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Preach It, Sister!
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Deborah P. Brunt
My supervisors occasionally sent me out to "speak" in a church. They sent me when: (1) they didn't have a man available for the task, and (2) the requesting church numbered between two and 10 members.
Here's how I decided what to say: I asked the Lord what he wanted me to say and listened for his answer (which included searching the Scriptures). Then, crying for him to accomplish it through me, I said what he said to say.
Afterward, as people came by to shake my hand, many remarked, "Thank you for your - uh - talk." Some, both men and women, told specific ways the words had encouraged or challenged them. Then, leaning closer and chuckling nervously, they murmured, "Of course, women don't preach, so - uh ..."
I smiled without comment while they tried to find a way to finish the sentence.
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| Using the "P" word |
Back at the office, the men joked, "Deborah doesn't preach. She just shares." Their jokes (and occasional discreet affirmations) told me: (1) In their thinking, I preached. (2) Privately, they did not believe it wrong for a woman to tell a gathered group of believers what God had told her to say. That was good, since they had sent me to do it.
Ah, but their organization and their livelihood depend on the financial support of cooperating churches. Regardless what they believed, these men would not jeopardize that support by publicly condoning a woman preaching.
One time, my office sent a group of women to serve short-term in an African country. At the first African gathering, someone asked the American women, "Which of you will preach?" The group's leader said, "Oh, no. We're --" and she named the over-arching denomination. "In our denomination, women don't preach." Naming the same over-arching denomination, the African leader said, "Here, women do."
In August 2007, I preached in Sri Lanka. A team of five American women had gone to participate in a three-day women's conference. When we spoke in the daytime, our hosts called it teaching. The two night messages they called preaching. I spoke during the day - and once at night. So, for the first time in my life, someone labeled what they asked me to do as preaching.
Afterward, when I sent out an e-column about the Sri Lanka trip, titled "Lord of Breakthrough," a woman replied, asking what many wonder: "Can women preach?"
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| Taking things out of context |
Before answering that question, let's examine some of the assumptions behind it. To our minds, preaching happens in a certain context.
Preaching happens behind a pulpit, or reasonable facsimile thereof.
Preaching happens in a building erected to hold gatherings of God's people. It can happen in other buildings where Christians gather, provided the room set-up resembles a church auditorium, complete with pulpit.
Preaching happens in a worship service carefully crafted to feature the sermon as the primary element. The most holy and most authoritative preaching happens on Sunday mornings between the Special Music and the Altar Call. The Senior Pastor does this preaching. He rarely relinquishes this slot to anyone else - and then only to persons whose ministerial credentials he approves, for the preaching during Sunday Morning Worship carries weight that preaching in other contexts does not.
Though no one ever says it, preaching and teaching look strikingly similar in churches today. Generally, both:
- Explain a section of Scripture or probe the Christian view of a topic, using Scripture;
- Build the talk (whether "sermon" or "lesson") around an outline;
- Use illustrations to help listeners grasp each bulleted point;
- Urge listeners to apply the scriptural principles to life.
Without the context we've come to assume - pulpit, church building, worship service featuring "sermon" - we have trouble distinguishing where teaching leaves off and preaching begins.
But the New Testament strips away every element of this context. We see no church buildings with seats in rows facing the pulpit. We see no pulpits. We see no worship services with predictable format featuring the "sermon." We see no evidence that God hallows above all else a talk given in a certain place at a certain time on a certain day by a certain man with certain credentials. Rather, God honors his truth, wherever and whenever it is spoken.
All the elements we equate with preaching emerged as the Greek orators and Roman politicians in the second and third centuries began organizing the church in ways geared to their cultures.
In the New Testament, when the church gathers and when it scatters, the people of God move by the Spirit of God, not by predetermined formula. The Spirit accomplishes what he will, using whom he will. So where does preaching come in?
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| Two sides of the same coin |
To answer that question, let's ask another: Where does evangelizing come in? You tell me: Who can announce the good news of Christ? Indeed, who does God command to go and tell what Christ has done?
Whenever the verb to preach appears in the New Testament, the English term almost always translates one of two Greek words. The first, kerusso, means "to herald (as a public crier)." The second term, euangelizo, means "to announce good news." It gives us the English, evangelize.
The New Testament writers use these two verbs interchangeably. While each word has a slightly different emphasis, to do one is to do the other. (In the examples below, bold text shows which English words translate each Greek term.)
John the Baptist came "preaching [heralding, kerusso] a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Luke 3:3). "And with many other words John exhorted the people and preached the good news [euangelizo] to them" (Luke 3:18).
The people in Capernaum tried to keep Jesus from leaving them. "But he said, 'I must preach the good news [euangelizo] of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.' And he kept on preaching [kerusso] in the synagogues of Judea" (Luke 4:43-44).
Later Jesus "called the Twelve together" and "sent them out to preach [kerusso] the kingdom of God and to heal the sick" (Luke 9:1-2). "So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel [euangelizo] and healing people everywhere" (Luke 9:6).
In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul wrote, "Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel [euangelizo]. . . . Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach [kerusso] Christ crucified" (vv. 17, 22-23).
In Romans 10:14-15, Paul asked, "How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching [kerusso] to them? And how can they preach [kerusso] unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news [euangelizo]!"
Today, many would say that every Christian has a responsibility to evangelize - but only a few select males can preach. Yet, scripturally we cannot have it both ways. Repeatedly, the New Testament affirms that anyone sent to announce the good news is also sent to cry as a herald.
