Sharing the Vision*

The American Baptist Women in Ministry program works to:

Strengthen networks for support, multi-ethnic and multicultural dialogue, and partnership among women in ministry and their constituencies.

Act as a denominational liaison, identifying and working with other advocates for women in ministry.

Increase advocacy, visibility, and placement of women in American Baptist ministries.

American Baptist Women In Ministry publishes a quarterly newsletter and other resources to encourage, educate, and inform those concerned about issues of women in ministry. The program, part of ABC Education Ministries, provides financial support, program planning assistance, and conference and retreat leadership for American Baptist Women In Ministry and ABC events.

A Biblical Basis for Equal Partnership

Women and Men in the Ministry of the Church**

Rev. Dr. David M. Scholer is Professor of New Testament in the School of Theology,Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA, where he has taught since September 1994. He received the B.A. and M.A. from Wheaton College, the B.D. from Gordon Divinity School and the Th.D. from Harvard DivinitySchool. He is ordained in the American Baptist Churches USA. He is a member of the StudiorumNovi Testamenti Societas, the Society of Biblical Literature, the North American Patristic Societyand other professional and academic societies. He has published widely and lectures frequently.

Introduction

Women have contributed much to the ministry of the church throughout its history. However, their role in this area has never been free from controversy. Today, most church bodies are discussing the place of women in their ministries. Crucial to these discussions for many of us are the matters of faithful biblical interpretation.

Perhaps a few words should be said about the concept of ministry itself on the basis of the New Testament. Today, we tend to confuse our specific church traditions about ordination with the biblical concept of ministry. The New Testament says relatively little about ordination. It clearly portrays, however, the fact that the early church had a varied and faithful ministry arising from the fact that all of God's people were "gifted" by the Holy Spirit for the purpose of edifying or building up one another (see, for example, 1 Corinthians 12:4-31, 14:1-19; Romans 12:3-8; Ephesians 4:7-16, 1 Peter 4:8-11). Any person could exercise ministry (which means, remember, service) who was called and gifted by God and affirmed by the body of Christ, the Church. Some were set apart in leadership positions and some were assigned specific tasks to accomplish, but the differences among ministries were not distinctions of kind. Eventually, certain types of affirmation were combined with certain functions of ministry to produce our current understanding of ordination.

Modern debates over the ordination of women often miss the crucial and basic issues of the holistic concepts of the ministry of the church reflected in the New Testament. Of course, no person should be ordained or given any responsibilities of ministry within the church because of sex or for the sake of a "point." On the other hand, we have affirmed in the church that no person, called and gifted by God, should be denied any role of ministry or leadership in the church because of one's sex.