Greetings everyone and thanks for joining me for this edition of my Sunday School lesson commentary. This Sunday’s lesson is entitled “Prophesying Daughters” and is found in Luke 2:36-38; Acts 2:16-21; 21:8-9.
Today’s lesson focuses on the “role” or part that all people have, but especially women in the redemptive plan of God for mankind. Women comprise the other half of the human species. Men and women are equally made in the image of God. They are equally entitled to the salvation and life God has ordained and prepared for them before the world was ever made.
With that understood, it must also be understood that men and women have been assigned or given “roles” by God that we should not pretend He has not done or dismiss as unimportant or irrelevant. The lesson text highlights the roles of three women.
The first is a widow who was at least 84 years in age. This is also how long she could have been a widow which would make her age to be well over 100 years of age. She may have lived in the temple and performed some duty there for her upkeep.
It is clear she was a respected devout and godly woman. She saw Jesus the day Mary and Joseph brought Him to the temple. She praised God for Him and acknowledged Him as the Savior God had promised to all who would listen.
The next woman is all women to whom God will pour out His Spirit upon who may be inspired to prophesy concerning Jesus and the kingdom of God. The last woman in the lesson text are four daughters of the deacon Phillip who also prophesied. In each of these cases, it is clear that God uses women to inform others of His redemptive plan.
There are many other cases throughout the bible where women have had a pivotal role in forming the history of God’s redemptive plan. Yet their roles can be for the most part be characterized as supportive. The lead roles God has given to men.
From the creation of Adam, the call of Noah, Abraham and Moses to the making of kings, to the work and writings of the prophets and the birth of Jesus, to the commission of the twelve apostles and the making of the first deacons these roles were filled by men.
If there was no divine difference or distinction in their calling and roles, then we should have expected to see an equal distribution of women and men in these roles and certainly not the absence of them. God made the distinction between men and women and has given us roles for reasons that may not always be clear to us.
Supportive roles are what make leading roles possible. There is hardly anything that is made that doesn’t have some supporting mechanism. Without those mechanisms whatever is made would not work. Are women less important than men because they have different roles? Are children less important than their parents because they have different roles?
Of course not. Neither are women any less important or valuable to God than men. Women have a valuable and essential role as do men in fulfilling God’s redemptive plan. All I’m saying is to don’t be so quick to dismiss and undervalue the place of roles based upon sex and gender in the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is not the world and the world is not the kingdom of God. Because the world is increasingly saying there is no place for gender or sex or roles based upon them, they don’t and can’t speak for God and His kingdom. God made us male and female and did it for a divine reason and has assigned us roles.
But there are those who are attempting to lay aside what God has done and make no distinction between the two including in the church. Jesus is equal with God yet His role was and is that of a servant. A male, not female, servant. For that is what God called for the role to be.
Well, I hope you will be able to attend SS this coming Sunday. Invite someone to come and share your thoughts with the class. Sunday School at Flag Branch will begin at 9:00 am and you are invited to join us at www.fbmbc.org and clicking the online services link.
You and others can also join us by dialing 508 924-2490. If you have any comments or questions before then, be sure to place them in the comment section of this preview and I will get back to you. So, as always remember to fear God and keep His commandments.
Pastor Jordan
