The Ministry of the Sisters

The woman's place in the order of God, her practical service in the local church, and head covering.

Ellen Wu

I want to tell you that I am not a teacher. I just want to share with you something that we have learned and are still learning before the Lord, so that we may encourage each other to live pleasingly before the Lord.

The place of woman

The brothers thought that I should share on the ministry of the sisters in the church. So in order to understand this I believe that there is one key verse in the scripture so that we can understand what is in God's heart; the special place that He has for the sisters. I think you'll be quite familiar with it; 1 Corinthians 11:3, And Paul began by saying, "But I wish you to know that the Christ is the head of every man, but woman's head is the man, and the Christ's head God." This is a key verse for telling us God's divine order for man and woman, in relationship with Christ and God Himself.

Paul divided this into three parts: Christ is the head of every man, and we can all say Amen to that, because Christ is our Lord and Savior, of all believers; we are purchased by His precious blood. So He should have the place as head. Then in the next section Paul says, the man is head of woman. So at first glance we could think that God made woman a second class citizen. That's what people from the world say about that. But we know that God does everything according to the pleasure of His heart. In His infinite wisdom He knows the place for us women in relationship to His eternal purpose.

So in order to fulfill God's eternal purpose, God assigned man a function and women another function, but as we shall see, this does not mean that God made woman unequal to man. We can see this in creation, with Adam and Eve, back in Genesis. After creating Adam, God said, "It is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a helpmate." So in order to be a helper and fulfill that function, Eve has to allow Adam to have the lead and to be the head, and she could help him. So here God already gave us a hint of His thought of man and woman. They were to complement one another, work together, not to compete against each other saying who is head and who is taking the role of the helper.

But if we go onto the third part, then we will understand a little better, because it says that God is the head of Christ. Because that does not mean that Christ is inferior to God; we know that Paul in Philippians chapter 2, verse 5 said, "Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped." So here we clearly see that Christ is equal to God. So he did not grasp at this equality. Instead, in verse 7, "but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant" - this was not just a servant, but a slave, "and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross."

So you see that our Lord Jesus, even though He was equal with God, in order to fulfill the will of God, He emptied Himself and took a lower place. Not only a lower place, but He even humbled himself to the point of death, and all because of His love for us. The sinless One was made sin for us and died for us on a cross. There is no lower place than that which our Lord Jesus took from being God, sent all the way down to death on a cross. Because of this, He accomplished the great salvation for all of us.

The Son of God came to be the Son of Man. In the gospel of John He said over and over again, "I can do nothing of my own initiative, I do not speak of my own initiative." We know our Lord Jesus was a perfect man, so anything that he would have done or spoken by Himself would have been perfect. But to fulfill God's will, He took a lower place, and allowed God the Father to be His head, and submitted to His Father in everything. From that we see that God gave us a special place to manifest this submission of the Lord Jesus to our husband in our home, and to the responsible brothers in the church, so that God's will can be fulfilled. So with this understanding we can consider what the roles of the sisters are, and their ministry in the church.

The ministry of the sisters

God created woman with sensitivity and an ability to pay attention to details. So there are many things which brothers are not sensitive enough to notice, but the sisters are. So the sisters can help. So the Scripture says that there is a gift of help. Sisters can open their homes, just as you have done to us, to offer the heavenly gift of hospitality. Sisters have a more caring heart for children, so they can minister to the children that the Lord has given to the brothers and sisters.

So we can have a role in the Sunday school: a ministry which is to help the parents with the spiritual education of their children. So when we meet, we teach the children from Genesis to Revelation, taking the important parts of each book, and teach the children at their level. So they will have a good foundation in the Word of God. So when they gradually grow up, and hear the ministry of the brothers, who may be speaking about Ezra returning to Jerusalem, then they will have some idea about what happened. So it is really just giving them something very basic; teaching the ABC of the Scriptures. But at a very young age we can help them build a foundation for God's Word.

