I DO NOT ALLOW A WOMAN TO TEACH OR TO EXERCISE AUTHORITY OVER A MAN ~ WHO IS JEZEBEL? ~ EXPOSING HYPOCRISY ~ Part 28

The feminist movement. It’s everywhere…more radically seen in the church than ever before! But it is not new.

It was a fun song to sing…when I was little more than a toddler. It was a marching song— militant—with a catchy tune. Encapsulated in an ‘innocent’ movie about a delightful woman who floated through the air with an umbrella that caught the east winds taking her to 17 Cherry Tree Lane in London, clutching her traveling carpet bag that held all sorts of enchantments, to work her magic on the Banks family, is where many of us first encountered this song. Can you hear it?

“Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group they’re rather stupid. So cast off the shackles of yesterday; shoulder to shoulder into the fray…From Kensington to Billingsgate one hears the restless cry from every corner of the land: ‘Womankind, arise!’ Political equality and equal rights with men…no more the meek and mild subservients, we; we’re fighting for our rights, militantly…” Winifred Banks, “Sister Suffragettes,” Mary Poppins (1964)

The timeline of the women’s suffrage movement from 1840-1920 coincided with the setting of Mary Poppins in the year 1910.  The shift from cultural conservatism to what we see today happened slowly (from our perspective), but at a relatively rapid rate of only one century’s time. My grandmother was born in the early 1900’s, and I remember how just the changes in her lifetime made her head spin. Radical included the simplest of things we now take for granted. Dumbfounded would be a great way to describe the reaction to her first visit to McDonald’s. Used to making full-course meals for her family including a roast, mashed potatoes, home-made bread, topped off with dessert, the idea of ‘fast food’ was a radical concept to her.

The civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s were in part inspired by the suffrage and earlier feminist movements. Although I wouldn’t agree with everything in the article found here: Article, the details on the timeline are interesting:

“In turn the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s pushed for political representation of women in government, fueled the sexual revolution, brought about the legalization of abortion, and sparked debates in every denomination about women’s ordination and the relationship of husband and wife in the home. Inspired by both the civil rights and women’s liberation movements, the homosexual rights movement began building momentum in the 1970s and by the 1990s was dramatically altering the cultural landscape.”

“In the 1980s and 1990s women have turned in increasing numbers to goddess worship, Wicca, and other “New Age” types of religious and spiritual expression. Meanwhile, in mainline Protestant churches feminism has successfully pushed for the publication of new Bible translations and liturgies that remove references to God as “Father” or Jesus as “Son.”

JEZEBEL

A Jezebel, whose name means “dunghill,” or “without cohabitation, un-husbanded,” is found first in the Old Testament and then in the church at Thyatira. Obviously, they are not the same person. Let’s look at both women to see their similarities.

1 Kings 16:13 tells us that Jezebel was the daughter of a Phoenician king, Ethbaal of Sidon. Ethbaal was a priest of Astarte who murdered his predecessor to make his way to the throne and kingdom. Jezebel, his wicked seed, was also swift to shed blood (1 Kings 18:4; 19:2; 21:10). Jezebel married wicked King Ahab, who was king over the Northern Kingdom of Israel, in order to gain favor with the Sidonians. Accommodating their pagan culture, he set up altars for Baal in the temple of Baal which he had built in Samaria. 1 Kings 16 said Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him, not the least of which was his marriage to Jezebel.

Jezebel is not a typical name one would choose to label their newborn baby girl with today. Perhaps it is because her name is associated with the most evil female in the Old Testament. This wicked woman promoted Baal worship (1 King 18:19), practiced spiritual harlotry and witchcraft (2 Kings 9:22). Giving her full support to 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of the goddess Asherah, her parallel mission was to actively pursue the extermination of all prophets of God.

Ahab wanted Naboth’s vineyard for his own. Jezebel was a woman who took action, did whatever it took to get a job done. She was ruthless. Today, she might be called a strong, determined, independent, successful businesswoman. So, what solution did she come up with to solve this pressing need for her husband? She framed Naboth for a crime he didn’t commit and had him killed so Ahab could take ownership of the property he so coveted. I’m not saying that strong, independent, successful businesswomen today are evil because most don’t resort to murder to get what they want!

