Women’s Retreat October 10-12, 2014
This series focuses on influence. Originally it was shared at a Women's retreat, and is provided as a full resource with audio, text, handouts for notes, small group questions, and even a couple of morning devotions (within the retreat PDF).
Are you a woman of influence? Do others see you as a woman of influence?
In our world, people of influence get attention.
Influential people get our attention and they can change our lives.
Influence is about affecting, changing, swaying people’s thoughts/opinions, or their actions for either good or bad. I desire to be someone who influences others for good, don’t you?
We’re going to look at 5 different women: 2 are midwives, one is a mother, one is a sister, one a wife. All are women of influence who vitally affected the life of Moses and all can teach us timeless truths that can impact our families, our friends, and our world for good.
Lesson one Handout (Click Here). Lesson one study group Questions (Click Here).
Are you a woman of influence? Do others see you as a woman of influence?
In our world, people of influence get attention.
Time magazine publishes annually a “Person of the Year” issue that features and profiles a person, group, idea or object that “for better or for worse...has done the most to influence the events of the year”.1
Christianity Today magazine recently had an article (Oct 19,2012) “Fifty Women you should Know” as their cover story: about Christian women who want to pursue influential roles in politics, the church and public life…
Every week ABC News has the “person of the week”=someone who has stood out and affected others.
Influential people get our attention and they can change our lives.
Dictionary = “the power to change or affect someone or something”
“The power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways: sway”2
Examples: He used his influence to reform the company’s policies.
It’s a Powerful word representing a phenomena that one can’t see, touch, taste, smell or hear, but yet it can be sensed. Few would dispute its existence and fewer could dispute its common use and abuse.
So influence is about affecting, changing, swaying people’s thoughts/opinions, or their actions for either good or bad. I desire to be someone who influences others for good, don’t you?
We’re going to look at 5 different women: 2 are midwives, one is a mother, one is a sister, one a wife. All are women of influence who vitally affected the life of Moses and all can teach us timeless truths that can impact our families, our friends, our world for good.
I’ve often been frustrated because there isn’t more information to answer questions I have about them, to tell me more about what they were thinking, feeling as their lives circled around this giant of a man named Moses. Good bible students and teachers hold back and only teach what is in the text as truth, only what is there, not what we imagine or think but what we read. So much of the stories of our women are left out. Most times we don’t know their motivations, their tone of voice, their feelings, we’re not told the details. We can only speculate what’s in between the lines. It’s at these times I’m reminded that God has given us all we need to know:
2 Peter 1:3-4 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness though our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. (NIV)
And even though we may wish we knew more, we have enough here to give us truths and lessons in their actions, in how they influenced their world by what they did. Just think for a minute, Moses would not have lived past 3 months old if it had not been for the providential care of God working through 4 of our 5 women. Moses would not have made it back from Midian to Egypt to become God’s deliverer had it not been for the plan of God and the intervention of his wife. These are the stories of how God can and does use women who are willing, obedient, courageous, and faithful for His good and His glory. I can’t wait to introduce you to them, but first lets do a little background review of the times and life of Moses, set our scene.
The English word “Exodus” given to this book is a transliteration of the Greek word meaning to “exit” or “way out”. The Hebrew title is abbreviated to Shemot= “Names” which is the opening words of the book. Exodus is part of the Torah, first 5 books written, we believe, by Moses and the book tells us how the Hebrew people made their “way out” of Egypt. Time covered is approximately 1500-1400 B.C. When Exodus begins, the Hebrews had been in Egypt for about 400 years.
Abraham was called to leave his country and God made a covenant with him, He promised him land, and he would become the father of a nation, and through him, would be a blessing to the entire world. One night through a vision God reaffirmed this covenant but also gave him a prophecy:
Genesis 15:12-14 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a dark sleep and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. (NIV)
Let’s skip ahead to Genesis 37.
Every family has conflict, right? Families are messy; the biblical families are no different. Abraham’s great grandson Joseph was his father Jacob’s favorite. That favoritism caused family conflict, as it usually does. Joseph, the favorite, hated by his brothers was sold into slavery in Egypt. Through providential care the family is eventually reunited and all the Hebrews move from the area of Palestine to Egypt just as God had foretold. Over time, over many years, the Hebrews, these foreigners, aliens who lived separate from the Egyptians, they multiplied and grew and became slaves to the Pharaoh. Life was miserable for them. They cried out to their God for mercy, for help, for rescue. God heard their cries
Exodus 2:23b-25 ...the Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them. (NIV)
Isn’t it comforting to know God hears our cries when we’re in trouble and isn’t it comforting to know He wants to help, He wants to be involved in our lives, He wants us to call out to Him.
God’s people needed Him to intervene and He does. He raises us a Deliverer named Moses.
His life like ours can be divided up in different ways: early years, middle aged, senior (mature) years. A popular way is to look at Moses’ 120 years in 3 divisions of 40:
1. First 40 years he lives in Egypt, most of that in the Royal Palace as a prince of Egypt. However, there came a day when he began to feel with compassion the plight of his biological people, the Jews. In that effort to save them he killed an overbearing Egyptian and tried to cover it up. But the cover-up failed as they always do, and he fled the country, which takes us to the next 40yr
2. Moses from 40 years old to 80 is a shepherd in the desert around Midian. There he marries and becomes a father. Its in the desert that Moses has great opportunity for solitude and personal reflection, and becomes so convinced of his own inadequacies that it was initially very hard for God to convince him that he indeed was the man to deliver the Hebrews from Egypt. But the call of God was obeyed and Moses at 80 returns to Egypt to move into the 3rd part of his life.
3. The next 40 years Moses leads the people of Israel out of bondage into the wilderness, receiving the Law and taking them to the very border of the Promised Land.
Hebrews 11:24-28 gives us his Divine Biography:
By faith, Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. By faith, Moses when he had grown up refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. By faith he left Egypt not fearing the king’s anger: he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of bloods that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel. (NIV)
Faith is an attitude of the Heart, and God had Moses’ heart.
But our focus will be on the women surrounding this amazing man of God. These are amazing women and the story would not be the same without them.
