Women Leaders

Speak unto Aaron, saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded, Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken; No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God. He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy, and of the holy. Only he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries: for I the LORD do sanctify them. (Leviticus 21: 17 – 23)

Why does God forbid a person He has created from ministering to Him, one whose condition is not his fault?

And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD? (Exodus 4:11)

I want us to relate this with a woman taking leadership over a man in the spiritual realm. And I do not to write a very long post today.

Why do we like choosing what to believe and practice from the Bible? Why do we create schools of thought according to our preferences?

Let us look at the Timothy passage.

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. (1Timothy 2: 11 – 15)

I first want to get us out of the wrong context many have created. This letter had nothing to do with the Corinthian church. It is rightly called a pastoral epistle.

Secondly, it traces the command to the creation before the fall. Or do you not realize that the ground was cursed because Adam listened to his wife?

Thirdly, Timothy was Greek and most certainly raised in Greece. Or do you not notice that his faith is traced through his grandmother and mother? Incidentally, Paul was also a very exposed man having grown up in a cosmopolitan city.

It is therefore important that we sort conjecture from fact when we interpret the Bible.

In my last posts, I said the Bible is akin to a road map.

We do not discuss and dispute with the map. We do not criticize. In fact, even when we seem to disagree with it, we will still go to it to get the interpretation we seek as trashing it will mean we can’t continue with the journey.

I believe that is the way we should be interpret the Bible.

Timothy was raised in a maternal community. I believe that order was so contrary to the way he grew up that it had to be written that emphatically.

I have preached with women and still do. But that is not enough defense for defying God’s word.

I think we need to go beyond our backgrounds to defend what is a straightforward argument against scripture. Otherwise we will stray from God’s revelation.

As I have argued elsewhere, the fact that I was raised more or less by a single mother does not normalize or glorify single motherhood especially when there is so much that the Bible teaches about it. The fact that as a pastor you were educated through brewing and selling illicit brew does not give you a free pass to defend drunkardness. Just like we cannot use Jesus turning water into wine to defend the same as we know there are many who through that shallow interpretation have been swallowed by alcoholism.

We should allow the Bible to translate itself and not bend it to suit our fancies.

Let me give some scriptural examples.

Manoah’s wife has an angel giving her orders concerning Samson. Eh? Manoah asks

The same angel appears to confirm the orders.

An angel appears to Mary who bore Jesus and she obeys.

Then he appears to Joseph to confirm that she is not guilty of fornication and that he should take her as his wife.

Do you realize that never again do we have any communication between God and Mary after that? That even in issues concerning Mary God speaks to her husband?

As we read in the Bible and I have never heard any disputation, the husband is the spiritual head of the wife. It simply means that God reaches to the wife through the husband.

How then can the same wife be the head of a spiritual head of a structure with other husbands (sometimes even her own) being under her?

And that is why I started with the passage with priests who were disqualified from active service yet could access all the benefits of the priesthood because of a deformity that was not of their making.

God does not hate or despise women. He created them with a purpose that will best be served in submission. That is where their ministry will most thrive. That is where their gifts will be maximized.

And their involvement with roles that are not meant for them is the reason the church is lacking in things that they ought to be bringing.