3 - Women and the family of faith in the Pauline epistles

Summary

Our discussion of the Pauline material thus far has been limited to family relationships, but it is now time to investigate Pauline texts dealing with women and their involvement in worship, evangelism, and other aspects of church life. True, the material studied in chapter 2 also dealt implicitly with these areas, for it was advice to the Christian family given in the context of a letter read in worship. Now, however, we will focus on texts that not only address but also deal with women in worship. This will mean giving 1 Corinthians 11 and 14 close attention to determine not only what roles women were assuming in worship, but also how Paul viewed these roles.

We will also look at Romans 16 (the name list), the tantalizing reference in Phil 4.2, and the much controverted Gal 3.28. At the end of this chapter we will examine some of the later Pauline epistles (the Pastorals) because, even if this material is written not by Paul but by a Paulinist, it is likely to reflect a line of thinking that developed from Pauline remarks or practices. The Pastorals, then, may give us a hint as to how Paul's thought was being applied in the last third of the first century, and provide us with a point of comparison when we discuss in chapters 4 and 5 some of the trajectories of thought in the redactional work of the Evangelists during that same period.