Bad Mouthing Women Preachers
There are many popular women preachers today. This isn’t biblical. God gave men the mandate to preach and teach the Word. Many twist Scripture and believe it is okay since these women are winning people to the Lord. One man, I will call Ben, wrote this comment on a post I wrote about a female preacher: “I became a born again Christian man after being ministered to by a woman. She baptized me shortly afterwards. This woman was clearly sent by God to reach a lost man. How many thousands of men have Joyce Meyer and Beth Moore led to the Lord and here they are bad mouthed because of it. I believe at that time it was just a custom for woman not to minister just like it was a custom not for a man to have long hair. Be careful not to become legalistic at the expense of loosing souls. Let Christ be preached by men, women, boys, and girls.”
Lisa Bevere, a very popular teacher/preacher, wrote this on her Facebook page the other day: “I remember I used to hear all of these as reasons why women shouldn’t be allowed to preach; my friend never limit yourself to a man-made label. Find freedom in the identity and life Jesus purchased for you. He restores that which was lost at the fall. Whatever it is you have need of, go to the Word of God and get it.” It was under a poster of hers that read, “Never resign yourself to a designation of unfit, gullible, and easy to deceive.”
God is the one who said that woman are easily deceived and He is the One who created us. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression (1 Timothy 2:14). This is one of the reasons He gave for women to not teach nor be in authority over men but be silent in the church. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence (1 Timothy 2:12). For this reason, I will never listen or learn from Lisa. I encourage you not to either since she mocks the clear teaching of the Word of God as many popular women teachers/preachers do today.
These women may be “winning” people to the Lord but they are disobeying God’s clear commands in the mean time. We should never believe that it is okay to disregard and disobey God just because our ministry is successful. Everything must be measured by the Word of God.
Another man wrote this comment in response to Ben’s comment: “I hope you are well. Your argument about if Beth Moore’s works were not blessed by God it would of dried up a long time ago is incorrect. Mormons, Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses, to name a few, are still here and increasing in numbers. Why haven’t their works dried up? You can’t understand God fully. Praise be to God that He gave us His love letter, His Word and ONLY His Word is our standard. To be for God and follow Jesus is to check everything with God’s Word.
Sorry to say Beth Moore does not measure up. Reading your comment, I honestly don’t think you grasped exactly what Josh (another man’s comment) was saying. He was saying that God has laid out the pattern for who is to teach and who is not, and Beth Moore violates that pattern. Even without all of her heresy, let alone her association with known false teachers, that alone is enough to call her out. This is ‘pointing fingers,’ it’s simply speaking the truth. If that is judging then I guess Jesus, the apostle Paul, Peter, James, and any one else who pointed false teachers are judging as well.”
Why do I name these women who are unashamedly disobeying or adding things to the the clear teachings of the Word? In order to warn all of you women who are learning from them. Compromising on parts of the Word that one doesn’t like is a slippery slope and is not a slope you want to be on. I have seen too many abandon their faith due to believing untruths and I don’t want this to happen to you.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
2 Timothy 4:3, 4
***If you love the truth of God’s Word and are tired of all the watering down of Scripture, feel free to join the chat room to have fellowship with like-minded sisters in Christ, but you must fill out the application in order to be accepted. We want all women to know what we believe and are in agreement. Thank you!
22 thoughts on “Bad Mouthing Women Preachers”
Amen Lori! So many women out there are so deceived by women like Beth Moore, Joyce Meyer and Jennifer Hatmaker. That’s just to name a few.
I wish pastors would warn from the pulpit the dangers of following such women.
Unfortunately, most pastors know nothing about them since they aren’t listening to women preachers, Regina. It’s up to the older women in the churches to alert the male leaders about this problem.
