Can women lead in church? It is a genuine question, deserving of serious reflection, with real consequences – no matter which answer you choose.
But the biblical answer may not be as straightforward as some, on either side, would have you believe…
This week’s message, Leader, Learner, Prophetess and Judges” about the biblical role of women in the Church, was delivered on Sunday, July 20th, 2025, and is based on several Scripture passages, including Luke 10:38–42, 1 Corinthians 14:34–35, Judges 4:4-10, and 2 Kings 22:14–20.
You’re invited to watch the full sermon in the video embedded below—and then scroll down to read along with the text of the message in blog format.
The Role of Women in the Church
This morning, we’re talking about the role of women in the church. I’m just going to come out and say that right away.
There’s a whole convoluted way we got from the lectionary text this morning, which is the Mary and Martha story—this familiar story that has been used in the church to represent the archetypes of two types of church people. The Marys and the Marthas. The doers and the, I don’t know, thinkers? Whatever word you want to use. The people who manage everything behind the scenes and keep things running, and then the people, like me—I am a self-proclaimed Mary, I’ll admit to it—who do the thinking work, or the theological work in the church.
And there’s a whole convoluted way in my brain—and possibly only in my brain—that we got from that question, through the other Scripture readings today, and then to this idea: What should the role of women be in the church?
Is This a Closed Question?
You know, here in the United Methodist Church, I think we often treat this as a closed issue. An obvious thing. “Of course, women can be pastors.” I mean, I’m up here right now.
But it really isn’t a closed issue.
And it’s actually coming back around—this question of what’s appropriate, how much we should conform to traditional gender roles, and in what ways those roles may be helpful or harmful.
It’s a question that just never seems to go away. And I don’t think it ever will, entirely.
This actually isn’t something that I find terribly easy either. Believe it or not, it’s not a foregone conclusion to me that I should be up here, that I should be leading a church. I’m basically here because most of the people in my life—including most of the men in my life, like my father, a former bishop, etc.—really pushed for me to be here. So, I’m just doing what the men in my life told me to—take that, patriarchy.
And you know, there is, I think, some validity to that statement, actually. It’s not just a joke. I think people who do want to force all of us to conform to these traditional limitations placed on women, do have to contend with the fact that many of us have been encouraged along these paths by men. And so how are we supposed to deal with that situation? No matter what we do, we’re breaking the rules. Either we do the thing—become the pastor, for example—that we’re “not supposed” to do… Or we disobey our fathers… Which we’re also not supposed to do.
And I point all of that out just to point out that reality itself is just too complex for these hard-and-fast rules from two thousand years ago to just apply across the board. There is in fact nuance to most things—the needs of this world do in fact change. We are in fact called by God to draw on things like reason, and experience, and logic—God did not give us these tools to let them simply go to waste…
There’s a whole parable in the Gospels about the dangers of that exact thing, (Matthew 25:14-30).
Mary and Martha: Women as Pre-Church Leaders
To return to the main point, though:
We have here this story of two women who I really do see as leaders in the church before the church even existed—women who welcomed Jesus both physically and welcomed his teaching into their home (Luke 10:38–42). Their interactions with Jesus, I think, evoke some important questions in this conversation.
So, in this discussion—what is the role of women in the church? Should women be leaders in the church or not? It basically comes down to two responses. Two groups of people.
There are the people who take this next passage, which we’re about to reference, as an absolute, indisputable, literal truth that applies to all generations and must be followed. And then there’s the group that basically just ignores this passage and pretends it’s not there—which I actually don’t find very helpful. Because I do, in fact, take seriously the overriding theme of that Josiah story we heard: the words of this book matter (2 Kings 22).
Paul, Silence, and the Question of Speaking
I do think there’s a great deal of value in this passage. I couldn’t quite figure out a way for either Gail or me to read it aloud without it coming off in a way I maybe didn’t want it to come off, so I’m just going to let you read it for yourself. But it’s the passage in 1 Corinthians that always comes up in this discussion—the one that literally says, “Women should be silent in church” (1 Corinthians 14:34–35).
