The Ministry of Women in the New Testament

Respected scholar Dorothy Lee considers evidence from the New Testament and early church to show that women's ministry is confirmed by the biblical witness. Her comprehensive examination explores the roles women played in the Gospels and the Pauline corpus, with a particular focus on passages that have been used in the past to limit women's ministry. She argues that women in the New Testament were not only valued as disciples but also given leadership roles, which has implications for the contemporary church.

Publish Date: February 16, 2021

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. I found this book to be particularly relevant in this day and age. A strong message that encourages women to be disciples in the church and given leadership roles.


4 star

In this comprehensive volume Dorothy A. Lee traces women's ministry in a systematic way through the New Testament and into the traditions of the early church.
Part 1: Women's Ministry in the New Testament

1. Mark and Matthew

2. Gospel of Luke

3. Acts

4. Gospel of John

5. Paul's Letters: Historical and Thematic Issues

6. Paul's Letters: Key Texts

7. Later New Testament Writings

Part 2: Women's Ministry in the Tradition

8. History and Texts

9. Theology

She combs through each book and letter and includes helpful charts detailing each woman (named and unnamed). Having it all laid out made it easy to see the impressive contributions of women. An important point was to challenge the unconscious bias many of us have when we hear the term disciples. Her continual refrain was to remind us that, unless it was explicitly just the 12 disciples, we should assume women were part of the group. From movies to flannelgraphs women are rarely visually included among the numerous followers and how we consume those images can impact our later reading of the texts.

This is a deeply scholarly read (over 600 endnotes!) diving into issues of textual criticism as well as theories on authorship and source material like Q. It may not be the best resource for a casual reader but it is not over the head of someone with a basic familiarity of Biblical criticism or those willing to dive deeper.

I particularly appreciated the last chapter covering the contributions women made to theology during the unfortunately named Patristic period. In seminary I am currently studying Theology 1 and having this resource alongside my textbooks has enabled me to see the hidden women who have been obscured in favor of the early church fathers.

Her fire burned brightest in the conclusion as she gave a passionate defense for the full inclusion of women in every aspect of ministry, lay and ordained. I hold to a generous complementarian theology and I did not agree with all of her conclusions. She made strong arguments regarding how feminine imagery such as mothering complements the androcentric language for God and challenges assumptions. Another area of strength was in pointing out the inaccuracy of translating 'adelphoi' as simply 'brothers' instead of a more accurate and inclusive term. However, one argument I thought was a bit overstretched centered on the household codes. She argued that authority structures within marriage were null and void. "Because slavery is now universally opposed we ought by definition to oppose the other." However, she did not mention the other group commonly found in those codes, parents and children and did not argue for the abolition of parental authority on the same principal.

Nevertheless, the entirety of the book was so compelling to the case that women's ministry need not be limited as much as it is now. No matter your views on the roles of women in ministry, I'd recommend it as an excellent resource in order to see the fuller picture of how women engaged in ministry roles in the first century.

I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions are my own.

Lee's book would make a very good text or handbook for understanding women's roles in the New Testament. She also includes work on women in the place of later tradition and a theological basis for women having complete equality with men. The goal of Lee's book is establishing how the New Testament records the ministry of women and by extension establishing a basis for the full inclusion of women in modern ministry. Analyzing the Gospels, letters, and other writing she details how various women were portrayed by the authors of the NT. Women were central disciples, evangelists, prophets, deacons, teachers, and among the apostles. If that is the case, why would we keep them from acting out of those gifts and callings today.

I would heartily recommend this book to those looking for an expert on the subject giving a high level overview of the material. The work is readable, organized, and a good middle ground for study.

I’m writing this review the day after reports that Beth Moore is formerly leaving the Southern Baptist Convention. That’s a relevant fact because, for decades, Moore has been the SBC’s most prominent female leader. In recent years, you began to see the cracks in the relationship as the SBC grew more patriarchal and Moore grew more egalitarian. It all finally reached a formal breaking point and, I expect, Moore will have no shortage of support from egalitarian denominations.

During this same time, the conversation about women in ministry has grown even louder and even into the more conservative and patriarchal sections of evangelical Christianity. More and more women are attending seminary, leading churches, preaching the Gospel, and contesting the notion that Scripture forbids female leadership.

