and Old Testament sacrifices.

 

In so doing, we rob ourselves.

 

"Every Scripture is God-breathed (given by His inspiration) and profitable . . ." (2 Tim. 3:16 AMP).

 

Every Scripture. God-breathed. Profitable.

Take Romans 16:1-16 and 1 Corinthians 16:15-18. In each case, while closing a letter to the believers in a certain city, Paul included personal remarks regarding individuals he knew. Writing the church in Rome, Paul greeted or commended 29 people, all but two of whom he called by name.

Writing the church in Corinth, Paul commended three people who had visited him, supplying his needs and refreshing his spirit. Paul began his commendation by singling out one of the three, asking the Corinthians, "Would you do me a favor, friends, and give special recognition to the family of Stephanas?" (1 Cor. 16:15 MSG).

Together, these two passages offer us far more than a peek into first-century niceties. These greetings prove astonishingly profitable, as we consider who Paul identified and how he described them.

Paul had not traveled to Rome when he wrote his letter to the church there. How amazing that he knew 29 believers well enough to send them greetings! How significant, the prominence of women among those Paul singled out!

• Of the 29 people greeted, 10 are women.
• Of the first seven people named, four are women: Phoebe, Priscilla, Mary, and Junia.
• Of the 12 whose participation in ministry Paul affirmed, seven are women - the four named above, plus Tryphena, Tryphosa and Persis. (In addition to these seven, Paul greeted three other women: Rufus' mother, Julia and Nereus' sister.)

We cannot begin to understand the import of Paul's greetings without first asking the Holy Spirit to remove the Christian leadership grid we've learned to lay across the New Testament. The Scripture recognizes nothing of our typical church organizational charts, but we cannot see beyond them.

Further, the bias against women in many Bible translations (see article, "Where Have All the Women Gone?") hides the beautiful pearls these passages contain. Yet now, humbling ourselves before God, let's look at the seven women Paul identifies in Romans 16:1-16 in connection with ministry.

Spirit of the living God, you inspired these words. Open them to us.

Phoebe did not live in Rome. She traveled to Rome and, while there, apparently delivered the letter we know as Romans. What a crucial assignment Paul entrusted to her! Further, he wrote in Romans 16:1-2: "I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me."

Paul declared, "I commend Phoebe to you. I stand with her. I unreservedly endorse her" (Women, 149). He urged, "Receive this woman. Assist her in whatever way she needs." According to Today's New International Version (TNIV), Paul called Phoebe a "benefactor" and a "deacon." How telling that New American Standard (NASU) and New King James translate the same two Greek words as "helper" and "servant."

The latter renderings make Phoebe's role sound as if it did not involve leadership, but the biblical text indicates the opposite. Ancient Greek writers used the word protastis (translated "benefactor" or "helper" in v. 2) "to describe the noblest, most gracious, and beneficial rulers. Emperors, kings, governors, nobles, patriarchs, captains, and numerous other authoritative officials were referred to by this word," says David Hamilton in Why Not Women?, co-written with Loren Cunningham (151).

As to the Greek diakonos (translated "deacon" or "servant" in v. 1), Paul used this term 21 times in his letters, Romans to Philemon. Seventeen times, the King James Version (KJV) renders this word "minister"; three times, "deacon"; and once, in reference to the woman Phoebe, "servant."

Perusing these 21 occurrences, we find that every time Paul used the word diakonos (minister, servant), he referred to someone carrying out a leadership role. Paul employed this noun to describe: Jesus, government leaders, false apostles (speaking sarcastically), church leaders, Apollos, Paul himself and his coworkers, Tychicus, Epaphras, Timothy - and Phoebe.

Paul took his cue from Jesus, who had employed the word diakonos to teach what Kingdom leadership looks like. Jesus said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant [diakonos], and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served [diakoneo] but to serve [diakoneo], and to give his life a ransom for many" (Matt. 20:25-28 NRSV, italics mine).

Paul, Apollos, Timothy and Phoebe were ministers who led by serving.

After commending Phoebe, Paul began saying, "Hello." First on the list? "Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus ... Greet also the church that meets at their house" (Rom. 16:3,5).

