This whole first section is how women and then Jesus were/are not here to cover up and keep on fixing the mistakes of men. Men and women have to be responsible to themselves and to others and to God for their mistakes. Both women and men have to be not only accountable for their sins, but do something – work… work hard – not to make those sinful mistakes in the first place. It seems clear from scripture that God agrees with this idea: He has given humans a mind, a mouth, a heart, arms, legs, gifts, talents, abilities – the ability to help ourselves and our neighbors… why should God continue to do all the work by himself and get all the credit? He certainly deserves it! But, no, God is so gracious and loving and giving, that he wants us to be involved in this process, too! He wants us to be accountable and he wants us to have joy! We are accountable; and we also get to share in the joy of his work:
Does God have one standard - one rule - for inside the Church, and another for out? Are women to work side by side with men on road crews, in government, at the hospital, in our homes, but then, entering the Church, must all women move back one space, and step behind men? Is there an unspoken (and even an unwritten) rule in today's theology that is being perpetuated by the Traditional Church?
In couples dancing, women are never supposed to lead. Is it this same way in the Church? Is it supposed to be? Are women supposed to “catch up” to the men and “let the man lead,” even if the men stumble and get off the rhythm? Should the women still need to adjust their stance in the Church and in life, in order to balance themselves and reorient themselves to accommodate for their men's mistakes? Properly seen/utilized, this is a wonderful thing to see because it is a credit to overlook a wrong/misstep. But to expect a woman (or a man) to automatically take the place of the subservient role - to be on call as it were - (the fix-it role to the other sex - all the time waiting, just in case the other makes a mistake - and then, fix it for them) is not the Biblical intent of overlooking another's transgression or mistake.
I think the Bible is saying that we should overlook another's single mistake when they make one every now and again. (To forgive someone’s sin over and over may imply that they are not repentant, and therefore do not need to be forgiven.) I know Jesus tells us that we need to keep forgiving others, but Paul says that we should also not go on sinning so that another’s grace must always be drawn on. If you have a dance partner that just can't make a step without stepping on your toes, you would not continue to partner with them for the time being. Instead, you would insist they stop what they were doing and do some work on their own (to shore up their own abilities) before dancing with a partner again. Should either sex be expected to always stand by, doing nothing but cleaning up after the other sex's mistakes? I don't believe that is what God wants for either of his sexes. This is not exampled by Jesus.
Jesus was not sent here just to fix all our problems and keep getting us back on track every time we fail (though he is able to do this, and is the beginnings of one of his works here that he partners with us on – but I believe Jesus eventually wants us to be able to do more and more on our own, and that is why we love him (and why men love women, because women can cover-over and help out when men stumble, but it is not a woman’s primary purpose – nor should women keep on picking men up when they stumble constantly as a parent must tend to a newborn or toddler, who always getting into things, making mistakes, stumbling, and falling. Eventually all of us need to grow up and learn not to fall down so much!)
Jesus was sent to restore all of us to everything we were originally meant to be. We, also, have this ability to renew and restore each other, to get each other and ourselves back on track, but we are ultimately responsible for continuing on our own paths to restoration as Jesus leads the way and initiates the work. I’m reminded of when my wife and I asked my father-in-law to come over and help us build our new deck. It was our house, our rules, our deck, but my father-in-law had to take the lead when he came over because we really didn’t know what we were doing. We worked with him and leaned heavily on his advice and greater life experience. Putting on deck boards is fairly straightforward, but we could never have built our deck without our father-in-law helping build the foundation for it. Without him, the whole project would never have gotten off the ground. So, too, this is our life, but we need to lean heavily on Jesus, on his advice, and greater life experience.
I believe the Bible makes it clear that Jesus wants us to become ever more self-sufficient at living our lives with the self-control, purity, and holiness that we were originally created for. (Adam and Eve didn’t need a babysitter in the Garden of Eden – maybe at first. But God walked with them – showing them the ropes while they were yet “infants” in this new life experience. God was their friend – like an uncle, a father, or a father-in-law – that spends time helping the newlyweds get acquainted with their new life and new surroundings (maybe helping them build a new deck, sharing a meal with them, showing them shortcuts and new and better ways to do some things and encouraging them all along the way) and then, when the newlyweds were more settled, would just stop over for visits because he enjoys their company so.)
We all need Jesus to help us build the foundations of our lives. Then, he can let us go – we can let go of the security of his hand and take a few steps on our own, just like a toddler learning to walk must. But by the time we’re adults… we’d better be doing more than just learning how to take those first steps. (It’s okay if we realize that we’re legitimately at that starting point at any time in our lives, but again, I believe this is only a starting point. Spending our lives staying at the starting point, always learning and relearning how to take those first steps, is not the life God has designed for us to live here.)
The Traditional Church says that we don’t have to do any work to be believers. They say that humans are garbage and Jesus is the only good. If humans have no value, then why did God bother to send Jesus – his most highly valued treasure – to die for us? We must have value! And, humans must be important to God’s plans. (There must be a reason for our great variety and a reason for the variety of all the different gifts we’ve been given.) The Traditional Church implies that humans don’t have to do any work to get and keep God’s forgiveness. The Bible verses below explain that WE DO have to work hard while God works within us. A cooperative.
“WORK HARD to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire AND THE POWER to do what pleases him.” ~Philippians 2:12b-13, NLT.
“So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the WAY YOU LIVE will always honor and please the Lord, and YOUR LIVES WILL PRODUCE every kind of good fruit. All the while, YOU WILL GROW as you learn to know God better and better.” ~Colossians 1:9-10, NLT.
“…your faith is flourishing and your love for one another is growing.” ~2 Thessalonians 1:3b. NLT.
“Listening and Doing. Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.” [All things we must be doing.] “Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls. But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must DO what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.” ~James 1:19-27. NLT.
We can't sit at home, doing nothing, waiting for God to do all the work in our hearts. “WORK HARD to enter the narrow door to God’s Kingdom, for many will try to enter but will fail.” ~Luke 13:24. Jesus is not going to throw out all your moldy food in your fridge, we have to do that. We have to become active and working - walking the path of restoration (not just standing still on the path). Jesus has laid out our path of restoration; he has written up a plan of action for us, but we need to walk it in order for those things to become alive and working in us. (And, he promises to walk with us as we walk it out!)
It’s important to understand that we’re talking about two different kinds of “working.” Our Eternal Salvation does not depend on anything we could ever do or be worthy of, because of our sinful, fallen, unholy state/condition from conception – that salvation work could only have been done and was accomplished in full by the work of Jesus… on the cross and later from the tomb. Eternal Salvation, we do nothing to earn. It is a gift to us from God because he loves us. But, Jesus does more work than just our spirit’s eternal salvation.
What about our Temporal Salvation? What about our ability to really live in this life? Far too often I have felt like I was drowning in this life; not understanding what this life was about; out of steam and out of breath, like I had the wind knocked out of me; confused, bewildered, turned around – never knowing which direction was forward and certainly not moving forward! I would absolutely love to be saved from a nonlife such as this! I want to really start living here and now (and this is something that Jesus himself says is possible and the reason why he came!
“I assure you that everyone who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or property, for my sake and for the Good News, will receive NOW in return a hundred times as many houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and property – along with persecution. And in the world to come that person will have eternal life.” ~Mark 10:29-30.
Luke records this as,
“I assure you that everyone who has given up house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, will be repaid many times over IN THIS LIFE, AND will have eternal life in the world to come.” ~Luke 18:29-30.
“I have discovered this principle of life – that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.” ~Romans 7:21-23. NLT.
“When I come up against the Law I want to do good, but in practice I do evil. My conscious mind whole-heartedly endorses the Law, yet I observe an entirely different principle at work in my nature. This is in continual conflict with my conscious attitude, and makes me an unwilling prisoner to the law of sin and death. In my mind I am God’s willing servant, but in my own nature I am bound fast, as I say, to the law of sin and death. IT IS AN AGONIZING SITUATION, and who on earth can set me free from the clutches of my sinful nature? I thank God there is a way out through Jesus Christ our Lord.” ~Romans 7:21-25, PHILLIPS.
“O wretched man that I am, etc. - This affecting account is finished more impressively by the groans of the wounded captive. Having long maintained a useless conflict against innumerable hosts and irresistible might, he is at last wounded and taken prisoner; and to render his state more miserable, is not only encompassed by the slaughtered, but chained to a dead body; for there seems to be here an allusion to an ancient custom of certain tyrants, who bound a dead body to a living man, and obliged him to carry it about, till the contagion from the putrid mass took away his life! Virgil paints this in all its horrors, in the account he gives of the tyrant Mezentius. Aeneid, lib. viii. ver. 485.
Quid memorem infandas caedes? quid facta tyranni?
Mortua quin etiam jungebat corpora Vivis,
Componens manibusque manus, atque oribus ora;
Tormenti genus! et sanie taboque fluentes
Complexu in misero, longa sic morte necabat.
What tongue can such barbarities record,
Or count the slaughters of his ruthless sword?
