The role of women in the ministry

There have been generations of traditions of men that have given women a wrong perspective of themselves and that have caused them to occupy a minor role in the Church. Nevertheless, the accounts of the Bible show us that in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the life of Paul our Apostle, women have a major role to play. In Luke 8 :1-3, we see women who were ministering of their substance unto the Lord Jesus. It is also important to notice that the affirmation of the resurrection of our Lord was first given to women. In Romans 16, Apostle Paul tells us that he entrusted his epistle to Phebe.

In the Jewish culture, women were relegated at a second plan; they were considered as impure and second-class people, unable to stand in the same category as men. An evidence of that is shown in the gospels of the disciples of our Lord. Saint Luke, who was a Gentile, is the only one who is not ashamed of speaking of women ministering to Jesus. The other Hebrew disciples do not mention them due to their background. It is rather unfortunate to see that this erroneous Jewish perception of women has invaded the Church.

Another problem men have in entrusting women with ministerial tasks is that whenever it has happened, women wanted to rely on their self-sufficiency, trying to be wise in the flesh as
Apostle Paul would say. Also, when women are given ministerial responsibilities, there are generally damages, because they try to minister using their emotions and feminism to add into
what the Holy Spirit can do. In reality there has never been a competition between men and women. We complement each other. And there is such a beauty when one finds that their weakness can be completed by the other.

In marriage, when a man discovers that he can be vulnerable with a woman, without any risk, he will entrust her everything she can be of help. In ministerial couples, if the woman does not know the weaknesses of her husband or what she can bring as a helper to her husband, there is nothing she can work out. So you are not to look for a role to play in the Church first, but to search to know the one you get married to, that you may discern what you are called to complete. It can take many years to know another human being. Our knowledge of God cannot be exhausted. Since we are in God’s image, our knowledge of one another cannot be exhausted either. The danger in marriage is to think you know your husband after the flesh. It will hinder him from opening up completely to you and you will never know where you are to complete him. When I got married to my husband, I noticed he is a whole world I have to discover and he told me the same thing about me. For a man to find in you his complement there needs to be a space that you have discerned and that has been revealed unto you. This cannot be done by the flesh; it is a miracle that is worked out by God.

To be a helper, your understanding of the ministry of the helper is important. God has to bring you to the reality of who He is; you must receive and experience what He is. And this will come by you understanding the placement of the Holy Spirit in you. He is the One who brings us into the inner realities of who the Lord Jesus Christ is in His person. He brings to us the real experience of the Father, the understanding of the things pertaining to Christ; it’s only through Him that we can experience the personhood of God. It is interesting to note that the Holy Spirit is referred as “she”. It is not that you are to be the Holy Spirit to your husband, but in understanding perfectly how the Holy Spirit functions and in coming in that real experience of Him, it will be easier for you, through this same Spirit, to commune and fellowship with your husband who is a spirit. This is a work of commitment and submission to God. It will require you to submit to the understanding of the Holy Spirit without which, no matter your willingness, you’ll always find yourself being a rebellious woman. There is no possibility of transformation of your mind as relate to your relationship with your husband who is a minister without the transformation of your mind in your understanding of what the Holy Spirit Himself has to bring to you. It will require a paradigm shift in your mind about who you are and how you are to collaborate together with God. Without this, there cannot be a transformation of your mind regarding your relationship with your husband. Being at the school of the Spirit requires a total agreement, a total commitment. The school starts in your thoughts. How much do you allow the Spirit to bring to you the real experiences of God? In the tenderness of the voice of the Spirit, there is power of agreement with your husband. Get into the school of the Spirit, into the experience and the actuality of God through the Spirit, to learn how to rely on Christ’s sufficiency. This is the core of the ministerial life every beautiful marriage.