Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
- Herausgeber: IVP Academic
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist A Comprehensive Look at Women Who Built the Early Church Women were there. For centuries, discussions of early Christianity have focused on male leaders in the church. But there is ample evidence right in the New Testament that women were actively involved in ministry, at the frontier of the gospel mission, and as respected leaders. Nijay Gupta calls us to bring these women out of the shadows by shining light on their many inspiring contributions to the planting, growth, and health of the first Christian churches. He sets the context by exploring the lives of first-century women and addressing common misconceptions, then focuses on the women leaders of the early churches as revealed in Paul's writings. We discover the major roles of people such as: - Phoebe, Paul's trusted coworker - Prisca, strategic leader and expert teacher - Junia, courageous apostle - Nympha, representative of countless lesser-known figures When we understand the world in which Jesus and his followers lived and what the New Testament actually attests about women in the churches, it becomes clear that women were active participants and trusted leaders all along. They were welcomed by Paul and other apostles, were equipped and trained for ministry leadership, instructed others, traveled long distances, were imprisoned—and once in a while became heroes and giants. The New Testament writers tell their stories. It's time for the church to retell them, again and again.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 397
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
Ähnliche
Tell Her Story
How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church
To Amy
Contents
Foreword
Beth Allison Barr
Wind gusted through the streets of Salisbury that morning, rushing past in an audible swirl as the door closed behind me. An abrupt silence followed, ringing almost as loud as the wind. For the first time I stood inside the parish church of St. Thomas and St. Edmund. It was founded in the thirteenth century to provide the workers building Salisbury Cathedral a place to worship, but the current church dates mostly from the fifteenth century.
What I had come to see was one of the fifteenth-century additions: the “Doom” (Last Judgment) mural stretched high above the chancel arch. Sometime between 1470 and 1500 a local artist painted the resurrected Christ sitting on a double rainbow in judgment over the saved and the damned. Vibrant robes of red, blue, gold, and green drape the twelve disciples lined up at his feet; angels with trumpets and wings welcome the blessed into the streets of heaven; and scaly demons drag unrepentant sinners into the jaws of hell. The words Nulla est Redemptio (There is no escape for the wicked) made sure viewers understood their fate.
It is a stunning sight.
I don’t remember how long I stood there, just staring at the image. I finally looked away because I was short on time and there was more to see. Tucked away to the right of the Doom mural, three more late-fifteenth-century paintings grace the interior of the stone arches separating the nave from the Lady chapel. Although less well restored and much smaller than the depiction of the Final Judgment, they show scenes just as significant to medieval Christians: the annunciation by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, and the adoration of the Magi.
Again, I stood transfixed, looking mostly at the center image in which Mary—her visibly pregnant body juxtaposed with her long flowing hair, the symbol of her virginity—greeted her also visibly pregnant cousin. The faded colors of the image do not dull the women’s joy as they each touch the swollen belly of the other. Not only do they see the miracle God has wrought within their bodies, but the fifteenth-century artist who painted them made sure that all who visited the church would see that miracle too.
Except that, for more than two hundred years, no one did.
For more than two hundred years, no one knew these medieval paintings existed.
According to the official church guide, the walls were whitewashed during the Reformation—hiding the striking medieval Catholic scenes behind a drab coat of Protestant white. For generations worshipers came and went through this church, not much more than a stone’s throw from the soaring spire of Salisbury Cathedral. They listened to sermons, sang hymns, celebrated weddings, and buried their friends. Their eyes would have wandered across the wood beamed ceiling and stone walls around them. Yet, until 1819 when someone investigated the traces of color in the chancel arch above, no one who had been inside the church of St. Thomas after the sixteenth century had seen the medieval paintings that were (and had always been) right before their eyes.
As I read Nijay Gupta’s Tell Her Story, it struck me how much women in the early church are like these medieval paintings in St. Thomas. Just as Deborah was called by God to lead Israel and did so successfully, with wisdom and integrity, Jewish women served their synagogues in leadership roles, even as synagogue rulers. Should it surprise us, then, that women in the early church led in similar ways? From women disciples like Mary Magdalene and Joanna the wife of Chuza, who traveled with Jesus and learned from him, showing up, as Gupta writes, “when the men were nowhere to be found,” to ministry couples like Priscilla and Aquila in which the wife took the foremost role, to Lydia of Philippi who led a house church, diakonoi like Phoebe of Cenchreae, coworkers like Euodia and Syntyche, and even apostles like Junia imprisoned for her ministry work—women in the early church led with the approval and support of men around them.
