Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: Now today we're going to talk about Christian viewpoints, a Christian view of women. When Betty Friedan wrote, “The problem for women today is not sexual but a problem of identity, a stunning evasion of growth that is perpetuated by the feminine mystique,” she fired a shot heard around the world.

Betty Friedan led the charge to question if a woman's identity lay within her role as wife, mother, or sex object. Building on Sangster's comment in 1920 concerning women's suffrage, that the women's role has been that of an incubator and little more, modern feminism had its roots at least partly in the frustration of women who felt that whether in bed, business, socially, or at school, their lives were inordinately dominated by men.

Now the church's answer to this in the early 50s was to reaffirm male headship, rather than give evidence of a desire to understand the perspective of women. So such a response fortified the impression that the church keeps women down and doesn't give them any major opportunities.

Just about this time a man, his name was John Rice, called Bobbed Hair, Bossy Wives and Women Preachers. He took the extreme view but he said among other things in that book, “I have no doubt that millions will go to hell because of the unscriptural practice of women preachers.” So you can see the battle was joined.

There is no subject more charged with passion than the relation between the sexes. In one way or another it lies behind most of the poetry, most of the crime, most of the sublimity, most of the cruelty, most of the ecstasy, and most of the boredom in all of our lives. I know by personal experience that I can get shot at from every direction, every side of the argument.

Now what is the Christian view of women? Well, you can't ask that question without asking what was Christ's view of women. Surely that is the Christian view of women. What were women doing in his day or what weren't they doing? They were inferior to men. They were considered the deceiver rather than the deceived. And that's very important, we'll come back to that. The deceiver rather than the deceived.

The legal rights were nil. Their father or husband could arbitrarily exercise without her consent, against her will, a deal whereby she could be sold off as a servant plus concubine, all under religious sanction, like a piece of property which she was. If she seasoned the stew in a way that her ruler, her husband as he was called, her ruler, didn't like, he could divorce her. If she had a loud voice and people next door could hear her, she could be divorced. I wonder how many of us would still be married today. We'd all be in the soup, huh?

The divorce laws were very definitely tilted against the woman. And it's in the context of divorce and remarriage that we get the first glimpse of what the Lord Jesus Christ feels about women. In Mark chapter 10 he is answering a Pharisee's question about marriage and divorce. And he says, taking them back to Genesis 1 and 2, that at the beginning of creation God made them male and female.

God made man, male man, female man. Adam is the word for man, Adam, male Adam, female Adam. God made at the beginning of creation, he created a woman. Hear listen. A woman is a piece of divine creation and you don't treat her like dirt. God doesn't appreciate it. Jesus, who was God, doesn't appreciate it.

Now I got a label on me, made in Genesis, made by him. And that gives me a good feeling, a sense of worth. I'm worth something. God created me. And not only did he create me, he took so much trouble over it. A friend of mine who is a gynecologist in this fellowship told me that before a baby reaches five months in the womb, a five month fetus, it has 300,000 eggs, if it's a woman baby. 300,000 eggs ready to go. Not even born yet.

The creator took so much trouble over us. In a little baby's brain, little tiny brain, in the womb, it has a lot of little electrical wires linking up all the impulses. And if you took them out and you made them stretch from where I'm standing to the moon and back, you'd have it. All of that in a baby's brain before it's even born. God created us. He took so much trouble.

“I've knit you together,” he says in Psalm 139. “I've woven you, I've embroidered you.” Everything you are, your color, your creed, he's painted you with the colors of your culture. It's all there. So God says, “I made you. Quality control,” all over our life. But not only are we physically incredible, which shows us our worth from the hand of the creator. But we are made in his image. Two sexes, both men and women, born in the divine image.

And what does this mean? What does it mean that we are like God? Well God is a Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is fellowship, there is unity, there is oneness. Male and female are meant to reflect oneness, fellowship, unity, harmony. That's how we're like him. We're made like him in the fact that we are a personal being. We have being. That's how we're like God. God is a rational, free, personal, moral being. So are we.

God made us in his image to be godly, godlike, reflect him, his mirror image. That's the reason we're here. What is the whole purpose of man, male and female? That we might bring glory to God and enjoy him forever. Isn't that right? Bring glory to God. That's why he made us. That we might reflect who he is in his character. Be godlike, like Jesus if you wish. That's the reason we're here.

