Mother's Day Madness!

As I feared and expected, some of you ladies were a bit ruffled after our Sunday morning Mother's Day message on the "Gift of Order", which concluded our series on The Body (the church). Although I might have come off a bit chauvinistic to some of you in expositing or explaining Paul's text from 1 Corinthians 14:33-40, I prayerfully hope that I did not needlessly offend with my words and that this blog will clarify where time on Sunday at CCC could not.

I understand this is a provocative and to some, a controversial passage of scripture, in that it steps on the toes of modern coventional wisdom, American culture, political correctness and assuredly, feminism as we know it. The issues are predominately two-fold: can women speak in church and can they or should they serve as preachers and pastors in the biblical and evangelical church? Well, rather than skip Paul's teaching there in dealing with the excesses and disturbances occuring in the Corinthian church (including tongues and prophesying) as he concluded his doctrine on the behavior of the local 'body' of Christ, we attempted to deal with the issues head on as scripture does.

To summarize, when Paul spoke to the order of the church, as God is a God of order and authority (1 Corinthians 14:40), the text tells us that women are to "keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak;...(14:34)." As I mentioned Sunday, one of the challenges we face in interpreting, explaining and preaching the Bible, is that we are somewhat handcuffed when translating the original, more nuanced and elaborate, original languages of scripture (Greek in this case) to English. Literally, 'something gets lost in the translation,' and this text is an example of that. The word "speak" here literally means to proclaim, or to speak forth, as in prophecy (heralding truth, not the predictive type) or preaching. Therefore, a better translation or understanding might be that 'they (women) are not to preach.' Again, that would be in the gender-integrated context of the local church gathering. This admonition again would not preclude a woman from speaking or questioning in a church gathering in so far, as it would not disrupt the service or usurp the pastoral authority of the preacher as was the case in Corinth with regard to revelations and tongues. Nor, would that admonition preclude a woman from exercising her prophecy and teaching gifts in discipleship and among other groups publically.

With regard to this issue and tying it into the question of woman pastors, we noted that Paul elaborated in depth as to the why of this doctrine, in 1 Timothy 2:9-15. Therein contains the timeless principle of church leadership and preaching for all times and all peoples. Refer to the message on-line or an outline we can provide for details. At the end of the day, we have to accept that not only has God given men and woman spiritual equality at the cross and from creation, but He has also given us diversity, from which should spring unity (The Body, Pt. 1) .

Ladies and gentlemen, God created us in His image, "male and female" (Gen. 1:27) with equal value and dignity. The Prophet Joel and Peter in Acts 2:17, remind us that God poured out His Holy Spirit with gifts on His "sons and daughters." Let's not forget that. Ms. Susan Hunt, a conference speaker from the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood offers five principles from the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) that offer an exhortation and encouragement to our women who want to exercise their gifts for His glory and kingdom:

1) In submission, women must follow the ecclesiastical leadership that God has given them. The women’s ministry must be submitted to the male leadership for approval, but so must every other discipleship ministry. We also see the qualifications for male headship in that women are called to submit to godly leaders not tyrants. This should be seen as a security for women, not a hindrance.
2) A vibrant women’s ministry can come alongside the diaconal ministries of the church because they are compassionate.
3) When a women’s ministry is characterized by community we see what it means to truly be the family of God. The widows in the New Testament were credentialed by a life of the ordinary stuff that makes covenant community life extraordinary.
4) Gender specific discipleship, as seen in Titus 2:3-5, is so important because we would never on our own come to an understanding of what it means to be a life-giver. Gender specific disicipleship that focuses on principles about what God says about our womanhood must be taught because women are hearing something in the culture and what they are hearing is not God’s way.
5) In 2 Timothy 3:2-17 we see that Timothy’s mother and grandmother taught him the Scriptures from infancy. Here we see the principles of the foundation and sufficiency of Scripture.

If there are core biblical principles, women’s ministry can be the church's greatest delight for men and women. If not, then it will be our worst nightmare. We'll fit this and all of us together in our new series, Basic Training, which begins Sunday.