Supporting Women in the Church

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Ligon Duncan
I was blessed with an environment where I saw the beauty and the benefit of these godly women that the Lord has given the church. There were spiritual mothers to me in that congregation, one godly woman, she still prays for me today, Aline Morehead and Alene prayed for me every day, checked on me, talked about theological books with me. I cannot thank God enough for the Christian women that he’s put in

Matt Smethurst
me. Welcome to this episode of the everyday pastor, a podcast on the nuts and bolts of ministry from the gospel coalition. I’m Matt smitherst and I’m Luke Duncan. I serve as a pastor in Richmond, Virginia. I’ve only been doing I’ve been doing it for less than three years. Leg you were a pastor for remind folks how many years

Ligon Duncan
First Presbyterian Church in Jackson for 17 years. And prior to that, I served two smaller churches.

Matt Smethurst
Okay, so we have an older, seasoned minister and a pretty new novice over here, and that’s one of the things we’re wanting to do with this podcast, is model, different kinds of ministries, different styles of ministries, different generations talking with rather than past one another, so that we can constructively help fellow pastors know how to lead in the work of ministry, and one of the privileges LIG that we have as pastors is serving churches that aren’t filled with all the exact same kind of person. So there’s a beautiful diversity in the body of Christ. And of course, one of those ways that we see that diversity expressed is in gender. Gender is being attacked today. It’s under assault. It’s being rethought, questioned by the secular culture, and yet it is a gift from God that comes to us in the very first pages of his word. And so God has entrusted to our care as pastors, men and women of God that we are called to care for. And I can just speak from my own experience as an elder for six years and now as a lead pastor for a couple of years, that the sisters in my congregation are such an immense encouragement to me that they are not just kind of an accessory to what’s going on in the life of the church. They are a vital part of what we’re trying to pursue as we seek to carry out the mission of God. Talk a little bit just about your experience, long time experience as a senior pastor, how sisters in the church were a unique blessing to first president

Ligon Duncan
and look for me, Matt. It goes all the way back to my childhood that I was I was born into a family where there were godly, highly educated, even theologically educated, very devoted to the church, wonderful Christian women. And my grandmother was the first member of her family to go through college, a godly woman that I revered. My mother was a university professor. Had studied at Southern Baptist seminary in Louisville, catalog the church music library at Southern Baptist seminary in Louisville. Had served the Lord in church music in churches all her life, and then taught music in the university, and was the choir director for me growing up. That’s That’s how I one of the main ways that I saw her serving the church, as well as teaching women and being involved in the women’s ministry, not only at the local church, but in our denomination. I said

Matt Smethurst
this on a previous episode, but but listeners Be sure to read legs recent Mother’s Day tribute to his mom. She was larger than life.

