Dock Resource Kit

Sunday sermon, 15 June 2025

As we continue our Romans Revisited series, Phil explores how Paul’s final greetings in Romans 16 reveal a gospel-shaped vision of leadership marked by mutuality, shared authority, and Spirit-led gifting. Far from sidelining women, Paul honours them as deacons, apostles, and co-workers — a pattern that sits in tension with later contested texts often used to restrict their leadership. As we reflect on both Scripture and the Spirit’s work in our own community, we’re invited to affirm a Church where calling is not limited by gender, but grounded in grace, service, and the gifts God gives.

Key Points & Takeways

• Romans 16 shows Paul honouring women as leaders, co-workers, and apostles — revealing a gospel-shaped community marked by shared ministry.

• Restrictive passages like 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2 must be read in their context and alongside Paul’s broader pattern of affirming women in leadership.

• The Spirit gives gifts without regard to gender — leadership in the Church is about calling, service, and the building up of the body of Christ.

• From Pentecost to Paul’s partnerships, Scripture paints a vision of mutuality and shared authority in the life of the Church.

• This isn’t just theology — it’s our lived reality. As we see women preaching, pastoring, and planting today, we’re witnessing the gospel at work among us.

• We are all invited to recognise gifting in others, create space for calling, and let the Spirit stretch our assumptions for the sake of the Church’s flourishing.

Dock Discussion Questions

1. What stood out to you most in today’s teaching — and why?

   Did anything challenge your assumptions or encourage your understanding of how God calls people into leadership?

2. How do we discern the difference between cultural assumptions and biblical conviction when it comes to leadership in the Church?

   What helps us read Scripture faithfully and humbly in contested areas?

3. Who are the women whose leadership, wisdom, or ministry has shaped your own faith journey?

   Take time to name, honour, and give thanks for them.

4. How can we as a community be more intentional about recognising and releasing the gifts God has placed in all of us — regardless of gender?

   What might that look like in practice at SPS and in our everyday lives?

Long-form, editted transcript

Romans Revisited.
Women, Leadership & the Gospel-Shaped Church

Today we’re continuing our Romans Revisited series — going back through this remarkable letter not in order, but by theme, taking time to wrestle with some of the most important and challenging topics Paul raises.

And this morning, we come to the question of women and leadership — not through abstract debate, but through a striking and often overlooked section in Paul’s closing chapter, where the names he mentions and the people he honours tell us something profound about what gospel-shaped community really looks like.

Before we turn to the text, I want to name the wider cultural moment we’re living in. Because this isn’t just a church issue — it’s a live issue in our society too.

On the surface, it may seem like the major battles for gender equality have been won. And yes, across the last few centuries, many hard-won gains have been made — in education, voting rights, and employment law. But today the data still tells a sobering story.

On average, women are paid significantly less than men for doing the same job. In many industries, leadership roles for women remain elusive. There’s that now-infamous stat that there are more men called John or Simon or Andrew who are CEOs of FTSE 100 companies than there are women CEOs in total.

And this disparity shows up far beyond the boardroom. From unequal funding and visibility in sport, to assumptions in healthcare, to the devastating reality of domestic abuse — we are not living in a truly egalitarian society.

Now, today’s talk isn’t primarily about gender justice in society — and there are people in this room far more qualified than I am to speak to that. But it’s important to set the scene. To acknowledge that this conversation isn’t happening in a vacuum. And to recognise that the Church — our church — exists in the middle of this world. And we want to play our part in bringing the Scripture-based, Spirit-led, just and loving voice of Jesus into both the Church and the culture around us.

Because this isn’t, still, just a big topic in the Church — it’s a deeply personal one. Whether you’re male or female. For me. For us. For many here, the questions around women in church leadership touches on memory, calling, encouragement, frustration — and, for some, pain.

And it’s also something on which my own convictions have changed.

I grew up with a conservative view of gender and leadership. I was taught that Scripture clearly upheld male headship and female submission in church and family life. And those convictions weren’t shaped by any hostility toward women — they were shaped by a deep respect for the Bible and a desire to be faithful. And for many years, I held them sincerely.

But over time, things began to shift. When Charlotte and I moved away from the church contexts we’d known and began building new community, I found myself in a more diverse and open environment — one where I encountered female leadership and friendship in a way I hadn’t before.

