To listen to some, not only might you think that God does not want women to minister to men or lead men. You might also think that God mandates that we be sure to enforce the consequences of the Fall in this regard. Yet this is not what we see in Scripture, not even in the Old Testament.
It is worth pausing for a moment on this point. One perspective argues in effect, “This verse over here says women can’t lead or minister, so these instances of women doing things in Scripture must not be what they seem to be.”
But the opposite argument is actually stronger. Throughout Scripture, we observe God using women as the highest spiritual leaders (e.g., Huldah) and even political leaders (Deborah). That suggests that the verses used against them taking these roles are what are misinterpreted and taken out of context.
Dr. Christy Lipscomb places the whole of Scripture into the context of Eden. Although God created Adam and Eve to co-rule, their sin messed everything all up. The rest of the Bible is the story of God on a mission to restore us to Eden. Part of that restoration is the restoration of women to their co-rulership in the creation.
Click the tabs below to consider several accounts.
Dr. Lipscomb is especially struck by the “minority report” of Numbers 27. The default expectation was that sons would inherit the property of their fathers. But something different happens in Numbers 27. Five daughters of Zelophehad petition the Lord to inherit their father’s property, and God grants it.
As Dr. Lipscomb says, this is not how their culture functioned. “Nobody does this.” It is God hinted at a more excellent way. It is God showing them a flicker of Eden, of what it was like before Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden. That was when women and men co-ruled.
God is taking his people out of Egypt, and then he is taking Egypt out of the people.
- Christy Lipscomb
Dr. Lipscomb suggests that God is slowly “taking Egypt out of his people.” He took them out of Egypt, but a lot of worldly Egypt came out with them. God is slowly showing them how the Promised Land is going to function. The daughters of Zelophehad are a glimpse of God working counter to the culture, showing Israel what Eden is like.
Deborah is a fascinating figure in the Old Testament. She was a prophetess (Judges 4:4), so she spoke authoritatively for God. And she was married. There goes the argument that a woman cannot be a spiritual authority because she must be under the headship of her husband! Indeed, she is the judge of Israel at this time, a role that did not neatly distinguish between the political and the spiritual – which is a much sharper distinction in modern times than it would have been then.
As Dr. Schenck mentions in the video, Deborah makes it clear that, while men were normally the spiritual leaders in Old Testament times, there were exceptions. And if God made exceptions, it changes the conversation. The conversation can no longer be, “Can a woman be a ministry leader?” Now the question is, “Is this specific woman called to be a ministry leader?” And what was rare in the Old Testament is now normal in the age of the Spirit.
2 Kings 22 records a curious event in the history of Israel. The Book of the Law is found in the temple, as if no one has been paying any attention to it for a long time (22:8, 10). Josiah certainly had never heard or read it (22:11).
Here is where it gets really interesting. Neither the high priest nor the scribes around him feel qualified to seek the Lord’s guidance in relation to the Scriptures. Who will teach them? Who is the highest spiritual authority in the land? Is it the prophet Jeremiah or Zephaniah, because they were already prophesying at this time? No, it was a prophetess by the name of Huldah (2 Kings 22:14). Like Deborah, she is married, once again undermining the argument that husband headship interferes in some way with female spiritual authority.
So, when we consider Deborah and Huldah, even in the Old Testament we have instances of women being the highest spiritual and political leaders of Israel. And if God did this as an exception in Old Testament times, imagine how the gates have been opened in the age of the Spirit for sons and daughters to prophesy (Acts 2:17)!
A final note is in order about the role of Levitical priests. According to Hebrews 7, all of the Levitical priests find their New Testament counterpart in Christ (Heb. 7:11-16). The new covenant equivalent of the Old Testament priests is thus Christ. The Old Testament priesthood thus cannot be used as an argument against women in ministry because Christ is the only correspondent in the new covenant. Indeed, in any sense that might remain, all God’s people are now a “royal priesthood” (1 Pet. 2:9) and a “kingdom of priests (Rev. 1:6).
