Pastor Julie Shannon
I could speak for a week on the topic of women and how God created them to be in the image of Him just the same as he created men to be, however today my main focus is the issue of women in ministry. A woman has the God given ability to be in leadership, to teach, to lead and to train up others as much as any man does. If a person; man or woman is called by God to lead, then we need to recognise that call and release them into it. Now I’m a woman, a senior Pastor and I am also the Director for the Global Church Network for CCWM worldwide. Yet I struggled with this issue for many years, and while I knew in my inner being what God had called me to do, I had to work it out so I could back up with my mouth what I already know. I believe many people are in the same position and just want the tools so to speak to present their case for women in this area. While we may believe something in principle we sometimes lack the evidence to back up what we believe. So this is about equipping you to have a better biblical understanding of how God made women so you too can speak when you have to explain your beliefs in this area.
In the beginning:
If we go back to the beginning of time: the book of Genesis 1:26-27: “Then God said “Let us make human beings in our own image, in our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (TNIV)
From scripture we see that God created both men and women to be covenant partners – to be the image of God together, to be co-stewards of Gods beautiful creation, and to share together in Gods purposes on the earth. The differences that God designed between the two sexes were to be a joy and delight, to enhance the other, to mutually work beside each other for the Glory of God and His creation. There is no mention of man ruling over the woman before the fall, there are no strict role descriptions according to gender, and there was no devaluation or competition in their relationship. Some teach that because man was created before woman that naturally he should be superior: a lady friend of mine once teased that “God got it right the second time around!” Just joking! But if we look at this theory of man first it does not fall in line with other “firsts” in the bible: for example, women were first at the tomb of Jesus (Jn:20) first to proclaim the resurrection of Christ( Mt 28:8) and first to witness to the Jews( Acts 16:14). Once sin came, the dominance of man over woman twisted the wonderful responsibilities that God had given.
History from that time is a story based on a fallen nature, fallen gender relations and much pain resulting from this sin. It’s a sad story of abuse, adultery, dominance, competition, and fear. We are speechless when we hear of the atrocities that our human race is capable of, and we can easily blame God when we see no hope or don’t have the answers.
From the Washington Post (1993)
From South America to South Asia, women are often subjected to a lifetime of discrimination with little or no hope of relief. As children, they are fed less, denied education and refused hospitalization. As teen-agers, many are forced into marriage, sometimes bought and sold for prostitution and slave labor. As wives and mothers, they are treated little better than farmhands and baby machines. Should they outlive their husbands, they frequently are denied inheritance, banished from their homes and forced to live as beggars on the streets.
Boys are generally breast-fed longer. In many cultures, women and girls eat leftovers after the men and boys have finished their meals.
Women are often hospitalized only when they have reached a critical stage of illness, which is one reason so many mothers die in childbirth. Female children often are not hospitalized at all. A 1990 study of patient records at Islamabad Children’s Hospital in Pakistan found that 71 percent of the babies admitted under age 2 were boys. For all age groups, twice as many boys as girls were admitted to the hospital. Mary Okumu, an official with the African Medical and Research Foundation in Nairobi, said that when a worker in drought-ravaged northern Kenya asked why only boys were lined up at a clinic, the worker was told that in times of drought, many families let their daughters die.
“Nobody will even take them to a clinic,” Okumu said. “They prefer the boy to survive.”
For most girls, however, the biggest barrier — and the one that locks generations of women into a cycle of discrimination — is lack of education.
Across the developing world, girls are withdrawn from school years before boys so they can remain at home and lug water, work the fields, raise younger siblings and help with other domestic chores. By the time girls are 10 or 12 years old, they may put in as much as an eight-hour workday.
In Kenya and Tanzania, laws prohibit women from owning houses. In Pakistan, a daughter legally is entitled to half the inheritance that a son gets when their parents die. In some criminal cases, testimony by women is legally given half the weight of a man’s testimony, and compensation for the wrongful death of a woman is half that for the wrongful death of a man.
Some teach that because of the fall and sin entering the world God commanded that man rule over women to keep them in line, this has been drawn from the passage in Genesis 3:16 where God says: to the woman “your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” This verse could be taken in two ways: if we see it as prescriptive; like an order from God on how men and women should relate to one another, the words “rule over you” may be taken as men having authority over women. If this was the case though, as with other prescriptive text or commands, it would be re-enforced as law throughout the bible, which is not to be found…anywhere…
Another way of taking the text in Genesis 3 is to see it as descriptive, or God describing the sin condition that will occur because of human disobedience. Looking at it from this perspective reveals that men have and continue to rule over women purely because of sin, and that it is not God’s plan at all. Maybe this explains why so many women are devalued in our sinful world.