'Twas not enough the good, the guiltless bled,
Still worse, he bound the living to the dead:
These, limb to limb, and face to face, he joined;
O! monstrous crime, of unexampled kind!
Till choked with stench, the lingering wretches lay,
And, in the loathed embraces, died away!
Pitt.
Servius remarks, in his comment on this passage, that sanies, mortui est; tabo, viventis scilicet sanguis: "the sanies, or putrid ichor, from the dead body, produced the tabes in the blood of the living." Roasting, burning, racking, crucifying, etc., were nothing when compared to this diabolically invented punishment. We may naturally suppose that the cry of such a person would be, Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this dead body? And how well does this apply to the case of the person to whom the apostle refers! A body - a whole mass of sin and corruption, was bound to his soul with chains which he could not break; and the mortal contagion, transfused through his whole nature, was pressing him down to the bitter pains of an eternal death. He now finds that the law can afford him no deliverance; and he despairs of help from any human being; but while he is emitting his last, or almost expiring groan, the redemption by Christ Jesus is proclaimed to him; and, if the apostle refers to his own case, Ananias unexpectedly accosts him with - Brother Saul! the Lord Jesus, who appeared unto thee in the way, hath sent me unto thee, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. He sees then an open door of hope, and he immediately, though but in the prospect of this deliverance, returns God thanks for the well-grounded hope which he has of salvation, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” ~Clarke, Adam. "Commentary on Romans 7:24". "The Adam Clarke Commentary". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/acc/romans-7.html. 1832.
“but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. In my mind I want to be God’s willing servant, but instead I find myself still enslaved to sin. So you see how it is: my new life tells me to do right, but the old nature that is still inside me loves to sin. Oh, WHAT A TERRIBLE PREDICAMENT I’M IN! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? Thank God! It has been done by Jesus Christ our Lord. He has set me free.” ~TLB.
“I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?” ~MSG.
“There is no happiness in me! Who can set me free from my sinful old self?” ~NLV.
“What AN AGONIZING SITUATION I AM IN! So who has the power to rescue this miserable man from the unwelcome intruder of sin and death?” ~TPT.
“I am absolutely miserable! Is there anyone who can free me from this body where sin and death reign so supremely?” ~VOICE.
Being saved from this life sounds good to me… Where do I sign up?
Jesus also does a work in us now – he begins a good work in us in this life. (He began a good work in us that was only half accomplished by the cross and tomb.) Not unlike when Jesus could do only a few miracles there because of the people’s lack of faith (Matthew 13:58), and when Jesus grieves because the people were unwilling to accept him in Jerusalem (Luke 19:41 & Matthew 23:37), and when Jesus could not or would not interfere with the rich, young ruler’s decision not to follow him and that we’re receiving things now (Jesus working in our lives) as well as in the future (Jesus work of ensuring eternal salvation for us) (Mark 10:17-31), or when Jesus says to so many, “Go, your faith has made you well…” (Mark 5:34), these stories, and many others like them, show us that there is indeed participation and certain cooperation, which goes on, and is occurring, between us and God.
As much as some want God to be as simple as the “he does all the work and we can just sit on our backsides and do nothing and just enjoy our future salvation” approach, that also disagrees with the story of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30). God seems to be indeed furious at the idea that when he gives us something and tells us to do some work – invest what we’ve gotten from him into this world and into others – when we don’t, God gets incensed and uproots us; throwing us out into bitter and utter darkness. It not only sounds like he wants us to do the work, but he’s given us abilities and the means to do that work. The neat thing God has not given us is the instruction on exactly how to do this work. That, graciously, is left to us.
We can accomplish our work that God has given us to do in as many ways as we can imagine. What we cannot do, is just bury our work - our life - in the backyard, only to dig it up on judgment day, give it to God, and expect to get in to heaven. It seems clear that God won’t accept that from us. He will only accept us (and reward us) for doing the work he gave us to do in our lives for him (with the abilities he also gave to us to do our tasks). It also seems clear that God will not be angry even if we don’t do as much work as someone else – even if we don’t acquire/reap as much interest/profit as much, or return as much as others may from their work. I believe God loves it when we try - really try for him – and he’s not disappointed in us, or in our work, at all! (As long as we are doing something!) And God guarantees that the work that he sends out – his word, whether we speak it, write it, live it out, or it comes from him directly – will never come back empty, but always brings with it interest (Isaiah 55:11).
So, we can’t fail to bring in even the smallest of harvests in working for God, or working with God, unless we don’t do any work at all. “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually DO the will of my Father in heaven will enter.” ~Matthew 7:21, NLT. Clearly, a person has to DO SOMETHING (do the will of God) to enter heaven… humans have to do some kind of work OF their own, too. Not ON their own, but they can’t not show up at all and still expect to get in to heaven. How can you get in to the concert if you stay at home? Our work is initiated by the Spirit of God – we’re told what to do – and then we’re also helped to do this work by that same Spirit. Jesus even did all the other heavy lifting by completing the part of the work that we could never have done – the dying and rising again work – and then he designed the entire path for us to walk on ahead of time. But, that still leaves us with the partnership work (with God’s Spirit) that he has entrusted us to do – that he has assigned us to do – of walking with him on the path he laid out for us to walk; doing the work along that path of our lives that he has planned for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).
The Traditional Church believes that a human can’t and shouldn’t do anything for God, or with God, to get into heaven. But are they insinuating that humans can’t and shouldn’t be responsible for continuing to grow themselves in the meantime? God has given us the soil, the water, the seed, the sun, the pot to grow in… all we have to do is set ourselves in the light and he will even take care of making the chemical reaction that will grow us… but WE have to set ourselves in the sun and not hide ourselves away in a dark corner.
There is another interesting idea about what WE must do to be like Christ or inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. I used to believe the "you must do this's” and “you must do that's" of the Bible was a list of everything EVERYBODY was supposed to do to be saved... however, what if Jesus and others in the Bible were meaning it like this: There were a line up, or a group of people assembled, and Jesus looked over the crowd - reading their individual hearts; where they were at in their lives, diagnosing their individual strengths and weaknesses (where they were succeeding in their faith lives and where they were struggling with sin) - and began pointing at specific individuals, tailoring his message to each individual's specific weakness? ‘You… you must believe to be saved...’ (and walking a little farther through the crowd he addressed another who he knew wasn't yet baptized and might have said,) ‘And you, you must believe, AND BE BAPTIZED, to be saved… And you, over there, you must go, sell all your belongings, give the money to the poor, and come and follow me.’ And to yet another, ‘And you, you must be born again.’ (Proof that Jesus wants at least some people to be baptized.) It seems, in the Bible, like not everyone had to do all the same things to be saved, but each had their own foibles that hindered them from submitting to Christ and coming to him – for their own good and salvations. The real question to me is not what we ALL must to do be saved, but rather, what is Christ telling us to do, individually, today?
The important thing to remember, though, is that I believe Jesus is telling us to DO something. I also believe it is possible to achieve some measure of completeness in growing because it would just be cruel to tell a person to take the log out of their eye before they help another if a person could never take the log out of their own eye! And, this is yet another example from the Bible of Jesus telling us WE MUST DO something in order to love others and grow as individuals.
Baptism:
And what about baptism? Aren’t we supposed to emulate Jesus? Jesus was baptized, why shouldn’t we? And if those passages in the Bible that don’t specifically say that you have to be baptized to be saved are because they were addressed to people that were already baptized… then being baptized remains a big, necessary deal.
Women Are Not Second-Class Citizens:
The Traditional Church seems to imply that women are second-class citizens. The entire book of Ephesians seems to disagree with this idea. Again, it seems clear from the Bible that God agrees that all are equal and all are worthy to share in his inheritance equally. Not just an equal place at the banquet table in heaven, but also equal treatment and opportunity here on earth too. Woman could be, and should be, pastors, elders, deacons, teachers… - leaders. The Traditional Church seems to be implying that women are not equal to men – that they are less than men – and therefore not able to do any of these important leadership tasks… tasks that might well lend themselves in many respects to women’s unique abilities, gifts, and insights as women. I believe that women are not equal by perhaps being better than men. I think men have the potential to be a lot better, but maybe this is just the current condition of our generation or maybe the general condition of all of fallen humanity since the fall:
There is a saying, "Man was created first." Sometimes a reference part is also added, ("in the Garden of Eden"). Why is this saying said? It’s not repeated to honor women… Could it be that it’s repeated to assert men's dominance over women, possibly out of fear? To affirm men's authority, entitlement, and deservitude over women - more than women? And to imply that women were made as man's helpmate, so therefore that means that women must be men's slaves? The “Man was created first” saying is probably from 1 Timothy 2:9-15, so it’s not just a “made-up” saying – it is from the Bible after all… so we must believe it’s true. But do we understand why it was said in the first place and are we agreeing that the reason was to “pass the buck” and blame all women for the sin problem all of us now face? Isn’t that a little like African Americans of today blaming all White Americans today for enslaving their great-grandparents? (I didn’t enslave anybody. I wasn’t even alive 200 years ago!) Should anyone stereotype and blame a whole race of people forever? Eve and Adam made choices and those choices had, and continue to have, consequences. But I am guilty of my own sin – the sin I commit. I think it childish to blame Eve and all her daughters for sin I choose to commit. (It would be nice, but naive I think. Though my individual war with original sin has predisposed me to want to commit sin and continue to live in sin, I believe that the enemy would have eventually come to tempt Adam if Eve refused to sin (and come to every human since then, down the line, until he got to me, and I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t be strong enough to refuse the enemy and would have tainted every human in my line after me anyway.) In addition, I believe Eve was deceived into sinning, but Adam chose to sin. So, who is really to blame? Both. (Neither Adam nor Eve committed the sin that I have committed, so, I’m to blame, too.)
