announcement: 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Waking Up to Grace podcast where we celebrate and explore the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Tune in to the Waking Up to Grace podcast on every major platform. You can also listen to our episodes and read our full transcripts at wakinguptogracecom. And now here's Lenny. Welcome back to the podcast everyone.

Melissa: 0:24

Welcome back to the podcast. Everyone, Welcome back.

Lenny: 0:26

This week we're going to be discussing the woman apostle and I think, on the note of woman apostle, it's important that we realize that when we consider whether or not we have apostles today, we have to understand that the mission the apostles were sent on was fulfilled, and not only that. All prophecy has been fulfilled. The destruction of Jerusalem and the once holy temple marked the end of the old covenant age of the law. The new covenant age, which began at the cross, is now fully established. The work of Christ Yeshua is finished. We no longer have any use for apostles and prophets and they no longer come in the name of the Lord. I would say, now that no longer come in the name of the Lord. I would say now that they mostly come in the name of prophet margins. So maybe we need to change the spelling of prophet in this new covenant age to P-R-O-F-I-T. What do you think, Melissa?

Melissa: 1:17

Sadly, it's true.

Lenny: 1:19

But today we have a very interesting topic to look at, don't we? Oh yeah, at the end of our letter from Paul to the Romans, we read of a female apostle.

Melissa: 1:28

Can this be for real?

Lenny: 1:30

I think it is. If you look at this passage in your Bible, though, you could easily miss it. It's literally been lost in translation.

Melissa: 1:39

Completely buried.

Lenny: 1:40

I was reading Romans one evening, and you remember this, melissa. Yes, one evening before bed I'm reading my literal evening, and you remember this, melissa. Yes, one evening before bed I'm reading my literal translation of the New Testament by David Bentley Hart and suddenly this female apostle was revealed. I was shocked and quite excited about this new revelation, so I had to do some studying to make sure I woke up and it was like time to dig in.

Melissa: 2:04

I was like wait what.

Lenny: 2:06

But when you look at scripture, women prophesying was a fulfillment of prophecy and it was happening all throughout that first century age of signs and wonders. Yes, we read about instances in the book of Acts and the prophet Joel predicted it before it even happened. He said and it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and he was referring to what started at Pentecost. Right when they received the Spirit, these things started taking place and they went on all the way up until Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD.

Melissa: 2:47

Incredible.

Lenny: 2:48

What an age to live in. Excitement and tragedy. But based on that alone, we can see that the Lord clearly has no issue with women being a strong voice in the church, does he?

Melissa: 3:00

Clearly.

Lenny: 3:01

And when we seek to understand our apostolic writings, we will find that the apostles didn't have an issue with this either. In fact, they fully supported it. The gospel united all people. We're now brothers and sisters in Christ, apart from what we are in this world. In Galatians 3.28, paul says there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female. But does that mean the church has always saw it the spiritual way? If they did, then why would Paul have to write these things in his letters?

Lenny: 3:39

I've heard it suggested that the author of Hebrews may have been a woman. Maybe it was not signed because of the view some had on women in the church in those times. Some have said I think this speculation has some valid points to it. For example, in Paul's letter to the Corinthians we read the women should keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak but should be in submission, as the law also says. That's 1 Corinthians, chapter 14, verse 34.

Lenny: 4:09

So what's going on here? This doesn't sound like the same Paul that said in Christ there is neither male nor female. In fact, it doesn't sound like Paul at all when I read this passage. It's like Paul got taken hostage and someone else started writing. I don't think that's actually what happened, but how can we reconcile this with the rest of our scripture and even the rest of Paul's writings? Some teachers say that women tended to have a lesser education and sat on the opposite side in the gatherings. In this case they'd be yelling across the group asking questions of the men. So you'd be like, hey, lenny, what was that? In 1 Corinthians.

Melissa: 4:46

Might be a little distracting and disruptive.

Lenny: 4:50

Yeah, so Paul would be basically telling them to do that at home. In this scenario, Ask your husbands at home be silent in the church. I like the simplicity here, but there's one major problem. What law is Paul referring to here if he's telling us? The law also says when we read this 1 Corinthians letter, we see that it was in response to the people that Paul wrote. In several areas there was a correspondence taking place within this letter.