And of course that's not a duty, the whole duty of man. It's a joy. It's a joy. So God created man, male and female. And he looked at man, who he made first, and he said, “It's no good. He needs an equal. He needs a counterpart. He needs one parallel to. He needs a mirror image.” And you all know the rest of the story. He administered the first anesthetic known to man. And he takes a little rib.

Prime Rib snuggled down happily inside her ribcage. It was warm, cozy, and dark inside Adam. And all the other ribs were fast asleep. And she liked being there so near Adam's heart. Somehow it felt just right. Then suddenly the world seemed to spin. There was a deafening noise as the flesh above her was severed. And Prime Rib screamed and all the other little ribs in the cage woke up.

And then she saw him, Omnipotence. He was smiling at her in the strangest sort of way. “Prime Rib,” he said ever so gently, “I've chosen you for a special task. I want you to help Adam.” “How?” she said. “Well, you've been a help already but you'll be more of a blessing outside his body. Have you noticed you're in a cage down there? Wouldn't you like to be free?” “Free? Outside? What's that?” she gasped.

“What's the purpose of my existence outside of him? I'll die severed from him. I'll simply feel like a useless spare rib. I don't know if I want to get out of my cage.” “Adam will be certainly conscious of something missing, but who said about you being independent? You'll be interdependent,” said Omnipotence. “He'll be sure that there's something gone, it will be you, his Prime Rib. And when I bring you together again, you'll both be complete and you'll both be satisfied. Will you come?”

Prime Rib thought long and hard. To be to Adam more than she was now. “Take me, Omnipotence,” she began. But her words were lost as he laughed out loud. And Prime Rib thought she'd never in her life heard anything as delightful as that sound. It filled the universe. And Omnipotence cut the little rib in his hand and breathed upon her. And glory filled her soul. It was finished.

She was a manness. And the Lord closed up Adam's flesh and brought her to the man. And the man said, literally, “This at last!” Or in our vernacular, “Yes! This is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.” Now, I don't know if you believe all that or not. That's how it was more or less, so the Bible says, and I believe it.

If Omnipotence is Omnipotence, he can make anything, no problem. He can make a woman out of a stone, a worm, even a piece of cake. But he didn't make us out of a worm. And he didn't make us out of a piece of cake. He made us out of a piece of Adam himself. Bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. And deemed it important to tell us so.

And I like to think of women being taken not from Adam's head to rule over him, or his feet to be trampled underfoot, but from his side, near his heart, to be loved, nurtured, a mirror image of himself. And I can hear Eve saying to him, “Mirror image, thou to me, sweet compatibility. Differences in shape, in thought, bring completeness as they ought. Thou my precious counterpart, made for thee from near thy heart.”

So woman was created by God after his image. And she was created equal. This is a powerful statement in Genesis chapter one, of the equality between men and women in the eyes of God. Now some people say, “Jill, I object to that. Women were made for man,” and so the scripture says. They were made a helper, which sounds as if it's quite not as important as the one who is helped. And yet the word helper in the Hebrew is in Deuteronomy 33 verse 7, and other places, used for the Holy Spirit or for the helper of Israel. It is a name used for God himself.

She was a suitable or ideal partner, a companion parallel to, counterpart, mirror image. She was equal. And then you say, “But women were made from man.” And the argument goes, “How can you say women are equal when man was made first and woman was made second? The order of creation bespeaks subordinating women.” F.F. Bruce in his narrative on Genesis 1 says, “There is no question of priority, let alone of superiority, that arises here. The priority of the man in the creation narrative does not bespeak his superiority. Any suggestion to this effect might be answered by the counter-argument: the last made crowns the work.”

Women can't be inferior because they're made second, because Adam was made second to dust and animals, which following that line of thinking puts him in a position of being inferior to them. We could argue that woman is superior to man because we were made from a rib, and you were made from dust. But we wouldn't do that. We wouldn't do it because men and women are equal. Women are, men are equal. Man, male and female, made in the image of God.

What was woman supposed to do with all this equality, you might ask? Everything the man did? Look, the question here isn't about who dug the garden and who cleaned up after the animals. That's not the question. The question is shared accountability, shared responsibility. For what? For the creation, for procreation, for glory to God. That's the responsibility of both male and female equally.

