Grenz And Kjesbo Summary

“Rather, we seek only to articulate what we believe is the case for the inclusion of women in all aspects of church life, including pastoral ministry and church leadership, and hence the case for the ordination of women.” It is through the positing of this specific statement that Grenz and Kjesbo begin to position and develop their thesis on the fact that; not only should women hold a significant role in the life of the church, including ordination, but that men and women should work in tandem in ministry. They draw our attention to the support of their argument by bringing to light certain biblical, historical, practical concerns and considerations, through the seven chapters of their book: 1) Women in the Churches, 2) Women in Church History,

She speaks from the premise that men and women served in the early church together and provides imagery through examples of the second and third century women who were ordained as deaconesses along with the male deacons, served as mediators and cared for the emotional, physical and spiritual needs of the persecuted and imprisoned. The reader is invited to trek along the ebbs and flow of the presence of women in the daily administration, in Christian art and even as women bishops in the church. However, such demonstration and presence was not met without further opposition as Kjesbo brings to our awareness, the boldness of revisionists who altered faces on the artwork that resembled a woman to make it appear male. One went as far as to change the inscription of a painting of a woman in a mosaic from its feminine form “Episcopa Theodora” into a masculine form of the word by dropping the “ra”, because the Greek form would have authenticated the fact that women bishops were indeed present in the early church.(p.40) It appeared that each time there was some level of progression, the institutionalization of the church played a role in halting that progress due to its propensity to favor the elevation of men to leadership and increase the deduction of women to more subservient roles. Persistently though, women found a way to rise above the oppression to use their leadership gifts particularly in female