Who was the first female evangelist in the New Testament?
The role of women in church leadership today is a hot topic.
How do conservative evangelical churches make sense of the tensions and differences of opinion on what the Bible has to say about “women in ministry?”
I have written extensively on this issue in this CP article.
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The question I want to answer in this article today is, “Who was the first woman evangelist in the Bible?”
I have a hint for you, she was famous for saying, “Come meet a man who told me everything I ever did?”
Can you imagine using this slogan?
This woman knew and understood after encountering Jesus that life transformation through the Gospel of Jesus Christ occurs at the point of full disclosure.
Let that sink in for a while.
Jesus met her in her shame and invited her out of her sin to go tell everyone else what He had done for her.
And guess what? She did.
And look at the result in John 4:39: “Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I ever did!”
The woman at the well went from being a woman who was ashamed of her life to a woman who was proud of the life she had found in Jesus.
Now isn’t that what it means to be an evangelist?
Why did Jesus do this? Why did Jesus pick a woman to be the first “evangelist” to her city?
I won’t pretend to know all the reasons why God does what He does, when He does it, and how He does it, but I do observe here, He did it. He chose a woman to be the first evangelist to her town to bring the whole town into a real relationship with Himself. And not only any woman but a woman with a sorted past, a past that was still in her present when he met her.
If you were starting a church, a movement, or shaking the world upside down with the Gospel, who would you pick?
I remember when we came to Colorado Springs, Colo., to start Vanguard Church with the Southern Baptist Convention in 1996. We found a location and we moved into an apartment and we began to pray, “Lord, send People!”
How would I meet people who do not have a real relationship with Jesus Christ?
I prayed, “Lord, Send People!”
The doorbell rang. There stood a person at my door who I thought said, “Hello, my name is Leo, I am here to fix your leaky pipes.”
It didn’t dawn on me that he was God’s answer to my prayer, at least not at that time.
A few minutes later, Leo came out of the bathroom and said, “All done, I have fixed your leaky pipes.” Then out of nowhere, Leo says to me, “Why did you come to Colorado Springs?”
The light went off.
I said, “We came here to start a church, would you like to be a part of it?” He said, “Yes, can I invite my girlfriend to join us?”
I said, “Yes.”
As soon as he left, my wife came out of the other side of our apartment and said, “Who was that?”
I said, “Leo, he and his girlfriend are going to become a part of our church plant.”
My wife, Tosha, said to me, “Kelly, that was a woman.”
I didn’t believe my wife, but it turned out she was right, again.
Leo turned out to be a woman. Leo was not her name. She had said, “My name is Lil,” short for Lillian. I was so embarrassed.
Lillian was a lesbian who had just invited herself along with her girlfriend, Jennifer.
I panicked!
I grew up on a dairy farm in Kentucky. I knew more about dairy cows than I did about lesbian lovers.
What was I going to do? Was I going to uninvite them? I didn’t approve of lesbians. I had never had a lesbian in my home, certainly not a professing lesbian couple. This couldn’t be God’s will for this new church plant, could it?
What do I do? What do I say? How do I back out of this? I honestly don’t know why I didn’t back out of it.
Less than nine months later Lillian stood on a stage in Fort Worth, Texas, in May of 1997 at the Southern Baptist Convention and shared in front of 30,000 plus Southern Baptists that she gave her life to Jesus Christ right before Adrian Rogers preached.
Jesus has gone and done it again. He used a woman to be the first evangelist of our little Southern Baptist church plant in Colorado Springs in 1997.
The same thing Jesus did with the woman at the well, He did with Lillian in our Vanguard Church plant.
Now let me say, whether the Southern Baptist Convention is willing to acknowledge the role of a woman or not, many women all over the world who have met Jesus have risen and taken the Gospel to anyone who will listen.
The SBC was founded in 1845 in Augusta, Georgia because it refused to see slavery as a sin.
I pray the SBC doesn’t get this one wrong this time!
It’s not your gender or the color of your skin that determines your calling, it is God!
Jesus has commissioned you, woman.
Go!
Kelly Williams is co-founder and senior pastor of Vanguard Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. His books include: The Good Pastor, The Mystery of 23, Friend of Sinners and Real Marriage. He also maintains a blog.
