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Called By God
Avoca was three miles from Wallace, where Lulu and John Wightman had formed a
company of 14. Lulu continued devoting part of her energy to Wallace, where she
conducted Sabbath services. She felt the spirit of the Lord, and the number attending on
Sabbath increased to 42.
A Presbyterian minister who heard Lulu Wightman preach, Elder S. W. Pratt, wrote
a letter to John Wightman objecting on Biblical grounds to a woman’s being in the
pulpit. In his reply Mr. Wightman looked at the circumstances under which 1
Corinthians 14:34—the verse to which the minister alluded—was written, noting the
confusion that existed in the church at Corinth. To correct this abuse, Paul wrote particular recommendations for that time and place.
John Wightman went on to state that the Biblical essence of the male/female relationship is equality. Men and women in God’s sight are equal, each in the sphere ordained
by God. As for man’s sphere, he was given “the rulership” (1 Timothy 2:12), so that
women were not to usurp authority over men in teaching and ruling the church. John
Wightman said that he had no problem with this principle. He did not find his wife
taking authority over him or church leadership.
He then asked the minister why, considering his interpretation of 1 Corinthians
14:34, were women allowed to speak in his own Presbyterian churches? John
Wightman questioned the consistency of the attack on his wife’s preaching while the
good Presbyterian women were allowed to testify in church to the goodness and mercy
of God.
Returning to a scriptural basis for his argument, Brother Wightman called attention to
the Apostle Paul’s instructions concerning the dress of women who pray and prophesy in
public (1 Corinthians 11:5, 6, 13), evidence that women did both prophesy and pray in
meetings. He pointed out the godly ministering women mentioned by Paul in Rom. 16:115. He noted that Priscilla seems to have instructed Apollos (Acts 18:24-26), and that
Philip had four daughters who prophesied (Acts 21:9). He cited Acts 2:17, 18, where
Joel’s prophecy of the pouring out of the Spirit with no discrimination as to sex is quoted.
Obviously this matter of women in ministry was a subject to which John Wightman
had given careful study. He celebrated the conversion of men and women to Christ
through the preaching of women.
He concluded his letter by observing that at a time when ministers in the sacred
desk—men receiving up to $50,000 a year in salary—were failing to cry aloud to show
people their sins and were neglecting to point to the Lamb of God who takes away the
sins of the world as the true remedy, it seemed high time for women to begin to preach
the Word. “The fact that the Lord’s presence infuses such dedicated women with power
and might,” John Wightman declared, “may be perceived by all who are not looking
through smoked glass.” (Taken from a letter by John S. Wightman, Avoca, N.Y., to S. W.
Pratt, Campbell, N.Y., December 15, 1897.)
Although people were begging her and her husband to remain, Mrs. Wightman wrote
to the conference president requesting him to send someone to Wallace to follow up the

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