13.Paul’s letters provide vivid clues about the kind of activities in which women engaged more generally.

Paul's letters also offer some important glimpses into the inner workings of ancient Christian churches. These groups did not own church buildings but met in homes. Such homes were a domain in which women played key roles. It is not surprising then to see women taking leadership roles in house churches.

As prophets, women's roles would have included not only ecstatic public speech, but preaching, teaching, and leading prayer.

Paul tells of women who were the leaders of such house churches (Apphia in Philemon 2; Prisca in I Corinthians 16:19). This practice is confirmed by other texts that also mention women who headed churches in their homes, such as Lydia of Thyatira (Acts 16:15) and Nympha of Laodicea (Colossians 4:15).

Paul greets Prisca, Junia, Julia, and Nereus' sister, who worked and traveled as missionaries in pairs with their husbands or brothers (Romans 16:3, 7, 15). He tells us that Prisca and her husband risked their lives to save his.

He praises Junia as a prominent apostle, who had been imprisoned for her labor. Mary and Persis are commended for their hard work (Romans 16:6, 12).

Euodia and Syntyche are called his fellow-workers in the gospel (Philippians 4:2-3). Here is clear evidence of women apostles active in the earliest work of spreading the Christian message.

Women held offices and played significant roles in group worship. Paul, for example, greets a deacon named Phoebe (Romans 16:1) and assumes that women are praying and prophesying during worship (I Corinthians 11).

Paul’s concept of equality of women with every other human being is reflected in the following verses:

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal.3:28).

Treat older women as you would your mother, and treat younger women with all purity as you would your own sisters (1 Tim. 5:2).

However some may find some confusing statements from Paul in couple of his letters.  One of his letters says women in church “should remain silent.” Another letter implores them to “submit to their husbands.” It is hard to understand this coming from Paul who commented women of their roles in leading prayers and serving in the Church which we dealt above. To know these confusing statements after reading the preceding ones it is important to study the context in which Paul said these verses.

14.Wives, Submit to Your Husbands — Ephesians 5:22-33
Most often the word “submit” brings with it a sense of humiliation, of degradation, of subservience that makes us all squeamish. One can’t say if that’s what Paul intended when he chose that word. 

It is known that the non-Christian culture at that moment in history wouldn’t have had an issue with a husband and wife interaction based around submission. It was the norm, and even expected. What Paul shockingly does is address the husband with demands as well. Remember, women had little to no rights at this point in history. Paul’s guidelines to men would have been perceived as wildly countercultural. He follows his admonition for women to submit by teaching the men to die for their wives. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” So Paul’s advice for married couples, far from giving the husband complete freedom to run over his wife, is a call for each spouse to seek to out-love and out-serve the other. In a culture where a man could divorce his wife simply because he’d grown tired of her, Paul ups the ante on the men. Don’t just take care of your wife, he insists, but love her and be willing to die (literally and figuratively) for her. Interestingly, some men love to talk about the submission part, but conveniently forget about dying.