“To understand these [man was created first] verses [in 1 Tim], we must understand the situation in which Paul and Timothy worked. In the first-century Jewish culture, women were not allowed to study. When Paul said that women should ‘learn quietly and submissively,’ he was offering them an amazing new opportunity to learn God’s Word. That they were to listen and learn quietly and submissively referred to an attitude of quietness and composure (not total silence). In addition, Paul himself acknowledges that women publicly prayed and prophesied (1 Cor 11:5). Apparently, however, the women in the Ephesian church were abusing their newly acquired Christian freedom. Because these women were new converts, they did not yet have the necessary experience, knowledge, or Christian maturity to teach those who already had extensive scriptural education.” ~NLT Notes on 1 Tim 2:9-15. And look at Galatians 3:26-29, Genesis 12:3, and especially 1 Peter 3:7, “In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat you wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered.” (Here again there is evidence that men specifically have to do something in order for them to be blessed by God – in order for them to be “saved” or grow or to live rightly).
But I also see the “weaker” part in this verse describing that their wives “may” not be as experienced or schooled in theology as the men had been (because women had been excluded from learning anything about God up until now), but with study, they would soon catch up to the men’s level of education, and not be weaker anymore in comparison. It is also plausible to believe that women are just physically weaker than men – and maybe even more sensitive in other areas too – so men were charged with protecting women – keeping them safe, providing for women, helping them. And certainly making sure they were as well educated, and honored, and loved, and supported, and physically protected from the predators out there, all seamlessly fall under this purview.
So, is saying that women can’t lead in the church – that only men can lead – really more believable than saying that everyone is equal in God’s eyes, and if you want to do something, do it, keep learning more, get better at it and keep doing it? (Yes there must be a minimum of understanding/education, but this also can get tricky because who, then, decides if a woman or a young male child is “ready” to lead? (Jesus was confusing and confounding the Elders when he was only 12!) We should all be responsible, educated, loving, honoring, authorities. But, traditionally, the only “authorities” in the church have been men, (and some of them have not been very educated, loving, honoring, or responsible themselves), and if those men want to hold down women or others because of whatever reason, they could always say, “No, you’re not ready,” (therefore holding on to their power for longer.)
But what makes a man have this overconfidence? Does he misunderstand what “created first” really means, and therefore he thinks he gets the “run of the house” and the “last word” in everything and “the say” when it comes to anything he wants? Does this attitude look at the whole Creation story? Does it indeed look at the whole Biblical story? Wouldn't the whole story be that man was not created first, but rather, created 11th? (Some could also argue that man was created second to last - so at least they weren't last - but I would argue that is also the wrong way to interpret this data.) The pattern of the data of creation is ever-escalating.
First, God made elemental creations, then ever more complex ones. God set the backdrop, then the stage, then created all the props, then the supporting characters, then the main character. There is also another saying, "Save the best for last." If this is true, then quite the opposite axiom is true, women are better than men, in fact, women are best of all things God created (and need to be treated as such). When I look at the whole of Scripture, I don't see God saving the worst for last. I see a God who is ever more forgiving, and understanding, and inspiring, and hope-giving than the last time he showed up. What is supported from scripture is that women are equal to men now, because of what Jesus did. ((And, along this thought, the only thing that could be more splendiferous than a woman, would be what God created after women, (and that would be the last thing he created), his Son, Jesus.))
If the woman were made before the man, would the man then have been called the woman's helpmate? (I think it’s an important idea to stop and think about.) This is important for beginning to consider and understand the duality of both men and women being equal and helping one another equally. Men are created to help women become all they were meant to be - just as women were created to help men be all they are supposed to be – (both sexes emulating Jesus who came here as our helper and then sent his Spirit here to continue Jesus’ work of helping us be all we were meant to be). Just because woman was created after man does not by its definition mean that men are more important than women and that women are here to be subservient to men and thus lesser. In fact the opposite must be truer: Jesus views the more important one as the one who serves, and in this regard, the woman serving the man - helping him - would make her the more important one (Luke 22, Matthew 23). And, quite possibly, the reason God made women even more special or more beautiful than the man, might be to help combat this wrong notion or wrong idea that God knew sin would spring up in us - that men are better than women because men think “men came first.”
If men came first (and why that is such an entrenched opinion for men or women to hang onto maybe just shows how insidious the enemy can be and all the damage this one little crop/outlook he planted is doing), then women can equally boast that they were made better, and more special! So, brag on men, we all know who was made next (and what upgrades came on the new model)! If humanity and man were the first, then women were humanity, Version 2.0. (And very few go back to driving Ford’s Model A’s when there is so much more offered by the Thunderbird.)
“Don't you give me no Buick
Son, you must take my word
If there's a God in heaven
He's got a Silver Thunderbird
You can keep your Eldorados
And the foreign car's absurd
Me, I wanna go down
In a Silver Thunderbird.” ~Marc Cohn, Silver Thunderbird.
And now, if you think of women in this way, you can see and understand in a different light Paul's admonition to the women in the Bible that they pull back from appearing too beautiful and too resplendent - admonishing women to restrain themselves and not to flaunt their God-given attributes or use them to manipulate each other and men. The NLT notes on the passage in 1 Timothy 2:9, 10 states: “It is not unscriptural for a woman to want to be attractive. Today, however, to what degree should women take this advice about fixing their hair or wearing gold, pearls, or expensive clothes? Paul was not prohibiting these things; he was simply saying that women should not be drawing attention to themselves through these things. Modesty and decency are the key words. All women would do well to remember that beauty begins on the inside. A gentle, modest, loving character gives a light to the face that cannot be duplicated by even the best cosmetics. A carefully groomed and well-decorated exterior is artificial and cold unless inner beauty is present. The general rule for both women and men emphasized that both behavior and dress must express submission to and respect for Jesus Christ.”
We should no longer be viewing Paul as instructing women that they should be men's servants, but rather that women use their gifts more wisely and respectfully. [Maybe they were to view themselves as the weaker sex because if they thought about themselves in that way, maybe women would keep themselves in check better and wouldn't be acting so proudly because of all their great God-given attributes?] It was in the beginning that men and women were equal. It was only later in the pre-Pauline and Pauline era, that men - fearing the power of women - began to make laws against them - limiting their power by limiting their education and that is what society has been trying to overcome and undo ever since. [The Oxford Companion To The Bible ~Metzger/Googan.] (We are not yet back to equality, but we are gaining ground in recent years.) It was this limiting of education that Paul is talking about later when he tells women not to interrupt worship services by their new (yet still limited) education, but must keep their questions until before or after community worship, or get their questions answered as they continue their education and experience in Godly matters until they can start to answer their own questions themselves by searching the scriptures. Then, they would be ready to enter into Christian ministry and teaching service because they would have learned enough by then to not only answer their own questions about God by studying the scriptures, but also be able to answer other’s questions as well.
The whole idea of women being less than men (at least in the Church) seems to stem from Paul telling the Corinthians that they should reign in their women. (Again, was Paul telling the men to reign in their women or was he telling the Corinthian women to reign in themselves.) But why? We must not understand his intentions correctly here because over in Galatians 3:28 he also says: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
“The Role Of Women In The Church by Sandy Simpson, 7/03. MEN AND WOMEN ARE ONE IN CHRIST. Everyone who is in Christ is in the unity of the Spirit. There are no more divisions as in the Old Testament between nationalities, slaves and masters, male and female. All have equal access to the Christ and all are one in Christ.”
If there is no more difference between male or female, then women can be pastors and continue being prophets (which I would consider pastors) as they used to be in Bible days, and women should be able to teach men, just like men can teach men. What is the reason women can't teach men anyway? Can't they understand God like a man can? Are they not to be trusted to lead correctly and truthfully like a man can? How many times in human history has a man misled a congregation? If we should not let women lead because they may lead incorrectly, we therefore should not let men lead if they lead incorrectly, because both are equal, and men have failed miserably time and again. The fact is, both sexes are able to make mistakes and both are also able to mislead on purpose. Also, both are able to lead with integrity, knowledge, and compassion. We should judge all those instances on a case by case basis, not make blanket statements about an entire sex because of bad examples of it.
And then, are we putting all women into the same category whether they are married or single?
“The Role Of Women In The Church by Sandy Simpson, 7/03. WIVES (NOT ALL WOMEN) ARE TO KEEP SILENT IN CHURCH:
They were to keep silent in the church and not cause disorder, but to ask their husbands questions at home. The word for "women" is the same as the word for "wife".
