Does Deborah provide us with an example about the place and function of women in marriage, in church and in society? There are those who think so. Donna Strom, professor at the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Dehra Dun, Northern India, laments that women have, in the main, been involved only in increasing the human population, and done so little (“except for a rare Margaret Thatcher or Indira Gandhi”) to join men in ruling the earth.2 So she writes of Deborah: “What Deborah’s example obviously teaches is that women should not be excluded from any levels of decision-making, religious or political.”3 Because Professor Strom sees men hindering women in taking positions of leadership, she writes: “Many have asked, ‘Where are the Deborahs?’ But a more relevant question today is: where are the Baraks, Lapidoths, and 10,000 men who will allow God to use His Deborahs?”4
Is it really true that God provides us in Deborah with a model for how He would have women to act? Ought the brothers of God’s church to recondition their thinking to “allow God to us His Deborahs”?
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Author: Clarence Bouwman
Keywords: Oppression of women, Women priests, Women pastors, Women bishops, Women evangelists, Women in the church, Serving women, Women, Feminism, Anti feminism, misogynist, misogyny, Women to remain silent, Silent in the churches, Women should not teach, Women are not to teach men, Women to be in subjection, Junia, Andronicus and Junia, Sexist, Paul sexist, Sexism, Women of prominence, Chauvinism, Male chauvinism, Chauvinist, Male chauvinist, Deborah and Barak, Debra and Barak, Equality, Female equality, Usurping authority, Usurping authority over men, Feminist, Role of women in the church, Role of woman in the church, Role of women, Role of woman, Female bishop, Equality of women, Equality of woman
Bible reference(s): Genesis 2:18, Genesis 2:20, Genesis 3:16, Judges 4, Romans 16:7, 1 Corinthians 11:3, 1 Cor. 14:34-35, Gal. 3:28, Ephesians 5:22-24, 1 Timothy 2:11-14, 1 Peter 3:1-6
Source: Clarence Bouwman.
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