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Printer Friendly VersionIn the book of Acts chapter 16 is found one of the more familiar
passages of scripture. There Paul and Silas have come to Philippi and begun
to minister. At some point their path crossed a slave girl who is possessed
by a spirit of divination. Her masters had her telling people’s fortunes
for money. She began following them around saying, “These are slaves
of the most High God who proclaim to you a way of salvation” (v. 17)
She kept doing that for days until Paul finally got annoyed with her. Who
knows, perhaps he thought young ladies should be seen and not heard. At any
rate, he turned around and said to the spirit in her, “I order you in
the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her” (v. 18). It came out right
then and she was free! What a great story! The problem is her masters didn’t
like the loss of income, so they brought Paul and Silas in on some trumped
up charges. Paul and Silas were stripped and beaten with rods, and then placed
in prison, and kept there securely guarded.
At about midnight, they were praying and singing to God, and
the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake so
violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken, immediately all the
doors were opened and everyone’s chains fell off. The jailer just knew
everyone had escaped and that he was a goner, so he drew his sword to take
his own life, when Paul rushed out and told him, “Wait! Don’t
do yourself any harm. We are all here!” (v. 28). The jailer called for
lights, and went in and fell down at Paul’s feet. He asked, “What
must I do to be saved?” Paul answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus,
Christ and you will be saved, you and your whole household.” (vv. 30-31).
They shared the good news about Jesus. The man washed their wounds, and his
whole household was baptized without delay. It is a great story. It is a wonderful
story. Think about it. The man went from suicidal to saved in just a few minutes.
But not just him; his whole household. That’s just the way it should
be right?
I wonder what the man’s wife thought about it. We have
a friend, a part of this community, who works at a prison. I know more than
one person who works at the prison. I wonder what would happen if he came
home late one night next week, walked through the door and said, “Dear,
I’ve got a surprise for you. There was a little, uh, rumble, at the
prison tonight, I was so impressed with the way a couple of the inmates conducted
themselves. I brought them home. They’ve got some good news to share
with you and then we are going to head out to Lake Overholser for a little
dip.” So are you game? I’m guessing this jailer’s wife,
the mother of his children, was at first a little concerned. But before long
she was baptized.
When the man of the house was saved because of the witness of
some prisoner his whole household was saved. That’s just the way it
ought to be. He gets saved and the whole household follows. That’s just
how leadership works, isn’t it?
A few years ago, I opened up a nationally known news magazine
and read a page of quotes. There on the page was a quote by a pastor who ministered
about one mile from where I lived at the time. He was a famous voice of another
denomination. The quote simply said, “We believe leadership is basically
male.” I want to ask, is this story about the Philippian jailer the
paradigm for all ministry, was my fellow pastor right, or can women lead?
Some people have very definite opinions about that kind of thing.
Last week I read again the story of Gene’s mom:
She was 20 years old when Gene was born. She was strikingly
attractive with long auburn hair, a little over five feet tall, fit and trim.
From the age of five or six, Gene accompanied her Sunday evenings to one room
schoolhouses and grange halls in several small settlements scattered throughout
the valley, in the northern Rocky Mountains where they lived. Lumberjacks
and miners would assemble in those buildings, as she held religious meetings.
There were six or seven locations to which they would go in turn making the
circuit every couple of months. They did it year round, summer and even winter
in the Rockies.
She had a plain contralto voice, a folk-singer voice, and accompanied
herself on an accordion or a guitar. She led her small congregations in country
gospel songs, religious folk ballads and hymns: “Life Is Like a Mountain
Railroad,” “Old Time Religion,” “When the Roll is
Called Up Yonder.” The lumberjacks and coal miners in their clomping
boots, bib overalls, and flannel shirts loved it. She sang the sentimental
songs and they sobbed honking into their red bandanas, wiping tears without
embarrassment. Not genteel congregations these. Gene never remembers a woman
among the group except his mom.
After the singing she would preach. She was a wonderful storyteller
who told stories out of scripture and out of life. Occasionally she would
slip into that almost musical style that you hear in black churches where
they ride the phrase like a surfer. On wintry nights they would get stuck
in snowdrifts at the grange halls, but the men would rally to the rescue and
push them out. Some, not discipled for very long, would yell curses and then
apologize in confused embarrassment. Gene says, “I heard the best preaching--and
the most colorful cursing--of my life those nights.”
This went on most Sunday nights until he was about 10 years
old. Then, it stopped. He didn’t know why until as an adult Gene asked
his mother why. She said that someone had come to her with a Bible opened
to one particular passage in First Timothy. Paul’s words there are,
“Let a woman learn in silence. I permit no woman to teach.” (vv.
