Women In The Church

"This study attempts to apply to the question of the role of women in the assembly of the church a methodology for dealing with disputed questions of Christian practice that I previously employed in reference to instrumental music in the church2 and to the day for observing the Lord’s supper.3 This methodology involves three steps.
     (1) A careful exegesis of relevant New Testament texts. This step attempts to learn as much as one can from statements in the New Testament itself and then to put the information together in a systematic way.
     (2) An examination of the historical context of the New Testament and of the early Christian development after the New Testament. This step considers what was possible in the first century and how the New Testament information is to be understood in its historical setting. Then it examines the evidence in early Christian literature outside the New Testament. This testimony from history is a control on whether one has read the Biblical texts accurately and put them together correctly. The early Christian development is a witness to the apostolic teaching and practice and must be derivable in some way from it even when it departs from it.
     (3) A consideration of the doctrinal significance and coherence of the conclusions reached from the Biblical and historical evidence. An examination of whether there is theological meaning in the ascertained practices either ascribed to them by the sources or inherent in them is a control on whether these practices were incidental to the texts or were culturally and temporally conditioned. Is there a doctrinal meaning for the practice that determines its continuing relevance for the church? This criterion does not mean, “Can one attribute a doctrinal meaning to the practice?” (one can ascribe a doctrinal meaning to almost anything). The theology must derive from the texts and be intimately associated with the practice.
     Unlike the other topics to which I have applied this methodology, the role of women in the assembly of the church is the subject of explicit New Testament prohibitions and commands. For that reason, the treatment of the New Testament texts must be much more extensive and the exegesis more detailed, even if not as exhaustive as a full scale commentary would require. The historical and doctrinal chapters will be briefer, for they are confirmatory of the exegesis and draw out its rationale and significance."
– Everett Ferguson, Ph.D.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. New Testament Texts
2. Evidene from History
3. Doctrinal Considerations

About the Author: Everett Ferguson (PhD, Harvard) is Professor Emeritus of Bible and now Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas, where he taught church history and Greek. He is the author of 30 books, including Backgrounds of Early Christianity, Early Christians Speak, and Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries. He was also general editor of the two-volume Encyclopedia of Early Christianity as well as editor or contributor to numerous other books.