The framework for any biblical interpretation is the story Scripture tells of the mission of God and the formation of a community sent to participate in it. This is what the entire story is about. The mission of God is the framework, the clue, and the interpretive key for biblical interpretation. The aim of biblical interpretation is to fulfill the equipping purpose of the biblical writings.
Within the Old Covenant Scriptures the only ministry that was exclusively male was the priesthood. However, because Jesus abolished the Levitical priesthood and made every one of us a priest, there are clearly women priests (1 Peter 2:9). I see the resolution of women in ministry as connected to the wider issue of mobilizing the entire church for ministry. Ministry is not a calling for a few males who go to seminary; it is calling the entire church to participate in full-time ministry (Ephesians 4:1-13).
We have defined ministry as a few official activities that only men do, so ministry became a professional men’s club. The problem with our discussion of ministry is not so much in the answers as in the question. The transformation that Paul’s vision calls for would not be to let a few more specifically gifted women share with a few men the rare roles of domination; it would be to reorient the notion of ministry so that there would be no one ungifted, no one not called, no one not empowered, and no one dominated. Only that would live up to Paul’s call to “lead a life worthy of our calling.”
Within Paul’s charismatic vision of ministry in 1 Corinthians 12-14 there is not one ministerial role that we could argue is gender-specific. There are as many ministerial roles as there are members of the body of Christ, and that means that more than half of them belong to women. There are no male or female gifts of the Spirit.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 14 is telling the prophets, both male and female, to be mutually submitted to one another. Clearly women are included as prophets who are to be subject to the prophets, whether male or female. Female prophets were accorded no less authority in 1 Corinthians 11 and 14 than were male prophets. Gender was not an issue. Paul also told the entire Ephesian church to “be submitted to one another out of reverence for Christ.” As a pastor-leader, I am submitted to my brothers and sisters in Christ. The notion that men do not need to submit to everybody else in Christ has no foundation in Scripture. I receive guidance, encouragement, and rebuke from men and women all the time, and none are violating Scripture.
It is also crystal clear that all those who have become children of God through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ have been ordained and authorized to serve. Otherwise Paul would not be admonishing the entire Ephesian church to “live a life worthy of the calling” and he would not refer to the entire church being equipped for “the work of ministry” (Ephesians 4:11-13). Ministry is not a special word describing what a few ordinands do; it is a common word to describe what the entire baptized, and therefore ordained, church does.
As the Puritan preacher John Robinson commented while watching a shipload of his pilgrim brothers and sisters sail off from England for Massachusetts, “The Lord hath yet more light and truth to break forth from his holy word.” Paul’s vision of every member being empowered is one fragment of the gospel vision that has yet to find its reformation. When we create certain exclusive ministry systems run by a few professional males, we are acting more like Old Covenant Israel than the New Covenant church. (for further reading see Jim Reynolds, Redeeming Eve, 2016. New printing available this week on Amazon.Com)