**The First Century Church & the Ministry of Women
It is helpful to have some insight into the values and customs of the first Christians, and some appreciation of how they organised their meetings and ministries, if we are to have a better understanding of the setting, context, and meaning of the New Testament letters. In this article, I provide a brief overview of church life in the first century, and I highlight the participation of women.
House Churches in the First Century
For the first two hundred years of the Christian movement, most meetings were held in homes. This custom of meeting in homes is well attested in the New Testament. Wayne Meeks observes that “In four places in the Pauline letters[1] specific congregations are designated by the phrase
hē kat’ oikon (+ possessive pronoun)
ekklēsia, which we may tentatively translate ‘the assembly at N’s household’.”[2] Women were involved in each of these four house churches.[3]
Prisca, with Aquila, hosted and led a house church in Ephesus (
1 Cor. 16:19), and later in Rome (
Rom. 16:3-5).
Apphia was a prominent member of a house church in Colossae, and is one of three people greeted individually in
Philemon 1:1-2.
Nympha hosted a church in her home in Laodicea and is greeted in
Colossians 4:15.
In house churches, the public sphere (the traditional domain of men) and the more private, domestic sphere (the traditional domain of women) overlapped, and women—especially the wealthy women who hosted churches in their own homes—had equal opportunities to minister.[4]
Deborah Gill and Barbara Cavaness write:
. . . in ancient Mediterranean society, among both Jews and non-Jews, women often played quite powerful social and political leadership roles. Such roles were rooted in these women’s authority at the household level. Much business and commerce centered around households of the wealthy. These households could be sizable domestic communities including immediate family, extended family members, servants/slaves, and employees. In the ancient world, both men and women could be householders and patrons. Women’s experience as managers of these households, their “social authority, economic power, and political influence”, established their leadership in other domains in Greco-Roman society and even synagogue leadership in Jewish society.[5]
The
kat’ oikon ekklēsia was “the ‘basic cell’ of the Christian movement, and its nucleus was often an existing household.”[6] At first, almost all the Christian assemblies were small, some consisting of only one or two extended households.[7] In large cities such as Rome, Corinth, and Ephesus there were several house churches with some kind of network which connected the house churches within each city together. Paul probably used the expression
kat’ oikon to distinguish the individual house churches “from ‘the whole church’ (
holē hē ekklēsia) which could assemble on occasion (
1 Cor. 14:23;
Rom. 16:23; cf.
1 Cor. 11:20).”[8] By the end of the first century, networks of churches were overseen by a minister sometimes referred to as a bishop (
episkopos).[9]
Congregations would gather in homes for weekly communion suppers.[10] During these meetings, there would be a time for recitations or readings from memorised or written Old Testament scripture, or readings from letters sent from other churches or prominent Christians such as apostles or bishops. Plus there would be some kind of exhortation, the expression of worship, and the exercise of charismatic ministries.[11] How these house churches were led or organised, however, is not known with certainty, and there seems to have been variety in how ministries were exercised. Different congregations, guided by different leaders and teachers, determined their own practices and boundaries.[12]
Some house churches may have borrowed elements from synagogues services. All of the first Christians were Jewish and it is likely that in some synagogues all the members converted to Christianity. These communities would have continued with their familiar practices but modified them to encourage the Christian faith and the worship of Jesus Christ. Other assemblies may have functioned more like the many voluntary associations and trade guilds that flourished in the first century.[13]
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"...Jesus had warned against a ruling kind of leadership in ministry, and he exemplified ministering as a servant. Jesus urged his disciples to follow his example and told them:
**But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant.
Matthew 23:8-11 (NRSV)...
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"...Women Ministers in the First-Century Church
Wayne Meeks observes that the number of women ministers in the Pauline movement is “nearly equal to that of men.”[17] In Romans chapter 16,
twenty-nine people are mentioned. Two women—
Phoebe and Prisca—head the list, and more women than men are described in terms of their ministries. Of the five named Christians in the church at Philippi, a church founded by Paul, three are women, and two are men.[18] Considering what the New Testament shows us about Pauline churches, it seems that, as a general statement, Meeks is correct: women were actively involved in churches and ventures associated with the apostle Paul in numbers that were “nearly equal to that of men”.
Many women ministers are mentioned in the New Testament and feature in most of Paul’s letters. In the post-apostolic writings, however, women ministers are mentioned much less frequently and they almost disappear. Furthermore, in some of the post-apostolic writings, women are rarely addressed directly and seem excluded from even general instructions. First Clement, a letter written by the Roman Christians to the Corinthians in around 95-97, seems to be primarily written to a male audience who are addressed several times as
andres adelphoi. Women are “others.” On the other hand, the anonymous epistle of Barnabas, possibly written around the same time, is addressed to both “sons and daughters” (
huioi kai thugateres) (Barn. 1:1). In Second Clement, a pseudonymous letter written in around 140-160, men and women are also addressed together. Towards the end of Second Clement this becomes explicit as both “brothers and sisters” (
adelphoi kai adelphai) are implored to heed the same instructions (2 Clem. 19:1; 20:2).
Chapter 12 of Second Clement contains a profound message of gender equality and indicates that gender discrimination has no place in the body of Christ. First Clement, the Didache, and other post-apostolic writings, however, indicate that only men could be leaders in the church. The Didache (a church manual dating from the late first or early second century) speaks of leaders as priests, high priests in fact, in a “priesthood” that is restricted to men. This new priestly dynamic, that was absent in many first Christian churches, caused a growing distinction and separation between church leaders and other church members, as well as between men and women in the church.[19]
Conclusion
Church life in the first century was quite unlike church life today. We need to remember this when we read the New Testament letters and be careful to not read back into the text our modern understandings of ministry and Sunday services. There is one thing we share in common with the early Christians, though: their views on women in ministry, as in today’s church, were not uniform. Tragically, in the following centuries, the attitudes towards women in ministry became unjustly restrictive, and these attitudes were turned into church rules.[20] In some churches today these unwarranted restrictions continue. "
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