I had an awesome time, recently, chatting with Kevin, Scott, and James from the Theology. Driven. podcast. What an honor to be their first ever female guest! We covered a variety of topics: what to do if your church is hosting a Beth Moore study, my background in writing and teaching ministry, the Southern Baptist Convention’s slouching toward egalitarianism, studying the Bible without using Bible study books…and more!

Theology. Driven. is also offering a special giveaway in connection with my episode. If you tweet a link to the episode (or re-tweet a post about the episode such as this one) and include the hashtag #MichelleTheologyDriven, you’ll be entered into the drawing. Listen all the way to the end of the episode to find out all the details.

Give this episode a listen, and share it around! You can subscribe to Theology. Driven. on iTunes, Google Play, Overcast, and Podbean, or just listen online at the Theology. Driven. website (episode 27). And don’t forget to follow Theology. Driven. on Facebook and Twitter!

Resources mentioned on the podcast:

How should I approach my church leaders about a false teacher they’re introducing?

Five Reasons It’s Time to Start Exercising “Moore” Discernment

(Information on the theological problems with Beth Moore. For information on others, please see the “Popular False Teachers” tab at the top of this page.)

Is the SBC’s Tent Big Enough for ALL Marginalized Christian Women?

Speaking Engagement Information

Got a podcast of your own or have a podcasting friend who needs a guest? Need a speaker for a women’s conference or church event? Click the “Speaking Engagements” tab at the top of this page, drop me an e-mail, and let’s chat!

Christian women, Complementarianism, Mailbag

The Mailbag: Is it biblical for women to carry out The Great Commission?

June 18, 2018July 7, 2025 Michelle Lesley

Last week, I received some questions from a Facebook follower regarding my article Basic Training: The Great Commission. I thought they were very insightful and that other readers might have the same questions, so I’m sharing and expanding on my answers to her here. (I’ve edited/condensed the reader’s questions and comments {in bold type} for the sake of brevity.)

Given my understanding of what Jesus is commanding, and comparing it with other examples in the New Testament, it’s not for women to do the Great Commission. Our role is not to make disciples, teach, or baptize, but to keep the home, edify other women believers, etc. The Great Commission is for men, not women, to do because…

1. The Great Commission requires teaching and baptizing.

2. Jesus was speaking the Great Commission to His disciples, who were all male.

3. We don’t see any specific New Testament examples of women sharing the gospel with the lost through their own witness or example.

This reader’s questions really got me thinking and digging. I love questions that make me think hard and dig into Scripture and theology for answers!

First, let me briefly address the points of this issue that are not in dispute. As I understand her, the reader is in full agreement with Titus 2:3-5 and the example of Lois and Eunice. She agrees with the biblical principles of women training their own children in the gospel and discipling Christian women (already saved) inside the church. Her questions have mainly to do with sharing the gospel with the lost outside the church – evangelism.

Next, before we dive into the reader’s questions themselves, it is very important to distinguish between two types of Scripture:

Broadly speaking, there are two main types of Scripture: descriptive and prescriptive. Descriptive passages describe something that happened: Noah built an ark. Esther became queen. Paul got shipwrecked. These passages simply tell us what happened to somebody. Prescriptive passages are commands or statements to obey. Don’t lie. Share the gospel. Forgive others.

If we wanted to know how to have a godly marriage, for example, we would look at passages like Ephesians 5:22-33, 1 Corinthians 7, and Exodus 20:14,17. These are all passages that clearly tell us what to do and what not to do in order to have a godly marriage.

What we would not do is look at David’s and Solomon’s lives and conclude that polygamy is God’s design for marriage. We would not read about Hosea and assume that God wants Christian men to marry prostitutes. We would not read the story of the woman at the well and think that being married five times and then shacking up with number six is OK with Jesus.

Descriptive passages may support, but never trump, the clear instruction of prescriptive passages.¹

Now, let’s see if we can come to some biblical conclusions on her questions:

1. The Great Commission requires teaching and baptizing.

Teaching:
Often, when we’re looking at women’s roles in the church and being obedient to 1 Timothy 2:12, people conflate evangelism with teaching. Teaching Scripture to saved people inside the church gathering is not the same thing as sharing the gospel with lost people outside the church gathering. They are two separate, distinct things. First Timothy 2:12 (and other prohibitive passages) only prohibits the former, not the latter. The Great Commission, and the New Testament overall, commands the latter.

