Dr Craig Keener: Paul Supported the Ministry of Women

This recording is an academic presentation from the Asia Pentecostal Summit 2025, held in Singapore at City Harvest Church.

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Scholar:
Dr Craig Keener (F.M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies, Asbury Theological Seminary)

Paper Title:
Paul Supported the Ministry of Women

Paper Précis:
When Paul writes to former colleagues in Rome, he commends the ministries of more women than men; one of those he commends he even labels a fellow apostle. Paul, who ranks apostles and prophets as the most prominent ministries, allows for women to prophesy. His most common terms for ministry, diakonos (“minister,” “servant”) and sunergos (“fellow worker”), he applies to women as well as men. So why do two passages seem to limit women’s ministry? Although Mediterranean antiquity provided women less access to learning, Paul in both passages invites women to learn. The one passage that grammatically might prohibit women from teaching appears in the one set of letters where we know that false teachers were targeting women with their teaching. In general, then, Paul affirmed women in ministry; he restricted it only where necessary for specific situations.

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