Do Women Have to Be Silent in Church? - Part 1
You Might Need to Break the Rules. Christ is your only authority.
I wish I could remember her name. We spoke one Sunday and she told me a story of serving the Lord that sounded like an account from the book of Acts. I'm going to call her Ann for our purposes here.
Ann had never married for she had devoted her life to spreading the gospel.
As a missionary, she had reached people groups never before contacted. She had translated the Word into their language. She had taught the Word, raised up leaders, and started churches.
She spoke with memories of the joy of working with the Spirit as He reached the lost through her. She had lived a life with no amenities, in humble means and loved all of it. Serving the Lord had been the focus and passion of her life and she regretted nothing.
Many came to salvation because of her. Whole villages now knew the Lord and His marvelous Word and received eternal salvation. Then, with a life fully lived for the Lord, she retired and returned to the States.
She was thanked by her home church and told that she was now eligible to serve either in the nursery or the kitchen. As a woman, there was no other place allowed for her to serve the Lord and His world. ~The Deception of Adam, Kim West 2023
There are many voices willing to tell us what we can and cannot do. Some of the voices are big and dominant dictating to us who we are allowed to be. Others are like a virus infecting our minds and disabling our lives.
Some voices use their interpretation of Scripture to make their paradigm seem as if it is a mandate from God. Here's an example: I attended a new church and asked one of the pastor's what the church's belief about women serving in a leadership position might be. He said, "Well, there is 1st Timothy," as if that settled it.
The passage he was referring to in 1 Timothy is one of the most difficult verses to interpret in all of the Bible. But, this pastor based his entire theology of women on this one verse and he used it to "prove" that women cannot lead or teach. Women were to be silent and subservient. Nice and no thank you.
What he did not do was place that verse within the context of what Christ did when He walked the earth and interacted with women. He did not place this verse within the actual serving and leading women did in the first century church. He did not acknowledge that this passage had no majority agreement on its interpretation and, therefore, should not be used as a key indicator of the role of women in the church.
He had a paradigm and he made a difficult Scripture conform to that paradigm for it was what he wanted it to say.
We also have paradigms and that's okay as long as we are willing to hold up our beliefs to Scripture and the Spirit to see where and how it fits within the context of all of what the Bible says.
When I was in seminary we had to write Doctrinal Statements on every major theological topic. They could be only up to two pages in length in order to force us to be concise and had to be filled with many Biblical references to back up our beliefs. I couldn't take a verse and build a theology but, instead, I had to look at the whole of Scripture to see where my understanding fit in the Word and give chapter and verse for every corresponding verse that backed my understanding.
The Bible and the Lord are the only valid authority for life.
What we want Scripture to say is irrelevant. The Lord wrote what He wanted to tell us and we are to adapt to His ways. It was my job to discover His message, not make His message fit what I wanted it to say.
This work was demanding and difficult but refined my beliefs to make them match what the Word said. I found that what I had believed shifted as I took my preconceived ideas to Christ and His Word. I also knew that as I grew in my knowledge of Scripture and was a good workman that where I landed on any topic would most likely adjust and refine.
The Word is living and transforming and maturing. I know my theology of women has grown over the years as I have dug deep into the Word and learned more about the culture in which the early church grew. It is still growing because I am still learning.
You know who knows the Bible well? The dragon. He knows the Word and tried to use it against Jesus to tempt Him to sin. He also knows the end of the book and his destination. He wants to take as many people with him as he can and will twist the Scripture to do so.
Right now, in order to make the body of Christ weak and without influence, he uses the Word against us. This is why we must do our due diligence to understand what God has said fully rather than just accept a common belief.
For our purposes here we can't go deeply into the Word. I have other books that do that and there are many excellent books on women in the church that are helpful as we tread these waters.
For now, know that the dragon speaks through others using God's Word that he has twisted and warped. The goal is to cause division and enmity. It is to make us unsure and apologetic for wanting to serve Christ. It takes the wind from our sails so that we won't use the gifts God has given us for we don't feel that we are allowed to.
We are told that:
You are to be silent because you are a woman. God does not want you to lead, teach or preach
You are to be "keepers at home." You are to be a wife and mother and house cleaner regardless of what you feel to be your calling or your strengths.
You are not to use the gifts God has given to you. He may have gifted you with great intellect and interests but to follow them is ungodly. He may have gifted you with the ability to teach, lead and preach but just disregard those for He doesn't want you to actually use them.
You are to be happy being less than, serving children, focusing on and obeying your husband regardless of whether he is or is not a good man.
Women are often told to go back to their abusive husbands and submit for this is God's will for them as a woman.
You have to choose who to obey, God or man. You need to learn the truth so that you can choose wisely and know what is from the Lord and what is dragon theology.
Let me ask you some questions...
Do you believe that you are inferior because you are a woman? Where do you find that in Scripture?
Have you been told that you can’t serve as you feel called? Who told you? Jesus? In what passage?
Must you always be silent even when God has given you knowledge and a message? Please give examples from the Word showing it is sinful to speak when God tells you to. What do you do with the passages where women prophesied, gave messages and taught others?
How did Jesus interact with women? Did He treat them as less than men? Passage and verse please.
Are women treated differently serving Christ today than they did when He walked the earth? Look at what women actually did in the time of Jesus and directly after. What do you find?
As you search the Word, you will find that Christ never told women to sit on the sidelines and be silent. As a matter of fact, He did the exact opposite. He invited women into life with Him and ignored the culture of the day.
We are going to look into this a bit deeper in the coming chapters. Just know that Jesus treated women with love and respect and that is what we desire in the church.
Christ treated women the same as He did the men and invited them into life with Him fully. Jesus is God, what He says goes. Everything we do, think and say must align with His will and ways.
When God walked the earth He showed us that not only did women not need to apologize for loving and serving Him but that it was all of our mandate to do so.
When your heart hears Him clearly
All of this comes back to one thing…
Can you recognize His voice above all the others?
Because the confusion, the pressure, and the questions don’t get resolved by louder opinions. They get resolved in connection with Christ.
The kind of connection where His voice becomes clear, steady, and unmistakable.
This is the heart behind The Connected Heart Project.
Not to tell you what to believe, but to help you reconnect with Him so you can walk in truth with clarity and confidence.
Because when you truly hear Him, you won’t need permission to obey.
👉 Explore the Connected Heart Project here
You can download a free copy of my ebook, The Not Yet Life and begin the journey today. This message will encourage you to trust God even in seasons where life doesn’t look the way you expected. Click here to get your free copy.
