A standalone study on Deborah, Junia, Phoebe, and how we read the silence passages.
The Jude 3 Project | Study Guide | Based on the Jude 3 Project conversation with Dr. Nijay Gupta
Opening: Two Things the Same Bible Says
Sit with both of these before the discussion starts.
1 Corinthians 14:34: 'Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission.'
Romans 16:7: Paul greets Junia, 'outstanding among the apostles,' and Phoebe, the bearer of his most important letter.
The same apostle. The same ministry. Both of these are true. The question this study presses on is: how do we hold them together without throwing out either one? Dr. Nijay Gupta spent years working through exactly this. This study follows his work.
The Women God Chose to Carry His Word
Before getting to the hard passages, sit with the record of who God actually sent:
Deborah (Judges 4-5): Judge and prophet. No king on the throne. She leads the nation, and she is honored in a victory song that is one of the oldest poems in the Bible.
Huldah (2 Kings 22): When the high priest and his officials find the Book of the Law, they do not go to a male prophet. They go to Huldah. She is the one who interprets God's word for the king.
Phoebe (Romans 16:1-2): Paul commends her and says she has been a benefactor of many, including Paul himself. She carries the letter to Rome and almost certainly read it aloud and answered the congregation's questions.
Junia (Romans 16:7): Named among the apostles by Paul. Early Christian writers assumed for centuries she was a woman. The male version of the name appeared later in some translations and has no historical basis.
The women at the tomb (Luke 24): Sent by the risen Christ himself to announce the resurrection to the apostles. They were the first preachers of the gospel.
Gupta's point: any reading of the silence passages has to account for this record. God did not accidentally put these women in the text.
Where Did the 'Submit' Passages Come From?
Understanding the household codes in Colossians, Ephesians, and 1 Peter requires knowing their origin. Gupta is direct about it:
"The household codes don't derive from the Old Testament. They don't derive from the teaching of Jesus. They actually derive from Roman political philosophy. They actually come from Aristotle." — Dr. Nijay Gupta
Aristotle's political philosophy held that the properly ordered household, with the male head in charge, was the foundation of a stable society. Paul and Peter did not create this structure. They were writing into it. And they seeded it with the gospel: submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21), love your wife as Christ loved the church, welcome your slave as a beloved brother.
Dr. Esau McCaulley calls this the logic of the floor and the ceiling: 'What you have in the New Testament is the floor, not the ceiling. To assume the floor in the first century is the ceiling in the nineteenth is a fundamental misunderstanding of God.' The household codes were a starting point, not a final destination.
We Already Read One Set of These Passages Differently
Most Christians have already accepted something important. During the abolition debates, defenders of slavery used exactly the same kind of passages: 'Slaves, obey your masters.' Most Christians today read those texts through the deeper logic of the image of God and conclude that full abolition was the right and faithful response.
Gupta asks: what prevents us from applying that same instinct to the women passages? The argument is not that the texts don't say what they say. It is that we already know how to ask what a text is doing and where it is heading. We do it for slavery. The question is whether we will do it here.
"I believe every word of Scripture is true, but how we apply Scripture changes." — Dr. Nijay Gupta
Dr. Charlie Dates, in the Jude 3 Project's Contributions of the Black Church course, describes a tradition that practiced exactly this kind of reading: 'We did not read the scriptures from the viewpoint of the empire but we saw ourselves as those on the margin.' Reading from the margin is not a liberal method. It is an ancient one.
Scripture to Sit With
Judges 4-5: Deborah leads Israel as judge and prophet. Read the victory song in chapter 5, written in her honor.
Romans 16:1-7: Read slowly. Count the women Paul names and what he says about each one.
Galatians 3:28: In Christ there is neither male nor female. What does it mean for the church to embody that statement?
Philemon: Paul asks a slaveowner to receive a returning slave as a beloved brother. The structure stays; the relationship is transformed. How does this parallel apply?
1 Corinthians 11:5: Paul assumes women will prophesy in worship and tells them how to do it. Read it alongside 14:34 and ask what is happening in each context.
Discussion Questions
- Which woman in Scripture did you learn the least about growing up? Why do you think her story got skipped?
- How were you taught to read the passages about women being silent? Who taught you, and what did they leave out?
- Gupta notes that Junia's name was changed in some translations. What does it tell us about interpretation when a translation choice is shaped by a prior conclusion?
- The Black church developed a hermeneutic of reading from below, from the margin. How might that tradition of reading change how you approach the women passages?
- Gupta says we already read the slavery texts by their deeper purpose rather than as a permanent endorsement. Does that comparison help you, trouble you, or both?
- Where in your church do women carry real responsibility? Where do they hit a ceiling? What would change if the ceiling matched the biblical record?
Scripture Engagement: Sit With Romans 16
Read Romans 16 slowly. Write down every woman Paul names. Note what he says about each one:
- Phoebe: deacon, benefactor, bearer of the letter
- Prisca: co-worker in Christ
- Mary: worked hard
- Junia: outstanding among the apostles, imprisoned for the gospel
- Tryphena and Tryphosa: workers in the Lord
- Persis: a beloved worker who worked very hard in the Lord
After you finish the list, ask: does this feel like a letter from someone who thinks women should be silent? What do you do with the gap between this list and 1 Corinthians 14:34?
A Practice This Week: Listen to a Woman in Your Community
Gupta's most practical word is simple: listen to women. Learn their experience of the church. Not as a project or an exercise, but as a recognition that the women around you are carrying things the community needs to hear.
This week, ask one woman in your congregation or community: what has it been like for you in the church? What do you wish people understood? Then listen without defending, explaining, or correcting. Just hear it.
Quotes Worth Discussing
- "The arguments saying that women shouldn't be in ministry are not as strong as we think they are." — Dr. Nijay Gupta
- "Almost universally, they take for granted that Andronicus's partner is a woman, and is an apostle." — Dr. Nijay Gupta
- "The household codes don't derive from the Old Testament. They don't derive from the teaching of Jesus. They actually derive from Roman political philosophy." — Dr. Nijay Gupta
- "I believe every word of Scripture is true, but how we apply Scripture changes." — Dr. Nijay Gupta
- "What you have in the New Testament is the floor, not the ceiling." — Dr. Esau McCaulley
- "We did not read the scriptures from the viewpoint of the empire but we saw ourselves as those on the margin." — Dr. Charlie Dates
A Closing Reflection
Huldah was the one they called when they needed God's word interpreted. Not Jeremiah. Not any of the male prophets on the scene. Her. The king sent his officials to a woman with a question about Scripture, and they listened to her answer.
Who in your community might be a Huldah? Who has the gift, the wisdom, the track record, and is being held back by an interpretation the text may not actually require? That is the question this study leaves with you.
Go Deeper
This study draws on the Jude 3 Project podcast conversation with Dr. Nijay Gupta. Gupta's own book is Tell Her Story: How Women Led and Administered the Early Church. For related studies in this collection, see:
- Is the Bible Sexist? — Dr. Jo Vitale
- What Does the Bible Say About Women in Leadership? — Preston Sprinkle
- How Did Women in the Bible Gain Power? — Humble Hermeneutic
- Does the Bible Support Slavery? — Dr. Esau McCaulley (for the floor-and-ceiling argument)