

To have sent women out on the preaching missions (e.g., Mark 6:7-13) might have proved too scandalous to be practical; nevertheless, the Gospels unanimously report that God chose women as the first witnesses of the Resurrection, even though first-century Jewish men often dismissed the testimony of women.6
Joel explicitly emphasized that when God poured out His Spirit, women as well as men would prophesy (Joel 2:28,29). Pentecost meant that all God’s people qualified for the gifts of His Spirit (Acts 2:17,18), just as salvation meant that male or female would have the same relationship with God (Galatians 3:28). Subsequent outpourings of the Spirit have often led to the same effect.
Passages Where Paul Affirmed the Ministry of Women
Paul often affirmed the ministry of women despite the gender prejudices of his culture. With a few exceptions (some women philosophers), advanced education was a male domain. Because most people in Mediterranean antiquity were functionally illiterate, those who could read and speak well generally assumed teaching roles, and—with rare exceptions—these were men. In the first centuries of our era, most Jewish men—like Philo, Josephus and many later rabbis—reflected the prejudice of much of the broader Greco-Roman culture.
Women’s roles varied from one region to another, but Paul’s writings clearly rank him among the more progressive, not the more chauvinistic, writers of his day. Many of Paul’s colaborers in the gospel were women.
Paul commended the ministry of a woman who brought his letter to the Roman Christians (Romans 16:1,2). Phoebe was a servant of the church at Cenchrea. “Servant” may refer to a deacon, a term that sometimes designated administrative responsibility in the early church. In his epistles, however, Paul most frequently applied the term to any minister of God’s Word, including himself (1 Corinthians 3:5; 2 Corinthians 3:6; 6:4; Ephesians 3:7; 6:21).
He also called Phoebe a “succorer” or “helper” of many (Romans 16:2); this term technically designated her as the church’s patron or sponsor, most likely the owner of the home in which the church at Cenchrea was meeting. This entitled her to a position of honor in the church.
Phoebe was not the only influential woman in the church. Whereas Paul greeted about twice as many men as women in Romans 16, he commended the ministries of about twice as many women as men in that list. (Some use the predominance of male ministers in the Bible against women in ministry, but that argument could work against men’s ministry in this passage.)
These commendations may indicate his sensitivity to the opposition women undoubtedly faced for their ministry and are remarkable, given the prejudice against women’s ministry that existed in Paul’s culture.
If Paul followed ancient custom when he praised Priscilla, he may have mentioned her before her husband Aquila because of her higher status (Romans 16:3,4). Elsewhere, we learn that she and her husband taught Scripture to another minister, Apollos (Acts 18:26). Paul also listed two fellow apostles, Andronicus and Junia (Romans 16:7).
Although Junia is clearly a feminine name, writers opposed to the possibility that Paul could have referred to a female apostle suggest that Junia is a contraction for the masculine Junianus. This contraction, however, never occurs, and more recently has been shown to be grammatically impossible for a Latin name like Junia. This suggestion rests not on the text itself, but entirely on the presupposition that a woman could not be an apostle.