Called

I have felt called to ministry since I was 16 years old. I poured over the scriptures believing passages about spiritual gifts and the great commission applied to me.

As years passed, it took me nearly two decades to realize the churches I had been a part of up to that point believed my gifting and calling was only meant for half the church. “Sure, you can teach…the children and women. Sure, you can teach and make disciples of your children, but you can’t baptize them.”

I often felt what Cynthia Westfall describes when she says

“while a man’s experience constitutes his call, a woman’s comparable experience of call is often negated and unsupported.” (You can get her book HERE)

She notes that historically churches have taken a hermeneutical approach that sees 1st Timothy 2:12 as a prohibition that takes priority over all passages even those that are about ungendered spiritual gifts.

What if we held ALL of scripture when reading these tough texts? As the Women’s Bible Commentary says “How can women exercise their acknowledged right to pray and prophesy if they must keep absolute silence? How can women like Prisca, Mary, Junia function as coworkers in the churches if they cannot speak in those churches?” (564)

The illogical inconsistencies frustrated me. 

I pursued an undergrad degree in Biblical text, often being the only female in my classes. I felt different and broken. Now I realize it’s not me, I simply didn’t fit in the mold that had been provided by church leadership. I too had been reading ALL of scripture through a hermeneutic that held up 1st Timothy 2:12 and 1st Corinthians 14:34 as verses that were “clear” but this felt like a direct conflict with my calling.

Westfall cites Grudem’s prohibitions on this issue, who said, “God never calls people to disobey his word” and there I sat on Sunday mornings listening to men who upheld Grudem’s beliefs. On Sundays I heard sermons about fulfilling the great commission, but during the week I heard I was not allowed to disciple or teach a man over 18 and could not baptize anyone male or female. I couldn’t even help teach in the college ministry despite discipling college students for over ten years. It was inconsistent and confusing at best.

The church effectively looking at me and saying, “We have no need of your voice in these areas.” A direct disobedience of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 12.

Westfall notes “A man can approach spiritual gifts as spiritual possibilities, but a woman may be unsure of what she is allowed to do. She becomes immobilized.” (Westfall 219)

And I did to some degree. I served where I could, I was on staff for the children’s ministry, I worked for Young Life, I taught the women’s Bible study, I pastored women on the side, but I felt like a ball of dough that kept rising and needed to be punched down in order to fit the mold.

I began to study these tough passages more and realized as Westfall puts it, the “immobilization of the Spirit’s gifts ultimately generates a different theology for women than for men.” (Westfall 219)

When our church preached on 1 Corinthians, I was reading Peppiatt’s book Women and Worship in Corinth. I read how Paul elevates the gift of prophecy above teaching and how it would seem strange for Paul to allow women to prophecy but not teach all while somehow remaining silent in church.

I felt I could no longer stay when they preached that the passages about prophecy were descriptive of the church in Corinth (because we didn’t prophesy) but the verses about women were prescriptive for all churches everywhere. The illogical inconsistencies were presented with such fierceness and unwillingness to consider a different viewpoint that we felt it was time to leave.

As painful as it was to lose our entire community, I finally feel free.

I now hear the Spirit’s voice as one that is louder than the restrictions of men.

I’m no longer immobilized by patriarchy; my feet are moving again.

I’m once again pursuing my calling and finding my voice.

One small way I have found is through art. I am an artist and created this visual as a representation of my life as a woman, finally finding the freedom to fully pursue my calling.