“This is a room that needs to teach other women why studying the Bible matters,” author and Bible teacher Jen Wilkin addressed a crowded room during the Southeastern Women’s Leadership Breakfast on June 15.
“You are here because you are in a position of leadership in your church or ministry,” she said. “You saw there was a gap and you wanted to fill it.”
“The gifts of women in the mission of God are not ‘nice, but not necessary,’” Wilkin said. “The gifts He gives are indispensable. Your contributions to the Kingdom are necessary and indispensable.”
‘Faithful revelation’
The Bible is not the ultimate end goal, Wilkin said. “What we want to teach people to long for is the God of the Bible.”
Wilkin expressed the necessity of Bible teachers and leaders loving the study of Scripture and gave three points for the women to remember:
- Remember who the Bible is about. “The Bible is our burning bush,” Wilkin said. “It is a faithful revelation of the glory of God from Genesis to Revelation.”
- Remember to think. “The heart cannot love what the mind does not know,” Wilkin reminded the room. “The statement ‘to know me is to love me’ has never been more true than with the God of the universe.”
- Remember this is work. “Raise the bar for those under your spiritual care,” she encouraged. “Ask more of them. They will rise to the challenge that you set. Discipline is not dead, it just follows the most compelling message. So compel them. And the only way to compel them is to be compelled yourself.”
For more stories from the 2022 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting, visit thebaptistpaper.org/sbc2022.