“One of the most interesting observations for a woman who looks closely at the man Moses is the fact that many of the key players in his life are women. Humanly speaking those women must have helped to determine the events of his life. Many of the women acted courageously and defied tyranny and oppression in so doing. They were wise and resourceful in handling tough and seemingly impossible situations.” 3 Dorothy Patterson
Our study this weekend will represent women of all ages. We have a very young girl, young mother, middle-aged wife and some mature women. They are each one going to encourage us and challenge us to be women of influence, affecting our world for good for God. Let’s start with the midwives.
Pharaoh had a problem. The Hebrew slaves had become so numerous that he feared insurrection or an alliance with a foreign nation so he ruthlessly worked them but they continued to multiply and grow as a sub people group within the nation. So his next plan was to command the Hebrew midwives to kill all baby boys, to commit male infanticide, yet allow the baby girls to live.
Exodus 1:15-16 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you assist the Hebrew women in childbirth, observe at the delivery: If it is a son, kill him, but if it is a daughter, she may live.” (NET)
Here we meet Shiphrah(shif ruh) and Puah(poo ah). They’re called “the Hebrew midwives” but were they Hebrew or Egyptian women? Original text is not clear. (Jewish Study Bible) “the phrase could mean ‘midwives to the Hebrews’, or midwives who were Hebrews” 4It’s been assumed by some that they must have been Egyptian since one would hardly have expected Hebrew women to have aided Pharaoh in killing the baby boys. But, both of the names are Semitic. In Hebrew, the name Shiphruh = “beauty” or “fair one”; the name Puah= “splendid” or “girl”. Likely that they were not the only midwives but probably the chief midwives, or oversaw the midwives. The Hebrew word “midwife”= “one who helps to bear”. Midwife helped at childbirth by taking the newborn, cutting the umbilical cord, washing the baby with water, salting and wrapping the baby. In Egypt and among the Hebrews, women often crouched down in delivery on a pair of bricks or stones or on a birth stool.
So, instructed by Pharaoh, his command, at this time, right at delivery, the moment of birth, as the midwife is catching the baby, she is to determine the sex of the child, and if it were male, she apparently was to suffocate the baby so it appeared to be stillborn. She would have the opportunity to do that as she handled the newborn. And then she would have to cover up the murder. What a difficult position these women were put in. Their boss, their ruler, their authority told them to commit what they knew in their hearts was wrong. They had to make a decision; they had to make a choice.
I wonder have you ever been there? In a hard place like that?
Exodus 1:17 But the midwives feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live. (NET)
“Feared God” Wikipedia “Fear of God is the idea of living in respect, awe, and submission to a deity”5 In the Hebrew =serious fear, serious reverence. The word for God = ELOHIM, the God of Israel. The choice they made was to disobey Pharaoh’s command and reverence God who is the life-giver. They believed human life is precious and they could not kill the babies.
What implications that has for us today! With this choice came consequences.
Exodus 1:18-21 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and let the boys live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women– for the Hebrew women are vigorous; they give birth before the midwife gets to them!” So God treated the midwives well, and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he made households for them. (NET)
Have you ever been called in to your boss, teacher, your mother and you knew it was going to be bad? You knew you were in trouble? Can you imagine what these women felt when they were summoned to Pharaoh? Would they be found out? Would they be killed?
Obviously Pharaoh observed his plan for extermination was not working and he wanted to know why? Why have you let the boys live?
Their response was v. 19. Egyptian women need the care of a midwife more than the Hebrew women who were lively, robust and delivered the babies so fast that they didn’t need the help of a midwife. By the time the midwife comes, the baby is born, washed and with the mother. What could they do?
As far as the midwives arriving too late, that might have been true. Perhaps they just didn’t tell the fact that their tardiness was deliberately planned. The Scriptures don’t tell us the details here so we aren’t even sure if this was a lie or the truth. What we do know was: these women chose to disobey the command because it was the wrong thing to do. Because they did the right thing, the thing that pleased God, they were
Exodus 1:20-21 So God treated the midwives well, and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he made households for them. (NET)
They refused to violate the law of life. God blessed them for doing what is right in His eyes. He blessed them with “households” “families” of their own.
That brings us to a truth for all times: to be a woman of influence:
Truth: Know the difference between right and wrong and choose right. This has been God’s desire for us all the way back to the Garden of Eden and all the way forward.
Paul would write to the Romans that God has created us to know Him.
Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (NIV)
We have been given a conscience and the revelation of His Word to learn what pleases God, what He deems right and wrong. Know the difference and choose right.
*In our lives, when we learn truths about God through the circumstances of our lives they become like “stones of remembrance” (Joshua 4)
Illustration: When one of my sons was in middle school he worked in the school library. His second year, a few new boys started going to his school and became his friends, and unfortunately influenced him… negatively. Both of my sons tend to want to please others, but this particular son, at that tender, difficult age, longed for their friendship and was willing to go along with whatever they planned. All them were musical and had a “little” band. They had instruments and speakers but they were lacking microphones. So my son, who worked in the library where the school’s AV equipment was stored, was challenged to “borrow” some microphones. He knew right from wrong, he knew it was stealing, but he choose wrong. Later, that afternoon at home, I’m checking through the book bags and lunch boxes and gym bags getting ready for the next day and I came across the microphones. I asked him what are these? …Just an aside, at home, I was called “the question lady” because I asked the kids so many questions. Where are you going, who will be there, what will you be doing, how many people are going, which parents is home. I was relentless. “What are these?” Right off he confessed and spilled the whole story, how he was the designated “stealer” for their band, and besides no one would ever miss a couple of mikes, they weren’t even going to keep them, just borrow them. I had the normal mother reaction, “just wait til your dad gets home and we’ll talk about this then”. I was sick, it was a private school and I wondered what could happen to him. So my husband came home, was told the story and I remember he calmly said “Tomorrow morning we, you son and I, are going in early to the principal and you will tell exactly what you did, you know it was wrong and you are going to confess”. I was praying “God, please use this for your good and your glory” We felt it was a big thing, little did we know how big. Despite tears and moans and pleadings from our son, my husband took my son to school and he confessed. I wish I could tell you that all worked out fine and they were pleased he confessed and it went away quietly because we had parented well and it since it was the first offense he was gently punished. Not so fast. The principal said it had to go before the peer/faculty committee and they would decide his penalty. After meeting they decided to expel him from school. That was a surprise; we had two other children there. We felt that was so harsh but what really surprised us was some of the reactions and advice from other parents, Christian parents, who said we should have just quietly returned them and not said anything— covered it up. We should not have let our son have such severe consequences without fighting back. Today, we look back and believe it was the hand of God removing our son from further negative influence and helping us see some things we needed to take care of at home. Not only did my son need to learn this truth, we needed to re-affirm our belief too: To
Know the difference between right and wrong and choose right.
