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‘In that day, I (the Messiah) will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up its ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old.’ – Amos 9:11

‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.’ – Acts 2:17

And James said to the Jerusalem Council, ‘Brethren, listen to me! All this we see happening is the fulfillment of the words of the prophets: ‘He shall restore the tabernacle of David’ – Acts 15:13-16

If you’re like me, you quickly scan the length of an article to determine if you’ll read it. This post is long. But please, don’t make the mistake of ignoring it and not reading it, especially if:

• You’re a conservative, evangelical pastor who wrongly thinks only liberals who deny the infallible Word of God believe that women can serve Christ’s church.
• You’re a gifted Christian woman, called by God to serve others in His Church.
• You’re a messenger to the June 7-10, 2026 Southern Baptist Convention.

I’m a Convinced Biblicist, NOT a Cultural Feminist

When it comes to women who shepherd (pastor) God’s people, some of my conservative evangelical friends – that is, people like me who believe that the Bible is God’s inspired and infallible Word – often find themselves struggling with the thought that a woman can have any servant leadership among God’s people.

Some feel that accepting a woman shepherding God’s people is akin to believing the devil is the fourth person of the sacred Trinity Tetrarchy.

It just can’t be, Wade! A woman teaching, prophesying, or exhorting Christ’s Church is unbiblical, impractical, and immoral. It violates church tradition, not to mention the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message.’

To my conservative evangelical friends who bristle at the mere mention of women shepherding Christian people, I offer 5 biblical reasons why women can pastor (shepherd) other Christian people in Christ’s Kingdom.

 

1. Your definition of “pastor” is not biblical.

 

The moment you believe that the New Testament word ‘pastor’ is a ‘noun of status’ which speaks of a person ‘in an office of authority’ over God’s people, where ‘the pastor’ or ruling male elders exert spiritual authority over or control of other people, then you have defined ‘pastor’ contrary to Jesus and the sacred Scriptures.

 

I’ve written an entire book on this issue. It’s called Fraudulent Authority: Pastors Who Seek To Rule Over Others.

The basic problem with churches that establish ‘male elders’ who ‘rule over’ their church membership is that they’ve established a structure contrary to the teachings of Jesus. Many in Christ’s Church have come under the misguided belief that men only are to ‘exercise spiritual authority’ over believers in Jesus. In their system, nobody – especially females – can disagree with, contradict, or speak out against the male elders because they’d be arguing with ‘God’s anointed authorities.’

Read again what Jesus said to His followers. ‘It shall not be this way among you.’ The word ‘pastor’ should be viewed as a ‘verb of service’ and not a ‘noun of status.’ It’s a practice, not a position; a service, not a status; a gifting, not a gender.

Every Christian, male or female, is called to shepherd others to Jesus. Some happen to get paid. If your church’s definition of pastor is ‘one with spiritual authority or divine power over others,’ then Christian women cannot be pastors. However, neither could Christian men, for no Christian is to rule over anyone else spiritually.

Jesus is the only Authority over His people.

Some who have grown up on the King James Version of the Bible might object:

‘Remember them which have rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith you follow, considering the end of their conversation.’ Heb. 13:7

Listen to my message on Hebrews 13:17.

The English translation of the Greek for the King James Version of Hebrews 13:7 and 17 is very poor. The words ‘rule’ and ‘over’ are not even present in the New Testament Greek of Hebrews 13 (look it up).

The best English translation of these two verses in the sacred Scripture would be:

So, an evangelical, biblical church is to be led by older, spiritually gifted men and women of humble character who guide and shepherd others through gentle persuasion and encouragement.

For more information, read a free PDF White Paper that my late father, Paul Burleson, and I wrote on ‘Authority in the Church.’

 

2. Your continuance of Old Covenant worship practices isn’t New Covenant.

 

The discontinuity between the Old Covenant (Testament) and the New Covenant (Testament) is critical to understanding how Christ’s church should function.

