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LESSON 89.
WOMEN MAY PREACH.
723. The Church has often told woman¾we
might say very loudly¾that
Paul commanded her to “keep silence in the churches.” The
Church has told woman very softly, or not at all, that Jesus
Christ obliged one woman to not keep silence, but to
proclaim before a great multitude, made up largely of men,
that Christ had redeemed her from that very “curse,” as it
has been called, which is supposed by some to lie at the
base of the doctrine of silence and subordination for women,
and which was the pretext for her original exclusion from
service at the altar,¾see
par. 673.
724. The account of this woman’s case will be found in
Luke 8:43-48. Zechariah had proclaimed, 500 years before
this incident, that there was to be a “fountain opened
for sin and uncleanness” (13:1), referring to the coming
Christ, and using the very word for “uncleanness” which,
according to Levitical law, separated a woman from the
congregation of Israel (Lev. 15:19). Men straight from a
battle; from stumbling over a grave in the churchyard; from
administering comfort in the home of the dead, and from many
other conditions producing that same state
called “separation,”
(or “uncleanness,” as translated), for which exclusion
from the congregation of Israel was prescribed, have never
thought of excluding
themselves, even temporarily, from the altar of the Church.
In a word, men found that “fountain for sin and
uncleanness” when
Christ came and took full advantage of it; but presently
they excluded women from its benefits, and placed her
back under Levitical disabilities.
725. We have a lesson to learn from Christ’s bringing
the woman to the front to declare her own redemption from an
infirmity, instead of His merely declaring it for her. It is
not enough that Christ’s teaching is plain on this subject,
we women must proclaim this. It is not enough for
women to modestly and quietly seek their own redemption,
they must proclaim it, even when that proclamation lays them
open to the false charge of immodesty.
726. This brings us to another lesson that Christ
taught, when he caused yet another woman not to keep
silence. This case is recorded in Luke 13:11-13.
We can easily picture
this poor deformed creature making her way wearily to the
synagogue, to hear the great Prophet; climbing
the steps to the stuffy
little compartment behind a lattice, usually up in the
gallery under the roof. How amazed she must have been to
have the great Prophet call out suddenly, “Mary, come here
to me.” The other women help her to descend as quickly as
possible, and she walks up the aisle to the platform with
trembling feet, and stands in a most unusual position,¾out
in public, among all the men! Gently He spoke to her and
“laid His hands on her,” and behold! not only is she “loosed
from her infirmity” of a bowed back, but also of a silenced
tongue; “she was made straight and glorified God.”
This means, of course, that she broke the silence with her
hallelujahs, and with rapid tongue began to tell eagerly all
about her former suffering, and healing, to all in the
synagogue.
727. Of course it angered the Rabbi in charge, and he
forbade the people coming to be healed any more on the
Sabbath day. Christ first answers him effectually on this
“Sabbath question,” and then He takes up the “woman
question.” This act of the “laying on of hands”
afterwards came into use among the Apostles as the ceremony
which fitted men for preaching the Gospel and to this day
men boast that they are in the “Apostolic Succession.” which
means that someone laid hands on them, who had had hands
laid upon him, of one who had had hands laid upon him, of
one, etc., etc., all the way back to an Apostle. They forget
that this “laying on of hands” goes farther back than to the
Apostles, to a certain woman, who had Christ’s hands
laid upon her; and she immediately responded by publicly
glorifying God, in spite of the prohibitions of man. Men
might have been not merely in the “Apostolic succession,”
but in the Divine succession, had they not despised the
ministry of women. They should have sought of this woman the
“laying on of hands,” if there be any virtue in
“succession.”
728. After answering the Rabbi on the Sabbath question,
Jesus uttered two parables. That the incident of the healing
led to the utterance of the parables is not made clear in
the A. V. which translates, “Then said He, Unto what is
the kingdom of God like?” The R.V.is more correct,
rendering, “He said, therefore,” etc. But Weymouth’s
Modern English translation brings out the full force of the
connection, rendering, “This prompted Him to say.” He was
prompted to say that man took the seed of the kingdom and
planted it in his own garden. That planting has done a vast
deal of good to all mankind, including women. But yet it is
true, that in teaching woman to forever do penance for the
sin of Eve, while Adam was to be exalted to government over
woman (something he did not have previously), by the sin in
Eden, there has been something very self interested and
selfish in the way man has preached the Gospel of the
kingdom.
729. But Christ’s parable prophesies that one day the
kingdom will be like leaven in woman’s hand. Oh, I know they
tell us that this leaven “always means something evil.” Do
not believe it! This was supposed to be a necessary
invention to combat the teaching that the world will
gradually grow better and better till the end. This is not
the first instance of well-intentioned men getting so
nervous lest true doctrines are not sufficiently forcefully
taught in Scripture, that they have unwarrantably twisted
the truth. Christ said, of the “kingdom of God,” “it is
like a grain of mustard seed.” Again He said,
“Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like
leaven.” Scripture has no sense, if this plain statement
is not sufficient to prove that leaven is not always
something evil,¾since
the kingdom is not evil. And besides, things that are equal
to the same things are equal to each other; and so long as
men teach that the “mustard seed” is something good, do they
prove that leaven is, in this parable, something good also.
“Like” does not mean like, if leaven is “something evil”
here.
730. God never directed man to put “something evil” in
his offerings to God. Read Leviticus 7:13 and 23:17. To be
sure, leaven was not to be burned in sacrifice, but that was
because the odor was not pleasant (Leviticus 2:11,12). And
no leaven was allowed at the Passover time, and we are
expressly told that this was because unleavened bread was
“the bread of affliction,” and to commemorate the haste
of the departure from Egypt (Deuteronomy 16:3). Whether
leaven refers to something good or something evil, depends
upon the context. It signifies merely an all-pervading
influence.
We may be sure that our mothers will never preach the Gospel
in such a manner as to exalt one sex above the other. And
when that mournful time comes of which Paul prophesies, the
“falling away” of the Church, and the banner of the Cross is
trailed in the dust, we may expect to see our mothers seize
the precious standard, and raise it aloft, for, as
Payne-Smith says, “God has never given to any body of men
whatsoever a chartered right to lock up heaven, and let His
people perish for lack of knowledge.” We are coming very
close to such times, if we may judge from the rationalistic
utterances from our present-day pulpits. “Three measures
of meal” does not mean the whole world. This was the
usual quantity used to supply bread for a family. The
meaning is that the whole family of God will each have his
or her share.
731. On a third occasion the Master’s words so stirred a
woman’s heart that she began to pour out blessings on His
head; she “preached Christ” after her own fashion,
interrupting Him in His discourse to do so. Did Christ
silence the woman? Not at all. He said “Amen” to what she
uttered, and added to her teaching (Luke 11:27). Yet
apparently not one of these three incidents of unrebuked
women speaking in public in Christ’s presence has ever been
sufficient to arrest the attention of expositors to the
degree that they would consider whether Paul’s one
utterance, “Let the women keep silence,” could not be
brought into conformity with the precedent set by Jesus, and
with the Apostle’s own words elsewhere. But if one such
saying is pronounced sufficient to silence one half¾yes,
more than one half¾the
Church membership, why are not other sayings sufficient to
silence the other half? |