That experience was deeply formative.

It made space for questions I hadn’t asked, and it opened my eyes to the faith, fruit, and spiritual authority of women around me — not as a challenge to Scripture, but I came to see, as a fulfilment of it.

As I studied then theology and trained for ordination, I began to reflect more seriously on what Scripture actually said — and didn’t say — about women and leadership. I realised that some of my earlier convictions had been shaped more by tradition and assumption than by the text itself. And slowly, I came to affirm what I now see clearly in both Scripture and the Spirit-led life of the Church: that God calls and equips women to lead, to preach, to preside, to plant churches, and to pastor his people.

Which brings us to today. Brigid, who has served with such wisdom and grace as our curate this past year, was ordained priest yesterday. And today, in just a few moments, she’ll stand at the Table and preside at Holy Communion for the first time. That’s no small thing. And, in the context of this series, I’m glad that we get to honour that moment by opening Scripture and offering some biblical reflection and personal testimony.

So — before we say anything else — let’s listen to Paul. His final chapter in Romans is often skimmed over as a list of names. But it’s more than that. It’s a glimpse into what gospel-shaped community really looks like — and who gets to lead in it.

Romans 15.30 - 16.7

I urge you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. Pray that I may be kept safe from the unbelievers in Judea and that the contribution I take to Jerusalem may be favourably received by the Lord’s people there, so that I may come to you with joy, by God’s will, and in your company be refreshed. The God of peace be with you all. Amen.

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.

Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.

Greet also the church that meets at their house.

Greet my dear friend Epenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia.

Greet Mary, who worked very hard for you.

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

Paul’s Gospel-Shaped Community in Romans 16

If you want to understand how someone leads, look at who they honour.

And in Romans 16, we get a remarkable insight into how Paul saw the Church — not just theologically, but relationally. And the first thing to notice is the tone. This isn’t a formal argument or a structured teaching. It’s personal. It’s full of names, gratitude, and warmth.

And these greetings, which typically came at the end of letters like this, aren’t just padding — they’re theology in action. They show us what mattered to Paul, who he trusted, and what kind of community the gospel was creating around him.

The first person Paul mentions is Phoebe. She’s described as a deacon — not in a vague or honorary sense, but using the same word Paul uses elsewhere to describe himself and other ministers of the gospel. She’s also called a benefactor, someone who has supported many — including Paul — financially, spiritually, and practically.

And most scholars agree that Phoebe was almost certainly the one who delivered this letter to the Romans — entrusted with its safe keeping, its reading, and likely with answering any questions the Roman church might have had about it. That is no small responsibility.

Then Paul greets Priscilla and Aquila — a ministry couple we meet elsewhere in Acts, known for their hospitality, their house church, their courage, and their theological clarity. But notice again the detail: Priscilla’s name is listed first. In that culture, that typically signified either greater prominence or a more public-facing ministry. She’s certainly not in the background. She’s right at the heart of gospel work.

And then we come to Junia — mentioned with Andronicus as being “outstanding among the apostles.” For centuries, some translators and commentators tried to suggest Junia must have been a man — “Junias” — because surely Paul wouldn’t call a woman an apostle.

But early manuscripts and the overwhelming scholarly consensus today affirm that Junia was a woman. And not just an apostle, but one of the outstanding ones.

That alone should make us pause.

Alongside them, Paul honours Mary, Tryphena, Tryphosa, and Persis — women he describes as hard-working in the Lord, co-labourers in the gospel. These are not background supporters or silent followers. These are partners in ministry. And Paul doesn’t just include them — he lifts them up.

Now, all that might not sound revolutionary to us — but in first-century Roman society, it was deeply counter-cultural. This is a world where women’s voices weren’t trusted in court, where their leadership wasn’t acknowledged in public life, and where religious roles were almost always dominated by men. But here is Paul, not only including women in his team, but naming them, honouring them, and building the Church with them.

So whatever else we say about Paul — and we’ll come to some of the more difficult passages in a moment — we must begin here. This is the practice of Paul. This is what it looked like when the gospel got hold of a community: hierarchy gives way to partnership, and power is redefined as mutual service under Christ.

