Women Served in the Top Spiritual Leadership Positions in the Bible (including evidence they were pastors in Bible times)

“Aaron and Miriam had occupied a position of high honor and leadership in Israel. Both were endowed with the prophetic gift, and both had been divinely associated with Moses in the deliverance of the Hebrews. “I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam” (Micah 6:4), are the words of the Lord by the prophet Micah…In the affections of the people and the honor of Heaven she stood second only to Moses and Aaron.” Patriarchs and Prophets p. 384-5

“There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all…All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it. Here are some of the parts God has appointed for the church:first are apostles,second are prophets,third are teachers, then those who do miracles,those who have the gift of healing,those who can help others,those who have the gift of leadership,those who speak in unknown languages. 1 Corinthians 12:4-27-28

“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.  Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.” Ephesians 4:11,12

“Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews, who were in prison with me. They are highly respected among the apostles and became followers of Christ before I did.” Romans 16:7　

“that they might be their fellow-ministers in dealing with housewives. It was through them that the Lord’s teaching penetrated also the women’s quarters without any scandal being aroused. We also know the directions about women deacons which are given by the noble Paul in his letter to Timothy.”

“no commentator prior to the 13th century questioned that this apostle was a woman.1 For example, John Chrysostom, whose writings often express misogyny, wrote of Romans 16:7,

“O how great is the devotion of this woman that she should be counted worthy of the appellation of apostle!”2

This unanimity of testimony over a milennium is particularly striking since it remained during a long period of eroding toleration of women’s ministries in the medieval church. The reason for the witness is simple: all the ancient Greek and Latin manuscripts commending the outstanding apostles in Romans 16:7 read either “Junia” or “Julia”, both feminine forms. ”
https://www.godswordtowomen.org/rissjunia.htm

see also juniaproject.com/who-was-junia/

“…we do know that both men and women provided spiritual leadership for churches which met in their homes. In the early church, almost all Christian meetings were held in private homes. Among these house-church pastors was Mary, the mother of John Mark, who later became a missionary with the apostles Paul and Barnabas. It was to her house church that Peter came in Acts 12:12 after an angelic visitor set him free from prison. The Bible says that many had assembled there and were praying, no doubt petitioning God for Peter’s release. Their prayers were answered!

Another house church leader was Chloe, according to I. Corinthians 1:11. In that passage, Paul relates that “some of Chloe’s household ” had reported that there was strife among the Corinthian Christians. Those Chloe sent with this message to Paul were probably Christians who were members of her house church. They may have been relatives or household servants, or they may have been Christians who lives in the area and gathered at her home for worship.

These believers would have come under Chloe’s spiritual guidance, care and protection. But Chloe’s influence extended beyond her own flock. Evidently, she had sent a deputation from her house church to Paul, who knew her or knew of her, to inform him of the need for correction in the Corinthian church. She was a trusted leader and source of reliable information for the apostle Paul.

Acts 16:14-15, 40 tells us about Lydia, Paul’s first European convert to Jesus, who offered Paul hospitality in her home. Scripture relates that when Lydia was converted, her entire household was baptized and that her home became the first meeting place for European Christians.

Lydia was a business woman who traded in valuable, dyed garments. The fact that Scripture mentions no husband or father indicates the high prominence of this woman. Since first-century Greek and Roman women were almost always under the legal guardianship of a husband or father, Lydia may well have been a wealthy widow or only daughter who inherited her parents’ estate. Thus, she became the head of her own household. She either managed the family business or developed a business of her own after her husband’s or father’s death.