Ligon Duncan
Personally, was just a wonder again. Thank God for a woman like that. So I, I was blessed with an environment where I saw the beauty and the benefit of these godly women that the Lord has given the church. And you know, the I was in a congregation, I was I was baptized into the southern Presbyterian Church was called the PC USA, or the PC us. My congregation left the PC us in 1973 one of the things that was distinctive about us is we only had male pastors and we only had male elders and deacons, and that was different from our old denomination. So that was a thing, and we got accused of being misogynistic and of not valuing women and but my personal experience of that was so different. There was a healthy respect and mutual cooperation and work between the men and women of the congregation, and I saw that in the relationships as a young man. And I wouldn’t have known if you I mean the word, I don’t think the word complimentarian was even around at that time, but I wouldn’t have had a label to put on what we were other than Gee, my pastor is telling me we’re trying to be faithful what Paul says in First Timothy and in Titus and in other parts of the Bible. But I didn’t see this supposed conflict or disrespect or belittling or not valuing that people on the outside were talking about. So I benefited. And then in every church that I ever had a chance, I saw the same thing. So I know there are churches where they’re not that healthy, but it’s not endemic. That was not my experience. I went to St Louis. I was in a congregation called covenant Presbyterian Church, and again, the godly women that the Lord put in my life nurtured me, and I saw them supporting the elders and the pastor. They were the they were champions to the elders and the pastors, but they were partners in ministry. They helped me in youth ministry. They helped in young adult ministry. They were exceedingly involved in the diaconal ministry of the church. They were involved in the evangelistic ministry. Everywhere you turned, there were godly women there. And I had this same experience when I was in Scotland. I worshiped primarily in two I couldn’t get enough. There were so many good churches in Edinburgh, I couldn’t get enough of church. So I actually was actively involved with two congregations while I was in Edinburgh. There again, in both places, godly Christian women. And then I come back to Mississippi. And both at Trinity Presbyterian Church, First Presbyterian Church of Yazoo City. There really is a place called Yazoo City, and then at First Presbyterian Jackson, I saw that kind of healthy partnership and interaction between men and women and the church. Even though we were a church where the pastors were qualified men, according to First Timothy and the elders and the deacons were were qualified men, there was just a healthy cooperation. Now, that’s not to say I didn’t get questions at first pres from women in the new members class about, hey, what’s, what’s the deal with your church and officers? Interestingly, even in a place like Jackson, fairly traditional part of it, I’m not in Seattle, I’m not in San Francisco, I’m not in New York City, even in Jackson. That’s probably one of the top three questions I got from people coming in through the new members class, and especially women. Would would ask tell me about this congregation and its view of women and the roles of women in the ministry of of women. So I had to be ready to talk about that. But the the women in my congregation, there was, there was no resentment, there was a there was a robust partnership. It was a blessing. And I had, there were spiritual mothers to me in that congregation, there one godly woman. She still prays for me today, Aline Morehead, when my mom came to Jackson to help me get settled in. My mom and dad came down with me to help me get settled into my apartment. When I became a professor at the seminary, I was still a single man, and my mom met Alene Morehead, and she she recognized in Aleen, a woman with the same kinds of spiritual instincts and and the her ethos and she she turned to me and she said, Aline is going to be your mother here in Jackson. And Alene prayed for me every day, checked on me, talked about theological books with me. She and her husband. Her husband was an elder at the church. They’ve just been dear to me my whole time in Jackson, and I treasure the fact that she knew my mom, because my mom’s home with the Lord. And so when I see Aileen, it’s like there’s a little bit of that old that, that first meeting when we were together around the dinner table. And so the Lord has put women in my life that way. Yeah, I cannot thank God enough for the Christian women that he’s

Matt Smethurst
I love that you, you mentioned a mother in the faith, because, of course, the Lord Jesus, you know, was in, was in the crowded house teaching people came to him and said, Hey, your your mother and brothers are outside. And he said, who this is? This is the end of Mark chapter three. Who are my mothers and brothers and sisters? It is those who do the will of God, Amen. So as he redefines the people of God around himself, yeah, it’s clear that in the in the church, which in First Timothy three, is called the household of God, there are brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers, yeah, and the role of a spiritual mother, and the It’s been said that the church is not a single parent household. We don’t just have fathers. Now, the church is led by fathers elders, and yet, there is a vital role in being a mother in the church. And that’s in many ways, what I mean. I should I should read it, because it’s such. A kind of load bearing passage, but Titus chapter two is a key passage. It doesn’t say everything there is to be said, but it’s a key passage in casting a vision for generational investment, even along gender lines, Paul is writing to Titus on the island of Crete and and he says, Titus, chapter two, but as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober minded, dignified, self controlled sound in faith, in love and in steadfastness. Older women, likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine they are to teach what is good. So let me just stop there, even though, even though we believe that that women may not hold the Office of Elder, that that’s limited to qualified men in accordance with God’s good wisdom, right, that doesn’t mean that women can’t minister. It doesn’t mean that women can’t can’t teach, right? That? It says explicitly, they are to teach what is good, which presupposes that they know some theology, they have some stuff to offer. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self control, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. The stakes cannot be higher than that. There are, there are cosmic realities and and there are, you know, I think of the passage in Ephesians three about about the church as the display of God’s wisdom to the watching universe and the powers and principalities something similar as at stake even in the quiet mundaneness of your own home, if you’re a if you’re a stay at home mother, for example. And you know, I think it was, it was Spurgeon, who once said, I am sure no teaching ever made such an impression upon my mind as the teaching of a godly mother, right? And so when we think about ministry to women, caring for women, it is a lot more than having a high view championing women in the home, but it’s not less than that, and I do want to just to just acknowledge that, and for so many of us as pastors, that’s what our wives are doing, and they ought to feel honored in that work, sure, because if they were not giving primary attention to the home, then we would not be freed To give our primary attention. Now, of course, our first priority should be our home as well, but there is a sense in which we would not be free to give primary attention in our vocation to the household of God if they weren’t such champions on the home front.

