Quote:
Originally Posted by good samaritan
Judges 4:4-5
4......And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, judged Israel at that time.
5......And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in mount Ephraim: and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.
Generally, women were not usually leaders in Israel, but in some cases, God did use them in leadership roles that required them to speak in the congregation. God would not cause women to do something that is sinful. Also, I know of several testimonies of pioneers in 20th-century Pentecostalism that women began churches in my local area for lack of men doing it.
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Are you sure Debora was a “leader” with “authority”. Wasn’t she a prophetess, speaking God’s revelations?
Exodus 18:26 (NKJV) So they judged the people at all times;
the hard cases they brought to Moses, but they judged every small case themselves.
Deuteronomy 1:17 (NKJV) ‘You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid in any man’s presence, for the judgment [is] God’s.
The case that is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it.’
Deuteronomy 17:8-9 (NKJV) 8 “If a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge, between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses. 9 “And
you shall come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge [there] in those days, and inquire [of them;] they shall pronounce upon you the sentence of judgment.
They were looking for a direct word of God in hard cases, because they could not discern the heart or know all the evidences. Debora was not pronouncing judgement of their own, and setting vision statements and plans for Israel. She was bringing the judgements and revelations of God himself as a prophetess. That’s not the equivalent to elders/pastors in the church.
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