Is this where you are right now? Or perhaps someone close to you is facing a hard decision, wanting to do right but afraid of the consequences? The backlash? Perhaps it’s at work, you’ve been asked to compromise, it feels all wrong. Maybe it’s a hard parenting choice and you’re getting resistance. Maybe a friend has asked you to cover something up and you know you will lose the relationship if you say “no”.
I don’t know where you are now, or where you may be headed but I do know to be a woman of influence for good for God in your world you will need to choose the right over the wrong. Others will watch you; your influence will be affected by what you do. ASK God for his strength, His help, to choose right.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Person_of_the_Year
2 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sway
3 Dorothy Patterson, Touched by Greatness (London: Christian Focus Publications, 2011) 19.
4 The Jewish Study Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) 108.
5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deity
Lesson two Handout (Click Here). Lesson two study group Questions (Click Here).
Have you ever had to give up and let go of someone or something very precious to you?
When you let go, when you released that person or that thing, did you feel like part of you was breaking; now there was some new emptiness in your life? Transition to our next woman of influence, Jochebed…Moses’ mother. I wonder,
Can you imagine what it would be like to give away your 3-month-old baby, not knowing what would happen to him? After you had given birth, held that baby, nursed, rocked and stayed up all night trying to ease his crying and then to give him up?
I’m curious, how many here are either adopted, have adopted children or someone in your family has been adopted? Adoption is a wonderful way to unconditionally love someone but it comes with a painful price tag (as we’ll see in our story). To adopt a child means someone has to give up a child. Maybe you’ve not given a child up for adoption, but I’m sure that most everyone here has some experience with giving up something precious to you. Some of you have lost children to divorce, some have run-away, and some have even died. . Truthfully, there is a certain amount of pain, a loneliness pain, when they leave home to go to college, when they get married, when they start their own life. “Someone has said ‘mothers begin saying good-bye to their children from the moment they are born’.”1 And we don’t want to forget there is also a pain that comes from wanting a child and yet not having one, perhaps even having to give up that possibility.
Some, its likely all of us, know the pain of giving up, letting go of someone, or something precious to you: A relationship, a job, a dream.
Life comes with the pain of losses, of giving up and letting go and we are rarely ready to let go. Life comes with the opportunity to learn the art of Releasing when we have no control, of dealing with extenuating circumstances that we can do nothing about. Question we have to ask is:
What do you do when you can’t do anything more?
Exodus 2:1 A man from the household of Levi married a woman who was a descendant of Levi. (NET)
Exodus 6:20 Amram married his father’s sister Jochebed, and she bore him Aaron and Moses. (The length of Amram’s life was 137 years.) (NET)
Amram was “the Levite man” who was Moses’ father. He lived 137 years. That’s a significant fact. Possible that he was alive during the Exodus, remember Moses was 80 years old then. Amram married Jochebed who was also from the tribe of Levi, one of Jacob’s 12 sons. Jochebed’s name means, “Honor of God” or “God is glory”. We don’t know but we hope that she too was alive to see the Exodus. Amram and Jochebed were strong in their faith during a time where many Israelites had become idolatrous.
How do we know? Moses, in the wilderness, instructed them to put away pagan gods. Joshua 24:14 “throw away gods your forefathers worshipped beyond the river and in Egypt. So we know some of the Jews had compromised. Just like today, true faith was mixed with pagan beliefs. But this couple worshipped Jehovah God. This couple had great faith. Hebrews 11:23 BY FAITH they hid Moses…They saw life through the eyes of faith.
What’s the Definition of faith? = Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. (NIV)
What does it mean that they had faith? Certainly faith in God, that He exists, that He made a covenant with Abraham that set them apart as a chosen people, His people. They had faith that God had made promises to them through Abraham that they would be a nation, a people with land, their land. The prophecy of 400 years of bondage (Gen 15:13) was coming to a close. So when Jochebed gave birth to Moses….
Exodus 2:1-2 A man from the household of Levi married a woman who was a descendant of Levi. The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a healthy child, she hid him for three months. (NET)
Hebrews 11:23 By faith, when Moses was born, his parents hid him for three months, because they saw the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. (NET)
“not an ordinary child” Hebrew for “fine” is “tov”(TOE v)= means “good”, “beautiful” It’s the same word that used in the Creation account in Genesis 1:4(light), 10(land and sea), 18(sun, moon, stars), 25(animals), 31(mankind, looked and said=very good). Moses was tov, beautiful, fine, good, and not ordinary. This word conveys the possibility that Jochebed sensed something was special about her new baby boy. Perhaps God might use him to fulfill the Promise. Exodus 2:2b She “hid” him for 3 months. Reason was Pharaoh’s edict.
When the plan to have the midwives kill all the male newborns failed, Pharaoh gave the order to throw all baby boys into the Nile, drown them.
Can you imagine trying to hide a newborn baby? Keep him quiet? Have you ever worked in the baby bed nursery at church? You can never get them all quiet at the same time. Someone is always crying.
What strong faith this woman had, but also what courage.
Hebrews11:23 they were “not afraid of the king’s edict”
What if she had been “found out”, they would take the baby and kill him, perhaps she would lose her life, potentially the whole family, husband, 2 other children= Miriam=young little girl and Aaron=3 years old. The choice to hid the baby put the whole family at risk.