Ligon Duncan
And think, think of the investment of great Christian women in some of the great Christian leaders of history, you think of Augustine and Monica. You think of Susanna Wesley. But you know that goes all the way. Paul has that on his mind when he writes his last letter to Timothy, he says, In Second Timothy, chapter three, verse 14, you continue in the things that you have learned and become convinced of knowing from whom you have learned them. Now, Who’s he talking about? Well, he tells you, back in chapter one, I am mindful verse five of the sincere faith within you which first dwelt in your grandmother, Lois and your mother, Eunice, I am sure that is in you as well. It’s interesting that Paul does not mention the grandfather and the father. He mentions the grandmother and the mother. And here his exhortation at the end is, I want you to continue in the things that you’ve learned from whom, from Lois and Eunice. You believe those things. It reminds me of. I wanted to ask John Piper how he had come to embrace biblical inerrancy once, and partly, I wanted to ask him that, and you’ll know, you’ll know the background. Matt John studied with Dan fuller at Fuller Seminary, who denied biblical inerrancy, and Dan was John Piper’s favorite professor there, and then he goes to the University of Munich and studies with theological liberals in in New Testament studies. And so I John, so John, you’ve been, you’ve believed in biblical inerrancy from the moment of your public ministry. How? How did that happen? Studying with Dan fuller at Fuller Seminary and then with liberals in Germany and without, without a pause, John said, Why do you believe inerrancy? John, because my mama told me to you know it. He just goes right back to what his mother taught him when he was a little boy and you. If you’ve ever read John, talk about his mother. He clearly revered his mother. And his father was an itinerant evangelist, and was on the road a lot, and so his mother gave the schedule stability, the relational stability, to the household. It’s very clear the impact that she had on him spiritually. Paul’s acknowledging the same thing about Timothy, that’s a wonderful thing that we ought

Matt Smethurst
to celebrate. And I just got to close the loop on this by reading this, this quote from Chesterton, who, GK Chesterton, who says it with with his own verve. And he says when people talk about this domestic duty, he’s talking about motherhood, yeah, and especially what we would call stay at home motherhood, which is not the only way to be faithful, but we’re just wanting to take a moment to honor Amen those who stay at home with the kids. When people talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult, but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination, conceive what they mean. I can understand how motherhood might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the rule of three and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a mother’s function is laborious because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. Yeah. So pastors, honor, encourage, champion the mothers in your church, whether they’re able to stay at home or not. Now, there’s more to say about about caring for sisters in our church. So when we think about women, deploying women for ministry, because, you know, it’s been said before that there is no such thing as a healthy church in which the men flourish but the women do not Yeah, Pastor, you need to internalize now there’s no such thing as a healthy church in which your men are flourishing but your women are not. So how can we release and deploy women to flourish in our midst for the good work of ministry? Here’s

Ligon Duncan
my observation in the churches that in a I do not want to universalize my experience. I know that there are bad experiences out there, but my observation is that the women in those churches did not need to be given permission to serve the Lord. They were already serving the Lord, and they didn’t need to be given something to do. They were already doing a lot. What they needed was for people to appreciate the significance of what they were already doing and then to help them do what they were already doing for the Lord. And so I, as a pastor, I came into a situation where I didn’t have to mobilize the women to serve the Lord. It was like, Okay, how can we get out of their way? They’re serving the Lord, but also how, how can I, how can I serve you, sister, as you serve the whole congregation? How can I serve you as you minister in your home? But in other places? Well, I had, I had women that were leading in educational endeavors in the area. They were involved in a variety of of volunteer and charitable work. They were doing all sorts of things, both in the church and in the community. And I wanted them to know that I cared about that, that I wanted, I wanted their souls to be refreshed in that because, you know, speaking about that Chesterton quote, the one thing about motherhood, is it so all consuming? It is exhausting. You know, no wonder women feel like I can’t remember what I was thinking about five minutes ago. When, when it is such an all consuming work. But women work hard everywhere, and so they need soul refreshment. And so as a pastor, I want to think about what my whole flock needs, and probably more than half of my flock is going to be women, and they’re not going to be all in the same situation. They’re not all going to be married. They’re not only going to be mothers. And so I want to bear in mind every circumstance, that one thing a pastor needs to remember is when a when a when a man is when a when a male is born and grows up through boyhood into manhood, you know, no matter what, that guy is going to have to have a vocation where he takes care of himself, and then possibly a wife and A family a woman, situation is far more complex. When, when, when, when a when a female child is born and grows up. There are, there are multiple vocational opportunities that may be that she’s not married young, and she’s going to have to support herself in some ways for a period of time. And then. She meets a husband and then is part of building a family or but

Matt Smethurst
even if she doesn’t the right, she can be a ferocious correct.

