Can Your Wife Preach?

After being a missions minor, going to our mission agency’s candidate school, and talking to other missionaries, I knew the importance of needing to know the language of the country in which I would minister. I also knew the importance of my wife needing to work on learning the language to function in society and feel at home. While on deputation, I had the joy of being in a church where the pastor and assistant pastor were both former foreign missionaries. I sponged up as much as I could from them as they imparted to me wisdom from things they did right and things they wish they had done differently.

While talking with them both privately, they told me something I had not heard before. They said, “Make sure your wife knows the language well enough to preach.” While I had been taught that my wife needs to know the language, I realized for the first time the degree of knowing the language that my wife would need to reach and my responsibility to make sure it would happen. These two men of God in no way support women pastors or preachers, but they were getting across the point that a missionary wife needs to know the language as well as the husband.

One of these men conveyed to me a time when he went with his wife to visit a missionary couple. Being a country that spoke the same language that they had previously learned as missionaries, they were both able to minister to the people in their language. While visiting, this pastor’s wife asked one of the national’s if she could hold her baby. The national woman responded with a look of pleasant surprise. This pastor’s wife had used the colloquial term for holding a baby, which many foreigners fail to use. This pastor’s wife had gone beyond the level of knowing the language for just shopping and basic necessities.

These two former missionaries shared how limited one’s ministry will be without BOTH the husband and wife knowing the language “well enough to preach.” There is a vast difference between knowing how to buy three kilograms of potatoes from the market and knowing how to exposit Proverbs 31 to a group of national women in their own language. Women can minister to women in ways only a woman can. The husband is limited in one-on-one discipleship and such, whereas his wife is not. If the wife knows the language, she can disciple other women, share the Gospel, speak heart-to-heart with the ladies, and truly feel a part of the ministry and life in the country God has called her to live.

Is this a real problem among missionaries today? Not even addressing the problem with American missionary men failing to learn the language of the people they are seeking to reach, I believe it is. I am in no way blaming the missionary wives. On the contrary, I believe the greatest hindrance to the wife learning the language is the husband. There are other factors that hinder a missionary wife from learning the language thoroughly, such as having small children, lacking motivation, age, etc. Ultimately, though, it is the husbands responsibility to lead his wife to learn the language.

How can a husband help in getting his wife to the point of knowing the language “well enough to preach”? Help with housework. Watch the children so that your wife can get out and practice the language. Make sure she has actual language lessons. Speak in the language to each other. Pray for her to learn the language. Chances are, the husband will have more opportunity to practice the language and advance more quickly than the wife. To make up for this, extra language lessons specifically for the wife may help.

So where does your wife stand in knowing the language? Does she know it well enough to teach and disciple the women? Do the nationals know how much she cares by her effort to learn the language? Husbands, be careful not to leave your wife in the dust in learning the language. Do what is necessary to bring your wife to speaking the language fluently. It may take a couple years, but keep your wife on track to reach that goal. In the years to come, if the Lord tarries, you will not regret the investment you will have made.

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