Prove All Things:
A Response to Women In Ministry

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Efforts to ordain women as elders or pastors have proven divisive among Seventh-day Adventists. To overcome the widespread lack of support, Women in Ministry, a recent book authored by twenty Adventist scholars, attempted to offer biblical and historical justification for women's ordination. Are its conclusions valid?

• Does believing in women in ministry justify ordaining them as elders or pastors?
• Does the equality of men and women mean they have identical roles?
• Did role distinctions between men and women originate only after the Fall and not at Creation?
• Are men to have spiritual leadership in the home but not necessarily in the church?
• Do "the priesthood of all believers" and "spiritual gifts" eliminate gender role differences?
• Were there some women priests in the Old Testament?
• Did women serve as apostles and ministers in the New Testament?
• Did the apostle Paul interpret Genesis 1-3 incorrectly?
• Did Ellen G. White call for women's ordination? Was she herself ordained?
• Did women serve as pastors in early Seventh-day Adventist history?
• Did the 1881 General Conference session vote to ordain women as pastors?
• Are the current feminist movement and spiritualism unrelated to each other?
• Is today's push for women¹s ordination a moral imperative, inspired by "the Spirit¹s leading"?

The fifteen contributors to Prove All Things--church scholars, leaders, and lay people--conclude that there is no support in either the Bible or the writings of Ellen G. White for ordaining women as elders or pastors. Prove All Things also notes ways in which women can legitimately participate in the soul-winning ministry of the church without being ordained. This eye-opening book presents a biblical vindication of the Adventist pioneers' long-standing position. Prove All Things shows convincingly that the Bible is not silent or neutral on the role of women in the church, and it points out the danger of departing from clear biblical teaching.