Like the fifteenth-century painter who rounded Mary’s belly with his brush and lit her face with a smile as she welcomed her cousin, Nijay Gupta breathes historical life into the dry bones of these biblical women—showing us the vivid reality of their leadership. Just like the Doom painting soaring about the nave in St. Thomas, women led in the early church. The problem has never been their existence. The problem has only been our ability to see them.
This is the brilliance of Tell Her Story. It does not tell a new story; it just helps us see the story as it has always been. The modern restorations in the parish church of St. Thomas and St. Edmund did not paint the scene of the Last Judgment or the visitation between Mary and Elizabeth; the restorations only helped us see what the medieval artist had already done. In the same way, Tell Her Story helps us see biblical women as they have always been—faithful leaders called by God and recognized by the early church. What Nijay Gupta has done for us is simply, brilliantly, to remove the whitewash.
God has always seen women.
I’m so thankful for Nijay Gupta because, in Tell Her Story, he helps us see them too.
Acknowledgments
I have been thinking and teaching about the women leaders of the early church for over fifteen years, so this book has been a long time coming. Special thanks are owed to Anna Gissing, one of the finest editors in the business and also a good friend, and to Jon Boyd, who stepped in to see this book to completion with skill and enthusiasm. A number of colleagues generously offered resources, advice, and feedback along the way: Lynn Cohick, Katya Covrett, Beverly Gaventa, Kimberly Majeski, Scot McKnight, Marg Mowczko, Margaret Mitchell, Peter Oakes, and Cindy Westfall. I was able to test out some of my ideas in the fall of 2021 when I gave Anderson University’s Newell Lectures on women in the New Testament. Also in 2021 I taught a seminar on women and the New Testament at Northern Seminary, a memorable course full of rich and rewarding conversations with my students.
Introduction
Hidden Figures
In 2016, Margot Lee Shetterly’s book Hidden Figures made a big splash in nonfiction literature. Shetterly pushed into the public spotlight the lives of three Black women in the 1950s who made major achievements in mathematics and engineering in their work for NASA. We should have grown up knowing the names and accomplishments of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson—but we didn’t. We are more acquainted with the men who went into space, whom we remember in textbooks and for whom we build statues and monuments. But some of the great American space-flight achievements would not have been possible without these brilliant and brave women, eager to make scientific breakthroughs in spite of the sexism and racism they faced.
In the summer of 2020, NASA announced that its Washington, DC, headquarters would be renamed the Mary W. Jackson building in honor of its first African American female engineer. This is a reminder to me that we can all benefit from telling the stories of women who have done great things. The problem of unknown changemakers is not just a 1950s phenomenon, or 1850s, or 1750s. As I learned about these three Black women, I couldn’t help but wonder what leadership contributions made by ancient women have been “lost to history” and obscured by cultural dynamics and the myopia of our history tellers. More specifically related to Christian history, what do we really know about women leaders in the early church?
Most of us are familiar with a few names. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was clearly an important figure, not only in the life of Jesus as mother, disciple, and mentor of the Messiah, but also after Jesus’ ascension, when she was still centrally involved in the gospel mission (Acts 1:14).1 Prisca (a.k.a. Priscilla) is another notable figure; she was an artisan and businesswoman, and she and her husband, Aquila, were a traveling missionary couple who were frontline gospel-mission leaders. But were there others?
In the early years of my Christian faith, my knowledge of the contribution of early women leaders pretty much ended with these two women. I had the impression that ministry was a man’s job—after all, patriarchy ruled the day (more on that in chapter three). But historians like Shetterly have left me wondering, What stories have not been told, perhaps once known, but later lost and forgotten? I have come to learn over the past twenty years that the New Testament does testify to the roles and impact of many women, if only we pay attention. But I didn’t always think that way.
When I began reading the Bible as a teenager, I attended a church where men stood up front and led the church service, only men served as elders, and only men could preach the Word of God. In college, I participated in parachurch ministries that had male-only campus directors (in some cases as a policy). I took for granted that this is the way things should be in the church and that this reflects what is in the Bible—men are leaders, women are followers and supporters. At first, I didn’t really question any of this, because it was so deeply ingrained in the church and ministry cultures I was in at the time, and also because it could be reinforced by appealing to the fact that Jesus was a man, the disciples were all men, and the Bible said women couldn’t teach or have authority in the church (didn’t it?). So, for about the first decade of my Christian faith, I was content with the assumption that the church is for everyone to attend and participate in, but should be led by men, because that’s the way it has always been according to the Good Book. Then I went to seminary.
