WHAT ABOUT THE WOMEN?

November 1, 2024

“All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women,” (Acts 1:14; 5:14 ESV).

When I completed my thesis in 1997, it was solely on the merits of teaching men discipleship in small groups. In 2010, I became an associate pastor with Dr. Nancy Cook at Tulsa Christian Center Ministries (TCCM) in Tulsa, OK. During the summer months, Dr. Cook suggested that we should teach our thesis topics during the summer months. She had completed her thesis work on the principles of “Forgiveness,” and I completed my work on the principles of “Discipleship.” We were both D.Min. graduates from Oral Roberts Grad. School of Theology & Ministry (ORU-STM). The D.Min. Degree is project-oriented, so we both had project workbooks that were taught in an average of 8-week sessions, which was perfect for the summer.

I was preparing to teach my course in the same way that I taught it to the men from the example in my thesis proposal when I was approached by Lu Arnold, one of the women in church leadership. We were just in the preparation phase for doing the summer teaching when Lu asked me, “Dr. Barber, ‘What about the women?” She knew from the topic of my thesis to disciple men that I had only taught the men for my proposal. She wanted to know about any women as disciples in the Biblical text. I shared that women were followers of Jesus. Therefore, there were female disciples of Jesus Christ. I also believed it was still a needed addition to ministry in order to take the church to another level. As we look at the biblical text in the study of men, we cannot miss the fact that women are a part of the narrative. Women were and still are an integral part of the ministry of Jesus Christ. On my second journey to the Fiji Islands to teach at World Harvest Center in Suva, Fiji, Mary, the Sr. Pastor’s wife, stood up one day in the class and asked me the same question. “What about the women Dr. Barber?” I replied to her with the same words that I shared with Lu. The next day, in that Fiji class, in the first hour, I shared with them a PowerPoint of women in ministry in the biblical text from Genesis to Revelation.

It was at that very moment that the Holy Spirit reminded me that my initial project was to include both men and women in the cell groups at the previous church I attended. I decided instantly that women should be involved in the teaching. I began to change my teaching to include men and women. If you look closely at the biblical text, you’ll see women as leaders, prophets, and judges in the Old Testament. Moses’ sister Miriam (Ex. 15:20-21) was a leader when they left Egypt. Deborah (Judges 4-5) instructed Barack in preparation for victory in battle. Esther saved a nation through her bravery—a leader, indeed—and Huldah was a prophet in the time of King Josiah (2 Chronicles 34).

We cannot deny the influence of women on the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. We observe in the book of Luke that there were women who were involved with the 12 men disciples of Jesus. There is no doubt that Jesus had women who were actively involved in discipleship during the early church development.

“Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.” (Luke 8:1–3 ESV)

Women gave their time and money just like the men and were included in the book of Acts and the New Testament Letters to the Gentile Church. They were very much included in the active life of ministry. We see Jesus’ mother and other women were in the upper room when the baptism of the Holy Spirit fell on them, and they began to use them in miraculous ways. I realize more than ever that women were an integral part of Jesus’ ministry and that when I wanted to include them in my thesis, God was guiding and teaching me then how much the women were included. In the exhausted look through the text I unavoidably could not miss the women. Other women, such as Pheobe (Romans 16:1-2), Priscilla (Acts 18:26), and Euodia and Syntyche (Philippians 4:2-3) played influential leadership roles in the early church with the Apostle Paul. Numerous others served as prophetesses, evangelists, leaders, and judges. It is in the Apostle’s reference to Priscilla and Aquila that he reiterates how much he respected her and their teaching. There are many other references regarding women in the ministry of the Apostle Paul. If you read the biblical text, you will see the names of other women who were prophetesses and women of prominence in the body of Christ.