Teaching Scripture to saved people inside the church gathering is not the same thing as sharing the gospel with lost people outside the church gathering. They are two separate, distinct things.
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As Christian women we want to be sure we keep these two things straight and carry out The Great Commission in the way God has prescribed for women to carry it out. May we share the gospel with a lost man or woman “as we are going”? Yes. If that person is a man, once he is saved is it biblically appropriate for a woman to teach and disciple him? No. If he is saved, he is supposed to be joined to a local church. Once inside the church body, he is to be taught Scripture and discipled by men.

As Christian women we want to be sure we keep teaching and evangelism straight and carry out The Great Commission in the way God has prescribed for *women* to carry it out.
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Here are some resources which may be of further help:

Rock Your Role: Jill in the Pulpit

Rock Your Role FAQs (see #11 for using wisdom on sharing the gospel with men)

Basic Training: 7 Reasons Church is Not Optional and Non-Negotiable for Christians

Women Preaching the Gospel? at A Word Fitly Spoken (This is sort of the opposite {and unbiblical} argument: “Because the Bible says ‘preach the gospel’ -meaning, we’re to evangelize- that means women can preach in church, too!”. I thought you might find it interesting.)

Baptism:
When it comes to teaching inside the church, we have clear, prescriptive passages that specifically tell us what women are not to do. With evangelism, we also have clear commands in The Great Commission, and elsewhere, that disciples of Christ are to share the gospel.

But when it comes to baptism, we don’t have a clear “this or that person should or should not perform baptisms” passage, so we need to look at the principles and precedents surrounding baptism.

The people specifically named as personally performing baptisms in the New Testament were John the Baptist (who baptized Jesus), the twelve apostles, Philip the Evangelist, Paul and/or Silas, and Paul. All of these were men, and all held pastoral or pastoral/elder-type formal leadership positions in the embryonic or infancy stages of the church. All of them were commissioned, ordained, or set apart to their positions by God, Jesus, or the church. We do not see any New Testament instances of random church members – male or female – performing baptisms, only those in positions of church leadership.

Additionally, baptism is a formal, official, consecrated ordinance of the church, not a casual, personal, relational activity between individuals, friends, or loved ones. It should no more be administered by any church member who wants to do it than the Lord’s Supper should be. Both ordinances should be administered by an ordained pastor or elder of the church. That leaves out women as well as most men. Does the responsibility of pastors to baptize mean that men who aren’t pastors shouldn’t carry out the Great Commission? Of course not. We – men and women – share the gospel with someone, and if that person gets saved, part of our responsibility is to do what we can to get him plugged in to a local church where a pastor can baptize him. We don’t have to baptize him ourselves in order to be fulfilling The Great Commission.

Basic Training: Baptism

2. Jesus was speaking the Great Commission to His disciples, who were all male.
Yes, they were all male. They were all apostles, too. But first and foremost, they were all disciples – followers of Christ – just as Christians are today. Our identity in Christ – who we are, spiritually – trumps what we are, physically (male or female), and what we do (different roles and behaviors) as a result of who and what we are. Galatians 3:28 tells us:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

In Christ, there is only one type of being: Christian. There is only one kind of spiritual DNA. There’s no XX and XY. There’s just X. Ontologically, Christians are all the same kind of spiritual being.

The Great Commission is based on who the disciples, and we, are – followers of Christ – just as many of the other things that Jesus taught His disciples were. For example, when the disciples said, “Lord, teach us to pray,” and Jesus responded with the Lord’s Prayer, did Jesus mean that only the Twelve, or only men should use it as their model in prayer? When Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, did He mean that only the disciples or only men should serve one another in humility? When Peter asked Jesus how many times he had to forgive, did “seventy times seven” apply only to Peter, only to the disciples, or only to men? Of course not. Christ’s instructions to His followers apply to all who follow Him. It is in the way in which we carry these instructions out that Christ differentiates and delegates divergent and discrete responsibilities to men, women, and church leadership.

As disciples, we are to carry out The Great Commission. As Christian women, we carry it out in a different way from men and pastors.

As disciples, we are to carry out The Great Commission. As Christian women, we carry it out in a *different way* from men and pastors.
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3. We don’t see any specific New Testament examples of women sharing the gospel with the lost through their own witness or example.
We don’t see any specific verses that say something along the lines of “Miriam shared the gospel with Simon, and he got saved,” that’s true. But how about these…

✢The woman at the well in John 4: “So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?’ They went out of the town and were coming to him.” (28-30)

✢The widow (and townswomen) of Nain in Luke 7: “Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has arisen among us!’ and ‘God has visited his people!’ And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.” (16-17)

✢The friends of Tabitha in Acts 9: ” And he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then, calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.” (41-42)

✢Lydia in Acts 16: “The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well…” (14-15)

✢1 Corinthians 7:12-16: “If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife…For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband?”

