1 Timothy 2:11-15 and 1 Corinthians 14:33-40 revisited

[darinhouston]

1. Was Junia a woman? The evidence would indicate "yes".
2. Did Paul consider Junia (and Andronicus) to be an apostle? The evidence would indicate "yes".
3. Did Paul mean by "apostle" a position of leadership and authority ascribed to one who had been commissioned by the risen Lord? The evidence would indicate "yes".

Assuming she was a woman, what is the evidence they considered her an apostle?

[3Resurrections]

Hi darinhouston,

Wow. Just wow. Thank you for digging up this long-buried gem of a discussion. A very invigorating discussion, and well worth reading over several times. I read it through almost in its entirety, and will probably review it again. I love long comments, especially when written in an engaging manner, with civil exchanges all around.

There is definitely a very simple scriptural answer for your question of what the evidence is for considering Junia an apostle, (or any woman mentioned in the NT for that matter). A logical, 3-step process comparing NT scripture proves that MANY women from those days can be considered apostles. Plus, we actually have OT predictions of when God was going to authorize sending women apostles to proclaim the gospel, if you are not afraid of looking at the YLT. Even though Handel did not realize that he was immortalizing these particular texts in his Messiah choruses, they are there nonetheless. Gives me a secret satisfaction whenever I hear them sung at holiday performances, though everyone sitting around me might be oblivious to the meaning of what is actually being sung.

I'd like to respond to several questions that were brought up in this 5-page discussion, but will have to get back to them and to your one question later on this evening if I can. Got to help my daughter with a house move by retrieving a lawn mower and moving a collection of some cinder blocks this afternoon first....

[darinhouston]

Hi darinhouston,



There is definitely a very simple scriptural answer for your question of what the evidence is for considering Junia an apostle, (or any woman mentioned in the NT for that matter). A logical, 3-step process comparing NT scripture proves that MANY women from those days can be considered apostles. Plus, we actually have OT predictions of when God was going to authorize sending women apostles to proclaim the gospel, if you are not afraid of looking at the LXX. Even though Handel did not realize that he was immortalizing these particular texts in his Messiah choruses, they are there nonetheless. Gives me a secret satisfaction whenever I hear them sung at holiday performances, though everyone sitting around me might be oblivious to the meaning of what is actually being sung.
.

Are you speaking of Romans 16:7? I believe that “outstanding among the apostles” in this verse is better translated (as in most versions) as “known to the apostles.” That doesn’t suggest she was an apostle. Perhaps you could use your 3 step process to prove this and other women as apostles? I don’t see evangelists (though they are indeed “sent out ones” in the most general sense) as the same as apostles in a more positional vocational sense. Certainly not in the same manner as “the twelve.” If all you mean is the most general sense, then there is little to prove.



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[3Resurrections]

Nope, not even touching Romans 16:7. To my mind, the debate about Junia is not even needed in that 3-step process I mentioned that proves women were serving as apostles in the days of the early church. As for the chosen 12 disciples, we all know that they were a special subset of the apostles, selected by Christ to sit upon twelve thrones after His regeneration and ascension, judging the 12 tribes of Israel in the early church during those last few years of Daniel's 70th week until it ended in AD 37.

But we also know that there were other apostles besides that special subset of 12 apostles; which "other" apostles were additionally referred to as "all the apostles" in I Cor. 15:5-7. Paul and Barnabas were both called apostles, and they were not numbered with the original 12. Women were among this general group of apostles such as Paul and Barnabas.

Be back in a bit to fill in details. I'm about halfway through the pile of cinder blocks. Trying to dig them out of a blackberry patch with a wheelbarrow in the rain. Where's a thorn-eating goat when you need one?! I'll be able to think a bit better as soon as I'm done.

[darinhouston]

I’d be interested to see if you can point to a woman who you believe had the same Apostolic authority as, for example, Paul.

[Homer]

Seems to me a wearying discussion about a subject of little to no relevance for us. The Apostles (capital "A") were commissioned directly by Jesus and had seen the Lord. The Twelve for the twelve tribes of Israel and then Paul specifically for the Gentiles. Others were sent as evangelists, etc., (apostles, small "a") as are the missionaries my wife and I help support. They are apostles because they are sent - that's what the word means.