The Book of Acts says that Lydia’s entire household was baptized upon her conversion to Christ. This follows the custom of ancient Roman families. Under paganism, household gods were believed to protect and help the family and its enterprises. Thus, it was the duty of members of these households, relatives, slaves, and their families to worship the gods adopted by the head of the household.
Roman households were often large since almost all businesses were home-based before the industrial age. Those who worked for Lydia in her business, and possibly others engaging in the trade who belonged to the dye-makers guild, would have been among her converts. By virtue of her position as head of household, Lydia had the opportunity and responsibility to lead all of its members to Christ and then to establish and lead them in the faith. This put her in a similar position to the modern-day pastor. To fulfill part of this responsibility, Lydia invited Paul to come and preach in her home.Another New Testament woman who led a house church was Nympha (Col. 4:15). Paul sent greetings to her and to the church at her house. Some modern scholars try to get around this by saying that Nympha was “just” the hostess, not the pastor. If that were so, who did pastor her house church, and why would Paul so rudely fail to greet the pastor as well as the hostess?The brief, personal letter II John is addressed to a church and its pastor, a woman with whom the apostle John evidently had warm ties. John opens the letter, “to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth. . .” “Children” was a term of endearment that John used for Christian believers. (I. John 2:1, 12, 18, 28). “Truth” was a term John often used in his writings for the revelation of Jesus (See, for example, John 1:14, 17; 8:32; 16:13; I. John 1:6-8; 2:4, 21; 3:19; II. John 4; III John 3-4.)The word “elect,” while it usually refers to believers as chosen by God for salvation, can also be used to refer to the ordained clergy. The second-century church father Clement of Alexandria does this repeatedly in his Stromata book 6, chapter 13. John’s use of these terms plus the general tone of the letter with its pastoral direction as in verse 10 demonstrate that II John was written to a Christian church, not just a family. This brief letter closes by conveying a greeting from the church of another woman-“the children of your elect sister greet you.” This woman was evidently their pastor since John again uses the term “children” which in his writings means Christians under the care of a spiritual leader. Also, he calls her “elect” which either means ordained or chosen.
https://godswordtowomen.org/pastors.htm

“Paul also mentions Phoebe in Romans 16, “a deacon of the church at Cenchreae.” He calls her a prostatis or overseer. This term in its masculine form, prostates, was used later by the Apostolic Fathers to designate the one presiding over the Eucharist. And Paul uses the same verb, the passive of ginomai (to be or become), as he uses in Colossians 1:23: “I was made a minister.” In the passive, the verb sometimes indicated ordination or appointment to an office. Thus one might legitimately translate Paul’s statement about Phoebe: “For she has been appointed, actually by my own action, an officer presiding over many.” The church in Rome is asked to welcome her and assist her in the church’s business…

About 112 A.D., the Roman governor Pliny the Younger detailed his efforts to cope with the nascent church in Bithynia. He had found it necessary to interrogate the leaders, two slave women called ministrae, or deacons. These women apparently followed in the tradition of Phoebe.”

According to the 3rd- century text of The Acts of Paul, Thecla, a noblewoman, was converted while listening to the preaching of the apostle. Forsaking her old life, she followed Paul and endured persecution, tribulation and great peril….After her itineration through Asia Minor with the Apostle Paul, she settles near Seleucia, where she teaches, preaches, heals and baptizes…William M. Ramsay maintained that The Acts of Paul contained an authentic 1st century account, which had been outrageously embellished by the 3rd-century deacon.

“Widows were clearly part of the ordained clergy in the Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ, a 5th-century reworking of earlier material from Hippolytus’s Apostolic Tradition….

Women As Elders The feminine form of “presbyter” or elder occurs frequently, though it is often translated simply as “old woman.” At times the term certainly refers to women who were part of the clergy. The Cappadocian father, Basil, uses presbytera apparently in the sense of a woman who is head of a religious community. Also applied to women is the term presbutis, “older woman” or “eldress.” The old woman who instructed Hermas is called presbytis…

Dionysius of Alexandria, who died in 264 A.D., described a martyr as “the most holy eldress Mercuria” and another as “a most remarkable virgin eldress Apollonia.”…

Pseudo-Ignatius’s Letter to the Tarsians commands that those who continue in virginity be honored as priestesses of Christ. The eldresses of Titus 2:3 must be “hieroprepeis,” a term that inscriptional evidence suggests should be translated “like a priestess,” or “like those employed in sacred service.”

…The Cappadocian Gregory of Nazianzus wrote to Gregory of Nyssa about Theosebia, “the pride of the church, the ornament of Christ, the finest of our generation, the free speech of women, Theosebia, the most illustrious among the brethren, outstanding in beauty of soul. Theosebia, truly a priestly personage, the colleague of a priest, equally honored and worthy of the great sacraments.”

…The walls of the Roman catacombs bear pictures showing women in authoritative stances, with their hands raised in the posture of a bishop.”

The Neglected History of Women in the Early Church
www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-17/neglected-history-of-women-in-early-church.htmlSee also: http://www.faithdefenders.com/Articles/Church-Life/Women-Elders-in-the-Early-Church.aspx

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”Isaiah 5:20