No, seminary didn’t turn me “liberal.” I learned the biblical languages (Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic), and I was trained and challenged to study the Bible and its world in depth, and it opened up a three-dimensional world, where I had experienced before only a two-dimensional one. Before, I had been unconsciously constructing a theology of gender (where men lead, women support) on the basis of a handful of biblical texts and a few observable patterns (male Israelite priests, male disciples), but the tools I acquired in seminary equipped me to look more comprehensively at the Bible in its time, culture, and environment. And I began to see the women that were there all along (just like the women of NASA in the twentieth century) but to whom I hadn’t paid much attention. These women leaders of the early church are more than just extras on the set of the gospel drama. They are often key characters. I was not taught their importance in my early years, but I know better now. And now more than ever, their presence and work deserve our attention, our thorough examination, and also our admiration.
This book, to be clear, is not an attempt at some form of revisionist history. Our goal is not to upend everything said or written before about the history of the early church. It is an exercise in amplification. For centuries, the church has focused its interest on the male leaders of the early church—as if women weren’t even there. In fact, some seem to think women weren’t there in the rooms where important things happened. But there is ample evidence inside and outside the New Testament that women were actively involved in ministry, at the frontier of the gospel mission, as respected leaders in the church, and even as primary leaders of household congregations. Does what I am saying sound unbelievable? Women leaders of the earliest Christian churches? That is precisely why a book like this is necessary.
Part of the problem is that we often bring to the New Testament what I call a “Little House on the Prairie” perspective on the world of Jesus and the apostles. When we think about “the ancient world,” we might imagine a place where mama and sister are sewing in the house while soup begins to boil in the pot. Father is out hunting, and brother is chopping wood. That image of the family might resemble rural life throughout time, but we need a more diverse, complex, and sophisticated imagination to conceive of life in the many-cultures world of the Roman Empire, which is the historical, social, political, religious, and cultural environment of the New Testament, and the home of the birth of the early Jesus communities. Patriarchy was the dominant cultural infrastructure of the Roman world, but that system did not mean that women were resigned to only “domesticated” duties, or that they never exercised leadership or power related to civic life, religion, or business.
Let’s briefly look at a case study: Romans 16:1-15 (we will discuss this passage in much more detail in chapter six). This is a greetings and commendation list from Paul to the churches in Rome. It’s the kind of thing we might just skip over when reading this weighty letter, like the closing credits of a movie. But this is precisely the kind of stuff that historians pay attention to. There is a gold mine of information embedded in these verses that tells us a lot about the lives of the early Christians.
There are, in total, twenty-six people mentioned in this list. (That may not seem like an interesting phenomenon, but think about it like this: Apart from the genealogies in Matthew and Luke, do you know of another long list of names in the New Testament?) The fact of Paul’s greeting implies that he knew these people, either in person or perhaps in some cases by reputation. His comments, titles, and descriptions are all positive, so he was honoring each of them publicly, praising them as model leaders. Ten of them are women. Ponder that for a moment: more than a third of Paul’s list was model Christian women, many of them recognized Roman leaders: Phoebe (vv. 1-2), Priscilla (v. 3), Mary (v. 6), Junia (v. 7), Tryphena and Tryphosa (v. 12), Persis (v. 12), the mother of Rufus (v. 13), Julia (v. 15), and the sister of Nereus (v. 15). This is nothing short of astounding. First, it is unusual in any piece of literature to have such a long list of commendations of women (most of whom are mentioned without reference to a husband). Second, none of Paul’s comments are focused on their domestic duties. The most common commendation Paul gives is for their “hard work” on behalf of the Lord. Paul doesn’t make explicit what this work is. But it is unlikely that he had in mind household work. Why? You have to ask yourself, How does Paul know these ten women? Keep in mind, he says to the Romans that he had not visited them before, so Paul did not meet the people he greeted in Rome. So where did he meet them? How exactly does he know so much about them? He could have met them anywhere they traveled for ministry, as he did with his friends Priscilla and Aquila, but travel many of them did and that tells us something about their independence and mobility. Some of these women of Romans 16 were apparently out and about doing ministry, participating in the gospel mission. Our goal in this book is to know them better and to create a more complete picture of the first-century beginnings of the people of Jesus. To achieve this goal we will listen to their stories, stories about their many inspiring contributions to the planting, growth, and health of the earliest Christian churches.
This is not a comprehensive handbook detailing the lives of all the women mentioned in the New Testament. Our discussion will be selective, focusing on the most important figures. Also, it will become clear that the writings of Paul are the main sources we will use for studying women leaders in the early churches. That is for two reasons: first, Paul is our earliest witness to early Christianity, having written his letters around the middle of the first century; second, Paul happens to mention numerous women by name and with some descriptions of their social status, location, social identity, and relationships. And that is extremely helpful in the historical task of reconstructing social history as best we can.
