Cheryl

Tarun,

I am glad that you popped by.

You said:

True but on an examination of the relationship of Christ and the church , you must admit that Christ is the “High” Priest of the church…

There are many things that Jesus is to the Church that the husband is not. Although Jesus is “head” of the church and the husband is “head” of the wife, Jesus is also Savior of the church and Lord of the church and God of the church. The husband is none of these things. We cannot just input everything that Jesus is to the husband unless the scripture tells us so.

Jesus is the only High Priest and the husband is not a secondary high priest of the wife. Jesus is unique in this aspect.

You said:

Granted the husband is not designated the “title” priest of the home but would it also be correct to say that he is the High priest of His wife in replication of Christ’s leading of the church.

No it would not be correct. If the husband was the high priest of his wife then the husband would have to offer the sacrifice for his wife and would be responsible for her salvation. Are you prepared to go that far? I am not nor does scripture say a word about the husband as functioning as any kind of high priest responsible for the spirituality of his wife or for her salvation.

You also asked:

If wives are called to submit to the husband in “everything”, shouldnt the husband be responsible if not solely at least to the greater extent of his calling in the spiritual direction his wife and children are taking. And if that be the case would’nt “The priest of the Home” be an appropriate title to describe his calling.

This is simply not scriptural. If it were we would find places where the husband is responsible for his wife’s spiritual direction. Adam was never held responsible for Eve’s choice and neither was Sapphira exonerated because she followed her husband’s suggestion that they both lie about the piece of property that they sold. Unfortunately many women have been influenced to believe that they are not responsible for their actions as long as their husband oversees them and guides them. God says this is not true when he judges women separately from their husbands. God never gives us any indication that husbands will be held responsible for their wives or that wives are “home free” by following their husbands. All of us are required to be mature Christians and to follow the Lord individually. Also no where does God ever give the man the mandate of a priest who makes the spiritual decisions for his wife.

The issue of submission is a big one and one that we will explore further in this blog after we are done with the spiritual gifts of men and women.

Lastly you said:

You are right in saying that it is a responsibility which men sometimes feel a tendency to find burdensome but that would not be the case if the couple were “equally yoked” and the Husband realizes that his burden is light and his yoke is easy. All he needs to do is trust and obey the leading of the mighty Holy spirit and keep his home surrounded with the love of God.

Women too need to trust and obey the leading of the Holy Spirit and keep their homes surrounded with the love of God. Nowhere are women exempt from finding out the Holy Spirit’s will for them by trusting in the husband’s “hearing from God”. Women too are to have an intimate relationship with God and they too are to hear from God. To make women’s responsibility with God any less is to deny that men and women are equal before God and equally can have an intimate relationship with God.

I hope that helps 🙂

Teknomom,

Ah, great puns-worth of truth.

Thank you Dusman. Consistency is the key and those who do not allow women to minister should be asked to answer to their inconsistent use of scripture. I believe that truth is always consistent.

Thanks Martin. Isn’t the internet great that we can all have access to hear audio files even across the world?

One other thing that I just caught from listening again to the audio clip that I put up from Matt’s radio program. Matt left out part of one sentence and the full next sentence. Here is what I said and what he left out:

I had an active support group for Jehovah’s Witnesses where they came to my home to have their doctrine sorted out. I taught them the truth of God’s word and loved them with the love of Christ.

The bold part is the part that Matt left out. I wonder what the reason was that he left out the full impact of what I said.

Ryan,

Thanks son for the reminder that dealing with Christians is sometimes akin to skillfully dealing with the cults where you must win them to truth in a loving and non-combative way. I do have to be reminded of that fact because it is easy to assume that dealing with Christians should be different than dealing with the cults. (Sigh!) Note to self: if teaching isn’t allowed, then questions are the next best thing.

Dusman,

Yes, I too share a tremendous appreciation for the sovereignty of God as I understand that the scriptures are truth even though they sometimes appear to be teaching conflicting ideas. Sometimes I think God arranged it that way so that we have to sweat hard to understand God’s way instead of seeing a too-simple way of exegeting scripture. Yet I can have a grace-filled heart of love towards those who do not agree with me on the non-essentials. Pushing through hard concepts about God’s sovereignty and the existence of evil for example, cause us to stretch and grow. As we grow we should be able to see others through God’s eyes and not through our own insecurities. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that Matt’s inability to be challenged on his black and white view of the non-essentials may stem from his own insecurities. He has suffered by being forced out of a church because of his belief in Calvinism and people have been very unkind to their brother in Christ. Yet I see him doing the same thing to those who see scripture as affirming women’s spiritual gifts. He wants to force them out of the church by attributing to them an attitude of sin. I would have thought that his own unfortunate experience with people who are intolerant of beliefs that do not conform exactly to their own would have made him more tolerant on the non-essentials and not less tolerant. Perhaps Matt needs to go around that bush one more time so that he can understand true compassion. A friend once told me that if we don’t learn our lesson the first time around, God sends us around the same bush again until we get it. I for one am not interesting in having to experience that kind of pain more than once. I have learned that caring for others in the body of Christ goes far past our own experiences and our own comfort zone.