God blessed them and told them, “Fill the earth, subdue it. You are masters,” not master, “of the fish, the birds, and all the animals.” Man and woman were to rule, regent, and reproduce. Women were to rule. Women were to regent. Women were to reproduce with her counterpart and for God. Women were not to rule or regent over man, man was not to rule or regent over women. They were both to rule and regent over the creation.

Together they would walk with him in the cool of the day. Together they would work for him in the heat of the day. Together they would perfectly match their talents and gifts and all that they were, so that together in partnership, heirs together of all that God had given them in this unspoiled creation, they could do their work with joy to the glory of the Lord. They were equal, but they were different. Equal but different. And when I say that, I don't mean that different means one is better and one is worse. Different means different. And when I say they were different, as Jesus said in Mark chapter 10, he made them male and female.

And as Stewart said, “This speaks of their sexuality.” Now everybody knows we're different. Even little children know that. I heard a cute story of a little girl asking her mom how she was born. And her mom said, “The stork brought you to the house.” She said, “Well how are you born, Mom?” She said, “The stork brought me.” And the little girl said, “And Grandma?” And she said, “Yes, the stork brought Grandma.” So the little girl went to school the next day and said, “I can't believe this. We haven't had a normal birth in our family for three generations.”

Little girl knew very well that they were equal but different with little boys. Equal but different. So in Paradise Park, a woman had no problem with her image, with her worth. She knew who she was. She knew what she was supposed to do. And she was doing it to the glory of God. Woman's identity was revealed in creation. But a woman's identity was obscured by the fall. There was a snake in Eve's garden and she knew it not. A snake in the form of the evil one who was out to ruin humankind.

And woman's deception began. And Prime Rib was deceived into thinking she had been better off in her ribcage than in her relationship cage. “Why shouldn't you escape?” said the snake. “And be your own person. After all, that's what Omnipotence had in mind in the first place, wasn't it? Didn't he say he'd make you like him? Well, he's his own God. He does his own thing. Surely if you did the same, it would please him. Why shouldn't you plug up the hole in Adam's heart? What about your heart?” he hissed. “Why waste time worrying about his needs? What about your needs?” he continued.

And Prime Rib lay very still. And creation quieted, listening for her answer. She took the hand Omnipotence had fashioned from her little piece of bone. And plucked the piece of forbidden fruit. She placed it between the lips Omnipotence had framed to praise him. And absorbed into her system the poisons of independence, selfishness, and death. And Jesus prepared to leave for Bethlehem. Oh, the power of a rib. Treat the snake.

A lion sprang upon a lamb and tore it to bloody shreds. And two beautiful elk locked horns in mortal combat. And a cat began to play with a mouse. And Eve, Eve went to find Adam. And the angels were appalled. Surely Adam would refuse the fruit. After all Adam was so strong. Look at all he had going for him. But Omnipotence sighed because he knew what Adam was about to do. And he'd known all along. And yet knowing, he still took his little piece of bone and his handful of dust, and gave them the dignity of personhood and freedom of choice, knowing their rejection he had planned for their redemption.

And sin came. And what a mess. What a mess. And a woman's destiny was written for her in that moment. And in Genesis 3:14-24 you can read about that. Everything was affected. What men thought about women, what women thought about men, how men treated women, how women treated men, how both of them treated God. All of it was affected. And the blame game began. “The woman you gave me, she made me do it,” said the man.

“The devil made me do it,” said the woman. Heard that one, haven't we? And death came into life and bondage into liberty. And mistrust and hostility and hatred into love. And suffering and subjection was the woman's lot. Men would dominate. John Stott says headship at that point degenerated into domination and history attests to it. And the patriarchy in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, in the post-apostolic age, and in the world of which we have a part today, it's still there. It's still there.

Now at this point it all depends whether you think that little verse in Genesis 3 where it says that the woman would have pain in childbirth and the man would rule over the woman, if you think it is prescriptive or descriptive. On that will lay your viewpoint of what a Christian woman can be and do. If you think it's prescriptive you would take the position of authority and headship and rulership of the man. Of hierarchy, of man, wife, child, dog, if you like.

If you think that it's descriptive then you will believe that what happened in redemption rolled back the effect of the fall. And that man's headship is to be realized in the word source, equal. Servants offering their gifts to each other. Partnership. It all depends whether you think it's God's prescription for what women did or description of what would happen. I take the description point of view.