Another truthful and thought-provoking post! My husband knows that I love to read and he bought me Lisa Bevere’s latest book as a gift. Out of appreciation for his gesture, I read it. There was an entire chapter about women being equal to men and being allowed to preach. Of course there was no Scripture to back any of this up. I told my husband that I appreciated his gift, and that I read the book and took away some positive teaching from the bad, but would rather not read any more of her work. He completely understood and wasn’t offended. I can see why her teaching is so winsome to many. It definitely would have appealed to me if I wasn’t in the habit of reading my Bible to know the truth. I am praying that my generation of women would put down their female-driven books of curated, spotty, watered-down teaching and pick up the Word instead.
I have seen Joyce Meyer speak via youtube. I just came away from it thinking she was nothing but a good comedian. she certainly has stage prescence, and a good sense of humor, but thats about all she has. Same goes for Beth Moore. Susannah Wesley did not draw attention to herself, she was a hidden woman. And yet she had profound impact and is still well known hundreds of years later. you dont have to be in the spotlight to make a difference. you are not here to impress the world with your teaching ability, you are here to live for Christ. And He and He alone will exalt you in due time. self praise is never a reccomendation. Joyce Meyer was caught on tape blasting an interviewer because he had questioned her right to have a private jet. And rightly so, just cause you have money doesnt mean you should flaunt it. I would never trust these women on spiritual matters.
I agree, Lauren. There is definitely a lack of biblical knowledge among women today and this is why we must all train our children up in the Word so they can easily discern between false teachers and those who teach truth. Because there is such a lack, these “winsome” women are leading thousands of women astray.
I used to listen to Joyce years ago and enjoyed her but I clearly saw the fallacy of her teachings so I wouldn’t recommend her. She understands her new life in Christ but has no problem disobeying the command to not teach men. I love that you wrote about Susannah Wesley being a hidden woman. This is what we should all aspire to be.
Amen, amen, amen dear sister…amen!
Thank you for the post. I just read the Bible and your blog. Do you have a list of women who teach biblical womanhood that you can recommend? Thank you and blessings!
Nancy Campbell and Debi Pearl are my two favorites, Joyce. They are godly, older women who teach godly womanhood.
Thank you for posting this as I have believed this for a long time. Some think I’m wrong but if we actually read Gods word it is perfectly clear. We must stick to Gods word on order to be discerning in these deceiving times. God bless.
Thank you, Cathy. It seems perfectly clear to me too!
Thanks for another great post,Lori. Perhaps we can also gain wisdom from portions of scripture in the Old Testament…I was just reading in 2 Chronicles 26 about King Uzziah who forsook the Lord by burning incense in the temple, upon the altar. This was a transgression against the Lord because he took it upon himself to do something that only the priests were commissioned to perform. It says, “…it appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn incense unto the Lord…”
Uzziah needed to serve the Lord in his rightful place, just as women are to serve in their rightful place. Scripture clearly teaches the preaching belongs to men.
Elisabeth Elliot and Martha Peace are biblical, trust worthy women to read as well! 🙂
Hi Lori! I appreciate your calling, and your serious commitment to it. Here’s a multi-part study from Fuller (maybe you’ve already read it…) that can lend some more depth and context to the women preacher/teacher subject. I’m not big on ‘titles’ but You can be sure that David Scholar has studied, studied, studied the Word, compared/contrasted many different translations and has prayerfully formulated his thesis. I hope you can take a read (its long) and if you feel led, follow up on his exegesis and citations.
http://fuller.edu/womeninministry/
PS: Full disclosure, I’m not totally unbiased here. 🙂
My wife has been on Young Life regional leadership staff for 20 years and has shared Jesus with many hundreds of high school and college age students of all genders and Jesus has definitely blessed her ministry.
You are so right, Holly. The preaching/teaching of the Word is absolutely given to men. God made it very clear and specific what He wants older women to teach younger women.
Yes, I agree! I know there are many others.
