INTRODUCTION
We as believers, followers of Jesus Christ, must have a very clear understanding of who we are in Christ. Unfortunately, in the realm of “women in ministry” or women involved in church work or the work of God, we have become very cloudy, or muddied in what our beliefs in this regard actually are. On the bright side, there is absolutely no need for this because Scripture is very clear in what our roles as women, and for that matter men, are, in family and church life. Where the problem lies, is when we, even unknowingly and innocently begin to be affected or perhaps even “infected” by the standards of the world. I believe it is Satan’s ultimate plan to undermine both men and women in their God-given roles in family, church and society at large to such an extent that gender issues leave us completely confused and useless to the kingdom of God and to each other!
We want all the foundations for our lives to be laid out from scripture. God has a plan, he always has, and when we refer back to the foundations that he has laid, our lives fall into his ORDER for us. I believe that there are two issues often confused or twisted that will run through everything that is discussed in this issue. The issues of ORDER and the issue of GIFTING, both so vital to this topic. When a woman’s gifting is the only issue, she can and often does get into trouble operating in “her gifting” alone, not regarding the order which God prescribed from scripture and from the beginning of time. These two issues of order and gifting will be a thread of thought that must always be kept in mind when discussing women and their role in various ministries. God did lay out an order from creation and that must be followed to truly be the person, man or woman, God has created us to be.
Another point pertaining to this topic, which will lead us through our discussion of women in ministry, is the huge issue of submission. This has been a Godly value, totally misunderstood and warped by men and women over time. It is a simple issue in light of scripture and we will discuss this. Once women realize the freedom they have in following God’s order and the gifting that he has placed within them, there can be a fresh and total release of who they are in Christ. The other aspects of women’s ministry that we will discuss, of compassion, community, and discipleship based on scripture, can all be released to a greater measure when we understand the God-given roles placed in each one of us.
This may seem like a topic that will require much “convincing or debate” because of the historical battle of the sexes that have raged since almost the beginning of time. But the wonderful relief and truth is that in the light of scripture, when we firstly submit our lives to God and his life-breathed scripture, men and women both, there is a new found freedom and release of expression to be all that God has called us to be.
This is actually not a debate if women should be in ministry or not. I don’t plan to even address that as we know the answer to that is a resounding, YES!! All women should and must be in ministry. Perhaps the battle comes in when we try to ascertain what those ministries can and cannot be. But I believe in this day of people being lost, families being broken and lives hungry for love and caring, no one can argue for a moment that there isn’t ample and endless ministry for anyone who cares for those people around them. This is what the focus of this writing will be, not on what we “cannot” do but what, under Christ’s headship, we are called TO do for his great kingdom!
GOD’S ORDER FROM THE BEGINNING
From “Women’s Ministry in the Local Church”, quoting Bruce Ware, professor of theology at Southern Baptist Seminary, we read this:
“Today…the primary areas of which Christianity is pressured to conform are on the issues of gender and sexuality. Post-moderns and ethical relativists care little about doctrinal truth claims; these seem to them innocuous, archaic, and irrelevant to life. What they do care about, and care with a vengeance, is whether their feminist agenda and sexual perversions are tolerated, endorsed and expanded in an increasingly neo-pagan landscape. Because this is what they care most about, it is precisely here that Christianity is most vulnerable. To lose the battle here is to subject the Church to increasing layers of departure from biblical faith. And surely, it will not be long until ethical departures (the Church yielding to feminist pressure for women’s ordination, for example) will yield even more central doctrinal departures (questioning whether Scripture’s inherent patriarchy renders it fundamentally untrustworthy, for example). I find it instructive that when Paul warns about departures from the faith in the latter days, he lists ethical compromises and the searing of the conscience as the prelude to a full-scale doctrinal apostasy (1Tim. 4:1-5).”1
When we bow our knees to ethical relevance in the society we live in, the sellout on doctrine is soon to follow. A little saying my parents used to have on their wall said, “To be right is not always popular, and to be popular is not always right”. I believe this simple truth of us as Christians, giving in to “seemingly harmless” areas of the world’s pressure, is us wanting acceptance and friendship with the world. But if we allow one truth of God’s word, namely the Biblical stance of manhood and womanhood to be compromised, it can open a door that can be very hard or impossible to shut further down the road.
Regarding the issue of order, I would like to discuss creation, and man and woman’s role as established at that time, according to scripture.
We read in Gen. 2:7-8, “then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.”
