Women in the Pulpit

I heard a believer recently complaining about a denomination that allowed women in the pulpit. Several faulty practices came to my mind that seemed more important, that both his denomination and the one he was challenging consider to be good.

Practices like: having a pulpit, in a temple, where one person, who may or may not have the spiritual gift of teacher, lectures the rest of the body, while everyone else sits silently or noisily looking at the back of another person’s head, while no one is being equipped for their ministry, no one is practicing their own gifts, especially no one is prophesying or speaking in tongues, the body is not being built up in unity or maturity, people are not being prepared and sent into all the leadership positions in the nations of the earth to lead cities and states and nations under the influence of the Kingdom of Jesus, miracles are falsely described as a thing of the past, or as works of satan, education is touted as more spiritually valuable than a gift of the Spirit, and whether we have been baptized properly is more important than whether we are changed and continuing to grow.

Quite a contrast to Ephesians 4:7-16 and 1 Corinthians 12:7 and 1 Corinthians 14:22-31 and Acts 13:1-3.

Also quite ridiculous that the verse in Paul’s letter to the congregations in Corinth that they were touting as their authority for silencing women was sandwiched between instructions to allow everyone to prophesy and to be eager to prophesy and speak in tongues (1 Corinthians 14:31-39). I am convinced that Paul’s reference to “the law” as his reason for silencing the women in Corinth was countered by the leaders of the entire ekklesia as recorded by Luke in Acts 15. There, they decided that the only parts of the entire law given to Israel through Moses that should be imposed on gentiles who became believers were 4 things: don’t drink blood, don’t eat meat that wasn’t prepared by draining the blood from it, don’t eat food sacrificed to idols, and don’t be immoral in sexual ways. No reference to taxes such as tithing to Levites, or offering sacrifices, being circumcised, keeping sabbath, or any of the other 600+ laws.

Paul later declared that none of the law had any authority over him (1 Corinthians 9:19-23). If we are led by the Spirit, Paul told the Galatians, we are not under the law (Galatians 5:18). Further, he proposed that if we are led by the Spirit of God, we are all sons of God:

Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus, because the Spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. What the law could not do since it was limited by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending His own Son in flesh like ours under sin’s domain, and as a sin offering, in order that the law’s requirement would be accomplished in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those whose lives are according to the flesh think about the things of the flesh, but those whose lives are according to the Spirit, about the things of the Spirit. For the mind-set of the flesh is death, but the mind-set of the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind-set of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit itself to God’s law, for it is unable to do so. Those whose lives are in the flesh are unable to please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God lives in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through His Spirit who lives in you.
So then, brothers, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. All those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons.
(Romans 8:1-14 Holman Christian Standard Bible ©®)