The book is broken up into two main parts plus a bonus section. In part one, I will offer the background to the main discussion of early Christian women leaders. It begins with Deborah (Judg 4–5) because of the important role she played in Israel’s history. Then we will go back to Genesis 1–3 to consider Scripture’s vision for man and woman, and how sin unraveled the harmony that God had created. The next chapter paints a picture of the Greco-Roman world of the first century, especially the lives of women. There are a lot of popular misconceptions about how women navigated a world of Roman patriarchy, and I think you might be surprised to learn about some of the accomplishments and positions of power associated with certain women in the Roman world. Getting some of this “scene setting” information clear as a first step is important for processing what women could and did do in those early Christian communities. That is not to say there were no legal, social, or cultural barriers for women. There were, and we will discuss that as well. But a major point of this book is to look not just at laws and generalities but at actual women who held positions of authority and power, whose faces were on coins, and who found ways to circumvent certain cultural rules and expectations. The final chapter of part one examines the women who were in the life and ministry of Jesus, according to the Gospels.
The second part of the book focuses on the women of the early churches. We will look at the many named women leaders that are discussed in the New Testament (e.g., Phoebe, Prisca, Junia). After these five chapters, we have a bonus “What About . . . ?” section. Here I address hot topics like Paul’s prohibition texts (1 Tim 2:11-15) and the household codes that use submission language for women (e.g., Col 3:18–4:1).
My hope is that when we really understand the world in which Jesus and his followers lived and what the New Testament actually attests about women leaders in the churches, it will become clear that women were there; they were welcomed and supported by apostles like Paul, they were equipped and trained for ministry leadership, they ministered to leaders, they served on the frontline of the gospel mission and faced hardships because of it—and some became heroes and legends. Their stories are amazing and inspiring, and it is my honor to help tell them.
Part One
Before theWomen Leaders of the Early Churches
1
Deborah
Prophet, Judge, Mother over Israel
When I was in the early years of my Christian faith, the idea of a woman leader among God’s people with any kind of executive power or high office was, frankly, unfathomable. I never felt that women were lesser people or bad leaders as a matter of fact. It just seemed to add up that men were meant to lead, women to follow and support. But I am sure back then, some twenty-five years ago, I never read through the book of Judges. If there is one figure in this book that stands out, it is Deborah. Deborah is not the only impressive woman of faith and courage in the Old Testament—Miriam, Ruth, and Esther come to mind as well—but I find Deborah the most remarkable. Israel had many, many leaders throughout its long history before Jesus showed up. Some leaders were good, men like Jehoshaphat and Josiah. But by and large, Israel’s kings and military leaders were dismissive of Torah and unfaithful to God and to their duty of leading the people of God toward covenantal faithfulness.
Deborah appears in a brief period before the monarchy of Israel—its pre-royal days, if you will. She is not mentioned in the rest of the Old Testament. She is not mentioned by name in the New Testament either, for that matter. But she certainly had an impact on the great story that the Bible tells. In her own time, her wise leadership and responsiveness to God’s giftings and calling led to forty years of peace in the land (Judg 5:31). Beyond that, Deborah’s warrior song of victory and praise for God may have inspired Mary’s own Song of Praise (Lk 1:46-55).1 And surely Deborah deserves a special spot in the book of Hebrews’ “Hall of Faith Heroes” (Heb 11:4-32), where many patriarchs and leaders are presented as models of perseverance in suffering. Some are named, but Hebrews gives tribute to many more heroes who “conquered kingdoms, administered justice, . . . and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies” (Heb 11:33-34). Judges celebrates Deborah as just such a hero of faith, so Hebrews surely has leaders like her in mind too.2
The reason I wanted to start this book off with Deborah is that she defies so many gender stereotypes, then and now, as she led Israel with confidence and courage. Whatever terms we might use to describe femininity and “ladylike” behavior from days of old, she does not seem to fit that mold. Whenever we might be tempted to say, “Women can’t perform such and such a role in ministry because they are too . . .”—I wonder, if we can’t say that about Deborah, ought we to say it about anyone?
I honestly don’t know what I would have thought if someone had sat me down when I was sixteen and explained to me all the amazing things God did through this woman for the faith and glory of Israel. But about a decade ago, I was assigned to teach a college course on Judges. As I learned more about her leadership in a man’s world, I was immediately struck by this leader: prophet, judge, and “mother over Israel.”
