I am grateful to Leah Leach for her contribution last week on The Quarterlife Crisis. Next week, we will be hearing from Ray Chang, church planter and pastor of Ambassador Church in Brea, California.
For this week's Thursday is for Thinkers guest post, I've invited Wendy Horger Alsup to contribute. Wendy is the author of Practical Theology for Women: How Knowing God Makes a Difference in Our Daily Lives, and she spent four years teaching theology to women at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. She blogs at Practical Theology for Women.
Equipping Women for Gospel-Centered Lives
At a recent women's retreat, I met ladies I had never known before and continued conversations with others that I had already casually known. At some point in the weekend, casual conversations changed to something deeper. Women that I had thought of in relatively straightforward ways began to reveal circumstances that had seriously complicated their lives. The church leader's wife whose husband had struggled with homosexuality. The Sunday School teacher whose father had taken his own life the year before. The trim, well groomed, single career woman whose brother and best friend had died in a car accident when she was eighteen. The church secretary who was fired from her position after complaining over sexual harassment from a pastor. The single forty something whose parents living in the same town never invite her over. It dawned on me that though the women walking around the retreat all looked relatively well adjusted, the vast majority of them had dealt with or were currently dealing with serious trial and struggle. Something had invaded the boundaries of their lives, decimating their naïve notions of how their lives would play out. A brother dies. A father takes his own life. A pastor betrays them. A husband walks away. A boyfriend stops returning calls. Miscarriage robs, and the pregnancy test never shows two lines again.
There is something in the gospel that meets women in their brokenness. Scripture certainly gives general comfort that transcends gender. Male and female find healing from their woundings (and the wounds they have inflicted on others) in the gospel. But there is also a particular balm to women that meets us in the woundings tied specifically to our gender. For some of us, our pain is tied to our own failures - we have sought to find our identity in something God has not declared good and then are frustrated when it does not satisfy. For many more, our pain is tied to wanting exactly what God has instructed us to want. Loving our brother, mother, or father is a good thing. Desiring marriage to a godly man and raising children for the Lord is consistent with God's earliest designs for man and woman. Submitting to a church elder fits with God's design for church authority. Confronting them for their sexual harassment fits as well. Yet many women's greatest struggles, fears, and woundings stem from their vulnerability over the very things that God has declared good for them and His specific commands to them in light of those purposes. Women need to be taught what God declares good for His daughters. But we also need to understand how the gospel equips us to deal with the vast gulf between what God declares to be His good plan for His daughters and the reality of our daily lives.
In light of this, may I speak for a moment to those leading women's ministries and organizing women's teaching events? If your message doesn't resonate as well with the single woman watching her biological clock ticking away without a date in 8 years as the wife and mom who homeschools her children, you have missed the fullness of the message of the gospel. You may have communicated Scripture on women's roles in the church and home, but you have missed the gospel that equips us to bridge the gap between God's good plan and the depraved world in which we live.
We need to teach on marriage and family in a way that ministers grace to the single, widow, or infertile woman. We need to teach on submission and church authority structures in a way that equips women abused by the very leadership to which they were called to submit to boldly live out their gifting as co-heirs with Jesus Christ. We need to teach on motherhood in a manner that sets not it as the highest good but our conformity to Christ through its trials and our failures in it.
I often hear from women who feel lost in our evangelical construct of what the godly woman looks like. She feels pressure to be like Ruth or the Proverbs 31 woman but not so much to be like Christ. The problem is that she was not taught clearly that the image in which she was created is God's and the image to which she is now being conformed is Christ's.
I hope with this post to provoke thought on what it looks like to teach to women on every subject from the constant foundation of the gospel bridge between what God created us to be in His image and what we now find in our reality. It is "not good" for man (or woman) to be alone. And, yet, God allows many to live in that very state for the majority of their lives. Children are a blessing from the Lord, and yet their presence in or their absence from our lives can be the biggest source of struggle a woman faces. There is something in the gospel and all that Christ has accomplished on the cross that equips women to deal with the difference -- longing for what God declared good, yet living abundantly in Christ until His kingdom fully comes and restores all that lacks now in our lives. May our ministries minister grace to women--single, married, widowed, with kids, without kids--to live in Christ and be like Christ, overcoming with joy at every stage of life.
Wendy will be checking in at the blog today to interact. Feel free to comment and discuss.
Posted on July 15, 2010 at 7:32 AM ~ 15 Comments
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Wendy,
Excellent and convicting post. I appreciate it.
What do you tell pastors and staffers who more often than not find that if we are honest with ourselves, we find ourselves avoiding in teaching or in contact some of these women you are wanting to reach out to more.
It seems many of my most emotionally draining ministry experiences have been with women who feel on the fringe of church life.
