Thank you for your incredible website! I read it daily and enjoy it tremendously. My question concerns healing. I cannot recall or find a single instance in the Bible where a woman healed someone. Is this a gift that is reserved only for men? The only mention of spiritual gifts pertaining to women that I recall are the ability to prophesy. Can you shed some light on this for me? Considering how women were to conduct themselves during services by remaining silent, are the abilities bestowed by the Holy Spirit (with the exception of prophesy) only available to men?
In the culture of Biblical times, it would have been unusual for a woman to act in an official capacity where spiritual matters were concerned. But in Galatians 3:28 Paul said in the Church there is no distinguishing between Jew and Gentile, slave and free, or male and female. We’re all one in Christ Jesus. And in his definitive instructions on Spiritual Gifts (1 Cor. 12-14), there’s no indication that some of the gifts are only for men.
His comments about women being silent in Church has nothing to do with the exercise of these gifts. It has to do with wives disrupting the service by asking their husbands to explain things they didn’t understand. Gentile women were typically not included in public gatherings of an instructional nature. For many women, attending church with their husbands would have been their first experience of this kind and Paul felt the need to instruct them on proper behavior. He advised them to wait until they got home to ask their questions (1 Cor. 14:34-35).