But there came a day when she knew she couldn’t hide him any longer, had to let him go…
Exodus 2:3-4 But when she was no longer able to hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him and sealed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and set it among the reeds along the edge of the Nile. His sister stationed herself at a distance to find out what would happen to him. (NET)
Think of her alterative choices. What if she kept the baby at home until eventually the authorities came? What would she do if he was snatched out of her arms and taken to certain death? Or would it be wise to just distance herself from this baby and let someone else throw him in the Nile? After all she did have a husband and two other children to consider and take care of. What to do? All her choices were difficult. Have you ever been there? Where it didn’t matter which decision you made, they all seemed risky?
Jochebed made a decision, and she made a plan.
Exodus 2:3 But when she was no longer able to hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him and sealed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and set it among the reeds along the edge of the Nile.
“When she could hide him no longer” …She either purchased or made a basket out of papyrus and covered it with an asphalt type material that made it watertight. (Isaiah 18:2 writes that the Egyptians made their boats, skiffs out of this material. So she made a little miniature Nile boat for her baby.2) She put the child in the basket among the reeds near the bank of the river. This would be shallow water, away from the currents that would have carried him down the Nile. Here there would be less danger from crocodiles than if she just put him down on the beach. Perhaps there would be some shade too from the sun in the reeds.
Imagine the emotions, the feelings Jochebed had as she placed him down and backed away. Imagine being her as she left him here alone in the water. Yes, Miriam is watching from a distant place on the shore, but she, his mother had to let him go. She had to walk away. She didn’t just “let him go”, she was a woman of faith, and she “let him go and trusted her God. The life of Jochebed as a woman of influence teaches us that there are times in our lives when we have done all we can do, we’ve said all we can say, there is no more and we have to …
Truth: Let it go and trust God
So what happens when you trust God, eyewitness account: Miriam is near by, watching and..
Exodus 2:5 Then the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself by the Nile, while her attendants were walking alongside the river, and she saw the basket among the reeds. She sent one of her attendants, took it,
There is great historical debate on who was Pharaoh’s daughter? The Apocrypha calls her Tharmuth, other names suggested are Merris, or Bityah, perhaps even the well-known Hatshepsut( HAT shep shoot). If the Pharaoh here is Rameses (RAM uh sees) II, he had over 60 daughters.3 We don’t know, but whoever she was, she had enough influence to kill Moses or keep him alive.
Text says she went to bathe in the Nile. Nile was considered emanation (em uh ney shun) THE SOURCE of the pagan god Osiris( O sigh rus) and the waters had magical properties.
It was not uncommon for Pharaohs and other Egyptians to bathe ceremonially in the sacred Nile River, as many Indians do today in the Ganges River. The Egyptians believed that the waters of the Nile possessed the ability to impart fruitfulness and to prolong life.4 Dr. Thomas Constable
While her attendants were walking up and down the banks keeping undesirable people and animals away, she saw the basket. She was curious, what could be in it? Verbs tell us that she herself opened it and saw Moses and at that very moment he cried. I wonder if she picked him up, cuddled him to stop his cries; did he smile at her and melt her heart? “she took pity” on the baby. This is a huge part of the story… Jewish Study Bible
“The verb could be given a more colloquial translation such as “she felt sorry for him.” But the verb is stronger than that; it means “to have compassion, to pity, to spare.” What she felt for the baby was strong enough to prompt her to spare the child from the fate decreed for Hebrew boys. Here is part of the irony of the passage: What was perceived by many to be a womanly weakness – compassion for a baby – is a strong enough emotion to prompt the (this) woman to defy the orders of Pharaoh. The ruler had thought sparing women was safe, but the midwives, the Hebrew mother, the daughter of Pharaoh, and Miriam, all work together to spare one child”5
They are women of great influence.
At just this moment, Miriam steps forward and approaches the daughter and volunteers her service to find a Hebrew woman to nurse the child, and whom did she bring back? The baby’s own mother. So Jochebed got her own child back, at least for a while. Can you see the Providence of God in this story? Why to Trust?
Faith and trust in God knows that even when God seems silent, He is always working for the good of His children. Faith and trust in God knows that God often works behind the scenes of our lives. What some call fate or luck or “it just happened” is really God’s providential care.
Has anything “just happened” to you recently that you know really was God working for you? Sometimes we need to slow down and learn to see Him and His presence in our circumstances and thank Him for His care.
…for a little while. Probably about 3 years. Those must have been precious years. Years she had to love and influence her child for God. Those early years, pre-school years, made an indelible impression on Moses. I imagine he learned about the Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and the Great Covenantal promises made to the Hebrews. Perhaps he learned what it means to have faith in God and fearless courage. But there came a day when he grew older… When Jochebed had to let him go AGAIN…to let him go and trust God again.
Exodus 2:10 When the child grew older she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “Because I drew him from the water.”
Jochebed, she’s the one, who took him to the Royal Palace. He went from her arms to the arms of Pharaoh’s daughter. Hugs and kisses and then she turned away and went home. Again, the second time, was this time even harder for her?
I would have wondered if he would be safe? Would he be treated differently because he was Hebrew? Would he forget me? Would he forget our family? Would I ever see him again?
So we come back to the question
What do you do when you can’t do anything more?
Women of Influence choose to: Truth: Let it go and trust God
What are some areas of your life you need to stop holding on to and start trusting God? Is it your past? My pastor often says “Give up the hope of a better past, it’s keeping you from a better tomorrow” Past hurt, past decision?
Maybe it’s a relationship that is toxic and you need to make a hard choice.
Or maybe the relationship has been too close, too controlling, or maybe the seasons of life have changed and it’s hard to let it go and move on.
What do you do when you can’t do anything more?