Thank you for a thought provoking post. I think you hit the proverbial 'nail' on the head with your statements:
"She feels pressure to be like Ruth or the Proverbs 31 woman but not so much to be like Christ. The problem is that she was not taught clearly that the image in which she was created is God's and the image to which she is now being conformed is Christ's." Too many times, often inadvertently I think, we substitute a list of what women should and shouldn't do instead of spurring them to sanctifying conformity to Christ.
I would like to note, however, that in some churches (often small ones), the 'fringe' is catered to and considered the norm. As an example, I think of the small church women's ministry that is filled with middle-aged single ladies and divorcees. Perhaps that is a good thing? I am not certain.
Thank you for the encouragement! I pray that God is continually glorified through your ministry.
Thanks, JT. I don't have a good answer, but here are some things that I'm thinking about.
In terms of teaching, I've found my own pastor's simple technique of opening sermons helpful. He prefaces every sermon with a wide acknowledgment of where his audience is at. "Some of you are comfortable in your relationship with Christ. Some of you are unbelievers who wandered into church for the first time today. Some of you are hurting because your life doesn't look like you'd envision it to this point ..." and so forth. After casting a wide net of where he imagines people might be, he gives a preliminary overview of the sermon and how the gospel presented from the perspective of that day's text meets them where they are at. It's a simple way of saying to those who are hurting, "I know you are there, and what I'm teaching today matters to you."
In terms of one on one pastoral ministry, I am finding Elyse Fitzpatrick's Counsel from the Cross (co written with Dennis Johnson) a VERY helpful, practical look at how the gospel indeed changes everything and what that looks like when dealing with real problems. I highly recommend it.
Excellent post. Such a great reminder for those leading women in the church. Our target is ALL women in all walks and phases of life. Thank you for beautifully stating this need.
Wendy,
Thanks so much for your post. It really strikes a nerve that I think many women feel. I was particularly struck by your reference to the pressure that we may feel to be like Ruth or the Proverbs 31 woman. My question is, if we are centering our minds around the gospel, how then should we view these narratives and descriptions? For so long, they have been seen by many of us simply as character studies of examples we should aspire to be like. How does a gospel-centered woman look at the "women of the Bible," which we are so often drawn to and interested in,
yet let Christ be the one who shapes our daily lives?
Carol,
I'll focus my answer on the Proverbs 31 woman, who is a threat to many women and a source of pride for others depending on how well they perceive they measure up to her standard. She seems frustratingly unattainable if God has not yet brought marriage or children into a woman’s life. In reality, she is an ideal. There is no indication that she was a real woman (correct me if I'm wrong -- but that's my understanding), and any attempts to measure up against her idealistic standard apart from gospel grace will suck the life out of a woman. Christian wives can look to Proverbs 31 to recognize the trajectory of their lives. In Christ, she can be source of encouragement and not of condemnation. If she feels a source of condemnation, a woman needs to cling deeply to gospel grace as she evaluates the ways she can conform to Christ through the virtuous wife’s example.
In general, there is no one in Scripture to which we are to be conformed except to Christ. Others examples (Paul, Ruth, Joseph, etc.) at best point us to Christ, sometimes through their failures as much as their successes.
I didn't exactly answer your question, but I hope I got close.
Hey Emily,
Good thoughts, but I guess I miss how most of your observations of gospel application are gender-specific. Most of this was meaningful to me, though I know you were contextualizing to women leaders. I would take issue with your statement, though, and the strong complementarian position on women leadership that seemed to pervade the post here.
This statement is a bit much: "Submitting to a church elder fits with God's design for church authority." I know you moved on from this statement and extrapolated, but you still came back to the idea of living a gospel centered life in relation to church authority.
The rest of what I write will be the assumption that is implied here: that you think ALL women should be in subjection to men elders. I know the issue has been debated and will be debated for much longer, but I fail to see how this is living life through "gospel implications." I'm not making a comment from feminist ideology, but rather pointing out that church authority structures in the NT seemed to be created out of a) necessity-which did have many women as leaders in the church (Lydia, Junias, Phoebe, Priscilla, and many others mentioned in the NT) and b) missiology- the desire to witness to the watching world. Authority structures, in and of themselves, aren't a working out of the gospel for a man or a woman, unless God is the authority. Further, submitting to anyone whom God has put in place is merely a result of biblical obedience.
I suppose I'd also gently remind you that there are a host of conservative evangelicals who use conservative biblical interpretative rules to arrive at an egalitarian position for women in the church. Note that these arguments aren't made from culture but from Scripture. I could suggest a lot of good reading along these lines: William Webb, Craig Keener, Rebecca Groothuis, or many others. When I hear "God's plan for authority" kind of language, I get pretty frustrated as if my view on women in the church is in error. Truth is, exegetes with integrity will tell you that the woman issue is not a slam dunk biblically for either side, so extreme statements of this variety seem uninformed and unfair.
I recognize that I probably won't change your mind on this. I just ask for a hearing, and I ask that my position on this issue not be pejoratively labeled as "feminist" or "unbiblical cultural capitulation" or any other title I've heard lobbed by those on the strongly complementarian side.