Anglicans, Presbyterians, historic Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, and a host of other religious denominations tend to style church structure after Old Testament-style Yahweh worship, and they are often adamant that females can’t be in spiritual leadership.

 

To those who hold to male spiritual authority, the church of Jesus Christ has simply replaced the people of Israel. They strongly believe the manner in which God’s people worship our LORD Jesus Christ should be the same today as it was in the Old Testament days of the Jewish worship of Yahweh.

On the other hand, Baptists, Methodists, Assemblies of God, and other Christian evangelical organizations see a discontinuity between the Old Testament Temple worship of the Jews and the New Testament worship of Jesus Christ.

These evangelical Christians have historically had no problem with women shepherding God’s people in His Church.

Even within the Old Testament, we have several beautiful foreshadowings of the New Covenant between God and sinners. The prophets spoke of the day coming (the New Covenant) when sinners would be made righteous by God’s grace and the work of the Messiah, Yahweh in the Flesh.

One such foreshadowing of the New Covenant is ‘The Tabernacle of David’ during the days of King David, 1011 to 971 BC (see I Chronicles 15 and I Chronicles 16).

 

 

Few people who love the Bible spend much time studying the Tabernacle of David. We know more about the Tabernacle of Moses. That is to our detriment.

Peter, James, and the early disciples often spoke of the New Covenant being the fulfillment of David’s Tent. In fact, James spoke to the Jerusalem Council and specifically stated that the New Covenant is the fulfillment of David’s Tabernacle (tent).

James told the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15): ‘Jesus has restored David’s Tabernacle.’

At the Tabernacle of David, women, Gentiles, and slaves worshiped and prophesied alongside Jewish men at David’s Tabernacle. There were no sacrifices, no rituals, no cleansing ceremonies at David’s Tabernacle. Those things occurred at Gibeon, where the Tabernacle of Moses had been constructed, five miles from the City of David, Mount Zion, and the Tent of David.

Only the Ark of the Covenant was under the Tent of David on Mount Zion, and that Ark is Jesus Christ.

David’s Tabernacle is the clearest picture of the New Testament Church in the sacred Hebrew Scriptures.

In the Tabernacle of Moses, worship of YHWH was led only by male priests.

In the Tabernacle of David, women – including the daughters of Heman – led worship, prophesied, and ministered to YHWH’s people – (see I Chronicles 25:1-8).

The Tabernacle (Tent) of Moses became permanent when King Solomon dedicated the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah. Women were excluded from ministering at the Temple and could go no further than the Courtyard of Women.

God instructed David to erect the Tabernacle of David on Mount Zion. It became a joyful symbol of the Good News. According to the New Testament writers, when the Messiah came, He reconstructed the Tabernacle of David, which the Jews had torn down.

Sure enough, when the Messiah came at Bethlehem, He came to replace the Old Agreement between Yahweh and the nation of Israel Jews with a New Agreement between the True Israel (Jesus the Messiah) and the world.

‘By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.” (Hebrews 8:13)

As the Old Covenant began to disappear following the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Good News of Jesus Christ began to spread. The Old Covenant ‘officially ended’ in AD 70 at the destruction of the Jewish Temple.

A new way of worship of YHWH had dawned!

‘But you (both male and female believers) are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.’ (I Peter 2:9).

‘There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ (Galatians 3:28)

I once sent a paper explaining New Covenant worship to a group of ‘elders’ (men who took authority over their church). They sought to restrict church leadership to males only. My paper was disconcerting to them, even troubling.

It’s hard for traditionalists to answer a biblicist.

The Covenants Have Changed.

The New Covenant Church is ‘the heavenly Zion,’ the ‘rebuilt Tabernacle of David,’ where the Body of Christ, both males and females, manifests the Messiah on Earth.

 

The Old Covenant agreement between God and Israel was a ‘come and see’ religion. Come and see the Temple. Come and see the rituals. Come and see the festivals.