My story: Brent’s diabetes (Another stone of remembrance)
When my youngest son was 5 years old he started loosing weight, was always thirsty and he started wetting the bed at night though he’d been potty trained for a long time. I took him to the pediatrician and I knew it was a urinary tract infection, we’d get the pink bubble gum antibiotic and he’d be fine. But that was not the case. They took the urine sample and when the doctor came back he coldly said “I think your son has diabetes and I want you to go immediately to the Juvenile Diabetes clinic, I’ve already called them to tell them you’re on your way. I was in shock. I felt like cold water had been poured all over me. That day began a new life for my son and for our entire family and me. I learned to give injections, to plan meals, to test blood, to watch for highs and lows, and I learned to trust God in a new, powerful way. Growing up, we wanted him to have all the normal experiences of childhood, sleepovers, soccer, basketball, baseball, and football, field trips, then dates, eventually college and marriage: without me. I had to learn over and over and over again to…
Let go and trust God
Even today, I can’t tell you how hard it is at times not to want somehow control his diabetes: to make sure he’s eating good food, exercising, taking care of himself, but he has a wife and two daughters…I really have to “Let it go and trust God…and I do Trust and pray ….
I want to be sure to add, even if this sounds like heresy in our “health, wealth, prosperity” theology culture:
When you let go and trust God not all babies in baskets are rescued, not all illnesses are healed, not all jobs are restored, not all relationships are mended but this is True: when you let go and trust Him – God is glorified and He will work it out for ultimate good.
Has He brought something to your mind that you’ve been holding on to and need to let go? Maybe you need to let go of a dream that is not going to come true; yet, the idea of letting it go seems too painful. Maybe it’s something material, a possession you have? Can you fill in the blank _____ “Lord I hear You saying ‘Let it go and trust Me with it’”
Women of Influence, women who are affecting their world, their family, their workplace, their friends for good for God have open hands. Hold on to things and people with open hands, like Jochebed they know when to release and…
“Let it go and trust God.”
1 Patterson, 24.
2 R. Alan Cole, “Exodus,” Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, ed. D. J. Wiseman (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1973) 57.
3 Cole, 58.
4 Dr. Thomas Constable, “Constable’s Notes,” Lumina, www.bible.org.
5 Notes, Lumina, www.bible.org.
Lesson three Handout (Click Here). Lesson three study group Questions (Click Here).
“Jesus embodies the rule of God in which no one is beyond God’s forgiveness no matter who they are or what they have done.”1
Do you believe that?
Women of Influence are not perfect women, we know no one is perfect. We know that all of us make mistakes, we all have failures, we all sin and that’s why we all need a Savior. So when we fail, when we sin, no matter how little or how big that sin is, we need to remember, with God there is forgiveness. Our God forgives.
Nehemiah in looking back to this period of Hebrew history says (Neh. 9:17):
They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery, BUT You are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love… (NIV)
David would never get over being amazed at God’s forgiveness. (Ps 103:2-3)
Praise the Lord, O my soul and forget not his benefits-who forgives all your sins… (NIV)
Paul wanted the entire world to know that in Jesus Christ God has forgiven us.
Eph 1:7 In him (Jesus) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. (NIV)
Col 3:13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another, Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you. (NIV)
There is Forgiveness for Sin with God that is a THEME throughout Scripture all the way back to the Garden of Eden and all the way forward until eternity.
Because God has always provided a way back to Him, forgiveness for our sins, He calls us to come to Him, confess to Him, receive from Him our forgiveness.
He calls us to then Live in our Forgiveness. This also became true for Miriam, our next woman of Influence. We’re going to look at a brief overview of her life and focus on her failure and her forgiveness.
1. Name means “Bitterness” Greek version= Mary, Mara, Miriam. It was/ is a popular Hebrew name.
2. Numbers 26:59 = We know that her parents were Amram and Jochebed, so she was a full sister to Aaron and Moses. Exodus 2:4 = she is the first born, the oldest of the 3 siblings.
3. Also from Ex 2 we know she was the one who stood guard when her mother put baby Moses in the basket into the Nile. She was the one who was her mother’s eyes and ears as she watched to see what happened to the baby. She was the one who bravely spoke to Pharaoh’s daughter and offered to find a Hebrew nurse for the baby.
Miriam was the key person to oversee the course of the floating cradle and then to intercede at just the right moment with a suggestion that not only ensured the baby’s life but also helped to prepare him for his destiny.2 Dorothy Patterson
Quick on her feet, protective of her little brother, perhaps (ask those of you who are first born to witness) perhaps she always felt a certain responsibility for her younger brothers. I see this in my daughter who has 2 younger brothers and my granddaughter who has 2 younger brothers. There is this nurturing, some might say “mothering”. Funny, my daughter is only 18 months older than her next brother, but until he was 7 he did exactly what she said. Amazing. One day, I remember, he said “You’re not my mother!” It was all over, then we had normal sibling rivalry. The youngest brother never let her do that! I see history repeating itself in my grandchildren.
FROM OUR story we see that as a young girl, Miriam was a caring, courageous sister. But when he was about 3, Moses left her home and lived in the palace. About 40 years go by. Perhaps word got to her when Moses fled after murdering an Egyptian. We know that another 40 years pass before God uniquely calls Moses to go back to Egypt, go back and deliver the Hebrews from their oppression.
Miriam is a witness to the Exodus. She is there to see her brother Aaron as the right hand spokesman for Moses. She is there as days and likely months pass while God displays his Power and His miracles in front of Pharaoh. She is there the night they all leave Egypt and she is there when God parts the Red Sea allowing the Hebrews to cross and drowning all the Egyptians. She is there, she sees it happen and she is filled with gratitude. That’s the next time her name is mentioned.
4. Song leader, Women’s Leader, Prophetess
Exodus 15:20-21 Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a hand-drum in her hand, and all the women went out after her with hand-drums and with dances. Miriam sang in response to them, “Sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea.” (NET)
The people of God have just experienced a tremendous God-given deliverance from their enemy, they are free people and this song is composed to celebrate that victory. Throughout history people compose and sing songs that solidify their experience and tell their story. We, in America have a song that tells our freedom story. “Star Spangled Banner” our national anthem. (We really fought 2 wars against the British for our freedom, the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. At the end of the latter war, that Francis Scott Key penned our victory song after on morning he saw the large American flag flying triumphantly above Fort Covington, the city’s last line of defense. )
O say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Miriam led the women in their victory song. She was an influential leader of the women, they followed her in praise. We’re also told here that she was a prophetess=female prophet. That meant God spoke to her and spoke through her to the people. We don’t know how many prophetess were in Israel over the years; just a few are recorded. Huldah (2Kings 22:1-20) Deborah (Judges 4,5) Anna (Luke 2:36-38) Phillip’s 4 daughters who are all prophetesses (Acts 21:9). To be called a prophetess meant God was using her mightily, she had great influence for good and then…
Set this story in context. The Hebrews have been given the law, set out, they are traveling to the Promised Land. So this is early in their journey. People have been grumbling about water, food. Even Moses has complained to God that he needs help, God instructs him to delegate out to 70 elders some of the responsibility of leading. We know that complaining is contagious, next complainers are Miriam and Aaron. We are in Hazeroth when this happened.