“For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.” ~1 Cor. 14:33-35.
Let's look at the word translated as "woman".
135 gunh gune goo-nay’
Probably from the base of 1096; TDNT-1:776,134; n f
AV-women 129, wife 92; 221
1) a woman of any age, whether a virgin, or married, or a widow
2) a wife
2a) of a betrothed woman
"Gune" can be used either generally as “woman,” or specifically as "wife". In this context it is clear that it is specifically referring to married women, wives. Note that the same word "gune" is used in the following passages.
“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” ~1 Timothy 2:11-12.
Paul does not permit, but does God? We have to delineate between Paul’s preferences and hopes and precepts of God. But assuming this is a precept of God, we must also look at context. According to the definition of a “prophet” apparently God does allow women to teach in church. Let’s look at the words for “woman” and “man” in this verse also. The word for “women” is "gune" as above, either woman or wife. The word for “man” is "aner".
435 aner aner an’-ayr
a primary word cf 444; TDNT-1:360,59; n m
AV-man 156, husband 50, sir 6, fellow 1, not tr 2; 215
1) with reference to sex
1a) of a male
1b) of a husband
1c) of a betrothed or future husband
2) with reference to age, and to distinguish an adult man from a boy
3) any male
4) used generically of a group of both men and women
So “man” could be referring to men in general or specifically the husband of a wife. Let’s look at the context of the verses.
“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission.” ~v. 11 [Until they “graduate.” A professor that teaches a class of future teachers, stops teaching and starts only advising after their students graduate. (And even then, the professor should only advise them if their former students ask for their help or their old professor sees them noticeably struggling for a long time. Because the former students have proven their ability to learn, cope, struggle through, and emerge on the other side of understanding – all on their own.)]
A woman is clearly in submission to her husband and to Christ, not to other men first. Therefore this verse is talking about wives and husbands. The above verses should have been rendered "wives" and "husbands" and not "woman" and "men". Let's look further at the context to discover this fact.
“For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing— if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task. Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,” ~1 Tim. 2:13-3:2
Again the context is wives and husbands. Adam was betrothed to Eve by God. Only wives are to have children. An overseer is to have one wife. So Paul is not saying that women cannot teach men, but that wives should not be talking out of turn in church, embarrassing their husbands and showing disrespect to them. The main purpose for Paul saying that wives should be silent in the churches was that they were causing disruption and disorder in the churches, which is what Paul had addressed a number of times already.
“For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints,” ~1 Corinthians 14:33.
“But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.” ~1 Corinthians 14:40.
“For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.” ~Colossians 2:5.
“For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.” ~2 Corinthians 12:20.
In the end analysis, if a woman has the “covering” of both her husband and those in authority in the local church, then she is free to teach.” ~ Sandy Simpson
The NLT notes on the passages ask: “Does this mean that women should not speak in church services today? It is clear from 1 Corinthians 11:5 that women prayed and prophesied in public worship. It is also clear in chapters 12-14 that women are given spiritual gifts and are encouraged to exercise them in the body of Christ. Women have much to contribute and can participate in worship services. In the Corinthian culture, women were not allowed to confront men in public. Apparently some of the women who had become Christians thought that their Christian freedom gave them the right to question the men in public worship. This was causing division in the church. In addition, women of that day did not receive formal religious education as did the men. Women may have been raising questions in the worship service that could have been answered at home without disrupting the services. Paul was asking the women not to flaunt the Christian freedom during worship. The purpose of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 was to promote unity, not to teach about women’s roles in the church.”
In the notes for 1 Tim 2:2-12 it says, “Some would interpret these passages to mean that women should never teach in the assembled church; however, commentators point out that Paul did not forbid women from ever teaching. Paul’s commended co-worker, Priscilla, taught Apollos, the great preacher (Acts 18:24-26). Paul did not want the Ephesian women specifically to teach because they didn’t yet have enough knowledge or experience. The Ephesian women were especially susceptible to the false teachings (2 Tim 3:1-9) because they did not yet have enough biblical knowledge to discern the truth. In addition, some of the women were apparently flaunting their newfound Christian freedom by wearing inappropriate clothing (2:9). Paul was telling Timothy not to put anyone (in this case, women) into a position of leadership who was not yet mature in the faith (see 3:6; 5:22). The same principle applies to churches today (see note on 3:6). New believers should become secure and strong in the faith before taking leadership roles in the church. Too often, in a church desperate for workers, new believers are placed in positions of responsibility prematurely. New faith needs time to mature. New believers should have a place of service, but they should not be put into leadership positions until they are firmly grounded in their faith, with a solid Christian life-style and a knowledge of the Word of God.”
So, a woman taught a man in the Church. It’s not about keeping women down; it’s about having a smoother worship service by not interrupting it all the time with questions from newbie-Christians that could be easily answered at an earlier or later time (outside of community worship) and answered by their teachers at home (men were to be teaching their previously uneducated wives and allowing them to learn on their own instead of continuing to deny their women education of all kinds). But if women or men had more non-elementary questions, I assume they were encouraged to ask them. I have spent around 33 years studying God, the Scriptures, and the Christian culture. My wife, Erin, has learned under my tutelage for 20 of those years. This, along with her own study of the Bible, going to church, listening, and being raised in a Christian home has qualified her in my opinion to be one of the most mature people in the Faith I’ve ever met. She is approved by me, and, without a doubt in my mind, past ready to think and speak out of her own heart and knowledge of the Bible, and of God, publicly. I do not see her embarrassing me by not knowing something elementary about God; to the contrary, I find many additional truths, perspectives, and insights through the thoughts, words, and life of my wife. In fact, like her earthly father before her, I believe she could be an Elder in the church. She has a heart for people, and, like her father God, desires everyone to be saved.
“Think of it this way. If a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had. They have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set. And that’s the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world. But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman,’ [I love that inserted here is a little reminder to respect and honor women] ‘subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children [now], God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, ‘Abba, Father.’ Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God as made you his heir.” ~Galatians 4:1-7.
So, now that Jesus came and did his work, we all have access to our full inheritance now. We no longer have to wait for our guardians or those in authority over us to allow us sneak-peaks at our treasure. They have to give it to us and, their position to us – their relationship to us - changes because they are no longer in authority over us, because we are deemed worthy by God, through Jesus to run our own lives and portfolio. (We now manage what God has given us to use in our lives.) We control our destiny and all our own funds because they are all under our control now. Traditionally, those in authority in the church would like to retain their power over people, but this passage makes it clear to me that God wants us to be independent and work toward our independence and for controlling our own fortunes and using them as we see fit in gratefulness to our Father. (Sometimes guardians get so used to guarding – parents get so used to parenting – they have a hard time letting go when it’s no longer their primary job.)
Membership:
Do not have a church membership. It will only legitimize the wrong idea of “worthiness” that already exists in the Body. We’ve been church members all our lives and there were always people in the church that thought they had more right to be there than we did (because they had attended there longer than we had or held some position in the church that gave them the feeling that they were more important than the people they were supposed to be loving and teaching and supporting). That has nothing to do with the heart of a person. When we arrived at this church, we felt welcomed and got the sense that maybe the hearts of the people here were genuinely Christian and would actually care for us and one another as the Bible says we should – and there was no membership. I’m afraid that will all change if membership happens – and all that potential will go away. We are already all members of the Body of Christ. There is no need to write all our names down. A piece of paper will not force anyone to love another. We have to choose to do that with our heart. (If people won’t love one another because the Bible says to, they surely won’t do it because a church constitution says to.) I see it as redundant and ridiculous. If you want people to give offerings, make them feel loved, not guilty because they promised to by signing a slip of paper. We shouldn’t be obligated to give because we ought to, but give joyously because we are thankful!
Salvation by Election rather than by Jesus’ works:
As to the theology of the “elect”… that can be countermanded if not undone by simply quoting the verse, “God our Savior wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth.” ~1 Timothy 2:3. And, if that’s not enough, the additional verses about Jesus crying because he so often wanted the Jews to come back to God, but they were not willing (Matthew 23:37), should tell us that the Jews especially were the elect (if anyone is, they are), but because they chose not to come, Jesus then invites all the others to the wedding feast, and locks all the late-comers out (Matthew 22 & 25). “For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.” ~Galatians 3:26-29. (God’s promise to Abraham: “I will bless those that bless you and curse those that treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” ~Genesis 12:3.) And 2 Peter 3:9b, “He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.” There are plenty of things God cannot do. God cannot call an apple an orange. He cannot call a triangle a square. God cannot want everyone to be saved if he has only chosen a few to actually be saved.
Summary:
We know what love is by whether or not it honors another person. God loves people. That is why he honors them with forgiveness, grace, mercy, second, and third, and fourth chances… If you want to know if your love is real, look to see if it honors yourself or someone else. If you want to know if someone else is living by the Book, and loving in their theology, you must find them honoring in their demeanor. They must be honoring others as they live. If they are constantly putting people down, or telling everyone they are wrong all the time, that’s not honoring. We must be telling the truth in love – and doing that by honoring people, the way God does. Not allowing people to believe what they believe, and instead always trying to coerce them, does not honor them. If you have presented your view, then leave it at that – like Jesus did with the rich, young ruler (Mark 10:17). Just let them walk away if they choose to. Give them some time to think about what you’ve said. That honors them and loves them.