✢1 Peter 3:1-6: “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.”

The first four examples imply that various women, to one degree or another, were pointing people to Jesus. But, again, these are descriptive passages. They lend a bit of support to the idea of women sharing the gospel with others, but we build doctrine on prescriptive passages like The Great Commission. The last two examples are prescriptive passages instructing women in sharing the gospel with their lost husbands. These passages are supportive of women sharing the gospel.

4. Because we don’t see any specific New Testament examples of women sharing the gospel or any explicit commands for women to share the gospel, it violates the regulative principle for women to share the gospel with the lost.
Well, as I mentioned above, we do see descriptive passages that at least hint at women sharing the gospel, and we also see prescriptive passages that explicitly instruct women in sharing the gospel with their lost husbands. But The Great Commission and other passages that are general commands to all followers of Christ to share the gospel are the strong and emphatic passages we draw doctrine from, not the more tangential passages. So even if the regulative principle did apply to evangelism, it would be supported by Scripture.

But the regulative principle doesn’t apply to evangelism as the full terminology – the regulative principle of worship – helps us to understand. The regulative principle applies to the corporate worship service, not evangelism, not marriage, not finances, not employment, not parenting, nor any other biblical issue. Just corporate worship.

Are women to carry out The Great Commission? Yes. We are to carry it out in the way Christ has prescribed for godly Christian women.

Are women to carry out The Great Commission? Yes. We are to carry it out in the way Christ has prescribed for godly Christian women.
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¹Rock Your Role: Oh No She Di-int! Priscilla Didn’t Preach, Deborah Didn’t Dominate, and Esther Wasn’t an Egalitarian

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.

Favorite Finds

Favorite Finds ~ June 12, 2018

June 12, 2018June 15, 2018 Michelle Lesley

Here are a few of my favorite recent online finds…

I honestly teared up a couple of times listening to the Get Up and Eat! with Rachel Jankovic episode of Sheologians. Sometimes I feel like the lone voice in the wilderness crying out for women to ditch the canned Bible studies and simply pick up the Bible and study it for themselves. It was nice to hear somebody else saying it.

I love the designs Scripture Type creates for Bible verses and Christian quotes. They have lots of lovely items you can purchase, and they also have a Freely Given page where they post designs that are free to download for use as wallpapers, lock screens, and printable coloring pages. It’s a great way to help you memorize verses!

If you found helpful the put off – renew your mind – put on concept for changing behavior from my recent article The Christian Introvert: Putting Off Social Anxiety, Putting On Serving Others, then you’re really going to like Clint Archer’s recent article series over at The Cripplegate. In his Just Stop It articles, he applies the same biblical concept to various sins you might be struggling with:

Just Stop It: Instructions on how to repent

Just Stop it, Part 2: How To Repent Of Lying

Just Stop it, Part 3: How To Repent Of Anger

Just Stop it, Part 4: How to Repent of Stealing

Be sure to subscribe to or follow The Cripplegate for any future installments Clint might write.

Are you a Southern Baptist (or a curious onlooker) who couldn’t make it to the annual meeting in Dallas this year? Keep up with what’s going on via live stream or at your convenience on demand. And please don’t forget to fervently pray for the SBC. We are facing some serious issues in these days. The Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting is being held today and tomorrow (June 12-13).

One of those serious issues we’re currently dealing with in the SBC is that a vocal few are pushing the idea of electing a female president (Beth Moore’s name has been floated). Pastor Tom Buck has written a phenomenal series of articles dealing with this issue from Scripture. Even if you’re not Southern Baptist, you will find Pastor Buck’s careful exposition of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 extremely helpful in his articles Will the Next SBC Resurgence Include a Redefining of Complementarianism?

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Mailbag

The Mailbag: Potpourri (Orange Curriculum, Jesus went to hell?, 1 Tim. 2:12 only for Ephesus?…)

March 12, 2018May 24, 2019 Michelle Lesley

Welcome to another “potpourri” edition of The Mailbag, where I give short(er) answers to several questions rather than a long answer to one question. I also like to take the opportunity in these potpourrri editions to let new readers know about my comments/e-mail/messages policy. I’m not able to respond individually to most e-mails and messages, so here are some helpful hints for getting your questions answered more quickly. Remember, the search bar can be a helpful tool!

