Paul wrote that both Priscilla and her husband, Aquila, were co-laborers (G4904) with Paul in Christ (Romans 16:3), meaning they labored in the word, the Gospel (cp. verse-21, where Timothy is called a co-laborer, G4904, with Paul). The word doesn’t necessarily indicate they worked alongside Paul, for Paul says the same about Apollos (1Corinthians 3:9), and, although they sometimes ministered to the same people, we know nothing of them laboring alongside one another. Nevertheless, we are told that both he and Paul were deacons (G1249), or ministers of the word, “…by whom you believed” (verse-5). Paul planted the word and Apollos watered the word (verse-6). Thus, both preached the word. So, when Paul wrote that Phoebe was a deacon/minister of the church at Cenchrea, he was saying she was as much a minister of the word or the Gospel as he and Apollos were, if not, why not, and where’s the proof she wasn’t?
Continuing in the context of Paul’s women being leaders in the church in the same vein that males are, Paul mentions Junia in Romans 16:7, saying she was “notable among the apostles.” Some want to minimize her importance by saying she was well respected by the Apostles, the Twelve, but this is a very poor rendering of the Greek. The Greek word is episemos (G1978), and it is used only one other time in the New Covenant text, and that is for Barabbas in Matthew 27:16. There he is called a notable prisoner, meaning a notorious prisoner. When used in a good sense, one could say Junia was remarkable or eminent among the apostles (G652) or the ones sent out. In other words, she was a remarkable apostle in the same sense that Barnabas was an apostle. He was an emissary of the Jerusalem church, sent in their name to Antioch to help train and teach the new gentile believers (Acts 11:22-25; cp. Acts 14:4, 14). Junia was a remarkable representative of her church, when she was sent out by them to train and teach new believers. There is absolutely no good reason to deny she was an apostle, unless we want to say Barnabas wasn’t an apostle, because he wasn’t one of the Twelve. The Twelve were sent out by Christ, as was Paul, but Barnabas was an apostle sent out, first, by the Jerusalem church and then by the Antioch church (Acts 13:2-3), and both times he taught and preached the word of God. In that context, Paul says Junia was an apostle.
Paul also says that both Junia and Andronicus were his fellow-prisoners with him (Romans 16:7; G4869). The term is used only two other times in the New Covenant text. It is used of Epaphras in Philemon 1:23, whom many believe to be the founder of the church at Colossae (cp. Colossians 1:7; 4:12), and it is also used of Aristarchus in Colossians 4:10. There is every reason to believe that these folks labored in the Gospel as preachers of the word, and, if it is used of these men, because they were ministers of the word, why not Junia?
Paul mentions two other women of note, this time in his letter to the Philippians. He implores Euodia and Syntyche to be of the same mind (Philippians 4:2). It is difficult to imagine how these women would be so at odds in any other dimension that would warrant Paul’s correction but in the word. It seems that a division in the church at Philippi was imminent, if they didn’t repent, because he even asks an unidentified mediator to intercede on his behalf to help the women come to agreeable terms with one another (Philippians 4:3). Paul corrected both women, saying “I exhort Euodia…” and “…I exhort Syntyche…” and asks that they be like-minded in Christ.
Paul went on to say that both women labored with (G4866) him in the Gospel, and they also labored with Clement and the rest of Paul’s fellow workers (Philippians 4:3). While some may try to say the women couldn’t have labored in the word in a patriarchal civil society, the fact that a female slave followed Paul in Philippi, telling folks Paul and Silas were servants of the Most High God (Acts 16:16-18), seems to indicated that women laboring in the word could mean teaching new believers rather than preaching in the streets to unbelievers. Nevertheless, this ignorant woman was able to preach her ‘words’ to folks around Paul without civil objection. Whatever Paul’s literal sense was, it does seem to indicate Euodia and Syntyche labored in the word in some manner.
The only other place in the New Covenant text that labored with (G4866) is used is at Philippians 1:27. There Paul exhorts the whole church to labor together in one mind for the faith of the Gospel (indicating that a division may have been in the making, presumably due to the disagreement between Euodia and Syntyche). So, the church was to strive to be of one mind in the faith, and Paul exhorted Euodia and Syntyche to be like minded in the Lord. In the case of the two women, they were the cause of the division, and they needed to repent, while in the case of the church, the division was brought upon them, and they needed to be like minded in the faith and the Gospel to avoid a division. Thus, if Euodia and Syntyche weren’t ministers of the word, why not, and how could they have been in danger of causing a division in the church at Philippi by some other means?
There are thirteen other women mentioned in Paul’s epistles, but these six[1] have been singled out, because a little more information is given of them, and that information seems to show they labored in the Gospel as ministers of the word of God.
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[1] See my previous study: Paul’s Women: Chloe, Priscilla & Phoebe. Moreover, as stated there, some of the arguments expressed here are also used by Beth Allison Barr in her book: The Making of Biblical Womanhood; pages 63-70; “Because Paul’s Biblical Women Don’t Follow Biblical Womanhood.”
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