Prophetesses & Pastoresses

Welcome to have you not read a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification Of the Saints before we dig into our topic. We humbly ask you to rate review and share the podcast.

Thank you. I'm Andrew Hudson. Joining me today is Michael Durham Michael. We have a few questions. Let me go ahead and read them for you. There are a few mentions in scripture of Prophetesses the idea of women having any spiritual authority over men is clearly not a biblically solid viewpoint.

So these women being mentioned can be confusing. They seem to appear at times when Israel was not following God is a female judge or prophet. Mentioned in scripture only there to show how far Israel had fallen or is there another explanation?

There are a few examples, but I had recently read about Judah's King Josiah Who sought godly counsel from Huldah and second Kings 22 Verses 14 through 20. We do have a follow-up question, but let's start there the.

Prophetesses in Times of National Decline

Person asking the question is obviously Aware of he's obviously aware of some of the context in which we find these stories. We could think about Deborah as a judge in in Israel and The leaders of the tribes in Israel who were under assault coming to Talk with her about what they ought to do about this that and the other obviously at this time in the book of Judges there was a very severe lack of Fidelity to the Lord and leadership God had given the marching orders early in the book of Judges about what they were supposed to be doing and even though the Enemies were strong.

They were to work together and still depend upon the Lord for the victory. But as you progress through the book of Judges, we see more and more Faithlessness laziness. They don't they don't finish the job and in fact in the story of Deborah and Barak who actually led the army there is a constant mockery of The men in the text who end up doing all the wrong things and There is a moment where the great enemy of the people of God is has his head Smashed in by a woman and then you get echoes of Genesis 315 Coming through and that's not the only place in the book of Judges where that happens.

And as we look at 2nd Kings 22 we have the story about Huldah and We read in verse 14 of 2nd Kings 22, so Hilkiah the priest Haikim.

Akhbor.

Shafan and Assaya went to Huldah the prophetess the wife of Shalom the son of Tikvah The son of Huchas keeper of the wardrobe. She dwelt in Jerusalem in the second quarter and they spoke with her. Then she said to them thus says the Lord God of Israel tell the man who sent you to me thus says the Lord Behold, I will bring calamity on this place and on its inhabitants all the words of the book Which the king of Judah has read?

Because they have forsaken me and burn incense to other gods that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands. Therefore my wrath shall be aroused against this place and shall not be quenched.

But as for the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of the Lord in this manner You shall speak to him thus says the Lord God of Israel concerning the words Which you have heard because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard where I spoke against this place.

And against its inhabitants that they would become a desolation and a curse and you tore your clothes and wept before me. I also have heard you says the Lord Surely therefore I will gather you to your father's and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace and your eyes shall not see All the calamity which I will bring on this place.

So they brought back word to the king. So in this story, we are hearing how much judgment is pending upon Judah upon Jerusalem upon the people of Judah and the reason why is because although Josiah was it was a good King and indeed his heart was tender lying in the backdrop of Josiah is this evil 52 year reign of Manasseh.

Oh, yeah, and Manasseh Was one of the most evil Kings to have ever lived in The history of God's people in the Old Testament it was said that he filled Jerusalem with the blood of the innocent from one gate to the other and Even though Josiah was a good King God said I Will not bring the judgment that is due to Manasseh's evil upon Josiah's time I will bring it on those who come after him because in the Old Covenant as we read in the Ten Commandments God will bring judgment to the fourth generation for the sins of their ancestors so the question Brings up the context of when we see prophetesses.

Often when there is no prophet Why was Deborah the judge because no man was willing to do what God said to do. So God raises up the female judge. Also here we have a prophetess. Well, we're all the prophets.

Well, they the things have gotten so bad under Manasseh. They didn't even know where the book of the law was. They found it by Air quotes accident as they were trying to repair the temple because the temple was in such bad shape.

That's how bad things were in Israel at this time. I think it's a fair assessment that the norm the way it's supposed to work in The Word of God in in the life of Israel the way that was supposed to work.

Was that they would have prophets who would speak God's Word and say what was true? But in the absence of that God will raise up a prophetess to do what others were unwilling to do.

The questioner is obviously drawing from the idea that things had gotten this bad in Israel.

Correct. And you see something similar when you when you read in the in the days of the judges when everybody every man was doing what was Right in his own eyes things get so dark So twisted so strange in in the disaster of the people of God that you see all sorts of things Happening that are not to be imitated not Normative but is an expression of how bad things were getting right exactly for example, for example Samson is an example for no one.

Right. Oh, yeah, you know the same question that we would have about finding a female prophetess. We should have about.

Samson.

Like that was. You know, there's a pretty bad Nazarite.