Hi Joe,
Lori asked me to take your comment… having passed up on Fuller, and I went to Talbot instead, in large part because of Fuller’s walking away from the traditional Biblical Pauline views on the role of women in the church. Back then the argument was “cultural,” and was controversial even within Fuller itself, with one main professor espousing the views that Paul was not speaking for God as it relates to the universal church, but only his little culturally backwards churches. So, God in his infinite wisdom did not see fit to give us a clear understanding of what role women were to take on, and the church missed God’s message for 2000 years, but this professor and others finally got God’s message… and it’s all about almost exactly what feminism is teaching as can be applied to the church!
Please excuse my attempt at humor… but it does sadden me that much of the church has now followed along some 35 years later, including those who are close to me who have graduate degrees from Fuller and no longer follow Jesus. What Howard Lindsell prophetically espoused in his book Battle for the Bible with his “Slippery Slope” has come true in our churches… and is being lived out by even well-intended Christians who love the Lord. Once the authority of God’s Word, especially the Word as understood throughout the centuries, gets twisted and thrown out, the underpinnings of faith get rocked.
Let’s take the articles in question… the first part I have no issues with it… and second part completely disagree with this quote:
“The word ‘helper,’ then, is not to be understood as an expression of submission and service to man; rather, the woman as helper serves God with man. ”
Wait a minute? So, Eve was not to be Adam’s helper but was to be God’s helper? Oh, help me Lord! How do people come up with this stuff? The fact that God is called our Helper in 29 places in scripture has nothing to do with the context of Eve as Adam’s helper. Of course, the whole church for 2000 years missed this important point and God allowed this misunderstanding because … Some needs should tackle that question someday. How God is so unclear with what He is trying to communicate to us that he can leave men in charge of families and the church for 2000 years, all because he wasn’t clear enough in His Word?
Scholar goes on and says, “The statements of judgment for disobedience (Genesis 3:14–19) are descriptive ones of future realities, which involved a supremacy/subjection relationship between man and woman. These statements are not creation mandates; rather, the relationship of mutuality, partnership, and equality portrayed in Genesis 1:1–3:7 is now sadly marred by sin. ”
I have wondered about very thing. What if God saying “he will rule over you” … referring to Adam ruling Eve, “what if this is part of the curse… or a result of the fall, and NOT God’s desire and design???!”
Again, Scholar is doing some gymnastics here to try to get things the way he wants them to be… not what the Word teaches. How do we know that? God had every opportunity to set the record straight with the coming of the church and what does God do? He has his top theologian, the apostle Paul writing authoritatively, “Wives submit to your husbands in everything” and ” I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man.”
I would say God was pretty clear here, even at a time God should have, according to Scholar, set the record straight that “it was NOT Eve who sinned first and was more easily deceived,” and “God never intended for male leadership in the family or the church.” It’s not like God just stayed silent on this matter that Scholar now has figured out 6000 years later, it’s that God doubled down on what He intends for male leadership in the church and family when He starts the church with primarily Paul’s and Peter’s theology. And let’s not forget Peter jumping in with God’s intention too when he writes: “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands” and “For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.” Can it get more clear than that Mr. Scholar?
I have no issue with Scholar’s part 3 of his article and his conclusion: “Jesus’s inclusion of and ministry to and through women within his own life and teaching were a powerful witness to the early church of the partnership of women and men within its membership and ministry.”
Jesus certainly did raise the status of women in His day and treated them with respect. Christ and Christianity has done more for women than any other religion or system of thought. Women are indeed equal as persons before God, but God also outlined an order of things, not because He favors man, but because it is what is His best for the church, and one’s wife.
Here again Scholar pretends to be scholarly by pointing out the participation of women with Jesus in his ministry, and women being the first to proclaim Christ had risen, as if this is proof of preaching, teaching, or authoritative leadership. It is not, and neither is the Samaritan woman evangelizing her whole town. All great things, but all “red herrings” leading the untrained mind to believe that somehow A + B = 23, when A and B are not even numbers. Just because something may make sense it does not mean it invalidates what God’s Word clearly teaches.
