God's High Calling for Women, Part 2

Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Many people believe that the Bible teaches that women are inferior to men, that God's Word promotes the subjugation of every wife, mother, and daughter. One pioneer in the feminist movement went so far as to say the Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation.

But if you were actually to dig into God's Word, could you come away with that view? The bottom line, does Scripture teach that women are less valuable than men? John MacArthur gives you the biblical answer today as he continues his look at the unique and vital role that God has designed women to fill, in the home and in the Church. John calls this study, God's high calling for women.

And now here's John. Now remember, that as Paul writes this epistle to Timothy, the instruction that is given here is for Timothy to give to the Church that he is presently involved with. That is the Church in the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor, which would be modern Turkey today. Ephesus had been a great Church, but had fallen into doctrinal error and ungodly living. Paul then has left Timothy in that city to give to the Church.

Paul then has left Timothy in that city to work with that Church to straighten things out. Among the problems in the Church at Ephesus was a problem related to the women. There was heresy in general, there was immorality and impurity in general, and it affected both men and women.

But one thing in particular had become a problem there. That was, there were certain women in the Church who were usurping the authoritative roles of men and desiring to be the official people. The teachers of the Church. There were other women who were coming to worship in an improper way.

They were improperly dressed for worship, they had an improper heart attitude for worship, and they were denying with their behavior the very profession of their lips to know and worship God. And so verses 9 to 15 then corrects this matter of the women in the Church and how they are to function and serve there. When we say that a woman has a different role in society and in the Church than a man, we are not in any sense diminishing her spirituality. There are many roles in society. There are many functions in society. And one great distinguishing line in all those functions is that between man and woman.

Anybody with any mentality at all knows that. I mean, you can talk about equality till there's no more people left to talk to. And you can do all you can to bring about that equality, but no man is ever going to produce and bear and give birth to a baby. Obviously, to the most limited intellect, men and women have a different role.

I mean, how plain can something be? But to say they have a different role does not depreciate them and does not diminish their spirituality in any sense. But think about role for a minute in the Old Testament.

And let's talk about that aspect of it. There are no women kings listed in the kings of Israel and there are no women kings listed in the kings of Judah. There are none.

It would seem to me that that is a fairly significant statement about leadership. There are none. There are no women priests in the entire Old Testament. None. There are no women who wrote a book or a portion of a book in the Old Testament.

None. Thirty-nine books. No one of them or even a portion of one of them was written by a woman. Though two are named after women, Ruth and Esther, they were not written by women. There is no woman in the entire Old Testament who had an ongoing prophetic ministry.

That fascinates me as well. There is no woman who had an ongoing prophetic ministry who winds up in the minor prophets or the major prophets or who stands alongside Elijah, Elisha, or any other great teacher or leader of the Old Testament with an ongoing ministry. Now people today who want to advocate women preachers will say, but there are several women mentioned as prophetess in the Old Testament.

That is correct. There are five and I'd like you to listen carefully as I describe those five to you. The first woman listed as a prophetess is Miriam. Miriam is called a prophetess in Exodus 1520. Miriam is the sister of Moses. She is called a prophetess because, and only because, she on one occasion led the women of Israel in a great hymn of praise with timbrel and dance wherein God gave them to her.

A very brief one. But at that time, she was a mouthpiece for God. God chose to speak to those women at that time of praise through her. We know of no other occasion where she ever acted in the prophetic office and had no ongoing prophetic ministry. The word prophet or prophetess or to prophesy means to speak forth, obviously having reference to speaking forth the word of God on that occasion. And she did that, but shows no ongoing prophetic work. The second of the five women called prophetess is a woman named Deborah who appears as a unique instrument of God in Judges chapter 4 and verse 4.

She is there called a prophetess only because she was used by God to give a direct revelation from God to a man named Barak. She gave that direct revelation on that unique occasion in the battle that was going on. And thus at that moment, she was a prophetess. She was speaking on behalf of God. God used her at that time to speak that message to an individual. Miriam gave her prophecy to women and Deborah spoke her prophecy basically to a man. But again, we know of no other occasion wherever she engaged herself in any kind of ongoing prophetic work. The third woman mentioned and called prophetess is Huldah, H-U-L-D-A-H. She is mentioned in 2 Kings 22, 14 and following and 2 Chronicles 34, 22 and following parallel passages. She is called a prophetess only because she was given a revelation from God, as Deborah was, to be given to Hilkiah the priest about the coming judgment on Jerusalem and Judah. God spoke through her on that occasion.

We know of no other such occasion, none other is ever recorded about her. And we know of no ongoing prophetic ministry. The fourth woman called a prophetess is a woman named Noah-Diah and she is mentioned in Nehemiah 6, 14 and is called a false prophetess.

