In response to Hamish Denmead, Wakefield, in the February NZ Baptist:

“I commend to you our sister Merrilyn, who is a deacon in the church in Cenchrea. Welcome her in the Lord as one who is worthy of honor among God’s people. Help her in whatever she needs for she has been helpful to many, and especially to me. Give my greetings to Lyn and Fraser, my co-workers in the ministry of Christ Jesus. In fact they once risked their lives for me. I am thankful to them and so are all the Gentile churches.”

These of course are not my words, apart from name changes where I inserted the name of a previous President of the Baptist Union and the current President and her husband. These are the Apostle Paul’s words in Romans 16, and the original names are Phoebe and Priscilla and Aquilla.

Phoebe and Priscilla are not men’s names any more than they were in Paul’s time (it was normal for the senior leader to be mentioned first). That there were women in leadership in the churches that Paul helped establish is indisputable.

What is also clear is that his overriding concern was the Gospel. He wrote into different cultural contexts where his prime concern was not whether men or women were in leadership, but whether women in leadership would be a hindrance to the Gospel at a particular time and in a specific place, whereas in another context it clearly would not have been an issue.

I guess we have to ask the question: Did Paul get it badly wrong in Romans 16, or has God erred with all of the great women leaders in the history of the church and the Gospel? What would the history of courageous mission look like without them?

I believe it is stretching credulity to suggest that, in the service of the Gospel in our own New Zealand context in the 21st century, women should not be in leadership in the Church, as ridiculous as suggesting that an old man who is “infallible” should be the leader of the Church worldwide.

Our passion should be the Gospel, not denying the Gospel of the gifting of more than half of our people.

– Rodney Macann
National Leader, New Zealand Baptist Union