My pastor, a women Dr. Nancy Cook, continues to preach and teach at a level that has drawn me, a seminary doctoral educator, and other men, like me, to be under the leadership of this excellent woman of God and that is despite the contention that still exists in this time and day that women should not be permitted to do ministry. One of our church ladies recently was asked by a man “Who is your pastor?” When she replied that it was Dr. Nancy Cook, the gentleman rejected the idea of a woman being a minister in the church let alone a seminary graduate with a D.Min. degree from ORU. Steve Whitaker, the President of the John 3:16 Mission met Dr. Cook at a Franklin Graham Festival event in 2003. She had approached him to help organize the festival, to which he graciously agreed. One day, when they were taping for the festival, in between one of the shows, he listened to Dr. Cook and recognized that she had a strong theological foundation, which he needed for the mission and more so for the female presence that was increasing at the mission. Whitaker suggested, “You need to come down to the mission and preach to my men and women.” That was in April 2009 when they started working together. He invited Dr. Cook to come and teach at the Mission in the downtown homeless shelter. She found herself going downtown to the Mission once a month. When I came on board as Associate Pastor of TCCM in 2010, Steve Whitaker also asked me to share at the mission. I begin to teach at the Mission with Dr. Cook. We went twice a month as a team, as she would go with me when I taught, and then I would go with her when she taught. When the Covid pandemic hit in 2020, we were limited in what we could do so we began to go separately just to avoid any conflict as a result of the pandemic.

In the ensuing years, John 3:16 opened the “Refuge” exclusively for the homeless women who were invited to join the 5 Phase Program and to live at the Refuge, which protected those women from living on the street or with men who only wanted them for abuse, sexual favors, and financial purposes. In addition, the program encourages women to achieve more. Today the Refuge houses both the men’s and women’s programs. The teachings accomplished in a 5 phase program are for both men and women who engage which could take three to five years. With successful completion of the five phases, the graduates are given the opportunity, with John 3:16’s assistance to find a job and obtain employment, rent apartments or find places to stay, and some even get a car. I see the Refuge as a community depicted in Sherwood Lingenfelter’s book “Ministering Cross-Culturally” reiterates when he states:

We are all participants in the shared cultural community. These communities are made up of people, rules, regulations for behavior, structures that organize and coordinate social behavior, and structures that exclude some people and assign greater or less roles to members.[i] 

I believe the concepts of discipleship taught by Jesus begins in community/fellowship and should include ministry to and from women. We cannot have a connection with one another without New Testament fellowship (Koinonia). Fellowship is a community, and Jesus met with his men and women almost regularly, even daily, if you would like to suggest that. Lingenfelter goes on to say; “A major purpose of a society is to coerce individuals to live together in society. It pressures people to submit to one another and to live together in a social framework.”[ii] 

The main concept of ministering cross-culturally, including to and by women, is designed to help people create a community. There still remains a place for us to correct the errors of misinterpretation; as Dr. Howard Irving quoted quite often. “Scripture out of context is a pre-text…for error.” Let’s correct the errors of past biblical misinterpretations and prepare the Church for the revival and the next coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. I now see that revival is also Jesus waiting for harmony in the Church to include men and women working in conjunction with one another. The concept of the help meet that began in Genesis when God created Eve to assist Adam should become more understood that Jesus was referring to the future resurrection and that we must begin to look at the future kingdom of God in a different light when it comes to heavenly and eternal things.

“For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven.” (Matthew 22:30ESV)

There is no marriage in heaven, or what we see today as the male, female relationship dynamic will not exist as we will be like the Angels. That heavenly and eternal reality is a totally different concept in the thinking of most people today. We will become transformed and equal as men and women. Start now to recognize that the next revival will precipitate a unified effort to become one in this earthly and then eternal realm? Today, we are bound by a fleshly existence, but in the resurrection, as Paul says, “

For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. (1 Corinthians 15:53).

Paul tells us a secret, a mystery, i.e., something that previously in human history had not been known, but has been revealed in a transformation that will change our human, male, and female existence altogether.

Study: Questions to ponder, alone or in a group.

1. Consider Acts 1:14; 5:14, as quoted above. How do you see women today relative to the fact that they were an integral part of Discipleship in the New Testament church?

2. Discuss the fact that as the church has matured since the Reformation, and according to what the text says, women can lead in church ministry with signs and wonders that follow them?

3. Looking forward, discuss the opinions of women being involved, as much as, or with men in the Church in these last days in preparation of the coming revival and return of Jesus Christ? 

[i] Lingenfelter, Sherwood G.; Mayers, Marvin K. Ministering Cross-Culturally. Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.p.105

[ii] Lingenfelter, p. 105