Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Today on Telling the Truth, Jill Briscoe continues exploring a Christian view of women and shows you that even within the church, there are differing perspectives. So, what does the Bible say about women? Stay with us to find out.

Your generous support helps keep broadcasts like this one going out around the world so you and others can experience life through the biblical teaching and resources of Telling the Truth. So as thanks for your gift today, we'll send you Triumph Over Temptation, an encouraging four-message series created by Stuart and Jill Briscoe to help you stand strong against temptation and grow in your faith in the process. Call today to request yours at 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, let's listen to Jill's teaching.

Jill Briscoe: And he said one day there will be a child born from one of your descendants, Eve. One day. And 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, he said. 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 heart-maid," 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 handmaids and heart-maids who give their lives away as 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 Mishnah 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. And that's why they were called the Bleeding Pharisees—they kept bumping into everything. Literally, 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 from doing what they did in Eden.

And Jesus comes along and he talks to them. He listens to them. And he heals 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 Pharisees said. "Listen to him. Sons of Abraham there are, but who's ever heard of a daughter of Abraham?"

Daughter of Abraham, said Jesus. It 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. In you a well, out of you 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 marveled. 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'd 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 nor 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 called "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.

And 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 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 ten 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 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 it's not going to help the gospel.

But we are 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 and 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'd 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. "We 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 lowest 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."

Guest (Male): That's Jill Briscoe with an insightful message about a Christian view of women. We'll get back to her in just a moment. But first, we want to share this note from Julie and Lowell in Washington State who say, "We are always so grateful for your ministry and listen intently, gleaning so much and growing in our relationship and understanding with God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit as we learn more through your faithful teaching and expounding of the Lord's words. Thank you with all of our hearts."

Thanks, guys. That's the kind of encouragement your support today will bring to more people around the world as you help share the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth so others can experience life in Christ. And we'd like to encourage you with a powerful resource to equip you to not only resist temptation, but conquer it and grow in your faith as you do.

It's called Triumph Over Temptation, a four-message series created by Stuart and Jill Briscoe to empower you with biblical truth to help you stand firm in the face of daily temptations. Filled with the Briscoes' trademark wisdom and understanding of Scripture, this series will help you remember that every temptation to do wrong is also a chance to do what's right.

We'll send you the Triumph Over Temptation series as our thanks for your gift of support today to help continue the Briscoes' legacy through the teaching resources of Telling the Truth. So request your copy when you call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, let's return to Jill's message, "A Christian View of Women."

Jill Briscoe: 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. In 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 gift 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. That it was Stuart 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 Elmbrook. And we took an old brewery. 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.

It 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 in 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. Everyone 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 their 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 Stuart 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 said, "You must be crazy. Think I'd go in a place like that with all those people?" He said, "Forget it." And 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 Stuart 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 give my testimony." And he said, "Why not?" And I said, "Well, the gang's coming in, they're going to get you, you know, and he doesn't want my face messed up and all the rest of it. 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."

Guest (Male): You're listening to Telling the Truth, the ministry of Stuart and Jill Briscoe. Stay with us; we'll hear the conclusion of Jill's teaching in a moment. First, though, a reminder. When you give a gift today to support the teaching ministry of Telling the Truth, we'll say thanks with an empowering resource created by Stuart and Jill Briscoe called Triumph Over Temptation.

We all face temptation every day, sometimes every minute of every day. While you may struggle with sinful desires and selfish motives, you must remember that every temptation to do wrong is also an opportunity to do right. You are not powerless to resist wrong. You have God's power within you to bring you through even the toughest challenges.

In their four-message series, Triumph Over Temptation, Stuart and Jill Briscoe equip you with powerful biblical truth to help you triumph over temptation and grow your faith in the process. Triumph Over Temptation is our thanks for your generous gift today to help more people experience abundant life in Christ through the unchanging truth of God's word. Simply request your copy when you call today and give a gift to help keep Telling the Truth going around the world. Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, let's listen to the close of Jill's message.

Jill Briscoe: 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 Stuart had his arm around my shoulder and he was urging me on, "Go on, go on, go on!" And I was sort of 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 he put his arm—Stuart has his arm around my shoulder this way, and he put his arm—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's scared out of her mind!" And they 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 and 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 now 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 and by a 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 Stuart, 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 had a chance to receive him. Do you know how much God loves you?

Guest (Male): Thank you, Jill. We hope today's message has encouraged you. Before we go, remember that when you give today to help keep Telling the Truth broadcasts like this one going out around the world, we'll send you a copy of Triumph Over Temptation, a four-message series from Stuart and Jill Briscoe that's sure to help you stand up to daily temptations and grow stronger in your faith as you do.

So call now to give and remember to request Triumph Over Temptation with our thanks. 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. We're glad you've joined us today. Come back tomorrow for a teaching by Stuart Briscoe on the Christian view of politics.