THE ERA OF THE JUDGES
To fully appreciate how Deborah stands out as a courageous, wise, and effective leader in the history of Israel, we need to understand the moment in history that she found herself. The era of the “judges” was a major transition period after Israel’s slavery and before the monarchy. As the Old Testament story goes, God rescued Israel from Egypt and the heavy and cruel hand of Pharaoh (Exodus). God reclaimed Israel as his own and gave them a covenantal constitution (the law of Moses) and a mission to become a priestly kingdom and holy nation (Ex 19:6). The plan was to settle them in a special land as a base of operations for their ministry as a light to the nations.3 One problem (actually, more than one problem, but this one is a major focus of Joshua and Judges): there were people in the Promised Land. God would drive these people out of the land, but as the Israelites encountered any of them, they must not be tempted to worship false gods and live in the people’s wicked ways (Deut 7:1-6). But by and large, Israel failed to conquer them and set them to flight and had to put up with the consequences: the Israelites were constantly at war with Canaanites and struggled to maintain a pure devotion to the God who freed them and made them his special possession. This “war” was not just a battle of swords and bloodshed. That happened a lot, of course. But it was also a war within the hearts and minds and wills of the Israelites as they struggled with divided allegiances without and temptations within.
The narrator of Judges makes it clear that this was a particularly dark era for Israel because they lacked clear and sustained leadership. This retrospective line is repeated several times: “In those days Israel had no king” (Judg 17:6; 18:1; 19:1). Looking back (from the monarchy period), the narrator recognizes that Israel wrestled in this period with living and behaving as a unified people. Instead of moving forward with their mission and ministry, they were “dragged away . . . and enticed,” as James puts it (Jas 1:14), by their own evil desires, which constantly got them into situations they could not get themselves out of. Two haunting refrains are repeated in Judges: “The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the LORD” (Judg 2:11; 3:7, 12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1 NRSV) and “All the people did what was right in their own eyes” (Judg 17:6; 21:25 NRSV).
So Judges narrates a seemingly hopeless cycle of ups and downs for this wayward people: (1) they cry out in suffering at the hands of the Canaanites (due in part, of course, to their failure to put them to flight); (2) God has compassion on them and sends to them an Israelite “judge” to deliver them; (3) they experience a season of peace and rest; (4) they settle back into old wicked ways of idolatry and irresponsible intermixing with their enemies, and the trouble starts all over again.
Here is where the Israelite judges come in. First, they are not “judges” in the sense of a gavel, a robe, and a courtroom. The majority of them functioned as temporary warrior-leaders raised up by God to get Israel out of the mess that they got themselves into. But it is helpful to know that, by and large, the judges were not role models. (Remember, the book of Judges points ahead to the ideal of the Davidic monarchy.) Gideon, for example, struggled with faith and courage. Samson was pretty much an antitype to the righteous Israelite leader. Deborah is the only judge given extensive narration of whom nothing negative is said or implied. In fact, her narrative episode ends with a beautiful song of triumph and praise of God sung together with her military partner, Barak. In one of the darkest eras of Israel’s history, Deborah stands as a singular, but intensely bright, luminary.
JUDGES 4:1-24: INTRODUCING DEBORAH
The story of Deborah appears in Judges 4–5. Judges begins with the death of Joshua (Judg 1:1) and the emergence of a whole new generation who did not know the Lord (Judg 2:10). They forgot their redemption from Egypt, broke the covenant, and followed the “Baals” (locally venerated idols). God gave them into the hands of their enemies: “Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress” (Judg 2:15).
But the Lord raised up for them judges who served the purpose of rescuing them from their enemies (Judg 2:16). The narrator explains the cycle that repeats throughout this period: “Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived. . . . But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their ancestors, following other gods and serving and worshiping them” (Judg 2:18-20).
Before getting to Deborah, let’s start with a critical question for understanding this book: What is a “judge”? The Hebrew word shophet can mean a judge, as in someone who decides legal cases. But in the context of the book of Judges, the purpose of their divine calling was to rescue Israel from hostile enemies. Thus, it makes better sense to understand the term as “governor,” as in national leader. Indeed, throughout the book, the “judge” is also referred to as “deliverer.”4 These individuals were called on by God, for a period of time, to lead and deliver God’s people from hostile enemies. So there was Othniel (Judg 3:9), then Ehud (Judg 3:15), and then Deborah. In some ways, she fits the pattern of the judge-deliverer. For example, after Ehud was gone, the Lord allowed the Canaanites to menace Israel and treat them cruelly for twenty years. They cried out to the Lord, and God blessed them with the wisdom and leadership of Deborah.
But there are a couple of peculiarities in her story that break from the pattern. First, Deborah was not “raised up” as a deliverer; she was already “judging” Israel (Judg 4:4).5 Also, she was not a trained warrior. (But neither was Gideon, the judge who came after her.) Deborah is described as a prophet and a magistrate who arbitrated disputes among the Israelites (Judg 4:4-5). This didn’t make her less of a judge-deliverer; it made her a different kind of judge, and certainly not less effective since her ministry brought the cyclical forty years of peace (Judg 5:31).
