What Does the Bible Say About Women Pastors?
1) Direct answer
No. The Bible does not authorize women to be pastors or to teach and exercise authority over men in the church.
2) Scriptural explanation
- 1 Timothy 2:11-14: “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man...” Paul grounds this in creation and the fall, not in culture.
- 1 Corinthians 14:34-35: “Let your women keep silence in the churches… for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.” That speaks to public authoritative teaching in the assembly.
- 1 Corinthians 11:3: “The head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” God set an order.
- 1 Timothy 3:1-5; Titus 1:5-6: The overseer/elder must be “the husband of one wife,” ruling his own house well. The office is given in male terms and tied to male headship.
- Titus 2:3-5: Older women are commanded to teach the younger women—what to teach and to whom is clearly defined.
- Acts 2:17; Acts 21:9; 1 Corinthians 11:5: Women can pray and prophesy under proper order (with a covering), but that is not the same as holding pastoral authority.
3) Simple clarifying logic
- God’s order is Christ over the man, and the man over the woman. That is not about value; it is about the roles God set.
- The New Testament gives explicit qualifications for pastors/elders. If God intended women to pastor, Scripture would say so. Instead, it repeatedly restricts teaching authority over men.
- Examples sometimes raised—like Deborah or Huldah—show that God can use women mightily, but those were not New Testament church offices. The church’s government is laid out plainly in the pastoral epistles.
- Phoebe was a servant (Romans 16:1). Service is honored, but that text does not place her in the overseer role.
- If women pastors were approved, Scripture would not forbid women to teach or to have authority over the man in the church. The Bible does not contradict itself.
4) Reinforcing statement
Now notice, this does not silence a woman’s ministry in its God-given place. Women can:
- Pray, prophesy, testify, sing, and serve.
- Teach children and younger women.
- Labor in many helps and ministries.
But the pastoral/elder office and the authoritative teaching of men in the assembly are reserved to qualified men, as the Bible says.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
The Indictment
63-0707M §117
Preachers standing on ball grounds smoking cigarettes---stumbling blocks. All the other tommyrot that they put up with. Women in their choir, wearing shorts, bobbed hair, and carrying on like that, painted faces, and then call it, "Sister this and that"; and the Bible condemns that stuff! That's right. Go to parties and carry on, still a member of the church, maintain your testimony and live anyway you want to... Don't think I'm talking altogether about Presbyterians; I'm talking about you Pentecostals! That's righ...
Sirs, we would see Jesus
61-1224 §95
The Pentecostal women is trying to find a place that they'll let them get by with more things of the world---shorts, bobbed hair, paint. They're shopping. "Bless God, I'm Pentecostal. Hallelujah, I belong to this," and, "Oh, our pastor don't believe..." see, you're shopping for the ones that'll let them live the dirtiest (God, have mercy!), the one will let them live the filthiest and the most like the world that they can. They're shopping from place to place, turning down Christ. That might grind like everything....
Who do you say this is?
64-1227 §101
...t to glorify nothing but this person, who the people's wondering who it is. They know that man can't do this. They know it's beyond man to know these things. But the people says, "What is it?" Lord, we know it's You. It's Jesus Christ, in the person of the Holy Ghost. He is the Holy Ghost. "I come from God. I go to God." And we see the great pillar of fire among us, Lord. The same as they did in the first part of the Bible with Moses. We seen it in the middle of the Bible when Paul was on his road to Damascus. We s...
The Rejected King
60-0515M §63
All fear of death ... I say this with my Bible before me this morning. I've got a little boy there, four years old, to be raised. I've got a nine year old girl and a teen-ager that I'm thankful for, that's turned the way of the Lord. God, let me live to bring them up in the admonition of God. Above that, the whole world seems to scream to me. Ninety-year-old women and men and all kinds, "If you hadn't have went, we wouldn't have been here." God let me press the battle. But if it comes to dying, I am no more... It w...
A testimony on the sea
62-0720 §97
Now, while these people are still coming, I want some of you that's real ... on praying grounds with God. I want some of you pastors to go down here now. And I want the pastors, and those Christian women that knows God, to come around these women here; you men who know God, and interested in souls... You know what the Bible said? In this last days, the prophecy said that the people would be so cold and indifferent, and when... The Holy Ghost come through just to seal those who sighed and cried for the abominations...