“The Lord gives the command; The women who proclaim good news are a great army:” Psalm 68:11
Through the Bible: Psalm 1-2, 15, 22-24, 47, 68
We are a week from Mother’s Day, and the greeting card racks are full of pinks and tulips and roses and soft focus pictures of women holding newborn babies. They are all beautiful, poignant, and, if I’m being honest, overly expensive. I think the greeting card companies know they have us over a barrel. What terrible person complains that a card for the woman who birthed him costs too much?
Maybe because we are close to Mother’s Day, or maybe because I’ve been impacted by so many godly, bold women who shared the gospel with me, or maybe its because my denomination is wrestling right now with the place of women in the ministry, but for whatever reason Psalm 68:11 jumped out to me today.
“The women who proclaim the good news are a great army.”
That is a powerful verse. In context, it refers to the women who announced that a battle had been won and a victory achieved. It wouldn’t be too unusual for the first word of a military victory to come from the women. They would have been at home, keeping an eye out for their husbands and brothers and sons returning from the battlefield. The first ones to see the returning army would be able to tell from their bearing whether or not the battle had gone their way, and if it was good news, they would raise the shout and the news would spread.
Only in this case, an army was never sent out. No army of men from the city returned in triumph, because no men went off to fight in the first place. Look again at verse 1-2.
God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered;
and those who hate him shall flee before him!
2 As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away;
as wax melts before fire,
so the wicked shall perish before God!
God is the one who rode through the deserts (v. 4). God is the one who protected the widows (v. 5). God is the one who marched through the wilderness (v. 7), shed rain abroad (v. 9), restored his inheritance (v. 9) and provided for the needy (v. 10). No army is ever mentioned!
Well, I take that back. There is one army:
“The women who proclaim the good news are a great army.”
If you are reading from the King James Version, I feel a little sorry for you, because good King James skimmed over the feminine noun in verse 11, instead rendering it,
11 The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it.
But if you happen to read this in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), I’m a little jealous of you. Because you see that the word translated “good news” is euangellion. It’s where we get our word evangelism.
It means good news.
It means gospel.
So, put all together, the verse literally reads:
The women who proclaim the gospel are a mighty army.
There is not a church I know of that would still be standing today if women had not been serving, teaching, evangelizing, preaching (ISWIS) and proclaiming the gospel. They are a mighty army.
There is not a missionary sending organization of any denomination that would exist were it not for women missionaries fulfilling the great commission in places men quite frankly have been afraid to go. They are a mighty army.
Go back to Psalm 68. It was not the men who won the battle, so why should it be only the men that proclaim the victory? In fact, just so we are all crystal clear who DID and DIDN’T contribute to the victory, look again at verses 12-13:
12 “The kings of the armies—they flee, they flee!”
The women at home divide the spoil—
13 though you men lie among the sheepfolds—
While the men were sleeping with the sheep, God made the kings of the armies flee, and the women at home got to divide the spoils.
It was not the men who won the battle, so why should it be only the men that proclaim the victory?
Look, I understand Paul had some words of direction to Timothy in the New Testament about whether or not women should be allowed to teach or have authority over men in the Ephesian church. We’ll get to that in a few months. But even if you are in a denomination such as mine that restricts the office of pastor to men as qualified by Scripture, please, please, please, for the love of the Bride, do not disrespect the contribution women make to the cause of the gospel. Because Scripture doesn’t.
By the way, do you know who the first person to proclaim the gospel of Jesus’ resurrection was? The person that was charged by Christ himself to share the good news with the eleven disciples (most of whom never actually witnessed the death of Jesus, because they had all run away)? It was a woman.
17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.
Mary Magdalene was sent by Jesus to proclaim the news of the resurrection. That makes her an apostle.
She was the first to see the risen Jesus. That makes her the first apostle to proclaim the complete gospel.
She was sent to the disciples. That makes her the appostle to the apostles.
Woman, thou art a mighty host. Woman, you are half the church.
Thank you.
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