Christ does not flinch before our questioning. He does not get defensive or frightened when people sincerely seek the truth. He IS the truth. He delights in revealing truth. And HE is the one asking his people,

"If what you've believed isn't true,

would you want to know?"

Deborah P. Brunt

 

You've heard the French term femme fatale? In mythology, history, and literature, she's a deadly woman. Mysterious and irresistibly attractive, she leads men into dangerous, and often disastrous, situations. We see her ways as villainous.

 

Sadly, such women do exist.

 

Such men do too. In popular thought, Don Juan and James Bond typify the homme fatal (deadly man). Ironically, we see their ways as heroic.

 

As much as I hate to break it to the guys: People don't suspect every man of being James Bond.

 

As much as I hate to affirm what many woman already know: People - particularly those of our conservative American church culture - do allege that all females are Eve, easily deceived and ever prone to entice Adam to sin.

Also in our church culture, it's widely believed (though not always openly taught) that the ideal woman:

• Draws her identity and value from her role in home and family.
• Heroically supports her particular church subculture - pouring out her life in volunteer labor (even when it becomes detrimental to her home and family) and accepting as gospel the stances and choices of her church leaders.
• Conducts herself like the helpless damsels of yore, ever dependent on strong men to save her from the dragons out there - but even more, from the dragon within.

Accepting the shame of her gender, the woman trying to live up to this Ideal suspects: Only by living within these parameters can she hope to restrain the femme fatale lurking inside her.

 

One man gifted in personal evangelism loves to strike up conversations with strangers. He usually asks people what they believe about God, about heaven, about Jesus. Then, he'll ask, "If what you've believed isn't true, would you want to know?"

So how would you answer that question? If what you've believed isn't true, would you want to know? If the three points above do not frame God's expectations for women - if, rather, they reflect the Confederate view of womanhood - would you want to know? If this description of the Ideal Woman emerged between the Second Great Awakening and the Civil War - when the Southern church refused to listen to the Spirit's voice regarding the treatment of whole groups of people, and attached the label "biblical" to a view of women drawn from the ancient Greeks and tales of medieval knights - would you want to know? If you've accepted as "gospel" a startling array of other false assumptions, would you want to know?

By now, you may feel nervous and frightened. You may wonder, "Is she advocating women's lib? Is she questioning Christ? Do I dare read further?"

I assure you: I'm not advocating rebellion or anger or conflict between the sexes. Quite the opposite. I'm praying for women and men what Paul prayed in Ephesians 1:17-18: "I ask - ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory - to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do" (MSG).

I assure you: Christ does not flinch before our questioning. He does not get defensive or frightened when people sincerely seek the truth. He IS the truth. He delights in revealing truth. And HE is the one asking his people, "If what you've believed isn't true, would you want to know?"

Far better than any of us, he knows: Just because we learned it in church doesn't mean it's true. Our church culture prides itself on teaching what is biblical. And it does offer us truth - mixed with religious-sounding beliefs and practices that came from people, not God. Some of these beliefs and practices are recent inventions. Some were imported into the church centuries ago - including the notion that inside every female believer lurks a femme fatale, an Eve, who cannot be trusted with authority or given a voice.

We who have lived with this mindset all our lives may not recognize the way it slams the redemptive work of our Lord, nor the horrific double standard it creates. In embracing this teaching, we're agreeing: Men are released from the curse and made new in Christ; women, not so much.

Tragically, we may think we have only two choices: drink down the "mix" that our church culture offers us, or abandon Christianity. To both options, God cries, "No!" He calls us to "extract the precious from the worthless" (Jer. 15:19 NASU). He himself makes the way. Indeed, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Sending the Spirit, he promised: "the Spirit of truth ... will guide you into all the truth" (John 16:13).

Ah, but instead of listening to the Spirit of truth, who is himself God, instead of letting him illumine the Word and deliver us from the worthless stuff we've thought true, how often do we listen instead to the voice of Fear. It whispers: "If you step outside the box, or even peek outside - if you dare to question or examine the 'distinctives' your church, denomination or tradition has deemed THE biblical position - you've stepped out onto a slippery slope to hell."

Fellow believer, Fear lies, enslaves and murders! Whenever you choose the "safety" of a religious box over the astounding experience and challenging work of hearing God's voice and following him fully, you rebel against the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our Lord does draw boundaries. The Spirit teaches each of us where they lie. Jesus' confrontations with the Jewish religious leaders reveal: God's boundaries differ dramatically from religious ones - and people steeped in the Word can completely mistake the one for the other. Further, we can identify ourselves with the Lord, yet soundly reject him. The Pharisees, for example, said they worshiped the Father, but rejected Jesus. Similarly, we who lift high the name of Jesus must beware that we do not reject his Spirit, who also is the Lord.

Hear the word of the Lord to you in Jeremiah 29:13-14: "'You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,' declares the LORD, 'and will bring you back from captivity.'"

Early in my adult life, I heard Bill Gothard's teachings on the seven spiritual gifts named in Romans 12:3-8: prophecy, serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, leadership, mercy. Identifying the seven as "motivational gifts," Gothard taught that in each person one of these gifts is dominant, reflecting a God-given inward drive or bent.

The motivational gifts differ from the manifestation gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12 and the governmental gifts of Ephesians 4. Indeed, a person's motivational gift provides a foundation upon which the other giftings build.

My spirit grabbed hold of this teaching and continued to hold on through many years of different presentations of the gifts. Also, from the first time I heard Gothard's teaching, I knew in my spirit: my motivational gift is prophecy.

Ah, but I lived in a system that warns women not to speak.

