Priscilla, Euodia and Syntyche -- all three are referred to as co-laborers or fellow workers. There is no additional information provided. So what should we glean from these verses? That they were co-laborers and fellow workers. That's it. No one is suggesting women cannot work alongside men
Phoebe -- Phoebe had been a tremendous help to many, including Paul. Not a leader in the church. She may have been involved in many charitable acts as well. There is zero scriptural support that she was a leader in the church. The word "servant" used here is translated "diakonos"; which is where we get the word deacon. This has led many to proclaim she was a deaconess! Except the word deacon would not be created until centuries later. The word here simply mean servant.
Junia -- Junia is always presented in these arguments as a female apostle. The truth is that this Junia was in all liklihood a man to begin with since Paul refers to him as his kinsman but it does not matter because he was not an apostle:
Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me. -- Romans 16: 7 (ESV)
The verbal gymnastics you need to perform to turn this verse into making Junia an apostle is staggering. All this verse says is that to the apostles, Junia was well known.
Philip's daughters -- all the text says is they prophesied, which women are permitted to do.
Deborah. So we come to the single representation of female leadership in the 6,000 + years of recorded biblical history. There is no question that Scripture states she was a judge and a prophetess. But beloved we must reason together. She is the outlier in Scripture, not the norm. Many have speculated that her rise to be a judge, the only female judge in the 400 years of judges, was a testimony against the men of Israel. That God had to turn to a woman to lead. I see no value in devaluing her role and her contribution to the people of God. The larger point is that in the entire canon of Scripture she is the only example of a woman in a leadership position, exercising authority over men. You cannot build doctrine upon that, especially in light of the very clear instructions that are in Scripture regarding the role of women. So I am sorry Mr. Grady but nowhere does scripture call women into leadership or teaching over men in His church. Nowhere.
"We are bound by religious tradition. Martin Luther was a prophetic voice to the church when he exposed religious corruption and heresy. Yet he was still so bound by his own 16th-century bias against women that he believed God created females only for the purpose of childbirth. Many conservative Christians still hold antiquated ideas about female inferiority. This explains why so many churches didn't allow women to wear pants or makeup a few decades ago, and why women today are still expected to serve only as cooks or babysitters in some denominations." -- J. Lee Grady