Numbers 12:1 Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married (for he had married an Ethiopian woman). (NET)
Then, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses…Don’t you wonder what the backstory was? We don’t know, but possibly she began to question Moses’ decisions. Perhaps if they made the decisions as a team, the 3 of them, it might be better. Or they could take turns leading. We don’t know what she was thinking but there was discontent brewing and it came to a head over Moses’ wife. …they spoke against Moses because of the Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite.
Who was this woman he married? We know he married Zipporah (Ex. 2:21) she was a Midianite, so who is THIS WOMAN?
Two explanations are possible:
1. This is a reference to Zipporah, “Cushan” was a part of Midian (Hab 3:7) Both Midianites and Cushites were nomadic.
2. Moses married a second woman in Egypt, a Nubian= Cush. The latter is more plausible since Nubia was part of the Egyptian empire and dark skinned women were considered beautiful.3
Bottom-line is we don’t know, but this just seems to be a smokescreen to their real complaint.
Numbers 12:2 They said, “Has the LORD only spoken through Moses? Has he not also spoken through us?” And the LORD heard it. (NET)
Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? they asked. Hasn’t he also spoken through us? Both Miriam and Aaron are involved in this but we’re focusing on Miriam. It would seem that she was discontented with the influential role God had given her and she wanted more. Miriam tried to step out of her role and wanted to step into her brother’s. We can fall into this trap too, in our churches: the ministry roles God gives us; our workplaces: complaints about our boss; even at home: our discontent with where we find ourselves can cause us to lose influence for good. Because we know that Moses had his authority to lead directly from God, her rebellion and discontent was ultimately against God Himself. So, she launches a power play that backfired.
Numbers 12:2 They said, “Has the LORD only spoken through Moses? Has he not also spoken through us?” And the LORD heard it. (NET)
…and the Lord heard it. God says to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, you three, meet Me at the Tent of Meeting. When they get there, God says Aaron and Miriam, you two, step forward. Listen to me, when I talk to prophets, I send visions, dreams but not so with Moses. I talk to Him directly, face to face, I speak clearly to Him, special, unique. Why were you not afraid to speak against Him? Divine Rebuke. We’re told this made God really angry and He leaves. When He does, they look at each other and Aaron sees Miriam is covered with leprosy. We don’t begin to know how horrible that disease was in ancient times. For her it meant isolation, leaving the community and living outside the camp, alone (Numbers 5:1-3). Because of the intercession of her two brothers God limits her time for seven days before she could return.
People have often questioned why did God just punish Miriam with leprosy? Why not Aaron too? There is no biblical answer but there are hints in the text to the backstory. Jewish Study Bible and other readings conclude that…
..Miriam and not Aaron was punished because she instigated the gossip and vocalized it, as indicated by the feminine gender of the verb “spoke” in 12:1 and the placement of Miriam (name) before Aaron (name)” it’s speculated that Aaron was silent or just agreed.4
Joseph Telushkin suggests this difference stems from the Hebrew verb used to describe their comments about Moses’ wife. It is feminine – ve’teddaber (“and she spoke”) – indicting that Miriam was the one who initiated the conversation against Moses (Telushkin, 130).
There were consequences of her sin, just as there is with ours. She faced humiliation, a week separated from the community; surely tension in the family.
This was a great failure, a tremendous loss of influence for her. And what a great warning to us not to lose our influence for good by our own sin.
But I have included her failure for another reason.
That is to be encouraged by her forgiveness. No, we don’t hear of her again for almost 40 years, that’s not to say she doesn’t still lead, we just don’t know. But what we do know is that God recorded her death, and that’s very significant. Very few of female leaders have details of their death. Numbers 20:1 In the first month the whole Israelite community arrived at the Desert of Zin and they stayed at Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried.
Many scholars believe this is the 40th year of the Exodus, toward the end of the journey, close to entering in the Promised Land. They people have come full circle and the land is just ahead. Right before they enter, all three deaths, Miriam, Aaron and Moses are recorded. The ones who had led for 40 years passed the baton to others.
Although Miriam sinned and suffered some consequences we know that God forgave her. How? God gives her Divine Biography hundreds of years later, through the prophet Micah right before Assyria captures Israel. Micah (contemporary of Isaiah) records a conversation with God who gives a case against Israel.
Micah 6:2-4 Hear, O mountains, the Lord’s accusation; listen you everlasting foundations of the earth. For the Lord has a case against his people; he is lodging a charge against Israel. “My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me. I brought you up out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam. (NIV)
This is the God who years later included her name as a leader of His people. He could have written her off, could have excluded her name but He forgave her and remembered her. You see:
Truth: When we do sin, we can be forgiven. We can go forward and Live in our forgiveness.
There may be consequences, but God forgives and God restores. That’s our God of grace and mercy. This is the God of Calvary.
We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory (R3:23) but the free gift of God is forgiveness in Christ Jesus (R10: 9,10) When we confess with our mouth and believe in our hearts that Jesus is Lord we are forgiven. For me personally I was raised in a Christian home, in church all my life, but it wasn’t until I was married, in my mid-twenties that I embraced Christ as my Savior and Lord. It’s not enough to be raised a Christian; to have Christian parents, a believing heritage, each one must on our own embrace the faith. Each one of us is called to have a faith story. Wonder what is yours?