11-12). Gene’s mom went silent that very day, because what she was doing
wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. She wasn’t supposed to have
any authority or lead in the way that she was. She didn’t fit the paradigm
because, “Leadership is basically male.”1
The story I told you before, the story of the Philippian jailer
from Acts 16, is a very familiar story. In fact if I took a straw poll, and
asked who here had heard of that story, I think probably over half would say
they’ve heard of it. The story is the way it’s supposed to be.
The man hears the message from other men; he comes to faith and goes home,
and leads his whole family into the waters of baptism.
Would it surprise you to know that the Philippian jailer wasn’t
the first person to come to faith in Philippi? Would you be able to guess
who was the first to come to faith in Philippi? My hunch is most of you wouldn’t
be able to answer. Why don’t you turn with me to Acts 16, let’s
stand together, and we will find out who was the first person to accept Christ
in Philippi.
Read Acts 16:11-15
Did you hear that? There in Philippi, before the jailer came
to faith in Christ in the story we all know, Lydia, a wealthy business woman,
came to faith. And her whole household was baptized. Why are we so much less
familiar with that passage? I wondered about that and so I did an experiment.
I want to tell you a secret. We pastors have changed the way
we do things a little. Every pastor used to have a 25 volume set of illustrations
that were indexed by scripture passage and/or topic. We don’t have those
any more. Now there are web sites where we can post our own good stories and
make use of stories others have found and used. It makes for a few less bookshelves,
and if we are really studying the word before we go there, it probably makes
for some better, more interesting sermons too. A pastor can go to those sites,
and type in a passage, and sometimes over 100 pieces of information will come
with illustrations, quotes and so on.
Last Wednesday, when I was thinking about these two stories,
I went on the largest site, and typed in Acts 16:16-40. That’s the jailer
part. You know how many illustrations and quotes came up? For the story of
the Philippian jailer, 28 pieces of information came up. Then I went back
and typed in Acts 16:11-15. Do you know how many pieces of information came
for that story--1. One piece of information that had nothing to do Lydia.
It was about Luke and Paul and their journey. I know, the story of the jail
and the earthquake is more exciting, and we preachers like to be exciting
so maybe that’s why there was more material. Or maybe not. I noticed
something else as I was looking at those 28 pieces of information. I also
noticed it when I was reading the credits for each piece of information. The
contributor’s name is listed after each piece of information. Of those
28 contributors, 26 of them (93 percent) were men. I guess the other two (7
percent), those two women who contributed to the jailer story and not to the
story about Lydia, have been listening to the other 93 percent preaching their
whole lives.
You know why I think there are no illustrations about the story
of Lydia? I think it is because of where Paul and Silas found her. When Paul
and Silas got there on the Sabbath, they went outside the gate where there
was a place of prayer and where they met with some women who gathered there.
There she was--a wealthy woman and business owner who at some point had taken
the initiative to move her business from Thyatira, where she was from, to
Philippi, the leading city of the district of Macedonia. She was a leading
woman who’d probably made a very calculating business decision to move
her operation to this leading city. Only she was a woman, so Paul and Silas
found her with the rest of the women. Back then, neither business nor religion
bothered with a glass ceiling. They just made a stone gate out of it. That’s
where the women went to pray, outside the gate. This town didn’t have
a synagogue, probably because there weren’t 10 devout men in the whole
place. The devout women, however, prayed outside the gate. So that is where
Paul and Silas had to go to find people who worshipped God. The jailer was
an official of the government. He was an insider to the system. He was a man,
but that isn’t where the work started in Philippi. The ministry started
outside the gate.
Outside the gate they sat down and spoke to the women who had
gathered there. Lydia, this wealthy, decisive business woman, heard what was
being said and as a result her whole household was baptized that day. She
said to Paul and his companions, “If you have judged me to be faithful
to the Lord, come to my home and stay there” (v. 15).
Can you imagine what it was like to be her husband? “Hi
honey, I’m home from prayer meeting. Listen, I need to tell you that
a couple of men from out of town crashed the prayer group this morning and
stared sharing some very powerful words. They’ve changed my whole life
and I want you to hear what they have to say. Then we are going to all head
back outside the gate to the river so we can all be baptized. By the way,
you’ll need to move your fishing stuff out of the guest room, and you
kids will sleep on a pallet in our room because they will be staying with
us for a while. Come outside and let me introduce you to Paul, Silas and Luke.”
I know--my imagination has gotten the best of me, but has it?
This is the apostle Paul we are talking about here. Back in Acts 15 all the
powerful Jewish Christians in Jerusalem couldn’t get him to change course.
This is the Paul and Silas who the town government couldn’t cower with
a night in the stockade. Luke, who is traveling with them, is a doctor. These
are three very driven leaders, who hear from God, and then go and do it. They’ve
been through two territories and four cities in the past six verses. The story
comes to a halt, and stays in Philippi for 30 verses because they encounter
this woman Lydia outside the gate. And the word says, “She prevailed
upon us” (v. 30 NRSV).
