Will Willimon is bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church and he blogs occasionally at A Peculiar Prophet. Yesterday he posted an entry titled A Faith that is Based on the Testimony of Women. The title itself is problematic – the Christian faith is not based on anyone’s testimony, the Christian faith comes from the work of God in Christ. But Willimon was trying to be provocative with his title, a frequent characteristic of his speaking and writing, so I will give him a little leeway.

More problematic is the content of his entry. For example:

The angel preached the first Easter sermon: “Don’t be afraid. You seek Jesus, who was crucified? He is risen! Come, look at where he once lay in the tomb.” Then the angel commissioned the women to become Jesus’ first preachers: “Go, tell the men that he has already gone back to Galilee. There you will meet him.”

Two issues here. First, the proclamation of the angel was not a sermon. I suppose if we use the term as loosely as Willimon does we could say that any religious proclamation is a sermon. But the angel was not unfolding the word of God to the people of God, he was proclaiming an event. He was testifying. He was evangelizing. 

Second, the women were not then commissioned to preach but were called to do what the angel had done. If we define preaching loosely we could say that anyone presenting the gospel is preaching, but the word is more specific than that.

The women were sent out to spread the good news that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead. This is not preaching, this is evangelizing. 

In his attempt to defend the role of women as preachers Willimon misses something more important. Not everyone is called to preach but everyone is called to evangelize. Not everyone is called to stand in the pulpit but everyone is called to do what the women did here, proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Willimon then brings up the Great Commission and reminds us that we are called to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. But he doesn’t seem to realize that this is what the women at the tomb were doing. They were not commissioned to be preachers, pastors, or spiritual leaders. They were told to spread the good news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In his discussion Willimon includes this lament:

How sad that there are still churches that continue, despite this clear witness of scripture, to deny the testimony of women and to prohibit them from preaching the gospel that God has given to them – but I digress.

Once again he seems to be confusing what preaching is. Giving a testimony about the work of God is not preaching. Men and women alike are called to testify of the goodness of God, in particular the work of salvation by which we are brought from sin to righteousness, from death to life, from darkness to light. Scripture does not limit the call to evangelize. Scripture does limit the call to pastor.

The clear witness of Scripture is that all believers are called to spread the good news. The clear witness of Scripture is also that men and women are different and have been given different work within the church and the world. We share some of the work but not all of the work.

What is truly sad is that many churches have chosen worldly egalitarianism over biblical complementarianism. God created men and women to work together and to complement one another in the work of the church. So much is lost when we try to force men and women into the same roles.

Bishop Willimon, please be true to Scripture. Do not take one example and try to force it to be something it isn’t. And please consider the whole counsel of God, that God made human beings male and female with a particular hierarchy and particular roles. Only when we are ordered according to the purpose of God can we find liberty and joy.