I believe that God looked down through history and said, “This is what's going to happen now.” And this is what did happen. However, the side of the church that has taken the other point of view has been guilty often of accusing Eve of being the deceiver instead of the deceived. And I want to mention that right now. Let me quote from an early church father, Tertullian by name, speaking of Eve or women. “You are the devil's gateway. You are the unsealer of the forbidden tree. You are the first deserter of the divine law. You are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image. On account of your punishment, that is death, even the Son of God had to die.”

Now if you think of women as the deceiver, if you think of women as the curse, then you're not going to invite her to teach Sunday school, are you? And you're certainly not going to make a place for her in the leadership of the church. She needs to be under headship so she doesn't deceive any more men. Etcetera, etcetera. So, that's the two points of view. And yet we are all equally bad. As in Adam all die, not as in Eve, it says. We are both equally responsible.

The woman took the initiative, but both ate the fruit. Both are in the same fallen state. And it's wrong to suggest woman is more or less sinful than man. She was deceived, Adam sinned with his eyes wide open. As in Adam all die, but as in Christ shall all be made alive. We are all equally judged, but we are equally saved. Mirror image spoiled by sin, mourn I what you might have been. Sin has caused me hide in shame, to put on others my own blame. Oh make my broken image new and tell me what I need to do. When the risen Christ is come into my heart to make it home. He in me will change my life. And whether single or a wife, will help my soul thy likeness bear, so my lost world may see you there.

And right in the middle of that chapter when everything was a mess, God came forth with his promise of redemption. “The seed of the woman will bruise the serpent's head.” And he cursed not the woman, and not the man, and not their children, but the snake. He cursed the snake. That's what he did. And he said, “One day there will be a child born from one of your descendants, Eve. One day.” You know what God did? He used a woman. He used a woman apart from a man. He chose a woman's body to make and form the body that God had prepared for him to enter this world and intervene. “Behold, behold, behold a virgin, a woman shall conceive.”

What is the Christian view of women? What was Christ's view? Mary was his mother. “Hail, thou that art highly favored.” Congratulations, you're a woman, is the import of that word hail. “Good morning. You're beautiful with God's beauty. Beautiful inside and out. God be with you.” “Good morning,” he said. Oh Lord, what a morning. It was the dawn of a new day for women and the ignominy with which they'd been treated.

And that little Mary, probably 13 years of age. That's the age they were betrothed. 13 or 14 years of age. Said, “Be it unto me according to your word.” And Jesus loves women that say, “Be it unto me according to your word. I'm a handmade, and I'm a heartmade,” she said. “I'll treasure the things that you say to me in my heart.” It says she laid up the things that Jesus said to her. She held these things dearly, deep within herself.

And what does Jesus feel about women? What's his viewpoint of handmades and heartmades who give their lives away, a servant to his purposes and a student of his words? He says they're worth so much. They're worth dying for. They're worth redeeming. They're worth teaching. They're worth helping. They're worth healing. They're worth giving back the sense of worth they lost because of the fall.

This is God's world and he wants it back, folks. And he has given us the most incredible opportunity, men and women, to be involved in the matter of redemption with him and of telling the world about it. Now Jesus' attitude was totally revolutionary. And at this point I want to just tell you something about the way that women were not supposed to be talked to in Jesus' day. “Talk with a woman, talk not with womankind,” the Mishna said. They said this even of a man's own wife. A man would not talk, if he was an Orthodox Jew, to his own wife. “He that talks much with women brings evil on himself or at least will inherit Gehenna.”

A wife could be divorced for talking to another man in public. The rabbis avoid talking to women at all. In fact, there was a sect of the Pharisees called the Bleeding Pharisees. And the Bleeding Pharisees walked around with their heads down looking at the floor in case they inadvertently looked up and saw a woman. That's what they were called the Bleeding Pharisees. They kept bumping into everything. Literally, that's that's how they got the name.

So here you've got a company of women in Jesus' day who were treated as the deceiver, as the curse. Not under the curse, but as the curse. So what are you going to do with them? You're going to veil them. You're going to hide them. You're going to keep them under. You're going to rule them. You're going to have to stop them doing what they did in Eden. And Jesus comes along. And he talks to them. He listens to them. He hears their sick, and he raises their dead, and he weeps at their tomb. And he lauds the woman who had faith publicly and holds her up as an example.