This is just my theology – how I see God and things in this world. You are free to believe any way you wish.
Does God have one standard - one rule - for inside the Church, and another for out? Are women to work side by side with men on road crews, in government, at the hospital, in our homes, but then, entering the Church, must all women move back one space, and step behind men? Is there an unspoken (and even an unwritten) rule in today's theology that is being perpetuated by the Traditional Church?
In couples dancing, women are never supposed to lead. Is it this same way in the Church? Is it supposed to be? Are women supposed to “catch up” to the men and “let the man lead,” even if the men stumble and get off the rhythm? Should the women still need to adjust their stance in the Church and in life, in order to balance themselves and reorient themselves to accommodate for their men's mistakes? Properly seen/utilized, this is a wonderful thing to see because it is a credit to overlook a wrong/misstep. But to expect a woman (or a man) to automatically take the place of the subservient role - to be on call as it were - (the fix-it role to the other sex - all the time waiting, just in case the other makes a mistake - and then, fix it for them) is not the Biblical intent of overlooking another's transgression or mistake.
I think the Bible is saying that we should overlook another's single mistake when they make one every now and again. (To forgive someone’s sin over and over may imply that they are not repentant, and therefore do not need to be forgiven.) I know Jesus tells us that we need to keep forgiving others, but Paul says that we should also not go on sinning so that another’s grace must always be drawn on. If you have a dance partner that just can't make a step without stepping on your toes, you would not continue to partner with them for the time being. Instead, you would insist they stop what they were doing and do some work on their own (to shore up their own abilities) before dancing with a partner again. Should either sex be expected to always stand by, doing nothing but cleaning up after the other sex's mistakes? I don't believe that is what God wants for either of his sexes. This is not exampled by Jesus.
Jesus was not sent here just to fix all our problems and keep getting us back on track every time we fail (though he is able to do this, and is the beginnings of one of his works here that he partners with us on – but I believe Jesus eventually wants us to be able to do more and more on our own, and that is why we love him (and why men love women, because women can cover-over and help out when men stumble, but it is not a woman’s primary purpose – nor should women keep on picking men up when they stumble constantly as a parent must tend to a newborn or toddler, who always getting into things, making mistakes, stumbling, and falling. Eventually all of us need to grow up and learn not to fall down so much!)
Jesus was sent to restore all of us to everything we were originally meant to be. We, also, have this ability to renew and restore each other, to get each other and ourselves back on track, but we are ultimately responsible for continuing on our own paths to restoration as Jesus leads the way and initiates the work. I’m reminded of when my wife and I asked my father-in-law to come over and help us build our new deck. It was our house, our rules, our deck, but my father-in-law had to take the lead when he came over because we really didn’t know what we were doing. We worked with him and leaned heavily on his advice and greater life experience. Putting on deck boards is fairly straightforward, but we could never have built our deck without our father-in-law helping build the foundation for it. Without him, the whole project would never have gotten off the ground. So, too, this is our life, but we need to lean heavily on Jesus, on his advice, and greater life experience.
I believe the Bible makes it clear that Jesus wants us to become ever more self-sufficient at living our lives with the self-control, purity, and holiness that we were originally created for. (Adam and Eve didn’t need a babysitter in the Garden of Eden – maybe at first. But God walked with them – showing them the ropes while they were yet “infants” in this new life experience. God was their friend – like an uncle, a father, or a father-in-law – that spends time helping the newlyweds get acquainted with their new life and new surroundings (maybe helping them build a new deck, sharing a meal with them, showing them shortcuts and new and better ways to do some things and encouraging them all along the way) and then, when the newlyweds were more settled, would just stop over for visits because he enjoys their company so.)
We all need Jesus to help us build the foundations of our lives. Then, he can let us go – we can let go of the security of his hand and take a few steps on our own, just like a toddler learning to walk must. But by the time we’re adults… we’d better be doing more than just learning how to take those first steps. (It’s okay if we realize that we’re legitimately at that starting point at any time in our lives, but again, I believe this is only a starting point. Spending our lives staying at the starting point, always learning and relearning how to take those first steps, is not the life God has designed for us to live here.)
The Traditional Church says that we don’t have to do any work to be believers. They say that humans are garbage and Jesus is the only good. If humans have no value, then why did God bother to send Jesus – his most highly valued treasure – to die for us? We must have value! And, humans must be important to God’s plans. (There must be a reason for our great variety and a reason for the variety of all the different gifts we’ve been given.) The Traditional Church implies that humans don’t have to do any work to get and keep God’s forgiveness. The Bible verses below explain that WE DO have to work hard while God works within us. A cooperative.
“WORK HARD to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire AND THE POWER to do what pleases him.” ~Philippians 2:12b-13, NLT.
“So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the WAY YOU LIVE will always honor and please the Lord, and YOUR LIVES WILL PRODUCE every kind of good fruit. All the while, YOU WILL GROW as you learn to know God better and better.” ~Colossians 1:9-10, NLT.
“…your faith is flourishing and your love for one another is growing.” ~2 Thessalonians 1:3b. NLT.
“Listening and Doing. Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.” [All things we must be doing.] “Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls. But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must DO what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.” ~James 1:19-27. NLT.
We can't sit at home, doing nothing, waiting for God to do all the work in our hearts. “WORK HARD to enter the narrow door to God’s Kingdom, for many will try to enter but will fail.” ~Luke 13:24. Jesus is not going to throw out all your moldy food in your fridge, we have to do that. We have to become active and working - walking the path of restoration (not just standing still on the path). Jesus has laid out our path of restoration; he has written up a plan of action for us, but we need to walk it in order for those things to become alive and working in us. (And, he promises to walk with us as we walk it out!)
It’s important to understand that we’re talking about two different kinds of “working.” Our Eternal Salvation does not depend on anything we could ever do or be worthy of, because of our sinful, fallen, unholy state/condition from conception – that salvation work could only have been done and was accomplished in full by the work of Jesus… on the cross and later from the tomb. Eternal Salvation, we do nothing to earn. It is a gift to us from God because he loves us. But, Jesus does more work than just our spirit’s eternal salvation.
What about our Temporal Salvation? What about our ability to really live in this life? Far too often I have felt like I was drowning in this life; not understanding what this life was about; out of steam and out of breath, like I had the wind knocked out of me; confused, bewildered, turned around – never knowing which direction was forward and certainly not moving forward! I would absolutely love to be saved from a nonlife such as this! I want to really start living here and now (and this is something that Jesus himself says is possible and the reason why he came!
“I assure you that everyone who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or property, for my sake and for the Good News, will receive NOW in return a hundred times as many houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and property – along with persecution. And in the world to come that person will have eternal life.” ~Mark 10:29-30.
Luke records this as,
“I assure you that everyone who has given up house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, will be repaid many times over IN THIS LIFE, AND will have eternal life in the world to come.” ~Luke 18:29-30.
“I have discovered this principle of life – that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.” ~Romans 7:21-23. NLT.
“When I come up against the Law I want to do good, but in practice I do evil. My conscious mind whole-heartedly endorses the Law, yet I observe an entirely different principle at work in my nature. This is in continual conflict with my conscious attitude, and makes me an unwilling prisoner to the law of sin and death. In my mind I am God’s willing servant, but in my own nature I am bound fast, as I say, to the law of sin and death. IT IS AN AGONIZING SITUATION, and who on earth can set me free from the clutches of my sinful nature? I thank God there is a way out through Jesus Christ our Lord.” ~Romans 7:21-25, PHILLIPS.
“O wretched man that I am, etc. - This affecting account is finished more impressively by the groans of the wounded captive. Having long maintained a useless conflict against innumerable hosts and irresistible might, he is at last wounded and taken prisoner; and to render his state more miserable, is not only encompassed by the slaughtered, but chained to a dead body; for there seems to be here an allusion to an ancient custom of certain tyrants, who bound a dead body to a living man, and obliged him to carry it about, till the contagion from the putrid mass took away his life! Virgil paints this in all its horrors, in the account he gives of the tyrant Mezentius. Aeneid, lib. viii. ver. 485.
Quid memorem infandas caedes? quid facta tyranni?
Mortua quin etiam jungebat corpora Vivis,
Componens manibusque manus, atque oribus ora;
Tormenti genus! et sanie taboque fluentes
Complexu in misero, longa sic morte necabat.
What tongue can such barbarities record,
Or count the slaughters of his ruthless sword?
'Twas not enough the good, the guiltless bled,
Still worse, he bound the living to the dead:
These, limb to limb, and face to face, he joined;
O! monstrous crime, of unexampled kind!
Till choked with stench, the lingering wretches lay,
And, in the loathed embraces, died away!
Pitt.
