Woman, Thou Art Restored
There is a widely recognized battle going
on in the Church; a battle which is mirrored internally and externally by women
across the globe. The question of just
how much and where women can serve in the Church is tearing individuals and
families apart. It is breaking hearts, crushing souls, and driving once strong Christian
women to take their own lives. [1]
The gifts of the Holy Spirit are given to all with the intention that they will
be put into action by serving others. [2]
When women are denied participation in ministering, in using the gifts that God
has imprinted on their souls due to a cultural agenda that silences them simply
because they were not born with the “correct” body parts, [3]
the imago Dei that God built into them is hidden in darkened rooms (Matthew
5:14-16). [4]
At first, that imprisoned light brightens the whole room, peeping out the
cracks in the doors and walls that have locked it in, but, eventually, due to
lack of fuel, the light loses its purpose and burns out. Jesus lifted women out
of darkened rooms. He trimmed their wicks, gave them fuel for their lamps, and
sent them out to brighten the darkened corners to which others have been
relegated. He stepped out of the expected social norms of the first century AD
to affirm the value of women and to offer them complete healing as members of
His body (Isaiah 53:4-6).
[1] Aimee Byrd, Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: How the Church Needs to Rediscover Her Purpose (Zondervan Reflective, 2020), 21; Stanley J. Grenz and Denise Muir Kjesbo, Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 14.
[2] Bernie A. Van De Walle, The Heart of the Gospel: A.B. Simpson, the Fourfold Gospel, and Late Nineteenth-Century Evangelical Theology (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2009), 85&90.
[3] Raymond C. Ortlund, Jr., “Male-Female and Male Headship: Genesis 1-3,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, ed. by John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991), 99.
[4] C. S. Cowles, A Woman’s Place? Leadership in the Church (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Pres, 1993), 63.