Why Do Complementarians Ignore Phoebe?

Part 2 of My Gender Role Journey

For my first seminary class, I chose “Exploring the New Testament.” The course incorporated the historical context of the New Testament world and the intertestamental period. I learned about the origins of Hanukkah, the creation of the Septuagint, and how the rise and fall of four kingdoms fulfilled prophetic portions of Daniel. Although I had studied the Bible for decades, it had been like trying to complete a puzzle without all the pieces. With a deeper understanding of the ancient context, pieces began connecting in new ways and a fuller picture emerged.

I already knew a bit about ancient letter carriers from my study of Philippians in college. In 2:19-30, Paul speaks highly of a Philippian man named Epaphroditus, explaining how he was faithful to deliver a collection of funds to support Paul in prison and now Paul was sending him back with this letter of thanks and encouragement. Epaphroditus would have been the natural person to consult if the Philippians had any debate about what Paul meant in the letter. A letter carrier was the authorized representative of the writer and ensured the letter got there safely.

In my New Testament class, I learned more about Paul’s other letter carriers. My professor had this to say about Romans, “This letter is dictated to Tertius and entrusted for delivery into the hands of a faithful woman named Phoebe, who holds the office of deacon in the neighboring church of Cenchreae (Rom.16:1,22).” [1] This was a piece of the puzzle I had never noticed. Suddenly, Phoebe’s existence, role, and relationship to Paul piqued my curiosity.

Why, in 20 years of studying the Bible, did I never realize Phoebe was the authorized letter carrier of Romans? Her commission to deliver the letter is less explicit than in Philippians so perhaps I overlooked her and assumed she was one of the many people he greets in Rome. Most studies and commentaries focus on the deep theological content of Romans and pay little attention to that last chapter full of names and greetings. Although there is plenty of debate on whether to translate διάκονον as the office of deacon or a more general term for servant or minister, there is broad consensus that she was the letter carrier (or the lead of a traveling team) because of both Paul’s extensive commendation of her and the primacy of her name.

In class one night, I asked my professor for more information about Phoebe. He explained that Romans was Paul’s most fully developed theological treatise and is also considered a fundraising letter. Paul hoped Rome would be a base of support for his mission to take the gospel to Spain. In my professor’s opinion, the delicate task of support raising at a church he had not launched or visited required a trusted coworker who could be a discerning advocate on his behalf. Like Epaphroditus, Phoebe would have attended the reading or read the letter aloud to the churches herself. She would have been intimately familiar with the contents and acted as Paul’s representative to the Roman believers. If they had questions, they would have consulted her to know how Paul would answer. My professor asked me, “Can you imagine listening to Romans for the first time and having a couple of questions?”

I could not get Phoebe out of my head and reconcile her work with other passages of scripture. Explaining Paul’s letter to the Romans on his behalf seemed like authoritative teaching. How did this new puzzle piece fit with others like: “I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority” (1 Tim 2:12). Paul was a man of integrity and would not prohibit something he was doing himself. If he sent Phoebe as his authorized messenger, is there another way to explain 1 Timothy 2? I had always been taught when passages in the Bible appear to disagree, we are supposed to take the whole counsel of God and use the clearer verses to understand the more challenging ones. Certainly 1 Timothy 2 is one of those more difficult sections. Verse 15 includes that puzzling mention of how women will be saved by childbearing. It would be inconsistent to take a plain reading of verse 12 but not 15. However, my questions on how to fit those pieces together and understand the issues in 1 Timothy would not be answered until a later class.

At the time, I felt secure in complementarianism and was not looking to change my views. I went to a trusted pastor friend, hoping he could shed light on how to reconcile these texts since he already completed seminary. When I asked him about Phoebe it seemed like he had never really considered her either. I explained what my professor had told me, but he ended our conversation with a condescending smile saying, “Yeah, but you can’t build a theology around that.”

By that he meant you can’t put Phoebe in the middle of your theological puzzle and build it as if she is the centerpiece, to which I agree. However, I believe we can’t assemble our theology and ignore her existence in God’s Word. We need to go back and undo pieces of the puzzle that we forced together. By including all of God’s inspired word, we could find a better fit. All the pieces are important, not just the ones that fit with our current understanding.

That conversation was the lightbulb moment for me when I realized that many complementarians are guilty of the very thing they accuse egalitarians. Up to that point, I had been warned that egalitarians had a low view of scripture’s authority, and they simply disregarded the passages that didn’t fit with their theology. But now I wondered if complementarians were projecting that accusation and building their theology by dismissing or ignoring the women Paul co-labored with. While his words are important, his own ministry practice recorded in scripture must be considered.

This class really began to shake up what I thought I knew about women in the Bible. At one point, I was trying to find the verse about Mary Magdalene being a prostitute. Imagine my surprise when I found there is no verse nor any evidence she was a prostitute. That assumption was created in the 6^th century when Pope Gregory declared she was the same as the unnamed sinful woman in Luke 7.[2] These kinds of revelations opened my eyes to see that a lot of my “Bible knowledge” was actually derived from popular culture and dependent on fallible commentators. What else was I wrong about? How often had I relied on study notes or commentaries to do the work for me? Were those resources trustworthy? I was shocked to read the ESV Study Bible note on Matthew 1, “Tamar, Rahab, and Bathsheba were women of questionable character.”[3] To me, that didn’t agree with how Judah describes Tamar, “She is more righteous than I” (Gen 38:26), nor how James lauds Rahab as “righteous for what she did” (Jas 2:25), or how Nathan compares Bathsheba to an innocent lamb (2 Sam 12:4). In my final paper for New Testament I lamented, “The only questionable thing about these women was they carried the shame of men who used them, and today they are still being used to prove a lesser point in commentaries instead of being heralded for their courageous faith.” [4]

My first seminary class helped me see women were hiding in plain sight in the scriptures. Some people finish an entire Masters of Divinity and never notice Phoebe, but I was fortunate that my professor pointed her out. Learning about other women in the Bible was going to take more work than a simple glance at my Bible study notes. In the break before the next semester, I signed up to review a new book, The Ministry of Women in the New Testament. I was hungry to learn more, and I had to follow my curiosity. You can read my review of that book here.

….Subscribe below to follow my journey and see how Theology 1 taught me you can’t spell Complementarianism without Arianism!

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               [1] David L. Palmer, Casket Empty: God’s Plan of Redemption through History, New Testament Study Guide, 2016, 205.

               [2] Angie Velasquez Thornton, “Mary Magdalene: From Tormented Demoniac to Faithful Disciple,” The Gospel Coalition | Canada, July 24, 2023, https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/article/mary-magdalene-from-tormented-demoniac-to-faithful-disciple/.

               [3] Crossway Bibles. Esv Study Bible : English Standard Version. ESV text ed. (Wheaton, Ill: Crossway, 2011), 1820.

               [4] Lark TheoSis. “Righteous Women,” December 19, 2020. https://larktheosis.com/2020/12/19/righteous-women/.