I fail to see why this would be controversial any more than Jesus being "Lord", capital "L", and an owner of a donkey being "lord", small "l". In both cases lord is a translation of the same Greek word Kurios.

Ah, but then we have political correctness to consider in our thinking.

My two cents - worth price charged.

[Paidion]

A grammatical matter which I think has not yet been pointed out, is as follows:

Paul asks the Romans to greet Andronicus and ιουνιαν. The word "ιουνιαν" is in the accusative case (it would be called the "objective case" in English grammar). The case ending "αν" for the third person singular is identical for both the masculine name "ιουνιας" (Junias) and the feminine name "ιουνια" (Junia). For that reason it cannot be determined from the text whether this person whom Paul indicated was "of note among the apostles" (Romans 16:7), was a man— Junias, or a woman— Junia.

That is why some modern translators render the name as "Junias" while others render it as "Junia."

The following translations have the name as the feminine "Junia": AV, BBE, EMTV, ESV, HCSB, JB2013, LEB, NKJV, NRSV, and WEY.

But these translations have the name as the masculine "Junias": ASV, Darby, Diaglot, Douay, LO, YLT, Williams, NIV, Message, NAS, NAS95, RSV, and NHEB.

[darinhouston]

Seems to me a wearying discussion about a subject of little to no relevance for us. The Apostles (capital "A") were commissioned directly by Jesus and had seen the Lord. The Twelve for the twelve tribes of Israel and then Paul specifically for the Gentiles. Others were sent as evangelists, etc., (apostles, small "a") as are the missionaries my wife and I help support. They are apostles because they are sent - that's what the word means.

I fail to see why this would be controversial any more than Jesus being "Lord", capital "L", and an owner of a donkey being "lord", small "l". In both cases lord is a translation of the same Greek word Kurios.

Ah, but then we have political correctness to consider in our thinking.

My two cents - worth price charged.

Good point. I guess the need to discuss further depends on the point to be made by pointing it out in the first place.


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[3Resurrections]

No relevance in this subject for us today? I beg leave to differ. If it can be proved that women were among the number of apostles of the early church, (and it definitely can be), and if this role of an apostle was ranked first in importance in I Cor. 12:28 - even before the role of prophets (2nd), then teachers (3rd), then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of governments, and diversities of tongues - then women were not restricted from acting in any capacity that followed that first-ranked role of apostleship appointed by God. In other words, if God appointed women to be apostles in the early church, then none of the lesser-ranked activities would have been off-limits to them.

Here's the simple 3-step process of proving that women did serve as apostles, outside of the group of the original twelve.

#1) What are the actual marks of an apostle, as presented by Paul in II Cor. 12:12? "Truly the SIGNS OF AN APOSTLE were wrought among you in all patience, IN SIGNS, and wonders, and mighty deeds." To be able to miraculously perform SIGNS, and wonders, and might deeds in Christ's name was proof identifying an apostle. (This is distinguished from "the chiefest apostles" category, as Paul calls them in II Cor. 12:27, which were the original 12 at Pentecost. To be one of the 12, it was also an additional imperative that they had accompanied Christ in His earthly ministry from the beginning. This additional stipulation was not required of the rest of the apostles).

#2) To be able to miraculously prophesy by speaking in a different tongue was called a "SIGN"..., to them that believe not" (I Cor. 14:22).

#3) We know that women performed this very SIGN of speaking in various tongues at Pentecost and afterward (Joel 2:28-32 compared to Acts 1:14, 2:1, 16-18). God predicted in Joel that "daughters" and "handmaids" would have God's Spirit poured out on them as well as young and old men, as a means of confirming the New Covenant.

Therefore, since women were performing one of the SIGNS OF AN APOSTLE, then they qualified as being one of that category. We don't even need to argue about whether Junia was one of these or not, since there was a "great host" of women prophesied in Psalm 68:11 who would be commissioned by God to publish this gospel. "The Lord gives the word; the women who announce the news are a great host." (ESV). It was going to be women, encouraged to "be not afraid", to "lift up thy voice with strength" who would "tell good tidings to Zion", and "tell good tidings to Jerusalem" in those early days after Christ's resurrection, according to Isaiah 40:9. The Hebrew verb forms in these verses are in the feminine gender, which about half of the translations acknowledge, and render accordingly.

