Never underestimate the influence of a woman. Demographer and historian, Dr Gina Zurlo presents robust evidence in her 2023 book “Women in World Christianity” that women have always been prime movers in the growth of God’s gloriously diverse global Church. This is certainly born out in my experience.
At the age of 16, I was challenged to commit my life to Jesus by the mother of a high school friend. Dinner-table Bible studies and life-skills discipleship with the family established me in a faith that has lasted 40 years and taken my wife and me all over the world—guided by significant women along the way and even still.
For my inaugural opinion piece, I am prompted to introduce myself in this way because of a wise woman in Scripture. She is introduced as the mother of the mysterious King Lemuel in Proverbs 31.
We are not sure who this king was, but Lemuel means “belonging to God” and I quite like the idea that it might be a pseudonym for King David’s son Solomon, whose mother was Bathsheba.
You will know the chapter well, but probably for verses 10-31, which describes a well-to-do woman of excellent character. Preceding those verses, however, is a woman giving counsel to a king, a mother to her son, concluding with, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice.” (Proverbs 31:8-9 NLT).
Bathsheba’s situation was culturally complex, and we must use great caution in our interpretation of it. But imagine if it was her saying those words, and her creating a vivid depiction of the Psalm 31 woman fully released into her giftedness. Bathsheba. Who suffered abuse at the hands of the most powerful. Whose faithful husband was murdered. Whose seven-day old child died, and who went on to live the rest of her life in the well-to-do home of the one who turned her life upside down.
The contrasts are stark. If these are Bathsheba’s words, it represents a potent image of trauma transformed, a wrecked life redeemed by God.
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves… ensure justice”. Surely this is a key responsibility for followers of the God of justice and righteousness serving in broadcast media. Followers of the One whose purpose was “to bring Good News to the poor… proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the LORD‘s favor has come.” (Luke 10:18-19 NLT)
How many people are there in the world who have found liberty in Christ in the harshest circumstances and are serving to foster life where they previously experienced death? How many stories of transformation are there to tell? Are such examples not paramount among God’s glorious deeds? Such glimpses of God’s New Creation on this side of eternity give hope to us all as we wait for the fullness to come with Christ’s return. Therein lies motivation to “publish his glorious deeds among the nations. Tell everyone about the amazing things he does.” (Psalm 96;3 NLT).
My life is one of those journeys from a volatile upbringing in a hostile context without Jesus to a place of flourishing and influence because of Jesus. A life transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit as I consistently seek to obey the Lord’s “gentle whisper” (1 Kings 19:12c NLT. See also Isaiah 30:21).
My wife and I left marketplace employment in our mid-20’s to follow the Lord’s call to support the Father’s global purposes. Learning, serving, and caring form the bedrock of what we do in our walk with Jesus. My roles have varied but leadership responsibility in global missions found me while I was still relatively young, and I have been deeply shaped by elders from all over the world ever since.
I have a passion to see the gospel, in all its whole-of-life transformative power, made available throughout the nations, especially where it is least accessible or understood. Moreover, I believe that is best achieved together as the diverse body of Christ in mutual submission.
To synthesize the Apostle Paul’s perspective, our participation in the purposes of God as the people of God is to co-create New Creation. That begs further explanation, but the principle is a golden thread throughout the New Testament and the fulfillment of expectations in the Old.
We all have unique cognitive lenses through which we perceive the world around us. Lemuel’s mother’s empathy for those silenced suggests that she had experience of powerful people who drunkenly act lawlessly and neglect justice, thus shaping the lens she looked through.
My perspective is deeply informed by my indigenous Māori heritage, suppressed within the white household of my mother and unstable stepfather. My biological father, meanwhile, went on to become a church planter.
On his side, my ancestors were the first inhabitants of lands that were colonized by the British Empire and rapidly populated by people of the European diaspora. Migrants from wider Asia now settle in ever increasing numbers but the dominant power and paradigm in our nation remains Eurocentric. Over more than 30 years of missions service, Majority World Christian leaders affirmed that my hybrid lens helps me see their frustration in ways that remain unfocused for many people of European descent.
In their June 13, 2024, article “Women, Leadership, and Movements” for the journal Missiology, US Americans Gina Zurlo and Dave Coles provide a great example of the ability to adjust our lenses.
As a result of their long-term exposure to the global Church, the angle of their view widened such that when they examined the historical growth of World Christianity a stunning reality came into sharp focus. In their conclusion they noted that “there would be no twentieth-century shift of Christianity to the Global South (Majority World), nor its tremendous numerical growth, without women working as indigenous evangelists, raising their children in the faith, and spreading the message of Jesus among their local networks.”
In light of the prophetic message from Lemuel’s mother and spurred on by research like that presented by Zurlo and Coles, we will platform servants like those faithful church-growing women whose voice is rarely heard.
In addition, believers from throughout the majority World, those living with a disability, in impoverished or hostile contexts, and others on the margins of influence will feature over time. They are not mute. They are all perfectly able to communicate themselves. Yet their voices are too easily muted by others with powerful megaphones.
We will share evidence-based analysis from biblically faithful believers located all over the world, including the West, but my desire for the opinion section of Christian Daily International is to develop a balanced harmony by amplifying the perspectives of those previously unheard.
As they bear witness to their lived experience of an integrated gospel, we will all be influenced by their faithfulness to the Lord, often in the midst of persecution. Furthermore, their stories, perspectives, and convictions will help to nurture a greater sense of Christian unity across the nations.
If you know of people who fit Lemuel’s mother’s criteria, or if you are among them, please reach out to voices [at] christiandaily.com. Together, let us “give thanks to the LORD and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done.” (1 Chronicles 16:8 NLT).
