Deborah: Agent of the Divine Agenda

Nijay Gupta has a good read on Deborah from Judges over at CBE. Here’s his conclusion.

I don’t think Judges promotes gender equality as a primary point. However, Deborah makes all the difference by implication. She is a reliable prophet (who speaks from the wisdom of God), and a trustworthy teacher—as the Song of Deborah proves. In a sense, she becomes one of the “authors” of Scripture (with her teaching inscribed into Judg. 5), and by implication an authoritative evangelist through her testimony.

I have met women who have said that when they got up to preach, men (and sometimes other women) got up and walked out, offended by a “woman leader” in the church. I wonder how the Israelites felt about Deborah. Did anyone walk out on her? Did anyone condemn her for speaking on behalf of God? Did anyone encourage her to take more interest in her domestic duties? We don’t know. What we do know is that it was the Lord’s will to use her as a leader of God’s people to deliver them (with Barak’s help as general). Judges does not offer a command to promote women, but it only takes one example like Deborah to show that women are just as capable in leadership as men. Leadership did not suppress Deborah’s femininity, but gave her an important setting to be “motherly protector” (5:7).

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