Dr. Dorothy A. Lee’s The Ministry of Women in the New Testament is a firm, clear, concise exploration of women in ministry from the ministry of Jesus into the early church that unapologetically concludes that Scripture empowers women to minister, to preach, to teach, and to be Spirit-indwelled beings who live out their God-given callings. I use the term “unapologetically” not to mean that Lee writes brashly or with a chip on her shoulder, but in the sense that she is not mounting some sort of defense of women in ministry. This is not an argument, not an apologia; it is an exploration of fact that leaves very little to argue against.

The first part of the book covers the ministry of women as portrayed in the New Testament writings. The second covers women in ministry as portrayed in the tradition of the Early Church. It’s this latter section, even though it’s more of an addendum to the book proper, that really caught my attention. It’s one thing to exegete Paul, for instance, and conclude that the typical passages used to preclude women from ministry actually don’t mean that within their cultural contexts. The comeback to that is always to complain about a new faulty “liberal” interpretation of sacred Scripture.

By showing that the early church relied upon women in leadership positions, Lee is able to prove that an egalitarian ecclesiology is present from the time of Jesus. Those with better tools to know contextually, culturally, and linguistically what those passages meant obviously didn’t conclude they meant women couldn’t lead. In this section, Lee is also able to highlight mothers of the faith who have been overlooked because of the patriarchal nature of the church.

Elsewhere, Lee’s exploration of the person of Mary, the virginal conception of Christ, and the resultant female-created humanity of Jesus is nothing less than paradigm-shifting. To quote, in part:

“It is painfully ironic that Mary’s role in orthodox Christian theology as the ‘God-bearer’ (Theotokos), the one who conceives and carries that Son of God in her womb—who nurtures him through her placenta and feeds him with her breast when he is born—could lead to a diminished perspective on women’s relationship to Christ…By being the sole guarantor of his humanity, Mary raises women’s status as nothing else could…Christian belief in the virginal conception confirms that women are as closely bound to Christ as men are. Their historical unlikeness in one sense is compensated by their oneness to Christ in another sense—their gender confirmed in Jesus’s female-generated humanity.”

The bulk of the book is spent painstakingly going through the New Testament and exploring each passage and person relevant to women in ministry. While Lee is thorough, I don’t know that I saw anything I would consider revolutionary. Her positions are strong, bold, and obvious. They won’t the debate because these points have settled it thus far. Lee is content to not even try to bring up counterpoints. The merits of the original point stand on their own. While I would’ve liked to have seen a bit stronger response—or a direct response—to the complementarian position, that’s not Lee’s purpose nor does she pretend that it is.

Her final conclusion is simple:

“If Christ represents—and in doing so redeems—females as well as males, gentiles as well as Jews, slaves as well as free people, then the concomitant is also the case. Any human being, by virtue of the humanity that she or he shares by virtue of being made in the divine image and remade in Christ through the incarnation, is capable of representing Christ, a representation dependent not on gender but on vocation—whether at the altar or in the pulpit, whether in day-to-day acts of service or in martyrdom."

The Ministry of Women in the New Testament is a book that needs to be read, digested, grappled with, and above all, implemented. Dorothy Lee has handed us an exploration of the ancient tradition. It is up to us to follow it, even if it contravenes our more modern ones.

A clear, methodical exploration of the New Testament and early Church writing and tradition and what they have to say about women in ministry. Lee does not flinch from difficult, confusing, or potentially problematic passages of Scripture, but enters into them humbly and boldly. The book builds, chapter upon chapter, to a conclusion that pulls no punches and denounces the great harm done to women over the last two thousand years in the name of excluding them from any form of leadership in the Church.

Thank you for the chance to read this. Timely given what's been highlighted in the news related to "women's roles" in the church (Beth Moore, Rachel Held Evans, etc). This is a topic that has been discussed for centuries, many, including myself, not knowing where some misconceptions are coming from. She examines the roles women have in the Gospels as well as Paul's letters which are often used to explain why women aren't allowed in leadership roles. Throughout the Christian Bible (New Testament) women are seen being students of Jesus, leading in his ministry, and preaching in the community. An excellent read.