Women: Heralds of the good news
The Ephesians 4 Team looked through the Scriptures and saw women like Esther (a queen, Esther 2:17), Deborah (a prophet, Judges 4:4), Mary of Nazareth (Jesus’ mother, Luke 1:27), Pricilla (an early church leader, Acts 18:24-26), and Junia (another church leader, Romans 16:7). God commissions all of these women as co-laborers in gospel ministry. And they all have the gift of teaching.
Let’s consider two stories more closely …
Deborah
Deborah was a prophet during a wild time in Israel's history. Her tenure represents a brief season of renewal in an era of tragic decline (see Judges 5:7,31). Professor Christine Marchetti notes, “Women could be prophets because, unlike priests and kings who inherited their positions, prophets were appointed by God” (Women Prophets in the Old Testament). She's one of five known female prophets in Israel's history. Contrary to popular conception, a prophet isn't someone who tells the future. Instead, they speak to people on God’s behalf and to God on people’s behalf. Their role was to speak and teach God’s Word. In a pivotal conflict, Israel's general was scared and disobedient. So Deborah summons him and says, “Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you, ‘Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking 10,000 from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun" (Judge 4:6). In other words, she reminds him of God's Word and character. She teaches him and holds him accountable.
Priscilla
Similarly, Pricilla and her husband were gifted teachers in the early church. Their giftedness is displayed when a young preacher named Apollos comes to Ephesus, where the couple lives. In the book of Acts, Apollos “was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures” (Acts 18:24). However, Pricilla and her husband were concerned about something they heard. Something in the preacher's teaching needed to be more developed, accurate, or helpful. The specifics are unclear. Luke continues, He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately (Acts 18:26). Priscilla, a woman who is regularly listed before her husband in the Bible, corrected a male gospel teacher. The word Luke uses for explained means to put out of, or expound, or expose. It's where we get the idea for modern preaching––we exegete or expound God's Word. We want to put out of God's Word his truth, not put into it our ideas. That was Pricilla's gift.
Before and after Jesus’ resurrection ... before and after, the women at the tomb are told to go and tell ... women are commissioned by God with the gift of teaching, with the gift of heralding the good news of Jesus. Specifically, that gift is used to correct and enlighten godly men.
According to Ann Bowman, there are four primary purposes God gives gifts to people: to glorify God, to serve others, to edify the Church, and to “provide a foretaste of the more complete working of the Holy Spirit that believers will experience in the age to come” (Two Views on Women in Ministry, 274). Throughout history, when women are appropriately seen and heard, this is precisely what happens. This is the effect whenever women are commissioned to preach the good news. In Israel, through Deborah. In the early church, through Pricilla. On resurrection Sunday, through a group of women.
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*This is an excerpt adapted from the sermon “Women: Heralds of the Good News.”