Bible Text: Mark 16:7 | Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living |
But go, tell his disciples and Peter, “He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” Mark 16:7
When I told how two-thirds of the students in the seminaries of China are women, I received a variety of complaints from individuals reminding me that Paul wrote women are to keep silent in the church. “Where are the men?” they asked, a question that is entirely valid. I had to reply, “Men haven’t had the courage to confront the reality that being a leader in a Chinese church today takes a measure of bravery. There is often a price to pay, and, honestly, women, at times, have more courage than do men.” They see a need, ask God for help, and quietly set about to meet a need.
If you question that, take a look at history and notice the vast number of women who confronted danger and challenging circumstances when men cowered in fear. For a moment, make a mental note of the following:
Miriam, Moses’ sister, was sent by God along with her brothers to lead Israel out of Egypt, according to Micah 6:4. Then there was Esther, who cried, “If I perish, I perish,” and confronted a pagan king and was used by God to spare the nation of Israel. Deborah was a judge and leader raised up by God in difficult times. Jael, the wife of Heber, invited Sisera, the general who lead the army of their enemies, into her tent, gave him a cool glass of milk, and then as he fell asleep drove a tent peg through his brain. Nice lady? No, an extremely courageous woman! Isaiah’s wife was known as a prophetess (Isaiah 8:3). A servant girl ministered to Nahum, the leader of the Syrian army.
The ministry of Jesus Christ included women—not only as targets of the Good News but as partners in ministry. At first the disciples were shocked as Jesus broke with tradition and accepted women as equals. He threw no stones at the woman taken in adultery, suggesting that men were equally guilty before God. Mary and Martha were friends and beloved by the Lord. A woman known as Junias was considered an apostle in the Church at Rome (Romans 16:7). Philip’s four daughters were prophetesses (Acts 21:8-9).
In the early church at least seven women were said to be deaconesses, women who ministered.
But, you are holding a trump card. It is what Paul wrote to Timothy: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent” (1 Timothy 2:12). Right. The word woman is singular, and, contend Loren Cunningham and David Hamilton in their book, Why Not Women?, Paul referred to a specific, unnamed woman who had disrupted the church and challenged the leadership.
Obviously Paul did make several very specific, pointed statements, correcting abuses where women flaunted their new freedom in a disruptive way, dealing with specific situations; but was he laying down the law as to how it should be everywhere?
Text without context is pretext, I was taught in seminary, and whenever you read the Word of God, one of the questions you need to ask is, “To whom was this written?” While most of Paul’s letters were written to correct problems in the early churches, the principles of order are important.
The question which we need to ask is this: “If you relegate women to positions of inferiority and subordinate them, are you doing so based on your interpretation of Scripture or what it actually says? Why not women? The reality is that almost two-thirds of the body of Christ consists of women. China is not the only place in the world where there is a shortage of men. Turn them loose, and see what the Holy Spirit may do.
Resource reading: 1 Timothy 3
