Question: The Role of Women in the Church

I received a question regarding the role of women in the church. I will start by trying to briefly state the question: In Romans 16:1, 2 & 7, there is mention of Phoebe and Junia as servants or possibly an apostle or deacon versus 1 Timothy 2 where " I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence." How does one reconcile these seemingly contradictory passages?

First, let me assure the reader that I do not claim to have all the answers; I do believe that the Bible does, that the Bible is completely accurate, and it does not contradict itself. With that disclaimer, here is what I see; here are a few basic facts, what I believe are basic facts:

God made man, then made woman from man to be a helper to him (Genesis 2:18).

In God's eyes, all are equal. Galatians 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

In the New Testament, starting with Acts and following, as we follow the development of the church, we see that the Lord started the church with the Apostles. To be an apostle was to first meet certain qualifications. These are made clear in Acts 1:15-26. The primary qualification was to have been a direct eyewitness of Jesus. When Judas betrayed, they filled his position with another in Acts 1. Later Paul is called an apostle; and in fact he was an eyewitness of Jesus having witnessed Him on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). I would suggest that there is no other person in the New Testament who is called an "Apostle." Junia in Romans 16 is not. Junia was "of note among the apostles," but was not an apostle.

And from Acts and the following books, we see that there were other positions that were established in the churches (Acts 14:23). In Acts 20, Paul called the Ephesian elders to meet with him. In this one passage, the terms for "elder" are also called overseer, shepherd and bishop, all the same thing. This same multiple name situation occurs in 1 Peter 5. There were specific qualifications for the men of this position; these are given in 1 Timothy and Titus. But without question, these qualifications only apply to men.

In addition, there are men appointed to the position of "deacon," as recorded in 1 Timothy and Titus. The qualifications given here are specific to men. But the word "deacon" just means servant. So what I see in the NT is that there were men appointed to the position of "deacon" and also people, men and women, who were described as servants; this can be hard to distinguish; I won't try. Were there women deacons? I don't know, but there were women "servants" as I see in Romans 16:1.

In summary, what I see in the NT is that men and women were equal in God's eyes. Women did teach; we see examples of that, but not perhaps taking charge over a man. And while equal, men and women are given different roles. There were no women apostles and there were no women elders (overseers, shepherds, bishops.) There were women teachers and even women prophets. Women were, and are, important in the work of the Lord!

I hope that all of my answers here are purely Biblical, not my opinion; I have tried hard to keep opinion out of this. And I hope this helps. God bless you!

Literal Interpretation of the Bible

I received a question regarding how literal should the Bible be interpreted. I don't propose to know all the answers; I do believe that the Bible has all the answers, however. So I won't spend much time on my opinions. I recommend letting the Bible answer the questions for you.

Perhaps the number one rule for understanding the Bible is to consider the context. Taking verses out of context will only lead to wrong conclusions, misunderstanding, and is "cherry picking" as one reader would call it. One must always consider the context, to whom the writing is being made, who is doing the writing and from what circumstance. An extreme example would be the book of Revelation. This book is written clearly in a form that is not to be taken literally. But every book has its special situation that must be considered in order to get the full meaning.

But beyond this, there are disagreements of accuracy of the Bible. Some will say that because of obvious discrepancies in the Bible, inaccuracies, the Bible cannot be taken literally. I pause here to recall 1Timothy 2:12, where Paul said, "..work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," so you are on your own here. For me, the Bible is accurate and contains no mistakes; it is from God, the Holy Spirit guiding the writers. And if that is true, it is mistake free. If it had mistakes, then I couldn't trust it.

As for taking statements in the Bible literally, yes, I see no other way than to take many things literally, at face value. That is, if it says it clearly, straight out, then it means what it says. An example: In Mark 16 where Jesus said to His disciples, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized shall be saved. He who does not believe will be condemned," He meant that to be done. No interpretation required. But we also see that the Bible uses figurative language often. Jesus said "You are the salt of the earth." We understand that this is figurative language, not literal. Generally, it is easy enough to distinguish.

Enough for now. Whatever we believe about literal interpretation, we still work together to seek the truth in love, love for God and love for each other. Have a good week!

Two Good Men

When one sees the title of this article, it might not bring to mind the two individuals that I plan to cite here. But the purpose of this treatise is to point out two really great men who served God but were not followers of Jesus Christ and were not in a saved condition.

The first person to be noted is the Ethiopian nobleman, finance office for the queen of Ethiopia, as we read about in Acts 8 beginning with verse 26. He was clearly a man of God; he had left Ethiopia and traveled on a chariot all the way to Jerusalem to worship and now was returning home; this is a long trip. He comes to our attention while he is sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah. Now this is a godly man! But as we read on, we see that he did not know Jesus. And the preacher, Philip, teaches him about Jesus and about salvation. He asked to be baptized and went on his way rejoicing.