Grace and peace,
David Strunk
Carol,
I'd like to make one more statement in answer to your question. All of Scripture is a revelation of God Himself, including individual stories like Noah's, Joseph's, Ruth's and so forth. Our personal circumstances will be radically different than each of them. But our God is the same! When we come to each of their stories, we need to keep this perspective in mind.
Ruth in particular is a picture of much bigger things than courtship or women's roles. It's a picture of THE kinsman-redeemer. If we teach Ruth with the bottom line of "Be like Ruth", we have MISSED so much gospel.
"Submitting to a church elder fits with God's design for church authority."
David, this statement didn't actually specify gender. I'm curious, in your egalitarian construct, would you advocate submission to a female pastor by those under her care? I'm thinking Hebrews 13:17 or maybe I Peter 5:5.
I am assuming a complementarian foundation in this article. Though I imagine female pastors are as capable of spiritual abuse as males.
Wendy
Wendy,
Thanks so much for honoring us with your thoughts here at the blog. I appreciate it and I appreciate your gospel-centered thinking.
I have not been around much today, but it looks like a good discussion.
God bless,
Ed
Wendy,
Thank you so much for sharing this. I was directed here by a friend. We had just been discussing how we can connect to all women in the teachings at our church in women's ministry. I was sharing how I was "truth be told" sick of the perfect ending stories/testimonies we hear. That every time I hear one of those I feel I must have completely failed my Lord and Savior and pushes me towards a legalistic slant which is about as far away from the truth of the Gospel as you can get. We talked about sharing testimonies of women who are "in process" who still seek the Glory of our Lord and worship Him when it isn't the "ideal" as seen in Proverbs 31, Ruth etc. I thank you for being a blessing to me today.
Monika
Wendy,
First off, two apologies. I called you Emily in my last comment, and for the life of me can't figure out why. Stupid of me, really. Second, sorry to mis-read something in your post that wasn't there, by your admission. Now to the content of your questions:
"I'm curious, in your egalitarian construct, would you advocate submission to a female pastor by those under her care? I'm thinking Hebrews 13:17 or maybe I Peter 5:5."
Excellently chosen verses. Now I should say that I lead in a conservative Presbyterian congregation (EPC) so I definitely believe in the authority of elders (we distinguish between teaching and ruling elders) and presbyters (presbyters are elders just in a more connectional and regional sense). I also think that elders/deacons/pastors became legitimate offices of the church by the end of the NT generation, and I see that my comment above wasn't so clear.
I suppose I don't have time to respond thoroughly and thoughtfully as possible, but here goes. I think the NT established authority first on the apostles, then on other disciples (many of whom were women), and then on established offices created by local churches. BUT, it seems evident to me that different churches in different locations had different polities based upon need and desire for gospel witness. That is to say, there's very little didactic teaching on the proper structure of polity in the NT. Quite frankly, each church did whatever it could to lead wisely, godly, and strategically. (SO, If women were bound up to permanant submission to men for all time, then why all the biblical counter-evidence? Deborah, Junias the apostle, Phoebe the deacon, Priscilla teacher of men, etc.) In some cases, bishops developed quickly (Jerusalem) and in others there was still lots of chaos (Corinth).
What I mean to say, then, is that while submission to church leaders is the mark of a mature Christian, I'm not sure that there's one "gospel way" to apply this. As in, submission might not always be to men. Another example: sometimes elders, though rulers, willingly give up their "power" in order to serve the needs and desires of a congregation, provided the elders examine the doctrine and will of God appropriately.
I don't know. I'm not being clear. In the vein of mutual submission (Eph. 5:20), that sometimes will mean men will submit to women, and yes, even husbands to wives. But we have to be clear about our definition of "submit." That's a whole different conversation....
In all, I really liked your post. But I also sense (especially from many in the Gospel Coalition) a disdain and disrespect for egalitarian views. The egalitarian argument is rarely dealt with, and often labeled with logical fallacies. I didn't see you doing that, but I often see women neglecting their spiritual gifts for fear of retribution both by complementarian men and women. That was the intention behind my original comment.
Grace and peace,
David
Wendy
Thanks! Good piece! I think women have been told for too long to be like a "P31" woman, or other biblical "Heroes," which is a symptom of a greater problem in much of the preaching in the west; it is often man-centered, and focuses us on "How To" be like biblical heroes, which leads to moralism, instead of focusing on Christ, which leads us to repentance and His grace and righteousness!
Thanks, all. I was hoping to get a conversation started on this issue, and it seems to have happened. I hope we will continue to think through how to make this a reality in our women's ministries (and all ministries for that matter).
David, I'd be glad to continue this discussion privately at theologyforwomen@gmail.com, though it sounds like maybe you said what you desired to say and aren't necessarily seeking a response from me.
Wendy
Thanks for clearly sharing your heart. The Gospel is not just that God is a God of the exclamation point, but also the God of the question mark.