Let Your Men Keep Silence

“And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” — Acts 2:17 (ESV)

Amanda’s travels took her all the way to India, where she preached in packed churches and saw people come to faith. But not everyone welcomed her. In one city a group of Christians was deeply offended that a woman was preaching. They quoted Paul — “Let your women keep silence in the churches” — at her constantly. They wrote articles against her in the newspapers. They sent her letters loaded with Bible verses telling her to stop, even pointing out passages they wanted her to preach on instead.

Amanda had a rule about this kind of thing: “I never argue with anybody — just say my say and go on.” But one night she decided to take the subject head-on. The church was packed. She stood up, read out her text, and quoted — accurately, chapter and verse — a line from the very same passage her critics loved: “Let your men keep silence in the church.” She was making a sharp point. That instruction in First Corinthians was Paul telling a chaotic congregation that if there was no one to interpret what was being said, the speaker — man or woman — should be quiet so the meeting would not dissolve into confusion. It was about order, not about permanently silencing half the church. After that meeting, she noted, the newspaper articles stopped and the letters stopped, and she went on with her work.

Now, you can find Christians today who still disagree about exactly what women should and should not do in church, and that is a real conversation. But notice Amanda’s actual example, which is bigger than that one debate. Faced with people using Scripture as a weapon against her, she did not get loud, did not get bitter, and did not quit. She went back to the text itself, in context, calmly, and let it answer for her. She out-studied her critics instead of out-shouting them.

Earlier on that same long journey, in Paris, Amanda had watched a potter shape clay on a wheel. She saw how the potter had total control — he could turn one lump into a cup, then a pitcher, then a bowl, whatever he willed, and the clay never argued back. And she noticed the beautiful colors only came out after the pieces went through the furnace. Watching it, she prayed to be like that clay in God’s hands — even when the furnace came, to submit and “not dictate.” Those two pictures belong together. The furnace was the opposition, the prejudice, the constant fight to be allowed to do what God had called her to do. She did not demand a life without the furnace. She trusted the potter who was using it to make something.

Here is what to carry away. People will sometimes come at you with rules, verses, or “facts” bent into weapons — to shut you up, keep you down, or knock you off something you are supposed to be doing. The childish responses are to melt down or to fire back with more heat. Amanda models a third way: know your material better than they know theirs, stay calm, and keep going. And underneath that calm was the potter’s-clay trust — she was not fighting to control her own reputation; she had handed that to God and was free to just do the work.

One thing to do: the next time someone uses a “rule” or a twisted fact to shut you down on something you are sure is right, do not argue back louder — go learn the thing cold. Read the actual source, get the context, know it better than they do. Then say your say, calmly, and go on.