When God’s Man Is A Woman
2/8/98 2 Kings 22:8-20
When we think of Black history, we cannot begin to understand it without understanding the powerful influence of how God has used women in changing the course of history. Yet there is always an attempt to direct women to the back seat of the bus, when it comes to the things of God. We don’t say it directly but we imply it in some of the things we do.
How often have we heard the phrase, "If God can’t find a man to do the job, then God will raise up a woman to get it done." God does indeed raise up women to get jobs done, but perhaps God had in mind a woman in the first place. When God went looking for someone to free the slaves, why should we think the only reason God chose Harriet Tubman is because Harry Tubman didn’t want to do it. No, I believe God had raise up Harriet Tubman for such a time as she lived in, not as a second string replacement for someone else. God has raise us all up to be on the first team.
We find two black women in positions of prominence in the bible. The first is Moses’s wife during the period in which he led the people of Israel out of Egypt. The bible doesn’t tell her much about her, but we know she had God’s stamp of approval as a choice for Moses’s wife, because God disciplined Aaron and Mariam, Moses brothers and sisters for speaking against the marriage. We haven’t had anything like that in this country yet, where the first lady in the white house was a Black woman.
The second Black woman we find in Scripture is the Queen of Sheba. She traveled a great distance to get a view of King Solomon and his greatness. Her country was a wealthy one because the bible says she gave to King Solomon a gift of 4 metric tons of gold, a huge number of spices and precious jewels. Never again did anyone bring to Jerusalem the number of spices brought by Queen Sheba.
This oustanding black woman was a powerful person not because there was not a man available to rule the nation and make it prosperous, but because God had chosen to raise her up for this purpose. God intended for Jesus to use her in one of his sermons many years later. Jesus commended the Queen of Sheba for her desire to travel great distances just to hear the wisdom from God through Solomon.
In or our Old Testament reading we find another woman who was not a fill in, but chosen by God Himself in the midst of a group of high ranking men. People don’t talk about Huldah much because she goes against the grain of how we think God ought to use women in relation to men. When the people of God were rebuilding the temple, Hilkiah the high priest found the Book of the Law, which was what Moses had written.
The high priest was the only one who was allowed to go into the holiest part of the temple. He could only go in once a year. When he found the book of the Law, he sent it to the king. When the king read what the book said, he knew they were in state of disobedience. He told his advisors to go to the temple and speak to the Lord for him and all the people. The king wanted the person who was known to be chosen by God , to speak to God on their behalf. When the high priest got the message to inquire of God, he didn’t consult the Urim and Thummin like David, he didn’t go into the Holy of Holies, he left the temple with the advisors to go and find the prophet Huldah. She was a married woman, but everybody knew the word of the Lord at that time was not coming through the priest, but through this prophet who was a married woman.
Now why didn’t God choose her husband to be the prophet. Because you see far more than we realize, God’s man to do the job has often times been a woman. God raised Huldah up to be a prophet to his people, simply because God wanted to. It had nothing to do with no man being available. God had all kind of priests at his disposal, he had the good king Josiah, and the high priest. But God chose Huldah to bring a spiritual revival to the whole nation. They recognized her authority to speak for God. It didn’t have a thing to do with her being under her husband’s covering or anything like that.
It is not our sex, our age, or our race that disqualifies us from being used by God. It is our sin and unavailability which disqualifies us from being a speaker for God. For the Scriptures teach that God is no respecter of persons.
Many Christians are divided over different roles that women should fulfill in the life of the church. They see a few passages and dwell on them instead of looking at the entire of Scripture. If God says something is sin in one part of the New Testament, it’s going to be sin for all of the New Testament. If God approves something in one part, then its approved.
Let me say from the start, that those who seek to restrict women in ministry probably love Jesus Christ as much as we do, and we will all end up in the same heaven because we believe in the same God. What one believes about women in ministry is not crucial to being in heaven? We want you to know, that God does affirm the place of women and all those who are living holy lives in ministry. You need to be equipped to understand why your church has a husband and wife team as pastors.
Our intent is to look at the passages of Scripture that support the role of women in the full life of the church as well as those passages which seem to go against women being in the full life of the church. The controversy is centered not around the spiritual gifts that a person may receive, but rather the specific offices that may be held in the church, such as elders, deacons, and bishops.
Our study should start in Galatians 3:26-29 Gal 3:26-29 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
1. It is clear from this passage that when Paul uses the word sons, he’s talking about women and men because he spoke of males and females.