I think there is another ministry that is very important that both brothers and sisters can undertake, which is prayer. If you heard brother Stephen earlier, he shared on sister Margaret Barber and her niece who both prayed that God would raise up an instrument for Him in China. As a consequence of their prayers, and we know there were other sisters in Denmark who were praying, God raised up brother Watchman Nee in China. Through his fellowship with his co-workers, the gospel spread through all of China even when the Communists took over. So there is no greater ministry, in terms of importance for the Lord than the ministry of prayer. Oftentimes, we are more sensitive to see the difficulties in the church gathering, or in brothers and sisters families, or with our young people attracted by the world. With all these things, if the Lord allows us to see them, it is for us to pray.

So one time in a sisters meeting, an elderly sister shared on this point, and used a verse from Isaiah 58:12, "thou shalt be called The repairer of the breach." A breach is found in a wall, which could be a separation from the church and the world, so a hole there could be a point where the enemy can come in and damage the testimony of the church. So we can offer these things to the Lord in prayer.

We visit a gathering in the Philippines almost once every year, and it really touched my heart when they divided into small groups to pray, and when I prayed with a group of sisters, they were always praying for the brothers in responsibility, so that the Lord would give them spiritual discernment and wisdom and revelation when they shared the ministry of the Word, and know how to minister the affairs of the church. How often it is easier to pray for the sick or someone with difficulties. But we don't realize our brothers in responsibility are standing in the so-called front line. So we as sisters should support them in prayer and strengthen their spirit, soul and body for their ministry on behalf of the Lord.

Let me give you an illustration. There is a sister in our gathering who is really a prayer warrior. There was a family in our gathering with seven children. When the children were small, just imagine on the Lord's Day, in the morning, just finding a pair of shoes for each child can be used by the enemy to distract the parent's heart. So this sister would pray each morning on the Lord's Day saying, "Lord, help the children to find their shoes, so the whole family can come in peace and rest before coming to the Lord's table."

Even though it's such a small thing, its an area where we can help. Whatever the Lord brings to your heart, bring it to the Lord in prayer so by His Spirit He can minister His grace to many, many kinds of needs or to prevent any needs from developing. It will hold back the work of the enemy's destruction, so the Lord can have a free way in our heart as we gather together into His presence.

So this is an illustration of the ministry of the sisters in the church. As the Word says, "Whatever the Lord committeth to your heart, do it heartily for him." But first we must go before the Lord and let Him give us the burden; allow Him to reveal to us what area we can bring before Him in prayer. So then the will of the Lord will be done, and His name will be glorified.

Head covering

When we were in Santiago, some also raised the question about the head covering. So I thought maybe I should share that also. I see many sisters here have their head covered and some do not. It is not a custom; women need to understand the reality or significance of this, and if the Lord lays it upon your heart so that you can submit to this teaching from the scripture, then there will be a great spiritual significance in this.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11:10, "for this cause ought the woman to have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels." So the symbol is not a symbol of her authority, but rather to show she is under authority, and it is on account of the angels. We know what happened in the beginning, even before man was created: God created the angels. Angels are ministering servants of the Lord. And we know in Isaiah 14 that the Archangel, Lucifer, was created perfect and full of beauty, just as our brother Roberto shared in the Santiago conference. He did not like to hear about the preeminent place that God gave to His Son. He wanted that place. So he became God's enemy; the fallen angel, Satan.

Not only because of that rebellion, but after God created Adam and Eve, He placed them in the Garden of Eden, and Satan came disguised as a serpent and tempted Eve. He said, "Did God say…?" He put a question mark into Eve's mind: "Did God really say you can't eat of this tree of knowledge of good and evil?" If Eve had realized God's order, she should have gone to Adam and say, "What did God say?" Did she do that? No, she didn't. So she said, "God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it…"

So you see that she added something that was not given from the Scripture; God never said they could not touch it. But she became head and took the decision. So she saw that the fruit was beautiful and good for food and to make us wise to discern good from evil; they would not have to depend on God to tell them.

