The Book of Isaiah

Chapter 1 V.1 Part 3.3 Asherah 8

God never intended for His church to be divided by a battle between the sexes. In fact, He authorized female leaders even in the Old Testament. Deborah was one such leader, and she not only lead the army to victory, but the nation. She was one of the Judges. Not only was she a leader and judge of the nation, but she was also married, and God was with her.

Jdg 4:4   Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time.

Lapidoth:

Torches. Deborah is called “the wife of Lapidoth” (Jdg 4:4). Some have rendered the expression “a woman of a fiery spirit,” under the supposition that Lapidoth is not a proper name, a woman of a torch-like spirit.

Jdg 4:5   She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites came to her to have their disputes decided.

Clearly, this is a foreshadowing of what is also supposed to be in the New Testament, as the Old Testament foreshadows the New. This is why I know that Paul was not biased against women as portrayed by some. He was addressing a particular problem in Ephesus, because Ephesus was the capital of these pagan gods at that time, the Greek versions…and there were many of them. He was addressing an extreme situation. The worship of Aphrodite, the then current version of Asherah, and the subsequent extremism in the attempts by the men to squelch it was causing a revolt among the women, not unlike the women’s liberation movement in modern times; it had to be addressed.

Basically, I’ve moved a bit more in the middle on this. While I don’t agree with the fundamentalist’s assessment of Paul as prejudicial against women; at the same time, I recognize that ministry begins in the home. I personally feel that if a woman has children, she needs to attend to family first and ministry second. In this vein, she is still submitted to her husband; but if her husband has no objection to her ministry in whatever capacity, and God has gifted her for such, then she should move in the flow of whatever God has blessed her to do.

However, as clearly seen above, Deborah was married, and God allowed her to lead both the men and the women. At this point, I don’t know if she had children or not, but in my personal opinion its better if the woman’s children are grown and gone, before she enters a full-time ministerial role such as pastor because that is a great responsibility.