Junia (the Apostle)
The story of a prominent woman displaced ?
Junia \joo-nee-uh\
What’s on your mind? I am having to come to grips with the fact that while I am “prominent among the apostles,” nobody knows me. The struggle is real.
Profile
|
Work and Education
|
Apostle
|
|
Places She’s Lived
|
CURRENT CITY Rome
|
|
Family and Relationships
|
I am married to Andronicus. The apostle Paul thinks of us as family.
|
|
Details about Junia
|
DISLIKES Prisons; sexist persons. FAVORITE SONG “You Never Knew Me” by Mark Gruebel
|
Junia is mentioned only once in all of Scripture. So what did she do to deserve her own entry in this little biblical dictionary? It isn’t so much what she did but who she was, what was done to her during her life by enemies of the faith, and what was done to her after her death by the faithful.
Who was she? An apostle. It says so right there in Romans 16:7: “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.” That’s right. She (a woman) was an apostle. A leader of the early church. And not just any leader, but a prominent and early leader. It is a safe guess that Paul became a Christian sometime around the year 35 CE. (Jesus may have been crucified and raised around 30 CE) This means that Junia was among the earliest apostles. And, as Paul says, she was a prominent apostle. So, without a doubt, women could be apostles in the early church. And thus women can be deacons, teachers, pastors, and bishops.
What was done to her during her life by enemies of the faith? Along with Paul and her husband, she was imprisoned for her faith.
What was done to her after her life by the faithful? They tried to give Junia a virtual sex-change operation. If you read some translations—such as the Revised Standard Version or New International Version—they refer to her as “Junius” (which is a male name). That is because after the New Testament was completed, in both later Greek and Latin versions, Junia’s name was changed to Junius (a male name). Why? Well, because people just assumed that a woman couldn’t be an apostle.
But in the best and oldest copies of the Greek New Testament that we have, Junia is a female. And she is an apostle. A prominent one.
Key Verse: “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was” (Romans 16:7).
No comments:
Post a Comment