2. In Acts 1:14, we are told that the women were meeting with the disciples constantly in prayer. Therefore in Acts 2:1-4, when the Day of Pentecost came and tongues of fire settled on everyone present, they must have fell upon the women as well. Even though the men said, "are not all these men who are speaking Galileans "in verse 2:8, when Peter addressed the crowd, he specifically mentioned that what the men had seen was a fulfillment of the promise that God would pour out his spirit on both men and women and they would prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18).
3. God gives spiritual gifts regardless of a person’s sex. One of the gifts is prophecy. The word prophesy is very similar and in some cases meant the same thing as to preach or to speak forth for God. In Acts 21:8-9, we see that Philip the evangelist had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. So the Bible is speaking positively of women who were preaching or speaking forth the word of God.
A. When we study Scripture, there are some ground rules that we have to follow and questions that we have to ask?
1. What is going on in this particular passage, and what problem is being addressed?
2. Why is this particular admonition being given?
3. If this is followed all the time, will it contradict other parts of the Bible?
4. Does this writer say something else in another situation?
5. If you follow everything in this passage with the same literalism, will you have sound theology?
B. Let’s look at some of the passages that Christians have used to divide themselves over this issue. Our focus is not going to be on husband /wife relationships, but on women as leaders in the church.
We throw around words at times and think we are being biblical, when in fact we’re showing ignorance. There are those who will say, I just don’t believe in women ministers. Well that’s all right but recognize how the Bible uses the word ministers. 1. The only time the word "ministers" is used in the New Testament in the NIV, it is used to refer to all of us .2 Cor 3:6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
2. Others say, I believe women can preach, but they can’t be pastors. The only time the word pastors is used in the New Testament in the NIV, it is used in connection with spiritual gifts, which God bestows on any person as he chooses to do. Eph 4:11 " It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers," Notice the passage does not say a thing about the sex of those in these positions. Well we know Philip had 4 daughters who were prophets. It seems Priscilla a woman in the New Testament was a teacher. We don’t have any women in the New Testament called a pastor, but surprisingly we don’t have any men in the New Testament who are identified as pastors. Every other time the Greek word "poimen" translated here as "pastor" is used from Acts to Revelation, it refers to Jesus the great shepherd.
3.1 Cor 14:34-35 women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
a. Some have taken this passage to literally mean that a woman should never speak in church.
b. The context we find this in, is that Paul is dealing with order in the worship service. For some reason, the women speaking in the church must have been causing disorder. Keep in mind that this was the first time that women were allowed full access to a worship service. They may have not understood a lot that was going on, and was interrupting the speaker to ask questions.
Paul specifically says that, the questions they were asking, should be saved until they got home. The word woman in this passage could just as easily be translated wives. After all Paul tells wives to ask their questions at home. Could it be that the disgraceful thing about a wife speaking in church was that it exposed that her husband was not teaching her at home. Each time the speaker said something, she was elbowing him said, what is he talking about now. How come you never told me this.
c. The Greek word "speak" here is the word for making sounds. If this was taken literally, a woman would not only be forbidden from preaching, but from teaching, speaking in tongues, praying, saying the announcements, and singing. Silence would mean all silence. Paul doesn’t say anything about the woman being able to speak under her husbands covering or authority. It says keep silent. But what is the context of the passage. The service was being disrupted by women who were speaking out of turn.
We know Paul is not teaching women are to never speak in church, because Paul did tell women to speak in the church. In this same book in verse 11:5 verse 11:5, he instructs that women who pray or prophesies ought to have their head covered when they do so. He said in verse 14:1, He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. If a woman could have the gift of prophecy, what good would it be, if she could never use it in the church, which is the reason God would give it to her in the first place. Paul expected women to also use the gifts of tongues in the church service. All of this goes against using this passage as a ban on women speaking in the church
C. The next passage we should look at come from 1 Timothy 3:1-12 when it talks about the qualifications of overseers (elder), (bishop) and , deacons.
The word overseer means to have superintendance over or oversight over, take care of. Oversight means loving care and concern. When we think of an overseer , we think of one person in the church, but in Philippians 1:1 and Acts 20:28 there are several overseers all in the same church.
1. We saw in the beginning of our study that when Paul used the word sons, he was speaking of men and women. This passage of Scripture is usually taken to mean that women are excluded because Paul uses the male terminology of he. But Paul specifically said if anyone sets. He used a Greek word that includes the male and female anyone. He could have just as easily said, "if a man", but he didn’t.
