Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Rah. My guest today is Dr. Cynthia Long Westfall who is a associate professor of New Testament at McMaster Divinity College.

Cynthia has a PhD from University of Surrey, Rohampton, has an MDF from Denver Seminary, an MA from Northern Arizona University of the A from Biola College, back when it was called Biola College.

Cynthia is the author of a fairly well-known scholarly book called Paul and Gender reclaiming the apostles' vision for men and women in Christ.

It's widely considered one of the best defenses of the egalitarian position of women in church leadership.

I'm just about done with the book. I've tried to finish before the interview and I got really, really close, but I was excited to have Cynthia on the show.

We talk a lot about all those passages that you're thinking of when it comes to women in church leadership.

Whether you agree with her conclusion or not, you'll easily be able to appreciate how incredibly sharp she is, how knowledgeable she is, especially with the Greek language, and how she has provided a very, very thoughtful argument for women in positions of leadership.

And the church, so please welcome to the show for the first time.

He wanted only Dr. Cynthia Long-Westphal.

Thank you so much for coming on the show, Cynthia. I've been looking forward to this for a long time, ever since I started to read your book many years ago.

And now I've picked it back up. Thank you for this book, Paul and Gender. It's an excellent book.

Why don't we start with what led you to write this book and what led you to become interested in the question of...

It's often framed women in ministry. I like to say you know women in church leadership over men might be the more specific issue.

But yeah, what led you into this conversation?

I was asked by my PhD supervisor to write a book on Paul and Gender.

And so I said yes, which I said too many times, but I said yes in terms of writing books, you know, but he asked me to do it, and I agreed to do it, and I took a good long time to do it.

I had a position at that point, but it was a long time coming. How did I come to this position?

I would say that that's a question. What led me down this road?

And I think that any women, any woman who has a set of gifting of, say, leadership or teaching gifts or, you know, feels called to ministry.

Even if they're called to a heritage ministry, they are going to be dealing with this issue.

I think that's one thing that men and people who don't have this gifting, women that don't have this gifting, don't realize that women who are walking this line, who have this calling, face a barrage of challenges and criticisms.

So all my life, since I became a Christian at 14, I was challenged in this area, even when I was complimentarian.

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