Women Teaching Women

This episode contains portions from the following programs:

"Women Teaching Women Can Change the World"

"Teaching the Word in Fear and Fearlessness"

"The Power of Divine Anointing"

---------------------

Dannah Gresh: I went bowling for the first time with my twin granddaughters, Addie and Zoey, about a year ago. They were only three years old. I am not a good bowler—that's putting it mildly. I threw the ball. Well, see there, I'm just proving that I'm not a good bowler. I rolled the ball and on the first roll I got a strike. And so, I was kind of hamming it up for my family. I turned around, and I threw my arms up in the air with the touchdown signal, and then I dramatically bowed. 

And so, Addie was up right after me. They have these little arc-like things that little ones can put the balls on it, and it just kind of rolls down. Have you seen those? The ball moves at the pace of a snail down the alley. Addie’s ball moved down the lane. It pinged one little pin, and she turned around, threw her arms in the air as if to say, "Touchdown," and dramatically bowed. I thought to myself, You know what? Our lives are always teaching. But are we teaching the right things? Are we teaching the important things?

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m your host, Dannah Gresh. Today we’re going to dive into the topic of women teaching women. And yes, that includes you! Oh, you’re teaching alright. It’s just a matter of what you're teaching.

Open your Bibles to Titus 2 for what I hope will be a fresh perspective on a familiar passage about women teaching women. It’s something God taught me this year. Jen Wilkin, beloved Bible teacher, is here to speak truth about the power of your words. And Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, as always, will join us to remind us what we need most to be effective teachers.

First up, I want to share with you how God’s Spirit has been directing me to disciple differently this year. This is something I shared in November of last year at a small gathering of a few of our Revive Partners. I’ll be back with an update on how things are going.

-------------------

The Lord has used a very familiar passage to freshen my heart for His love for you. I hope that I can translate what He's been speaking to me about it. But let's read this passage, Titus 2 verses 1 and then 3–5:

But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine . . . Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

Now, when I read that, I thought to myself, I don't see a lot of that in many women today. I don't see sober, self-controlled living. I see women who have lost their mind sometimes. And here's the thing: those women are teaching. Those women are older women. They're older to someone no matter what age they are, and they're teaching. But what are they teaching? They're teaching anger instead of love. They're teaching a lack of sobriety and a lack of self-control. They're teaching gossip and slander, but their lives are in fact, teaching. 

Now, as I sat there, I thought, What am I teaching? Is it what is good as the apostle Paul writes? I want to ask you, what are you teaching? Is it what is good?

Now, when I thought about that for myself, I thought, Well, what is good? Obviously, Paul writes here about teaching sound doctrine. He writes about not being slaves to much wine. He writes about loving their husbands, loving their children, self-control, being pure, working at home, kind, and submissive, so that the Word of God will not be reviled. 

And so, I just got some commentaries out to understand the goodness of these things. I was surprised when one commentary said, “Those things are not the good. They're the fruit of the good.” I thought, Well, what does that mean? He said, “You have to read the whole rest of the chapter.” And this commentator pointed me down a few verses, beginning in verse 11, where it says the root of the good that causes the fruit of the good that Paul writes about. It starts in verse 11,:

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

And this commentator said, “The good, never forget, is nothing more ever than Jesus. Bring them Jesus, that is the route of the good. And out of their love relationship with Jesus will come the fruit of the good that we see at the top of the chapter.” 

I sat there and I thought to myself, Let me think about this. I felt a stirring in my heart. I think what the stirring was was conviction. Because so many times when I'm discipling a woman, I tell them, not this directly, but well, “Don't slander.” I tell them not this directly, “Well, maybe you need to express love to your children in this way.” I'm giving them a to-do list, and you know what? We are to-doing ourselves to death, when Jesus has already done so much.

You see, a sophron mind is a saved mind. We can't bear this good fruit unless we are experiencing the redemption of Jesus in our lives. 

So do this ladies: give them Jesus. They have enough to-do lists. And that's not that we don't teach them doctrine. It's not that we don't confront when there's gossip. It's not that we don't tell them how to love their children, how to love their husbands. It's just that we can't forget that the root of all that fruit is Jesus. 

