{"id":1810,"date":"2006-10-17T02:30:39","date_gmt":"2006-10-17T07:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/17\/women-in-ministry-sumner-months\/"},"modified":"2006-10-17T02:30:39","modified_gmt":"2006-10-17T07:30:39","slug":"women-in-ministry-sumner-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/17\/women-in-ministry-sumner-months\/","title":{"rendered":"Women in Ministry: Sumner Months"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Any church that prohibits women from minstering in ways that women minister within the pages of the Bible, regardless of the text that church chooses to use in order to restrict women (usually 1 Cor 14:34-35 or 1 Tim 2:11-15), is unbiblical. Whatever restrictions are imposed, if they restrict women from doing what women did in the Bible \u2014 leading, co-teaching (Priscilla), prophesying, publicly praying, etc \u2014 is unbiblical. Another book I\u2019ll be working through on this topic is Sarah Sumner<\/a>, Men and Women in the Church<\/em><\/a>.
\nLet me make the point more forcefully: any church that blocks women from doing (1) what they are permitted to do in the Bible and (2) from doing what the Spirit empowers them to do is quenching the Spirit.
\nNow as a Question: Can we be biblical when we restrict women from the ministries they were permitted to do in the pages of the Bible?
\nI\u2019m teaching a course at North Park next semester called Jesus, Mary, and Women, so lots of my reading is shaped toward that course. Which means, yes, I\u2019m cheating: blogging and preparing at the same time.
\nChp 1 of Sarah Sumner\u2019s book is her story \u2014 and you have to read it. It doesn\u2019t do anything but get my interest that she begins by quoting Esther 4:16: \u201cIf I perish, I perish.\u201d She\u2019s going for it.
\nAs a child she thought this: \u201cMy heart\u2019s desire was to do something more, but I didn\u2019t know how to picture a woman doing more\u201d (16). Then she saw Joyce Landorf speaking publicly; Sarah decided she wanted to become a Christian speaker. She tells her story of becoming a 3d-grade teacher; then going to Wheaton; then selling books; then on to Trinity for a PhD and then to Azusa Pacific where she is now a professor.
\nThe closing to the chp was moving:
\n\u201cI changed in the process of writing this book. I am not the same person as I was when I first tried to write it. My dignity is far more intact.\u201d That sentence surprised me. \u201cMy dignity?,\u201d I wondered. \u201cMaking myself known as a woman theologian, going public with my views, forced me to confront who I am. I am a woman.\u201d
\nThen this: \u201cFor me, writing this book became an act of repentance. It forced me to repent from the sin of being prejudiced against women.\u201d How so? She was a typical evangelical. \u201cLike most other people who honestly believe they haven\u2019t any issue with seeing women as inferior, I too believed that mistakenly about myself\u201d (23).
\nWe\u2019ll be dipping into this book for a month or so. Hence, Sumner months as our title for this series on Sarah\u2019s book.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Any church that prohibits women from minstering in ways that women minister within the pages of the Bible, regardless of the text that church chooses to use in order to restrict women (usually 1 Cor 14:34-35 or 1 Tim 2:11-15), is unbiblical. Whatever restrictions are imposed, if they restrict women from doing what women did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[476,425,1750],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-missional","category-women-and-ministry"],"yoast_head":"\nWomen in Ministry: Sumner Months<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Any church that prohibits women from minstering in ways that women minister within the pages of the Bible, regardless of the text that church chooses to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/17\/women-in-ministry-sumner-months\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Women in Ministry: Sumner Months\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Any church that prohibits women from minstering in ways that women minister within the pages of the Bible, regardless of the text that church chooses to\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/17\/women-in-ministry-sumner-months\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-10-17T07:30:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/17\/women-in-ministry-sumner-months\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/17\/women-in-ministry-sumner-months\/\",\"name\":\"Women in Ministry: Sumner Months\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2006-10-17T07:30:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2006-10-17T07:30:39+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"Any church that prohibits women from minstering in ways that women minister within the pages of the Bible, regardless of the text that church chooses to\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/17\/women-in-ministry-sumner-months\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/17\/women-in-ministry-sumner-months\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/17\/women-in-ministry-sumner-months\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Women in Ministry: Sumner Months\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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