The women who followed Christ from Galilee must have enthusiastically fulfilled this prophecy by spreading the gospel after Christ's resurrection, or Saul / Paul would not have bothered to enter into church houses and "haling men AND WOMEN committed them to prison". Acts 8:4 says that these who were scattered abroad by Saul / Paul's persecution (of both men and women) "went everywhere preaching the word". I don't see a distinction between men and women doing evangelistic work in that context.

I notice, too, that no one in this post so far has brought up II John which was addressed to "the elect lady" who was being given instructions by John in verse 10 and 11 about who she should receive or not receive into the fellowship taking place in the church assembly which met in her house. Both she and her "children" - the members of her assembly - were commended for "walking in truth". By calling them her "children", John was using the same term of tender endearment as when he would speak to the saints he was instructing, by calling them "My little children". This "elect lady" also had an "elect sister", who also had "children" of God who met in her home. There is more responsibility that these women were performing than just passing out coffee and doughnuts in their home, so to speak.

Paul calls women such as these in II John "fellow-laborers in the gospel", when he refers to Euodias and Syntiche in Phil 4:2-3. He also directed the church in II Cor. 16:16 to "...submit yourselves unto such, and to every one that helpeth with us, and laboureth." Guess what? That means Paul directed the church to submit to fellow-laborers like the women Euodias and Syntiche who labored with him in the gospel.

He had even more directives for Timothy in how that young man was to interact with the older men who were "elders" in the congregation. He was to intreat these "presbuterOs" individuals as if they were Timothy's father. The younger men in the ministry were to be treated as Timothy's brothers. But the older women "presbuterAs" individuals serving in church ministry as elders were to be treated as if they were Timothy's mother. And the younger women serving in ministry were to be treated as if they were Timothy's sister, with an emphasis on purity.

As for the I Cor. 14:34 -35 set of verses that is used to silence women from speaking in the assembly, as the OP Danny mentioned above, these two verses are definitely a quote from the Corinthians' former letter to Paul, followed by Paul's stern rebuke in verse 36-39 for their limitations on women's speaking. Why would Paul restrict women from speaking in the church in verse 34-35, and then turn completely around and say the exact opposite thing in verse 39 when He gives the command to "FORBID NOT TO SPEAK WITH TONGUES"? The only possible reference to "forbidding to speak" in this entire context is the quote from the Corinthians in verses 34-35, to which verse 39 was Paul's response that rebukes putting such limitations on women in the assembly.

I also agree with Danny's historical setting surrounding the context of II Timothy 2:12 that describes the Ephesian church environment set in the middle of that idolatrous city which worshipped their goddess Diana. The men in that Ephesian church assembly were being abused by the dominating influence of women who needed to quit old habits of oppressing their brothers in the Lord. If such an abusive situation against men arose in an assembly today, the same stern rebuke would apply. But we cannot extrapolate a directive from this abusive situation that silences all women in every church assembly and commands them to be mute for all time until eternity begins. God doesn't desire men to be oppressed by tyrannical treatment by women in the church any more than He desires women to be oppressed by tyrannical treatment by men in a church assembly.

Most of the objections to women serving in a teaching ministry arise from a mistaken impression of what Christ desires the ministry to be. We put too much emphasis on the whole "authority" issue, when that "exercising authority" was what Christ forbad his disciples in Luke 22:25-26 to concern themselves with. A minister is to be "an example to the flock" - not a Lord over God's heritage. Personally, I believe the piece of church furniture called the pulpit leads to a mistaken impression of how a church assembly should function. We would do better with a coffee table between everybody, or something like King Arthur's round table, where there is no "head" of the table. Does not Christ and the scripture refer to the church as the "Family of God"? And what do we have in the ideal family? A Father AND a Mother instructing the children they are leading. Ideally, I believe a church assembly should be led by a man and woman team, so that the strengths of both genders can be used to the full. The church organization as traditionally presented is more reflective of a same-sex marriage - a combination of male leaders, minus any female representation. Not exactly what Christ had in mind, I believe.

[Paidion]

One of the qualifications of even overseers and deacons was to be the husband of one wife. So surely the same would be applicable to apostles.

1Ti 3:2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,
1Ti 3:12 Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well.

Well... maybe in our day of moral decline, a woman could be the husband of one wife.