Melissa: 5:18

What a revelation. When we read the introduction to most Bible translations, they will tell you that there's no punctuation in the original Greek manuscripts. Quite important to note. There was no indication when they quoted others or quoted scripture. They didn't have quotation marks and they had no practice of making these indications for the reader but the recipients of the letter. They would have known the full context of the situation right. Yeah, we don't have that luxury. Thousands of years later we have to figure it out because we weren't there.

Lenny: 5:54

Yeah, I mean, that's really something that takes some time to understand. You know, I think we're so used to just opening our Bible and say, what's God telling me today? Yes, we've got to be careful with that. So you and I, melissa, I know that we believe that it was Paul's church that made that statement, not him. It was the Corinthian church saying the women should keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak but should be in submission, as the law says. That was Paul basically quoting them.

Lenny: 6:24

Okay so if we look at it this way, paul's quoting them saying you say women should keep silent in the churches, as the law says, to which Paul then would respond what?

Melissa: 6:35

Or was it from you that the word of God came, or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks that he's a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I'm writing to you are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. Interestingly, in the King James translation, it picks up on the fact that the opening word can be seen as shocking and alarming based on context. This really grabbed me when I realized this.

Lenny: 7:08

Yeah.

Melissa: 7:09

So this added emphasis would only be in your translation if the translator understood how to interpret the passage.

Lenny: 7:17

Context.

Melissa: 7:18

Context is king. This passage has stumped many in the church throughout history because of the way it's written.

Lenny: 7:25

Yeah, if you don't recognize that, it sounds very choppy. It sounds like he just came out of the blue with this.

Melissa: 7:32

Right.

Lenny: 7:32

You're like what happened? Did he just stop writing and then pick up somewhere else and forget what he said? Yes, it's weird, but when you see it as a correspondence it becomes a lot less weird. And when you're paying attention all throughout that letter you start to make these connections. So I mean, what would it sound like if you were to emphasize what the King James picks up? I mean, how would it read then? So this is really cool.

Melissa: 7:57

This is how it would read what Came the word of God out of you, or came it unto you? Only, if any man think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. So I can see what you were saying about Paul's reaction, paul's rebuking these guys for their error, saying that his teaching was commanded by God. Paul would have known that this was not the law, because it isn't, and he was once a very zealous Pharisee. Paul would not have misquoted the law in this way.

Melissa: 8:37

Exactly it's not in the law. But would Christians have been swayed by Judaizers? Yeah yeah, this is extremely probable, and we also know that the Talmud was spoken orally in the synagogues. In those days, the Talmud was not the law. It was the first century Jews' commentary on the law, and it was riddled with error. I mean, christ was constantly calling the Pharisees hypocrites over their Talmud, wasn't he?

Lenny: 9:09

Yeah, and so in those days the Talmud was known to be orally said, but later on it became written and it just kind of transformed into what it is today in so-called Judaism.

Melissa: 9:23

Right. Paul would have been familiar with the Talmud and was likely setting straight the difference between true law and commentary.

Lenny: 9:32

Yeah. So he's calling them out saying that's law. What? What do you guys know about law? Let me teach you. Yes, Because they didn't know about law. They were the Corinthians, they were probably mostly Gentiles and hearing this from Judaizers and Paul's like come on, guys, you and law.

Melissa: 9:50

Right, right.

Lenny: 9:52

Those two things don't work with you. Don't be going there, right.

Melissa: 9:58

But then there was Paul's letter to Timothy, said to have been written in Ephesus Let a woman learn quietly, with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. That was 1 Timothy, 2, 11-13. In this instance we have the opposite situation happening Women were seeking to exercise authority over men. This was probably to do with the cult of Diana, which was the Roman version of the Greek Artemis cult. It was comprised exclusively of women and taught that Eve was created first, that only Adam was deceived by Satan and that females were inherently superior to males. So a little bit of error there. The influence of these women had evidently infiltrated the church and was causing disruption. Interestingly, our passage reads a woman, not women. The Greek leads us down the same road in various lexicons.

