I recognise the need for women to gain an understanding of the New Testament Scriptures that are directed at them. Where wrongly interpreted these hinder rather than enable women to inherit all that belongs to them in Christ. For this reason, the courses here are centred on the women in the Bible, whilst drawing from their socio-cultural context to make more understandable the reading.
I am grateful to the women I mention below who came alongside me showing a genuine interest in me as a young woman in ministry and also my interest in biblical equality. Their encouragement of me and my personal journey with the Lord have deeply affected my life. I am indebted to these women I met and their written resources that have enabled me in my own study of the New Testament in their original languages.
These include Australian, Sandra Payne, ‘Gods Word to Women’ who sought me out and gave me a copy of heron out of print book. Hilda Fairly, another Australian and friend of Sandra Payne, who with her husband did extensive missionary work in Africa. Hilda gave me a copy of Theologian, Katherine C. Bushnell’s book. ‘God’s Word to Women’, www.godswordtowomen.org
This brought me in touch with the late Dr Catherine Clark Kroeger and the scholarly literature available through Christians for Biblical Equality, www.christiansforbiblicalequality.org, Catherine extended to me an invitation to teach at CBE’s conference held in Noway’s Lillehammer’s 1994 Winter Olympics site. Catherine and her late husband authored the ground breaking work ‘I Do Not Allow A Woman To Preach’. I also met Prof. Elaine Wainwright of Australian Catholic University Banyo. Elaine graciously invited me to attend as an audit student her doctorate degree course at ACU ‘Women in the 1st century’. During this time of travel, I attended American Institute of Holy Land Studies, now, Jerusalem University College for om=ne month study tour ‘The Land and the Book’.
More recently, Catherine Clark Kroeger introduced me to Dr Ann Nyland. Ann had not long published her book, ‘The Source New Testament with extensive notes on Greek word meaning. Ann helped mt to get my first book published through a published, Smith and Stirling. All the above books are available on Amazon or online through their publishers.
My materials presented on the women of Judaism in the Old Testament are the result of my lifelong journey in the Scriptures and of general reading over the years. My understanding was gained from changing my view of the text by reading the Scriptures from a woman’s point of view. I employed textual criticism to find answers to the many questions I had regarding women in ancient Judaism.
Finally, the Evangelism series of teachings ‘Lessons on the Journey of Faith’ were initially fragments gathered together in my years of searching out for myself and how to make plain the teachings of the New Testament to those searching for their own answers.
My hope in offering my materials to you is to enable you and I, together with the ecclesia of freed women and men, to all participate together as one in a renewed society. For those women who may be crying out to God as I was back in those early days, ‘why have you made me thus’? I hope you will find some answers and begin to absorb them into your own journey with the Lord.
I leave you with a reading from Ezra. It was directed at those Jews who were still alive after the exile and those born in Babylon had finally returned home. They gathered to hear from Ezra the reading of the Law of God, a momentous event. Here, also, the groundwork was being laid for the establishment of a renewed society. Having understood, ‘Then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them (Neh 8: 2-12).
It is my hope that in reading my body of work your outlook on life will change . I do not hesitate in saying that for some who will study them, their lives will take a new direction because of the freedom the Word of God offers to those women and men who choose to be ‘choice ones’ for God and have the courage to follow their calling.
Feel free to contact me if you want to. Above all, as the servant of the Lord, simply enjoy the life Christ has brought to you and be continually renewed in the spirit of your mind with this understanding that it is ‘for freedom Christ has set you free’.
Love
Patricia
List of teaching papers:
WOMEN IN GRECO ROMAN TIMES
WOMEN IN THE BOOK OF ACTS
WOMEN IN JERUSALEM
Women in the Upper Room: Anointed To Preach
Mary, The Mother of John Mark: Hosted A Regular Prayer Meeting
Rhoda, A House Servant And Disciple
Paul’s Sister
WOMEN IN THE BOOK OF ROMANS:
Phoebe: ‘Diaconos.’
Priscilla: Church Leader
Mary
Tryphena and Tryphosa
Rufus’ Mother
Julia and Nero’s Sister: Church Leaders in Rome
Claudia of Rome: A Famous Woman of History
Wife of Gaius
WOMEN IN THE EPISTLES
The Church at Corinth
Chloe: Leader of a Congregation.
Corinthian Women Keen Students Of ‘The Way’
First Church In Europe
Lydia and Other Women who met On the Sabbath
Lydia’s House Church: The First in Europe
Philip’s Four Daughters Who Were Teachers
Bernice: A Woman’s Voice Crying in the Wilderness
Praying and Prophesying Women
Corinth 1 Cor 11: 5 Woman Praying And Prophesying
1 Cor 12: 4-7 For the Work of the Ministry
Corinth
THE CHURCH AT COLLOSSE
Nymphia: Church In Her House: Leader.
Apphia: Church Leader: ‘Suffered For Christ’s Sake’
CHURCH IN PHILIPPI
Euodias and Syntache: Women Leaders in the Church in Philippi.
The Elect Lady: Church Leader
Another Women, Church Leader, ‘Elect Lady’ Sends Greetings.
WOMEN IN EPHESUS
Women Ministers ‘Deaconai’ Praying Publicly
Women Bishops
Eunice And Lois: A Mother And A Grandmother: Jewish Women Of Good Faith
Women Elders: Women Leaders as Gifts to the Church.
Women Gifted With the Holy Spirit 1 Cor 12 Rom 9 Eph 3
Women Scattered and Preaching the Gospel
Acts 8: 1-4 Scattered and Went Preaching/ Deacapolis
Peter’s Wife: Involved In Apostolic Ministry.
Wives Of The Apostles 1 Cor 9: 5
WOMEN IN PUBLIC TEACHING MINISTRY IN THE CHURCH.
Women in Public Teaching Ministry in Corinth
Women Who Helped Build the Church in Corinth
Wives Of Titius Justice and Crispus in Corinth
Any Women Who Desire To Be Church Leaders May…
Female ‘Deaconai’: Women Ministers.
Women Ministers Obtain For Themselves an Advanced Standing: With the Right to Speak
Freely And Boldly And Openly By Faith And The Anointing.
Female Elders at Ephesus
Acts
Women Believers in Athens Acts 17: 34a
Damaris
Priscilla: A Believer
A Woman Teacher by the Name of Jezebel
Women with lovely feet, that preach Good New