Drawing on ancient texts, I give 3 reasons why there should be a consensus on the general sense of “authentein” as bad bossy behaviour.
Some Christians claim that submission is always to a person in authority. In this article, I quote early church bishops who spoke positively about mutual submission.
Chrysostom (d. 407) praised Priscilla, Phoebe, Euodia, Syntyche, and Junia. He acknowledged that these women were leading ministers in their churches.
Olympias renounced her aristocratic lifestyle to serve the church. She was an ordained deaconess and Chrysostom’s dear friend.
Here are interpretations of 1 Corinthians 11:7 (man … is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man) from past & present scholars.
Eve, Delilah, Bathsheba, Mary Magdalene, and the Samaritan woman have often been thought of as immoral. What’s with that? This article looks at the Samaritan woman without negative prejudices.
In Part 5, I look at 1 Timothy 3:8-13, concerning male and female deacons in the Ephesian church, and at Phoebe as a prostatis (patron). I briefly compare her ministry with that of Olympias and also Stephanas (1 Cor. 16:15-18).
In part 4 I look at the deacons in the Philippian church and at the development of church offices in the apostolic and post-apostolic churches.
I’ve highlighted the words for human, man, and woman in the Hebrew text of Gen. 2 to help non-Hebrew readers see that the first human in Eden was not necessarily male.
Here are some misogynistic quotations from well-known church fathers, theologians and reformers that do not reflect what the Bible says about women.
Who were Euodia and Syntyche (Philippians 4:2-3)? Were they leaders of the Philippian church? Early Church Father John Chrysostom seemed to think so.
Mary Kassian claims that Complementarianism represents the Church’s “traditional, orthodox, historic belief” on gender. She must be reading different accounts of Church history to me.
This article is about Junia—a minister mentioned by Paul in Romans 16:7—using and critiquing the ESV as a reference. Was Junia really a female apostle?
Would you like to support my ministry of encouraging mutuality and equality between men and women in the church and in marriage?
© 2022 Marg Mowczko