Training More Women in the Word

I have a soft spot for cooking reality TV – Masterchef, the Great British Bakeoff, and more recently, The Culinary Class Wars on Netflix. But despite all the hours I have poured into watching these shows, I am really not a good chef or cook and I rarely step into the kitchen. This merely joins one of many YouTube hobbies that I have – sports, orchestral music, etc. 

We recognise that with certain things in life, merely reading up or watching a lot of videos on the topic does not make us an expert. Watching medical dramas certainly does not make us qualified doctors. To become skilled at something, we need theory and also practical experience. 

This also applies to our Bible reading. It is certainly important to sit under good teaching and preaching, and our elders at GBC continue to strive to preach God’s Word faithfully weekly. But at the same time, it is also important for us to grow in our ability to handle God’s word, to ensure that we know sound from unsound doctrine. Our elders’ job is to equip the saints for ministry. Thus, as members, we too, have a responsibility to hold out Scripture to one another. This is why we have so many ministries that seek to train, equip and allow our members to practise doing so for each other.

In the Women’s Ministry too, we continue to seek to encourage and equip women to minister to one another in this way. Women’s groups such as Wednesday Bible Study, Friday Ladies’ Bible Study, Precepts meet to train and sharpen women’s abilities to handle God’s Word. Many women continue to meet in informal discipling relationships — over lunch, coffee or tea, during play dates — to hold out Scripture to each other in the week.

This is also why we held a Bible Study training recently in March. Over four weeks, this served as something of a primer in handling the Bible. Women were grounded in the sufficiency, clarity, authority and necessity of Scripture and learnt to see the overarching storyline of the Bible. They were also equipped with some basic Bible reading tools, and encouraged to practise it in their personal Bible reading, and also with others. And as James 1 reminds us, we ought to be hearers and doers of the Word, thus, application is also important. 

It was encouraging to see women come together around God’s Word. This was the second time it was run, and yet, God brought together a group of about 10 to 15 women who desired to learn how to read God’s Word. What was truly heartening was the diversity of ages represented – from women in their mid-twenties all the way to ladies in their seventies. We also had some ladies from our Chinese-language congregation join us for this series. How wonderful it is that God’s Word brings different people together. 

This was only four short weeks, but the goal was to build confidence and stir up an appetite for reading and handling God’s Word for a lifetime. It may be difficult at first, but we can be encouraged that we do not do it alone. God has given us His Spirit to give us understanding. He has also given us the church with elders to sit under the teaching of, and fellow brothers and sisters to encourage us and learn from. 

Women who are trained to handle Scripture are an asset to the church and we pray that more women – all women – will be confident in reading God’s Word, build their lives on it and hold it out to those around them.