This week begins a new unit in the Sunday School Lesson Standard. The title: The Call of Women. The next five weeks will center on prominent women called to ministry, called to usher in this new dispensation of God’s amazing grace.
Part I
Luke 2:36a NASB
36a And there was a prophetess, [a]Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher….
According to Hebrew tradition, there were seven prophetesses named in the Old Testament: Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Huldah, and Esther. Anna would be regarded as the eighth. While seven is designated as God’s number for completion (rest), eight is representative of new beginnings. So it is fitting that Anna would be a herald of Christ, God’s fulfilled promise to mankind to form a new covenant with mankind. A covenant of Grace.
Little is known about her, but the few clues given in Scripture yield rich rewards. She was named for Hannah, a young Jewish woman who had been unable to bear children. She entreated the Lord for a child and God heard her. He opened her womb and she bore a child; Samuel, whom She dedicated to the service of the Lord. Samuel anointed the first two kings of Israel, Saul, then David.
Anna was the daughter of a man named Phanuel. His name was a derivation of Peniel, the place along the Jabbok brook where Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord. Jacob named that place Peniel, meaning, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared. We surmise then, that Phanuel was a devout man who raised his daughter in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
In Anna we see the redemptive work of God in that she is identified with the tribe of Asher, one of the ten tribes exiled and ‘lost’ during the Assyrian invasion of Northern Israel.
Luke 2:36b-37a NASB
36b ...She was advanced in [b]years and had lived with her husband for seven years after her [c]marriage, 37a and then as a widow to the age of eighty-four…
Anna became a widow after only seven years of marriage. We have no information surrounding the death of her husband, but for a moment we can imagine the pain she must have endured with such a significant loss at such an early age. While it is unclear exactly how long Anna had been widowed, it had to have been in excess of fifty years. Her age implies that she was alive as a teen or young adult when Israel fell into Roman hands as a result of a civil war between the last heirs of the Hasmonean dynasty. Like every other Jew of her time, she longed for a day when Israel would again be independent of Roman rule. Unlike many of her day, she was old enough to know what independence looked like.
Luke 2:37b NASB
37b ...She did not leave the temple grounds, serving night and day with fasts and prayers.
There is one person in particular that mirrors the ministry of Anna, the Old Testament prophetess. When Josiah, the child who became king, instituted reforms throughout Israel that turned the nation, for a brief time, back to God, he did so in obedience to the direction of the prophetess Huldah. Huldah is unique, in that she appears to have been the only person in Jerusalem in her day who could accurately ascertain the will of God in that pivotal moment in Jerusalem’s history.
Like Huldah, Anna seems to be a prophetic place holder in Jerusalem’s history in a pivotal moment. Like Huldah, Anna has attained a position of prominence in a place dominated by a patriarchal hierarchy. The Bible says that she served the community from the temple grounds continuously through fasting and prayer. What might that have looked like? I’m glad you asked.
At the time of this writing, my sister has served in several offices within the United Methodist Church, including serving as an associate of one church and senior pastor of another church in Michigan. Additionally, she served as district superintendent of over seventy churches in Michigan. She currently serves as the chief connectional officer of the Connectional Table of the UMC which focuses on ‘vision casting’. One of her primary responsibilities is to pray and discern the focus and direction for the entire body of the UMC as well as providing leadership toward that same effort, which numbers approximately twelve million souls worldwide. I speak often a woman who had a tremendous influence on my life, my grandmother Allie Mae Sneed. She was my sister’s grandmother as well. We took different lessons from Mother Sneed. I took from her a profound sense of spirituality and the thought that I, like her could enter into a place of relationship and intimacy with God. Kennetha took the additional lesson that she like our grandmother could be a successful businesswoman as well as a dynamic minister of the Gospel. In the same way that Kamala Harris now exemplifies a woman who has attained the second-highest office in America, that of Vice President of the USA, our grandmother set that example for my sister, Kennetha.
Anna, then, should be recognized as a distinguished elder of her day, regal in bearing and stature within the community she served. That she attained the title; ‘prophetess’, in scripture is no small accomplishment.
Luke 2:38 NASB
38 And at that very [d]moment she came up and began giving thanks to God, and continued to speak about Him to all those who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
Had Anna overheard Simeon prophesying over the child, Jesus? I’m unsure. What I can tell you is that at the moment she beheld the child she began to proclaim. What did she proclaim? That the redemption of Israel was at hand. That her eyes had beheld the Redeemer of Israel. While it is not stated here, the redemption of Israel implies the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham to make him the ‘father of many nations’. The fulfillment of that promise would include the appearance of a Redeemer, the Messiah, the Anointed One from God who would save all mankind. That was her message. God’s redeemer had come…. to save. She preached the Gospel.
Part II
Acts 1:12-14 NASB
12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the [a]mountain called [b]Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a [c]Sabbath day’s journey away. 13 When they had entered the city, they went up to the upstairs room where they were staying, that is, Peter, John, [d]James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, [e]James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the [f]son of [g]James. 14 All these were continually devoting themselves with one [h]mind to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.