Servius remarks, in his comment on this passage, that sanies, mortui est; tabo, viventis scilicet sanguis: "the sanies, or putrid ichor, from the dead body, produced the tabes in the blood of the living." Roasting, burning, racking, crucifying, etc., were nothing when compared to this diabolically invented punishment. We may naturally suppose that the cry of such a person would be, Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this dead body? And how well does this apply to the case of the person to whom the apostle refers! A body - a whole mass of sin and corruption, was bound to his soul with chains which he could not break; and the mortal contagion, transfused through his whole nature, was pressing him down to the bitter pains of an eternal death. He now finds that the law can afford him no deliverance; and he despairs of help from any human being; but while he is emitting his last, or almost expiring groan, the redemption by Christ Jesus is proclaimed to him; and, if the apostle refers to his own case, Ananias unexpectedly accosts him with - Brother Saul! the Lord Jesus, who appeared unto thee in the way, hath sent me unto thee, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. He sees then an open door of hope, and he immediately, though but in the prospect of this deliverance, returns God thanks for the well-grounded hope which he has of salvation, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” ~Clarke, Adam. "Commentary on Romans 7:24". "The Adam Clarke Commentary". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/acc/romans-7.html. 1832.
“but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. In my mind I want to be God’s willing servant, but instead I find myself still enslaved to sin. So you see how it is: my new life tells me to do right, but the old nature that is still inside me loves to sin. Oh, WHAT A TERRIBLE PREDICAMENT I’M IN! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? Thank God! It has been done by Jesus Christ our Lord. He has set me free.” ~TLB.
“I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?” ~MSG.
“There is no happiness in me! Who can set me free from my sinful old self?” ~NLV.
“What AN AGONIZING SITUATION I AM IN! So who has the power to rescue this miserable man from the unwelcome intruder of sin and death?” ~TPT.
“I am absolutely miserable! Is there anyone who can free me from this body where sin and death reign so supremely?” ~VOICE.
Being saved from this life sounds good to me… Where do I sign up?
Jesus also does a work in us now – he begins a good work in us in this life. (He began a good work in us that was only half accomplished by the cross and tomb.) Not unlike when Jesus could do only a few miracles there because of the people’s lack of faith (Matthew 13:58), and when Jesus grieves because the people were unwilling to accept him in Jerusalem (Luke 19:41 & Matthew 23:37), and when Jesus could not or would not interfere with the rich, young ruler’s decision not to follow him and that we’re receiving things now (Jesus working in our lives) as well as in the future (Jesus work of ensuring eternal salvation for us) (Mark 10:17-31), or when Jesus says to so many, “Go, your faith has made you well…” (Mark 5:34), these stories, and many others like them, show us that there is indeed participation and certain cooperation, which goes on, and is occurring, between us and God.
As much as some want God to be as simple as the “he does all the work and we can just sit on our backsides and do nothing and just enjoy our future salvation” approach, that also disagrees with the story of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30). God seems to be indeed furious at the idea that when he gives us something and tells us to do some work – invest what we’ve gotten from him into this world and into others – when we don’t, God gets incensed and uproots us; throwing us out into bitter and utter darkness. It not only sounds like he wants us to do the work, but he’s given us abilities and the means to do that work. The neat thing God has not given us is the instruction on exactly how to do this work. That, graciously, is left to us.
We can accomplish our work that God has given us to do in as many ways as we can imagine. What we cannot do, is just bury our work - our life - in the backyard, only to dig it up on judgment day, give it to God, and expect to get in to heaven. It seems clear that God won’t accept that from us. He will only accept us (and reward us) for doing the work he gave us to do in our lives for him (with the abilities he also gave to us to do our tasks). It also seems clear that God will not be angry even if we don’t do as much work as someone else – even if we don’t acquire/reap as much interest/profit as much, or return as much as others may from their work. I believe God loves it when we try - really try for him – and he’s not disappointed in us, or in our work, at all! (As long as we are doing something!) And God guarantees that the work that he sends out – his word, whether we speak it, write it, live it out, or it comes from him directly – will never come back empty, but always brings with it interest (Isaiah 55:11).
So, we can’t fail to bring in even the smallest of harvests in working for God, or working with God, unless we don’t do any work at all. “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually DO the will of my Father in heaven will enter.” ~Matthew 7:21, NLT. Clearly, a person has to DO SOMETHING (do the will of God) to enter heaven… humans have to do some kind of work OF their own, too. Not ON their own, but they can’t not show up at all and still expect to get in to heaven. How can you get in to the concert if you stay at home? Our work is initiated by the Spirit of God – we’re told what to do – and then we’re also helped to do this work by that same Spirit. Jesus even did all the other heavy lifting by completing the part of the work that we could never have done – the dying and rising again work – and then he designed the entire path for us to walk on ahead of time. But, that still leaves us with the partnership work (with God’s Spirit) that he has entrusted us to do – that he has assigned us to do – of walking with him on the path he laid out for us to walk; doing the work along that path of our lives that he has planned for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).
The Traditional Church believes that a human can’t and shouldn’t do anything for God, or with God, to get into heaven. But are they insinuating that humans can’t and shouldn’t be responsible for continuing to grow themselves in the meantime? God has given us the soil, the water, the seed, the sun, the pot to grow in… all we have to do is set ourselves in the light and he will even take care of making the chemical reaction that will grow us… but WE have to set ourselves in the sun and not hide ourselves away in a dark corner.
There is another interesting idea about what WE must do to be like Christ or inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. I used to believe the "you must do this's” and “you must do that's" of the Bible was a list of everything EVERYBODY was supposed to do to be saved... however, what if Jesus and others in the Bible were meaning it like this: There were a line up, or a group of people assembled, and Jesus looked over the crowd - reading their individual hearts; where they were at in their lives, diagnosing their individual strengths and weaknesses (where they were succeeding in their faith lives and where they were struggling with sin) - and began pointing at specific individuals, tailoring his message to each individual's specific weakness? ‘You… you must believe to be saved...’ (and walking a little farther through the crowd he addressed another who he knew wasn't yet baptized and might have said,) ‘And you, you must believe, AND BE BAPTIZED, to be saved… And you, over there, you must go, sell all your belongings, give the money to the poor, and come and follow me.’ And to yet another, ‘And you, you must be born again.’ (Proof that Jesus wants at least some people to be baptized.) It seems, in the Bible, like not everyone had to do all the same things to be saved, but each had their own foibles that hindered them from submitting to Christ and coming to him – for their own good and salvations. The real question to me is not what we ALL must to do be saved, but rather, what is Christ telling us to do, individually, today?
The important thing to remember, though, is that I believe Jesus is telling us to DO something. I also believe it is possible to achieve some measure of completeness in growing because it would just be cruel to tell a person to take the log out of their eye before they help another if a person could never take the log out of their own eye! And, this is yet another example from the Bible of Jesus telling us WE MUST DO something in order to love others and grow as individuals.
Baptism:
And what about baptism? Aren’t we supposed to emulate Jesus? Jesus was baptized, why shouldn’t we? And if those passages in the Bible that don’t specifically say that you have to be baptized to be saved are because they were addressed to people that were already baptized… then being baptized remains a big, necessary deal.
Women Are Not Second-Class Citizens:
The Traditional Church seems to imply that women are second-class citizens. The entire book of Ephesians seems to disagree with this idea. Again, it seems clear from the Bible that God agrees that all are equal and all are worthy to share in his inheritance equally. Not just an equal place at the banquet table in heaven, but also equal treatment and opportunity here on earth too. Woman could be, and should be, pastors, elders, deacons, teachers… - leaders. The Traditional Church seems to be implying that women are not equal to men – that they are less than men – and therefore not able to do any of these important leadership tasks… tasks that might well lend themselves in many respects to women’s unique abilities, gifts, and insights as women. I believe that women are not equal by perhaps being better than men. I think men have the potential to be a lot better, but maybe this is just the current condition of our generation or maybe the general condition of all of fallen humanity since the fall:
There is a saying, "Man was created first." Sometimes a reference part is also added, ("in the Garden of Eden"). Why is this saying said? It’s not repeated to honor women… Could it be that it’s repeated to assert men's dominance over women, possibly out of fear? To affirm men's authority, entitlement, and deservitude over women - more than women? And to imply that women were made as man's helpmate, so therefore that means that women must be men's slaves? The “Man was created first” saying is probably from 1 Timothy 2:9-15, so it’s not just a “made-up” saying – it is from the Bible after all… so we must believe it’s true. But do we understand why it was said in the first place and are we agreeing that the reason was to “pass the buck” and blame all women for the sin problem all of us now face? Isn’t that a little like African Americans of today blaming all White Americans today for enslaving their great-grandparents? (I didn’t enslave anybody. I wasn’t even alive 200 years ago!) Should anyone stereotype and blame a whole race of people forever? Eve and Adam made choices and those choices had, and continue to have, consequences. But I am guilty of my own sin – the sin I commit. I think it childish to blame Eve and all her daughters for sin I choose to commit. (It would be nice, but naive I think. Though my individual war with original sin has predisposed me to want to commit sin and continue to live in sin, I believe that the enemy would have eventually come to tempt Adam if Eve refused to sin (and come to every human since then, down the line, until he got to me, and I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t be strong enough to refuse the enemy and would have tainted every human in my line after me anyway.) In addition, I believe Eve was deceived into sinning, but Adam chose to sin. So, who is really to blame? Both. (Neither Adam nor Eve committed the sin that I have committed, so, I’m to blame, too.)