Romans 16 shows us a vision of leadership that is deeply relational, radically inclusive for its time, and unmistakably shaped by the Spirit’s gifting — not just by gender, status, or convention.

But What About the Difficult Texts?

But what about the difficult texts?
If you’ve been around church for any length of time, you’ll likely have come across the idea that women in leadership is contentious — and much of that debate centres on the writings of Paul in the New Testament.

So — are you up for a bit of Bible study?

Because for many Christians — and for many years, myself included — passages like Romans 16 have sat in real tension with other parts of Paul’s letters.

Verses like 1 Corinthians 14, where Paul writes, “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak…”

Or 1 Timothy 2, where he says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.”

These are serious texts.
This is what the text says.
And they deserve careful reading.

For those who hold a complementarian view — that God assigns different roles to men and women in the Church — these verses carry decisive weight.

And I want to say clearly: I respect that view. I held it myself for many years, and I understand how it can be read as biblically faithful. It may still be held by some in this congregation, and it is certainly held by some of our closest neighbouring parishes within the Church of England.

I know that reality is difficult and painful for some. But part of the Church of England’s current commitment is to hold space for difference on this issue — not through avoidance, but through grace, mutual respect, and shared mission.

But I also want to suggest that, for us — as we wrestle with Scripture today — we need to hold these more difficult texts in conversation with others, especially with what we see in Paul’s own practice.

Because as we’ve just seen in Romans 16 — and elsewhere in his letters — women are clearly speaking, teaching, leading, and co-labouring in gospel ministry.

So what do we do with the tension?

Well, we need careful, considered, Spirit-led reading. The aim isn’t to explain away the bits of Scripture we don’t like — it’s to take them seriously, in their proper context.

So, first, both of these so-called “restrictive” passages are written, like all Scripture, into specific local situations.

In Corinth, Paul is addressing a church that we know was marked by disorder in worship, where different groups — men and women alike — were disrupting the gathering with unhelpful speech.

In Ephesus, where Timothy is ministering, the church is facing serious false teaching — some of which, history suggests, was being spread by influential women.

Paul’s words, then, may be pastoral corrections for those particular contexts, rather than lasting restrictions for all churches in all times.

The second thing to consider is that the language itself is complex. If you take the Greek word translated “authority”, in 1 Timothy 2. It’s rare in the New Testament, and doesn’t carry the usual sense of godly leadership or spiritual oversight. Some scholars argue that it refers more to domineering or abusive control, rather than healthy pastoral responsibility.

So, all this to say, there’s good reason to pause before assuming that these verses override what we see in Romans 16 and the broader pattern of Paul’s ministry.

And this kind of careful reading also begins to call into question the theological model of male headship — the idea that men are divinely given authority over women in the church or home. While often considered biblically faithful, and grounded in broader scriptural themes like creation and order, it still rests in part on these more contested passages — and sits in real tension with the mutuality and shared authority we see modelled by Paul in both his teaching and practice.

Again, let me stress: this isn’t about trying to explain away the difficult bits of the Bible.

But whenever we interpret Scripture, we do so in context. Not just the immediate verses, but the wider sweep of the gospel — the story of God’s kingdom breaking in, of barriers being broken down, of the Spirit poured out on all people.

That’s what Peter proclaimed at Pentecost. That’s what Paul writes in Galatians.

We don’t reject the difficult texts — but we read them in light of the whole. And, I believe, when we do that with care, humility, and a willingness to be led by the Spirit, we see a Church not marked by hierarchy or exclusion, but by partnership and calling — by gifts discerned, affirmed, and released for the sake of the gospel.

A Theology of Mutuality and New Creation

So where does this leave us theologically?

Let’s take a step back and look again at the bigger picture. If we take the whole sweep of Scripture seriously — not just isolated verses, but the arc of the gospel — we see something amazing: God consistently working through women and men, side by side, to accomplish his purposes. And far from being an exception, this mutuality is part of the Bible’s deepest vision for humanity.

Right back in Genesis 1, we’re told that both male and female are made in the image of God — equally bearing his likeness, equally tasked with stewarding creation. There’s no hierarchy here. Just shared identity and shared vocation.

And then, as the biblical story unfolds, we see the cracks of sin enter even that relationship — domination, exclusion, distortion of power. But the good news is that Jesus comes to undo the curse, not reinforce it.

