This is part 3 of a series reviewing a recent blog article entitled God Sends Both Men AND Women by Susanna Krizo published at The Junia Project. Here are the links to parts 1 and 2 of this series.
By 2001 nearly 60 percent of the world’s missionaries were women. That trend began during the second wave of modern missions – and was catapulted into being through the American Civil War, when six hundred thousand men lost their lives (Krizo, God Sends Both Men AND Women).
Unfortunately, Krizo does not supply a reference for her data regarding missionaries. Is that Christian missionaries? Appealing to a 60 percent figure is merely the logical fallacy of argumentum ad populum. If 60 percent of the world’s lemmings are jumping off cliffs, it must be good, right? Even if the 60 percent figure is accurate, she has still not addressed whether or not it is Biblical. And, I have previously addressed the issue of loss of life during the Civil War as being insufficient to require that women be sent as missionaries. The question we are still waiting to be addressed by this article—is it Biblical?
With such significant loss of male leadership, earning ability, and traditional roles in some families, women stepped up to rebuild both the American nation and also the American church. Facing the possibility of a halted work, the church agreed to send women to every corner of the world to proclaim the Gospel (Krizo, God Sends Both Men AND Women).
Rebuilding the nation is not the same as rebuilding the church. And, Krizo has not established that the church even needed to be rebuilt. In addition, sending missionaries to every corner of the world would have actually detracted from the rebuilding of the nation and the church. They cannot be in both places at the same time.
Alternatively we could use her argument of the “loss of male leadership, earning ability, and traditional roles in some families” to justify all sorts of behaviors that are non-Biblical. If there were not enough Christian men to go around, why not approve polygamy and move away from those traditional family stereotypes? This would have solved the male leadership problem by letting one male lead multiple women and families. It also would have increased the birth rate to more quickly repopulate the nation and the church. As I hope you can see, appealing to pragmatism can lead to all sorts of problems. We have to use the Bible to guide us.
But why is it that more than a hundred years later, the church hasn’t ceased sending women, although the pool of available men has been replenished? Maybe God likes the idea of sending men and women. Maybe God has always sent men and women (Krizo, God Sends Both Men AND Women).
Maybe God does like the idea of sending women and maybe God has always sent men and women. But we would need to address the issue from the Bible, not from our personal ideas or feelings. And, just because it has been done for more than 100 years does not make it right either. Thankfully, Krizo will now begin trying to use the Bible.
The word “missionary” isn’t found in the Bible; we get the English word from the Latin missio, “sent” (Krizo, God Sends Both Men AND Women).
It is true that the term missionary is not found in most English Bibles.
Instead, the Bible talks about apostles, who were entrusted with the preaching of the Gospel to specific people groups (Gal 2:7-9). Paul, for example, spent his life traveling around the Roman Empire preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles, while Peter went to his own people living in the Diaspora. (Krizo, God Sends Both Men AND Women).
Here she is equating our modern English term “missionary” with the the Biblical term “apostle.” However, the Bible uses the term apostle many different ways. The term apostle simply means “sent one.” Depending upon context, the Greek term for apostle is sometimes translated as “apostle” and sometimes as “messenger.” In the New Testament the term “apostle” is used to describe several different types of people:
- The original 12 apostles appointed by Jesus (Acts 1:1; 1:13; plus Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus).
- Matthias who was selected to replace Judas Isacariot (Acts 1:26). In the Acts passage, this type of apostle must meet specific criteria: “one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us–one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection” (Acts 1:21-22).
- Paul (Romans 1:1, 1 Corinthians 1:1, Galatians 1:1, many others).
- Jesus (Hebrews 3:1)
- Barnabas (Acts 14:14) and other various apostles who are sent as messengers. For example: “And as for our brothers, they are messengers [apostles] of the churches, the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 8:23). Also, “I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger [apostle] and minister to my need (Philippians 2:25).
- False apostles. “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:13).
As you can see, the term apostle can mean several different things depending upon its context. We cannot simply equate it with the English term missionary. And, as was discussed previously but will be repeated here, we also cannot equate it with church leaders such as pastors and elders:
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-12)
Returning to Krizo’s article:
Instead, the Bible talks about apostles, who were entrusted with the preaching of the Gospel to specific people groups (Gal 2:7-9). Paul, for example, spent his life traveling around the Roman Empire preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles, while Peter went to his own people living in the Diaspora. (Krizo, God Sends Both Men AND Women).
Even this analysis of Paul and Peter over simplifies their apostleship. Their apostleship was not limited to preaching the Gospel to specific people groups. For example, while Paul’s focus was the Gentiles he also regularly preached the Gospel to Jews in synagogues in Salamis (Acts 13:5), Antioch-Pisidia (Acts 13:14-16), Thessalonica (Acts 17:1–3), Athens (Acts 17:16-17), and many other places.
So, what have we identified during today’s review of this article? Unsupported and irrelevant data, an appeal to the popular, more pragmatism, and a poor teaching on the topic of apostleship in which the various categories of apostleship is ignored.