We read in this text the fact that Adam was created first, before woman. This is God’s demonstration, from creation, of his order in creation. Man and woman were not formed at the same moment, but man was formed first, as a sign of headship over Woman and creation. He was told to have dominion over all the creatures God had made and that included authority and responsibility as husband over his wife, under God.
We read further of Eve’s creation in Gen. 2:18 and 21: “Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him a helper fit for him.” …So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
The argument has come up over the course of history that because Eve fell into sin and was tempted by the serpent, she was put “under” man’s authority and therefore in a sense was forced to submit to her husband because of her sin. We can see from scripture that this is totally false. From creation, God created Adam first; he had a prescribed order that he wished to establish. Woman taken from man, given to man as a fit helper, was God’s gift to man. Not something to be scorned or looked down upon, but a friend that he could truly relate to, more than any of the animals that God had created. It is a beautiful picture, of God’s gift of Woman to Man. Adam had the privilege of naming her and called her Woman, “because she was taken out of Man”. This Woman was something beyond Adam’s wildest expectations, as God’s gifts to us are, even to this day!
Again order is established in vv. 24 and 25 of Gen. 2: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
By the wording, we see that it was the man’s responsibility to leave his father and mother, and search for a suitable wife, cleave to her, love her emotionally and physically and not have to be ashamed of this special intimacy. The man was given the authority to choose his wife, to love and be one flesh with her, and not have to be concerned with what anyone thought about this order! It was a God-established order from creation, not something “broken” or out of place because of Eve’s sin in the garden. So we can see a wonderful perspective of God’s plan for man to have headship in his family and over creation, by God’s design.
Satan’s plan however, from the very beginning was to thwart or distort God’s perfect order. We read about this in Gen. 3:1b, “He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” We see the enemy’s diabolical plan even from the beginning to upset God’s order. He chose, specifically to go to the woman first, before going to Adam, not by “accident” but to defy God’s pattern and order of the man being the authority in the family. His design is to this day, the very same, bringing in confusion, mistrust, and selfish desires, to undermine God’s order and have woman feeling like she is being put down or being forced to submit to something against her will. Satan belittles God’s authority to Eve by making her question God’s command, and by not going to Adam first, belittles Adam’s authority over Eve at the same time. His plan was to distort God’s order in Eve’s mind and life and also to cause them to sin and have them cursed and sent from God’s perfect place for them in the Garden of Eden. God always has a perfect order, perfect place and perfect plan for his children, but when we sin, or listen to the lies of the enemy, that plan is destroyed or marred in some way. This is what the enemy’s plan was from the beginning and still is today.
However, God always has a greater plan than anything the enemy can “concoct”! His plan was to redeem Man and Woman through his son Jesus and restore women, their marriages, lives and ministries by being in right relationship with Jesus Christ. We see women used in every aspect of Jesus’ life and ministry. His birth came through the virgin Mary, she was God’s chosen vessel for the coming of his Son to earth. All through his life we see him conversing, teaching, blessing and caring for women. Touching them and speaking to them in ways that were taboo for that time in history. His goal was to redeem, to lift up and to give women their rightful, productive place in the family, church and society. Jesus performed his first miracle at the request of a woman, his mother. Jesus spoke freely to the Samaritan woman at the well. She was despised by the Jews because of her race, but not by Jesus. He spoke of her sins firstly but then told her of the rivers of living water that he would give her, and she believed him! In the story of Mary and Martha, we see him teaching them, something never done in the Jewish society of that day, rabbis were not allowed to speak to women in public or teach them. Jesus stopped to comfort the women with him on the road to Golgotha. “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me”, He said. He loved them so much and they knew his love for them was real. Who did Jesus see when he looked down from the cross? His eyes fell on faithful women. Most of the men had run away in disappointment and fear.
Women were a huge part of Jesus’ life from his birth to his death on the cross. Even after he rose again it was a woman whom he appeared to who ran with the glorious news to the disciples. Jesus lifted all men to himself, including women, taking away the distinctions and classifications put on women, by men or even by women themselves. There truly is freedom for women to minister, with a submissive heart attitude, as we see in scripture and from Jesus’ life.
But again, under the headship of their husbands in the family, their elders or leaders in the church and unfortunately, this is where man has often got in the way of God’s plan.
