I spent months researching the topic of women in ministry so that I could present you with this exhaustive analysis of everything the Bible says about it. Today we are surveying the Old Testament to look for examples of women in positions like leadership.
We’ll see Deborah, an actual “judge” of Israel who definitely exercised real authority in ancient Israel with God’s approval. How does that impact our view of women’s roles? Was Deborah limited in her role in any way?
We’ll look at Miriam and ask if she was a leader like Moses during the time of Exodus.
Many egalitarians claim that there are quite a few women in leadership roles in the Old Testament. Women as civic authorities, royal authorities, prophetesses (and there’s no denying that one!).
While there are more women in roles that carry some degree of authority than many of us have realized, we still need to answer the question of why they were forbidden from being priests in the service of God even though pagan religions had female priests. I’ll tackle both sides and try real hard not to go beyond the text of Scripture.
I want to make sure that whatever my understanding of the New Testament teaching on women in ministry is, it’s consistent with God’s overall revelation and example of how He used women in the Old Testament.
CLICK HERE for the playlist of ALL the videos in this series (more will be added as I make them).
You can also find the videos and my notes freely available on my website:
https://BibleThinker.org
Video Map for Quick Reference:
0:00 Introduction & Part 1&2 Recap
- 13:49 Miriam as a Leader of Israel
- 34:54 Huldah the Prophetess
- 42:42 Isaiah’s Wife
- 43:54 Noadiah
- 47:24 Deborah the Judge
- 1:11:28 Jezebel
- 1:14:15 Athaliah
- 1:16:57 Esther
- 1:35:09 Why Weren’t Women Priests?
- 1:49:57 Conclusions
- 1:50:58 Coming Up Next in Part 4
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