It is worth reflecting on her ministry of settling disputes among her people. This seems to parallel Moses’ activity when he “took his seat to serve as judge for the people” (Ex 18:13).6 Similarly, Deborah’s legal adjudication may have intentionally foreshadowed that of Samuel, who “judged Israel all the days of his life” (1 Sam 7:15 NRSV).7 As Barry Webb explains, “In many ways, Deborah’s ‘judging’ of Israel anticipates that of Samuel; she is a kind of female counterpart of the Samuel who is to come.”8
What about her husband, Lappidoth? What role does he play in the leadership of Israel? This is a mystery since he is never mentioned again, and we can only assume he did not play a functional leadership role at all.9 Deborah judged cases on her own authority, she alone counseled Barak, and she was called “mother in Israel” (Judg 5:7).
Now, it becomes clear that Deborah does not do the fighting that rescues Israel. She calls for the Israelite commander Barak and gives to him a prophetic word to conquer Sisera and Jabin’s army (Judg 4:6-7). Barak asks for Deborah to go (presumably as God’s spokesperson). She agrees but pronounces that the victory will happen through a woman (Judg 4:9). As the story unfolds, Deborah continues to advise Barak and his ten thousand men (Judg 4:14-15). Deborah’s prophecy comes true as Sisera dies at the hand of Jael the Kenite (Judg 4:17). Jael kills Sisera with a clever trick before Barak could get to him (Judg 4:22).
Sometimes the question is raised whether God used Deborah only because there were no men available, or because Barak had weak faith.10 But if we look at the judges as a whole, especially Gideon and Samson, it is clear that they were not chosen for their virtue or strong faith. In fact, Deborah appears to be the most faithful, the most prophetically tuned into God, and the wisest of them all. This is even more clearly pronounced in the victory song that appears in Judges 5 (see below). There is only one such song in Judges, and had Barak been the real hero, it would have been fitting for him to sing that all by himself. The fact that Deborah and Barak sing together a victory hymn is extraordinary and testifies to her status as a model judge, securing peace for Israel.11
JUDGES 5:1-31: THE SONG OF DEBORAH AND BARAK
That brings us to the thirty-verse duet in chapter five. Deborah and Barak call Israel to recognize the faithfulness of God and his care for his people. It is a bit odd that even though they sing the song together, the song uses the language of “I” and not “we” (Judg 5:3, 9). Israel feared the Canaanites; they dared not travel on highways, and they would not fight the enemy: “they held back until I, Deborah, arose, / until I arose, a mother in Israel” (Judg 5:7). Later on, both Deborah and Barak are invoked (Judg 5:12); they are presented as a dynamic duo at war. The heavenly stars are credited with aiding in the victory, divine intervention to secure the victory for Israel (Judg 5:20); the river Kishon joined in as well (Judg 5:21). Jael is celebrated as an unassuming but intrepid ally (Judg 5:24-27). Sisera is mocked as a failed and shamed opponent (Judg 5:28-31). The song imagines Sisera’s mother waiting for her son to return in victory; she can only imagine that what has delayed him is a long victory celebration and the time it takes to count his spoils.
For a warrior song in Scripture, Judges 5 spends a remarkable amount of time thinking about the stories of women: Deborah, of course, but also Jael and the mother of Sisera. The song begins with a call for “princes” and “kings” to take notice and listen (Judg 5:2-3). Normally these kinds of war tales are from men talking about men to men. Here Deborah and Barak sing about a hero woman Deborah and a hero ally Jael, and about the sad and false hopes of a foreign mother waiting for the return of a son who is never coming back. The book of Judges in many ways is very formulaic (but no less entertaining for it) because of its overt narrative patterns; however, the story and song of Deborah, the judge-deliverer, is anything but predictable.
WAS DEBORAH A SPIRITUAL LEADER IN ISRAEL?
In this phase of salvation history, God’s people did not have pastors and apostles; technically the priesthood was established for Israel, but without a constructed temple they had no permanent base of operations. The people would have looked to the governing leaders and tribal elders for covenantal guidance. Moses was the primary leader to free Israel from Egypt and to bring them to Sinai. He was responsible for leading them to the Promised Land, Canaan, but his story concluded before they entered the land. His mantle was passed on to Joshua. Joshua was a crucial military leader for Israel, but he also led them toward obedience to God. This is climactically represented in Joshua’s final words to his people in his old age (Josh 23). Joshua exhorts the people to obey the law of Moses, to avoid intermixing with the Canaanites, and to reject idols (Josh 23:6-8). Then he turns his attention to the elders. With a prophetic word, he recounts God’s history thus far with this people: the calling of the patriarchs, the exodus, the new land. God has been faithful in all these things, and Israel has covenanted with God to return loyalty. Joshua famously challenges them with this word: “If serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD” (Josh 24:15).
