Can women be pastors? What the Bible says, and why Calvary Chapel is divided over it

What the Bible says

Start with the verses that restrict, because they are the reason for the whole debate. Writing to Timothy, whom he had left to lead the church at Ephesus, Paul says:

¹¹ A woman must learn in quietness and full submissiveness. ¹² I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; she is to remain quiet. ¹³ For Adam was formed first, and then Eve. ¹⁴ And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman who was deceived and fell into transgression.

Notice that Paul does not ground this in the customs of Ephesus but in creation and the fall: “Adam was formed first.” That is why many readers think it applies beyond one city. A few lines later he describes the overseer, the leader of a congregation:

¹ This is a trustworthy saying: If anyone aspires to be an overseer, he desires a noble task. ² An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

The same qualification, “the husband of but one wife,” is given for elders in Titus 1:6. In 1 Corinthians Paul is even sharper: “Women are to be silent in the churches. They are not permitted to speak” (1 Corinthians 14:34).

Now the other side, which is just as much in the Bible. In the same letter to Corinth, Paul assumes that women pray and prophesy aloud in worship; his concern is only that they cover their heads when they do (1 Corinthians 11:5). So “silent” in chapter 14 cannot mean that women never speak in church. Paul closes his letter to the Romans by commending a woman who apparently carried it to them:

¹ I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Cenchrea. ² Welcome her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and assist her with anything she may need from you. For she has been a great help to many people, including me.

The word translated “servant” is diakonos, the same word Paul uses for deacons in 1 Timothy 3 and for his own ministry; some translations render it “deacon” or “minister.” Five verses later he greets “Andronicus and Junia,” who “are outstanding among the apostles” (Romans 16:7); Junia is a woman’s name, though translators differ on whether the Greek means she was counted among the apostles or well known to them. Priscilla and her husband Aquila “took [Apollos] aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately” (Acts 18:26), which is teaching a man, in private. Philip “had four unmarried daughters who prophesied” (Acts 21:9), as Peter had promised at Pentecost: “Your sons and daughters will prophesy” (Acts 2:17). In the Old Testament, “Deborah, a prophetess … was judging Israel at that time” (Judges 4:4). And the first person sent to announce the resurrection was a woman: “Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord!’” (John 20:18).

Over all of this stands Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Those who ordain women read it as the principle that later reshapes every role. Those who do not read it as a statement about salvation, which Paul did not think cancelled his instructions about elders.

What the Bible does not say

The Bible does not use the word “pastor” for an office the way churches do now. “Pastors and teachers” appear once, as gifts Christ gives the church (Ephesians 4:11); the offices Paul regulates are overseers (or elders) and deacons. Modern “pastors” range from a senior pastor who preaches every Sunday and governs the church, to a children’s pastor or a worship pastor who does neither. When one church says “women can be pastors” and another says “women cannot,” they are often not talking about the same job.

Nor does the Bible say that women may not teach anyone, lead anything or speak in church. Priscilla taught, Phoebe served and probably carried Paul’s letter, women prophesied in the assembly, and Paul calls Euodia and Syntyche women “who have contended at my side for the gospel” (Philippians 4:3). A church that will not let a woman read Scripture aloud or pray in a service has gone beyond anything Paul wrote.

But the Bible also does not say that 1 Timothy 2 was only about a local problem in Ephesus. That is a reasonable theory, held by many scholars who point to false teaching in the city and to the rare verb Paul uses for “exercise authority” (authentein), but the text itself gives a reason from Genesis, not from Ephesus. And no verse names a woman as an overseer or elder of a church. Both sides have to explain something: one side has to explain Junia, Phoebe and the prophesying daughters; the other has to explain why Paul ties his instruction to Adam and Eve.

How Christians differ

Catholic. The Catholic Church ordains only men as priests and bishops. In Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994), Pope John Paul II declared “that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful,” pointing to Christ’s choice of twelve men. Women deacons are a separate, open debate: a commission led by Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi reported in December 2025 that the current state of research rules out admitting women to the diaconate as part of Holy Orders, while saying that this is not yet a definitive judgment, and it asked for more lay ministries open to women.

Orthodox. The Eastern Orthodox churches ordain only men as priests and bishops, on the ground of Christ’s example and the unbroken practice of the church. Some Orthodox theologians argue for reviving the ancient order of deaconesses, which the early church knew.

Complementarian evangelicals. The Southern Baptists’ Baptist Faith and Message (2000, amended 2023) says that “the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture,” and the Calvary Chapel Association, the Presbyterian Church in America and many independent churches agree. They call their view complementarian: men and women are equal in worth and gifts, but the office of elder or senior pastor belongs to qualified men, because Paul grounds it in creation. Most such churches welcome women as teachers of women and children, missionaries, deacons in some cases, and leaders of ministries.

Egalitarian Protestants. Most mainline Protestant churches, including the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA), ordain women to every office, as does the Church of England, which has ordained women priests since 1994. The Assemblies of God has given women ministry credentials since its founding in 1914 and affirms women in ministerial leadership in its official position papers. They read 1 Timothy 2 as a local instruction, Galatians 3:28 as the deeper principle, and the women of Romans 16 as evidence of what Paul actually practised.

“Secondary issue” evangelicals. Many evangelicals, whatever they practise, agree with Char Brodersen that this is a question on which faithful Christians can differ without breaking fellowship. Others, like the Heartland Regional Team, say it does not decide salvation but is still a “consequential” matter of church order. These are broad summaries; in every tradition, people disagree.

Our take

This is our opinion, not a report. Paul limited the elder’s office, not women’s ministry, and churches on both sides of the Calvary Chapel row are getting half of that wrong.

We think the plainest reading of 1 Timothy 2 and 3 is that the office of overseer or elder, the one who governs a congregation and guards its teaching, was given to qualified men. Paul could have said the instruction was for Ephesus; instead he reached back to Genesis. The theories that make the passage only about a local heresy are possible, but they ask us to know more about Ephesus than the text tells us. On that narrow point the Calvary Chapel Association, the Southern Baptists and the ancient churches are, in our view, reading Paul more faithfully than Costa Mesa.

But many complementarian churches have built a much bigger wall than Paul did. Phoebe was a diakonos, Priscilla taught a preacher, Junia was “outstanding among the apostles”, women prophesied aloud, and Mary Magdalene was sent to the apostles with the news of the resurrection. A church where women cannot pray from the front, read Scripture, lead ministries or teach adults the Bible has not been strict with Scripture; it has gone past it. Most of what modern churches call “pastoral ministry,” caring for people, teaching, leading, visiting the sick, is open to women in the New Testament.

And on the question of fellowship, Char Brodersen has a point. Paul told the Romans to “accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on his opinions” (Romans 14:1), and the Heartland team itself says this does not decide anyone’s salvation. Churches should hold their conviction on the elder’s office firmly and still call a church that differs a sister church. Putting congregations out of cooperation over it, as the Southern Baptist amendment would, makes a question of church order a test of cooperation, which is more than Scripture asks.

Over to you

Which verse weighs most with you on this, Paul’s instruction in 1 Timothy 2 or the women of Romans 16, and has a woman’s teaching or leadership shaped your own faith? Tell us below.

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