Lenny: 11:13

Yeah, it's pretty interesting. It seems that there may have been a primary leader being called out and rebuked in this situation. Why, would he say a woman? There was probably one particular leader, a ringleader, getting all the women riled up and empowered, and the men were just like I can't speak. It was like totally opposite. Women are like no, shut up, we have a few of those today too.

Lenny: 11:37

And Paul's like no, that woman needs to be more submissive because she's completely out of control. So we wanted to mention those passages to gain some context for this study. But are you guys really ready to dig into this topic of a woman apostle? Now there's more, we're just getting started.

Melissa: 11:55

Awesome.

Lenny: 11:56

So in Romans 16, verse 7, in the ESV translation we read Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles and they were in Christ before me. So in our ESV translation we don't see a female apostle, do we? No, in fact, we see the word kinsman. According to Webster, kinsman is defined as a relative, usually by birth, especially a male relative. So we read of two men here in the ESV translation, don't we?

Melissa: 12:31

That's how I've always seen it.

Lenny: 12:33

We also read here that Junia was well known to the apostles, implying that he, in air quotes, was not an apostle himself. We observe a similar thing in the King James. Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners who are of note among the apostles who also were in Christ before me. The difference we see in the King James is that the two were of note among the apostles rather than well known to the apostles. You see the difference.

Melissa: 13:05

Yeah, and it's quite a difference.

Lenny: 13:06

Yeah, well known to implies they weren't well known. Among implies that they were. There's a big difference. It's polar opposites, wow. So let's see what the NASB translation did with this. In the NASB of Romans 16, 7, we read Greet Andronicus and Junius, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners who are outstanding among the apostles who also were in Christ before me.

Melissa: 13:34

All of a sudden, they are apostles. They're among them.

Lenny: 13:37

Yeah, and not only that, but outstanding. However, Junia is suddenly Junius. What is that all about?

Melissa: 13:47

Right.

Lenny: 13:48

This time Junia becomes Junius and is an outstanding apostle.

Melissa: 13:53

Quite a difference.

Lenny: 13:56

So we're going to have to see Jung's literal translation now, aren't we?

Melissa: 13:59

Yes.

Lenny: 14:00

So Jung's literal translation reads Salute Andronicus and Junius, my kindred and my fellow captives, who are of note among the apostles who also have been in Christ before me. So the literal translation of Young's uses Junius again, but again places both of them among the apostles, which would make both of them apostles without a doubt.

Melissa: 14:24

Why such a shocking change?

Lenny: 14:27

Yeah, so it seems that ESV is a bit outnumbered here in their view of them only being known to the apostles. They're the only one in these four translations that we looked at to see it that way. But then all of the translations except Young's use the word kinsmen to describe Andronicus and Junia. Young's literal translation said kindred. As we noted earlier, kinsmen implies male relations, not female. But our Young's literal translation came up with a different word here, and so did David Bentley Hart's literal translation, which read kinsfolk. Kindred is very similar to kinsfolk and according to Webster, kindred is defined as of similar nature or character, of the same ancestry, a group of related individuals, one's relatives, family relationship. So really what we see is that Paul saw them as family according to our literal translations, not specifically as men, just family, I see it so, based on this, do you think we need to go to the Greek to check up on these scholars?

Melissa: 15:39

Absolutely.

Lenny: 15:40

Let's go there. The word we see translate as kinsmen in most Bible translations, except for the literal ones, is now don't judge me on this, on my Greek songanes. I didn't listen to it beforehand, I should have and according to Strong's it means a relative by blood, by extension a fellow countryman, cousin, kinsfolk, kinsmen. And then according to Vine's it means cousin. So they reference the word being used in Luke more than once and they say it's like cousins respectively signify kinswoman and kinsfolk and the word literally signifies born with, of the same stock or descent. Hence kinsman, kindred, kin, kinsfolk, kinswoman. So we see Strong's mention the male usage kinsmen, kindred, kin, kinsfolk, kinswoman. So we see Strong's mention the male usage kinsmen, while Vines points out that kinswoman seems to be tied to the common context of the word used in other areas of scripture but, like Strong's, also sees it as kinsfolk. So it seemed most reasonable to have translated this word as kindred or kinsfolk if it was not 100% certain that we were dealing with two men. So I think our literal translations did well by us there.