She took the fruit and ate it, and gave it to Adam and he ate it also. And the Scripture says that through one act of disobedience, sin came into the world. So we know what an awful consequence that act of sin brought into this world. But thank the Lord; He came to die for our sins so that we may be recovered. Not only that, He also gave us a special privilege: that having fallen from obedience and submission, He gave us the privilege of saying, "We are willing to submit to the Lord's divine order." So we are willing to be submissive to the men, be it in our homes to our husband or to the brothers in the meetings and the church so that God can recover His right as the supreme head which Satan wanted to usurp even before man was created.

Fallen and sinful man stood on Satan's side, and are still rejecting and resisting the Headship of Christ and His Father God. So when we put on a head covering, we say that we want to submit to God's order. When the brothers in the church see the sisters have their heads covered, they are reminded even though they have the delegated authority of the Lord; nevertheless, they are under the headship of Christ. So the brothers and sisters together show that the church is the body of Christ.

Paul said, in that section that I read from Philippians it says, "Let this mind be also in you which was in Christ Jesus." This refers to Christ's submission. How privileged we are to be able to be an example to fallen angels as well as good angels; willing to submit as Christ submitted to His Father.

So even if we have this willingness in our hearts, do you think that it is easy to submit? No. Because by nature, from Adam, we are rebellious. Even though we are willing to have our heads covered, the doing is not in us. So what is the secret? I think Hebrews 12 gives us a secret as to how we can be submissive. Verse 2: "Looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith." So the secret is to look at our Lord Jesus. He is not only our example; His submissive life is also in us.

I will give you a personal testimony. Oftentimes brother Hoseah and I have misunderstandings. So we begin to argue. I feel he misunderstands me, so I want to argue back or explain why I said what I said, even though it does not help. The more you explain, the bigger the argument, right? So one time the Lord showed me: I may think I am right, and my motive may be correct, I am misunderstood, but when I think of my Lord Jesus, He is perfect, always right, yet what did he experience when He was here? "He came to his own, and his own received him not."

How He was misunderstood. How the Pharisees accused him of being a blasphemer. Did He defend Himself? No, He did not; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is dumb. How can I defend myself in light of what our Lord has suffered? Instant peace came into my heart. Instead of continuing the arguments, I didn't need to say any more. Peace was restored between us. So the only way is to look to the Lord Jesus, and allow His submissive life live itself out through us. Then we can say like Paul, in Galatians 2:20, as you are all familiar, "it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me." So it is not that we are able; it is by His grace, and the prompting of the Holy Spirit to look to the Lord Jesus.

Then there will be submission and obedience to God. So then, as brother Sparks said, God gets the moral glory, because we as the scriptures say, like Jesus, made a little lower than the angles, can be instruments to shame the fallen angels and obey God, submitting to His divine order; all by His grace and all by His doing. Then God gets all the glory. So don't you think it's wonderful that God gave us this special privilege as sisters to bear His testimony of what the life of Christ can do through such rebellious people as we are? So when we understand how great God's love toward us in this particular area is, that will give us a willingness to say to the Lord, "Lord, make me willing to submit to you, so that you may have all the glory."

Through the submission of the church the Lord Jesus will recover this whole universe, the whole creation that was subjected to vanity because of our sin, so that Christ be all and in all. We have a small part to play in that, which is to learn submission to our Lord now. So when our Lord looks at this church, He will be joyful because they submit to Him as the true Head. It is in this area that the Lord wants to perfect all of us, so the Church grows up to be the perfect bride of Christ, to be His eternal helper in the ages to come. So thank the Lord for the wonderful way He treats us sisters, and gives us this privilege to learn submission as our Lord learnt when He was the Son of Man on earth. It is a true blessing from our Lord.

Copyright © AGUAS VIVAS | CHILE 2005