Deborah was a judge...sigh. Thats not a spiritual leader.
A prophet is not a spiritual leader...sigh.
Come up with real examples, not that there is one example of one.
By the way to be a spiritual leader, a priest, in Deb's day you had to be a Levite....and male.
Exodus 15:24: Miriam, the daughter of Aaron was a prophet and one of the triad of leaders of Israel during the Exodus from Egypt.
Judges 4 & 5: Deborah, a prophet-judge, headed the army of ancient Israel.
2 Kings 22:14; 2 Chronicles 34:22 Huldah, a prophet, verified the authenticity of the
"Book of the Law of the Lord given through Moses" - the Book of Deuteronomy. She triggered a religious renewal.
Acts 9:36 The author of Luke referred to a female disciple of Jesus by her Aramaic name Tabitha, who was also known by her Greek name Dorcas. She became sick had died; St. Peter brought her back to life.
Acts 21:8: Philip the evangelist had four unmarried daughters who were prophets.
Philippians 4:2: Paul refers to two women, Euodia and Syntyche, as his co-workers who were active evangelicals, spreading the gospel.
Romans 16:1: Paul refers to Phoebe as a minister or deacon of the church at Cenchrea. The Greek word which describes her function is "
diakonos" which means literally "
official servant." She is the only deacon in the Bible to be identified by name. Some translations say "deaconess;" others try to obscure her position by mistranslating the Greek as a simple "
servant" or "
helper". Paul later refers to Phoebe as a woman, calling her "
our sister." This prevented later church leaders from hiding her gender as they did with
Junia by changing her name and implying that she was a man.
Romans 16:3: Paul refers to Priscilla as another of his
"fellow workers in Christ Jesus" (NIV) Other translations refer to her as a "
co-worker". But other translations attempt to downgrade her status by calling her a "
helper". The original Greek word is "
synergoi", which literally means "
fellow worker" or "
colleague."
[SUB]1[/SUB] It is worth noting that Paul refers to Priscilla and her husband as "
Priscilla and Aquila" in this passage and as "
Aquila and Priscilla" in
1 Corinthians 16:19. It would appear that the order is not important to Paul. As in
Galatians 3:28, he apparently believed that there is no distinction between male and female among those who have been baptized into Christ.
Romans 16:7: Paul refers to a male apostle, Andronicus, and a female apostle, Junia, as
"outstanding among the apostles" (NIV) Every Greek and Latin church Father until Giles of Rome (circa 1000 CE) acknowledged that Junia was a woman.
[SUB]2,3[/SUB] After that time, various writers and translators of the Bible resorted to various deceptions in order to suppress her gender. For example:
- The Amplified Bible translates this passage as "They are men held in high esteem among the apostles" The Revised Standard Version shows it as "they are men of note among the apostles". The reference to them both being men does not appear in the original Greek text. The word "men" was simply inserted by the translators, apparently because the translators' minds recoiled from the concept of a female apostle.
- Many translations, including the Amplified Bible, Rheims New Testament, New American Standard Bible, and the New International Version simply picked the letter "s" out of thin air, and converted the original "Junia" (a woman's name) into "Junias" (a male form of "Junia"). Again, it was probably inconceivable to the translators that Paul would recognize a woman as an apostle. Incidentally, there are no Junias' mentioned in ancient literature and inscriptions; it was apparently an unkown and unused name.
Source:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/femclrg5.htm