Recently, I heard a sermon that encapsulated teaching I absorbed most of my life. The sermon focused on the seven gifts named in Romans 12:3-8.

As the preacher listed the seven gifts and described them briefly, he gave this two-word definition of prophecy: "speaking out." Though he presented the other six gifts in a positive light, he painted prophecy as a gift to avoid, if at all possible. "We need prophets in the church. But we don't need many of them," he joked. How many times had I heard this gift presented in a similar way? In this view, the more spiritual the prophet, the more harsh, negative and judgmental his words.

"A woman can have the gift of prophecy," the preacher said. "But a woman with the gift of prophecy has to be very careful. Very careful. What she hears from God, she is generally not supposed to speak but to take into her prayer closet."

What? God gives women the gift of speaking out - and forbids them to speak out?

This preacher didn't add the other "given" that every woman under the sound of his voice understood: If a woman with a gift of prophecy does speak out, she must speak only to women.

If what you've been taught weren't true, would you want to know it?

One night after hearing that sermon, I sat in the overstuffed chair in our family room, crying out to God. For years, he had been stripping me of beliefs and practices that are religious, but not true. In particular, he had stripped away numerous false beliefs about my identity in him. That night I pleaded, "Lord, you've rid me of so many false beliefs that kept me from being who you created me to be. So what is true? Who am I? Who have you made me to be?"

The next day, God pointed me to Arthur Burk's teachings on the seven gifts in Romans 12. What Bill Gothard called "motivational gifts," Burk calls "redemptive gifts."

Listening to Burk's teaching on CD about the gift of prophecy, I laughed and wept and shouted and applauded - and received what God had put inside me all along.

Any of the gifts can be exercised in the flesh (and thus become more negative than positive). Any gift becomes life-giving only as we surrender to Christ as Lord, yield fully to Holy Spirit and spend time with our Father in prayer and the Word.

Prophets living Spirit-to-spirit do sound warnings. When they see people locked in a box being swept toward a cliff, they cry out fervently to avert disaster. It's a compassionate, redemptive cry - not a judgmental, finger-pointing one. Prophets  also "speak to people for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort" (1 Cor. 14:3-4).

By the Spirit, prophets speak the truth in love, exposing what is evil, dangerous and deadly - and offering creative, life-giving solutions; keys, if you will. From the spirit, prophets cry, "Look to Jesus! He holds keys! Take them! They'll free you to live - to know God intimately, to follow him fully, to be who he created you to be!"

In Scripture, we read of several women prophets - including Moses' sister Miriam (Ex. 15:20-21), the judge Deborah (Judges 4-5), Huldah (2 Ki. 22:14-20; 2 Chron. 34:22-30), Isaiah's wife (Isa. 8:3) and in the New Testament, Anna (Luke 2:36-38) and the four daughters of Philip the evangelist (Acts 21:8-9). Surely, each of these women spent time in the prayer closet. As they listened to God, he told them what to say, when to say it and to whom. To obey him, they had to speak. They had to speak to people. Further, in every instance where Scripture records a woman prophet's words, God commissioned her to speak to men or to an audience that included men and women.

Beware the NIV rendering of Romans 12:6: "If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it ..." Translators arbitrarily inserted the word man. In the Greek, it does not appear anywhere in this passage. Rather, you who know Jesus as Lord, regardless your gender, "If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy."

Church of the living God, no longer count women whom Christ has redeemed as femmes fatales who must not speak, lest their words seduce and destroy. As 2 Corinthians 5:17 declares: "If anyone is in Christ . . . The old has gone, the new is here!"

Many things hinder people from living out God's design for their lives. Many things hinder Christians from living out God's design for their lives. As for me, God has taken me through rigorous apprenticeship in order to show me the length and breadth and height and depth of religious stuff that holds his people captive.  

As Christ leads me into freedom, identity and purpose - as he makes me intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, my eyes focused and clear - he is also showing me exactly what it is he is calling me to do. Again and again, he has spoken to me:

"Look carefully and listen closely and pay attention to everything I am going to show you, for that is why you have been brought here. Tell the house of Israel everything you see" (Ezek. 40:4).

"And go, get to the captives, to the children of your people, and speak to them and tell them, 'Thus says the Lord GOD,' whether they hear, or whether they refuse" (Ezek. 3:11 NKJV).

"So, go now and write all this down. Put it in a book so that the record will be there to instruct the coming generations" (Isa. 30:8 MSG).

"Carry the light-giving Message into the night" (Phil. 2:15 MSG).

What am I to do when God says "speak," "write," "tell everything you see"?

Having lived in a church culture that does not believe God would say such things to a woman - among a people prone to cover their ears in fear of compassionate, redemptive cries - I heartily echo Jeremiah's cry: "The word of the LORD has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, 'I will not mention his word or speak any more in his name,' his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot" (Jer. 20:8-9).

I cannot - and dare not - hold in what God has said to speak out.

His keys release his people from religious boxes, including the box that labels every woman femme fatale. May I mention one example of how that's worked? When I published an article titled, "Preach on, Sister!" a friend of mind passed it along to a man serving as elder in his church. After reading the article, he spent the night weeping in repentance for his own misogyny in the church setting and for the way the church corporately has dishonored women.

We all have some weeping to do - and some laughing and shouting and singing and applauding - as we receive keys Christ holds out to set us free.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture references are from Today's New International Version (TNIV). Other translations include: New American Standard Updated (NASU), New King James Version (NKJV), New International Version (NIV) and THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved (MSG).

Visit Arthur Burk's website. The CD set that includes his basic teachings on the seven redemptive gifts is titled, "Redemptive Gifts of Individuals." It's available both in the SLG Product Store and the SLG Download Store.

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