2. When Paul says in verse 2 that an overseer must be the husband of but one wife, is he saying 1) that an overseer must be married, 2) that a overseer can not served if he has been divorced and remarried, 3) that an overseer cannot have two wives at the same time, or 4) that an overseer must be a man?
a. When Paul said, "if a man will not work, neither let him eat", did he also intend to say "if a woman will not work, neither let her eat." Is it possible then that when he says an overseer must be the husband of one wife, could he have also meant that a overseer must be the wife of one husband.
3) Is an elder or deacon required to have children, since it specifically states a person must know how to manage his own family if he is to manage the church?.
4. Verse 3:12 in Titus states that 1 Tim 3:12 A deacon must be the husband of but one wife and must manage his children and his household well.
a. This verse taken literally would disqualify all single men, women, and divorced and remarried people from ever holding the office of deacon. Yet we know that, that is not Paul’s intention.
5. The word deacon comes from the Greek word deakonos. In Rom 16:1, Paul identifies a woman who is a deacon. The word translated servant there, is the exact same word that is translated as deacon in this passage. I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Cenchrea. The verse should read, a deacon of the church of Cenchrea. Several translations use the word deacon. There is no such thing as deaconess in the Greek new testament. I wonder if we would have had such a difficult time if the word was alwasys translated servant.
Well Phoebe was doing a tremendous job of working for the Lord. ( What kind of work do you think she was doing.)
D. The next passage that would seem to limit women as leaders in 1 Timothy 2:11-15 1 Tim 2:11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing--if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
a. There are several problems with this passage of Scripture. First we should look at the context in which it is found. 3 verses earlier, Paul says "I wants men everywhere to lift up hold hands in prayer". Does this mean that men are suppose to always lift their hands for prayer during worship. Also the word that is translated as woman in verse 11 is not the usual word for woman, this is the specific word for wife. Is Paul speaking to all women here, or more specifically to wives. Is he saying he does not permit a wife to have authority over her husband which is more in line with his other teachings?.
1a) We know that Paul did not forbid women from teaching because he commends the work of Priscilla who was one of the teachers who help to explain the Way to Apollos, the great preacher who knew the Old Testament thoroughly. Priscilla and her husband must have had some kind of teaching ministry. They went through out many of the Gentile churches, for which Paul was very grateful and he called them his co-laborers. Priscilla had gifts of her own in an active ministry because she is mentioned. Peter’s wife traveled with him, but they didn’t have a teaching ministry together. Her gifts obviously lay in a different area.
We know Paul supported women teaching because in Titus, he said for Titus to teach the older women so that they could teach what is good.
1b) In what way was the deacon, Phoebe a great help to many people as she went from one church to another. Rome was about 600 miles from her home church in Cenchrea. It is very unlikely she went that kind of a distance just to be silent in the church or to bake cookies.
2) When Paul does not allow a woman to have authority over a man, is he talking about in the church or in the home? He takes his analogy to the woman having children. Having children is a function in the home and not the church.
2a) If we took the end of verse 15, we would be stuck with the words, women will be saved through child-bearing. Does that mean a woman has to have children to be saved. Does a woman have to be married to be saved? Surely this passage of Scripture raises more questions than it answers. If Paul is addressing wives rather than women, it helps to understand a little more what he means about childbirth. This is one passage we will simply have to agree to disagree on because Paul is not clear enough on it to give us the understanding we need.
The final argument against women in ministry is Jesus chose 12 men to be his disciples. Jesus did not just choose 12 men, he chose 12 Jewish men. Does that exclude all none Jews, because there were plenty of the them available for Jesus to choose from. Does it exclude Blacks, and Asians, because we know there were Blacks in Jerusalem at the time because one of them carried the cross.
Let me ask you this, would it have helped Jesus’ cause if he had 9 men and three women sleeping out in the mountains together. Being out on the sea late at night. People would have sworn, Jesus had a harem of women that he and the disciples were using for their own sexual pleasure. God chose 12 Jewish men simply to represent the 12 Jewish tribes of Israel. Nothing more should be read in Jesus’ choice of leaders. There were women who followed Jesus constantly in the ministry as seen in Luke 8:1-4
God is always going to be free to choose who he wants to choose for ministry. The issue is, are we in the place of obedience we need to be in order to be saved and used by God to make a difference. If not, it doesn’t matter if we are male or female, we are lost and on our way to eternal destruction. Jesus came into this world to offer us true life. But He won’t force it on any of us.