When we look at Deborah, as judge-deliverer and prophet, she plays the same basic role as Joshua. As an adjudicating judge, she was responsible for keeping the people in line with the standards of righteousness established in the law of Moses. As a leader against the Canaanites, she was responsible for repelling them and helping the Israelites to be free from idolatry. We also see Deborah’s spiritual leadership in her battle hymn duet. Just as Joshua recounted and interpreted the history of Israel, so too Deborah and Barak frame the success over Sisera as a divine triumph. God entrusts Deborah as prophet and governor, as one who can and should speak on God’s behalf. For all intents and purposes, for a certain period of time, God called Deborah to be his people’s executive, judicial, and spiritual leader. As “mother” over Israel, she safeguarded Israel’s life, not just physically, but also in relationship to God.
DEBORAH THROUGHOUT THE CENTURIES
How is Deborah remembered in the Jewish and Christian traditions? One might say she is not, simply because her name does not appear in the rest of the Old or New Testament, as already mentioned. But we have Jewish writers from around the time of Jesus and Paul who did occasionally reflect on Deborah’s role in the history of Israel. For example, one writer we refer to as Pseudo-Philo (writing sometime in the first century AD) produced a text called Book of Biblical Antiquities. He makes reference to a woman who ruled over Israel and gave them rest for forty years.12 Pseudo-Philo offers an imaginative rendition of how Deborah may have spoken to the people in her last days. She calls the whole people of Israel (men and women) to hear her final exhortations: “Only direct your heart to the Lord your God in the time of your life, for after your death you will not be able to repent of those things.”13
According to Pseudo-Philo, when Deborah breathed her last, the people wept and mourned her as they would for any beloved ruler, man or woman.14 They remembered her, saying, “Behold, a mother is gone from Israel, and a holy one that ruled in the house of Jacob, which secured a fence around her generation, and her generation shall follow after her.”15
The Jewish historian Josephus (ca. AD 37–100) also recounts Israel’s history in his book Jewish Antiquities. He discusses Deborah and Barak at length and presents her as a wise prophet and a governing leader.16 God spoke through Deborah to lead Barak. Josephus explains not only that Deborah went into war with Barak but that when the Israelite warriors wanted to retreat, she “retained them, and commanded them to fight the enemy that very day that they should conquer them, and God would be their assistance.”17 Deborah was also discussed by the rabbis. In one text, a certain rabbi proclaims that the quintessential judges were Barak and Deborah, while another rabbi gives that distinction to Shamgar and Ehud.18
In the early Christian tradition, Theodoret of Cyrus (393–457) briefly mentions Deborah in reference to his study of the book of Judges. He seems to be at pains to explain how she would be the top prophet, as a woman, representing God in this time. He explains this with reference to Galatians 3:28: “Men and women have the same nature. As you know, the woman was formed from Adam and, like him, possessed the faculty of reason. Hence, the apostle says, ‘In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female.’ Thus, Moses was called a ‘prophet,’ and Miriam a ‘prophetess.’”19 About a millennium later John Calvin was also at a bit of a loss for words as he pondered the leadership of Deborah (and it is exceptionally difficult to render Calvin speechless): “It was an extraordinary thing, when God gave authority to a woman.”20
DEBORAH AND LEADERSHIP TODAY
In 2013 Deana Porterfield (now president of Roberts Wesleyan College) conducted a fascinating study of the (then) six female presidents of Christian colleges and how they arrived in those positions.21 At that time, there were 118 member institutions of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Porterfield made a number of interesting discoveries in the course of her research; one was that several of these women didn’t originally aspire to the highest office of the college. They were already in some form of cabinet leadership (e.g., VP level), and during a period of institutional crisis they were elevated and promoted into the presidential role. Perhaps it began as an interim presidency or involved absorbing some presidential functions during a vacancy, and then it became clear to them and others that it was a fit. But again, a common denominator among many of these women’s stories is that they stepped up to higher leadership during a time of crisis.
These stories, in some ways, fit that of Deborah. Israel was in an (admittedly long-term) period of crisis, in need of judge-deliverers. As a Spirit-led prophet of God, as a sharply competent decision maker, as an adroit strategist, Deborah was the right person to lead Israel through a major crisis. Unlike Samson, she had no selfish bone in her body. Moment after moment, she acted carefully and only for the glory of God and in concern for her people. Unlike Gideon, Deborah demonstrated incredible faith in God, acting as an effective conductor of the divine voice in her prophetic power.
