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In
missions history, a Bible woman was a local woman who supported foreign female missionaries in their
Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
evangelistic
In Christianity, evangelism (or witnessing) is the act of preaching the gospel with the intention of sharing the message and teachings of Jesus Christ.
Christians who specialize in evangelism are often known as evangelists, whether they are in ...
and
social work
Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...
.
Background
The title "Bible woman" was first used in London in connection with a female
evangelist
Evangelist may refer to:
Religion
* Four Evangelists, the authors of the canonical Christian Gospels
* Evangelism, publicly preaching the Gospel with the intention of spreading the teachings of Jesus Christ
* Evangelist (Anglican Church), a c ...
,
Ellen Henrietta Ranyard, who put effort to reach sick and poor women in the poorest area of London in the mid-nineteenth century. Ranyard's heart was heavily burdened with the poor condition of women in St. Giles district that she decided to start an evangelistic work among them. Ranyard found a Christian woman who had a similar life as such and hired the woman to go with her to the poorest district in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
to evangelize and help the sick women there. The woman who had the similar life as her recipients would freely visit the poor women and read the Bible to their hearings. She also distributed the Bible and tracts to the area, this is why she was called Bible woman. From this little seed, sprang Ranyard's mission. In 1879, there were about 170 Bible women employed in the mission. After Ellen Ranyard's death in 1879, her work was continued as the
London Bible and Domestic Female Mission. The idea of "Bible women" did not stay in her home of origin, in London, but spread throughout England, Scotland, and it travelled to Asia, Africa, and rest of the non-western world with women missionaries.
An English example was Ann Baker (1834-1913), who served in the district which later became the Church of England parish of Emmanuel in Cheltenham, where there is a plaque in the church marking her 46 years of service.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the creation of many interdenominational
mission
Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to:
Organised activities Religion
*Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity
*Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...
organizations was influenced by the
Evangelical revival
The First Great Awakening (sometimes Great Awakening) or the Evangelical Revival was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its thirteen North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. The revival movement permanently affected ...
s,
anti-slavery movement
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
s, and
free trade
Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. It can also be understood as the free market idea applied to international trade. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold econo ...
theories, especially in Britain. The urge to preach the gospel to individuals shifted to nations and was motivated not only by religious zeal but was also inspired by
Enlightenment ideology (which saw liberation and salvation of the world as an equal) to improve one's self to contribute the global progress. In this context,
Protestant missionary
A Christian mission is an organized effort for the propagation of the Christian faith. Missions involve sending individuals and groups across boundaries, most commonly geographical boundaries, to carry on evangelism or other activities, such as ...
women from the western world became increasingly interested in mission and trained themselves as educators, doctors, nurses, and other professionals to join in the mission work. They played a central role in mission fields as doctors, nurses, and teachers; they ran schools, hospitals and orphanages for children, etc. By the beginning of the twentieth century, most of the missionaries operating in the mission field were women.
Role
In the mission field, "Bible women" or "Bible readers" were local
indigenous
Indigenous may refer to:
*Indigenous peoples
*Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention
*Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band
*Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...
women. Initially, Bible women were recruited from domestic workers in missionary homes, from the wives and mothers of indigenous male evangelists, or graduates from missionary girl's schools. The majority of them held lower social status in their respective countries. They were either supported by female missionaries or by local churches but were usually the lowest paid or even sometimes they were unpaid. These local Christian women helped the British missionaries, especially female missionaries to perform their daily tasks and to accomplish their mission goal. Ruth Tucker argues that "without Bible Women, female missionaries would have been at a loss."
Ministry
Accompanying western missionaries on their missions were a significant part of Bible women ministry, but on many occasions, they served alone or in teams without any direct assistance from the missionaries.