I have always believed that most women would have very little trouble submitting to a loving, caring husband, who stands in the authority that God has placed on his life. Submission would almost turn into a “non-issue”. The problem is that this authority is so often abused, misused and used as a club on the heads of women, that there are nothing but hurt and destroyed lives because of poor leadership in the home environment. Scripture is often even added to the abuse of women, stating that women “must submit” to their husbands, no matter what. There is truth in this, but how much easier and pleasant it is “when brothers dwell together in unity” as scripture teaches us. Following a loving leader, who cares for his wife’s best interests, will only bring out a greater spirit of submission and love for her husband and family. She will rejoice in the ministry to her family that God gives her to do for him. It will be seen as a privilege to serve under and together with a husband whose goal is to see God’s best for the lives he has been given responsibility over. Therein lays one of the problems. I say, teach men their proper position in Christ as heads of the home and you will have almost no job, to teach the women what their role is! I know there is brokenness on both sides of the gender issue, but if we live our lives submitted to scripture, both men and women, we can again live in God’s perfect order for our lives in the homes of the “Garden of Eden” that God originally intended for us.
COMPASSION
Once we realize the God-given order for us as women to live and minister under the headship of our husbands in our families and elders in our local church context, the question remains what types of things can and should a woman be involved in?
Firstly, we know that the woman is to be a help-meet or helper which comes from the Hebrew word in the Old Testament, ‘ezer’. It is amazing to find that God is referred to as “God our Helper”, using the same Hebrew word ‘ezer’. So if we are to follow our Father’s example we must also be helpers as He is the great Helper to us. Women were created by God, with this same ‘helper’ make-up, so it is often in a woman’s nature to easily be a helper or a person showing compassion and wanting to assist and help.
In almost any situation at home, in church, at work or in the larger community we can check our own hearts by asking these 3 questions:
1. Are we being helpers or hinderers?
2. Are we being life-givers or life-takers?
3. Are we equipping others to be helpers and life-givers?
An honest assessment of ourselves, looking at our own hearts, will test and reveal to us our true hearts. It actually doesn’t matter the ministry we want to be involved in, it is more a matter of the heart and why we even want to get involved in anything in God’s kingdom. Will I breathe life into what I am a part of? Is there a submitted, helping attitude in me, towards my husband and children firstly, before looking “outside” to get involved in other things? Am I more concerned with the needs of others than my own wants and needs? Before embarking on any so called “ministry”, we need to come humbly before God and ask him to reveal our own hearts to us so that we will truly be helpers, truly be life-givers and by our example lead other women into works of true compassion. “The risk is not that women are not capable, the risk is the lingering rebellion in our hearts against God’s kingdom order.” 2
We read in scripture of Jesus traveling with women while he was preaching the good news:
Luke 8:1-3, “Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.”
“Dr. Bryan Chapell, president of Covenant Theological Seminary, preached on this text. In his sermon entitled “When Women Care” he gave the following insights about the women who followed Jesus:
“One of those with Jesus was Mary Magdalene “from whom seven demons had come out” (v.2). We do not know the consequences of Mary’s possession. Long tradition in the church identifies her as an immoral woman, though there is no biblical proof for this. Unquestionably, however, one with seven demons was deeply troubled. For her to be with Jesus was no doubt to cause others to question, “What is Jesus doing with someone like her?” She was an outcast among outcasts. Her past, her reputation, her social status, her spiritual record were all reasons for even these rejected women to reject her. They did not.
Jesus extended the benefits of the covenant without discrimination to this troubled woman, and in supporting His ministry, the other women did the same…
The questions that other had about Mary Magdalene’s being with Jesus would have been nothing compared to the questions that had to do with Joanna, identified as “the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household” (v.3)…This was a household known for cruelty, immorality and the betrayal of the Jewish nation, and Jesus allowed the wife of the manager of that household to know His love. These women were supporting ministry not only to the troubled, but also to the terrible. For us to love mercy means that this is required of us, too. The ministry of women is to love mercy, to delight in seeing the benefits of the covenant extend even to those whose actions have made them undeserving of anyone’s love, including—and maybe especially—our own…
Jesus allowed the troubled and the terrible, and one more to be with Him. She is named Susanna (v.3). Her name means lily. That is all we know about her. She is totally unremarkable, without significance or note—just ordinary. But Jesus plants this humble flower along Scripture’s path to teach us something very beautiful about what happens when we show mercy to others.
