Motivation Monday - Do You Serve An Equal Opportunity God?
“Given free will, both the woman and the man make disastrous choices. And both the woman and the man are eligible for forgiveness. They can both be restored to a right relationship with God.
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I am often asked my views on women’s roles in the church. I believe that God calls women and men not because of their gender, but because of their gifting, I am less concerned about women’s roles in the church than I am about the necessity for both women and being reminded of what Scripture says about the inherent value of women as co-revealers of God’s image.
So much of what we believe has been passed down to us through our church or family contexts. I believe we all must take responsibility and go back to Scripture to examine what it says about the value of women, believe what it says and act out of that belief.
Traditional Christian thinking is not the same thing
as biblical thinking about women.
We should not get the two confused.
When I was doing research for my book, “Brave Women Bold Moves: Choosing Courage in a Culture of Conformity”, I was forced to face the difficult fact that I was raised to not read Scripture objectively, but rather through the lens of a long tradition of gender inequality.
Perhaps we should try to set that lens aside,
and begin to see a God who is counter-cultural in this respect.
He is not a respecter of persons—he shows no partiality
(Acts 10:34)
I started at the beginning, in Genesis, and God’s words to both Adam and Eve.
God blessed both man and woman and charged them both
to have dominion over the earth.
God intended them to experience oneness and to work –
have dominion—side by side.
Given free will, both the woman and the man make disastrous choices. And both the woman and the man are eligible for forgiveness. They can both be restored to a right relationship with God.
Continuing on after Genesis, I found in Scripture story after story of God raising up key women at hinge moments in the God narrative. I found in Scripture the most unlikely women who said yes to a God that positioned them directly in the lineage of Jesus. And Jesus continued calling up women and placing them strategically in His story.
God is an equal opportunity God.
When men and women become the children of God (John 1:12), in the new “body of Christ,” men and women are both given gifts for serving one another.
Oneness and mutuality in the body of Christ is God’s idea.
He is impartial in the giving of the gifts.
“But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as he pleases” (I Corinthians 12:18), “for the profit of all” (I Corinthians 12:7).
Women appearing in the story of Jesus’ time on earth, as well as the beginnings of the early church are not isolated incidents. Women are right there in the center of
story throughout the New Testament accounts. Women watched as Jesus died. Women were at the tomb. Women were included as Christ followers. They prayed and supported the body of Christ with their gifts and talents. Later, women such as Priscilla served as teachers.
In the story of God, women are of equal worth
in the past, in the present and in the future.
In heaven, men and women will stand shoulder to-shoulder praising God. Here is a description from Revelation 22:3-5:
“The throne of God and of the Lamb is at the center. His servants will offer
God service—worshiping, they’ll look on his face, their foreheads mirroring
God. Never again will there be any night. No one will need lamplight
or sunlight. The shining of God, the Master, is all the light anyone needs.
And they will rule with him age after age after age.”
This passage does not separate men and women in those worshiping servants that will have God’s image stamped in their heart and their forehead. Men and women are not separated in those that will rule with God age after age after age.
Has traditional Christian thinking been oppressive to women? Perhaps. Is Christ? No. As the apostle Paul insisted,
“In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in common relationship with Jesus Christ” (Galatians 3:28).
In the beginning, God created man and woman to have oneness in marriage. In the body of Christ, the church, God intends for us to have community with one another, co-labouring together as the priesthood of all believers. In eternity in heaven, we will be praising God together. God’s will is for men and women to be together, side-by-side.
God’s heart is oneness.
God’s heart is mutuality.
When mutuality and oneness, and when co-labouring becomes the norm rather than the exception, then the possibility of the church, in all her glory to flourish becomes not just possible but probable.
As to women’s roles in the church, you probably have surmised (correctly) that I believe God will call the person that has a ‘yes’ on their lips, and is ready to serve with the gift that God has seeded in them, regardless of gender.
My primary concern is that women unpack their birthright gifts, develop them, and be ready to deploy them for the service of the church when God calls. I pray for our co-labourers in Christ to create space and open doors and invite women into service in the areas that require the gifting they bring. I dream of a flourishing church that moves beyond the question of whether women can lead and rises up to shepherd a world in need of the transforming gospel of Jesus.
I believe in you!
God bless.