I also appreciated your interaction with Don assuring him and others that a “manly-man” can be in favor of God’s use of women’s gifts in the body of Christ. I also loved it when you said:

“I dogmatically believe and defend the full, verbal, plenary, inspiration of the Scriptures and hold that the autographs were inerrant and that the copies we have today are sovereignly preserved copies that faithfully represent those autographs.”

Amen and amen! I tell people that those who do not hold to this strong view of scripture will do poorly with witnessing to Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons.

I have been so disappointed with people like Dr. Ben Witherington who by the way is an egalitarian, but who tells people that Matthew’s reference to prophecy in the OT was his own interpretation and not the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, and that the early Christians put Jesus into the OT by “noodling” with the Septuagint. For anyone interested in the discussion on Ben’s blog that my son Ryan and I have been trying hard to stick up for full biblical inspiration against a wishy-washy who-knows-what-is-inspired-and-what-isn’t attitude, have a look at Ben’s blog here and the comments after.

http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/08/hermeneutics-guide-for-perplexed-bible.html

Teknomom,

Thanks for your wisdom! I think you are right in that if we expect persecution, we may be better able to respond instead of being side-swiped and surprised and tempted to respond back in anger. There is a hostile audience out there and if they are angry enough to cut you off, God will provide another way for us to be a messenger for our Lord.

As a side note, I got cut off of the Worthy Boards that I was witnessing on. Worthy Boards is a strong complimentarian discussion board. I got cut out because I was accused of “teaching” and not just being part of the “discussion”. I guess you just can’t let women teach after all or people might actually learn something 😉

Don,

I feel bad that you have been painted with the same brush as we women. I was told a long time ago that men who stand up for women in ministry will be treated exactly as they treat the women. Your experience proves that this warning is true. But this should never be! Where is the love? This is the way I look at it…how would the opposer like to be treated if they were the one who is wrong? Would they like to be treated gently and with respect? Of course they would! When one is wrong and they are shown that they are wrong, there is a whole ego thing that happens. It hurts our egos to be found out to be foolish and someone who let’s us survive this experience with our ego intact is a gracious, godly person who is tender and compassionate. Why would anyone think that berating a person will help them to “get it”? It doesn’t help. It just hardens one’s heart. If they truly believe you to be in the wrong, then they should have a mature Christian love that will follow Paul’s admonish to a true servant of the Lord:

2Timothy 2:24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil
2Timothy 2:25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth…

Lord Jesus, may we all be patient, kind, compassionate especially to our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ!

Terri,

I sure appreciate your words of encouragement! I am looking for the Lord to help me to respond with kindness and clarity and not react when I am attacked. I have a very strong base of biblical understanding and from that base I can speak with kindness if I don’t allow my flesh to well up to react in a defensive way. It is easier to do this with email or with a script because one has time to think. I may not be so quick in a live radio show, so I want to be filled with God’s grace for all my inadequacies. I also agree with you about the loudness and brashness. It appears to have scared off a lot of challengers.

About your viewing WIM three times in the last few days – oh my dear sister in Christ, that is an overload of hearing me teach! You ought to get a reward for your stamina!

Blessings,
Cheryl

Lin,

Yes, I know I won’t change his mind. He has a real attitude towards women in ministry and this is difficult to get through to a hardened heart. My goal is to touch the hearts of women who have been challenged to stay away from God’s calling on their life if it involves anything that is pastoral. Will that be good enough to hope for God to accomplish even if it means I will suffer persecution? Yes, I think this is worth it. If I can help, I should be a help if even to one person. Thank you for your prayers. I do not enjoy confrontations with someone who is vitriolic. It also seems to me that those who have set themselves against women in ministry have become very vitriolic and they seem to forget that as the body of Christ we are to love one another. We are not to rip at the sheep. We are the sheep of Jesus and if we mistreat any of the sheep, we will have to give an account to the Master.