This ordinary woman, by participating in the ministry of Jesus to the troubled and terrible, walked with Him. What greater honor can there be, than to be able to walk with the Savior King who is our Redeeming Lord? One who by any other measure was humble becomes blessed in a special relationship with Him as she ministers to others. This is not true of her alone. Think of what you know not only about Susanna but also about these other women who used their means to further the ministry of Jesus. They did not just walk with Him on this day of public teaching. From among these women were those last at the Cross and first at the tomb….At the events most momentous for all eternity, these women were the ones most present. By caring for His ministry to others these women saw suffering and knew sacrifice, but in doing so they entered into a more vital, real and near relationship with their Savior.
These observations stand on its head our common understanding of who benefits from the ministry of mercy. We easily focus on the good to the recipient of the mercy, but what this text makes clear is that the one who expresses mercy can be even more profoundly affected. Those who wade through the misery and suffering for Christ’s sake walk close to things eternal. Though ordinary and otherwise without note, a person who subverts her interests to Christ’s purposes—who humbles herself—gets to walk with Him, know Him intimately, and share His heartbeat….
When the ethic of mercy is daily lived in your life, demonstrated before your children, exemplified to your grandchildren, and taught to your Sunday school charges, then the mercy of God will become part of the daily heartbeat of the church—not merely a program but a way of life. God has specially equipped women to express the tenderness of His heart…expressions of mercy alone are not the gospel. But through such expression even those claimed by the gospel know it better.”3
Above all, a woman who is truly compassionate will engage in prayer for her family, her church and its leaders, for the lost in her sphere of influence and for other specific needs that God may lay on her heart. A woman who is full of compassion will desire to see God’s best for others above all else, and that can only happen through prayer to her compassionate Father in heaven.
I have found in sharing with many ladies that I cannot change their situation, they often cannot, in many cases; but in praying for their spouses, children or needs, we can see change come into the situation. We often have little help to offer, but our “Helper-Father” in heaven can offer help like no other can. He is a good God that can orchestrate history and the change the very smallest details of our lives because he is merciful and gracious to us his children. If there is one ministry of compassion that needs to grow in each of our hearts it is the ministry of prayer. Let this grow in each one of us so that we truly can be the compassionate women this world so desperately needs! Let us pray that “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” will comfort them in their affliction, “so that [they] may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which [they] are comforted” (2 Cor. 1:3-4).
COVENANT COMMUNITY
At home in my own house there is no warmth or vigor in me, but in the church when the multitude is gathered together, a fire is kindled in my heart and it breaks its way through. Martin Luther 4
The covenant community is a family. There should be a desire in every woman of God to be part of her greater church family. As she desires to nurture and care for her own immediate family, so should her desire be for the house of God. Our commonality in Christ’s family is not based on gender, race, similar interests or circumstances, but on the fact that we are all children of God’s grace. We have a common origin and purpose and are on “a mission together”; on God’s mission as his family.
When a woman grasps her part of this family, playing her vital God-given role, she finds purpose and contentment and meaning in Christ. Her role may seem almost “useless”, especially in the early years of rearing her own children, pre-occupied with babies and keeping children still in a church meeting setting. But her role is vital in the whole, of everyone playing their God-given role, raising up Godly offspring and doing whatever her hand finds to do.
We read about covenant community in 1 Tim. 5:1-16, here are vv. 1-2, “Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father. Treat younger men like brothers, older women like mothers, younger women like sisters, in all purity.” And even from the Cross, Jesus was concerned for the covenant community in relationship to his own mother. “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.” John 19:26-27
The true and living church of God is a family, with women, men, teens and children all caring and loving one another like we have read of in scripture. We can always be looking for the new visitors, the widows, the sick or elderly in our meetings and in the week. There is never a “lack” of what to do, but just a willingness on our part to do what our hands find to do. It may not be the powerful, preaching ministry that we think would somehow be glamorous or recognized, but there is so much to do within God’s covenant community of family. We need to love the lost into this family so they can enjoy the benefits of all that we are a part of. This is a call to women to stand up and in one sense do the unnoticed but vital work of the kingdom! Doing the unlovely tasks, changing our babies nappies, listening to the senior who is lonely, reaching out to a single mother in your neighborhood with a meal or with baby-sitting, the list is endless of how we as women can take up the challenge and be part of our covenant community.