And he addresses another woman as daughter of Abraham. “Daughter of Abraham?” the Pharisee said. “Listen to him. Sons of Abraham there are, who's ever heard of a daughter of Abraham?” “Daughter of Abraham,” said Jesus. Touched her life, changed her. He broke all the rules of men. And he sat on a well. And he said to a woman who'd had five husbands, “If you knew who you're talking to, lady, you would have asked of me and I would have given you water that can satisfy you.”

“You are well out of your rivers. Who are you?” “I'm the Christ,” he said. And the disciples came back from buying bread and they saw him talking to a Samaritan woman. And they marveled. Not because she was a Samaritan woman, but because she was a Samaritan woman. That's why they marvelled. He was talking to her. Have you ever noticed that verse? Talking to her. Jesus was totally revolutionary. Totally revolutionary. Blew everybody's minds.

But you can understand it. He made us back there in Genesis days. And he loves us. And he came to die for us. And he gave us in redemption life. He let us be there in the upper room when the Holy Spirit came. And men and women together, endued with the spirit from on high, who gave men and women gifts. And then he gave the men and women he had given the gifts as a gift to the church, as Ephesians teaches.

And gifts aren't gendered. Paul uses the picture of a body. And there's hands, and there's feet, and there's mouths, and there's eyes. And Paul didn't say, “There's a male mouth in the body. And there's female feet and female hands. And there's a male head, and a male brain.” He said, “I have given you all different gifts and placed you in my mystical body, the church. One church that worships in different buildings all over this world. One mystical church. One body of Christ.” And men and women in Christ, neither bond nor free, male nor female.

Jew or Greek. Statement of liberty. A statement of marvelous, marvelous liberty. And he gave women the gift of speaking and teaching. Not all of us, some of us. He made some of us a mouth. Yes he did. I remember years ago writing a chapter, “Oops, I think I've discovered a gift I shouldn't have,” I called it. Because I discovered I had a mouth. I had a gift. I had a gift of evangelism. I had a gift of teaching. And I'll say quietly, I had a gift of preaching. Not sharing, preaching.

And half the Christian church, in fact when I discovered it, more than half the Christian church, said I shouldn't have it or it shouldn't be used. Or it could be used in the world to make a lot of money and to become the head of a corporation. But not for God. I don't see that in my Bible. Sure there were places like Corinth and Ephesus where women, given the freedom they had never had from Genesis days, kept down just abused it? Of course they did. And quite rightly Paul put them in their place. But in the same chapter he tells women to be quiet in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, he tells men to be quiet too and he uses the same word. Absolute silence. “Shut up,” he says. “Give way to each other. What are you doing all trying to speak at once?” “Women, stop shouting out those questions. Ask your husbands at home.”

He was very concerned not only with order in that particular situation, but also what the non-Christians would think. He said, “If you're speaking in tongues and there's no interpreter, what are they going to think when they come in? They're going to hear all these languages and think you've taken leave of your senses. They're going to think you're mad.” He says, “I've got the gift of tongues, but I'd rather speak one word, or 10 words in a way people could understand so they could be built up and edified than 10,000 in my personal prayer language that edifies me. I want to edify the body.” And in that he defines for us what this gift of prophecy that he had given to women, this speaking gift was.

When he talks about prophecy, he says that it is to strengthen and build up and teach the church. He defines it for us in 1 Corinthians 14. And so our liberty to use the gifts that God has given us must be obviously under his leadership, his power, his control. And used where he tells us to use it. And where it is not appropriate, for example in a Muslim country, for a woman to be running around preaching and speaking, then she mustn't do it because they're not going to help the Gospel. But we're not living in a Muslim country.

And we're living in a country now, from the beginning of time there has never been so many gifted, trained women with doctorates in theology. Have you ever known that in the history of the Christian church? Here in Ephesus, here in Corinth, these were untaught women. They didn't know a thing. Half of them were temple teachers, prostitutes who used to teach their cult. Always women teachers and they get into a frenzy and all of that. And in Ephesus some of them got saved and came into the little church. And they were doing their thing. They'd been the teachers in their cult. They wanted to be the teachers there. They were usurping the authority of the men. Quite rightly they were put in their place. But so were the men that were usurping the authority of the men.