Godly women leaders:
While the Old Testament is full of instances where women were treated as inferior describing the sin condition that we still see in many societies today; there are also stories of women being righteous, courageous and quite capable of leading men. They were recorded as having broken customs, defeated enemies against all odds and having an enormous amount of influence and respect from many.
Deborah for example had all the qualities of an administrator, ruler, prophet and teacher; much like a modern day Pastor or church leader. She was also married and supported by her husband who saw the call God had placed on her life. She broke customs, by travelling with Godly men to war and through her position as a Judge over all of Israel, she held the highest social and religious responsibility of the time. In Biblical times, the culture normally only recorded men’s names, it wasn’t normal to record anything about women and if ever they did the husband was always written down first. Yet in the case of Pricilla and Aquila; a New Testament couple sold out for Christ, the wife is mentioned first, was this a deliberate attempt at breaking cultural traditions?
What did Jesus say on the subject of women?
Jesus never spoke of men having authority over women. He instead went out of His way to speak to and to heal women, normally in the presence of large crowds. Was he beginning to restore the equality of women in a culture that was dead against such a thing? Jesus had many women disciples that followed him, he even invited at least one woman (Joanna) to travel with him without her husband, and she along with other women supported him from their own pockets! (Luke 8:3a) He also allowed a woman to wash his feet, and to anoint his head, which was totally against the custom of the time.
The Apostle Paul and women
While Paul spoke very highly of the many women that worked beside him in ministry, there is some confusion in a few of his letters where he appears to restrict women from speaking or teaching in church. Sadly many Christians look at this text as prescriptive (as law) and don’t consider that these few texts are contradictory to Pauls other writings. Paul clearly encouraged Godly women to prophecy, pastor and teach (1 Corin 11:5, Romans 16:1-2, Romans 16:3, Romans 16:6, Romans 16:12). So what is he meaning in these texts? We can only assume that there were certain issues in the particular churches that he was addressing that attained to women and that it was dangerous to allow them to teach. There is evidence of a pagan cult that worshiped a goddess called Diana and that many new women converts to Christianity at that time may have come from this cult. Maybe the women in these churches were “lording it” over the men, which is just as bad. I know that if I had people here that were not submitting to Godly authority, male or female I wouldn’t allow them to teach either, we need to look after our flock. Also remember that in those days, because of the oppression of women, women had little or no training, they were not important enough to teach, so what would they have taught anyway? The same applies to the passage where the apostle Paul in his letter to Timothy stated that “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent” (1 Tim: 11-12) Paul here does not say ALL women or FROM NOW on women, he says A woman. Paul also gives this command himself, he does not say it is from Jesus or a law to be followed.
Paul saw no male superiority when he addressed the church in Galatia: stating “whether Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, because all are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28)
With any understanding of scripture it is important to form our beliefs from passages that are not obscure or appear to contradict other areas of scripture. This applies to every area of our lives, not just the issue of women in ministry.
History
Looking at church history there are numerous women who forged new ground, leading large groups of men and women, preaching, teaching, pastoring and working in the prophetic. In the holiness movement of the 18th and 19th centuries there were often more women than men in positions of authority in the church! Phoebe Palmer (1807-1874) for example, through her Methodist revival meetings brought over 1000,000 people into the church. Common sense tells us that God wouldn’t rule out half of the population to be able to bring His word and to lead His people.
The present
Well, the same old sin condition exists just as it did way back in Genesis; many cultures still oppress their women, forbidding them to learn in case they teach. They’re made into slaves rather than partners and like possessions rather than people. It’s interesting to note though that where Christianity has infiltrated culture there is generally more freedom for all people including women’s rights. William Wilberforce a committed Christian spent 26 years pushing for the abolition of slavery, he also campaigned for missionary work in India, and the creation of a free colony in Sierra Leone. Wilberforce also founded the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. This was one man!! Differences of class, race, and gender, of which human prejudices are built are meant to be washed away in the waters of baptism, then we are to be transformed into individuals that contribute to the common good, full stop… There is no room for jealousy or envy, no room for superiority in the church, “for we were all made to drink of the one Spirit” (1 Cor 12:13). Our differences should become opportunities for healthy interdependence, mutual vulnerability and transparency and an appreciation of others as equal in Christ.
Remember Jesus came to set the captives free, it’s up to us to model women
as equals within our homes and churches so we can influence the world with
the freedom Jesus has promised every human being.