Jezebel was ruthless when it came to promoting idolatry, too. Apparently, she gave 100% to all her ‘pet causes’! Her gravest sin was promoting worship of other gods which was not just a corruption of the true religion but an introduction to a whole new god and system of worship in Israel. It was through Jezebel that Baal worship came into the land. That resulted in more idolatry than ever. With Baal worship came complete immorality because it involved sexual immorality.

Jezebel was an overbearing woman who continually forced her strong will over the weak will of her husband and any who got in her way. God’s prophet, Elijah, had prophesied that she would be eaten by dogs, and that is exactly what happened. You could say this woman was literally given over to the dogs which in our day means ‘to throw away as useless’.

Approximately 1,000 years later…

Revelation 2:18-29

Who was “Jezebel” in Thyatira?

Whoever this “Jezebel” was, she was a real woman within the church there who had self-proclaimed herself to be a “prophetess”. It is highly unlikely that there was a woman there with this actual name, but the Lord thought it appropriate to label her with this symbolic name which represented the wicked Jezebel of old. “Jezebel” is a Phoenician name. By this time, nearly 1,000 years later, the Phoenicians had disappeared as a separate ethnic identity having become part of the Greek-speaking world. Thyatira was in Asia Minor which is modern-day Turkey.

Whoever she was, the Lord condemned her practices inside the church as much as those of old Jezebel. What was she doing? She taught error, but that was not the only disturbing reality. She was exercising teaching authority over men in opposition to role distinctions set forth by Paul (1 Timothy 2:12). The role distinctions set forth by Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit were not culturally relevant but grounded in God’s created order (vss. 13-14). What the Lord condemned her for was being a woman holding an authoritative teaching position in the church and for false teaching that encouraged those Christians in Thyatira to continue their pagan worship of idols just like the unbelievers in the city. Just like Jezebel of old, she promoted combining true worship with idol worship.

Further, it was a warning to the church there, but especially to its leader. ‘You’ tolerate is a singular pronoun. The problem was one of tolerance just like in 1 Corinthians 5. The church allowed this woman to teach and to teach error at that! Just like her predecessor, who also acted as an agent for Satan, she led the people astray so that they committed acts of immorality and ate things sacrificed to idols. This is not unlike today when so many women are teaching in churches—even teaching error—and the church looks the other way because the woman is influential and popular! Most of these women have charismatic, extremely likable personalities. Today, when a women leader of a church is confronted, there is a whole host of women who will take up her cause based upon a feminist agenda that is wreaking havoc in the church. Jesus said in Matthew 7:15-17: Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits… The fruits at Thyatira were the acts of immorality and eating things sacrificed to idols by the people being led astray by this woman’s teaching.

The deep things of Satan—I don’t know to what exactly this phrase refers, but I have a general idea. A group of charismatics who started a local church got my attention very soon after a tragic incident involving the death of a dear loved one in my life when I was 18 years old. In search of spiritual answers to life’s toughest questions, my family got involved at its inception. I attended there for a relatively short period of time. Things that were being taught there didn’t ‘click’ for me at all. I was, however, content to be caught up in the emotions I was experiencing. My mother got swept up with one woman in particular (I will call her Jane) who seemed so much more spiritual and wiser than even the pastor. She spoke in tongues and also interpreted others who spoke in tongues during the church service. But that was not even the most intriguing part. Many, including the men in the church, said she had the gift of ‘prophecy’ and could rightly be called a prophetess. (The word ‘prophetess’ used here means ‘a woman to whom future events or things hidden from others are at times revealed, either by inspiration or by dreams and visions’ or ‘a female who declares or interprets oracles’.) Jane ‘knew’ things she called the “deep things of God”, and she fed my mother a diet of strange teaching from books and from their time together (mostly regarding the serpent seed doctrine outlined in the following article: Serpent Seed false doctrine. My mother adored her and looked at her as a spiritual mother. She spoke passionately and authoritatively (from her allegorical approach to interpreting Scripture).

