If God is no respecter of persons, why are priesthood offices such as elder, bishop, and apostle conferred on men, and what power do women actually hold?
The Bible answers
King James Version
And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time.
NRSVUE
At that time Deborah, a prophet, wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel.
King James Version
Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.
NRSVUE
Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Israelites who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.
Doctrine and Covenants 25:7–8
And thou shalt be ordained under his hand to expound scriptures, and to exhort the church, according as it shall be given thee by my Spirit. For he shall lay his hands upon thee, and thou shalt receive the Holy Ghost, and thy time shall be given to writing, and to learning much.
Doctrine and Covenants 84:19–20
And this greater priesthood administereth the gospel and holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God. Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest.
Dead Sea Scrolls and related extra-biblical texts that illuminate the same pattern the Restoration restores.
Proverbs 8:22–23 (Wisdom tradition)
The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.
Israel’s Wisdom literature personifies divine Wisdom in feminine terms. That is not a modern priesthood ordinance, but it is a biblical witness that God’s work is not a male monopoly of holiness. Latter-day Saints also teach a Mother in Heaven without turning her into a rival priesthood office.
1QSa (Rule of the Congregation) 1.4–11
They shall assemble all who come, including children and women, and they shall read in [their] hearing [all] the statutes of the covenant.
Qumran’s community rule is largely a male, priestly document. Even so, the related Rule of the Congregation gathers women and children to hear the covenant. That is not female high-priestly ordination, and it should not be forced into one. It does show that covenant Israel was never only men in a room. Deborah judged; Junia was prominent among the apostles; Emma was commanded to expound scripture. Restored priesthood offices remain gendered; restored priesthood power is not withheld from women in the temple.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Restoration did not invent a male God who ignores women. It restored keys, offices, and ordinances, including the endowment in which women are clothed with power from on high. Relief Society is not a consolation club. It is a divinely organized society with a mandate to save souls and minister. Equality of worth is not the same as identity of office. The Son submitted to the Father without becoming less divine.
In the ordinances of the priesthood the power of godliness is manifest—and those ordinances are given to women and men in the house of the Lord.
Religious Studies Center
Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University
Careful reading of Judges, Romans, and the Doctrine and Covenants will not produce a twenty-first-century ordination scheme, and it will not produce a silenced sisterhood either. Emma’s calling, temple liturgy, and the gifts of the Spirit are the Restoration’s actual record. Critics who say ‘Mormon women have no priesthood’ are describing a Church they have not entered.
The restored gospel distinguishes priesthood office from priesthood power. Confusing the two is how both critics and some advocates talk past the temple.
Faithful voices only. Most of these are independent — not official Church productions unless marked as such.
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