Ligon Duncan
So Angela, women are going to be in multiple situations in their life. Sometimes women will be stay at home moms the entire time that their children at home, and then they’re serving in some profession or vocation. And so a pastor has to be aware that the women’s life situation is going to be more complex and variable than the men in their church. And you want to be it’s not one size fits all, and so you want to be a spirit. And look, because of that, it means that the temptations that we face and this and and the particular ways that we are tempted as men and women are different, and partly that’s just because of how we are men and women, there are certain differences, but it’s also the situations that we’re put in. And and so as a pastor, we want to be aware of that. I remember a number of years ago, a Christian publisher, which I won’t name, published a two volume set on how men are tempted and how when women are tempted. And I applaud them for doing that, because men’s men’s temptations and women’s temptations can be a little bit different. Satan gets at us in different ways. As a pastor, if I’m not paying attention to that, I’m not helping my men and I’m not helping my women, you have

Matt Smethurst
to be dialed in. You have to be dialed in. You’re not just pastoring the men in your church. You have to be dialed into the way that the evil one is trying to attack the sisters that trusted you. Yeah, again, that’s not going to be monolithic, but generally speaking, you know, you in a previous episode, mentioned the Thomas Brooks. He was a Puritan. His books precious remedies against Satan’s devices. At the beginning of that book, he says, and I paraphrase, Satan, custom designs, his snares. He’s not gonna attempt two people in the same way. That’s right, and that’s true with individuals. That’s even true across lines of gender and and such, yeah, when I think of what of my own church, you know, in Richmond, and I think of the some of just the most active Christians doing the most good in the life of the church. It’s just names and faces of sisters flood to mind, right? So in a previous episode, I mentioned the speak for the unborn pro life ministry outside of abortion clinics. But all you know that’s being spearheaded by women, but also some of our evangelism, our Bible studies, discipleship. I mean, our church is just filled with women, just getting after it in terms of evangelism and discipleship. Give you

Ligon Duncan
an example at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Jackson, where I serve, that had been a congregation that was in the old southern church that had been affected by the orthodoxy and some theological liberalism when they came out of the Southern church, there were a lot of Bible believing Christians in the congregation. That’s why they came out. Their leadership was Bible believing. They had never been involved in missions, but Dottie trunsler, who everybody there called missions mama, is the one who said, We need a missions committee. We need to actively be supporting missions in the church. It was Dottie, it was the elders. Didn’t think that up now, the elders took they took that to heart when Dottie said, we need to do this and and, but she turned that church into a missions focused powerhouse, and she didn’t want to be a pastor, she didn’t want to be an elder. She just wanted the pastor and the elders to be doing the things that they were supposed to do, and then she was, she was willing to get in there and do the work I can, I can tell you story after story like that, where the women of the church have, for instance, my home church in Greenville, South Carolina. Second Prez was started because the ladies Sunday school class at First Presbyterian Church in Greenville was praying that there would be a church, a Bible believing Presbyterian Church for people on the west side of Greenville. Now you’d laugh about it today, because first pres and second pres are like four blocks apart, but what separates them is the Reedy River, and you had to forward the Reedy River from the west side of Greenville to get into Greenville to first pres but it was the lady Sunday school class praying that a Presbyterian Church would be planted on the west side of Greenville that started second Presbyterian Church. Now, they didn’t want to be pastors or elders, but they they felt a spiritual need existed that it was hard for people to afford the Reedy River to get over to first pres the out of that lady Sunday school class. Second Presbyterian Church was planted in 1892 so I could, we could tell stories like that. That multiply till the cows come home, of how godly women have blessed the entire church, men and women, because of their love for the scriptures, their love for the gospel, their the spiritual work that the Holy Spirit had done in their own lives, overflowing in their ministry and their life.

