Women, prophecy and the church
"A woman with the gift of prophecy has to be very careful," the preacher said. "What she hears from God, she is generally not to speak but to take into her prayer closet."
"A woman with the gift of prophecy has to be very careful," the preacher said. "What she hears from God, she is generally not to speak but to take into her prayer closet."
“Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak.” The meaning of that quote from 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is obvious, right? God silences women, and the inspired apostle Paul affirmed it. Or maybe, just maybe: The Lord and Paul both snort at the idea – and we have not known it.
Am I the only one who didn’t know, until I dared to look? The greetings in Paul’s New Testament letters – the ones translators have altered and we often bypass – affirm women, as well as men, who minister as true servant leaders.
Here’s something I did not know for a long time, because I was afraid to look: In letter after letter, the man with the reputation for putting women down, instead treats women as fully human, fully adult – and welcome into the fullness of the redemption that is ours in Jesus Christ.
Thank you, Mary Magdalene, for coming to Jesus. Your story shows: REST is humbly serving the One who always treats me with high respect, entrusts me with significant responsibility and involves me in things of first importance.
Why, in midlife, did I suddenly find my boundaries battered and my adulthood denied?
God created us to grow to adulthood – spirit, soul and body. Scripture calls us to do just that. The role of leaders, like the role of parents, is to encourage and affirm this process, not to ensure that everyone except the leaders remains perpetually one-down.
Trusting the Spirit to speak, I explored the testimony of the entire New Testament. Scripture after Scripture showed a picture of the Body of Christ in which women participate fully and freely in every aspect of the kingdom, and men and women stand shoulder to shoulder, serving the Lord. I also learned why many people who love the Word do not know that – why I did not see it for so long.
What do you do when the Lord answers what you had not asked? This is where it began, my journey with God into his view of women and the church.
Two weeks after I asked readers to pray with me for wisdom and strength for a final push, my updated e-book is live! It tells my story of all the ways God answered, from the moment I finally asked him: “What about women, Lord? What do you say about how women in your kingdom relate to other people and to you?”
When the "threat alarm" goes off in an abusive church system, the response is orchestrated and brutal. But it's church: Appearances must be kept up. People loyal to the system confuse while pretending to clarify, cover-up while pretending to address, attack while seeming to answer, put-down while pretending to help.
Behind the scenes at Living Proof Live, I'd found a celebrity culture - not the "one anothering" of the church of the living God. So with all my heart, I cried out for change.