The numbers God gives show up clearly in His Word and just as clear as what God says about husband leadership and male leadership in the church. Let’s take a look at the numbers:
Jesus chose how many women to be His disciples? Oh, if there had just been one, just one who Jesus counted among His inner circle then so much of this argument could have been put to rest. But instead Scholar wants us to believe that God chose to keep this new revelation he has about women in ministry unclear by choosing 12 men and zero women to do be his disciples and apostles.
How about the number of women who wrote a piece of the Bible? How about the number who had a sermon or a letter in the Bible? How about the number of women elders that were selected to run the early church? How about throughout all of God’s dealing with mankind, up until the last 35 years of course, how many women did God chose for leadership? Zero?
One may be able to, as Scholar does, go grasping for straws on this question and find a Deborah or Priscilla, even a Phoebe and Junas, and if we add them all up and assume they were ministers, you will not find one who is said to be a leader of a church, in a church, or teaching a man. Not one.
So in conclusion, God has always been quite clear with me and His church with few exceptions, and on these few things we must assume that He does not want us to know everything just yet. Scholar and all the others who want to define women’s equality as not having to accept male leadership in their home or church are being dishonest with the Word, church history and themselves. The best one can do on this subject from the view Scholar holds is to be honest enough to accept that God’s intent was indeed male leadership and yet, somehow in these latter days, God has poured out His Spirit on women in a special way and gifted them to step in because men just can’t or won’t do the job. That we are in a new era of time that now falls OUTSIDE of the boundaries of God’s clear revelation. That God did not intend the church to believe in male leadership longer than 1950 years, and now new revelation has arrived. At least this would be an honest population even as it would have all Christians now scrabbling to “do what was right in their eyes, because God told me so, or gave me this special revelation.” And is this not what we are really seeing out there in the church. The Self-justification of why gifted women can run around teaching men with rarely if ever keeping the commands as to what they are to teach women? Even as their ministries do not fit with the clear teaching of the Word.
I will say that I am personally not as concerned about a woman participating in para-church functions. Lori will disagree with me on this as the church universal is the church, but one can be on safer ground and postulate that outside of the local church, or governing church body, the Bible can be seen as silent as to women in ministry. We certainly know that women missionaries have been effective in evangelism, and that evangelism should be part of every Christian’s walk with the Lord. So, if you and your wife can somehow reconcile before the Lord that she is not “teaching men or exercising authority over them” then you are welcome to take that up with the Lord. My strong caution would be to not allow the poor scholarship and reasoning of men like Scholar who have an agenda they want to meet, as opposed to honestly dealing with the Word, to keep the Word from speaking clearly and definitively to you. We need to see through the bias and poor arguments on the subject to simply say, “Lord, thy will be done,” not mine.
If Jesus can go to a cross desiring to fulfill each and every word God had spoken, we should be doing the same, even when it doesn’t fit with our desires and what we think of as our potential in life. After all is said and done, Jesus and God’s Word are inseparable. Let’s not let the latest feminist outcry in the church push us into “culturally” making God’s Word and church history all wrong on this important matter. Instead, let’s assume that gifted women like yours and mine do indeed have a great place in God’s ministries, it’s just not in teaching men or exercising authority over them in the church.
Did you know the Conways with Young Life in the past? We love that couple! Blessings to you both… we love Young Life!
Lori,
Have you met Nancy Campbell? She is such a sweet lady. We used to go to the family camps in Pine Valley when we lived in CA but we haven’t been in awhile. I miss both Colin and Nancy and I we can get to a family camp either in CA or if they have one in AZ.
No, I haven’t, Regina, but I have wanted to go to see her at the family camp in Southern CA but have never been able to due to my health.
Great, I am reading Story of a Soul by Saint Therese of Lisieux.
Thanks Ken, very erudite!
Can’t say that we’ve ever met the Conways.
It would be neat to be able to join the chat room w/o being part of facebook! I have quit facebook due to strong personal and political beliefs.