DISCIPLESHIP
“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” Tit. 2:3-5. We see here from scripture a wonderful teaching on how the older women are encouraged to disciple and teach the younger women. I was challenged again in my own life to take up this call and not just “assume” somewhere, somehow, women are being discipled as to who they are as women, what their purpose in the kingdom is, and what their roles as submissive wives are, and how they are valuable to God and his kingdom. Over the years of hearing these verses I often assumed it was “old” women that had this job of training the younger women. But the reality of the text is that it uses the word “older”, which is a relative term, to those younger than you. This is a wonderful release for every single woman in the body of Christ to find someone younger or less mature in her walk with Christ and to disciple and train her in the ways of the Lord. A 16 yr. old that is mature in Christ should be discipling and training the 10-11 yr. olds how to be modest, beautiful and bold for Christ. Young ladies in their 20’s can have a huge and positive impact on teen girls and so it goes; there is always someone younger or less mature in their walk and we are called upon to pass on what we have learned to others younger than us. You don’t have to be old in the family to have something to say, but being mature, at any age is what is so needed. We need to be actively seeking Godly relationships with younger women, no matter what our age, to bring them to the full maturity that Christ desires for all of us. These teaching settings could be formal, or informal, large or small, it doesn’t matter, what does matter is that each woman is actively looking for who she can pass her faith on to! At almost any age, all women can have a “mothering ministry” looking out for the growth and maturity of those younger women around her.
CONCLUSION
In closing I would like to quote from 1 Cor. 12: 12-14, 18; “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many….But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.”
I think the most freeing thought for any woman is to realize that she does have a vital part to play, in her attitude of submission when she desires to minister to others. Under godly headship of her church leaders and husband (or church leaders alone, depending on her marital status), she is free to minister in her family, covenant community of church and the lost world around her. I would like to quote from a portion of the Danvers Statement (a statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood compiled by evangelical leaders in 1987), which sums up the heart of the matter of women in ministry:
“With half the world’s population outside the reach of indigenous evangelism; with countless other lost people in those societies that have heard the gospel; with the stresses and miseries of sickness, malnutrition, homelessness, illiteracy, ignorance, aging, addiction, crime, incarceration, neuroses, and loneliness, no man or woman who feels a passion from God to make His grace known, in word and deed, need ever live without a fulfilling ministry for the glory of Christ and the good of this fallen world (1Cor. 7-21).”5
As we see in I Cor. 12, “God arranged the members in the body…as he chose”. There is freedom in that, if we will submit to God’s order, to see a true release of his gifting through our lives. Our sole aim is to live “for the glory of Christ”, and may each of our lives reflect that purpose and goal, that his name would receive glory through us, whether man, woman, teen or child. We can all show the love and grace of God that we have received, regardless of our gender, status, or race, to the world around us!
FOOTNOTES
1. Quote from Bruce Ware, professor of theology, from ‘Women’s Ministry in the Local Church’, J. Ligon Duncan & Susan Hunt, pg. 70.
2. J. Ligon Duncan & Susan Hunt, ‘Women’s Ministry in the Local Church’, Good News Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois, 2006, pg. 90.
3. Ibid., quote of Dr. Bryan Chapell, from his sermon ‘When Women Care’, pp. 91-93
4. Quoted in Robert G. Rayburn, ‘O Come, Let Us Worship (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker 1980), 30.
5. Statement no. 9 from ‘Danvers Statement’ drafted by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW), Wheaton, IL, Nov. 1988.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
All scripture references taken from the ESV Classic Thinline Edition, copyright 2002, by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.
John Piper & Wayne Grudem, ‘Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood’, Copyright 1991 by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Published by Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL.
J. Ligon Duncan & Susan Hunt, ‘Women’s Ministry in the Local Church’, Good News Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois, 2006.
Anneke Companjen, ‘Singing through the Night—Courageous Stories of Faith from Women in the Persecuted Church’, copyright 2007, Open Doors Int’l, Published by Fleming H. Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, MI
Valerie Rutten, ‘Submission and the Role of Women’, M.Th. Dissertation, Mattersey-Hall/University of Wales, Bangor, 2004
Internet Articles from www.monergism.com:
Female Piety—The Young Woman's Guide through Life to Immortality, John Angell James, (1785—1859),The Influence of Christianity on the Condition of Woman
‘Womanhood’, A sermon of Master John Calvin, upon the First Epistle of Paul to Timothy, published for benefit and edifying of the church of God, translated out of French into English by L.T., at London, imprinted for G. Bishop and T. Woodcoke, 1579.
‘Women in the Life and Teachings of Jesus’, James A. Borland (Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary)
‘Women in Society, the Challenge and the Call’, Dee Jepsen (Author, Washington, DC)
Sermon Notes from Alan Frow, ‘A Wife of Nobility’
Discussion with Andy Leisewitz on teaching by Michael Eaton, on “order &gifting”.