Women As Ministers?

00:00:00.000 | Here's an email from a listener who writes, "My name is Sarah and I admire your ministry.

00:00:09.640 | I'm 19 and have listened to your sermons off and on throughout the last two years and they

00:00:12.920 | have really helped me desire God more.

00:00:15.080 | I am learning what it means to delight in Jesus and I attend a Christian university

00:00:19.220 | and have felt called to do something in ministry or evangelism.

00:00:22.820 | My question is how, as a woman, can I work in ministry and evangelism while abiding by

00:00:27.000 | biblical rules and instructions for women, i.e., not having authority over a man?

00:00:32.160 | Pastor John, I would love if you could answer this because I am confused."

00:00:35.760 | Amen, amen, amen that she feels called to ministry and evangelism or whatever.

00:00:44.800 | I just want to so affirm that women and men are ministers.

00:00:52.080 | In no way does any biblical view of manhood and womanhood imply that men are out and about

00:00:58.520 | being active for Jesus and women are not out and about being active for Jesus or in and

00:01:04.040 | about being active for Jesus and their families.

00:01:08.600 | So amen to the question.

00:01:11.680 | I would really encourage her or any of the other women who are asking questions, I've

00:01:19.800 | tried, along with Wayne Grudem, to ask 50 crucial questions.

00:01:23.960 | That's the booklet.

00:01:24.960 | You can get a free PDF of it at DesiringGod or you can buy the booklet at Amazon.

00:01:30.440 | 50 crucial questions in which I try to answer that question and 49 others.

00:01:37.640 | But here are just a few pointers.

00:01:39.760 | First, Sarah is right to care about both things, dreaming ministry and honoring God's pattern

00:01:48.240 | of how men and women relate to each other in all of life, both home and church and society.

00:01:55.840 | And she's right that the Bible is not as unclear as some people think it is on 1 Timothy 2:13.

00:02:04.800 | "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over men.

00:02:09.600 | Rather, she is to remain in quietness as she learns."

00:02:17.800 | Those two things, teach and exercise authority, are the very two things that distinguish an

00:02:24.320 | elder from a deacon.

00:02:26.920 | Elders are to exercise authority or govern and elders are to be the authoritative teachers

00:02:31.800 | in the church.

00:02:32.800 | So what Paul seems to be saying here is that there should be male elders in the church.

00:02:41.300 | But all teaching and not all authority are restricted from women in that verse.

00:02:50.680 | It's over men.

00:02:52.280 | There's a kind of authoritative teaching over men that is referred to there and it compromises

00:03:00.800 | the way God has wired men and women when women over time become the authority in a man's

00:03:08.000 | spiritual life.

00:03:09.000 | I really believe that.

00:03:10.000 | I think that's why Paul put that there.

00:03:13.280 | It undermines something deep in both the man and the woman.

00:03:17.920 | But there are endless possibilities for ministry for women in this world that do not put them

00:03:25.480 | under or into that position.

00:03:29.120 | I wrote another little booklet called "What's the Difference?"

00:03:31.760 | And at the end of that booklet, I put 80 kinds of ministries just to give women examples

00:03:38.560 | of what kinds of things are open to them.

00:03:42.840 | Let me close with a story.

00:03:45.560 | As I've talked over the years in various places on manhood and womanhood issues, back in the

00:03:52.920 | 80s, I would get a lot more vicious negative flack than I do today.

00:04:01.220 | And one of the, I can remember one young woman really angry at me saying, "How dare you call

00:04:08.160 | my calling to ministry into question?"

00:04:13.520 | And instead of saying to her what I might have said, like, "I'm not calling it into

00:04:18.800 | question.

00:04:19.800 | God is calling it into question."

00:04:20.800 | I didn't go there.

00:04:21.800 | I just said, "You know, it may be that you haven't misheard the voice of God, but that

00:04:32.200 | you've misapplied the voice that you heard.

00:04:36.840 | In other words, maybe God is saying to you, 'Follow me.

00:04:42.640 | Serve me.

00:04:43.780 | Give your whole self to me.

00:04:45.040 | I'm going to use you mightily in my purposes on the earth to glorify myself and to save

00:04:51.280 | sinners and to build up saints.

00:04:52.760 | I'm going to use you for that.'

00:04:54.800 | And then you maybe took it and spun that out in terms of, 'Oh, I guess I'm supposed to

00:05:00.600 | be a pastor and have authority over men in that role.'

00:05:05.400 | And I just said, "Maybe not.

00:05:07.200 | Maybe you've just misread the word."

00:05:11.200 | And then when they say, "Well, what are you saying we can do?"

00:05:17.560 | My answer is, "Seventy-five percent of the seven billion people in the world"—I just

00:05:26.000 | checked this to make sure this is a true statement—"Seventy-five percent of the seven billion people in the

00:05:32.960 | world are women or under the age of 15.

00:05:40.560 | They have limitless needs of every kind, right?

00:05:45.040 | Physical needs and education needs and spiritual needs and relational needs and parenting needs

00:05:52.920 | and needs for rescue and endless needs that they have."

00:05:57.680 | And my response is, "Do anything you want.

00:06:01.920 | Care about them.

00:06:03.400 | Care about them physically and especially eternally, and minister in whatever way you

00:06:09.560 | can."

00:06:10.560 | Yes, thank you, Pastor John.

00:06:12.520 | And once again, those books were titled "Fifty Crucial Questions About Manhood and Womanhood,"

00:06:17.480 | and "What's the Difference?"

00:06:18.880 | The list of ministry opportunities for women can also be found in an article Pastor John

00:06:22.640 | wrote titled "A Challenge to Women."

00:06:25.500 | It was published on January 1, 1995.

00:06:28.280 | The two books in the article can all be found for free at DesiringGod.org.

00:06:31.480 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.

00:06:33.400 | Thanks for listening.

00:06:34.000 | [Music]

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Women As Ministers?

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