Women played a vital role at the unique Pentecost, which St Peter felt obliged to elucidate to the crowds. This is the story …
Joel’s prophecy
At Pentecost St Peter quoted the prophet Joel. The traditional Authorized (KJV) renders it as: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I’ll pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions” (Joel 2:28 KJV). To understand this we want to grasp the character of Old Testament prophets and prophecy.
Prophets
Our English word ‘prophet’ comes from the Greek word ‘prophetes’ which meant to talk on behalf of one other, so a prophet was a spokesperson, and within the religious context that may be a spokesperson for God. Prophets were people (men or women) who were thought to be messengers, and sometimes assigned a special mission by God. They were believed to talk on behalf of God, and were each forth-telling and fore-telling.
The Books of Prophets
In the Bible there are books called the Major Prophets – Isaiah, Jeremiah and the Lamentations of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. The term ‘major’ here’s a reference to the length of the books moderately than their significance. There are also 12 books often called the Minor Prophets being Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. Likewise, the term ‘minor’ is a reference to the comparatively shorter nature of the books moderately than their significance.
There are prophecies of the approaching Messiah in Isaiah and Micah, and prophecies of the longer term in Ezekiel, Daniel and Zechariah. However, these books usually are not full of predictions of the longer term. Most prophecy was words relevant for the people of the day, reminding people of God’s will and inspiring people to reject idolatry and repent, what we would now call preaching.
The understanding was that a select few people (male or female) were inspired by God to evangelise on his behalf.
Female Prophets of the Old Covenant
In the Bible, a lot of the prophets were men. In a patriarchal society, perhaps that is to be expected, but there have been female prophets too, sometimes called prophetesses. First we now have Miriam, sister of Moses who is known as a prophet (Exodus 15:20). The judges were the leaders of Israel before the monarchy, and the fourth Judge was Deborah, who was called each a judge and a prophet (Judges 4:4). The often-overlooked Huldah (2 Kings 22:14-20) was a female prophet who each King Josiah and the high priest deferred to, even in place of other male prophets.
One of the primary characters we meet within the New Testament is Anna (Luke 2:36-38) who is known as a prophet, with the implication that she had been a prophet for a lot of a long time, putting her into the inter-testamental period. Anna and Simeon, after which John the Baptist are sometimes considered the last prophets of the Old Covenant, before the beginning of Jesus’s ministry.
Joel’s Prophecy
When we come to Joel, there may be a prophecy that at some point with the approaching of the Holy Spirit, each men and girls will prophesy. The traditional Authorized Version renders it as: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I’ll pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions” (Joel 2:28 KJV).
Almost all Bible translations into English keep the word ‘prophesy’. The problem with that is that it’s a bit misleading, because In English the verb to prophesy and the word ‘prophesying’, are generally understood in common parlance to mean predicting or foretelling the longer term, but actually that was only what happened sometimes. The Good News Bible, perhaps trying to resolve that problem, unpacks it as ‘your little children will proclaim my message’. The EasyEnglish Bible, translated for individuals who do not need English as their first language, unpacks it as ‘Your little children will speak my message to people’.
How will we understand what Joel wrote? It is just not that individuals didn’t prophesy. Nor is it that ladies never prophesied, since the Old Testament does list female prophets. What Joel appears to be saying is that there’ll come a time when the Holy Spirit shall be poured out and available for everybody, not only the select few, after which it’ll be more normal to listen to strange men and girls proclaiming his message. He seems to imply that when the Holy Spirit comes, God will make no distinction based on gender.
Pentecost
Skip forward to Pentecost, about AD 33, after the Ascension of Jesus (Acts 1:9), and Luke records in Acts that the eleven surviving apostles went back to Jerusalem and went to the Upper Room (Acts 1:12-13). They were joined by ‘the ladies and Mary mother of Jesus and his brothers’ (Acts 1:14). Gathered at Jerusalem was a gaggle of 120 believers (Acts 1:15), which included women. These women usually are not all named but some are named elsewhere by Luke as ‘Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and plenty of others’ (Luke 8:2-3) after which later ‘Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James; they and the opposite women…’ were on the empty tomb (Luke 24:10). Luke seems to make a degree of mentioning the role of the ladies within the story. Those who’re named, may simply be those that were lively within the Early Church who Luke knew, and had interviewed for his account.
