Women's Task Force

This piece is the Afterword for the new edition of the book by Vineyard scholar Don Williams, "The Apostle Paul and Women in Ministry". Please enjoy it as a book review and also an introduction to you of Rose Swetman, Area Pastoral Care Leader in the Northwest Region and Co-Pastor of Vineyard Community Church in Shoreline, WA.

The Apostle Paul and Women in the Church
Afterword
By Rose Madrid-Swetman

When I was in my early twenties, I belonged to a church that had a married couple as the co-senior pastors. The woman was ordained and functioned with every bit of pastoral authority as her husband. This was my first experience in a church outside of the Roman Catholic Church in which I was raised.

I have loved God my entire life. My earliest memories of desiring to serve God were to become a nun so I could be married to Jesus. In the years I attended the church co-led by a man and woman, I saw a picture of biblical equality modeled, so that both men and women could respond to the invitation of God to serve his Church in all levels of leadership.

My next church experience was in the mid-1980s. I attended a Vineyard Church that had a male senior pastor and a male associate pastor. Both of these men held a theological framework of biblical equality and encouraged me to pursue my desire to serve God according to my gifts and talents. Several years later as a single woman, I was part of a church planting team with two married couples. In 1995, I was ordained as the associate pastor of the church I helped plant.

Today, my husband Rich and I are the co-senior pastors of Vineyard Community Church in Shoreline, WA. In addition, I am an Area Pastor Care Leader that brings pastoral care to seven churches in Vineyard USA’s Northwest Region. Within the church and area churches I serve, I am completely free to be whom God has made and called me to be. However, sometimes outside of those contexts, I often find myself among pastors and leaders who resonate theologically as complementarians. During those encounters, I often find myself feeling defensive for whom God created me to be, knowing there are those that believe I am somehow out of God’s order for women. I cannot tell you the gamut of emotion I have felt while in those situations.

Over the years I have read as much scholarly work addressing all sides of this conflict as I could. I want to be faithful to God and his Word. I am convinced that biblical equality is found throughout the biblical text when read through the lens of the Kingdom of God. From the beginning of our story to the end, we see God’s intention that men and women are to be imagebearers, working together to serve God as equal partners in his creation.

Conflict in the church is not new. From the New Testament letters and all through church history we have seen good people disagree over serious issues. Issues such as the nature of Christ in the first century to slavery in our not too distant past have caused great conflict between God-loving Christians. Such is the continuing case with the debate about women in ministry. There are good people on both sides struggling for truth.

In The Apostle Paul and Women in the Church, Don Williams has given us a great gift as he has carefully and with significant scholarship unpacked the Apostle Paul’s words on this subject. With the precision of a heart surgeon, Don has carefully examined the context, language, and historical background of Paul. As he exegetes the text, the reader is able to hear Paul’s heart as well as his theological framework for introducing the radical upside-down Kingdom of God that has in Christ leveled the playing field between every boundary marker that has divided humanity. In the new humanity formed in Christ, everyone is welcome to respond to the call of God in every area of service in the Church. The Church as the sign, agent, and witness to the Kingdom of God demonstrates equality between men and women together joining God in his mission to reconcile all things to Christ.

Don Williams not only addresses biblical equality in Church leadership, he masterfully exegetes the Scripture on marriage. Marriage is a partnership, a covenant made between two equals that are committed to the Lordship of Christ. In mutual submission, men and women love and honor one another as a witness to the Kingdom of God.

My hope is that every person seeking to be faithful to the biblical text will prayerfully read through this timeless work. Continued study, dialogue, and prayer can be the only way forward as both sides of this conflict live into our own part in the biblical story. I commend Don Williams for his many thoughtful years of study and scholarship on this most important issue facing the Evangelical Church at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Rose Madrid-Swetman
Co-Pastor
Vineyard Community Church
Shoreline, WA

Copyright 2010 by Don Williams
Permission to use from Harmon Press
The Apostle Paul and Women in the Church is available through the Harmon Press Bookstore and Vineyard Resources