Dorothy Lee’s excellent survey of the New Testament evidence for the ministry of women opens by noting that the argument for equal ministry of women and men in the Church has not been won. Roman Catholic scholars are looking for ways to advance the argument in a church that has declared that even discussing the ordination of women to the priesthood is forbidden. Other more evangelical scholars are promulgating conservative views to a new generation of Christians.

The Reverend Professor Dorothy Lee, Research Professor of New Testament at Trinity College in the University of Divinity, Melbourne, has written a sturdy and thorough survey of all the books of the New Testament, shining a light both on the explicit ministry of women, and the many ways in which the text hides their presence.

It is women who are the first witnesses of the resurrection, the men having faded away in fear. Mary Magdalene’s role as a leader of the women disciples and in the wider circle of apostles in clearly drawn.

Professor Lee situates Paul’s commands for women to be subject to their husbands in Greco-Roman culture, where women, children and slaves were considered mere property of the man of the house. Paul does not advocate for an overthrow of the cultural norms – it would have been unlikely to have succeeded or been a wise witness to the wider society – but he provokes a slow-burning revolution by insisting on the mutual respect of husbands for wives, masters for slaves.

Should women be ordained as priests? Lee addresses this issue somewhat tangentially, because the three-fold pattern of deacons, priests and bishops, had not yet solidified. However, the clear fact that women throughout the New Testament were equal with the male apostles, were leaders in their churches, and were engaged in every form of ministry is New Testament times is the strongest argument for equal access to ordination.

I found The Ministry of Women in the New Testament engaging and persuasive. Do we need this book in our Province? Doesn’t a female Archbishop mean that the case is closed? This book will confirm and encourage the supporters of women’s ordination. By its clear and close reading of the New Testament, it should challenge and even persuade our fellow-Christians that there are no bars to leadership and ministry in a Church where there is no longer slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28) ( )