“To understand these [man was created first] verses [in 1 Tim], we must understand the situation in which Paul and Timothy worked. In the first-century Jewish culture, women were not allowed to study. When Paul said that women should ‘learn quietly and submissively,’ he was offering them an amazing new opportunity to learn God’s Word. That they were to listen and learn quietly and submissively referred to an attitude of quietness and composure (not total silence). In addition, Paul himself acknowledges that women publicly prayed and prophesied (1 Cor 11:5). Apparently, however, the women in the Ephesian church were abusing their newly acquired Christian freedom. Because these women were new converts, they did not yet have the necessary experience, knowledge, or Christian maturity to teach those who already had extensive scriptural education.” ~NLT Notes on 1 Tim 2:9-15. And look at Galatians 3:26-29, Genesis 12:3, and especially 1 Peter 3:7, “In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat you wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered.” (Here again there is evidence that men specifically have to do something in order for them to be blessed by God – in order for them to be “saved” or grow or to live rightly).
But I also see the “weaker” part in this verse describing that their wives “may” not be as experienced or schooled in theology as the men had been (because women had been excluded from learning anything about God up until now), but with study, they would soon catch up to the men’s level of education, and not be weaker anymore in comparison. It is also plausible to believe that women are just physically weaker than men – and maybe even more sensitive in other areas too – so men were charged with protecting women – keeping them safe, providing for women, helping them. And certainly making sure they were as well educated, and honored, and loved, and supported, and physically protected from the predators out there, all seamlessly fall under this purview.
So, is saying that women can’t lead in the church – that only men can lead – really more believable than saying that everyone is equal in God’s eyes, and if you want to do something, do it, keep learning more, get better at it and keep doing it? (Yes there must be a minimum of understanding/education, but this also can get tricky because who, then, decides if a woman or a young male child is “ready” to lead? (Jesus was confusing and confounding the Elders when he was only 12!) We should all be responsible, educated, loving, honoring, authorities. But, traditionally, the only “authorities” in the church have been men, (and some of them have not been very educated, loving, honoring, or responsible themselves), and if those men want to hold down women or others because of whatever reason, they could always say, “No, you’re not ready,” (therefore holding on to their power for longer.)
But what makes a man have this overconfidence? Does he misunderstand what “created first” really means, and therefore he thinks he gets the “run of the house” and the “last word” in everything and “the say” when it comes to anything he wants? Does this attitude look at the whole Creation story? Does it indeed look at the whole Biblical story? Wouldn't the whole story be that man was not created first, but rather, created 11th? (Some could also argue that man was created second to last - so at least they weren't last - but I would argue that is also the wrong way to interpret this data.) The pattern of the data of creation is ever-escalating.
First, God made elemental creations, then ever more complex ones. God set the backdrop, then the stage, then created all the props, then the supporting characters, then the main character. There is also another saying, "Save the best for last." If this is true, then quite the opposite axiom is true, women are better than men, in fact, women are best of all things God created (and need to be treated as such). When I look at the whole of Scripture, I don't see God saving the worst for last. I see a God who is ever more forgiving, and understanding, and inspiring, and hope-giving than the last time he showed up. What is supported from scripture is that women are equal to men now, because of what Jesus did. ((And, along this thought, the only thing that could be more splendiferous than a woman, would be what God created after women, (and that would be the last thing he created), his Son, Jesus.))
If the woman were made before the man, would the man then have been called the woman's helpmate? (I think it’s an important idea to stop and think about.) This is important for beginning to consider and understand the duality of both men and women being equal and helping one another equally. Men are created to help women become all they were meant to be - just as women were created to help men be all they are supposed to be – (both sexes emulating Jesus who came here as our helper and then sent his Spirit here to continue Jesus’ work of helping us be all we were meant to be). Just because woman was created after man does not by its definition mean that men are more important than women and that women are here to be subservient to men and thus lesser. In fact the opposite must be truer: Jesus views the more important one as the one who serves, and in this regard, the woman serving the man - helping him - would make her the more important one (Luke 22, Matthew 23). And, quite possibly, the reason God made women even more special or more beautiful than the man, might be to help combat this wrong notion or wrong idea that God knew sin would spring up in us - that men are better than women because men think “men came first.”
If men came first (and why that is such an entrenched opinion for men or women to hang onto maybe just shows how insidious the enemy can be and all the damage this one little crop/outlook he planted is doing), then women can equally boast that they were made better, and more special! So, brag on men, we all know who was made next (and what upgrades came on the new model)! If humanity and man were the first, then women were humanity, Version 2.0. (And very few go back to driving Ford’s Model A’s when there is so much more offered by the Thunderbird.)
“Don't you give me no Buick
Son, you must take my word
If there's a God in heaven
He's got a Silver Thunderbird
You can keep your Eldorados
And the foreign car's absurd
Me, I wanna go down
In a Silver Thunderbird.” ~Marc Cohn, Silver Thunderbird.
And now, if you think of women in this way, you can see and understand in a different light Paul's admonition to the women in the Bible that they pull back from appearing too beautiful and too resplendent - admonishing women to restrain themselves and not to flaunt their God-given attributes or use them to manipulate each other and men. The NLT notes on the passage in 1 Timothy 2:9, 10 states: “It is not unscriptural for a woman to want to be attractive. Today, however, to what degree should women take this advice about fixing their hair or wearing gold, pearls, or expensive clothes? Paul was not prohibiting these things; he was simply saying that women should not be drawing attention to themselves through these things. Modesty and decency are the key words. All women would do well to remember that beauty begins on the inside. A gentle, modest, loving character gives a light to the face that cannot be duplicated by even the best cosmetics. A carefully groomed and well-decorated exterior is artificial and cold unless inner beauty is present. The general rule for both women and men emphasized that both behavior and dress must express submission to and respect for Jesus Christ.”
We should no longer be viewing Paul as instructing women that they should be men's servants, but rather that women use their gifts more wisely and respectfully. [Maybe they were to view themselves as the weaker sex because if they thought about themselves in that way, maybe women would keep themselves in check better and wouldn't be acting so proudly because of all their great God-given attributes?] It was in the beginning that men and women were equal. It was only later in the pre-Pauline and Pauline era, that men - fearing the power of women - began to make laws against them - limiting their power by limiting their education and that is what society has been trying to overcome and undo ever since. [The Oxford Companion To The Bible ~Metzger/Googan.] (We are not yet back to equality, but we are gaining ground in recent years.) It was this limiting of education that Paul is talking about later when he tells women not to interrupt worship services by their new (yet still limited) education, but must keep their questions until before or after community worship, or get their questions answered as they continue their education and experience in Godly matters until they can start to answer their own questions themselves by searching the scriptures. Then, they would be ready to enter into Christian ministry and teaching service because they would have learned enough by then to not only answer their own questions about God by studying the scriptures, but also be able to answer other’s questions as well.
The whole idea of women being less than men (at least in the Church) seems to stem from Paul telling the Corinthians that they should reign in their women. (Again, was Paul telling the men to reign in their women or was he telling the Corinthian women to reign in themselves.) But why? We must not understand his intentions correctly here because over in Galatians 3:28 he also says: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
“The Role Of Women In The Church by Sandy Simpson, 7/03. MEN AND WOMEN ARE ONE IN CHRIST. Everyone who is in Christ is in the unity of the Spirit. There are no more divisions as in the Old Testament between nationalities, slaves and masters, male and female. All have equal access to the Christ and all are one in Christ.”
If there is no more difference between male or female, then women can be pastors and continue being prophets (which I would consider pastors) as they used to be in Bible days, and women should be able to teach men, just like men can teach men. What is the reason women can't teach men anyway? Can't they understand God like a man can? Are they not to be trusted to lead correctly and truthfully like a man can? How many times in human history has a man misled a congregation? If we should not let women lead because they may lead incorrectly, we therefore should not let men lead if they lead incorrectly, because both are equal, and men have failed miserably time and again. The fact is, both sexes are able to make mistakes and both are also able to mislead on purpose. Also, both are able to lead with integrity, knowledge, and compassion. We should judge all those instances on a case by case basis, not make blanket statements about an entire sex because of bad examples of it.
And then, are we putting all women into the same category whether they are married or single?
“The Role Of Women In The Church by Sandy Simpson, 7/03. WIVES (NOT ALL WOMEN) ARE TO KEEP SILENT IN CHURCH:
They were to keep silent in the church and not cause disorder, but to ask their husbands questions at home. The word for "women" is the same as the word for "wife".
“For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.” ~1 Cor. 14:33-35.
Let's look at the word translated as "woman".
135 gunh gune goo-nay’
Probably from the base of 1096; TDNT-1:776,134; n f
AV-women 129, wife 92; 221
1) a woman of any age, whether a virgin, or married, or a widow
2) a wife
2a) of a betrothed woman
"Gune" can be used either generally as “woman,” or specifically as "wife". In this context it is clear that it is specifically referring to married women, wives. Note that the same word "gune" is used in the following passages.
