The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-18, titled "Questions and Answers--Part 46."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. Copyright 2000 by John MacArthur, All Rights Reserved.

Question

What is a woman's role if she is alone to minister to a group of men who need to be taught the Word of God.  Is it permissible for her to teach them?

Answer

Well, it's a very good question and I would answer it this way: Obviously, if there is no one there but a woman who knows the truth, then she is obligated to communicate the truth.  But what she does not want to do is establish herself as a pastor; she doesn't want to establish herself as the under-shepherd of Christ in a Church.  In fact, in the history of the Jewish people, and it shows up in the Philippian Church, the Apostle Paul went to Philippi and there was no synagogue there--there was no synagogue there and Jewish women met down by the river because they couldn't constitute a synagogue without a certain number of men.  I think the number was eleven, before they could have a group of elders who could lead a synagogue--they couldn't even establish one.  In deference to the biblical pattern, which they recognized, they simply met to worship the true God down by the river.  I think that at that point, if they were the only ones who knew the truth they would be obligated to instruct, but they would need to wait for the full development of a church when God sent along male leadership. 

A way to answer that anecdotally: Patricia and I traveled some years ago down in the jungles of Ecuador.  Some of you will remember back in 1956, when the missionaries to Ecuador were slaughtered, you remember, by the river down there--the famous, famous story--Nate Saint and his friends who were killed there; five missionaries murdered by the Auca Indians.  Well, the sister of Nate Saint: Rachel Saint, who's name is well known to people in mission work, was determined that she would go down there and reach those people that had killed her brother and his friends.  They landed a plane on a river; they were trying to reach these people and they massacred them.  She went down there and God used her greatly.  She was a woman in that situation and she made a determination that she wouldn't send the church down a course from which it would be hard to recover, so she determined that she would never allow those people to view her as the leader, or the pastor, or in an ultimate sense--the teacher.  So what she did was, in an individual way, she endeavored to lead the natives to Christ--one on one.  Her story is just a remarkable story; we have met her of course.  What she did was; she was enabled by God to lead some individuals to Christ.  She determined that one of them would be a capable teacher and so she established the meeting, a regular meeting of the people for the presentation of the gospel; she prepared the lessons and she taught them to him and had him teach them to the people.  She did that for the very reason that she didn't want to become the teacher and the pastor whom everybody would adore and love and view as their teacher, and then try to alter that somewhere down the path.  So very wisely, and very thoughtfully, and obediently, I might add, to  Scripture, she being the only person with the truth found a way to do that without violating the principles of Scriptures. 

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
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