I won’t do it, but here on Mother’s Day I think
it would be very interesting to ask all the men in the room to raise their
hand if they have been prevailed upon by a lady. I’ve got news for you.
If you’ve got a mother, you’ve been prevailed upon by a woman.
“Oh pastor, all Lydia was doing was keeping house and making a place
for Paul and Silas to stay.” Can women lead? I think before we can answer
the question, “Can women lead in the Church or anywhere else”
we’ve got to come to a pretty clear definition of what leadership is.
So much of what we see in the world about leadership means using power to
control an organization or a group of people. For Jesus leadership looked
much different than that. One night when His disciples were all eating Jesus
evidently wanted to teach them about leadership; so He got up from the table,
took a towel and washbasin and washed his disciples’ feet. Then He said,
“You call me Lord, and Teacher, and you are right for that is what I
am. So if I your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to
wash one another’s feet” (John 13:13).
When Jesus wants to define leadership He doesn’t pick
up a gavel, a pen or a phone. He picks up a towel and a washbasin. You know
what I think that means, men? Under Jesus’ definition of leadership,
if “leadership is basically male,” the next time the kids are
outside and get muddy this summer, we’re the only ones qualified to
clean them up. Jesus said He did that as an example of Lordship, leadership.
But that’s not really the way it is. Is it? No, it is
the one who is there who heads to the tub with the kids, grabs the towel and
wash basin and scrubs the dirty feet. That’s Jesus’ definition
of leadership. The truth is we aren’t told a thing about a husband for
Lydia. She may have had one, and then again, she may not have.
Someone I know has, through no fault of her own, become a single
mother of multiple children. It is recent and it is raw. She’s talking
about the shock of it all with her children, and she gets them through the
wash basin, the breakfast table, and in Church with her each week. Folks,
that woman is a leader.
No, it is the one who is there who winds up taking up the towel
and washbasin. Let me ask you a question. Once a mother, single or happily
married, has taken up the towel and washbasin and followed the example of
Christ, the head of the Church, is her ministry limited? If the Holy Spirit
has opened her heart to a call to ministry should the rest of leadership be
denied her? Sometimes it is denied her; but not always.
It isn’t always. This morning I want to introduce you
to another woman. Here name is Mrs. G., the mother of two sons and a devoted
wife. The fact that both of her sons, and her four grandchildren, serve the
Lord in churches across the country is evidence of her Christian leadership
in her home. But that leadership part of her life started long before she
had kids or even before she was married. One Sunday when she was 14 years
old, she knelt at an altar of prayer, her heart was opened and she became
convinced the God was calling her to preach. That was a defining moment in
her life; the only problem was it was 40 years ago. The world was not very
open to that sort of thing. But, by the grace of God, she got up from that
altar and told her pastor of it. And he asked her to preach in the very next
service. She began to preach here and there, went to a Nazarene college, married
another ministerial student and they co-pastored churches in several places.
For the past twelve years she has served as the world wide leader of Nazarene
Mission International, preaching all over the world and helping the church
to see the vision. Those who’ve been involved with her in meetings where
vision for missions was at stake have told me that, more than once, she has
prevailed upon the predominantly male leadership. I should probably tell you,
Miss Griggs is her maiden name. She uses it as her middle initial. Her name
is Dr. Nina G. Gunter. In the summer of 2005, Dr. Nina G. Gunter was elected
the first woman General Superintendent in the Church of the Nazarene. It is
the highest office in the denomination. She now ordains ministers who are
called to preach.
Who leads in the Church? We know the answer. It is the Holy
Spirit that leads in the Church, and despite the different cultural barriers
in Bible times and in current times, the wind of the Spirit blows where it
will. In Acts 2, on the Day of Pentecost, several chapters before the stories
of Lydia and the jailer, Simon Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit. He stood
up and said among other things, “This is what the Prophet Joel was talking
about when he said, in the Last days, says the Lord, I will pour out my spirit
on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy . . . and even on
your slaves both men and women and they will prophesy” (vv. 16-17, NRSV).
But pastor, this is Mother’s Day. It’s not about
leadership; it’s about nurture. In effect, that’s what someone
said to Gene’s mom and silenced her. Well, it sort of silenced her.
You see, I read her story in this book. (Hold up books) And I read this book,
because I read this book. And because I read those books, I read this book.
It is called the Pastoral Library. Gene, that little five year old boy who
for five years followed his mother’s lead through that mountain valley
and listened to her preaching and singing, grew up to become Eugene Peterson,
church planter and scholar. One of the living authorities on what we pastors
do. Incidentally, he is also the translator of The Message, the Bible in Contemporary
English, the word of God for people outside the gate. I think that might have
happened, in part, because he followed the lead of his mom who showed him
leadership starts outside the gate.
Can women lead? The truth is the Spirit leads, and very often
He does that through the open hearts and prevailing words of the women we
know and love and follow.
1. Adapted from Eugene Peterson Under the Unpredictable Plant (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 42-45.