As a little girl Sunday school scholar, my favorite Bible story was the Old Testament story of Deborah, the Prophet turned warrior. I grew up in a time when it was strongly implied, if not outright preached from the pulpit, that a woman’s place was to be subservient to a man’s. Our whole purpose for being created was to serve our husband, therefore our whole purpose had to be to have a husband, and, if you were blessed, you would also have children to serve and a house to clean.
A woman was allowed to serve/lead in church as long as she was ministering to women, or until a man stepped up to take over whatever ministry it was that had temporarily allowed a woman at the helm. As I matured, so it seemed did the church—the music changed and got louder, the organ was replaced by drums, pastors wore trendier clothes—but the place of women seemed to stay the same. Now we were assured from a plexiglass pulpit that we weren’t less than a man in God’s sight, we were just different—the difference being that we just weren’t leadership material. But I still had my story of Deborah to cling to.
Deborah, the wife of Lappidoth, was a prophet who was judging Israel at that time. She would sit under the Palm of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites would go to her for judgment. One day she sent for Barak son of Abinoam, who lived in Kedesh in the land of Naphtali. She said to him, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, commands you:… [Read more…] about Jesus the Feminist