Now, I want to point out a few things right away. The first is: this is one of two—and I mean it, two, literally two—statements in the Bible, both written by Paul. (The other is 1 Timothy 2:11-12.) Two statements written in two letters by the same man, the same teacher, that state women should not, or arguably state women should not, be leaders in the church.
And there’s so much question around this. One of those questions is: it says women should not speak in the church—essentially. What is meant by “speak”?
When you really get into it, how you choose to answer that question—what “speak” actually means—is kind of all-important. How far do you take that? Are women allowed to sing in church? Are we allowed to pray? Are we allowed to greet each other as we walk in the door? And that might sound totally silly, but, it’s actually not. Think about it. Think through history. Think through some of the real-world situations going on right now…
The idea that this passage could mean women aren’t even allowed to say “Hello” to other people inside this building is not actually far-fetched at all.
I don’t know of any conservative church—other than those that qualify as extremist cults—that is willing to take this passage that far. But, honestly, why not?
And the whole conversation around this passage becomes even more complicated when you realize that literally three chapters earlier, Paul had talked about women prophesying in church as if that’s a foregone conclusion that women will indeed be speaking out loud in front of the congregation (1 Corinthians 11:5). So what is really meant here?
Order in Worship, Not Exclusion
These are a valid questions. They are only a few that come up when reading passages like this in the bible. Again, I’m someone who does see value in this passage—even that part about women. I think it does have a lot to tell us about order in worship, and particularly about the importance of not disrupting other people’s ability to worship. About doing things in an orderly way.
Another thing you might notice is that beforehand, the reason I included the entire passage, Paul tells men to sit down and be quiet too—if they don’t have anything constructive to offer. And that is the point of this passage. If you don’t have anything constructive to say in worship then don’t say it.
Deborah the Judge: A Counterexample
Now we’re going to take a look at the counter-evidence, the passages that were read aloud to us—from Judges, from the Book of Kings, and from the Mary and Martha story in Luke. And from this counter-evidence, I hope you will see, at least why I have come to the conclusion—after a lot of thought and questioning—that the place of women in the church is really the same as the place of men. It’s to find the thing that God wants you to do, and then—like Mary in the Gospel story today—don’t let anyone take that from you (Luke 10:42).
The counterpoint that always comes up to the idea that women shouldn’t be leaders in the church is Deborah. That was our first reading this morning (Judges 4). Deborah, the one recorded female judge in Israelite history—and there may well have been others.
When you read the Book of Judges carefully, you notice that most of these judges were regional. Israel did come together as all twelve tribes from time to time, but most of the stories are regional. There was more than one judge judging at a time, in all likelihood.
And also, when it comes to studying ancient history, we have preserved today only a fraction of a fraction of the actual history that has been recorded. So if there’s one example of something, there are likely more that existed. If there’s one female judge in Israelite history, there were quite possibly more.
Miriam, Queen Mothers, and Hidden Influence
Female leadership is recorded throughout the Bible. Moses’ sister, Miriam, was a leader in the Israelite camp (Exodus 15:20). She was probably the oldest of the siblings. And then there are the queens.
It’s something that came up in the Josiah reading (2 Kings 22:1). The names of the mothers of all the kings are mentioned in the Book of Kings. We believe it’s because the identity of these women—and their influence on their sons’ lives—was considered important. Women exert a great deal of influence. Often behind the scenes, yes. But they do exert it throughout the Bible.
Deborah and the Cost of Credit
Back to Deborah—what really strikes me about that passage is not just that she’s a woman leading Israel. It’s when the military leader comes to her. She calls him, and he comes to her. And she tells him to go to war. And he says, “Okay, great”—
They’re vastly outnumbered by the way, it’s a no-win scenario, which of course they win—
“I’ll go and do this impossible thing that God has asked me to do,” Barak the military leader says, “if you come with me.”
And Deborah says, “Okay, I’ll go.” But she tells him that he forfeits his claim to victory by relying on her. “Victory will be given to a woman.” And if you know the story from there, you know that’s what happens—it’s a woman, married to a foreigner, who takes out the great enemy of Israel (Judges 4:8–21).
