Let Her Preach: Why my church needs women in ministry

The excerpt discusses Sheerah, a woman mentioned in 1 Chronicles 7:24, who built three cities, defying the male-centric culture of her time. Her achievements highlight the significant, yet often overlooked, roles women played in leadership and innovation in biblical history, suggesting broader involvement of women in important societal functions.

First Timothy 2:11-15 is another great elephant in the room whenever we address the matter of women in ministry. Fortunately, despite its popularity as a proof text for the complementarian position, there is a mountain of evidence that it should not be interpreted as a blanket prohibition of women in ministry. Unfortunately, egalitarians often throw the mountain through our complementarian brothers’ and sisters’ windows and then leave this passage behind as irrelevant to our vision for women in ministry. Instead of asking ourselves how this Scripture is inspired and useful to us, we discard it as entirely irrelevant. An analysis of the passage’s historical, cultural, and textual contexts, however, reveals tremendous insight which allows us to discover the passage’s beautiful vision for men and women to share in the leadership of the church.

Indeed, everything revealed in Scripture about Deborah indicates she was the ideal, anointed leader in an age when such leaders were extremely rare. Clearly, her leadership focus was in the civil arena, but her inclusion among Israel’s judges as a prophetess, judge, commander-in-chief, and model of righteousness is compelling evidence that women can and should preach, teach, and lead.[16]