One other thing, this series was never intended to be an exhaustive list of passages of women in Scripture or texts that address women in Scripture. My hope is just to deal with the most controversial ones and then be finished. That being said, there will be 3 or 4 more entries on this topic. One reason being, I will probably start repeating myself shortly, and that is boring to read. Another reason, I am ADHD and need to move to something else or I get really "panicky" :).
Today's blog post actually came out of research I am doing for a new series that we are starting as a church. We just finished the book of Acts (in only short 8 months!) and are moving on to the book of Malachi. In researching for this book, I felt it necessary to research the role of prophecy in general when it came to Israel and give a brief overview of their function. In other words I wanted to start by dispelling the myth that prophets are simply people who talk about the future (foretelling) and demonstrate that when they speak they are speaking into certain situations and giving warnings of God's response as it relates to his covenant with them (forthtelling).
At any rate, I was reading about different prophets, and came across Elijah and Elisha. And as I was reading 2 Kings 4 it hit me that not only were women not a problem when it came to leadership, they were actually part of guilds or schools known as "sons of the prophets!" In 2 Kings 4 we see that Elijah and Elisha were leaders of prophetic communities at Bethel, Jericho, and Gilgal (2 Kings 2:3-4; 4:38). Now members of these guilds were not tied down to any one place but were free to travel around and deliver the oracles of God. In 2 Kings 4:1-7 we see that a woman was part of this guild!
Now, this is not new to us in one sense. We have women in seminaries all over the place preparing for ministry. What is unique is that fact that these women belonging to these prophetic communities seem to function in the same capacity as the men, and there is no real debate concerning whether or not what the women are doing when they prophesy is biblical. It still amazes me that women who are in seminary are still told where they can serve, and in what capacities. And again, this may not be explicit, but implicit in the way things are structured in the church, in the silence on topics such as women's ability to being pastor's, etc. However, it seems that there is an increasing amount of pastors out there who are becoming more vocal about the "appropriate" roles for women.
Yet throughout the history of Israel, women served and functioned in all capacities. Even prophets (which as I have said before is equivalent of a pastor today)! It seems to me that views on this issue are not grounded on our Scriptures so much as a tradition that was started by human origins.
If women were being used by God throughout all of Israel's history and are good enough for God to use as he sees fit. Shouldn't they be viewed by us in the same way?
Interestingly, Paul is also fine with women prophecying in church, though he does seem to prohibit them from weighing in the public evaluation of propechies from others, as well as from teaching. Of course whether those restrictions are permanent or cultural is debatable. It's just fascinating to me that even when they couldn't teach, they could still prophecy.
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