The Holy Spirit
Then in Acts 2:4 it says ‘All of them were crammed with the Holy Spirit and started to talk in other tongues because the Spirit enabled them.’ So, those speaking in tongues included women in addition to men. In this instance, these tongues weren’t some kind of charismatic ecstatic speech, but proper human languages, since the text records people understanding in their very own languages (Acts 1:11). Hearing these men and girls each proclaiming about God and speaking in several languages led the crowds to be amazed and puzzled (Acts 1:12). They weren’t used to seeing so many individuals preaching together. They weren’t used to people preaching that early within the day, they usually weren’t used to seeing women preaching. Some people made fun of them and accused them of drinking an excessive amount of (Acts 1:13).
Then Peter stood up and addressed the crowds and tried to elucidate what was happening (Acts 1:14) and addressed the problems which puzzled the gang. First, he said that they weren’t drunk (Acts 1:15), after which he explained that it was a fulfilment of Joel’s prophecy (Acts 1:16). This makes little sense unless he was explaining why women were also speaking. The reference to Joel implies that each men and girls are prophesying, and the context tells us that this prophesying was within the kind of proclaiming and preaching, not within the kind of predicting the longer term.
Prophecy within the Early Church
The idea of prophecy continued within the Early Church, and a few are named. Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius the Cyrenian, Manaen (an in depth friend of Herod the tetrarch from childhood) and Saul are mentioned as prophets and teachers at Antioch in Acts 13:1. Judas and Silas are mentioned as prophets in Acts 15:32, and Agabus is mentioned as a prophet in Acts 21:10.
The role of prophet appears to be just like the fashionable idea of a preacher. Prophets were fallible. In Peter’s second letter he writes about ‘prophecy of Scripture’ (2 Peter 1:20-21) which appears to be about preaching from the Scriptures (which was then what Christians call the Old Testament). St Paul wrote that when prophets spoke others should evaluate what is claimed (1 Corinthians 14:29), they usually didn’t all the time get it right. St John and St Peter warned against false prophets of their letters (2 Peter 2:1 and 1 John 4:1).
Female Prophecy within the Early Church
We know that there have been also women who were prophets within the Early Church, because later Luke notes that Philip the Evangelist had 4 daughters who prophesied (Acts 21:8-9). Then when St Paul writes to the Christians at Ephesus he says ‘Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, in order that the body of Christ could also be built up’ (Ephesians 4:11 NIV).
The gender limitations on these roles were added later over the centuries by different church traditions, but usually are not here within the list. Rather, in his first letter to the church at Corinth when St Paul comments on the practice of girls praying aloud and prophesying, his only concern was that their heads were uncovered (1 Corinthians 11:5). Thus, for many individuals, the primary reference we now have to women preaching within the Early Church is true there at first at Pentecost and continued into the Early Church.
Pentecostals
The modern Pentecostal movement takes its name, and its cue from the story of Pentecost. The modern Pentecostal movement mainly dates back to the 1904-5 Revival in south Wales, which got here out of the Welsh Calvinist Methodist movement. This led to many men and women becoming singers, evangelists, teachers and preachers. The story is told in a latest book called “Carriers of the Fire – The Women of the Welsh Revival 1904/05” by Karen Lowe. Pentecostals often confer with Joel’s prophecy (Joel 2:28-29), which was quoted by St Peter at Pentecost (Acts 2:16-18), which makes little sense to cite unless it means women may also speak.
Aimee McPherson
In the USA, the Pentecostal movement will likely be described as dating from the Asuza Street Revival in Los Angeles of 1908. This had taken its cue from the sooner one in south Wales, which had had visitors from Los Angeles.
Today, the most important Pentecostal denomination on this planet is the Assemblies of God (AoG). AoG has been ordaining women to ministry because it began in 1914. This yr 2024, is its centenary. One of probably the most famous female preachers of all time, Aimee Elizabeth Semple McPherson (1890-1944), was ordained as an evangelist by the Assemblies of God in 1919. Her church Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, inbuilt 1923, was the primary megachurch within the USA, and he or she pioneered radio evangelism. She also opened a food bank, a soup kitchen and distributed food, clothing and blankets, that are ministries which many churches still do today.
Pentecost in 2024 is on Sunday 19 May. Let’s not forget the ladies from the story who often get neglected in retelling it.
