Single, Female, Missionary

Last updated on: May 5, 2015 at 11:09 am by Scot McKnight

Single, Female, Missionary 2015-05-05T11:09:22-05:00 Scot McKnight

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I am sent a link to The Southern Blog, hosted by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where Danielle Hurley asks herself the questions about single females who wonder if they are called to missionary work. She frames the questions and then answers them. First her framing of the questions:

So you’re interested in overseas missions? You aren’t sure, but have a sneaking suspicion that God has called you to a life of serving him overseas? Do you have a strong desire to live outside of America? Would you like to spend your short days living in light of eternity?

I dip into her answers, which begin nobly with the calling for all of us to focus on the great commission, and then I will pose our different way of doing things at Northern Seminary when it comes to such questions and answers. One of her emphases is distinguishing desires from callings.

Question 1: As a young woman, if you have a desire to make disciples outside of America, does it mean you are called specifically to overseas missions?

Maybe, but not always. A desire should not be misunderstood as a calling. It may simply be a feeling. This feeling may be from God, or it may be an impulse of your own heart. What is clear is what is revealed in God’s Word. Before looking at your specific calling, let’s look at God’s calling for women in general. According to God’s Word, God’s highest calling for most women is being a wife and mom (Genesis 2:18; Titus 2:4). As a wife, I am designed to help my husband be the best man he can be as he lives out his calling to make disciples. So this means that if I am married, I can be confident that I am following God’s calling when I support my husband in his calling. If you are called to singleness, you are still created to be a helper in a general sense to the body of Christ, but you are also able to maximize your giftedness in a unique, devoted way (1 Cor. 7:32-35). So if you are single, I would encourage you to find a ministry that you love with leaders that you can work under and help. Then devote yourself to helping them be the best they can be as they further the kingdom.

[She then explores singleness and missionary work and you can read the rest of the piece at the link above.]

Well, on this one there is likely to be some strenuous disagreement [Does “helper in a general sense” refer to helping male-led ministries? The same for “leaders that you can work under and help”?] and I could get into a lengthy discussion about women and ministry, but the whole answer she gives is framed by complementarianism, what a wife’s calling is, and motherhood — and singleness fits within that larger pattern of thought.

If I may be so bold, I speak now for Northern:

1. Not all are complementarians so not all (I mean Northern) would begin where Danielle Hurley begins. In fact, for the egalitarian or mutualist (my preferred term) the answers she proposes can irritate a different kind of calling not to mention a significantly different hermeneutic that turns the whole answer upside down. I have written about this both in The Blue Parakeet and Junia is Not Alone.

2. We would answer this by asking What is the Spirit of God leading you to do? What has the Spirit of God gifted you to do? What kind of recognition does your church give your perception of your calling? What kind of evaluations are you given by others who know you well? We don’t ask if you are female or male or if you are married or not. Nor — so far as I know — will you be asked to think about helping male-led ministries on the foreign field. We want to focus on God’s gifting, regardless of who has the gift. Galatians 3:28 and Colossians 3:11, not to ignore the wonderful stories of women prophets and deacons and apostles in the NT.

3. The history of missions — and I’m now talking in general about the 19th and 20th Century missionary movement, was heavily populated by women, many of them single (and heroic at times), who heard a call, who remained single and celibate, who entered into the discernment processes, who were approved and who went and served faithfully. I knew two (at that time) wonderful, godly, courageous single women who went off to the mission field and who returned “on furlough” to regal us with stories of God’s grace through their ministries, which included plenty of teaching. My father once told me one of them — I think her name was Grace Jepsen — knew more Bible and theology than anyone at our church.

That history of missions gives a different narrative into which we can insert these questions and provide answers.

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