Should women be allowed to preach in church?

Answer 1

I find no problem with women preaching to the women or children in church. It is unbliblical for a woman to teach the men, however.

Why do I say this? Because Christians are to be people of the Word. When we don't follow it, disaster looms. Look at the mainline denominations that have ordained women and allow them to teach the men. They have allowed all manner of unbiblical teaching to emerge. Man has become the arbiter of truth, rather than the Bible.

Here are a couple of Scriptures that prohibit women teaching men: (Do we believe them, or not?)

"Moreover, I do not allow a woman to teach or to have authority over a man..." (I Timothy 2:12)

"That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children..." (Titus 2:4)

Women do have a place in ministry, but it is limited to other women and children.

Answer 2

I'm going to assume you mean Christian faiths because you point out church, and also specifically the Catholic faith, because there are some Protestant faiths that allow women to preach.

In that case, I do believe women should be allowed to preach, and more specifically, be priests. There are a number of historical and practical reasons why I think this too.

First of all, there is historical precedent. Contrary to what the Catholic church would like you to believe, there we followers of Jesus that we on the same level of men. Mary Magdalene was not the prostitute she is made out to be, but was rather a very close follower of Jesus. She was most definitely a very influential shaper of the early Church. (The decisions about her being the wife of Jesus, etc, I leave to you. It is purely hypothetical, and while interesting in pop culture, the above info on Mary M. is generally agreed upon by scholars.)

With that precedent established, the Catholic Church is very vocal on its need for more priests. The numbers of new recruits are dwindling and allowing women to be priests would certainly help to assuage, if not solve the problem this shortage causes.

Answer 3

1 Timothy 2:12. When this issue was brought up to me a couple years ago I looked up the verse, in prayer and received this. Paul said I do not. He never said God said. I see no reason why females cannot preach. I have personally been enriched by the non ego of women. Paul was not married and seemed to have a lot of issues with females. CARM you base most of your argument on Paul's "I do not". All of the arguments that I have seen against women teaching have been based on Paul's letters. I feel it is time that we stop holding women back. I see nowhere where Jesus or Mosaic law forbid it. Paul did not get everything right after the Damascus Road experience. Thank God for those females who preach.

Answer 4

No, women should not be allowed to preach in church. However, modern culture being what it is, when it comes to the influences of culture vs. scripture, many times culture wins.

Here is the scriptural reference that bans women from even speaking in church, let alone preach:

1 Corinthians 14:34-35 (New American Standard Bible)
34) The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says.
35) If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.

Answer 5

Yes, definately. I've been to some churches where a woman was pastor and she was wonderful. They can be just as capable to lead and to be able to answer your spiritual questions. I have no idea what makes people think only men are capable of doing this. In the church I grew up in, women weren't even allowed on church council, and I have always thought that was just terrible. It's like they are saying women are inferior beings to men.

Answer 6

I would say that the Holy Spirit shouldn't be thought of as "speaking only through men." Women are also vessells to be used in proclaiming the glory of God! Whether it be inside or outside of church, there's room for the truth to be spoken everywhere a man or woman are. Why muffle a different perspective? Does it make the word of God any less powerful? NO.

Answer 7

Women already preach in church.

Answer 8

From the book, "The Good News about Sex and Marriage" by Christopher West.

# 5. Why can’t women be priests (roman catholic)?

For many women, the fact that the Catholic Church reserves priestly ordination to men stirs a caldron of intense emotion fired by the “historical consciousness” of women’s oppression. Only in recent years, it seems, has the Church been willing to acknowledge and ask for forgiveness for the fact that, as John Paul II expressed in his “Letter to Women,” … “objective blame [for this oppression], especially in particular historical contexts, has belonged to not just a few members of the Church. May this regret,” he continues, “be transformed, on the part of the whole Church, into a renewed commitment of fidelity to the Gospel vision.”

This gospel vision is precisely what we’ve been discussing throughout this book: the great “nuptial mystery” of Christ’s union with the Church symbolized from the beginning by our creation as male and female. Fidelity to this vision calls us to uphold woman’s dignity at every turn and to resist the ways in which gender roles have been exaggerated to favor men. But it also calls us to resist the other extreem that views men and women as interchangeable.

As mentioned previously, equality between the sexes that reveals the great “nuptial mystery.” It’s the fundamental difference of the sexes that quite literally brings life to the world.

A culture that levels this difference is a culture committing suicide, a culture of death. Professor Stanislaw Grygiel, VP of JPII Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, aptly described the danger of a “unisex” would in the quote that begins the previous chapter. As a preface to that statement, he said that to understand “the miracle of sexual difference … is the beginning of a path in which we discover the ultimate and fundamental difference for human beings: the difference between God and [humanity]. To blur sexual difference is to blur the great nuptial mystery: the call to life-giving communion between man and woman, and between God and humanity.

Men and women have different callings in the life-giving communion. It’s the bridegroom who gives the seed, and the bride who conceives life within her. One role isn’t better than the other. Both are equally dignified and indispensable.

We must receive the calling we’ve been given as a gift from God if we are ever to be at peace with ourselves. Should men complain that God hasn’t given them the privilege of being mothers? For a woman to want to be an ordained priest is similarly misguided.

We call priests ‘father’ for a reason. Priests efficaciously symbolize Christ’s giving up his body for his Bride so that she can conceive life “in the Holy Spirit.” Only men can do this. As JPII reminds us: “It is the Eucharist that above all expresses the redemptive act of Christ the Bridegroom towards the Church, the Bride.” This is clear and unambiguous when the sacramental ministry of the Eucharist, in which the priest acts ‘in the person of Christ,’ is performed by a man.

If the ministry of the Eucharist were performed by a woman, the symbolism would become that of bride to bride. There would be no possibility of effecting nuptial union, and thus no possibility of effecting nuptial union, and thus no possibility of new life coming to the Church. Here we see again how intimately united the marital embrace is with the Eucharist. JPII sums it up this way: “The Eucharist is … the sacrament of the Bridegroom and of the Bride”.

Answer 9

Yes. Evidently this was common practice in the early church until the 4th or 5th century.

Answer 10

The Congregationalists thought so. They ordained their first woman minister, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, in 1853.