I am inspired by Deborah in many ways, but two are prominent. First, she was the singular supreme court justice of the people. I wonder how many people were upset with her verdicts. In court cases, there are often winners and losers, and the losers almost never think they were wrong. How often did they shout at her? Call her names? Gossip about her? (Remember, these weren’t Israel’s most holy years.) This inevitable set of challenges did not seem to weaken her resolve to answer God’s call for her to “mother” Israel.
Second, Deborah was willing to boldly speak the truth of God. She had some very hard words for Barak. Given the times and her cultural world, it must have been difficult for a woman to give the leading warrior the hard news that he would not seal the victory for Israel. Furthermore, as you can imagine, the battlefield was not a common place for women. Deborah willingly accompanied Barak in his campaign, but I have to imagine that there were few women who traveled with their army. If I were in her shoes, I might be intimidated, even scared. Whatever the case, the victory song reflects her successful leadership at the end of it all.
Deborah is an important answer to the question “Can a woman . . . ?” or “Is a woman allowed to . . . ?” Deborah could. Deborah was. God was behind it; he filled her with prophetic wisdom, and her sung words became part of the Word of God, testifying to the brave and wise woman who brought God’s peace to a troubled people.
2
Going Back to the Beginning
Genesis 1–3
That the Bible should speak of the beginning provokes the world, provokes us. For we cannot speak of the beginning. Where the beginning begins, there our thinking stops; there it comes to an end. Yet the desire to ask after the beginning is the innermost passion of our thinking; it is what in the end imparts reality to every genuine question we ask.
A Christian leader, man or woman, inevitably finds him- or herself asking, Who am I? Who am I that I should lead? Why should people listen to me? Why should they follow me? I wonder if women leaders in the early church looked back to Deborah to help them answer some of those questions. But eventually our minds wander further back, back to the beginning, back to Adam and Eve. What does it mean to be man? What does it mean to be woman? To be human? To be one image of God together? What role does sin play in frustrating God’s plans for us? What was the ideal relationship between man and woman before sin brought strife? And how did God’s punishments and pronouncements for Adam and Eve change their relationship?
In this book we will not dwell at length on women in the Old Testament; our primary focus will be on women in the early church. But the Bible’s beginning stories of creation and fall (as tradition has come to call them) play a crucial role in shaping a Christian understanding of anthropology (what does it mean to be human?), sex and gender (what does it mean to be man and woman?), and vocation and ministry (what ought man and woman to do in God’s world and God’s church?).
GETTING ORIENTED TO GENESIS 1–3
The keen reader of Genesis 1 and 2 will note that this is not really one continuous narrative but two tellings of creation. Put another way (to use language from Tremper Longman), these chapters are not “sequential” but “synoptic.” If we draw from the analogy of the fourfold Gospel testimony of Jesus, Genesis 1 and 2 could be described as complementary perspectives on the singular divine act of creation.1 But why, we inevitably wonder, does the creation story need two separate perspectives, and how are they different? Genesis 1 takes a sweeping perspective of the whole of creation, all creatures and material phenomena. In the seven-day sequence, God forms all things good and beautiful, and then rests and enjoys his handiwork. The second, “synoptic” vantage point (Gen 2) offers a more intimate, personal, relational perspective on creation. Together these two stories reflect the paradox of a great Creator God much higher than and far beyond us, who desires to walk with us and have a deep interpersonal relationship with us. But that trajectory is thrown off by sin—we will get to that in a bit. First things first, Genesis 1.
GENESIS 1: MAN AND WOMAN IN THE IMAGE OF GOD
The Old Testament begins at the beginning—not of Israel, but of the cosmos. Its opening chapters move from the morning of the universe to the ordering of families and nations to the birthing of the fathers and mothers of Israel. God was there “in the beginning,” but this is a new day for God, too. Given the divine commitment to relationships with the creation, God will never be the same again.
BRUCE C. BIRCH ET AL., A THEOLOGICAL INTRODUCTIONTO THE OLD TESTAMENT
This is a grand narrative of the incredible act of God who desired to fashion a good and beautiful world: light, day and night, waters, sky, land and greenery, sun and moon and stars, sea creatures and birds (Gen 1:1-20), and the command for all things to produce abundance (Gen 1:21-25). The “days” of creation do not reflect specific hours and minutes. They mark a careful divine ordering of God’s work, climaxing with the formation of his greatest creation—humanity.
In Genesis 1:26, the Hebrew word adam (human) does not mean “Adam,” nor does it mean “man/male.” We know that because it switches immediately from adam (singular) to “they” (plural), implying that adam
