Women in the Gospel

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. JOEL 2:28

Julia Foote did not set out to be a controversialist. She set out to obey. But once her minister had put her out of his church for preaching, and the Conference had thrown her letter under the table, she had to be sure of her ground. So she did what she always did. She went to the Bible. The chapter of her memoir called Women in the Gospel is only a few pages long, but it is one of the clearest short defences of women’s preaching written in nineteenth-century America, and it is worth reading slowly.

Pentecost

She began where the church began. On the day of Pentecost, she wrote, the Scripture in Joel was fulfilled; and it would not be denied that women as well as men were filled with the Holy Ghost that day, because Luke expressly says that women were among those who continued in prayer and supplication waiting for the promise.

These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. ACTS 1:14

From this she drew an argument that her opponents found very hard to answer. Some said that the gift of prophecy to women was a temporary thing, a short-lived and spasmodic impulse that had passed away. Very well, she replied: women and men are classed together in the promise, “and if the power to preach the Gospel is short-lived and spasmodic in the case of women, it must be equally so in that of men.” The same outpouring fell on both. Whatever has ceased for one has ceased for the other.

Credentials

Her second argument was aimed at a particular demand. She had been told that if a woman claimed a divine call to preach, she would be believed when she produced credentials from heaven, which meant when she worked a miracle. Her answer was dry. If a miracle is needed to prove one’s right to preach the gospel, she wrote, “I ask of my brethren to show me their credentials, or I can not believe in the propriety of their ministry.”

It is a fair point: a test no male minister is expected to pass cannot honestly be set for women alone.

The women Paul named

Then she went through the New Testament. There is neither male nor female in Christ Jesus. Philip had four daughters who prophesied. Paul called Priscilla as well as Aquila his helpers, a word she noted could be rendered fellow-labourer. Phebe is called a servant of the church, where the same word is translated minister when it is used of Tychicus. And when Paul asked his true yokefellow to help the women who laboured with him in the gospel, he certainly meant, she wrote with a flash of humour, “that they did more than to pour out tea.”

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. GALATIANS 3:28

I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea. ROMANS 16:1

Help those women which laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellowlabourers. PHILIPPIANS 4:3

Last, she pointed to the eleventh chapter of First Corinthians, where Paul gives directions to both men and women about how they should appear when they pray or prophesy in the assembly, and to Paul’s own definition of prophesying as speaking to edification, exhortation and comfort. If women might do that in the church, she reasoned, then Paul was not forbidding every woman’s voice.

But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort. 1 CORINTHIANS 14:3

Where she is strong, and where brief

A fair reader will see that her strongest arguments are her first ones. The promise of Joel, fulfilled at Pentecost on sons and daughters alike; the women prophets and fellow-workers of the New Testament; the plain fact that Paul regulated how women prayed and prophesied in public rather than forbidding it: these are serious arguments, and many careful students of Scripture have been persuaded by them.

She is briefer on the texts that trouble many Christians most. In her word to her Christian sisters she tells them not to be kept in bondage by those who say, “We suffer not a woman to teach,” quoting Paul’s words but not rightly applying them. She does not stop to show at length what the right application is.

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 1 TIMOTHY 2:12

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak. 1 CORINTHIANS 14:34

Christians who read those verses as a lasting limit on women’s public ministry are not simply prejudiced, and they deserve a fuller answer than she gave. Her equation of prophesying with preaching is also disputed. A reader who takes her side should do the work she did not have room for; a reader who does not should still reckon honestly with Joel, Pentecost, Philip’s daughters and the women who laboured with Paul. What cannot be done, on either side, is what her Boston minister did: refuse to discuss the Scriptures at all, and simply shut the door.

Courage for sisters

She did not write this chapter as an academic exercise. She wrote it for women who had been silenced. In Philadelphia she met three sisters who believed they were called to public work, but had been so opposed, mostly by ministers, that they had shrunk back. She organised meetings with them for eleven nights, and one of them left after a day or two for fear of being disowned by her church.

And yet she could write, looking back over thirty years, that things were better, that the lion and the lamb were lying down together compared with what had been. She lived to see the church that had excommunicated her ordain her deacon and elder. Her counsel to her sisters was simple: “How much easier to bear the reproach of men than to live at a distance from God.”

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Read Acts 1:12–2:21 in one sitting, and note every place where women are present or included.

2. Whatever your view of women preaching, write down honestly what you think 1 Corinthians 11:5 and 1 Timothy 2:12 each mean, and why. Test your reasons against the whole of Scripture.

3. Ask whether you have set tests for some Christians that you do not set for others. Put that double standard away.

4. If you are a woman who has been discouraged from using the gifts God has given you, bring it to God and to a wise Christian this week, and ask what faithfulness looks like for you.

5. If you are in a position to open or shut doors for others, ask whether you have ever refused to discuss the Scriptures and simply shut the door.

A PRAYER

Lord of the harvest, You poured out Your Spirit on sons and daughters, servants and handmaidens, at Pentecost.

Keep me from quenching the Spirit in anyone You have called. Where I have spoken carelessly or refused to listen, forgive me.

Give Your church wisdom to read Your Word rightly, humility to hear one another, and courage to obey.

And give me grace to bear the reproach of men rather than live at a distance from You. Amen.