"Your Sons and Daughters Will Prophesy": Healing the Body of Christ by Restoring a Biblical Vision of Spirit-Empowerment

This essay was presented at a conference on the Holy Spirit and the healing of the body sponsored by the Center for the Study of the Work and Ministry of the Holy Spirit Today at Biola University. It approaches the topic metaphorically and theologically. The body of Christ, made up of men and women who are God's image, is fractured by distrust, abuses of power, and a failure to partner well together. Many conservative evangelical churches in the United States are preoccupied with the task of circumscribing the participation of women in ministry roles. One reason is a neglect of the Bible's clear teaching about the Spirit's empowerment of women. A brief survey of the interaction of the Holy Spirit with women in the entire Bible uncovers key examples of the Spirit's empowerment of women for kingdom work. This essay examines three key areas: (1) the Spirit's interaction with women, both as vessels of the Spirit's empowerment and as recipients of bodily healing (2) the distribution of the gifts of the Spirit without regard to gender, and (3) prophecy as an illustration of an essential speaking role for women in the eschaton. The prophetic ministry of women alongside men is a key diagnostic marker of the restored kingdom of God, an observation with profound implications for church ministry today.