Cheryl

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!