Rhonda Kelley may be married to a minister, but that doesn’t mean his quiet time counts as her quiet time, she said.
Kelley, an author, professor and the wife of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary President Chuck Kelley, challenged ministers’ wives to be “holy women” with “holy habits” during the Ministers’ Wives Luncheon on Feb. 26.
The event, which was sponsored by Alabama Woman’s Missionary Union, was held during the State Evangelism Conference at First Baptist Church, Trussville.
“This holy conduct is not something … that comes naturally to us, because all of us have sinful natures,” she said, sharing from 1 Peter 1:13–16.
If wives are to be holy, they must be committed to God and His Word, she said.
God created ministers’ wives uniquely — each with specific gifts and abilities and different experiences in life — so that “together He can use us in a special way,” Kelley said.
“I knew that when God called me to marry my husband, He called me to be a part of my husband’s life in ministry,” she said. “With the privilege of our call to ministry comes great responsibility.”
She said there is a higher standard because “we are in positions of leadership. And so much of what we say and we do is first a reflection [of] the Lord and secondly a reflection [of] our husbands and our ministry,” she said. “We are called to a higher conduct.”
For guidelines for this conduct, “we go to God’s Word” and learn how to live holy lives, Kelley said.
But reading from 2 Timothy 1:8–12, she said Scripture makes it clear that ministers and their wives are not called because of their own works.
“Our call is not something … we earn or deserve on our own,” Kelley said, adding that it is because of God’s grace that “we are called to minister alongside our husbands.”
Kelley encouraged women “to enjoy the blessing of God’s call on your own life, enjoy the blessing of God’s call on your husband’s life” and enjoy serving the Lord together and trusting in Him.
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