Huldah the Prophetess: God’s Word Through a Woman
Honestly, there’s an even better counter-argument in the Old Testament, and that is the incident with the prophetess Huldah. This woman delivers God’s Word to the high priest of Jerusalem. The high priest—essentially their pope—goes to her to hear from God (2 Kings 22:14–20).
Only part of the story was included in the sermon video. Check out the full story here!
This story really deserves to be a way bigger deal than it is. And I know it was a long reading—thank you for sitting through it—but what I realized was that there’s really no way to disentangle Huldah’s part in the story from everything going on around Josiah. You lose how important her moment actually is if you don’t understand the whole picture.
What’s striking to me is how the men going to Huldah to seek her advice is kind of presented as no big deal. The high priest consulting with a prophetess—a woman who speaks directly to God—is presented as a rather ordinary occurrence. “Oh hey, there was this prophetess living in Israel.” Okay.
Remember that principle I’ve mentioned before: we have only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of all history that has ever been written down. And most history was never even written down. So if there is one recorded prophetess in ancient Jerusalem to whom priests and kings went for advice, there were likely others—especially since she’s presented as nothing unusual, at least as far as prophets go.
Jesus, the Disciples, and the Women Who Funded His Ministry
But the greatest point of counter-evidence we have comes from the Gospels and from the way Jesus interacted with and addressed this issue of women in ministry on earth.
One of the oldest arguments against women in leadership in churches—and I mean early-church old—is that Jesus never commissioned a female preacher. And the thing is, we don’t actually know that. We just don’t.
Those passages where Jesus sends out two disciples at a time (Luke 10:1)? We don’t know that none of them were women. We do know that there was at least one husband-wife ministry team in the Book of Acts. And no, that’s not the Gospels, it’s not Jesus’ earthly ministry, but it’s pretty close (Acts 18:26).
We do explicitly know that women traveled with Jesus and his disciples. In fact, two chapters before the story of Mary and Martha, we have a section that describes women not only traveling with Jesus but financially supporting his ministry (Luke 8:1–3). This is mentioned in other Gospels too—these women were there, supporting Jesus.
But it’s kind of hidden away, even in the Gospels. Even in Luke—and Luke obviously interviewed a bunch of women for his Gospel. Read it all the way through and the women just keep popping up—probably Mary, and a bunch of other disciples. He interviewed male disciples too, but the women were definitely there.
And I think they actually had good reason to hide this detail away—to make it seem a little less significant than it maybe was. Just think about it. You have a bunch of wealthy women—many of them probably widows—following this young itinerant preacher around with all his young male disciples, paying their bills.
Let’s be honest. We’d raise an eyebrow at that even today. And we’d be right to. That reality alone is enough, I think, to explain why the role of women as leaders in the early church may well have been downplayed—why Paul may have felt compelled to write some of the things we now find so problematic.
Priscilla, Safety, and Cultural Reputation
You know, the only woman we explicitly see teaching in the Book of Acts is doing so alongside her husband. And it’s because, honestly, the presence of her husband in that situation gives her a certain amount of safety—safety in terms of reputation and actual physical safety (Acts 18:26).
Even in our own time, this is a reputation issue and a real safety issue. How much more true—and dangerous—was it in a time and culture when men and women didn’t even eat in the same room?
In Greek culture—not Roman, but Greek—husbands and wives ate at opposite ends of the house. That’s how segregated things were.
The Da Vinci Code and Our Deep Discomfort
Just look at what happened with the whole “Da Vinci Code” thing. Remember that? The book, then the movie with Tom Hanks? It’s pure nonsense, honestly. But it’s based on a very old story—as in, ancient world old. Gnosticism, Templars, that sort of thing.
And it was fabricated in the early church because people then—like people now—just could not conceive of Jesus, a man, having this close, personal, and entirely platonic relationship with a female disciple named Mary Magdalene.