----------------------

So, that was me last November talking about my goals to disciple differently this year in 2024, and it's working. Again, it's not that I'm fighting people to memorize Scripture or to complete a Bible study or learn doctrine. But I'm spending a whole lot more time saying, "How are you experiencing Jesus in your life? How can I pray for you when it comes to your relationship with Jesus?" You know what I'm noticing? The women God has entrusted to me are hungrier to spend time with me because I'm inviting them to spend time with Jesus.

Maybe if you're a little Type A like me, back away from some of those to-dos on your discipleship list and maybe start trying the "to be" approach. Just be with the women God has invited you to disciple. Invite them to be with Jesus.

We’ve established that whether you’re in a ministry setting at home or in your job—you are teaching. Jen Wilkin is an incredible Bible teacher, and she spoke at a past Revive Our Hearts conference about teaching other women. I want us to listen to part of one of her messages on teaching God’s Word with fear and fearlessness. I think it will help you see the power your words have and give you encouragement in your role as a teacher. 

Jen Wilkin: Let's turn to James 3. 

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

You may go home now! [laughter] "You know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness." And he goes on; he doesn't stop there.

"For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body" (v. 2). This is a showstopper of a verse! I think so often we hear James' teaching on the tongue pulled away from the context it is in, which is within the context, "Hey, maybe not many of you should stand up and teach."

So I want us to see if we can figure out what it is that's going on here in James 3 and how it should impact a room full of women who are sitting here wondering, Should I be doing this? Or I have been doing this. Should I stop? Or Should I turn to the person next to me and say, "I've been telling you for ten years you should do this. Now go and do it!" What ought I to do?

What does James have for us here? He has a cautionary word and also a useful word. He says, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness."

Now, James here is addressing a particular kind of teaching. He is talking about teaching that comes in a formal capacity. But because you all know Titus 2, right? Because women know that one—that all women are to teach younger women what is good. So nobody gets to escape the teaching role. Not all of us will be in formal teaching roles, but all of us will teach in some informal capacity, at least.

I think that what James has to say here is a good watchword, whether you're in a formal teaching setting or an informal teaching setting. He says, "Not all should become teachers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness." Now why would we be judged with greater strictness? Well, of course, because there is much at stake! There is much at stake, isn't there?

There are those chilling verses that are spoken by Jesus in Matthew 12:36–37. He says, "I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."

That is a room-clearer at the teaching conference, isn't it? I am out! Because I know about careless words. Anybody else in here know about careless words? Right! And so Jesus says you need to watch everything that you say. One of the verses that I think about often is, "Even a fool is considered wise when he holds his tongue" (Prov. 17:28).

I know that's true, because sometimes when I go into meetings, I write myself a sticky note that says, "Do not talk!" and I put it on my binder where I can see it. And I read it over and over again. And every time someone says something and I want to be like, "Ooh! Ooh! Me, me, I know!". . . I read my sticky note. "Do not talk! Do not talk!"

And I can't count how many times someone has come up to me afterward and said, "I just admire your wisdom so much! You are so wise!" I'm like, "This works! This totally works!" Our words matter, they matter so much! Our words have the power to create and they have the power to destroy.

As image-bearers, as those created in the image of God, this is something we share with Him in a removed sort of way. The words of God are miraculous in the way that they create life; they are miraculous in the work that they do. You and I don't have miraculous words, but we have words of great, great power.

So it is so important for us to understand, are we speaking in such a way, particularly when we open up the Scriptures, that we are life-giving or that we are destroying something?

Words have the power to create and the power to destroy, and God in His wisdom determined that His gospel was going to be communicated through words. Through words! My words have power, yes. But His Word . . . oh! It has a power that is undeniable and unfathomable, and we have only to be responsible enough to show up and open it in a sober-minded way.

Wouldn't it make sense that the enemy would come against that particular thing if he wants to disable the power of what God wants to do in this world? Why would he not go after our speech and our words?

So "Not many of you should become teachers . . . for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body."

Whatever your bad habit is that you can't seem to get rid of, start by fixing your tongue—and apparently that will fall into line, no problem, if you can just get your tongue in line.

What are the right motives for wanting to teach? We want to teach out of love for God and His glory, regardless of how many people are sitting there. If I know one thing about you, it's that if the Lord is stirring in you a desire to teach, you will not care whether it is 500 women or five women just bug-eyed, wondering how much time is left before they get to have a restroom break. [laughter]

You won't care, because you will just need to get it out. You're like, "Who's going to sit? Who needs to hear this? Who is this for?" So we teach out of love for God and for His glory, regardless of how many we reach. And we do so with a sense of the weight of the calling. It's a balance of fear and fearlessness.