Don,

Wade’s article deals mostly with grace regarding side issues. This is the struggle that many have in accepting other believers as brothers and sisters in Christ but who share different beliefs on the side issues. Yet in the fundamentals we need to hold tight without wavering. As far as there being believers in the Roman Catholic faith, etc, in my field of apologetics I have seen people who appear to be true Christians but they are this way in spite of the RC religion, not because of it. There are too many deviations from the essentials that cause people to be devoted to a form of religion and pulled away from a pure faith in Jesus.

DM,

Welcome! If you loved my post on Wade’s blog, you’ll love the outside-the-box thinking here. Welcome to this little community!

Thanks Don for the link! I am thinking of doing an article about colleges/seminaries who offer homemaking courses. Boy do I have thoughts about this!

Hi Lin,

I haven’t read Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology myself, but my understanding is that in the book he does teach that Jesus is subordinate in the Trinity. He also teaches it in his seminars along with his fellow CBMW member Bruce Ware. I sat in a Bruce Ware lecture beside two ex-JW’s and there were gasps as he taught some of the same subordinate teaching as the Jehovah’s Witnesses teach. It is too bad that he didn’t leave time for questions and answers because I would have liked to see how he would have answered questions from two former Jehovah’s Witnesses who were appalled at hearing his teaching.

Thank you Pastor Paul!

Hi Lin,

I don’t think that MacArthur teaches how the authority thing will play out on Judgement day. However I did hear him preach a sermon that said that in the next life men will still be the only ones in authority and women will still be in submission to all men.

It made me wonder…will women be asked to serve coffee in heaven? Seems to me that Paul clearly shows that the body of Christ will be all be judging the world and the angels. No big bosses over women in roles of subjugation there!

Thanks Greg for those insights! Fear is certainly one of the reasons why people say nothing concerning this tradition.

Don,

Thank you for providing this link to the attention of us all!

Under Much Grace,

Thank you so much for posting that information for all to see. Kevin Giles’ books on the subject or subordination are very important regarding the subject of the Trinity. We had a DVD planned on the Trinity that will include information on the distortion of the Trinity by those who hold to the subordination of women. We trust that the material will be helpful to many who are not apt to read up on this subject but will learn from a visual source.

Greg,

I always love that “second witness”! Thanks for providing the scriptural second witness.

Greg,

Your humor is refreshing to me! Thanks for your comments and your humorous take on this subject. I guess this gives me more hope that I can stick only to scripture, ’cause I never learned how to dance! (Father was a Pastor and dancing was a definite no-no)

The Bible never teaches there is a “Jezebel spirit” and I have found that those who teach this not only teach that Christians can be demon possessed but also teach that anyone who doesn’t agree with them has a “Jezebel spirit”. It just isn’t scriptural.

Don,

Yes you are certainly right! The bad teachers in the OT have been ignored by complementarians too. If God had a “law” from the creation of mankind that forbid women from teaching men or leading men, then we shouldn’t ever have seen women been used to teach or lead. The bad examples of women doing what was forbidden could have been used as an example by God to prove that women are not to be in any position of leading/teaching but there is nothing in the OT either that reprimands Israel for letting a woman lead or letting a woman teach. Thanks for pointing that out, Don!

Hi Keith,

Welcome! Glad you stopped by and I hope you enjoy the community here.

Your Pastor is absolutely right in that we must understand 1 Timothy 2:11-15 within the context of the prohibition of false teaching and false deceived teachers in 1 Timothy 1. A point form of my take on the passage is at http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2006/12/02/what-does-1-timothy-211-15-mean/

The question that I have always asked those who believe that 1 Timothy 2:12 is a universal prohibition is to show me point by point from the context of chapters 1 and 2 how Paul could possibly be stopping the teaching of true biblical doctrine. You see if we see 1 Timothy 2:12 as a universal prohibition then it must be stopping godly Christian women from teaching the truth of God’s word to men. But this simply cannot be supported from the context set forward in chapter 1. Paul did not say that Timothy was left behind in Ephesus to stop the false teachers from teaching AND the women from teaching. He simply and clearly was stopping the teaching of false doctrine and the deceived teachers were to be stopped from spreading this false doctrine. If Paul had also wanted godly women in general to be stopped from teaching, then he make the prohibition of 1 Timothy 2:12 to be completely foreign to the context because the stopping of “a woman” is surrounded by the stopping of false doctrine, the stopping of deceived teachers who are ignorantly teaching false doctrine (Paul also reveals that he too had been deceived and acted in ignorance) and the deception of Eve. Where is it possible to input godly women into this prohibition? It simply isn’t possible.