Melissa: 17:00

Agreed.

Lenny: 17:01

We're going to look at the history soon to see if Junia can be found as a male name anywhere in history, and this should help us to decide the way we should interpret this text. But before we explore that history, let's look at the Greek to see if these two were even apostles at all. Let's make sure that they were apostles. So according to Strong's, the Greek word translated to among, as in known among the apostles and in ESV was known to the apostles. It's this word en E-N.

Lenny: 17:36

It's a primary preposition denoting fixed position in place, time or state and, by implication, instrumentality, medially or constructively. I know it's kind of a lot to take in, but it'll start to make sense here. So the King James Version translates N in the following manner 1902, so 1,902 times. It's saying it was in, and then 163 times by it's translated with 140 times, and then we see it as among 117 times, at 113 times, on 62 times, through 39 times and then it was used miscellaneously, 264 times. So if we go with the by far most common usage, it would be that Andronicus and Junia were in the apostles. So based on the common use of the word, it is by far most probable that these two were in fact apostles, and all of these variations of the word describe a very close relationship to something, but in that's as close as you can be to being an apostle. If you're in the apostles, the word among makes more sense, but it's describing that they're in with them, they're among them.

Lenny: 18:59

They are in the group of the apostles.

Melissa: 19:03

Yes Wow.

Lenny: 19:04

So making it read as two must fall into the miscellaneous category somewhere, because it's not even listed as a common usage. So I think our ESV let us down there pretty badly. I love that translation, but we've got to be paying attention because there's mistakes in interpretation. They're supposed to be translating, but translation has this funny way of blending with interpretation.

Melissa: 19:29

And sometimes the translators are biased.

Lenny: 19:32

Well, we're all biased. Probably always, we're all biased in some way in the way that we, with interpretation, and sometimes the translators are biased. Well, we're all biased. Probably always, we're all biased in some way in the way that we view scripture. We're either biased towards truth or we're biased towards error. We hope to be biased towards truth, don't we?

Melissa: 19:42

Yes.

Lenny: 19:44

So, Melissa, let's look at the recorded history and see if we can find anything helpful to this argument, shall we?

Melissa: 19:50

We shall the early church father, John Chrysostom, upheld the fact that this Junia was a female apostle of great wisdom.

Lenny: 20:01

And I just wanted to pause. We say early church father because that's just what people know them, as that's what they're always referred to, as we don't see them as any kind of father above us and a lot of people get bothered by that usage because it paints a funny picture.

Melissa: 20:18

Yes.

Lenny: 20:24

You know, when Paul referred to himself as a father, most grace teachers and people that understand grace see that as because of his age, because of his older. You know, because he was older than them, not because he saw himself as somehow above them in the Christian life.

Melissa: 20:36

Very important to point out.

Lenny: 20:38

But he did express his apostolic authority at times. But I don't think that's why he said I'm your father, you're my son, son. So John Chrysostom saw Junia as a female apostle of great wisdom. He did that's pretty cool, yeah.

Melissa: 20:54

In later centuries, due to anxiety about women church leaders, junio was changed to Junius to sound more male. It was supposedly a variation of the name Julianus. The first to make this argument would have been Giles of Rome. Interestingly, it is said that he probably knew no Greek.

Lenny: 21:15

I thought that was pretty interesting. I was reading about that in that literal translation by David Bentley Hart. He was noting a lot of these historical facts.

Melissa: 21:25

So they were letting the guy that knows no Greek take the lead and make the decision.

Lenny: 21:29

Yeah, so literally, this leader of Rome, you know, just makes this announcement, doesn't even know Greek and is saying this Greek name is this and not that.

Melissa: 21:40

But this view stuck nonetheless. It reminds me a lot of what we see in our society today.

Lenny: 21:46

Yeah.

Melissa: 21:47

The problem here is that scholars who looked at the evidence have declared that in all of recorded history there is no use of the name Junius as a male figure anywhere. There's nothing. It was just another classic case of mankind making stuff up.

Lenny: 22:05

Yep.

