The female-ministry question has a God-spoken answer.  The Bible gives clear and definite guidelines regarding the position of women in the church, in the society and in the family.  The Apostle Paul, who received his gospel directly from Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:12), wrote this while under the power of the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:21): “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men within the church.  She is to keep silent (1 Tim. 2:12).”  In 1 Corinthians 14:34 he wrote this: “Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the Law also says” in Genesis 3:16 where God told Eve that her husband “… shall rule over you.”

Another statement, perhaps the most powerful one relative to female preachers involves the qualifications for church leaders found in First Timothy 3:2 where Paul tells the young evangelist that a bishop (preacher) must be the “husband of one wife.” A woman cannot be a husband. Note that he does not say the wife of one husband.

Paul, God’s primary writer of the New Testament, is voicing the will of God for His church, telling the “called out ones” that women are not to exercise authority over men.  Women are not to operate as elders or to preach sermons.  Nowhere in Scripture do we find God ordaining females for the ministry of His Word.  The Scriptures do, however, reveal the ordination of “deaconesses” in 1 Timothy 3:8-11 and Romans 16:1.  Recall that Jeremiah’s wife was called a prophetess, though there is no indication that she ever taught God’s Word or ministered in any official capacity.  She was a prophetess because she was the wife of a prophet.  A deaconess is so because she is the wife of a deacon.  Older women are to teach young women how to be good wives.  To Timothy Paul laid out the character qualifications for church deacons.  He then decreed that their wives must conduct their lives as do their husbands.  In Romans 16:1,2 he instructed the Rome church to assist a woman named Phoebe, whom he calls “a sister,” in her work in the church.  One will note that there is no mention of her preaching, teaching or exercising authority over men in the congregation.  In Acts 18 we find a married couple named Aquila and Priscilla who, having heard a powerful preacher named Apollos, realized that he needed instruction in the ways of the Lord.  They took him into their home and there instructed him in “the way of God more accurately.”  Note that Priscilla worked alongside her husband in their home when dealing with Apollos.  There is no indication that she ever ministered in a church service.

Throughout recorded history God chose men, not women, to be His spokesmen.  At no time did He  appoint a woman to any administrative office.  Both in ancient and modern times when a woman has occupied an office of church ministry it has been men, not God, that have placed them in that position.  But what about prophetesses such as Miriam and Deborah? some might ask.  Question: Did they preach, teach or hold ministerial authority over men?  They did not.  Their offices carried no ministerial authority whatsoever.  They were simply used by God to convey a message to one of God’s servants, or to other people.  There is no indication that they exercise spiritual authority over a church body.

God designed men and women to be different physically, mentally and spiritually.  Men and women are to complement each other, to do what the other cannot do.  The mixing of sexes and genders, the mixing of male and female responsibilities and activities is strictly a man (read Satan) concept.  But women do have a service capacity within the church-family setting.  In Titus 2:3-5 Paul states that women are designed by God to serve as examples of righteous living–a calling which has no equal.  Would that church women be content with that role and perform it correctly today.  A woman’s role within the true Christian family is as an educator in teaching her children the values of intelligent thought, word and action, in the development of character, strength and courage by which to serve their Master by fulfilling the purpose He has for their lives.  This most important of responsibilities helps to produce the next generation of true believers.

It is not a question of superiority or inferiority relative to the positions of men and women within the church and the family.  Male and female responsibilities are of equal importance in God’s plan for mankind.  God’s plan is for His true saints–His Very Elect–to rule the people of the world in the next life and teach them the government of God.  We all, male and female alike, must prepare for our respective roles by obeying God’s written Rules of Engagement–His Holy Bible/Law–as we await the arrival of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Satan, in his quest to destroy the family and the church, has infected the minds of many women and men with a spiritual virus that has prompted males and females to reverse their God-ordained roles.  In ever-increasing numbers females are assuming the role of authority and power within both the family and the church.  Men are equally guilty of this reversal of gender roles.  World-wide we see men taking on the role of women as women exert themselves into the male role model created by God.  This Satan-created phenomenon is not new.  The Lord, speaking through the Prophet Isaiah about the nation of Israel, stated that, because of Israel’s sins, “women rule over them.”  Note that this is a curse caused by their disobedience.  Note also that an accompanying curse is that “children are your oppressors.”  He goes on to say that Israel had been led to err, thereby destroying the “way of your (God-dictated) paths.”

Today the news media repeatedly broadcast the results of the feminization of the so-called Christian world.  Who are the leaders within the political and social arena today?  Females.  Who controls most of the money in the United States?  Females.  Who are taking over the jobs historically done by males?  Females.  And who are allowing this?  Males, or those whose physical attributes designate them as males.  I will not go into the “I am what I believe I am” issue at this time.

The ultimate question concerns why the gender-swapping craze, along with all of the other problems faced by “Christian nations” are now upon us.  The answer shouts out from the pages of the Holy Bible: “SIN”–the coin of the realm within both the nations and the churches.  God warned that if we rebel against His Word as did our Israelite ancestors, that He would curse us as He did them.  We have sown the wind, as did they.  We are now beginning to reap the whirlwind, as did they.  We are just now experiencing the “… beginnings of sorrows” Jesus warned about in Matthew 24.  We are living in the last of the last days of this era.  The eighth chapter of the Book of Daniel, Matthew 24:1-14 and the entire Book of Revelation concerns the time in which we now live as we move toward the Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord.  God’s true saints will be protected during the Great Tribulation and the Great and terrible Day of the Lord.  Not so those who do not repent now, turn to God and obey Him until the beginning of the Tribulation.  Read The Great Tribulation.  Key word–Tribulation.

The female push for dominance within both the society and the church is only one of the signs of mankind’s rebellion against the Lord.  All self-professed Christian nations need to prepare for much worse to come.  God has only begun to open the seals of Revelation.  He has not yet begun to pour out His woes on those who reject Him and His Son by rejecting the Words of Their messengers (Lk. 10:16).  Whatsoever a man (or nation) sows, that will the man and nation reap–in spades.  There is a common expression that sums up the situation: “What goes around, comes around.”  To which I add: “with a hammer in each hand.” And the hands wielding those hammers belong to God.  L.J.