Originally published February 19, 2018
I’ve recently met a woman who is a “pastor” of a church. When asked why she is preaching to men, her response was this:
“Men will not teach. None will stand up. We started as a congregation of women and slowly some husbands came, as well as their sons. But none will take responsibility. So if I do not speak truth and stand up, who will?”
This was in another country I recently visited where men do not take authority, nor do they desire it. Women are primary in every area.
This is a difficult situation to be in, and I do sympathize. I’ve been in church and family situations in which men were not being the godly leaders they were supposed to be. It’s very frustrating. Even more so in the case of your friend, because Scripture prohibits women from stepping in and taking over when a man will not lead the church.
(And all of this, and the following, goes for women in any church who have “stepped in” to a pastoral role or a role Scripture reserves for men such as, but not limited to: worship leader/minister of music, any other pastoral or elder position – with or without the title of “pastor/elder,” teaching co-ed adult Sunday School, Bible study, or small groups, etc.)
But in addition to the fact that the Bible is very clear that your friend is not to preach to men, she’s doing a terrible job as “pastor” on several other counts:
✢ She doesn’t believe God’s Word.
✢ She doesn’t trust God enough to obey His Word.
✢ She doesn’t fear God enough to obey His Word.
✢ She doesn’t believe in the necessity of prayer, or in God’s provision, enough to ask Him to provide a pastor.
✢ She’s not teaching her “congregation” to cry out to the Lord and trust Him to provide. Instead, she’s teaching them to take matters into their own hands when they need something, even if it means disobeying God’s Word. (Kind of like Sarah did.)
✢ She’s teaching her “congregation” that they it’s OK to disobey God if it’s difficult or inconvenient to obey Him.
✢ She’s teaching the women that they don’t have to submit to God’s design for biblical womanhood.
✢ She’s teaching the men to continue to be lazy and shirk their God-given duty to lead. Why should they when a woman is all too willing to step in and do the work for them?
She asks, “If I do not speak truth and stand up, who will?”. My answer to that question is, “That’s God’s business to take care of, not yours.” Her business is to obey Him and trust Him to work out everything else. And besides, she’s not “standing up and speaking truth”, she’s standing up and speaking or demonstrating all the untruths I enumerated above.
My counsel to this woman would be to immediately step down as “pastor,” stop preaching to and instructing the men, and publicly repent to God and to everyone in the church for her sins of disobeying God’s Word and setting a bad example for the church. She should inform them that she will no longer be preaching but that she will be praying for God to raise up a pastor, either from among the men of the church or from outside the church.
The men and women can, and should, meet to pray and sing together every Sunday. One of the other women (the former “pastor” needs to sit out of leadership for a while) can certainly teach a women’s Bible study class. But if the men want a Bible teacher or pastor, one of them is going to have to step up and do it, or God will have to send a man from somewhere else. And the women need to be sure they’re holding their ground and refusing to step into that role. What a godly testimony of obedience they will be to the men! Hopefully, it will shame the men over their own disobedience.
God doesn’t give anyone permission to disobey Him just because it’s hard or inconvenient. It was the hardest thing in the world for Jesus to go to the cross, but He did it anyway because He was obedient to His Father. He was willing to die rather than disobey. That is the example she needs to follow.
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
1 Corinthians 10:13
In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
Hebrews 12:4
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
Proverbs 3:6
Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.
Psalm 37:5
When we face tests of our faith, it is not time to take the easy way out and sin, it is God stretching us and giving us an opportunity to trust and obey Him so He can use that situation as a vehicle for growing us to greater maturity and Christlikeness.
This lady, and the rest of the church, has the opportunity here to cry out fervently to God to provide them with a pastor and then trust Him to act on their behalf. That’s exactly what Lydia and the other women at Philippi did, and God sent them Paul!
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
Matthew 7:7-11
Which would bring more glory to God and be more of a testimony to His greatness: for this lady to have taken matters into her own hands and sinned, or for her and the rest of the women to obey God, for everyone to pray and trust God for a pastor, and then to have the awesome experience of God answering that prayer?