Matt Smethurst
In my experience serving as an elder and now as a lead pastor, you know, and this is among happy, non angsty, complimentarian women. They love God’s Word, His revealed Wisdom, what the Bible says. They’re not angling to become elders. And yet, they love theology, I think, one of the most practical ways pastors that you can encourage, support, feed and champion the women in your congregation is by helping them think of themselves as theologians. Because the reality is, everybody, functionally, is a theologian. The only question is, are you a good one? The moment you open your mouth and start talking about God, you’re doing theology, yeah? And therefore we need to equip. I mean, I just think of the the beautiful scene at the end of Luke 10 with with Mary and Martha. Martha is serving Jesus, yeah? But he says, no, no, look at Mary. Yeah. She’s sitting at my feet listening to my teaching. That’s, that’s the posture of a learner, a disciple, a theologian. And I think, I think you mentioned John Piper, I think before, he has encouraged women to have backbones of steel rooted in solid theology, because when the winds and waves of life come, you’re going to need to be able to withstand that with with the with the meat and the truth of God’s

Ligon Duncan
amen, amen. And I, you know, that is something I am encouraged about when I look out today. There, you know, 3040, years ago, you could find women’s ministries in evangelical churches that were somewhat a theological and there has been, well,

Matt Smethurst
I think you could take out the somewhat

Ligon Duncan
I was trying to be nuanced. Today I look out and I see Nancy Guthrie’s and Megan hills and Melissa, and we can list a long people that a lot of people around TGC that are very, very theological, they want to help women get into rich biblical theology. That is a really good thing that we all ought to be happy about. And you need women that take theology seriously in the church that they my women at First Presbyterian Church helped me do things that would have been very difficult for me to do, and I there was a cadre of women teaching the Bible at first pres Jackson, again, that’s not due to me. That really goes all the way back to Gene Patterson, who was the pastor’s wife in the 1970s and those, those women were so helpful to me As they ministered to other men women in the congregation, they were able to engage issues that it would have been very difficult for me to engage. I remember there was a there was a young woman in the congregation that was attending women’s Bible studies, and she went to Jo Lynn Swayze, who was one of our, one of our Bible teachers, and she was complaining about her husband, and she said, My husband works all the time. He is gone all the time. I want my husband. And that’s a that’s a good desire to have to want to have your husband around the house and engaged with the family. So, you know, you might have thought, Well, Joe Lynn will just pile on him and beat him up. But he this, this woman and her husband were very well off. He had a very high paying job that was very demanding. They lived in a very nice house. They drove very nice cars. They were members of very nice clubs. They had homes here and there, and Joe Lynn just said, that’s a good desire to have. Are you willing to live at a lower status, socioeconomically for your husband to be home? Are you willing to not wear the clothes that you wear and not live in the house that you live in and not drive the car that you drive. It would have been very difficult, very frankly, Matt, for me to have that conversation with her. Jo Lynn had all the credibility to have that conversation with her. And I just, I can tell you over and over about how women in my congregations have supported the work of the elders and the pastors and talked about things that would have been very difficult for me to have a conversation about, because I would have come across as well. You’re just being a man. You don’t you don’t understand what you know. You’re just taking up for him. You’re on his side that godly women being able to talk about things out of their own experience. You know, Joe. Lynn’s husband was an engineer, and he had to work hard, but, you know, she’d had to work through those things as a Christian woman, and she was able to help that young woman think through those things from a Christian perspective, and even to think about what we value most in life, you know. And so I could give testimony after testimony about how godly women have helped me minister to the church in ways, in speaking into things that would be hard for me to speak into.

Matt Smethurst
Amen, we could almost say that as pastors, we want to communicate two things simultaneously, which may seem contradictory, but in different contexts and with different sisters, you might need to emphasize one or the other. The first is, sit, don’t just serve. That’s the lesson of, yeah, that’s the lesson of Luke 10 and marry at Jesus’s feet. Learn the Bible, learn theology. But the other is, serve. Don’t just sit. Amen. We need you in the game. We need you on the court, because our our ministry as a church will be impoverished without you helping us accelerate the mission of God for His glory. And let me just end by saying a couple of podcasts that that I think are really useful is, let’s talk produced by the gospel Coalition, which has been discontinued, but you can listen to all the previous seasons, and also Priscilla talk, published by nine marks. Both of those podcasts, I think, would be really encouraging things to commend to the sisters in your congregation, not just to listen to themselves, but perhaps to get together well discuss. Well said, we hope this episode of the everyday pastor has been encouraging to you, especially as you think about pastoring women that the Lord has gifted to you in your congregations. If this has been helpful to you, please take a moment to if you’re watching YouTube, to like and subscribe. Even hit that bell. I think that does something important. Hit the little bell symbol. We would appreciate that so that we can help pastors find fresh joy in the work of ministry and serve all those entrusted to them.