Melissa: 22:05

So to hear of it nowhere. That really says something.

Lenny: 22:10

Yeah, there's no historical evidence of that name, they just made it up Old guiles.

Melissa: 22:17

Based on real evidence, I believe we can safely conclude this to be a female apostle.

Lenny: 22:23

I agree that's cool. That's I agree, that's cool, that's really cool.

Melissa: 22:26

That's way cool and that fits a lot more with the Paul that we know in all of his other letters.

Lenny: 22:32

Yeah.

Melissa: 22:33

On top of that, it's impossible to ignore that he acknowledges them as a pair, just as he does with only certain others, including Prisca and Aquila, who are known to be husband and wife according to our scriptures.

Lenny: 22:48

Yep, and some say Priscilla and Aquila.

Melissa: 22:50

They do, which is kind of fun, like a little rhyme.

Lenny: 22:53

Yeah.

Melissa: 22:54

I love that, because you and I are in this together. Yep, and to further drive this point home, our messenger Phoebe, whom we spoke of in our introduction. There is much to say about her alone, not to mention plenty of other women in our scripture, about the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well. Quite a compliment from Paul.

Lenny: 23:33

Yeah.

Melissa: 23:34

That's Romans 16, 1-2. A servant here comes from the Greek word diakonos and can also mean minister, attendant deacon. Yes, that would make it possible for women to be deacons, which would be a form of overseer.

Lenny: 23:53

Yep.

Melissa: 23:54

But it gets better, lonnie. Inconceivable A patron, as said, of Phoebe here, comes from the Greek word prostasis and can also mean protectress, champion, leader. What I said, leader.

Lenny: 24:12

No, a woman leader. You can't have women going around leading stuff.

Melissa: 24:17

Melissa A woman champion from the lips of Paul.

Lenny: 24:21

Oh man.

Melissa: 24:22

But of course, if we don't regard context, we can just knock that down to the least possible meaning and move on.

Lenny: 24:29

Let's just keep it at Junius, okay. Well known to the apostles.

Melissa: 24:35

Can't close your eyes to truth. Once you've seen it, can't unsee it, but we have to remember there's neither Jew nor Greek. There's neither slave nor free. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3.28 I love that, amen.

Lenny: 24:56

That's the real Paul right there, isn't it.

Melissa: 24:59

That's the Paul we know and love.

Lenny: 25:01

Women are much needed in the church and their voices need to be heard. Don't believe everything you hear at the pulpit. If you stop your research at the pulpit, you're missing out on your God-given freedom. Take back what is yours, your God-given gift of freedom in Christ. In regards to a marriage, we do believe there is a spiritual structure and that women are very different than men in this way.

Melissa: 25:26

Yes, we do.

Lenny: 25:27

Paul gives us a beautiful view of this balance in Ephesians 5, while making a parallel to Christ and the church. We'll certainly talk about that more at some point, but if you are married, that is some great stuff. David Curtis had some good messages on that. I believe it was around the time, or combined with that federal headship message that he did, that I'd linked in our introduction to the Romans messages. We don't share his view on women in the church, but we loved his view on marriage. It was really good.

Melissa: 25:54

Yes.

Lenny: 25:56

So that's all we got for you guys today, and we are going to see you again next week with another hot topic. And we got a good one brewing. I think I'm going to keep it a surprise. I'm going to keep it a surprise, I'm going to make it a surprise.

Lenny: 26:08

No spoiler alert. No spoilers. If you click on the episode description of our podcast, there's a link to our episode transcript page where you can correspond with us, leave us some feedback, share some insights, things like that. We encourage you guys to do that. You can also if you're on a media platform. If there's a way to make comments there, feel free to do so as well. We'd love to hear from you guys, and it helps build the activity. Amen For a new Christian podcast. We love to have some activity, don't we?

Melissa: 26:40

We sure do, and please remember together we are the church. Amen. Have a great day out there, everyone. See you next week.

announcement: 26:50

Thank you for listening to the Waking Up to Grace podcast brought to you by the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you enjoyed today's episode, we would love to hear from you. You can send encouragement our way right from our episodes and transcripts page or reach Lenny privately from the contact form at wakinguptogracecom.