We also note the man Cornelius, who is discussed in Acts 10 and 11. He is described as a "devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always." This for sure is a Godly man! But as the story goes on, we realize that Cornelius doesn't know Jesus and is not in a saved condition. Peter preaches to him and concludes his speech in Acts 10:48 with "and he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord."

So the conclusion to these two accounts is obvious. It is not enough to just be a good man. It is not enough to worship God, give money to God's work, or to live a good life. We must be followers of Jesus and to do what He has taught us, i.e., keep His commandments. Here we have two good men who still had something else to do to be pleasing to God and to find salvation. And that, of course, is what we all want. Have a good week and see you next time.

How Great Is God?

How great is God? Well, of course, we will not know this until after this life. But we get some glimpses of His greatness in the Bible.

One powerful expression of His greatness is given to us in Isaiah chapter 40. Beginning in verse 12, speaking of God, it says, "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has taught Him? With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him in the path of justice? Who taught Him knowledge, and showed Him the way of understanding?" Obviously, nobody can do any of this, as God is supreme!

In the book of Job, God challenges Job with these questions: (chapter 38) "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line on it? To what were its foundations fastened?" Only God holds the key to the universe; He is the Creator and Sustainer.

Sometimes the wise and educated of this world believe they have the answers. But God says in 1Corinthians 1:25, "...the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

And back to Isaiah 40, it concludes with: "The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."

To me, He is an awesome God; one to be feared (and loved and worshiped and thanked). And thank you for reading. See you next week, I hope.

The "Sinner's Prayer"

I recently ran across some research on the "Sinner's Prayer" that is practiced widely among many evangelists and denominations. I did some further reading on the subject and found that Wikipedia had what seemed a fair and accurate summary of the history of the prayer. Further quotes here will be from Wikipedia.

The Sinner's Prayer is "prayer of repentance." "Often at the end of a worship service an evangelist will invite those desiring to receive Christ (become converted) to 'repeat after me' the words of some form of a sinner's prayer." The practice has been traced to as "early as the 18th century."

The problem with this is that in order to know how to become Christians and live the Christian life, we need to go back to the 1st century and see what the Bible is telling us and what the early Christians were doing as they had been instructed by Christ and His apostles. It is true that people were taught to repent and call upon the Lord as their Savior. But that isn't all that was taught in being converted. Jesus taught His apostles in Mark 16 to go into all the world and "preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized shall be saved..." And when Paul was converted in Acts 22 we see that he was taught to "arise, be baptized and wash away your sins." It never was enough to just repeat a confession before an evangelist whether in person or in front of the tv.

Let's just follow the Bible pattern in matters of becoming Christians, living the Christian life, and worshiping together as local churches. Thanks for reading. Have a great week!

Witnessing

The word "witnessing" is used a lot in today's religious world. How we might use it differs some from the meaning that we see in the New Testament.

There are lots of references to witnesses in the Bible. In fact, our Lord knew that it would be important that true eyewitnesses be established in the time of Christ. We base our beliefs on these eyewitness accounts because we didn't see it happen; we need facts upon which to base our beliefs. Before Jesus left the earth He told His apostles, "..you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." ( Acts 1:8).

John, in 1 John 1:1-4, talks about the process of witnesses: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concering the Word of Life.......we declare to you." Here is an eyewitness telling us about it.

Luke was not an eyewitness, but he wrote the book of Luke having been given details by the eyewitnesses of Jesus. Luke 1 tells us: "Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account..."

The result of all this is to establish our faith. John 20:30,31 says, "and truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name." We can be very thankful for those who were eyewitnesses and left us the detailed accounts for us to learn of Him and believe.

Thanks for reading. Have a great week!

How do you worship God?

Most people do not write their own obituary, but Joe Blanchard of Florida recently died and left an obit in his own words. Here is what he wanted us to know: "I have never been an outward communication religious man, but have always had a strong belief in the Lord and His power. My communications have been in the duck blind, deer stand, fishing boat and on the golf course." Now I find this quite impressive, just probably not in the way that he intended.

What we must do as Christians is to find out what God wants/expects us to do when it comes to worship. It always mattered to Him. If we go back to the very beginning, we see Abel bringing an acceptable sacrifice and Cain not doing so. All through the Bible God teaches us over and over the importance of doing things His way, and certainly this applies to our worship.

In the New Testament we note that Jesus, right before His death, taught His disciples the importance of taking the Lord's Supper after He was gone, to eat the bread and drink the fruit of the vine as a remembrance. We see this being done by the early Christians in the book of Acts. And we see the importance of the church, the gathering of Christians weekly, to worship together and to remember the Lord.

Now back to Joe and the duck blind. Of course it is good to commune with God wherever one is, whether that be a duck blind or in a bath tub. But if that is the limit of our worship to God, we need to go back to the Bible and see what God wants. Our worship isn't just for us; it is for Him also. And we need to do it His way....not just as a sideline to our play, or to our work or to whatever we find ourselves doing. This is not an editorial; this is what the Bible teaches, what God has said to us, and we need to be listening. Have a great week! ........written in love from one who cares.