Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: I'd like you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 3, starting to read at verse seven. "Husbands, in the same way, be considerate as you live with your wives and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers."

And then Peter goes on to give instructions to the group of believers he's speaking to. I'm sure his wife was sitting on the front row during this marriage seminar and church talk, and he gives instructions of all the things that that assembly of believers would, if he had his way, be doing. And he instructs them in all sorts of ways. But I wanted to start there, and we'll see how far we get.

I want to talk about the principles of Christian partnership. I'm going to address us, the husband and wife, the marriage in ministry. There are two extremes you can go to in ministry as a ministry couple. You can sacrifice ministry on the altar of marriage, or you can sacrifice marriage on the altar of ministry. Both are wrong. Let me say that again. You can sacrifice ministry on the altar of marriage, or you can sacrifice marriage on the altar of ministry, and both extremes are wrong.

Somewhere in the continuum, you will be. And balancing is trying to figure that out. Not only do I have to find out what sort of a boat I am, I have to find out—or my husband has to figure out—what sort of a boat he is, and putting those two boats together as we steam out in stewardship and leadership and lordship together, we will be achieving something totally unique in ministry and in marriage.

Every one of us is different and every couple is different. And I come back to the fact that not one of us can tell the other, "You should be doing this," or "She should be doing that," or "He should be doing that," because this is very intimate with God and with each other. Each couple is an incredible variety. You know, you look at the leopard spots and you look at all the snowflakes, and we know all the illustrations of the uniqueness of what God makes. When He brings you together and makes you one, you are a totally unique one. There is no other one like you. Very, very special.

So it's the wrestling, the balancing of putting our gifts and who we are together. And the partnership piece, the woman is incredibly vital to this whole equation as the debate rages in America—not many other countries, but in America at the moment—of what women can and cannot do and should and shouldn't do.

That impacts everybody in this room because we are coming from one end of the spectrum to the other in this room. Some of you are coming from churches where we're saying, "What's the problem? We have men and women in equal leadership situations." Others of you are coming from churches where they say, "Oh no." I have already been grabbed by a few of you who are really under the gun in your own church, even as a pastor's wife, of what's being decided you should or shouldn't do.

So this issue isn't going to go away. But when I look for help in the Scriptures on this issue, I try to find a couple in partnership so that I could glean, "How did they do it?" And I found Peter and his wife. She's there. She's in the shadows. She's standing in the corner of the verse. You have to peek around the corner of the verse, as I often say, to find her. But she's there.

Here's this little Galilean homespun girl who married a fisherman. Suddenly Jesus Christ walked into her life and walked off with her husband for three years, never apologized, didn't know where he was, no telephone, no phone, only the frightening rumors of getting into trouble with the authorities. This could be terrible. What's happening? What's happening? While this happened and that happened, and here she is at home, three years without her husband. She hadn't had training. She'd been in member care. No.

And she thought she married a fisherman and finds herself married to the Pope. It was not on her agenda. And many of you in this room can relate. You married a businessman, suddenly you find yourself married to the leader of the church. And you haven't had training. Probably, I would say, most of us in this room have not had any formal biblical training. And if our husbands have been to seminary, which probably most in this room have, what were we doing? Putting them through, running three jobs, looking after the kids, etcetera.

Did we get any help to arrive in our church and be treated as an unpaid pastor expected to do everything else he does? No. We didn't get the opportunity. Seminaries are doing a little bit better these days in encouraging and training and giving us opportunity to learn what on earth to do when we get into these situations. But think of Peter's wife. Both of these people were believers. We know Peter was; that's obvious. What about his wife? Well yes, we're told she was a believer in the Scriptures. Do you know that?

In Corinthians, Paul is defending his ministry. I'll find the reference in a minute, I can't see it. And he is saying in defense of him and Barnabas, "Don't we have a right, like the rest of the apostles, to lead about a wife?" That's the King James. I love it. I have this picture of a little ring in a nose. "Don't we have a right to lead about a wife?" But what it really is saying is, "Don't we have a right to take our wife along on ministry, traveling ministry, like the apostles do? Like Peter, like Cephas does?"

There's a clue. So Peter and his wife at this point of biblical history, once they came up to Jerusalem and the cross happened and the resurrection, I don't know if they ever went home again, except for here and there. And that was it. And she was off and running into ministry that you and I would say, "What? They were doing what?"

And so it intrigues me hugely to try and figure out in my little mind what must that have been like for this woman. And when I get to heaven, one of the first people I'm going to find—you know people often ask you, "Who do you want to meet in heaven?" I want to meet Peter's wife. Not only because she's been a big blessing to me, but because I want to say, "Okay, now, did I get it right?" In fact, I don't really want to go to heaven because I'm going to be met by this horde of women I've talked about and written about. Not a pretty thought.