The New Covenant is a ‘go and tell’religion. Go tell sinners of the Savior who has guaranteed the Creator’s goodness to those who trust Him. Christianity is radically spiritual, internal, personal, and transcultural (for all peoples).

Some of the best worship you can have is with family or a small group of believers around a campfire at a lake, or at home around the dinner table, or at a backyard barbecue.

 

 

 

Further, since the life of God is in the individual who trusts Christ, there is no hierarchical authority in the church.

Every believer is a pastor (priest) who shepherds others to Jesus.

 

3. To limit the Spirit’s gifts to one gender sex (male) harms His Body.

 

This one will be short. Christ bestows the gifts of teaching, prophesying, exhortation, shepherding, and other spiritual gifts on His people regardless of gender.

‘So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for works of ministry, to build up the body of Christ’ (Ephesians 4:11).

The Spirit gifts Christ’s people with various gifts regardless of gender.

Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and He distributes them to each one, just as He determines.

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so, the body is not made up of one part but of many. – I Cor. 12:1-14

When an institutional church overrules the Spirit of God, it will find itself absent the Spirit unless corrected.

• Teaching is never called a male gift.
•  Exhortation is never called a male gift.
• Wisdom is never called a male gift.
• Administration is never called a male gift.
• Prophecy is never called a male gift.
• Mercy is never called a female gift.

The Spirit distributes gifts to each one individually just as He wills.

Not according to gender. According to God’s grace.

 

 

The overwhelming testimony of the New Testament is that gifted, humble men and women of character, preferably older in years (e.g., “elder”), will shepherd, guide, and pastor God’s people.

Christian men who exclude Christian women from fulfilling the call of God according to the Spirit’s gifts are infatuated with their own alleged “authority” and are in danger of losing the unction and anointing of the Holy Spirit in their own ministries.

 

4. You may have a narrow and unbiblical view of Christian ministry, almost Roman Catholic in nature.

Ordination. Define – ‘The action of ordaining or conferring holy orders on someone.’

Ugh. We didn’t ordain anybody when I served at Emmanuel Enid for 30 years.

The state of Oklahoma requires a ‘ministerial license’ to officiate marriage ceremonies, to recognize vocational ministers working at a state-recognized 501 (c) (3) non-profit, and to grant ministerial tax credits for those working in non-profit vocational ministry.

We would license men and women as vocational employees of Christian non-profits because the state requires it, but we didn’t ordain anybody.

Every state government in the United States of America considers ‘licensing’ pastors and ‘ordaining’ pastors as the same thing. Most churches don’t consider them the same thing. Emmanuel Enid did differently. We licensed people because the state required it for marriage ceremonies.

Every gifted, humble person in Christ’s Church at Emmanuel Enid shepherded others.

Denominations that ordain ministers typically make a non-biblical separation between ‘clergy’ and ‘laymen.’

Only the “ordained,” according to these churches, can fulfill the “ordinances of the church” (baptism and the Lord’s Supper). It’s amazing how traditions in institutional churches carry on through “ordination” ceremonies. It’s almost like a cult.

Before I was “ordained” as a Southern Baptist pastor in 1982, I was told that I would be examined by other “ordained” men. During my prep for this ordination, some men who thought they were being helpful told me that one of the questions that would be asked was:

‘What are two ordinances of the church?’

Ironically, all the ordained men instructed me how to answer: ‘Say baptism and the Lord’s Supper.’ Dutifully, I answered such and was promptly ‘ordained’ by the Southern Baptist Convention.

It was only years later that I learned from my own study of Scripture and reading both John Gill and Charles Spurgeon, that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ‘ordinances of Christ,’ not the church.

The word ‘ordinance’ means ‘law, or commandment.’

Jesus gave us both commandments. not the local church:

Jesus came to them and said, ‘Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ – Matthew 28:19

“The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and He said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ – I Corinthians 11:23-29

Every believer in Jesus Christ, whether male or female, is called a minister in the New Testament. We are a royal priesthood.