There’s nothing amazing, especially in that culture, about men being lazy and women stepping in and picking up the slack. Why have a Christian church that is supposed to be following the all powerful God of the universe be just one more example of that? Instead, they could have an incredible testimony of God providing a pastor and changing the hearts of the men of the church to take responsibility and lead. What kind of an impact would that have on the surrounding culture? How many doors might that open for that church to share the gospel?
Additional Resources
Rock Your Role: Jill in the Pulpit
Basic Training: Obedience: 8 Ways to Stop Making Excuses and Start Obeying Scripture
Basic Training: 5 Ways to Face Tests and Trials Biblically
If you have a question about: a Bible passage, an aspect of theology, a current issue in Christianity, or how to biblically handle a family, life, or church situation, comment below (I’ll hold all questions in queue {unpublished} for a future edition of The Mailbag) or send me an e-mail or private message. If your question is chosen for publication, your anonymity will be protected.
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Even in situations like this in countries with very few Christians, people still are given spiritual gifts. That means that this woman is not only in sin for teaching men and exercising authority over them, but she’s also in sin for not operating in the gift God has given her (which I would guess is perhaps encouragement, exhortation, or administration). And there is a man in that church who has been given the gift to pastor and teach and he’s in sin as well.
Also, I tend to agree with you, but can you share why you say that women in the church shouldn’t be worship leaders as well? Would you say she’s exercising authority over a man by leading them in worship?
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Hi Rebecca- Thanks for your insights! I’ve answered your question about worship leaders here (see #16).
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I have a sister-in-law who is a “preacher” in the south in the Pentecostal Holiness church. She travels to churches to preach and prophesy, etc. She believes that the call of the Holy Spirit supersedes human gender roles. Of course I disagree. I have found when we have talked at a deeper level, she really doesn’t know her bible or Gods character. It’s all emotion. I continue to pray for her.
I also just read where the southern Baptists have voted not allow women preachers. I believe they are the last holdout.
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As a believer who has witnessed woman step up in communities all over the world, where no man would to share the Gospel, and lead their community towards Christ (even when their life was at risk), I would argue that she ought to continue preaching. It is one thing to flaunt a leadership position as if women are better than men (and the same would be wrong if a man claimed he was better than a woman). Because at the end of the day, the role is for the called, man or woman. If you research on missionaries of the past, hundreds of people have been saved by women. Are you claiming none of those women should have followed the great commission commanded to ALL believers in Matthew 28 and that all those lives they pointed to Christ weren’t worth it? Paul even asks in Romans 10:14-15, how people are to be saved if no one goes to share the Gospel with them.
Arguments like these are the reason we have prideful men in the Church who take roles they’re not called for and we have obedient women trying to ignore the calling God gave them in fear of judgement from their own community. I am not a feminist in any sense, but when it comes to silencing ANY believer from sharing the love and truth of Christ (man or woman) I cannot sit back and watch the Church divide itself on things that have nothing to do with salvation.
You want to discuss sin? What about the leaders that are liars, jealous, prideful, lustful, and gossipers? What about the pastors that preach love and compassion and go home to abuse their family? Because I’ve seen men and women do that in those roles. It’s not a discussion of whether it be man or woman. It should be a decision based a spirit-led calling.
More so, what is the significant of a claim like this? To bring down Christ followers from living how Jesus called us to? Because that’s all you’re doing when you rather have a community have no one leading them to Jesus over someone who isn’t afraid to obey just because they’re a woman.
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Hi Aliyah- I’ve answered your comment here. I hope you’ll read my answer and take it to heart.
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I wish every woman would understand this concept. It is sin. It is open rebellion against God’s Word. From what I have seen lately in comments from women who are pro women pastors, I’m sad to see the state of the “theology” they attempt to use to justify their sin. The gate is getting very narrow.
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