Leadership a mankind mandate
AS I promised you last week that we would continue pursuing our question, should leadership be genderbased, I humbly submit to you the following.
According to God’s plan, leadership is the responsibility of mankind and not just the male man. According to God, leadership is not a gender or sex issue. We are all called and designed to lead. Sin distorted this but thank God for Christ Jesus who restores us to the Genesis mandate. If we were to understand the plan of God we would kill this conflict and enmity between men and women at once just like that. Women can lead as much as men can. Being female is not a weakness. It is a lie that we have just been taught down the generations. Women are able as men are. After all we are just one material. “What is female is not my spirit or intellectual capacities but just my body, biologically, to serve a great purpose. The biological make up is not an issue of inferiority or superiority. What is male about me is not my spirit or intellectual capacities, it’s my body. The dominating male attitude and the victim female attitude are not about me but my culture and religion that have socialised me that way.”
My intention is to show you all that men and women are one, equal and there is no need for this oppression of each other perpetuated by culture, religion and politics that have plundered humanity.
Women are as capable leaders as men. Women are as called as men. Women can be presidents as men are; they can be city mayors as men. It does not require any legislation of some sort for women to take leadership positions too. They qualify by creation and by God’s design for human kind. We must liberate ourselves from the lie that we have believed for centuries that women are inferior to men and are cursed. That is a lie from the pit of hell. Unfortunately we have crafted our gender roles and cultural perceptions based on this lie. It was meant not only to deceive but to hurt and destroy humanity’s mandate to rule and have dominion. For humanity to rule and exercise her dominion on the earth, she needed to be united, to be one, male and female sharing their God given responsibility. As long as men fought women and abused them the way the world does, humanity cannot fully be in charge and exercise her dominion even after Christ has died on the cross restoring humanity to the original mandate and blessing of the lord.
Jesus transformed gender relationships. He came as both a servant and a leader. He is a servant who leads and a leader who serves. We in the church need to understand this so we can operate on the right lane. If you look back, the church gave women the servant role and gave men the leader role separating Christ. This is based on the human culture that separates this one person into two distinct beings making a mess of it. This is where the mistake lies. The church needs to recognise that in Christ, we both are servants and leaders. We are both sons of God. As many as they received Him, He gave them power to be called the sons of God. John 1:12. Both male and female believers in Christ are sons of God. We are both heirs together with Christ. We are both called equally so. We are both anointed, equally so. In actual fact, there has to be no challenge at all in the church as far as this gender business is concerned. The challenge is that we want church to be influenced by human culture and traditions and not the Word of God.
I expect the church to be leading in giving women back their voice and dignity as leaders and servants too. Both female and male are servants and leaders. Let women lead as much as men lead. Let men serve as much as women serve.
I am on record as saying that there is nowhere in the Bible where God says women submit to men and allow men to do as they please. Submission is two-fold in the Bible. Ephesians 5: 21 and 22 give us the two sides of submission. First we as believers are submitted one to another, male and female. We honour each other. We affirm and treat each other equally and with love in the fear of God. Then there is the submission in marriage where wives are asked to submit to their own husbands. This is a different institution. This does not mean women should be submitting to all men out there. Out there, men and women are equal beings all submitted to God and doing the mandate of God. We cannot be robing women on this issue here. We need just to give them back their life.
Women must also lead. They must not beg men for this. I said the other day at the City Hall; I would love to see a female mayor in Bulawayo come 2018. It is doable. I had hoped for a female town clerk but it was not to be. Women just have to rise up and use their number advantage in their political settings and vote able women as councillors and it will be done. Able women must also arise and make themselves available to serve in positions of power. But as a wife, submit to your husband as unto the Lord.
My submission to you therefore is that leadership has nothing to do with gender. Leadership is a humankind mandate and therefore women are equal leaders with men. May women arise and be themselves and be who God want them to be, real sons of God and heirs of God.
Kilton Moyo is creator of Fruitful Marriages, a renewal and enrichment programme and is pastor, counsellor and author of Call or WhatsApp on +263775337207, +263772 610103 or citizenafricafoundation@gmail.com