Conclusions

Summary

Since we have drawn conclusions at the end of each chapter, it only remains here to make some final remarks. We may begin by reiterating what was suggested in the introduction.

It appears that the New Testament evidence shows a definite tendency on the part of the authors addressing the earliest churches to argue for, or support by implication, the new freedom and roles women may assume in Christ. At the same time, the evidence indicates an attempt at reformation, not repudiation, of the universal patriarchal structure of family and society in the first century in so far as it included the Christian family and community. It is crucial to see that this reformation was to take place ‘in Christ’. In the New Testament material there is no call to social revolution or the overthrow of a patriarchal society outside of the Body of Christ. Reformation in community, not renunciation in society, is the order of the day.

This significant, though not radical, reformation in community and affirmation of women was not quickly or universally accepted even in the Christian Church. When the author of Luke–Acts wrote in the last quarter of the first century these views still had to be argued. The same is true even later when the final form of the Fourth Gospel appeared. Even a cursory review of post-New Testamental and pre-Nicene material suggests that, as problems arose with heresy, the resistance to both the reformation and affirmation mentioned above intensified.