As we go on to live the Christian life, we live into our forgiveness by:
I John 1:8-9 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us [all of us will have failures, fall into sin like Miriam did] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (NIV)
For Miriam, in another time, the law required she be put out of the camp, an isolation for seven days of purification, after which God restored her. There were seven days before she could live into her forgiveness. For you and I our relationship with God eternally is secure because of the Cross. When we fail and sin in our everyday life and we confess, he forgives instantly because of the Cross. There may be consequences of our sin we have to live through, but when you…
Live in Your Forgiveness there is no shame, no guilt, no condemnation because we are forgiven. Part of our inheritance as believers is a Peace with God (R 5:1) and we have the Peace of God ruling our hearts (Phil 4:7). You really cannot be a woman of influence if you’re still carrying your sin, if you haven’t given it to the foot of the Cross and asked for his forgiveness. But if you have, and you know that He has released you and you still carry guilt, and shame….you are not fully
Living in your Forgiveness and you won’t be able to tell others about our God who forgives all our sins.
My pastor says that when you have asked God’s forgiveness and you know that He has forgiven you, but you can’t get peace, it won’t let you go, then perhaps you need to ask for prayer, for help from the church, from others.
James 5: 13-16 Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is anyone of you sick? He should call the elders of he church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other that you may be healed. (NIV)
There is a healing for the sin-sick heart, its called Forgiveness. But we cannot talk about Living in our Forgiveness without mentioning …
For the believer this is not optional, it’s an integral part of our faith and our influence. The Lord’s Prayer says:
Forgive us our sins as we forgive others. It’s the key to living in harmony in our homes, churches in our world. i.e. Peacemaker’s Four Promises of Forgiveness
1. I will not dwell on this incident.
2. I will not bring this incident up and use it against you.
3. I will not talk to others about this incident.
4. I will not allow this incident to stand between us or hinder our personal relationship.5
My story: another stone of remembrance is learning to forgive my husband. Story of separation and rejection.
1. So let me ask you, are you satisfied where God has placed you? With what he has given you to do, to be? Do you minister to others out of a grateful heart or honestly is Miriam’s discontent resonating with you? In every season of life we can face this temptation. Yet, truly women of influence are marked by contentment not resignation, contentment not rebellion. Women of influence cannot get over the fact that God would choose to use them and that reflects in a humility that allows God to use you greatly.
2. Are you carrying any guilt or shame that God has forgiven? Do you need to release it? Do you need to talk to someone you trust? A safe person?
3. Have you forgiven others? Have you let go of past wounds and pain, no matter how difficult, how great the hurt?
There is a call on our lives as believers, and that call is to …
Live in your Forgiveness
1 Lewis B. Smedes
2 Patterson, 58.
3 Jewish Study Bible, 308.
4 Jewish Study Bible, 309.
5 Peacemaker Ministries
Lesson four Handout (Click Here). Lesson four study group Questions (Click Here).
Are you ready for our last woman of influence? I don’t think you’ll forget her.
“Zipporah May be Obscure, but the Wife of Moses Mattered” is the title given to an article by Beth Brophy in the Jan. 25, 2008 edition of US News and World Report magazine.1
I couldn’t have said it better. Our last influential woman, named Zipporah, has a lot of mystery surrounding her story. In fact, quoting the article:
“Bizarre is typical of how biblical scholars describe the tale of Zipporah and her husband, Moses, especially the section in which God attacks Moses, and Zipporah uses a blood ritual to successfully defend her husband and son. ‘For mystery, mayhem, and sheer baffling weirdness, nothing else in the Bible quite compares with the story of Zipporah and the “bridegroom of blood.”’”2 (that last part is a quote of Jonathan Kirsch by Beth).
Difficult to understand, challenging to figure out, not many details to help and yet, Zipporah is a woman who mattered, her life was influential in many ways as the wife of Moses and the mother of his sons. We’re going do a quick overview of her life and zero in on the most compelling part of her story, the part that teaches us how to be an influential woman for good.
Exodus 2:16 Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and began to draw water and fill the troughs in order to water their father’s flock. (NET)
1. Priest of Midian= name is Reuel (Jethro) If you were to look at 10 different maps, you might find 5 different locations for Midian because they were nomadic people who lived in different locals at different times, much like Abraham did. Midianites originated from Abraham through his second wife Keturah3 who he married after Sarah died (Gen 25:1-2). God chose to have the Covenantal promises given through Sarah’s son Isaac. So Moses and this family were distantly related, very distant cousins, yet, both coming from Abraham. Zipporah’s father, Jethro, was a priest and it’s possible he was God-fearing. However we don’t know for sure. We do know he was a wise man and Moses respected his opinions and they had a close relationship.
2. Seven daughters, one is Zipporah, care for their father’s flocks.
3. One day she and her sisters have an encounter with a stranger at a well where they were trying to water the flock. It’s such a good story. It is very much like Jacob and Rachel, who met in a similar way, at a well. The girls are getting water and some other shepherds push them away, and Moses just happens to be there and “rose to their defense.” He not only drove them away but also watered the animals. So the girls go home and tell dad who says “where is he, go invite him for dinner.” Zippporah’s name = “little bird.” Hebrew tradition is that when her dad said go, get him, she flew fast like a little bird to find him.
Moses accepted the invitation and then stayed for about 40 more years.
Exodus 2:20-21 He said to his daughters, “So where is he? Why in the world did you leave the man? Call him, so that he may eat a meal with us.” Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. (NET)
4. Zipporah became his wife and the mother of his sons= Gershom and Eliezer (Ex 18:2-6).
So far the story is clear, concise, we can understand, they met, they married, they had children. But as we read further into her story, we enter the “extraordinarily puzzling”4 part. But, this is also the part of her story that is the reason this obscure woman matters, the reason why she is such an influential part of this story and teaches us for all times what matters to God.
Approximately 40 years Moses and Zipporah and their family have been living with dad in the Sinai mountains area(also called Mt Horeb) Moses has been tending the flocks too. One day he saw an amazing site, a bush that continued to burn without being consumed. Right there, God called to him and said that He had seen and heard the misery of the Hebrews. (Ex 3:10) So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt. (NIV)
After many objections, Moses agrees to go back as God’s Deliverer of the Hebrews. He gets permission from his father-in-law and the family prepares to pack up and leave. One day they depart.