Therefore, gifted women can ‘go and make disciples,’ ‘baptize,’ and ‘serve the bread and the wine,’ leading others to remember Jesus.

Jesus told all of His followers, not just males, to ‘go and make disciples.’

 

 

Any church that emphasizes ‘ordination’ will tell people to ‘come.’ And when they come, they will only see ‘males’ ordained by the church (in patriarchal churches) to ‘rule over’ – or females in feminist churches – to ‘rule over’ and serve the ordinances.

This is never the way it should be.

When I served as an International Mission Board trustee (2005-2008), I got into a heated dispute with trustee leadership over excluding females from Christian ministry and using only ‘males with authority over the Church.’

The IMB had some wonderful Christian women missionaries in the Far East who were leading men and women to faith in Jesus Christ. These Christian converts were ready to be baptized. However, the missionary and new converts lived in what the IMB called ‘A Security Three Zone.’ Basically, a communist country that outlawed Christianity.

The late Dr. John Floyd, chairman of the subcommittee on which I served, informed his fellow trustees at my first meeting that a qualified person was not available to baptize the recent Christian converts in the ‘country’ (i.e., in the Security 3 Zone). He said the IMB would pay for air transportation (up to $3,000) and all expenses for an ordained Southern Baptist pastor from the USA to fly to the Far East to baptize the converts of this female IMB missionary.

Not knowing any better, I raised my hand and asked a question of my fellow trustees:

‘Why doesn’t the Christian female missionary who taught these people about Jesus and led them to faith in the Savior baptize them and thereby fulfill the command of Jesus in the Great Commission and save the IMB thousands of dollars?’

Crickets.

My courteous but firm opposition to the IMB’s unbiblical patriarchal policies led to a protracted battle between the world’s largest missionary sending organization and its trustee from Oklahoma.

I still marvel, even two decades later, that IMB trustee leadership had the ludicrous notion to fly an ‘ordained male minister’ to the Far East to baptize Christian converts who came to faith in Jesus Christ under the discipleship of Christian women. Males and females BOTH are to minister in the name of Jesus, fulfilling His command to make disciples.

It took ten years after I opposed the absurd, nonsensical, and unbiblical IMB policies for them to be reversed.

 

Tens of millions of people are coming to faith in Jesus around the world, led to Jesus by gifted, humble men and women of character who are fulfilling the ordinance of Jesus Christ, whether recognized by the institutional church or not.

Christian ministry is about following the commands of Christ. Our view of ministry needs to be more biblical than institutional.

As an aside, the moment institutional churches advocate that women, homosexuals, or any other ordained clerics rule over people through an office of authority received by ordination via an institutional denomination, you’ll hear the same objections from me that I’m now giving about men ‘ruling over’ people in SBC churches.

 

5. Your understanding of historic Baptist confessions may be partial.

 

The 2000 Baptist Faith and Message states:

‘While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.’ (Article VI The Church)

Confessions are not inspired. They are often rife with errors. Some of the local association Southern Baptist confessions of the 1850’s advocated slavery as biblical.

The problem of the 2000 BFM is not the exclusion of women from ‘the office of pastor.’

The office of the pastor is unbiblical. The word office, as in ‘the office of the President’ or ‘the office of the pastor,’ is nowhere used in the New Testament.

Reading this paper, titled ‘The Bible and Authority in the Church,’ might help you understand how church tradition has supplanted New Testament teaching.

The earliest recorded comment on the role of Baptist women was by John Smyth, founder of the first identifiable Baptist church of modern history. In his 1609 work Parallels, Censures, Observations, Smyth wrote:

“…the Church hath powre to Elect, approve & ordeyne her owne Elders, also: to elect, approve, & ordeine her owne Deacons both men & woemen.”

Baptist women did preach in England in the early days of the 17th century. Most English churchmen found the practice as distasteful as believers’ baptism.

Nevertheless, Baptists have historically had women preach.

