Women in Church Leadership Roles & Offices

For this Sunday's worship, the focus is on Deborah who was a great leader during the early years of Israel's history. This raises the question about the biblical view of women in ministry leadership positions.

The theology of the United Methodist Church values the role of women in all levels of ministry leadership in both the local as well as denominational levels. Deborah, from the Old Testament is a good example of the leadership abilities that women bring to various leadership positions in the church.

A New Testament example is Junia (Romans 16:7) where Paul writes that she and other leaders in the church "are outstanding among the apostles." Why has Junia, a female apostle not received more attention in the "women in church leadership roles and offices" discussion? In part, this is because one of the earlier biblical manuscript scribes changed the name to the similar male sounding name of Junias, a patriarchal assumption! Today, most reasoned biblical scholars agree that Paul was referring to the female apostle, Junia.

Since Junia is given the title, "apostle" by Paul, this means that she would have been involved in leadership positions involving evangelism, teaching, preaching, and establishing, and leading churches.
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But back to Deborah from the Old Testament. As one of the Judges of Israel, Deborah was thee leader of Israel at the time which involved national leadership (political and military!) and judicial decisions.

Somehow, biblical women leaders such as Deborah and Junia don't get mentioned in discussions regarding women in ministry. But well, they should.