So we eliminate her. She was antagonistic against the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem and would have been an ally of Sanballat and Tobiah and the enemies that tried to keep the Jews from rebuilding their city. She was a false prophetess and there have been many women false prophetesses to be sure. The fifth one mentioned is the wife of Isaiah. And in Isaiah chapter 8 verse 3, his wife is called a prophetess only because she gave birth to a child whose name had prophetic meaning.

She never spoke a prophecy. She simply gave birth to a child whose name had prophetic meaning and she is called a prophetess only in that sense. Now you can see from that illustration of the wife of Isaiah that the word prophetess was used in a somewhat general way.

So you have five mentioned. One is a prophetess simply because she gave birth to a child whose name had a prophetic meaning. Another is a false prophetess and three are called prophetess because on one occasion they spoke a word on behalf of God. But there is, and I repeat again, no ongoing prophetic ministry of a woman in the Old Testament.

Now what does that tell us? Without women kings, without women priests, without women authors of Scripture, and without women prophets, we learn very much about God's design for the role of men and women. Please keep in mind this is not to speak depreciating in any way the woman's spiritual capability.

It is talking about her role and we'll fill that out as we go down through the rest of the passage. No woman in the Old Testament is seen in an ongoing role of leadership under the authority and the plan of God or in any public preaching teaching ministry. But women were used by God in many, many areas. Now we come to the New Testament. Listen to what I show you in the New Testament which parallels that. The same equality of blessing and privilege is in the New Testament.

The same thing is there. Let's go to Galatians chapter 3 and this is the passage that seems to be creating the controversy. In Galatians 3 verse 28, and this is where people who advocate women ordination and women elders and women preachers and all of that, this is where they like to go. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Now that's pretty simple.

And I don't have a problem with that and you don't and no one really should. All it's saying is that we're all one in Christ. In what sense? In what sense are we one in Christ? Well, you need to read the context to find out what he's talking about. So you go back a little bit and you find out that he's talking about salvation. You go back, for example, well you could go back to verse 13. Christ has redeemed us.

And he talks a little about redemption. You could go back to verse 22. The Scriptures concluded everybody under sin and then the promise by faith of Jesus Christ is given to them that believe.

And of course that's another way to look at salvation. We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are at the end of verse 24, justified by faith. That is we're made right with God through our faith. Verse 26, we're all the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus. We've all been baptized into Christ. We've put on Christ. So the equality and the oneness he speaks of, listen carefully, is that we are all one in the sense of salvation.

You see that? It has nothing to do with the role of a woman or a man. We're all one in Christ. The point is everyone can come to Christ. It doesn't matter if you're a Jew or a Gentile. It doesn't matter if you're a bond slave or a free man.

It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. You can all receive eternal life in Christ. Is that not the obvious intent of the passage? Of course, we're all sons of God. We're all the seed of Abraham. That is we're connected to Abraham who's sort of like the father of those who have faith. We're all heirs, chapter 4. Verse 6 of chapter 4, we're all sons. We all possess the Holy Spirit. The whole passage before and after is talking about the wonderful reality of salvation in Christ which is available to all people, Jew, Gentile, bond-free, male or female.

That's all it's talking about. It has nothing to do with the role of women in the church. And it certainly doesn't mean that when you become a Christian, all that's rubbed out. I mean, do we preach that when a Jew becomes a Christian, he ceases to be a Jew? Or if you're a slave, you become a Christian, you're no longer a slave? Or if you're a free man, you become a Christian, you're no longer a free man?

No. Whatever you are, you are. You're a Christian Jew or a Christian Gentile, you're a Christian free man or you're a Christian bond man, you're a Christian man or you're a Christian woman, you don't stop being a man or a woman.

No, those distinctions are obviously maintained. And so it's a ludicrous distortion of Scripture to try to take that passage and advocate through it that roles are equal when it's not even talking about roles, it's talking only about spiritual life available through the grace of God in Jesus Christ. There is no question that there is spiritual equality in the New Testament. All of the commands of the New Testament, all of the spiritual promises of the New Testament, all the blessings of the New Testament, all the accountability of the New Testament spiritually in terms of how we live and what God will do in response to it is enjoined upon men and women.

It is not isolated to men only, but to men and women. So we have all the same spiritual resources, all the same spiritual promises, all the same spiritual responsibilities. And I'm not even going to take time to go through all the New Testament and explain that to you.

Everything you read in here is for men and women. Never is that distinction sorted out in terms of spiritual responsibility or blessing or capacity. But, though there is equality again as in the Old Testament in the spiritual duties and spiritual blessings, there is still a difference in roles, in roles. For example, in the New Testament, there is no woman preacher, none. There is not a woman pastor-teacher, there is not a woman elder, there is not a woman evangelist, there is not a woman who wrote, and you have 27 books in the New Testament, any portion of the New Testament.