The Famine of the Word Between the Testaments

Yeah, exactly. So in in that sense, we also find a a prophetess in Luke chapter 2. When we conclude in our Old Testament's we read in in Malachi the last word is curse and it's a good reminder that there were hundreds of years in which God sent no word and This was actually a promise of his concerning judgment that there would be a famine in the land.

But not of bread a famine of God's Word and the famine things were really really bad. We called it the intertestamental period but it was it was centuries of no new word from God.

The weak.

Limp-wristed worship of the people of Israel that we read about in Malachi continued on Until the time of Jesus when we see a lot of fakery a lot of and we call it Pharisee ism now but in Luke We begin to read that for the first time God begins to speak to his people and he does it the beginning through a a sterile old man a priest and He speaks through him by making him mute.

But I get that got everybody's attention and he had to write on a clay tablet simply to say the name of his son John, you know, and then we see when Jesus was born He is brought to the temple and there is a man who has been waiting for the constellation of Israel Simeon and here is Anna a prophetess.

Right a widow for a long time a widow for a very long time and we think about the old man's Prayers being answered and we think about the widow finding Great joy in the arrival of the Messiah and we rejoice in the grace of God on display here.

But we also recognize that in once again, we have we're in a situation In the Old Covenant because the New Covenant has not yet come and Christ is not he has not brought about the New Covenant in his blood so we're still looking at Old Covenant situation here and things are not good and When Jesus grows up and he inspects that temple Where Anna was at when he inspects that temple where Simeon was at He doesn't find a whole lot of worthwhile things going on in there.

No. So we see that that these prophetesses tend to show up during times that are not.

Optimal. The tenders of the vineyard were not giving the fruits.

Yes now in that there is nothing in the Bible that would indicate That a woman should should not tell the truth or say what God says or agree with him about What he says in his word and to be clear about that when communicating with others There's nothing in the Bible that says that ought not to happen.

But then Observing the fact that there were prophetesses.

Brings up another question, right? It sure does. Um, so a following question was. Well, what about female pastors then. We have clear parallels with female prophetesses. What about female pastors? Is that a another situation where things have gotten bad or is this just a clear prohibition?

Church Order and Male Eldership in the New Covenant

So that's the thing when we look in when we look in the Old Testament. We look in the Old Covenant. We see that there is an essential pattern. There is is a clear structure in The Old Covenant laws, it's explicitly says that men are not to put on women's clothing and women ought not to wear men's equipment.

It was not simply a prohibition against cross-dressing. It was also a prohibition against women taking on the jobs of men and men doing.

And pretending to be women the things that pertain to each. Yes, exactly.

And it's very specific because it in the passage in Leviticus where it talks about it. There is a prohibition against men wearing the the simla the the robe worn or the clothes were worn by a woman. But when it comes down to the woman, it says she's not to bear the equipment of a man.

So she's not supposed to be doing the things that the man was called to. There is a proper order there. Apparently God knew that People with a pagan mindset would begin to treat men and women as fungible and that they could be exchanged easily.

To the point where nobody would know what a man is or a woman is anymore. So you have some clear? Prohibition some clear directions and guidances in the Old Covenant, but as far as there being any particular Mandate saying a woman shall not be called a prophetess, right?

That's not there like you go to Deuteronomy 18 where it deals with false prophets and you don't have it. I mean if you're gonna find it, it would be there. Sure, right, but it's not there. So if we're going to talk about that and then compare it with Compare it with the instructions about the church in the New Covenant.

We've got to understand we're moving from the Old Covenant to the new and then we have very explicit instructions Concerning the church in the New Covenant. So after clarifying that there's a difference between men and women and sick first Timothy 2 verses 8 through 15 and Saying in verse 12, I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man but to be in silence.

Reason given is not Paul's preference or comfort level or that he's just a mean person. He says for Adam was formed first than Eve and Adam was not deceived with a woman being to see you fell into transgression so he points back to Genesis 1 2 and 3 as the reason why.

So there is a a very deep reason for this this goes all the way back to the beginning right and back to where God Actually defines for us. What is a man? And what is a woman again when those definitions are tossed aside because we think we know better than God well, we actually Recapitulate the sin of Adam and Eve and eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil determining categories for ourselves.

But if we trust God's categories. Then we hear what he has to say in first Timothy 2 and first Timothy 3. When he says this is a faithful saying if a man desires the position of a bishop He desires a good work a bishop must then be blameless the husband of one wife.

Temperate sober minded of good behavior hospitable able to teach not given to wine not violent not greedy for money. But gentle not quarrelsome not covetous one who rules his own house. Having his his children in submission with all reverence.

For if a man does not know how to rule his own house. How will he take up the care of the Church of God not a novice lest being puffed up with pride? He fall into the same condemnation as the devil. Moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside lest he fall into reproach in the snare of the devil now.

You can't read that text for what it says and then come away and say. Women can be overseers slash elders slash Pastors as well, right? It is bound to the masculine gender is bound to the definition of what who is a man's.