That’s why at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit is poured out, Peter doesn’t say,
“Your sons will prophesy…
and your daughters will support them.”

He says, quoting the prophet Joel,
“Your sons and daughters will prophesy.”

The Spirit has never been distributed according to gender. The Church is born through shared gifting.

And that’s what Paul affirms in Galatians 3.28 — a verse that isn’t erasing difference, but reframing what truly matters in the kingdom: There is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

This isn’t about sameness — it’s about inclusion. About mutuality. About a Church where calling and gifting are discerned, affirmed, and released — not filtered through the lenses of race, status, or gender.

And again, Paul’s own life shows us this theology in action. He didn’t just write lofty ideals — he partnered with women. He trusted them with house churches, entrusted them with teaching, greeted them as apostles and co-workers.

He didn’t just tolerate their presence.

He celebrated their leadership.

All of this calls us to shape our theology of leadership — not around control or entitlement, but around calling and gift. Because in the Chu rch, leadership is never about power or position, but about service. And the Spirit gives gifts to whomever he chooses, to build up the Body of Christ.

Our Local Story — God at Work Here

All of this might sound like big ideas — and it is. But it’s not abstract. It’s not just about Paul and Phoebe and Junia. It’s also about us. It’s about what God is doing here and now in our community.

This weekend, Brigid — who, we all know is just amazing, has served among us with such wisdom, warmth, and spiritual authority — was ordained as a priest. And today, she will preside at the Jesus’ Table for the very first time. That is something to celebrate. Not just because it marks a milestone for her, but because it marks something important in the life of our church.

Because when we see God raising up women and men to lead together — to preach, to teach, to pastor, to serve, to pray, to plant — we are witnessing the gospel at work.

Over the past year, I’ve watched Brig preach with clarity, lead with courage, and pastor with Christlike presence.

And it’s not just me — many of you have experienced the fruit of her ministry.

Today she stands in a long line of women God has called and equipped for leadership — from Mary Magdalene to Priscilla, from Phoebe to Philippa.

And speaking of Philippa — just last year, we had the great privilege of launching her out from here to plant new life in Bethnal Green. Philippa had been one of my closest colleagues for years, and her leadership was — and still is — a gift to the Church.

So this is not just theology we hold — it’s something we live. Like Paul, it’s something we practise. We’ve seen the fruit. We’ve seen the faithfulness. We’ve seen the Church flourish as women have stepped into all that God has called them to.

And as we continue to pray for discernment and wisdom in all things, let’s not miss the simple truth that God is already at work — raising up leaders, building his Church, and calling us to recognise his Spirit in people we might once have overlooked.

A Call to See, Support, and Step Forward

So — where does all this leave us?

For some, this might feel deeply affirming.

For others, it might raise questions or stir some tension. And for some, it might simply bring relief — that we’re talking about this openly, biblically, and with grace.

Wherever you find yourself today, my hope is not to force a conclusion on you, but to invite you to reflect — as we are doing throughout this Roman Revisited series — on Scripture, and on what we see the Spirit doing among us.

Because moments like today are more than milestones. They’re invitations. To look again. To pay attention. To ask…

What assumptions have I carried?

What gifts have I maybe overlooked?

Where might God be calling me to grow — or to support someone else’s growth?

For those of you who are women — and especially those of you who’ve felt unsure whether your voice or your leadership has a place in the Church — I want to say this clearly: we need you.

We need your wisdom, your courage, your insight, your teaching, your gifts.

We need you to lead. And we need to be a community where those gifts are seen and nurtured and called forth.

And for all of us — men and women — we are called to build this Church together. To be the kind of people who spot gifting in others, who speak encouragement, who create space, who learn from one another, and who let the Spirit stretch us beyond our preferences or our assumptions.

Because the goal here isn’t ideological. It’s not about winning an argument or ticking a box. The goal is faithfulness.

Faithfulness to Scripture.

Faithfulness to the gospel.

Faithfulness to one another.

And in a moment as we come to this Jesus’ Table together, let it be a moment that reminds us what this is all about.

Not power. Not position.

But grace. Shared grace.

Poured out. Received.

And made visible in a Church where the Spirit of Jesus is forming us into a people who reflect the justice, mercy, and mutuality of God’s kingdom.