Frank

I am flabbergasted at John Piper’s response, to say the least. There are so many points at which he should be challenged, it’s hard to know where to begin. However, one thing is clear to me, Cheryl, from what you have said how many churches regularly contact CBMW about what women can or cannot do in the church. Though David F. Wells may have not have had them specifically in mind, CBMW appears to be in the process of becoming, for some, a Protestant magisterium that decides how the Bible is to be interpeted applied. This is the warning Wells gave:

It is dangerous to assert that God the Holy Spirit inspired the Scriptures, but somehow omitted to give us the key(s) to understand them! Systems of understanding are legitimate and proper only to the extent that they arise from the biblical word and are themselves disciplined by it. No one can legitimately impose a system on the Word. If we do not assert the right of Scripture to stand in authoritative relationship to every presupposition, custom, and tradition; every teaching, practice, and ecclesiastical organization, then that authority will be co-opted either by an ecclesiastical magisterium or by a scholarly one (Cf. “The Bible, Doctrine, and Theological Contextualization, THE USE OF THE BIBLE IN THEOLOGY, p. 187).