Man's roles as a husband and as the ruler of his household and over his children, right? So you can't read this text and say well, you have to really give a woman a chance to rule her own household. Before.

You know and yeah, that's a logical leap that just doesn't stand it doesn't it doesn't stand so just from the basic qualifications. They're given the background of what he says in chapter 2 and we read chapter 3.

You can't come away from that and say well you can have women pastors furthermore when we look in 1st Corinthians chapter 14 we receive instructions about proper order in church meetings. Okay, and there are a lot of different instructions.

But all of them are about being orderly all of them are about reminding us that God is not a god of chaos. He's a god of order. Just just look at how he's made his creation and For example in verse 33 1st Corinthians 14 it says for God is not the author of confusion but of peace as in all the churches of the Saints and.

So he says verse 34 let your women keep silent in the churches for they are not permitted to speak. That doesn't mean they're not allowed to conversate. It doesn't mean that they're not allowed to to read scripture or to Speak to their children as if you know, they have to wear a muzzle in the churches.

Yeah, you can't pray. Because the context says this but they are to be submissive as the the law also Says as an example, he's using his example there and if they want to learn something. Let them ask their own husbands at home for it is shameful for women to speak in church.

In other words to to stand up and then to give the message as he's already been talking about Prophecy and if they're speaking in tongues there has to be an interpreter and everything has to be orderly.

And so he's saying the women are not to be involved in that prophesying activity in the churches. Okay, he says it's shameful for women to speak in church. So you see how he's being very specific in that regard and then if anybody is concerned about hmm.

That sounds like that's being very restrictive and I don't like that idea. Paul says in verse 36 or did the Word of God come originally from you or Was it you only that it reached if anyone thinks himself to be prophet or spiritual?

Let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. But if anyone's ignorant, let it be ignorant.

He says.

So that doesn't match my opinion about what it should should mean. So therefore we're gonna overturn this. Yes, right. Like so this isn't a matter of opinion. It's the word right now.

This is a very very specific now. There is there's language about how lives would be just submissive to their husbands and everything in regards to the order of the church. Paul says I do not permit a woman to have authority or to Preach or to have authority over a man.

And as he speaks in regards to the church He also says here in first Corinthians 14. But then you know, they're not to be part of that prophesying ministry in the church. Okay, so he said he said he said all of that including when he's talking about speaking in tongues and interpreters.

That would qualify there as well. Which again when you read, you know, Paul and Luke, you know. They're best buds when you read about what Luke says about tongues. Well Paul says about tongues. It's clearly known languages.

Not yet learned but the Spirit giving you utterance and then somebody else giving the interpretations that all are edified. And when you look at all of that does this forbid a woman from Proclaiming God's truth in a very vocal way.

Outside the context of the church. I didn't read anything about that. I didn't find it. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't find it.

I say this because I don't know who she is. I don't know her heart. Okay, but every once in a while, there's a woman on a street corner not too far from Where I live and as I drive past she's got her amplifier out and she's at this very busy intersection.

She's on the sidewalk and Cars will be stopped at this traffic light for you know a good three four minutes and I rolled down my window one time and I started listening and She was preaching. She was proclaiming she was quoting scripture and she was saying that that that Humanity that men are wicked and evil that they are sinful in the sight of God and there isn't a single thing that you could Ever do to save yourself.

That you need forgiveness and you need a Savior and that and Savior's name is Jesus Christ. I need you to turn to him and repent of your sins and believe in the name of Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.

She was saying the same thing the word says yeah, and.

She's not in inside of a church. She's just out there. And when I'm looking at that, I'm thinking to myself. Okay. What do I think about that? According to the word preach on sister, right? Is she an authority over a man inside of a church?

No, I don't see that. Would the Bible use the language of prophetess about her? Possibly especially when you read in Acts that there was a a man who had four daughters who were prophetesses Who blessed Paul and spoke with him and they had a good time of fellowship.

How am I supposed to interpret that in light of text like this in first Corinthians 14 like text in first Timothy?

How am I supposed to reconcile the two. For surely Paul didn't let them have authority over him. There you go.

So there's that there's the fact that these daughters are not gonna be telling their dad what to do. Right that's gonna fit with I don't have to interpret that text in a way that contradicts other passages of scriptures.

What I'm saying. Oh, yeah, so I think that we have to be. We have to be careful that we don't take up the Old Covenant case laws without proper understanding or the Old Covenant Experiences without proper understanding and then apply them over The New Covenant instructions to the church and then we do read the New Covenant instructions in the church.

That we do not Misapply them in a way like a Pharisees do fence the law and to make things more restrictive exactly what the word actually says.

What the Church Is and Where It Gathers

So along those lines you use the word the church. Will you please define that?

