The Ministry of Phoebe
This week I have received two letters from puzzled and disappointed men, over my promotion of women in the leadership of the church. Both have stated that for many years they have appreciated my scriptural stance on many matters, but feel that in the matter of women in leadership I have moved from the scriptures:
“Your doctrine as preached to the Baptist ladies at their convention, seems to reek of the ‘feminist theology’ currently sweeping through the churches. This philosophy is cleverly linked with the homosexual drive to put themselves in the pulpit. You are quoted in this Baptist journal that times are changing and that the church has to change with them. Is this what you think? Your understanding of the place for ministries for women in the church does not agree with that of God. It most definitely agrees with the wisdom of the world in relation to what women and some men think they should be doing in the church, but your scriptures and philosophies do not agree with the word of God,” says Mick Mulgrew of Maryborough, Queensland.
A 2GB listener writes:
“I praise God for your ministry and outspokenness against falling away type doctrine in the church today. However, for some reason, you have taken society’s thermometer for the role of women in the church. What has changed in the last 2000 years that women now have rights to equal partnership or headship in marriage or the church? Man’s headship is God’s will in marriage and the church. If you preach otherwise then your message is worthless, and the church offers nothing the world can’t offer with its humanistic philosophies,” says Phil Neal of Lane Cove.
Wesley Mission also has women ministers, women staff, women elders, women stewards. Most elders and parish counsellors and most of our one thousand five hundred employed staff are women. In leadership we have women in about the same proportion as the early church—90 leaders are mentioned by name in the New Testament and 20 are women. It is because of the scriptures I take my stand, not in spite of them.
THE MINISTRY OF PHOEBE
In Romans 16 Paul greets twenty-six people by name, as well as several unnamed; and the churches that were meeting in homes. He closed with greetings from nine believers who were with him in Corinth when he wrote the letter. Tonight I will consider the first of these: Paul’s commendation of Phoebe.
“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Cenchrea. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been a great help to many people, including me” (Romans 16:1-2).
It seems likely that Phoebe was the person entrusted with the task of taking the letter to Rome, for a commendation of someone not with the letter normally refers to a future arrival (cf. 1 Cor. 16:10; Col. 4:10). Christians were noted for their hospitality and such a commendation introduced the bearer.
Phoebe is called our sister, a normal description of a female believer; believers were members of the family of God. She was also “a servant of the church in Cenchrea.” Paul’s word translated here as “servant”, is the word for “deacon” which is translated as such in his letter to the Philippians (1:1). Paul describes Phoebe as a deacon of the church at Cenchrea. The word is the feminine of deacon, so some translations call her, “a deaconess”, although the word “deaconess” is not found until much later. There were women in the early church who served by visiting the sick, assisting the young women, and helping the poor. Phoebe was, what ever the title, an office-bearer in the Church.
Social conditions then required female church workers to assist in such matters as the baptism of women or anything that meant contact with women’s quarters in homes. She was an official in the same way that this word is used of elders, bishops and ministers. The word used of her is the same word Paul used of himself and others in ministry who preached Jesus Christ (1 Cor 3:5): “I Paul, was made a minister” (Col 1:23).
Phoebe is called a deacon, and is also called by the same word translated of men as “minister”. She came from Cenchrea, which was the port of Corinth and she was probably won to Christ during Paul’s year and a half ministry in Corinth.
The Romans were “to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints” which means the kind of welcome that is most fitting. “To give her any help she may need” means to stand by her in whatever matter she has need. Paul anticipated that she would need assistance in Rome and he expected the Romans to help her.
For Paul goes on to make it clear that Phoebe was someone special. She had helped many people, himself included. Phoebe had been a helper or “protectress” of himself and other Christians. This word he uses is the feminine of a word used like the Latin patronus for the legal representative of the foreigner. In Jewish communities it meant the legal representative or wealthy patron. Phoebe somehow was the legal protector of the Christians at Cenchrea. In the Old Testament this noun is used of officials in charge of the work of the King (1 Chron 29:6) and of chief officers “who ruled over the people” (2 Chron 8:10). In its verb form the word means “to be at the head of, to rule, to direct” and it is used of those who “rule” in the church (Rom 12:8, 1 Thess 5:12, 1 Tim 5:17). Phoebe was exercising a ministry of leadership in the church at Cenchrea. Paul may have used it figuratively, but even so it points to an important person. It was unlikely that a woman would travel alone and probably Phoebe travelled with a retinue of servants, and this, too, points to a woman of means. Dr Leon Morris, one of the world’s greatest commentators on Romans says: “There were not many wealthy people in the church of the day, but it seems that Phoebe was one of them” (Romans Eerdmans, 1988).
Phoebe was a woman in the early church holding a position of leadership, rulership and ministry, who used her influence to help Paul. But Phoebe is only the first of a dozen mentioned in this chapter. Let us now turn to look at the women in the first century church.