She seemed to have a deep and genuine love for those who esteemed her highly. Jane wrote me a lengthy letter shortly after my husband and I got married and had moved away. (I still have it. Over the years I have read it over and over again in disbelief. It was a letter pleading with us to come out of the church—based on 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 and Revelation 18:4-8! She believed true Christians all over the world were being called out of the visible church—which explains a lot looking back at my walk. Coming out the church and away from ‘the teaching of men’ ‘inside the system’ was the only thing that would free someone to live the way God had intended. The ‘deep truths of God’ she outlined therein were not only bizarre but deadly.)

Ten years later, when I began to dig deeply into the Scriptures, the one to whom I would logically turn for fellowship was my mother. Offering resistance to truth I was sharing with her she would say, “That is not what Jane says.” Jane’s response to her would be: “Karla doesn’t yet understand the deep things of God.” When my daughter died ten years after that, my mother evidently told Jane how I was getting through Melissa’s death through God’s strength standing upon the promises of His Word. Jane’s reply was, “She must have an incredible prayer life.” I assured my mother that without a doubt, Jane’s prayer life and mine were nothing alike.

In the few years before my mother died, she would come to study the Scriptures for herself and told me, “I think you may have been right all along. I don’t know where Jane is spiritually because what she teaches is not in Scripture.” It grieves me that my mother never did find a sound church in which to join herself, yet I am grateful she did find the truth as the One who wrote all Scripture led her to Himself.

The Lord of the Church said He had given this Jezebel in Thyatira time to repent, but she would not. Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds. (Revelation 2:22) Spiritually, Jezebel was in bed with Satan, as are all false teachers. Those who were being led astray by her teaching were literally living in immorality. Several translations do not include the idea of a ‘sick’ bed but just a bed or a couch. Guzik says of this verse: “It is as if Jesus said, “You love an unclean bed. Here, I will give you one, and cast you into a sickbed.” The Lord’s strong hand of discipline would also be upon those ‘who committed adultery with her’ by throwing them into great tribulation.

 

Paul speaks about the Lord’s discipline of the believers in Corinth in sin at the Lord’s Supper—For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason, many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. (1 Corinthians 11:29-30)

 

John MacArthur says: “The Bible teaches that true Christians can fall into sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 6:15-20) and idolatry (1 Corinthians 10:21). But to lead other Christians into false doctrine or immoral living is a very serious sin, one meriting the most severe punishment.” See Matthew 18:6-10 to see what Jesus says about those who lead other believers into sin.  

 

While it is certainly not popular today, a sermon like John MacArthur’s found here: GTY Sermon Transcript entitled “Does the Bible Permit a Woman to Preach?” is biblically sound and reasonable to those who have the mind of Christ.

In this 2019 sermon, he talks about a survey taken in 2017 in which eighty percent of Americans are comfortable with a female pastor; sixty-two percent of practicing Christians were open to women pastors, and forty percent of evangelicals were fine with women pastors. In 2017, fifty percent of those enrolled in seminaries were women preparing for pastoral ministry and twenty-seven percent of pastors across the country were women. In comparison, in 1960, only two percent of clergy were women. He says, “The women’s movement has basically just erupted in the church. And the last frontier for the movement is the evangelical church, the last frontier to fall victim to the rebellion of feminism along with cultural Marxism.” Very insightful stuff.

After the Fall, as part of the curse, God says to the woman in Genesis 3:16—Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. Remember, these are the words of a curse pronounced upon the woman. This couldn’t possibly be talking about a physical desire because that was part of God’s design between a man and a woman in marriage, and it was good. Whatever this desire was, it was part of a fallen nature that would need to be fought against by redeemed women. This desire would be as Pastor John says: “to upset the divine order of authority and submission, and to want to dominate her husband.” This is the sinful desire for a woman to control her husband.  Anyone who is not afraid to face her own depravity can clearly see this happening everywhere around her today, not just in marriage but a need to overthrow the authority of men in the culture.  Next blog, Lord willing, Revelation 12 and lady number 2!