In the Apostles Creed, there is a section that states Christ descended into hell and was resurrected. Isn’t that what Joyce Meyer teaches? What about the part about the “holy catholic church: the communion of the saints”? Is that talking about Catholicism and the mass?

These are very common questions (I threw in the second part about Catholicism and the mass, since that’s also commonly asked.), and it’s good to ask, because if you’re confused, other people probably are, too.

The Apostles’ Creed says:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.
Amen.

It’s a beautiful, basic reiteration of the gospel which many churches and ministries use as part of their official statement of faith. Some churches even recite the Apostles’ Creed during their worship services.

The earliest written record of the creed is from AD 390, in Greek, so you can imagine that some of the terminology used had different connotations back then than those terms have in 21st century America.

Providentially, my friend, Pastor Gabe Hughes, was also recently asked this same question and addressed it both on his podcast and in a WWUTT video, so I’m going to let him do the “heavy lifting” of Scripture and history in the resources below and just give you the short and sweet version:

📜 You’re quite right in saying that Joyce Meyer teaches that Jesus went to hell between His death on the cross and His resurrection. The Bible doesn’t say this anywhere, and this is a heretical teaching. Just one of the multiple reasons no Christian should follow Joyce Meyer.

📜 The word “hell” in the Apostles’ creed is based on a mistranslation or confusing translation. The literal meaning of the phrase is that he descended into the grave or was buried.

📜 You might have noticed that the word “catholic” in the creed starts with a lowercase “c” rather than a capital “C”. The noun “catholic” with a lowercase “c” simply means the universal church – all genuinely regenerated Believers across the globe, past, present, and future. Roman Catholicism is (or at least by rules of grammar is supposed to be) denoted by a capital “C”.

📜 “Communion” in the creed does not refer to the Roman Catholic mass or even to the Protestant Lord’s Supper. A clearer word to us today would be “fellowship” or “unity”. The sense is that Believers commune with on another.

Some churches have modernized and clarified the creed by replacing these phrases with “He descended into the grave” or “He descended to the dead” and “the holy Christian church.”

Additional Resources:

WWUTT Podcast #645– Gabe expands on the above video at the 30:15 mark

The Apostles’ Creed: Its History and Origins at Faithlife Blog

I was wondering if you could post your articles in a larger font. I have an old computer that messes up when I try to make the font bigger. My old eyes are a real struggle.

At first, I thought I was the only one having this problem, but I’ve gotten this question a couple of times, so I know it’s not just my own aging eyes :0)

I’m going to play around with the font a little bit and see if I can find one that’s bigger. Just a few things to understand as I’m working on it: WordPress gives me a limited number of fonts to choose from, and the sizes of those fonts are pre-set. In other words, I can’t set it to 12 point or 18 point, I can only choose from tiny, small, normal, large, and huge. (Right now it’s set on “normal” if you can believe that. “Tiny” is virtually invisible.)

Additionally, when I change the font size, it doesn’t just change the size of the font in the body of my articles, it also changes the size of things like the tags (to the immediate upper left of every article), the sidebar (far left of the page), and the tab titles (top of the page), which, as you can see, are already much larger than the font in the article body. When the font of those texts gets larger, it throws the layout of the whole page out of whack. You might not notice it on a desktop computer with a large monitor, but it can be problematic for people who are viewing the blog on a phone or tablet.

Like I said, I’ll play around with it and see what I can do, but if I’m not able to enlarge the font, there are two workarounds that may help:

1. The reader said she’s unable to change her screen magnification, but it works for me and might work for others. Here’s what it looks like on my computer. Maybe yours is similar:

2. If worse comes to worst, you can highlight and copy the body of the article, paste it into your word processing program, and enlarge the font accordingly.

I have been leading a women’s small group at our church for a couple of years now. My husband and I have decided to leave the church because, even after confronting leadership about the direction the church is being led doctrinally, they continue to espouse unsound doctrine. What do you think is a wise way to tell the ladies I will no longer be teaching? Do I tell them we are leaving? If so, do I tell them why? What do you think you would do?

It’s hard to say exactly what I would do because every situation and every church is different. But I can tell you that the first thing I would do is talk it through with my husband and ask his advice. There have been many times when he has had very good ideas about how to address (or not address) certain issues, and he will sometimes bring out an aspect of the situation that I hadn’t thought of before. I would encourage you to do that first, and also to make sure you’re submitting to your husband in whatever ways might be applicable in this situation.