The Anabaptist Waterland Confession of 1580 is the first ‘Baptist’ Confession to refer to the setting aside of gifted believers for Christian ministry.

In times of need the congregation shall prepare itself before God with fasting and prayer, calling upon Him for help–for He alone can send the right servants into His harvest–that our heavenly Father may prepare the right servants among the congregations to the glory of His name; servants who will proclaim His holy Word truthfully, and in true Christian love, according to His pleasure, to hungry souls, [as well as] administering the sacraments and the ban.

This Baptist confession does not take gender into consideration when assigning roles.

For their views on the ministry, the English Baptists went directly to the Bible for their authority.

Those women who preached and those men who allowed it thought they found adequate scriptural teaching and precedent.

More recently, I challenged Al Mohler at the 2018 Southern Baptist Convention to answer a question I had about Joanne P. Moore, the first female missionary of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Home Mission Board. The Baptists sent Joanna in the 1860s to teach and minister to African-American male pastors who were being held on an island in the Mississippi River. She convinced these pastors through her discipleship by teaching them, from the sacred Scriptures, that drunkenness was a sin.

These African-American Baptist pastors began abstaining from the sin of drunkenness due to the influence of Joanna P. Moore. I asked Dr. Mohler:

The next time I hear a person state they don’t believe in ‘women pastors’ and cite the 2000 BFM, I might feel compelled to ask, ‘Do you even understand what a confession is?’

A confession doesn’t contain infallible truths. Confessions change all the time.

Baptists have approved these 19 Confessions since the 1500s:

Baptist Confessions (1500s–1840s)

1596 — True Confession (English Separatist precursor)

1610 — Smyth’s Short Confession of Faith

1611 — Helwys Declaration of Faith

1644 — First London Baptist Confession

1646 — First London Baptist Confession (Revised Edition)

1651 — Faith and Practice of Thirty Congregations

1660 — Standard Confession

1677 — Second London Baptist Confession (First Publication)

1678 — Orthodox Creed

1689 — Second London Baptist Confession (Formal Adoption)

1742 — Philadelphia Confession of Faith

1833 — New Hampshire Confession of Faith

1840 — Abstract of Principles (Southern Baptist theological roots)

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Southern Baptist Confessions (1845–2026)

1845 — New Hampshire Confession of Faith (widely used among Southern Baptists)

1858 — Abstract of Principles (adopted by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)

1925 — Baptist Faith and Message

1963 — Baptist Faith and Message (Revision)

2000 — Baptist Faith and Message (Revision)

2026 — Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (current confession of the Southern Baptist Convention)

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Historical Note: From the founding of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845 until the adoption of the Baptist Faith and Message in 1925, Southern Baptists operated for eighty years without a convention-wide confession of faith. During that period, the New Hampshire Confession of Faith and the Abstract of Principles were the doctrinal standards most commonly used among Southern Baptists.

 

CONCLUSION

A denial of women pastoring God’s people based on a Baptist Confession is akin to advocating racial slavery because a Baptist confession once said slavery was biblical.

What people ought to be doing is searching the Scriptures.

Long ago, I called out the problem of ‘sexual abuse’ in the Southern Baptist Convention. Nobody listened then (2007), but people are sure listening now.

I continue to call out my conservative evangelical friends for their exclusion of women from Christian leadership, for their energetic attempts to stifle gifted Christian women from fulfilling the commandments of Christ to ‘go and make disciples,’ and for their unbiblical approach to Christian ministry.

Conservative Southern Baptists must stop the Christ dishonoring practice of:

• Debilitating Christian females with God-given gifts.
• Denigrating Christian females in their Spirit-led ministries.
• Downplaying Christian females as New Covenant priests.

 

You may not agree with what I’ve written, but I’ll do all I can to prevent the removal from the SBC Christian people who see Christian ministry differently than you do.

The post 5 Biblical Reasons Gifted Female Servants Can Shepherd the Church appeared first on Istoria Ministries.

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