How interesting that Paul mentions Priscilla first, before her husband Aquila! Indeed, Priscilla's name appears first in five of the seven New Testament references to the couple. David Hamilton says, "This is contrary to the Roman custom of naming the man first when referring to a couple. In fact, this was so rarely done in antiquity that it seems to indicate that Priscilla was the more prominent member of this ministry couple" (Women, 145).

Paul called both Priscilla and Aquila his sunergos, "co-workers." He counted Priscilla as much a part of his ministry team as Timothy (Rom. 16:21), Titus (2 Cor. 8:23), Epaphroditus (Phil. 2:25), Mark and Luke (Philemon 24) - for Paul used the same term, sunergos, in describing them all. Scripture shows Paul's "fellow workers" proclaiming, teaching, writing and overseeing, in addition to serving in less visible ways.

Priscilla and Aquila had met Paul in Corinth after leaving Rome under edict of Emperor Claudius. They worked and served alongside Paul for some time. At one point, Paul left the couple in Ephesus, trusting them to represent him there while he traveled on to other places. In Ephesus, the two heard Apollos teaching boldly about Jesus, but knowing only "the baptism of John." They didn't wring their hands or wait for Paul to return. "When Priscilla and Aquila heard him [Apollos], they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately" (Acts 18:26).

Named first in this passage also, Priscilla apparently took the lead in teaching this fiery preacher. When she and Aquila later returned to Rome and started a church in their house, do you think Paul's co-worker Priscilla served solely as a smiling hostess?

Paul mentions another woman in Romans 16:7, along with a man, apparently her husband: "Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was."

Apostles lead. They teach, preach and evangelize. They exercise spiritual authority. Here, Paul greets a woman apostle.

Ah, but an interesting thing happened to Junia the apostle roughly 1500 years after she lived. She underwent "a sex-change-by-translation," says Elizabeth Castelli. About the time of the Reformation, translators began rendering Junia as the male, Junias, thus changing Scripture to coincide with their view of the "scriptural" role of women. Bernadette Brooten offers this tongue-in-cheek description of such thinking: "Because a woman could not have been an apostle, the woman who is here called apostle could not have been a woman" (Junia, 59).

Alas, Martin Luther himself introduced Junia's sex change. In a scholarly book that traces in great detail the history of this bit of Scripture tampering, Eldon Jay Epp quotes Louis Schottroff: "Only since the Middle Ages, and primarily because of Luther's [German] translation, has the view prevailed that Junia was not a woman but a man by the name of Junias" (Junia, 38).

Interestingly, the KJV didn't follow Luther's lead. Though quite gender-biased in other ways, this translation released in 1611 allowed Junia to remain Junia. Indeed, not until the nineteenth century did English Bible translations begin to reflect Luther's thinking. Even more recently, some commentators have admitted to Junia's being a woman - then insisted that the phrase, "outstanding among the apostles," doesn't mean "outstanding among the apostles," but rather "well-thought-of by the apostles."

Yet Paul himself, unaware that he couldn't say what he said, not only called Junia an apostle, but commended her as an "outstanding" one.

In Romans 16, Paul also greeted four women we know nothing about except that, in Paul's words, they "worked very hard": Mary (v. 6), Tryphena, Tryphosa and Persis (v. 12). Paul employed the Greek word kopiao three times to designate these women. He used this same word four times of himself.

In 1 Corinthians 4:9, 12, he said, "But sometimes I think God has put us apostles on display, like prisoners of war at the end of a victor's parade, condemned to die. We have become a spectacle to the entire world - to people and angels alike. . . . We have worked wearily [kopiao] . . ." (NLT, italics mine).

In 1 Corinthians 15:10, Paul wrote, "But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his special favor on me - and not without results. For I have worked harder [kopiao] than all the other apostles, yet it was not I but God who was working through me by his grace" (NLT, italics mine).

Since Paul used kopiao to refer specifically to his labor in his apostolic role, we dare not assume the hard work that Mary, Tryphena, Tryphosa and Persis did involved everything except leadership.

