Miriam: The First Worship Leader
March 27, 2008
I’m pretty sure that most moderate-complementarian churches allow women to hold the position of head worship leader, but since enough complementarian churches do not, and Miriam is the first woman in scripture to be given the title prophetess, her story is worth telling.
Miriam, sister of Aaron and Moses, is called a prophetess (Exodus 15:20) and leader (Micah 6:4).
God declares through Micah that He sent “Moses to lead you [Israel], and also Aaron and Miriam.”
Miriam also leads the Israelites in their first service of worship as a free people. At first glance, the text would appear to indicate that Miriam is only leading other women, but that is because of our sometimes limited English language.
Shawna R.B. Atteberry of The Voice: Biblical and Theological Resources For Growing Christians provides a textual analysis based on the original language:
Just another example of a woman of God leading both men and women.
next post: daughters who claim their inheritance
linda
Julie Clawson
Makeesha
Nathan Gilmour
adrieneb
beautiaful
March 27, 2008 at 10:35 am
Thank you for citing my article over at The Voice. I’ve finally added this site to Google Reader, so I will be checking in more often. All of you are doing a great job, and I’m going to be reading the earlier posts on the women in the Bible.
April 6, 2010 at 9:21 am
Shawna is simply not accurate. Ancient Hebrew does not hold all the gramatical truths of Modern Hebrew and I would love to see more than three examples of this in Ancient Hebrew that you would cite to back your argument.
The word used in 15:20 for women is “‘ishshah” Strong’s 802 and is found in the Dead Sea Scrolls which are the oldest Hebrew texts for the book of Exodus and it is constant through all sources we have for the Old Testament today. “‘ishshah” is a feminine plural and can be found again later in Exodus 35:25 where men and women plurals are used in the same passage with two different words. Nice attempt at twisting the texts into fitting your desire to lead men spiritually which is completely unscriptural. Why can’t women be satisfied in the very honorable and reverant role God the Fahter has provided for them? Why can it not be enough? If you are feeling called into a ministry that would put you the spiritual head over mean it is not likely God is doing the calling. For those that chose to ignore the numerous scriptures on women and their role in learning and teaching, I have a link posted for you below.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1Cor11:3;14:34;Eph5:22-24;Col3:18;1Tim2:11,12;Titus2:5;1Pet3:1,5,6&version=ESV