Reggie – This is an article I found on women and prophecy by Zac Poonen from Sermon Index. I wonder if you agree with his article. On page 3 he writes about women, prophecy and the new testament.
Dear sister, I can’t promise, but I hope to get to this article asap, but am tied up with much else for the moment. It looks like another question that takes me a bit afield of my principal burden concerning the context of the gospel in relation to Israel and the church. I will say, however, that I’m happy for your stand on this as a woman. Art once said, “authority is male.” I’m not even sure I understand all the implications of that statement, but to me it rings profoundly true, though I know it violates every natural sensibility. [Ed. see Art Katz’s booklet The Mystery of Marriage]
I believe a woman’s glory, which is no less than a man’s, is to be worship-fully and willingly submitted to what God has chosen in precisely the way He has chosen it. And to bear whatever yoke that comes without complaint or chaffing in resigned trust of the perfect wisdom of His sovereign decree. Of course, it is no different for the man, since he is no less ‘under authority’. But until the final perfection, God has ordained an equality and dissolution of all distinction in one place only, namely, “in Christ” / “in the Spirit”. In the meantime, and while this creation continues through to the end of the millennium, He has chosen to leave certain distinctions and differences in the creation for the sake of His demonstration and statement to the principalities and powers. One of those distinctions is between male and female. Another is the one He has established between Jew and Gentile. Those distinctions form no barrier in Christ, but are left in the creation for the sake of a needful contrast that shows the true nature of unity through the Spirit.
I am offensively Pauline in my view of gender roles in the church, and thus out of touch with much that passes for modern charismatic ministry. Whether I am right is not my interest, but your godly willingness to question norms and practices whether they line up with scripture, together with your contented resignation to submit to whatever the Word says in anything, now THAT is the blessing of the Lord that makes rich and adds no sorrow! What if one is greatly gifted, but that person’s use of his or her gift is circumscribed by some definite commandment of God that ‘seems’ to restrict its use and full value to others? Will we still rejoice and trust that Father knows best? Now that’s a woman of God!
The modern perversion of male authority in Islam is a legalistic perversion designed of the devil to drive the gender issue into a total reaction to the other extreme, which is just as inverted and perverse against God’s intention from the beginning. Satan’s great design is to strike at God by distorting and disfiguring His image in man by reversing the order of peace into a formula for the chaos of rebellion. I believe the fallen angels gain access into the holy things of priestly service when the woman is uncovered through ‘casting off the veil’ (symbolic in the ancient world of a declaration of independence from the man). Her function is to be under the authority (Headship) that God has ordained for her protection. Not because of any special virtue in the man, but because of the blessing of the God who sovereignly controls all things for the woman’s greater peace and good, despite the man. Just as the issue of God’s election of the Jew in his natural unworthiness is a test of the Gentile heart concerning the right of God to elect, so too, the divine ordinance of male leadership is a test of the woman’s heart (and many men’s hearts) concerning the right and the wisdom of God to choose as He will choose. It is ultimately the issue of divine rule.
Your friend and brother in the Beloved, Reggie