"Would you do me a favor, friends, and give special recognition to the family of Stephanas?" Paul asked, in to 1 Corinthians 16:15, The Message. "You know, they were among the first converts in Greece, and they've put themselves out, serving Christians ever since then. I want you to honor and look up to people like that: companions and workers who show us how to do it, giving us something to aspire to."

TNIV renders Paul's words this way: "You know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and they have devoted themselves to the service of the Lord's people. I urge you, brothers and sisters, to submit to such as these and to everyone who joins in the work and labors at it."

Paul commended Stephanas and "household" for devoting themselves to serving (diakonia), joining in the work (sunergeo) and laboring at it (kopiao). See any Greek words you recognize? That's right. Paul used different forms of these very words in describing the seven women named in Romans 16:1-12.

After commending the Stephanas household, Paul urged, "Submit to such as these" (1 Cor. 16:15). He instructed, "Deeply appreciate and thoroughly know and fully recognize" them (1 Cor. 16:18 AMP).

As F. F. Bruce has said: "[Paul] seems to make no distinction between men and women among his fellow workers. Men receive praise, and women receive praise for the collaboration with him in the Gospel ministry, without any suggestion that there is a subtle distinction between the one and the other in respect of status or function" (Women, 149).

Yet, translators have created distinctions that Paul did not. A number of English translations include the word "men" at least once and sometimes twice in 1 Corinthians 16:15-18, though the word does not appear in the Greek. Where Paul says, "submit to such," NASU says, "be in subjection to such men." Where Paul says, "acknowledge such," NASU says, "acknowledge such men."

This, in spite of the fact that the Greek Stephanas was a woman's name! (Remember Lydia and her household in Philippi?) David Hamilton writes, "Since Stephana in this instance was clearly someone in authority, commentators and translators have assumed that Stephana was a man, even though the most natural sense of the Greek would appear to point to a woman" (Women, 148).

Even if Stephanas was male, the "household" that Paul commended for serving (diakonia), joining in the work (sunergeo) and laboring at it (kopiao), surely included women, as well as men. Thus, Good News Translation says in 1 Corinthians 16:16, "follow the leadership of such people as these, and of anyone else who works and serves with them."

Further, in Romans 16, Paul specifically mentioned women "such as these," endorsing Phoebe the diakonos, Priscilla the sunergos, and Mary, Tryphena, Tryphosa and Persis, the hard workers (kopiao) - not to mention Junia the apostle.

In 2000, James Merritt, then president of the Southern Baptist Convention said, "The scripture makes it very plain without any apology that the calling of God into the ministry . . . is for men only" (Sisters, 83).  

Oh?

The greetings in Paul's New Testament letters - the ones translators have altered and we often bypass - say otherwise. Indeed, without any apology, Scripture makes plain how all of us are to respond to the person ministering as Stephanas and Phoebe, Priscilla and Persis did:

"Honor and look up to people like that."

"Follow the leadership of such people."  

"Submit to such as these."  

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture references are from Today's New International Version (TNIV). Other translations include: The Amplified Bible (AMP), Good News Translation (GNT), Kings James Version (KJV), New American Standard Updated (NASU), New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), New Living Testament (NLT) and THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved (MSG).

Research compiled from Biblesoft: PC Study Bible, Version 4.3C, © 1988-2006, www.biblesoft.com.

Loren Cunningham & David Joel Hamilton, Why Not Women? (Seattle, WA: YWAM Publishing, © 2000).

Eldon Jay Epp,Junia, The First Woman Apostle (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, © 2005).

David T. Morgan, Southern Baptist Sisters: In Search of Status, 1845-2000 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, © 2003).

NEW! 

The Elijah Blessing: An Undivided Heart 

living victoriously where Ahab and Jezebel rule

 

on PDF - no e-reader needed!  

on Kindle - includes Look Inside the Book!

on Nook - coming soon! 

Can choices of previous generations hold us captive today? 

  Healing. Release. True identity restored. 

Ebook: Kindle and Nook

Print: softcover and hardcover

See what readers are saying about We Confess! 

• Waylaid by God
• Preach it, Sister!
• Where Have All the Women Gone?
• Case of the Battered Boundaries
• complete list of archived e-columns