“You don't go around lording it over people,” said Jesus. “I'm the son of man. I didn't come to be a Lord, I came to be a servant.” And he stripped himself to the waist, taking the lowest part possible. Three echelons of slaves, only one of them stripped to the waist. And Jesus stripped to the waist and did the work of women and the lower slave and washed feet. And he said, “That's how I want you to behave. Everyone submitting to each other. Everyone esteeming other better than themselves.”

So you say, “What's this bit about headship then, Jill? Do you believe in headship?” “Yes, I do. It's there in the Bible, how could I not?” “But what's it for?” That's the question we should ask. I believe a man's headship, which is there, renewed in redemption, is to make sure the woman is equal and is treated so. And I believe the man's headship in the home and in the marriage and in the church is there to enable women to be all that God meant them to be, to roll back the effects of the fall. And to make an Eden again.

And to nourish and cherish it, as Christ the church. Nourish means to discover her gifts. Cherish means to make sure, protect her. Make sure she exercises them. So that he might present his bride to himself as a radiant person. Men, are you making your women radiant? Do you know how you'll do that? By giving them space to breathe and room to grow. By finding out the gifts they have and making a way so that they become the woman God created and gifted them to be.

I would have to thank my husband for doing that for me. Moody Monthly, years ago, he was asked to write about the biblical woman. And he wrote about how the Bible says, Jesus said, we're not supposed to bury our own talent. Remember? He said, “What will happen if we bury someone else's?” And he wrote about that. As a pastor, as a husband, as a father. “Frankly as a pastor, a husband and a father, I have a dread of burying someone else's talents, particularly those bestowed on women. Accordingly I've tried to scrutinize my views, the place of tradition, the thrust of theology, and the force of my prejudices. And repeatedly I've come back to this fact: if the Lord has given gifts, I had better be careful about denying freedom for their exercise. And more than that, I need to ensure that the women in my life have every encouragement from me to be what he called and gifted them to be. A major part of my life must be spent as a man caring for, nurturing, encouraging, and developing gifted women. Because they aren't the only ones who will give an account for their stewardship. And as a man in a male-orientated church, I may one day be asked about their gifts too. And I would like to be able to say, I did considerably more than burying. A talent is a terrible thing to waste.”

And it was my head, my husband. And remember, a man of quality is never threatened by a woman of equality. It was my man who was not threatened in any sense by the gifts he started to observe in me, which could have been competition in our situation but never have been. It was Stewart that insisted that I exercise them. And I remember him seeing the gifts I had for evangelism, for what we call raw evangelism, with youngsters on the streets of Europe that we did for 13 years before we came to Hanbrook.

And we took a warehouse. We asked for churches that would open their doors to these thousands of kids that had spilled out from their homes and were living in derelict houses. This was in the 50s and 60s. And no church would open its doors to this mob, and you couldn't blame them. But a man with a brewery gave us his brewery. He said, “You can use my brewery. We need to do something about these kids. We need to help them.” So we said, “Thank you very much,” and we took the man's brewery and we made it like the catacombs. And we got Christian kids to paint stuff all around the walls. And then we went out on the streets and we invited these gangs, and they were real tough gangs, outside of London, into what we called the Bar Non, B.A.R. N.O.N. which was a mistake to begin with. We learned as we went along. You don't call it, “We won't keep you out,” because you'll need to keep some of them out, but we didn't know that yet.

And so we waited for 30 or 40 to show up. We had a Christian band just in the beginning of the Beatles' era. Everybody had a guitar. And everyone was singing Christian music, making it up as they went along. And we got some of these Christian kids and we put them on the stage. They were frightened out of their mind. We were frightened out of our mind. How many of these young people would come in? And the first night, 1,000 plus showed up, packed this brewery out. The atmosphere was absolutely electric. And we began to be baptized in what we called coffee bar evangelism. That's where it began. Outside of London, in the Bar Non, all those years ago.

And we struggled and we made mistakes. And Stewart would get up there and preach his heart out for five minutes. That's all that they'd listen. And the band would play, and then we'd get around them, and we'd talk to them. And then an hour later, on the hour, he'd get up and do it again. And then on the third night, when we were really getting into this and really enjoying it, and I had made some great friends with the leaders of one of these gangs, this guy who really liked me, said to me, “I don't want to see your face messed up.” So I said, “No, I don't want to either. Great.” So he said, “I'm going to tell you something, there's a gang coming in tonight. Don't like us, see. And they don't like you. And they're going to get the platform party. So tell that husband of yours that that's what's going to happen.” I'm just giving him a hint.

