“One in Christ Jesus”

Abstract

Abstract This chapter focuses on the history of interpretation of Galatians 3:28 and its application to women’s ministry and ordination in the American context. Not until the nineteenth century was the text understood to mean anything other than a person’s standing before God. After tracing the historical interpretation of the text, the chapter turns to the emergence of and controversy over women in ministry in the nineteenth century. The coalescence of evangelical revivalism and the first women’s rights movement in the 1840s shifted the text’s meaning to the human dimension, namely, to a woman’s right to serve in an equal capacity to men as ordained ministers. Galatians 3:28 emerged as the decisive text in support of women’s ordination. The chapter extends the discussion into recent times, examining advocates of women in ministry from a mainline Protestant perspective (Krister Stendahl), a feminist perspective (Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza), and an evangelical perspective (Richard Longenecker).