10-2-6 Huldah The Prophetess

Now as Jacquie did point out, women have possessed the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the past and she quoted the example of Huldah the prophetess. and this is absolutely right. As we have said, we can’t use the fact that women in the past have had these gifts to justify anything that we’re doing in the modern church today. Now God has used all sorts of people to speak forth his word. He used a donkey on one occasion, and he has used men, and he has used women, speaking under inspiration, giving the source of God’s word to other people, under inspiration.

Now I think there’s a difference between being a prophetess in the sense of saying: “This is God’s revelation and here you are, you can have it” I mean, God can even use someone who is an unbeliever to reveal his word. God, as we said, used a donkey on one occasion, who was not a believer. And so in a sense those people who were inspired, although the word came out from them, they were receiving a message and it was coming out from them. They weren’t actually giving interpretation, they were just a relayer of that message.

And I think there is a difference between being a prophetess and being a priest. Although those two groups worked together in the Old Testament, the priests actually expounded, explained, the words of the prophets; and you don’t get any examples of female priests.

Now Jacquie quoted quite extensively from church history to support her perspective. I’d suggest that that is absolutely no basis of authority. If you go to church history for your basis, well you’ll end up justifying war, murder, and all sorts of wicked things that have been done in the name of Christianity by both the Roman and the Anglican churches. So we can’t look at church history and say this justifies our present position.

Now, for example, the churches she mentioned have ordained female bishops and yet that is explicitly contrary to New Testament commandments. Paul says, “If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desires a good thing.” He doesn’t open it up to women.

So they are the main points that I would like to make and perhaps I’ll save a bit of my time to use more extensively in my summing up.

Chairman

Thank you Duncan. Jacquie would you like to respond.