And so I ran out and tried to find a policeman and begged this policeman to come in. He looked at me and he said, “You must be crazy. Think I'd go in a place like that with all those people?” He said, “Forget it.” Off he went. So I went to my husband next. First the policeman, then my husband. And I said, “We're going to have trouble tonight. There's a gang coming in.” And I was especially concerned because Stewart had asked me to give my testimony. And so I knew that when I told him this as my protector and my head that he would say, “Well that's fine. I'll take charge of this. And you just go back there and pray.” So I said, “So I'm sure you don't want me to to give my testimony.” And he said, “Why not?”

And I said, “Well the gang's coming in, they're going to get you,” and you know, he doesn't want my face messed up, you know, and all that. And I'm sure you don't want my face messed up, and all the rest of it. And he said, “Oh,” he said, “they won't touch you when they see it's a woman.” He said, “The Salvation Army always send the women in first and they never touch them.” And I said, “Stewart, you're supposed to be protecting me. You're supposed to be my head. I'm supposed to be this little submissive little mouse here, you know, and and praying for you, and making seeing you all do it.” And and he said, “Jill, I think you've got a story to tell. And I think you can tell it. And I think you have a gift. And I think you should do it.” And he said, “Let's try it.” And he said, “I'll get up there with you. And he said, I'll be right there. Let's do it. They haven't rejected Jesus. They just don't know about him. Let's tell him.”

And so there I was. And sure enough the gang came in. And I can see them now. They surrounded the platform. And they stood with their arms behind them. And the ugliest and the most frightening, which was the leader of the gang, stood right in my face, right here. And I took the microphone, and I was so scared, it was going like this. And Stewart had his arm around my shoulder, and he was urging me on, “Go on, go on, go on.” And I was just like this. And suddenly the young man put his hand on my shoulder. And I said, “I'm coming, Lord.” Which was extremely embarrassing because I didn't go. And so when I didn't go, I looked around and there he was, still there, looking at me, very startled. And he started patting my shoulder, calming me down. He said, “There, there, love, there, there.”

And then he got up and and he put his arm, Stewart had his arm around my shoulder this way, and he put his arm around. So I was standing there with these two guys. And he said to the crowd, “Look what you're doing to the poor young woman. She she's scared out of her mind.” And I didn't like to tell him it was him. So I just smiled and said, “Oh thank you so much. Can you get them to listen to me for a minute?” And of course, he rose to the occasion. And he said, “Sure.” And he looked out at the crowd, he said, “Don't you make one sound.” I said, “Thank you.” And then I told them about Jesus.

And I told them about the love of God. And I told all those women, those young women who'd been so abused and so used. Leather jackets, chains on their backs, hair dyed in all sorts of different colors. And I told them they were worth so much. That God had made them. And God had died for them. And they could know him. They could open their heart, and he could come in. And they could know forgiveness. No matter what they'd done and where they'd been and who they were, that Jesus Christ loved them to distraction. By his spirit, his holy, cleaning spirit, could fill their lives. And they came to the Lord. Many, many, many came to the Lord. And suddenly in the middle of that talk, a great sense, a great shout of, “Yes! This is what I was made for! This is Jill Briscoe. This is painted with the colors of her culture. Trained, made for this hour. Every day ordained for me. Written in your book. Matched with everything. And with Stewart, with my counterpart, with my parallel, with my opposite. We together, heirs together. We're doing it. It doesn't matter who digs the garden. It doesn't matter who cleans up after the animals and the kids. Hey, this is more than this. This is partnership. This is Christian marriage. We've got to win the world because they don't know. And they haven't rejected him. They haven't had a chance to receive him.”

You, woman, out there, do you know how much God loves you? Let's pray.

And Lord, I think that this is what a Christian woman is all about. And I pray for all of us, men and women alike, that we will stop crossing our T's and dotting our I's and arguing about such little things. And lift up our eyes and look on the harvest. I pray it for your sake. In your name, precious Lord Jesus. Amen.