Their ministry was wide in its range: they openly shared their faith with their fellow women, read the Bible in communities, taught children in village schools, called on the sick or troubled, worked among girls, and visited women in their homes. Bible women served as
evangelists
Evangelists may refer to:
* Evangelists (Christianity), Christians who specialize in evangelism
* Four Evangelists, the authors of the four Gospel accounts in the New Testament
* ''The Evangelists
''The Evangelists'' (''Evangheliştii'' in Roma ...
not only in their homelands but also in foreign settings. In the beginning of the 20th century, there were a number of
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
Bible women in
Manchuria
Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, and
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
sharing Bible stories with women and children, as well as
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
Bible women such as
Dora Yu in Korea, engaged in educational, medical, and evangelistic work. Bible women also itinerated in villages to distribute and sell Bibles, tracts, and religious literature.
In 1913, thirty-six Bible women were employed by the
British and Foreign Bible Society
The British and Foreign Bible Society, often known in England and Wales as simply the Bible Society, is a non-denominational Christian Bible society with charity status whose purpose is to make the Bible available throughout the world.
The Soc ...
for the purpose of helping distribute scripture, and this practice continued with other
Bible societies
A Bible society is a non-profit organization, usually nondenominational in makeup, devoted to translating, publishing, and distributing the Bible at affordable prices. In recent years they also are increasingly involved in advocating its credibi ...
. Even though there were few who wished to buy the Bible, Bible women were successful in winning women for the Gospel. The Bible women were more effective in their evangelistic task than that of missionary women because they had open access to local women, girls, and children. In addition, they did not have a language barrier as most of the missionaries did have. Although Bible women focused on ministering to other women, occasionally, there were opportunities to minister to men as well.
Training
Initially, Bible women were trained by women missionaries on an individual basis. They were taught the Bible, but on occasion, they were taught nursing, writing, homemaking, and health. However, in later years, the number of Bible women increased and female training schools were opened: in China, alone, forty girls' schools were running in 1900. Bible women were trained as Bible teachers, nurses, and healthcare providers. Bible women who had a solid foundation in
biblical studies
Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Bible (the Old Testament and New Testament).''Introduction to Biblical Studies, Second Edition'' by Steve Moyise (Oct 27, 2004) pages 11–12 Fo ...
were trained to be Bible teachers.
In
Sudan
Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
, Bible women used a book entitled ''One Hundred Lessons from the Bible'' that took the student through the Bible in outlined studies that involved answering questions and memorizing verses. Following the one hundred lessons, there was a "Way of Salvation" series that was geared to bring the student to a personal commitment to Christ.
Bible women were actively involved in medical ministry too. They were taught basic medical skills by their female
medical missionaries
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
and then they worked as nurses and healthcare providers; they cared patients and shared the
Gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...
with them.
Today
Although Bible women played a major role in evangelizing their fellow women in their countries, they are largely left behind in contemporary study of Christian mission. There are not many records of Bible women today, neither of their successes nor their failures. It is because women were disregarded in their own cultures or may be they were ignored by their western male and female missionaries. Although they were the least known
evangelists
Evangelists may refer to:
* Evangelists (Christianity), Christians who specialize in evangelism
* Four Evangelists, the authors of the four Gospel accounts in the New Testament
* ''The Evangelists
''The Evangelists'' (''Evangheliştii'' in Roma ...
, Bible women played a major role in furthering the
Kingdom of God
The concept of the kingship of God appears in all Abrahamic religions, where in some cases the terms Kingdom of God and Kingdom of Heaven are also used. The notion of God's kingship goes back to the Hebrew Bible, which refers to "his kingdom" b ...
in their homelands and beyond.
See also
*
Women in Christianity
The roles of women in Christianity have varied since its founding. Women have played important roles in Christianity especially in marriage and in formal ministry positions within certain Christian denominations, and parachurch organizations. In ...
*
Zenana missions
The zenana missions were outreach programmes established in British India with the aim of converting women to Christianity. From the mid 19th century, they sent female missionaries into the homes of Indian women, including the private areas of h ...
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
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{{Use British English Oxford spelling, date=November 2017
Christian missions
World Christianity
Christianity and women