N.T. Wright: the New Testament Is Clear on Female Preachers

When Pastor Miles McPherson asked N.T. Wright about his thoughts on women in ministry, the audience at Rock Church in San Diego erupted into enthusiastic applause. However, Wright said, the same question would elicit a yawn in the U.K. “We settled this one years ago,” Wright explained. Wright, who says he is asked about this topic nearly everywhere he goes outside of Britain, leans heavily on two passages of Scripture when it comes to answering the question “what does the Bible say about female preachers?”

“The usual idea that women were kept down in the ancient world and it’s only recently that feminism has brought them back up is quite wrong,” Wright argues. The theologian, who recently published a book called The New Testament in Its World, said women who had some authority in the church and society were not anathema in the ancient world. “There were lots of independent women in Paul’s world and that was something Paul worked with.” Read More