All 66 books are written by men, and the New Testament is consistent with God's plan for women as revealed in the Old. No woman is an evangelist. No woman is a preacher-teacher. No woman pastors a congregation. No woman takes the role of an elder. There is not recorded in the text of all the New Testament a sermon delivered by a woman or teaching given by a woman.

None. They are not prophets. They are not evangelists. And so women will come along and say, but what about the four daughters of Philip?

In Acts 21, 9, it says, And Philip had four daughters, virgins, who did prophesy. It does not say they were prophets. It does not say they were evangelists. It does not say they were missionaries. It does not say they were elders.

It does not say they were pastor-teachers. It said they prophesied sometime, someplace like Deborah or Miriam by God's design and God's holy purpose. They gave a word from God.

We don't know why or how. We don't know whether they spoke in unison like a quartet or whether they spoke independently of each other. We just know that there was a time and a place when God spoke through them. Listen, Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus herself, spoke prophetically when she received from the Word of God Himself the response, you remember, in the presence of Elizabeth and she poured out what has become known as her Magnificat, her glory to God. She gives an utterance that is divine inspiration. In that sense, Mary prophesied, spoke forth the word means, spoke forth the Word of God. And I'm sure there were many occasions when other women spoke forth the Word of God. In 1 Corinthians 11, 5, it even says, a woman who prays or prophesies should have her head covered. There were times and places for women to pray and to speak forth the Word of God. It says in Acts 2, 17 that in the latter times, quoting from Joel, women will prophesy. It says your daughters will prophesy. Your young men will dream dreams and your daughters will prophesy.

The word simply means speak forth. There are times and places when women speak the Word of God. I hope every woman in this church does that. But that is distinctly different than being identified as a pastor, teacher, elder, evangelist, apostle, there are no women apostles, there are no women disciples, there are no women pastors, evangelists, etc., etc.

That has to be noted. And no women wrote any part of New Testament scripture. They have different roles. Does that mean that they were inadequate spiritually? Not at all.

Not at all. We're going to get to it, women, but do you realize that men are, in most cases, the product of women? Not only physically, in that sense, they're all products of women.

But in terms of their character development, they are most strongly influenced by women. Timothy, who learned at the feet of his mother and grandmother, is a product himself of a woman who learned the Word of God and who spoke it forth. But that is very much different than taking the role intended for men in the church.

Now let me speak a little further about the equality of sexes so that you're not misled by this. In no sense is a woman second class in the New Testament. For example, Jesus first led a woman to the knowledge of himself in John 4. The first person he ever exposed his Messiahship to was a woman.

Not just a woman, but a wicked woman who had a whole handful of husbands and was living in adultery. It was to that woman of Samaria, he met at the well in Sychar, that he brought the wonderful truth of who he was, and I believe brought her salvation. In Luke 13 and Mark 5, Jesus healed women. He had just as much compassion on them as he did on men.

He was just as concerned to heal them as he was men. Jesus taught women. Luke 10, 38 to 42 shows him in that role of teaching women.

He was ministered to personally. It says in Luke 8 verse 3 that a whole group of women surrounded him and offered him their care and their support and sustenance. I don't know what their ministry was. Maybe they provided food and lodging and perhaps repaired clothes and perhaps came alongside to pray. But the traveling band of disciples would be Jesus, the disciples, and a whole group of women. But at no time did those women preach or teach.

They had a role there, but that role was distinct from the role of Christ in the Twelve. When a sinful woman was dragged before Jesus, he defended that sinful woman, forgave her sin, loved her, redeemed her, and then chastised the men who hypocritically condemned her without condemning themselves for the same sin. Jesus called women to the highest priority in life, and that was to obedience. He called women to be obedient. Luke 11, 28 is an illustration of that. When Jesus rose from the dead, to whom did he first appear? A man or a woman? First appeared to a woman. When Jesus called for women to be evangelized, he said, go into all the world.

Mark 16, 15 preached the gospel to every creature. That includes women. In 1 Peter 3, he said, yes, women are the weaker vessel. That's by the design of God.

Physically, they're weaker. Sure, men are to be their protector and they're to be their strength. But even as the weaker vessel, he said, you two are heirs together of the grace of life.

When it comes to inheriting grace from God, you inherit it together. The fruit of the spirit of Galatians 5 is for men and women. The blessings of obedience are for men and women. And when Paul chronologues in Romans 16, all the people who helped him in his ministry, the list is full of women. You see, beloved, women have a very, very important place in the economy of God and they are on equal level with the men in terms of spiritual life, but not role. Now that's why he says, and let's look at our text, let the women learn. They have to learn.

Why? How else can they speak it to their children? How else can they give counsel to others? How else can they be used to bring people to Christ? How else can they live obediently to the glory of God? How else can they be blessed?

How else can they be enriched? Let the women learn. This does not rub out the difference. The difference is the same. It's there.

