I Fear God More than Man

Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. ACTS 5:29

The hardest opposition Julia Foote met came from her own minister and her own church. The story of her expulsion is told with a lawyer’s care, and it raises a hard question: what do you do when the church tells you to stop doing what you believe God has told you to do?

What happened

Many in her Boston congregation wanted to hear her preach in the hall where they met. Two of the trustees persuaded some of the older women to ask the minister, Jehiel Beman, to allow it. His reply, as they reported it, was: “No; she can’t preach her holiness stuff here.” When a brother opened his house to her, the minister sent a committee to warn him that he would be excommunicated if he allowed it again. Julia, who happened to be present, told them that her business was with the Lord, and that wherever she found a door opened she intended to go in and work for her Master.

When she began to hold meetings in her own house, the minister told the members that he would deal with any who attended. He sent a committee to ask whether she still considered herself a member of his church; she said she did, until she had done something worthy of losing her membership. Then he summoned her to meet him. He asked whether she was willing to comply with the rules of the discipline. Her answer is the title of this chapter: “Not if the discipline prohibits me from doing what God has bidden me to do; I fear God more than man.” The next evening she was told she was no longer a member.

Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. ACTS 4:19–20

How she answered it

What is impressive is not only her courage but her restraint. She did not start a rival church, and when people asked what had happened, she did not say much. She heard that the minister was telling people she had demanded his pulpit and set her meetings against his, and she states plainly that this was false: she had told him that any corner of the hall would do. But she made her complaint in the proper way, by a letter to the Conference, delivered in person. She said her only offence was trying to preach the gospel of Christ, and that she cherished no ill feelings toward Mr Beman or anyone else. She asked only for an impartial hearing and a written statement of their judgement.

She did not get it. The letter was slightingly noticed and thrown under the table. “It was only the grievance of a woman,” she wrote, “and there was no justice meted out to women in those days.”

They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. JOHN 16:2

Every man’s hand

She did not pretend it was easy. It is no little thing, she wrote, “to feel that every man’s hand is against us.” Yet in that trial she had constant access to God and a clear sense that He heard her. She learned two things, and they belong together. First, that the best men are liable to err, and that the only safe way was to fall on Christ, whatever censure followed. Second, that her own judgement was fallible too. Writing about these years, she said that every step she had taken had been for the glory of God and the good of souls, and then added at once: “However much I may have erred in judgment, it has been the fault of my head and not of my heart.”

Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. HEBREWS 13:13

That second sentence matters as much as the first. A Christian who says “I fear God more than man” and never admits she might be wrong is a danger to herself and to the church. Julia Foote held her conviction firmly and her judgement humbly. She appealed to the Conference and wanted its verdict; she claimed only that no church may forbid what God commands.

Weapons not carnal

The same spirit marked her later conflicts. In Geneva, New York, a Baptist minister refused to let her preach in a union church, and some of her supporters talked of having the building for her if they had to shed blood. He came to ask whether she wanted a fight of that kind. She told him that the weapons with which she fought were not carnal. When he said he would sit in the pulpit and not leave it though they broke his head, she replied that God could take him from the pulpit without breaking his head. That evening the church was in uproar, and she saw at once that God could not be glorified in such confusion, so she simply withdrew and preached in a private house the next night.

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds. 2 CORINTHIANS 10:4

Opposition sometimes melted. Even her own mother, when Julia came home after six years away, greeted her with the words that she had once said she would rather hear her daughter was dead than a preacher, and then, weeping, told her it was all past now, because she had heard what the Lord had done.

Weighing her stand

A reader should not turn this chapter into a charter for every Christian who is crossed by a pastor. Most church conflicts are not about a clear divine command. The New Testament calls believers to submit to those who watch over their souls, and a wise Christian will suspect her own motives first. Julia Foote’s case was different in kind: she was being forbidden to preach the gospel at all, anywhere in the city, by a minister who, on her account, would not discuss the Scriptures with her.

But for those rare cases, she shows the way. Be sure from Scripture. Keep your character clean. Use the proper channels. Say little in public. Refuse the carnal weapon. Admit that you may err in judgement. Bear no ill will. And then, if the door is still shut, go through the next one God opens, and leave your vindication with Him. She waited nearly fifty years for hers.

Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. 1 PETER 2:23

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Is there anything God has plainly commanded in Scripture that you have stopped doing because others disapproved? Name it, and resume it.

2. Before you appeal to conscience against those over you, ask honestly whether this is a clear command of God or your own preference. Write down the Scripture.

3. If you have been wronged by a church, have you kept your complaint to the proper people? Resolve to say less in public and more in prayer.

4. Name a conflict in which you have been tempted to use carnal weapons — manipulation, gossip, force. Lay them down today.

5. Say her sentence about yourself and mean it: however much I may have erred in judgement, let it be the fault of my head and not of my heart. Ask God to show you where you have erred.

A PRAYER

Lord, You were cast out by the religious leaders of Your day, and You did not revile them. Teach me Your way.

Give me the courage to obey You rather than men when You have plainly spoken, and the humility to suspect myself when You have not.

Where I have been shut out, keep me from bitterness. Where I have shut others out, show me and forgive me.

I commit my cause to You, who judge righteously. Amen.