But I do know that this particular woman intrigues me because she was a partner in ministry. And here we have it, Peter talking to the church. "You are heirs together. You are partners in receiving God's blessing. You are partners, partners." That's the word. You're partners. You are not the lesser partner. You are the equal partner in ministry with your husband. He said it. Joint heirs with Christ, the Scripture says in Romans. We are equal heirs of Christ with our husband, but equal partners too.

Partners in privilege, our calling, equal calling. I often ask pastors' wives, "Are you called?" and they say, "No, my husband's called. I'm the support system." No, you're called as surely as your husband, because this calling is to discipleship. You are disguised as a pastor's wife. You are a disciple disguised as a pastor's wife. And that's the calling that's going to keep you in ministry. And that's the calling when the hard times come, it's going to see you through. Equally called to serve Jesus, to follow Him. Equally, equally, equally, equally called.

Your opinion matters as much as your husband's opinion. Your heart, your mindset, your focus—this is all wrapped up in partnership. Partners together in Christ, both as believers. You've got to be a believer. Now I used to apologize in a group like this for saying that, but I'm not going to apologize anymore because I've been proved wrong, that you can even be in pastoral ministry and have never yet personally met Christ. And I would be remiss not to urge you to find your way to Him before you leave this place.

But we're partners together with Christ and we're partners together—what a privilege—privileged partnership. Your partners in proclamation. "Don't we have a right," says Paul, "to take a believing wife along with us as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas?" and he's talking about ministry. He's talking about proclamation. He's talking about pouring their lives into the lives of other people. He's talking about investing in the church.

And he's not just taking that wife along to look after him. She is over her head. Read some of the early church literature in caring and giving her life away, loving her life away. That's all it's about. We've just got to love our lives away, see? And we're called to that in the function of our partnership in the ministry.

So we are saying women cannot do that in church. What do we mean? In a building? But there weren't any buildings when Paul wrote that. There were homes, and the church was in the home, and that's where church happened. And church isn't somewhere you go; church is something you are. And so when we say women cannot teach men, for example, because Paul said what he said to the women in Ephesians when he wrote to Timothy, what are we talking about? What were they teaching? A Beth Moore Bible study? No. Did they open their NIV? No. Were they reading from the Scriptures? No, because there weren't any.

So we have to figure out what that teaching was they were doing that they shouldn't have been doing before we ever get into the argument. And where were they doing it? In a building? Behind a pulpit? No, there weren't any. They were doing it in the home church because that's all there was. And they were involved with their husbands as they went out, partners in proclamation, however that was enhancing the gospel.

And if it was to detriment that a woman should be doing this, she should quite rightly shut up and say nothing because it was harming the gospel. And I have been to places in the world where it would be absolute disaster for the church for a woman publicly to do anything. We would not be helping; we would be hindering in a big way. That still pertains today.

And so the culture of the day and where you are and what God has placed you in matters hugely in this equation in partnership in proclamation. That yes, I do address mixed audiences. I never demand to, and I never usurp authority. I'm invited by the headship under the authority of this organization like Moody, for example. Next month, I'm exercising my gift to edify the body. Which body? What have I been invited to do? The Pastors Conference at Moody Bible Institute. I am taking a plenary session.

But this is the point: Why am I doing that? Did I write Dr. Stowell and say, "You know, you really need to have me on this docket"? No, Dr. Stowell wrote to me and said, "Jill, I am inviting you to exercise your gift at this conference." And he could have added, "Now be obedient and submit to this invitation." But he didn't. But I did. And I'm very comfortable there. And I was able to say, "I have so much authority over me, don't worry about it. I'm under my husband's authority, I have the Bible's authority, I have Dr. Stowell's authority, and I'm just being submissive and doing it."

Partners in proclamation. And this is our culture, and you have to figure that out wherever you are and whatever church you serve, without disturbing the unity which we are told to keep in the bond of peace. And do whatever your church invites you to do and make it indispensable, so that somebody confirms and affirms and says, "Come up higher and help me, and how can I help you do it?"

The attitude has to be right. Peter's already talked about that. The meek and quiet spirit. Don't you hate that verse? I do. But remember that meek means controlled strength. Under the control of the Holy Spirit, there will be a gentleness and a graciousness that disarms whoever and whatever.

Partners in proclamation. Partners in privilege. Partners in prayer. This is the most important part of your partnership with your husband. How well are you doing in this area? JBU has an article that we just keep reprints of, "Why I Can't Pray with My Wife." It's written by an expert in member care—a man, a psychiatrist, and a theologian. And I wrote to him and said, "Would you write an article for JBU about praying with your wife?" thinking because that's all they do with their lives—help couples in ministry—that I would get this incredible "how to," you know, "this is what you need to do if you're having trouble praying with your husband, you need to do this."

To my amazement—to our amazement—he wrote "Why I find it difficult to pray with my wife." He wrote it from his perspective, and it was a total eye-opener to me and to everybody else that's read it, apparently. But there are reasons if your husband is struggling with praying for you. He said that he felt his wife was—what was it?—his wife was rating him on his prayer, because she's a better prayer than he is, you see. And so he said, "I didn't want to be rated."