And we also teach out of a love for our neighbor. When you're wondering, Who should I teach? Who needs me to teach them? and you're looking around, Where's the target? Where am I going to find her?. . . we have no charge to teach those for whom we have no affection and empathy. You can cross those people off your list.

Who are the women that you hurt for? Who are the women that you long to see living lives in the light of the truth of Scripture? Who are the women that God has placed in proximity to you? Do you feel a love for them? 

Teaching is costly—it's a costly thing, but I hope that you will pay the cost, because the need is great.

Women need the example of other women teachers. Who is it that needs to see you opening the Scriptures and rightly dividing them in such a way that she can think to herself, Maybe I could do that. Maybe I could do that!

Not only can you do that, but I'm here to say, you must! You must! The church will not flourish as it should unless women are teaching women.

Dannah: If you’ve been lacking motivation for teaching the women in your life, or even your children, then that encouragement from Jen Wilkin might’ve been just what you needed. Maybe take some time today to ask yourself, “Are my words giving life?” and “Do I have the right motives for teaching?”

We can’t leave this topic today without addressing what we need most for effective teaching in any role. Nancy’s here to remind us that even beyond our best intentions and tools for teaching, we can’t do it without the Holy Spirit.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: However God has called you to communicate truth to others, the difference between ministry that is only in word and ministry that is in the power of the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. And I think that difference is critical in our day. It's critical in every day.

I want to use a term that you don't hear very often in our evangelical world today, and some of the ways we've heard it used in some circles has not been in a biblical sense. It's the word anointing. The anointing of the Holy Spirit. I want to talk about the divine anointing.

As we think about anointing in the Scripture, it's used in different ways. Sometimes it's used just as a mark of hospitality as a host will anoint his guests. You read this in Luke 7. You read it in Psalm 23, "He anoints my head with oil," as God is the ultimate host who anoints our heads.

But wherever anointing is done, you see the symbol of oil, anointing with oil. You read it many different times in the Scripture. That oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. And throughout the Scripture, the anointing with oil imparted something that the person did not have prior to being anointed.

They became different. There was a power, there was a resource, there was a conviction. It was the Holy Spirit coming upon and in and filling and using that person in a way that had not been true previously.

Throughout the Scripture, the anointing of oil signifies consecration, preparation for service. It's an enabling, an empowering to serve the Lord, to do what you've been called and set apart to do.

Sometimes in the Scripture inanimate objects were anointed with oil. Things in the tabernacle, things in the temple, the pieces of furniture, the instruments, the tools that were used in worship sometimes were anointed with oil. What that meant, simply, was that this otherwise ordinary item was now set apart. It was consecrated. It was set apart for God's service. It became unusual. It became distinctive. It became different because it had been anointed with oil.

But more often than inanimate objects being anointed, people were anointed. Anointed for God's service. That anointing with oil became an evidence that they had been divinely called and enabled to serve God. It was an evidence of divine calling and enabling for a task.

This is something you can't do without the Holy Spirit of God. So the anointing with oil symbolized that an inner work of the Holy Spirit coming upon, filling, and enabling people to do something that they otherwise could not have done.

This anointing with oil bestowed authority and boldness. And this is what set the ministry or the service apart as being distinct. And I believe we have today, in the church, men and women ministering in a host of different ways, doing God-ordained tasks, being called and set apart by God to serve Him, but doing it without a conscious sense of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. And what we get is words. We get tasks. But we don't get the power of the Holy Spirit of God.

I want to tell you that preparation of your notes, preparation of your head, preparation of your mind is useless, and maybe even dangerous, if it's not accompanied by preparation of your heart and your life to deliver that message.

So let me make just two points about preparation of the life.

Number one: We must let God speak to us before we speak His Word to others. If you start looking at this lens through Scripture, you'll see it all over the Old and New Testaments.

Ezra 7:10 tells us that "Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel." First his own study, his life, to study, to do, and then to teach.

We read in Psalm 39, "My heart became hot within me. As I mused [As I meditated, as I marinated, as I let God speak to me], the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue" (v. 3).