We humans really have a problem in this area, to be honest. And can you imagine how bad it could have gotten if the Gospels had outright admitted the important inner-circle role that Mary Magdalene appears to have played? Because the Gospels do hint at it—particularly John and Luke.
A Fine Line: Acknowledging and Protecting Women
Again, the point is: this all makes sense. The writers of the New Testament had to walk a fine line. They had to acknowledge the women who were present, acknowledge what they were doing and how instrumental they were in the earliest incarnations of the church, while also protecting those women. Protecting their reputations in society, possibly even protecting them from violence.
They also had to deal with something that’s completely lost on us in the modern era: the reality of integration. How do you put men and women into the same room to study together in a society where that just doesn’t happen? How do you manage the rumors that start when people see you entering the same building together?
All early Christian meetings were labeled as orgies. It was a thing. We were also called incestuous because we symbolically called each other “brother” and “sister”—and some of those people were married to each other.
So there’s also this way of interpreting the Mary and Martha story where Martha isn’t upset about the housework. What she’s really worried about is her sister’s reputation—what people will make of this girl hanging out with all the boys.
When Jesus responds, “Martha, you’re worried about many things,” that suggests to me a little more depth to the problem (Luke 10:41). More than just, “Mary should help with the dishes.”
Regardless, Jesus’ response is quite clear. This is where Mary belongs. And nothing will get in the way of that (Luke 10:42).
The Unavoidable Call of God
Like I said, I’ve actually struggled with this question of women in church leadership. It’s not an issue I dismiss. It’s something I’ve given serious consideration to.
What I keep coming back to in my own life—and what I think Scripture keeps coming back to—is that the place where you are supposed to be, all else aside, is something ultimately unavoidable.
God’s calling on your life isn’t that hard to figure out. Sometimes it’s hard to execute. But it’s not hard to identify. The high priests just keep showing up asking for your advice. The military leaders just keep refusing to go to war without you. Guests keep showing up in your village, and you’re just so good at entertaining.
Now, if your freeloading sister would just help you out a little bit…
“It will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42).
Jesus’ words—for both men and women—I think what we are called to is ultimately unavoidable. Unless we put in some serious work to avoid it. Like Jonah, getting on that boat, sailing in the opposite direction… and still ending up right back where he started (Jonah 1–3).
It’s remarkable how many pastors—literally every pastor I’ve ever met, and I’m not exaggerating—how many pastors have expressed that exact same thought when describing their call to ministry: “It’s just the thing I couldn’t avoid any longer.”
We’d go around the table introducing ourselves at seminary: “I’m here because it’s the thing I couldn’t avoid any longer.” That came up over and over again.
Four Women, Four Roles, One Truth
As we move into a song that’s about this exact idea, I want to leave you with this:
The old phrase—“Just let go and let God”—surrender to the unavoidable call.
It’s a deeply biblical reality that women have always been leaders in the church in many and various ways. And what we have in today’s readings are four examples. Four very different examples.
There’s the judge.
There’s the prophet.
There’s the disciple.
And there’s the hostess.
Martha is also a leader. She’s an organizer. She’s in charge of her household. She’s clearly accustomed to being listened to. She even expects Jesus to listen to her.
And that’s where the argument against women in leadership really starts to fall apart—in the practical application. It just requires us to make these really arbitrary distinctions that aren’t based in reality.
“Women can’t be leaders in church, but they can run the kitchen.” That’s a leadership position.
“Women can’t preach, but they can teach Sunday school.” What is the actual distinction there?
When you start to look into it, it really does start to fall apart.
Final Encouragement: Don’t Let Anyone Take It Away
So what I would encourage anyone to do—anyone who’s trying to figure out: What is the call? What are we supposed to do? What’s the next step?
Just find that thing that is unavoidable in your life. That thing that you can’t breathe without doing. That thing you just keep coming back to.
And when you are sure that’s the thing God wants you to do—at least for right now—don’t let anyone take it away.
Thanks for joining me for this important conversation on women in church leadership. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments—whether you’re reflecting on one of the Scripture passages, your own experiences in church, or something that challenged or encouraged you today.
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