I would love to hear from your Pastor and I think he would be encouraged by my DVD series called “Women in Ministry Silenced or Set Free?” In this series the inspired words and the inspired grammar of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 are shown to prove that it is impossible for this prohibition to be stopping all women from ministering the truth of God’s word.

Chuck, I appreciate the link. It is an excellent article!

Justa Berean & Lin,

Ah, yes, the onlookers (the lurkers) are the real reason some of us try so hard. If it wasn’t for them, it would be just an experience of banging our heads against the wall.

Greg,

I see the tap dance too. It is an amazing thing to me. If my belief caused me to tap dance around questions and I saw holes in my argument, I would work hard to figure out why the holes are there or else change my view. For the life of me I can’t understand what people get out of dancing around the questions. Yes, I do know that an attack is seen by some as the best defense since one never has to provide proof of anything, but where is the honest assessment of the challenge? I just really don’t get it. The reason that I am as soundly grounded on the women’s issue is only because I was challenged and I needed to find the answers for myself. A challenge is a good thing because it forces you to listen and consider and fix the problems. When people cover their eyes and their ears because they don’t want to see and they don’t want to hear, they are willingly blind and deaf. And sadly these people will be responsible for discouraging women from following Christ in their God-given gifts.

One thing about complementarian scholars is that they don’t know what to do with me. I present arguments that they have never heard before and trying to answer would involve a whole lot of work on a completely new paradigm. I only wish they would try to answer because I would really like to see what argumentation they could come up with.

Corrie,

Yes, MacArthur believes that all men are in authority over all women. The husband of course has more authority than the rest of the male population because the husband has an intimate relationship with her, but yes, he does believe that every man’s role is a role of authority over every woman. When one listens to all of the teaching on women coming from John MacArthur, it comes down to the man having the role of a mediator between woman and God. I don’t think I have ever heard him use this word to describe the role but in essence that is what it is.

Yes, I do go into the 1 Corinthians 11 passage concerning God’s glory and man’s glory in my DVD series. I think you will find it enlightening.

Well, Don, if it was up to me I would give you and every man who supports women like this a badge of honor!

Hi Corrie,

The first audio clip would reference 1 Cor. 11 of John MacArthur’s. All of the clips are his reasoning for not allowing women to teach or pray in the church. His belief shows that the glory of God and the revelation of God is never directly from God to the woman. Instead, anything that comes to woman from God must go through the man. So the reference to the moon definitely shows off his point. The moon has no light of its own. It merely reflects the light from the son. The son is a different light in that it originates the light. So man is a different spiritual being in that he originates and the woman is only a receiver in that she passes on what she receives. It is amazing to me how one can hold this point of view and then still tell people that you believe men and women are equal.

Don,

I have a couple of the DVDs from the conference. I have yet to stomach listening to the entire thing. Honestly they come across as arrogant and I have a problem in hearing too much of that attitude before it affects me and brings me down. In time I will listen again because I believe that truth can take a challenge. It is error that runs and hides.

Thank you Noted!

This is what keeps me going knowing that there are many who read and are open to be touched with the truth of God’s word. I pray that God brings them great comfort in knowing that he has a plan to use women too!

Teknomom,

Good point that I had not seen before. I will do some more research on that!

Cheryl

Don,

Wow, if CBMW has already had someone leave the org, that is a very good thing. I hope that is true.

You said: “I also study their works, I find I can only take it in small doses, but I do study it.”

That is exactly how I handle the audio files. The written works I can handle a bit better, but I do need to take it in smaller doses. However the audio files have the inflection of the voice and I find it harder to take. If I listen to a couple of hours at a time I find myself upset with my husband merely because he is a man. He has to remind me that he is not CBMW nor does he agree with them at all. It is their attitude that really drags me down. They are brothers in Christ whom I do not find uplifting especially on the women’s issue. You know it is amazing. It seems like they spend a lot of their time figuring out all the rules that restrict women instead of finding all the ways that they can agree with allowing women to use their gifts. With these kinds of restrictions I sometimes wonder if they shouldn’t just agree to a men’s church and a women’s church. That way the women get to serve God within their own “church” without restriction. Problem with that is that this divides and segregates the body of Christ. That is not good and it is not the way it is to be.