Too many of us are trying to speak with our tongues before we have let the fire of God's Word and God's Spirit and God's holiness burn hotly in our own hearts. How does that happen? It happens as we muse. It happens as we meditate. It happens as we wait on the Lord with this Book open before us. We're pondering, we're thinking, we're processing. We're letting it soak into our pores. And as we do, the fire burns. And then when you get up, there's fire. There's power.

It's not you. It's the Holy Spirit. You get up, and you teach with your tongue, and God does something supernatural out of the fire of your own heart to use it as kindling to light the fire in others' hearts.

We have to let God speak to us before we speak His Word to others. We have to see Him before we can make Him seen by others.

Number two: As we prepare our lives for anointed ministry, our lives must incarnate, or illustrate, what we proclaim to others. And again this is a principle you see throughout the Scripture.

Notably, in John 1 where we read that the Word became . . . what? Flesh. That's what incarnate means—in the flesh. The Word, the Word of God, the logos took on flesh—not just something mysterious, a theory up there, out there somewhere. The Word came in a physical, human body and took up residence among us, tabernacled among us, dwelt among us. Jesus, the living Word of God, put on flesh so we could read and know and hear and see and live with the Word of God.

And the Word must be incarnated in us, fleshed out in our lives, before we can effectively proclaim it to others in the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

First Thessalonians 2:10: "You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers."

Paul is saying, "We didn't just tell you the Word of God. Here's what part of the power was: We illustrated it in our lives. We didn't teach you one thing and then live another thing."

And so I ask this question: If the people that I teach, if they imitate not just what I tell them to do, but what they see in my life, will they be imitators of God? What will their lives be like?

There's a very searching verse in Luke 6:40. I kind of wish it wasn't there, but it is. It says—Jesus says this—"Everyone when he is fully trained . . ." That's what we're trying to do—women teaching women. Right? Well, when we've done our job, "everyone, when he is fully trained will be like his teacher." It doesn't say he'll know what his teacher knows. It says he'll be like what his teacher is.

So the question is does your life off the platform support or contradict what you teach? You see if the truth hasn't first changed us, it's not likely to change anyone else when we speak it.

We pray, "Lord, start the work in me."

Dannah: Amen to that. "Lord, start the work in me." It is God who works in each of us—the power of His Holy Spirit that equips us to teach. 

So you are teaching, my friend, in some capacity or another. How has God called you, or how is He calling you to teach? And whether you’re in a formal setting or not, women need other women teachers (as we talked about today). Who are the women God has put into your path?

Hey, speaking of women teaching women, are you a women’s ministry leader or pastor’s wife fed up with Satan hurling lies at you from around every corner? Do you wish there was a way you could receive a rapid infusion of God’s Truth?

If so, join me for Overcoming Lies Leaders Believe, a two-hour online event for women’s ministry leaders and pastors’ wives! It’s this Tuesday, August 6, from 7 to 9 p.m. Eastern time. Don’t worry if you can’t join us live, if you register you can stream at your convenience through February 5, 2025. I think this workshop would be a great team tool for you to use with the women who help you lead other women.

Leslie Bennett will host. I’ll be there to share. Karen Allen, Kesha Griffin, Karen Hodge, and Bob Lepine will join us too. We want to help you learn to identify and overcome lies that defeat and dilute ministry effectiveness. You’ll learn to replace the lies that limit your ministry fruitfulness and to build a ministry on the foundation of God’s unchangeable Word.

Plus, you'll gain exclusive access to a four-week book club Facebook group to unpack the truths in the free ebook you'll receive, Here to Serve: Breaking Free from Lies Leaders Believe.

Are you ready to find freedom in fruitful leadership? Learn more/register at ReviveOurHearts.com/Overcoming.

And as always, you can listen to the full episodes of the messages you heard today, or give a gift to support this ministry, by visiting ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and clicking on today’s episode. 

Well you may have heard of what’s referred to as “The Proverbs 31 Woman.” Next week on our daily program, Revive Our Hearts, Nancy’s going to take us on a journey through Proverbs 31 and what God’s Word says about being a woman who fears the Lord. And then, if you ever feel like your study of the Bible is boring, I hope you’ll be back next weekend. We’re tackling how to get more excited about reading your Bible. 

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.