God's designed it. And I want it to be clearly understood that when we say there's a difference between the role of a man and a woman, we are in no sense saying there's a difference in their spiritual capacity or their need to know the Word of God. So Paul says, let the women learn and we shall be committed wholeheartedly to that so that they can fulfill their role. Father, we can't express in words what a joy it is to be a part of a fellowship where there are godly men and godly women, to be a part of a church where the women have learned and lived the truth of Your Word, where they know the freedom of Christ, to be a part of a fellowship where there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free, male or female, to know that all of us together enjoy the blessings of spiritual life in Thee, where all of us enjoy the richness of the precious Word. I thank You, Lord, through the many years for the women who have learned, who have read the books and listened to the tapes and studied on their own, who have heard the teaching, and who as a result of that are serving effectively for You and their families and their areas of life and responsibility and even in the church. I thank You, Father, for that. I thank You for these godly women who understand both the high priority of spiritual equality and also the very clear definition of the role You've designed for them. Bless them, Lord, and honor them for that faithfulness.

I thank You also, Lord, that You've been so clear in Your Word that these things are so obvious to us as we look at Your holy book. Help us, Lord, to be a part of the solution, not the problem. Help us to clearly define the place of man and the place of woman so that each can come to the fullest satisfaction of living out the divine intention. And may we know that any perversion of that is a terrible tragedy as it alters Your plan, violates Your will, and brings great distress to people who otherwise would be fully satisfied in the place of Your design. Make us willing, Lord, to be what You want us to be and to rejoice in that privilege and to fulfill the role that You've given us in order that Your kingdom might go forward, that we might be blessed in Your name exalted.

Amen. You're listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. John's current study is titled, God's High Calling for Women. Well, if the email and notes we receive mean anything, it's clear that people definitely want to know what Scripture teaches about God's design for women. And with that in mind, a caller on our Q&A line had a question relating to the issues that we're looking at in this study. So let's hear that question now. And then, John, you can respond.

Hi, John, my name is Lisa. Question for you is what your view is on the Titus 2 woman. I'm really concerned and grieved by the amount of women returning to work after they raise their children. I just wanted to know if the Bible permits for a married woman to return to work after she's raised her children. I really believe that a woman should be a homemaker and she's called to serve her husband, but I just find it hard to believe that she's able to do that while maintaining a full-time job outside the home.

If you could answer my question, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you so much and God bless. No, thank you, Lisa. I think the fact that your children are gone only means that now you can serve others outside your family. You know, when widows were supported by the church, they were widows who had washed the saints' feet, widows who had cared for the poor and the needy, widows whose whole world had been the home. It doesn't mean you can't serve in the church. It doesn't mean you can't do something part-time, maybe to supplement the income or to provide resources for Christian ministry. Certainly there are lots of opportunities in the church life and with other believers where you can have a spiritual impact. But I think just automatically to say, okay, I'm an empty nester, I'm going to go back to a full-time job, I have a problem with that because you now abandon the home and it is still the center of your responsibility and you could start there and reach out to so many people in a ministry. And also you have, and this is a big issue, you have now put yourself under the authority and rule and presence of other men.

And I think this is an unprotected woman and it can be a very dangerous situation. I've encouraged women, if they want to do some part-time work after they're empty nesters, let it be involved in a ministry. Let it be something that they can do in the church or in a Christian ministry, some way that they can help. Some Christian mothers decide they're going to go and tutor kids in a Christian school in the afternoon or something like that. But again, just jumping in the corporate mix takes you out of the home and creates a completely different world where you're under the control of other men.

And I think that is a risky thing to do. The Lord would much rather have you do what you've been designed to do and from the home carry on a ministry that can reach far and wide. Thanks, Jon. And friend, if you, like Lisa, have a Bible-related question that you'd like to ask Jon, just give our Q&A line a call.

Leave a message with your question and you may hear Jon answer it on a future broadcast. Take advantage of our free online resources also when you contact us today. Just visit our website, gty.org. There you'll find sermons, daily devotionals, blog articles, resources to help meet your spiritual needs. That's our website one more time, gty.org. And again, if you have a question you'd like to ask Jon, the number for our Q&A line is 661-295-6228.

That's 661-295-6228. Now, Jon's current study, God's High Calling for Women, comes from 1 Timothy. And in addition to discussing the roles of men and women, 1 Timothy also looks at how to overcome temptation and why Jesus came to earth, and more. To help you dig deeper into all that 1 Timothy covers, keep in mind the commentary that Jon has written on that book. It gives an in-depth explanation of every verse in that practical epistle. It's a great resource for pastors and laymen alike. To order the 1 Timothy commentary or the entire MacArthur New Testament commentary series, call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. Now for Jon MacArthur and our entire staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace To You television Sundays on DirecTV channel 378, and then be back tomorrow for another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.