Where To Next

cheryl,

I think there is a lot of confusion and poor teaching regarding the ‘offices’ of the church and the giftings of the Holy Spirit.
so that’s a good topic to explore…

elders..deacons…apostles..prophets… etc
how do these developments in the 1st C church speak to us today in 21st C church?

also, how about something on Eph 5 – the headship debate within marriage?

whatever you do i am sure will be interesting reading! i look forwards to it.

regards
kerryn

Good topics to consider! Thanks, Kerryn.

🙂 Cheryl

Dear sister Cheryl,
grace and peace from our wonderful Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

I would like to see some biblical exegesis on marriage as well.

May our mighty God, Jesus Christ, enlighten you about His perfect will, and may you live a life pleasing to Him.

Your brother in Christ,
Martin

Something that is very frustrating to me is that most women pastors that one hears about are very liberal and are false teachers. So, if you even mention that women can teach or preach, you are automatically labeled a liberal. (I don’t even know what that means anymore)

I am a reformed Baptist that believes in the inerrancy of scripture. Inerrancy meaning there is no command that says women cannot teach. Something on these labels would be helpful.

In any event, I would love to delve deep into the structure of the NT church including the priesthood of the believer and what that really means. It seems what we are seeing today is so institutionalized it is unrecognizable from what we see in the NT.

I think you need to decide what the focus of your website will be. This does not mean it cannot expand later, but once it expands it is hard to contract it. I do believe that the restoration of women in ministry is something God is doing, this means we are getting closer to the church in the NT.

One concern is that as you expand it, the message can become more diffused. The more focused you remain, the more others can accept your specific insights into their own situation. That is, some ministry groups recognize that to better get their message out, they will NOT discuss other things, simply because there is such a wide variety in the body of Christ and they see the other things as less critical.

Don,

I accept your word of admonition as a word of wisdom for me today. Thank you so much! What I will do is keep this blog solely for the issue of women in ministry. When I am ready to start posts on the issue of authority in marriage, I will create a separate blog dealing with that issue and I will let everyone know the link to that blog. I have come to understand that the issue of authority (headship) in marriage is very much connected to the issue of women in ministry but it is also separate enough that it can have a “space” of its own. Any other topics that I want to move on to will get their own “space” too so that “women in ministry” (and me!) will not get over overwhelmed by getting distracted and fragmented. What a wonderful suggestion to not diffuse this message! These are the kinds of suggestions that are very helpful to me and I submit to that word of wisdom.

Being a Biblical Egalitarian, I of course see that all issues of justice are related, in church, home and society. However, just as I grew in my understanding from where I started, I realize that God gives the same grace to others. I also am grateful that God did not show me all my sins at once, but gave me pieces to digest (as God still does for me).

So I think it is wise to let people learn from whatever their current focus question is. Even just the Women in Ministry area takes some time to digest, as you well know.

Don,

I hear what you are saying. That is the reason why I try hard to keep my comments respectful. I understand that many have not yet gone past mere tradition and understood the full freedom of women in using their gifts for the entire body of Christ. It, of course, is not a message to be restricted because not everyone is on the same page yet. But in consideration of our brothers in Christ who have a tender conscience and who have not yet realized that it is tradition that they are following instead of God’s word, we do try to keep the message surrounded by a loving attitude. It is in this environment that some will be open to learn. Others will never be open and these people I will never be able to reach. They are in God’s hands and perhaps somewhere else they will hear what they need to hear to allow the body of Christ to function in exactly the way God intended.

Cheryl, if you ever create that blog on marriage, I would definitely be interested. As Don said, it’s all related, especially in what I call compism. They view women as being generally inferior, so this extends to all areas of a woman’s life, not just what she may do in a church.

Ok, enough preaching. 🙂 In regards to ministry, I also think it would be interesting to explore the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I saw a comp. pastor on another blog say that women in his church were free to phophecy, but essentially the men weren’t bound by it since the women didn’t have any authority. So I guess that when the Spirit speaks through women it’s just empty words? Kind of contradicts the events of Pentecost or even Paul’s teaching, doesn’t it?

I also think it would be fascinating to explore the vision of the early church as laid out by Paul. Comps. are obsessed with power, authority, and hierarchy. Is that what Paul intended for the church?

And last, I would love to explore the women of the early church. Comps accuse egalitarians of “dodging scripture.” Well, what about those women that Paul mentioned–Phoebe the deacon, Priscilla the church-planter, Junia the apostle, etc.? Having been raised in the church, I can say that we Protestants try to sweep women under the rug of our history. It’s time we reclaimed them. Junia, especially, is a fascinating woman. It’s well documented that for centuries church leaders have tried to a) deny that she was a woman or b) deny that she was a an apostle. Jay Eldon Epps does a good job of discussing this in his book, but it’s very scholarly. It would be nice to have a layman’s concise overview of the issue.

Lori,

Excellent thoughts! Once we are finished 1 Cor. 11 on the final part of the hair issue, we will go to the gifts of the Spirit. It seems to be a common issue that needs to be addressed.

Blessings!
Cheryl