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| But what about women? | |
The verses above drive home this truth: Those sent can preach. Those sent must preach.
Does God send women, as well as men, to announce the Good News, to herald kingdom truth?
Nowhere does the New Testament prohibit women from preaching. Though 1 Corinthians 14:34 reads in part, "women should remain silent in the churches," this verse appears in a chapter that repeatedly indicates "anyone" (vv. 13, 27), "everyone" (vv. 23, 26) and "all" (v. 31) can speak when the church gathers. Just a few chapters earlier, in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul himself assures us that anyone and everyone does include women (see v. 5).
Another verse that's long been used to hush women, 1 Timothy 2:12, refers to teaching, not preaching. While many use this verse to establish boundaries as to whom women can teach, only a tiny percent of Christendom would say unequivocally, "Women cannot teach." Yet with no verse to substantiate such a claim, many do unequivocally state, "Women cannot preach."
The New Testament contains no specific mention of a woman preaching. That is, we see no passage that uses kerusso or euangelizo to describe a particular woman's words. However, the resurrection accounts in all four Gospels show women sent to cry as heralds and to announce the Good News.
Sent by angels and by the Lord himself to "go and tell," these women stood before the male disciples gathered (without pews or pulpit) in an upper room. Speaking in behalf of Christ, the women explained what he had showed them and instructed the disciples what to do in response (see Matt. 28:1-10; Luke 24:1-9).
Later, according to Luke's report in Acts 8:3-4, "Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison. Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went." After specifically mentioning the persecution of both men and women, Luke does not say that only the men among the persecuted church went out proclaiming the good news. Rather, "those who had been scattered preached ..."
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| Will the real preacher please stand up? | |
Still not convinced? Still concerned because we can't find a verse that specifically connects a woman and the Greek verb kerusso? Want to know something scandalous? We can't find a verse that connects a pastor and the Greek verb kerusso. That's right. The New Testament contains no specific mention of a pastor preaching!
In 2 Timothy 4:2, Paul tells Timothy, "Preach the Word." But even though we think of 1 & 2 Timothy as "pastoral" epistles, Scripture never calls Timothy a pastor. Timothy traveled with Paul's apostolic team, announcing the good news, starting and strengthening churches. Paul called Timothy an apostle (1 Thess. 1:1; 2:6), as well as "God's fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ" (1 Thess. 3:2). Interestingly, Paul also used the terms "apostle" and "fellow worker" to identify certain women.
So who preached in the New Testament? Primarily, we find the two Greek words kerusso and euangelizo used of: John the Baptist, Jesus, apostles - the Twelve, but also Paul and his cohorts - and Philip the evangelist.
Does that mean one has be to an apostle or an evangelist to preach? Or does it mean one has to be apostolic and evangelistic?
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| Sent: who and why? | |
Ephesians 4:11-12 tells the reason Jesus "gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers": "to prepare God's people for works of service." Our Lord doesn't intend that we sit back and watch the apostles, evangelists and pastors do it. In his design, they demonstrate, encourage and equip in order that we can do it too.
Jesus himself said, and all the New Testament affirms, that of all the "works" God intends his people to do, this is key: "Go into all the world and preach [kerusso] the good news [euangelion] to all creation" (Mark 16:15).
So did God inspire New Testament accounts of preaching apostles and evangelists to let the rest of us off the hook? Or are their stories part of his process for equipping all of us to announce the gospel and herald kingdom truth?
Early in his ministry, Jesus announced, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news [euangelizo] to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim [kerusso] freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim [kerusso] the year of the Lord's favor" (Luke 4:18-19).
Soon afterward, Jesus affirmed, "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God . . . because that is why I was sent" (Luke 4:43).
Just before his crucifixion, Jesus spoke to his Father about "those whom you gave me out of the world." "Those" included, not the Eleven alone, but all the men and women who followed Christ as true disciples. Jesus also prayed for "those who will believe in me through their message." That includes you and me. In this prayer, Jesus told his Father, "As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world" (John 17:6, 20, 18).
Jesus was sent to preach - and so are we.
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| What happens when women preach? | |
The Lord Jesus sent me to Sri Lanka. The night I preached there, Holy Spirit flooded the room, moving the 300 women present into a time of intense repentance and forgiveness, fervent prayer, reconciliation and intercession. Suddenly, the 10 or 12 pastors who had sat in a back room, listening, came forward to stand together to repent for division in the church and to cry out in prayer for their nation. What a breakthrough God accomplished!
Can women preach?
Let's ask rather: How can we not? Even in the church-sanctuary setting that some have considered most off-limits, God can and does speak through women. Just know: Our Lord does not consider that setting the most holy. Nor does he confine preaching to that very small box. When Holy Spirit breathes and those in whom he lives cooperate, preaching can happen anywhere. It can happen one-on-one, one-to-ten, or one-to-ten-thousand. What's more, our highly creative, Redeemer God delights in infinite variety. At his instigation, the trumpeting of the truth looks as unique as the individuals speaking and the settings in which the message goes out.
Regardless who may have disqualified you, sister, Jesus has not. Male or female, we must preach the good news of the kingdom of God, because that is why we were sent. When the Spirit of Christ moves you to proclaim his truth, let God make the way - and you preach it!
(c) 2007, 2012 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations are from the New International Version. Definitions of kerusso and euangelizo (Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.) Greek/English words in New Testament verses from Interlinear Transliterated Bible. Copyright © 1994, 2003 by Biblesoft, Inc.
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