The lesson includes the verses above as part of the lesson text, though they are not mentioned in the expository portion of the lesson. They are included so as to point out that a number of women were assembled with the disciples in an upper room in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost the day the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the earth thus fulfilling the prophecy of Joel, the prophet, who foretold of the eventual outpouring of God’s Spirit. The intent of scripture here was to point out that women were included in this receiving of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
Act 2:14, 16 NASB
14 But Peter, taking his stand with the other eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: “Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, [n]know this, and pay attention to my words. … 16 but this is what has been spoken through the prophet Joel:
On the day of Pentecost, in the moments following the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, there is wonder and .. confusion. People are amazed by what they have seen; fire literally falling from Heaven and resting like fiery crowns upon the heads of those men and women who were assembled together in the upper room praying in obedience to Jesus’ last command to them: to wait for the promised Holy Spirit.
When this outpouring occurred it occurred with signs following both visual and audible signs. Signs both temporal and spiritual. The witnesses in Jerusalem that day saw fire from Heaven. They say crowns of fire on the heads of Jesus’ followers. They heard the sounds ‘as of a mighty rushing wind’ as these wonders occurred. Then they saw the first manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus followers, both men and women, filled with the Holy Spirit, began to preach the Gospel under the influence and divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The Bible states that they spoke in tongues foreign to them. The Bible also states that the hearers, who had come from various places in Europe and Asia to participate in the observation of the Day of Pentecost, ‘heard’ the disciples speak in their own languages. That infers that the gifts of prophecy, along with the gifts of tongues and interpretation of tongues, which when combined, are equal to the gift prophecy. Many who observed these wonders became skeptical at which point Peter stepped up and in an effort to restore order began to .. proclaim. Peter proclaimed that what they were witnessing in that moment was that which had prophesied by the prophet Joel some eight hundred years prior…
Acts 2:17-18 NASB
17
‘And it shall be in the last days,’ God says,
‘That I will pour out My Spirit on all [p]mankind;
And your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
And your young men will see visions,
And your old men will [q]have dreams;
18
And even on My male and female [r]servants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days,
And they will prophesy.
God promised Joel that in the ‘last days’ He would pour out His Spirit upon all peoples all ethnos, both men and women. He promised that all of those upon whom He poured His Spirit would begin to operate in the Spirit. That they would experience divinely inspired dreams and visions. That all, both men and women would prophesy. Peter proclaimed the arrival of the beginning of these ‘last days’ with this outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit on both men and ..women.
Acts 2: 19-20 NASB
19
And I will [s]display wonders in the sky above
And signs on the earth below,
Blood, fire, and [t]vapor of smoke.
20
The sun will be turned into darkness
And the moon into blood,
Before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes.
Joel’s prophecy heralds the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as a 'beginning' of the last days. In these last days according to Joel’s prophecy, there were to be signs of violence and change, both in the heavens and in the earth. While we often appropriately recall these and other biblical prophecies of this ‘glorious' day of the coming of the Lord’ with fear and trepidation, let us understand that everything God allows has the final intent to redeem. Most certainly, God’s work in the work in Heaven and in Earth in this moment is to finish the work of redeeming both Heaven and Earth through the final and eternal assembling of all of Creation under the authority of Christ.
Acts 2:21 NASB
21
And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
Beloved, in quoting this final portion of Joel’s revelation Peter extends the promise of God’s mercy to all who are within his hearing. In these last days, Peter confirms that hope is not lost. Indeed, hope has finally been revealed in the midst of all of this turmoil. Hope has come in the person of Jesus Christ. Our hope Beloved, is that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved.
Part III
Acts 21:-8-9 NASB
8 On the next day we left and came to Caesarea, and we entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him. 9 Now this man had four virgin daughters who were prophetesses.
Finally, we look at the four daughters of Philip, the evangelist. Again, we are given very little information about them. What do we know? We know that the Philip mentioned here is the same Philip selected as one of the first of seven deacons selected to bring order to a church that was growing so fast that the needs of some of the widows were not being met. Remember that he was well respected, full of wisdom, and full of the Holy Ghost. This was the same Philip who evangelized the region of Samaria, preaching the Gospel with signs and miracles following. The same Philip who witnessed to the Ethiopian eunuch. Preaching Jesus to him from the Scriptures. Philip continued to preach in all of the surrounding cities until he finally settled in Caesarea and raised a family. Some twenty years later, Paul, Luke, and their companions stayed with Philip and his daughters on their way to Jerusalem.
All we know about Philip’s daughters is that they were recognized as ‘prophetesses’ by Luke and Paul, two people who would know. What is a prophetess? A prophetess is one who, by divine inspiration speaks for God. Like their male counterparts, the prophets, they operate in a space inhabited by God and man. Enoch walked with God. Joseph saved all of Egypt with his understanding of God-given dreams. Moses saw God face to face. Isaiah, in a vision, beheld God from the very throne room of Heaven. Huldah revealed God’s purpose when the priests of God could not. God gives His prophets and prophetesses special understanding, reveals to them hidden mysteries. He does the same today for all believers by the unction of the Holy Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit don’t necessarily make us prophets, but by the Spirit, we can all prophesy. What we can ascertain from the mention of Philip’s daughters is that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on God’s people was not a one-time occurrence, but that it would occur from generation to generation, thus empowering the Church... Philip raised his daughters in the fear and admonition of the Lord. God filled them with His Spirit and obviously used them to encourage and strengthen the body of believers concerning mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Selah,
wb
Post Script observations:
a. A simple test for whether or not a message is prophetic: Can the message or 'Word' be prefaced by the phrase, "Thus saith the Lord.."
b. The passage in Acts 21:8-9 distinguishes the office and operation of a prophetess from that of an evangelist. Reference Ephesians 4.