So that was male pride. But he said, "When we prayed, her prayers were incredible. What could I do? And so I began, and I thought, 'Is she rating me? Is this a six or a seven?' you know." And he said, "For a man, that's hard."

Partners in prayer. This for me and Stuart is the heartbeat of our relationship, I think. We find it very difficult to study the Bible together in devotions, because we end up arguing. Not helpful. I look at the passage, we read the passage, and we both look at it. I say, "Well, I know what you're going to get out of it—three points all beginning with 'S'." And he says, "And I know what you're going to do. You're going to do eisegesis. You're going to put all sorts of things, you're going to peek around the corner of the verse and you're going to find Peter's wife standing in the corner."

Not good. That does not lead to good devotional life together. So years ago, we just decided not to bother, and to pray. And so the most thing we do together is pray. We pray before we go to sleep at night in each other's arms. We pray when we wake up in the morning in each other's arms. We do not get out of bed if we are together without praying.

We pray for each other when we've been apart. To my amazement, I heard my husband make a statement at a couples' conference not long ago on fasting. He said, "Well, there's fasting in all sorts of ways. You fast from your marriage bond, as I have done." Out of 45 years of marriage, 15 years we have been apart. Actually, it's more than that. And what has held us together is prayer.

We meet each other intimately at the throne whenever we're apart. A friend of mine in Edinburgh, missionary to Bangladesh, came back to do a doctorate at Edinburgh University in language, and her husband stayed on the field. And that went on a long time, and they couldn't afford to go back and forth and see each other very much.

And he wrote this: "Helping together so far apart, long distances dividing, and loving words pass not our hearts between. Nor know we each the very things betiding, nor on each other comforted may lean. But we may pray with strong and holy pleading and live, so that our pleadings must prevail." Wonderful line. "And He who knoweth well what each is needing"—one in Bangladesh, one in Edinburgh, three in Edinburgh, children and wife—"can guide us what to ask to help avail. And at the end, when safely home in glory, when prayers and needs have changed for wonders new, how sweet, how blessed if we might read the story of how each helped to pray each other through."

That's a wonderful poem from incredible men and women of God. Heirs together, they're together though they're apart. And Stuart used to call me from Australia many a time, the other end, when I was in England, the other end of the world, and say, "I'm with you, Jill." He was, but he wasn't. And I know couples that are together that have never been apart for one evening in ministry, and they're not together; they're apart.

And so it isn't physically together under one roof that matters. It's heart that matters, spirit that matters, soul that matters, and prayer is where that happens. Many of you know my 9/11 story, and I'm not going to tell it now, but I was in the air on 9/11, got taken to Newfoundland for six and a half days, and Stuart was in India when he went on to India—he'd put me on the plane.

And when we got back together and we began to travel the week I got back and Stuart was back from India at that point, we were sort of pretty well alone on the planes in those days with the pilot and we hoped no one else that shouldn't be on the plane. And it was sort of a little scary. I've had an ongoing fear of flying all my life, and that didn't help.

And my husband gave me a quote from one of our English poets, Rupert Brooke. And I took it out and keep it with me. I change it in all the files I take. And it simply says this. It was found on his body in a trench in the Second World War. Rupert Brooke was called up in the First World War and of course millions and millions of men died. And he died in the trench.

And when they tried to find out who he was, they found out he was Rupert Brooke, the English poet, almost as famous as Wordsworth and Shakespeare for us. And in his pocket was this, given to him by his wife: "Safe shall be my going, secretly armed against all deaths' endeavors. Safe though all safety's lost, safe where men fall. And if these poor limbs die, safest of all." What a piece of poetry. "If these poor limbs die, safest of all." And I don't get on a small plane or a big plane without reading that. It's true. It's all true.

And that's the partnership that prayer can be. Stuart just went off, and as he went out the door he said, "Meet you at the throne." Partners in privilege, partners in proclamation, partners in prayer—incredibly important. And so this partnership is based on mutual respect and equality before God. Our partnership depends on mutual respect for each other as equally lost, equally found, equally saved, equally gifted, equally called to make the devil sorry he started the mess in the first place. Helping together.

Peter says, speaking as if he speaks the very word of God, "If that's your gift, do it with everything you've got. If your gift is speaking, speak." Did he say, "You men, if your gift is speaking, do it. Women, keep quiet"? No, he's talking to a mixed audience here. And this is a different sort of speaking and teaching than he's been addressing in Timothy.

So if your gift is helping, help, so people just push you away in the end and say, "Stop helping me!" Is that your life? Are you rushing around saying, "What can I do for you? How can I help you? Can I pray for you?" If anyone serves, he should do it in the strength God provides so that in all things God may be praised. And that's the bottom line, whatever our gifting is, and it will be different, for the Spirit gives as He wills, severally.