My inclination is to advise you to take the “the less said, the better” route with regard to the whole class. (There may be other venues, such as you and your husband meeting with the elder board, in which you’ll need to clearly spell out all the problems, but let’s just focus on the class right now.)

I would probably wait until the end of the very last class and say something generic, like, “I’ve really enjoyed leading this class, but I wanted to let you know I won’t be teaching any more. I encourage you to continue studying God’s Word and growing in Christ. Class dismissed.” Then, go home fairly quickly.

The next level is going to be women coming up to you individually and asking why you won’t be teaching any more. Unless she’s a very close friend, I’d still keep it pretty generic: “We love our brothers and sisters at this church, but we’re finding we disagree with some of the doctrine that’s being taught here, and we’ll be going to a new church.”

For very close friends, you might wish to disclose more about the doctrinal problems, but do so wisely, making sure your focus is on doctrine, not on personal conflicts with the pastor or others. You don’t want people jumping to the wrong conclusion about why you’re leaving.

I really would not talk to people about leaving other than discreetly informing those who need to know. If you give details or talk about it a lot there could be an ugly blow up, and most people will make wrong assumptions about why you’re leaving.

Do you have any information on the Orange Curriculum for children’s Sunday School?

The main thing I know about the Orange Curriculum (or Orange Strategy) is that it is put out by Andy Stanley’s “church”. That’s enough for me to warn people to stay far, far away from it. Andy Stanley is a Scripture-twisting false teacher. You don’t want your children being taught by him or his disciples.

My friend Amy Spreeman over at Berean Research was asked the same question by a reader. I refer you to her article, Parents: If your church is “Turning Orange…” for more details.

How would you respond to someone’s who says that [1 Timothy 2:12] was meant only for that time and culture?

It’s one of the most common arguments made by people who are looking for an acceptable way to rebel against God’s clear command, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” I have never had a woman who was humbly seeking to deny herself and obey Scripture make this argument, only those who stubbornly want to have their own way despite what the Bible says, yet simultaneously want to cloak themselves in the appearance of obeying Scripture.

God gave us His exact reasons for this command in verses 13 and 14 (almost as if He somehow knew this argument was coming!), and those reasons weren’t restricted to the women in the first century Ephesian church. The first reason was the Creative order – Adam was formed first, then Eve. The second reason is that Eve was deceived. Both of those reasons are universal (applying to all women and churches everywhere regardless of era or culture). It makes no sense that these two reasons related to Eve would apply only to first century Ephesus any more than it would make sense for them to apply only to tenth century Damascus or seventeenth century Paris.

Next, examine the context of 1 Timothy 2. There are all sorts of instructions to the church in that chapter. Was the instruction to pray for governmental leaders (1-2) limited to the first century Ephesian church? Were only the men of the first century Ephesian church to pray without quarreling (8)? Was modesty (9-10) only required of women in the first century Ephesian church? Then why pick out this one instruction in verse 12 and claim it was limited to that time and culture?

Finally, look at the overall general pattern of male headship and leadership in Scripture. First human created? A man. The Patriarchs? As the word implies – all men. Priests, Levites, Scribes? Men. Heads of the twelve tribes of Israel? Men. Major and minor prophets? Men. All kings of Israel and Judah? Men. Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic Covenants? All established between God and men. Authors of Scripture? Men. The forerunner of Christ? John the Baptist – a man. Messiah? A man. All of the apostles? Men. All of the pastors, elders, and deacons of churches in the New Testament? Men. Founder and head of the church? Christ – a man. Leader and head of the family? Men. Now which fits better with this pattern, women preaching to, teaching, and exercising authority over men in the church, or women not preaching to, teaching, and exercising authority over men in the church?

But the truth is, you can have all the biblical evidence in the world, and it’s not going to convince someone who’s in rebellion against Scripture because self is reigning on the throne of her heart. She’s not concerned with actually obeying God’s Word, she just wants to be able to claim that Scripture supports what she wants to do, either to look good to others or to attempt to drown out the Holy Spirit’s conviction of her sin.

Additional Resources:

Jill in the Pulpit

Ten Things You Should Know About 1 Timothy 2:11-15 and the Relationship Between Men and Women in the Local Church at The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) This is a refutation of the most common egalitarian arguments against the plain meaning of 1 Timothy 2:11-15.