Exodus 4:24-26 Now on the way, at a place where they stopped for the night, the LORD met Moses and sought to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off the foreskin of her son and touched it to Moses’ feet, and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me.” So the LORD let him alone. (At that time she said, “A bridegroom of blood,” referring to the circumcision.) (NET)
On the way from Midian to Egypt, at a lodging place for the night, the Lord met Moses and tried to kill him. How did God try to kill him? Some have thought that Moses got deathly ill, very sick. Others have said he might have been injured severely. The text is not clear. We are told that Zipporah takes a flint knife, a sharp knife, and circumcises her son. She takes the skin and touches Moses’ feet, and what does that mean? Then she says “You are a bridegroom of blood”.
The Jewish Study Bible says this is “extraordinarily puzzling” because there are so many unanswered questions in these 3 verses. How did God attack Moses? Why did she perform the circumcision? Which son was involved? What do her words mean?
Even though we have many unanswered questions that have plagued commentators for centuries, there is ONE THING we do know for sure…
What Zipporah did stopped God’s hand against Moses and she saved his life.
Truth: Somehow she knew what to do and she did it.
What did she do? She circumcised her son. Why? I think we have an answer.
Circumcision was the “‘covenant sign’ given by God to Abraham and his descendants”5 in Genesis 17. God had commanded Abraham to circumcise every male baby on the eighth day as a sign that they belonged to the people of God; any uncircumcised male was to be cut off from his people, for he had broken God’s covenant.6 As we think of our story we have to ask Why was this child not circumcised? We don’t know. It’s possible that Zipporah didn’t want to have her child go through this rite, or that Moses was negligent and just ignored doing it. We don’t know, but how could the Deliverer, the leader of the Exodus, representative of the nation, not have his son carry the covenantal sign? For Moses to have ignored this requirement was unacceptable, open disobedience.
F. B. Meyer states
“How insignificant this omission may have appeared in itself, it could not be tolerated in one who was to stand out as God’s chosen and honoured servant. If God remembered the Covenant, it was surely necessary that His servant should…”7
Let’s go back to our article and read:
Despite the many ambiguities, the main message of the story is clear, (according to Kirsch): “The lesson the Bible intends is that God insists on circumcision as the essential symbol of the covenant of his chosen people.8
At just the right time, Zipporah did just the right thing: She did what God required, God required circumcision and she did it, and that is why she matters, why she has influence.
She knew what God desired and she did it.
It may seem small, or maybe it’s huge, but there it is, right in front of you.
My seemingly small “stone of remembrance” of obeying God in a small way …I’m not saying this is an example for everyone, it was an act of obedience for me.
Illustration: my baptism: God wanted to take away my fear of dying.
Know what God wants and do it….How do we know what God wants?
1. Word of God. Moses was the first to record God’s Word when he wrote the Torah, the first five books. Until that time, God’s Word was handed down orally. Today we have the written Word of God to guide us, to let us know what God desires for his people. My pastor says “Reading the Scripture is not a spectator sport, in it we find ourselves, God’s love and grace drawing us to Him, showing us His Ways, bringing us to the fullness of our redeemed humanity.”9 Have you been a spectator or a participant in learning God’s Word?
2. We have the gift of prayer too. Do you love to talk to God? Do you listen to Him speak to you? The Lord’s Prayer is a beautiful way to direct our desires to what God desires for us. It reminds us the priority of worship, seeking Him to meet our needs and how important forgiveness is to maintaining all our relationships.
3. Are you part of a community of faith where you can find godly good counsel to help know the will of God? Wise friends, spiritual direction It’s in Christian community, in the church, that we find a place to form our thoughts & actions together, to see what God desires of His people.
Truth: Knowing what God desires and doing it is key to our influence. God is honored and can use us when we are obedient. Maybe God desires you to put away some behavior, stop doing it, cut it out of your life. Maybe he wants you to start doing something that glorifies him. It may have seemed a small thing to Moses and Zipporah, but God showed how much it meant to Him to be faithful to His covenant. God desires the same for us.
A Woman of Influence: a woman that affects her world for good for God. I want to be that person, don’t you?
These 5 significant women of influence each one had an essential role of saving the life of Moses so God could mightily use him. Each woman had influence for good in her world. Each one can teach us what that means today.
When it comes to a woman’s influence in the world the sky is the limit. However, such an influence will never abandon who she is by God’s design and what pleases the Lord. The level of value of her influence in society is not defined by positions of prominence (though it may include that), but by her faithfulness. She may influence society by faithful prayer, excellent work, training up faithful children and/or serving overseas as a faithful missionary (eg. Amy Carmichael and Mary Slessor). Her actions may be private or prominent and yet can still have great influence (cf. Rahab and Esther).
The importance and influence of a godly woman is priceless.10
1 http://www.usnews.com/news/religion/articles/2008/01/25/zipporah-may-be-obscure-but-the-wife-of-moses-mattered
2 Beth Brophy in “Zipporah may be obscure, but the wife of Moses mattered," http://www.usnews.com/news/religion/articles/2008/01/25/zipporah-may-be-obscure-but-the-wife-of-moses-mattered. News and World Report (January 25, 2008).
3 Dorothy Patterson, 89.
4 Jewish Study Bible, 113.
5 R. Alan Cole, 78.
6 The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 333.
7 F.B. Meyer, Devotional Commentary on Exodus, 80.
8 Beth Brophy
9 Phillip Jones
10 Andrew Courtis on 19/06/2013 (blog) Pastor of Hills Bible Church
These are the available downloads for the Women of Influence Surround the Life of Moses series:
PDF Women's Retreat Booklet | PDF (Student Handout, Questions, and Devotions) |
Lesson 1 (Midwives) Downloads: | |
Lesson 2 (Jochebed) Downloads: | |
Lesson 3 (Miriam) Downloads: | |
Lesson 4 (Zipporah) Downloads: |