“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” ~1 Timothy 2:11-12.
Paul does not permit, but does God? We have to delineate between Paul’s preferences and hopes and precepts of God. But assuming this is a precept of God, we must also look at context. According to the definition of a “prophet” apparently God does allow women to teach in church. Let’s look at the words for “woman” and “man” in this verse also. The word for “women” is "gune" as above, either woman or wife. The word for “man” is "aner".
435 aner aner an’-ayr
a primary word cf 444; TDNT-1:360,59; n m
AV-man 156, husband 50, sir 6, fellow 1, not tr 2; 215
1) with reference to sex
1a) of a male
1b) of a husband
1c) of a betrothed or future husband
2) with reference to age, and to distinguish an adult man from a boy
3) any male
4) used generically of a group of both men and women
So “man” could be referring to men in general or specifically the husband of a wife. Let’s look at the context of the verses.
“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission.” ~v. 11 [Until they “graduate.” A professor that teaches a class of future teachers, stops teaching and starts only advising after their students graduate. (And even then, the professor should only advise them if their former students ask for their help or their old professor sees them noticeably struggling for a long time. Because the former students have proven their ability to learn, cope, struggle through, and emerge on the other side of understanding – all on their own.)]
A woman is clearly in submission to her husband and to Christ, not to other men first. Therefore this verse is talking about wives and husbands. The above verses should have been rendered "wives" and "husbands" and not "woman" and "men". Let's look further at the context to discover this fact.
“For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing— if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task. Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,” ~1 Tim. 2:13-3:2
Again the context is wives and husbands. Adam was betrothed to Eve by God. Only wives are to have children. An overseer is to have one wife. So Paul is not saying that women cannot teach men, but that wives should not be talking out of turn in church, embarrassing their husbands and showing disrespect to them. The main purpose for Paul saying that wives should be silent in the churches was that they were causing disruption and disorder in the churches, which is what Paul had addressed a number of times already.
“For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints,” ~1 Corinthians 14:33.
“But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.” ~1 Corinthians 14:40.
“For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.” ~Colossians 2:5.
“For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.” ~2 Corinthians 12:20.
In the end analysis, if a woman has the “covering” of both her husband and those in authority in the local church, then she is free to teach.” ~ Sandy Simpson
The NLT notes on the passages ask: “Does this mean that women should not speak in church services today? It is clear from 1 Corinthians 11:5 that women prayed and prophesied in public worship. It is also clear in chapters 12-14 that women are given spiritual gifts and are encouraged to exercise them in the body of Christ. Women have much to contribute and can participate in worship services. In the Corinthian culture, women were not allowed to confront men in public. Apparently some of the women who had become Christians thought that their Christian freedom gave them the right to question the men in public worship. This was causing division in the church. In addition, women of that day did not receive formal religious education as did the men. Women may have been raising questions in the worship service that could have been answered at home without disrupting the services. Paul was asking the women not to flaunt the Christian freedom during worship. The purpose of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 was to promote unity, not to teach about women’s roles in the church.”
In the notes for 1 Tim 2:2-12 it says, “Some would interpret these passages to mean that women should never teach in the assembled church; however, commentators point out that Paul did not forbid women from ever teaching. Paul’s commended co-worker, Priscilla, taught Apollos, the great preacher (Acts 18:24-26). Paul did not want the Ephesian women specifically to teach because they didn’t yet have enough knowledge or experience. The Ephesian women were especially susceptible to the false teachings (2 Tim 3:1-9) because they did not yet have enough biblical knowledge to discern the truth. In addition, some of the women were apparently flaunting their newfound Christian freedom by wearing inappropriate clothing (2:9). Paul was telling Timothy not to put anyone (in this case, women) into a position of leadership who was not yet mature in the faith (see 3:6; 5:22). The same principle applies to churches today (see note on 3:6). New believers should become secure and strong in the faith before taking leadership roles in the church. Too often, in a church desperate for workers, new believers are placed in positions of responsibility prematurely. New faith needs time to mature. New believers should have a place of service, but they should not be put into leadership positions until they are firmly grounded in their faith, with a solid Christian life-style and a knowledge of the Word of God.”
So, a woman taught a man in the Church. It’s not about keeping women down; it’s about having a smoother worship service by not interrupting it all the time with questions from newbie-Christians that could be easily answered at an earlier or later time (outside of community worship) and answered by their teachers at home (men were to be teaching their previously uneducated wives and allowing them to learn on their own instead of continuing to deny their women education of all kinds). But if women or men had more non-elementary questions, I assume they were encouraged to ask them. I have spent around 33 years studying God, the Scriptures, and the Christian culture. My wife, Erin, has learned under my tutelage for 20 of those years. This, along with her own study of the Bible, going to church, listening, and being raised in a Christian home has qualified her in my opinion to be one of the most mature people in the Faith I’ve ever met. She is approved by me, and, without a doubt in my mind, past ready to think and speak out of her own heart and knowledge of the Bible, and of God, publicly. I do not see her embarrassing me by not knowing something elementary about God; to the contrary, I find many additional truths, perspectives, and insights through the thoughts, words, and life of my wife. In fact, like her earthly father before her, I believe she could be an Elder in the church. She has a heart for people, and, like her father God, desires everyone to be saved.
“Think of it this way. If a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had. They have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set. And that’s the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world. But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman,’ [I love that inserted here is a little reminder to respect and honor women] ‘subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children [now], God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, ‘Abba, Father.’ Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God as made you his heir.” ~Galatians 4:1-7.
So, now that Jesus came and did his work, we all have access to our full inheritance now. We no longer have to wait for our guardians or those in authority over us to allow us sneak-peaks at our treasure. They have to give it to us and, their position to us – their relationship to us - changes because they are no longer in authority over us, because we are deemed worthy by God, through Jesus to run our own lives and portfolio. (We now manage what God has given us to use in our lives.) We control our destiny and all our own funds because they are all under our control now. Traditionally, those in authority in the church would like to retain their power over people, but this passage makes it clear to me that God wants us to be independent and work toward our independence and for controlling our own fortunes and using them as we see fit in gratefulness to our Father. (Sometimes guardians get so used to guarding – parents get so used to parenting – they have a hard time letting go when it’s no longer their primary job.)
Membership:
Do not have a church membership. It will only legitimize the wrong idea of “worthiness” that already exists in the Body. We’ve been church members all our lives and there were always people in the church that thought they had more right to be there than we did (because they had attended there longer than we had or held some position in the church that gave them the feeling that they were more important than the people they were supposed to be loving and teaching and supporting). That has nothing to do with the heart of a person. When we arrived at this church, we felt welcomed and got the sense that maybe the hearts of the people here were genuinely Christian and would actually care for us and one another as the Bible says we should – and there was no membership. I’m afraid that will all change if membership happens – and all that potential will go away. We are already all members of the Body of Christ. There is no need to write all our names down. A piece of paper will not force anyone to love another. We have to choose to do that with our heart. (If people won’t love one another because the Bible says to, they surely won’t do it because a church constitution says to.) I see it as redundant and ridiculous. If you want people to give offerings, make them feel loved, not guilty because they promised to by signing a slip of paper. We shouldn’t be obligated to give because we ought to, but give joyously because we are thankful!
Salvation by Election rather than by Jesus’ works:
As to the theology of the “elect”… that can be countermanded if not undone by simply quoting the verse, “God our Savior wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth.” ~1 Timothy 2:3. And, if that’s not enough, the additional verses about Jesus crying because he so often wanted the Jews to come back to God, but they were not willing (Matthew 23:37), should tell us that the Jews especially were the elect (if anyone is, they are), but because they chose not to come, Jesus then invites all the others to the wedding feast, and locks all the late-comers out (Matthew 22 & 25). “For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.” ~Galatians 3:26-29. (God’s promise to Abraham: “I will bless those that bless you and curse those that treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” ~Genesis 12:3.) And 2 Peter 3:9b, “He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.” There are plenty of things God cannot do. God cannot call an apple an orange. He cannot call a triangle a square. God cannot want everyone to be saved if he has only chosen a few to actually be saved.
Summary:
We know what love is by whether or not it honors another person. God loves people. That is why he honors them with forgiveness, grace, mercy, second, and third, and fourth chances… If you want to know if your love is real, look to see if it honors yourself or someone else. If you want to know if someone else is living by the Book, and loving in their theology, you must find them honoring in their demeanor. They must be honoring others as they live. If they are constantly putting people down, or telling everyone they are wrong all the time, that’s not honoring. We must be telling the truth in love – and doing that by honoring people, the way God does. Not allowing people to believe what they believe, and instead always trying to coerce them, does not honor them. If you have presented your view, then leave it at that – like Jesus did with the rich, young ruler (Mark 10:17). Just let them walk away if they choose to. Give them some time to think about what you’ve said. That honors them and loves them.
This is just my theology – how I see God and things in this world. You are free to believe any way you wish.
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