Right. So when we think about the church, we first see the word used in the book of Acts. In chapter 5 of the book of Acts verse 11 prior to that Jesus uses the expression the church and He says that he's the one who builds his church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it and he builds it upon the confession of who he is as the Christ the Son of the Living God.

And As we read in the book of Acts as those sometimes are called the multitude of the disciples Sometimes they're called the multitude of the believers, but time and again we see that they are the ones who have.

Warmly.

Received the gospel of Jesus Christ believing on his name having repented of their sins. These are the ones who have been blessed by the Holy Spirit. They have been born again, and they are acknowledged as belonging to the Lord through The ordinance of baptism and so they are baptized in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit so they're clearly being identified as a separate group of people and They begin to be called the church.

So they are a set-apart Group of people who belong to Christ by salvation identified by the gifts of the Spirit by the power of the Holy Spirit identified by baptism in a physical way being set aside and wherever we find the preaching of God's Word and the observance of baptism in the Lord's Supper where you had the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ and Baptism in the Lord's Supper being rightly observed.

You see this local Group of believers in Christ you find the church. There's the sense in which Christ is the head of the church as the head of the body. That all who believe in him are a part of him.

There's the church in the grand scope and the grand sense. Where Christ is the Shepherd and all who are with in his flock or his sheep would be considered the church, right? We have the sense of that church being the Bride of Christ and we know that Not all who will belong to Christ belong to him yet in in the sense of they've not all been born yet.

They've not all been redeemed yet in terms of their being born again. They've been bought and paid for on the cross, but they have not been born again yet. They have not yet. You're talking about temporal difference temporal difference is right.

So there's the big sense in them with the church is and then there's a local expression of that. But there's the church in Smyrna. There's the church in Laodicea. There's the church in Philippi. There's the church in Ephesus, right?

So there's local expressions of the church.

So if I were to say as in all the churches of the Saints, yes like the text or in the churches. This is not Restricted to buildings. No, you have been talking about the biblical definition being the people.

Yes, very much. So and when we have some of the metaphors about the church, it's called his household or his temple. So there's a kind of building metaphor that is used about the church, but at this time churches met in homes.

Right, they would meet in somebody's home and it wasn't till. Sometime around the third century archaeologists have found that some of these homes have began to be modified so that they have like Baptismals in them where people could be immersed easily and you begin to have, you know actual thought about making you know buildings into.

Specifically good places to meet together. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and so people today will point to a building and call it a church. Right. I think that sometimes the old affectation the church house Works better.

Yeah.

So I'm trying to leverage this difference between What we see here in the text and your example that you included about this lady on the side of the street. This is referring to the gathering of the believers, correct?

You're discussing the byways and highways.

Outside of the congregation. Yeah, it's clear when the church house the building. There's not the church and the people who belong to that local church. They intend to gather there and and indeed they would be considered the church, but are you in church unless you gather?

Exactly, right. When you gather together as an assembly, that's the context of 1st Corinthians 14 what goes on when you gather. And I think we've thought long and hard about this especially in the in the light of the the tyranny that we experienced in 2020 and following where the people of God were forbidden to gather and we knew that.

Even though we try to use live stream and we try to use, you know, all sorts of things. That we weren't gathering and it wasn't church. It's completely different. And so if we are not gathering together, we can't say that we are in church.

Right, you know, and so there's I think that's going to be the distinguishing difference.

Thankfulness for Controversies and Family Support

All right. Thank you for addressing that with the word Michael. What are you thankful for? I'm thankful for.

Controversies because there always seems to be another controversy about every other week and whatever it may be, you know, and Those are always weighing on my mind and Goading me to study to get into the script.

Hey, man. Hey, man.

Yeah, I don't want to interrupt you. Feel the same way so many times things are yeah as you described them controversies. It is just another time that I I feel we talked about assurance on a different one.

I feel this desire to see. Well, you know, what does the master really say about this. Is my belief about this topic incorrect. I want to be conformed to his image. I want to grow up into him. Let's see what he has to say.

It's a beautiful thing to be refreshed by that.

It's a kind of education that it's a burden and you want to handle it. Well. You don't want to be resentful about it, but you might I don't want to study this subject. Well, maybe I need to maybe I need to be more informed about God's Word about this particular subject matter and so and then in thinking about the way in which people who are involved in the controversy how they are.

Responding to one another and treating one another is always a constant reminder about how we are to in Christ Respond to each other when there is a difficulty when there is a problem, but it's just a constant education and I'm thankful for it.

Man, I'm thankful to God for my beautiful wife. I am currently doing undergraduate education at a university here in Oklahoma and her Providing for My physical needs as well as caring for the children in ways that allows me to do my school studies in a manner That honors Christ by giving it my best.

I thank God for her for those things I don't she is truly my one flesh and I don't know where I would be without her that Christ has given her to me. I can be thankful to him for such a wonderful gift.

And that wraps it up for today we are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and Objections with having not read.