Seminary: The Gift of Renewal (Tommy Phillips, Tampa FL)

Last updated on: April 19, 2019 at 7:28 pm By Scot McKnight

The Gift of Renewal: A simple way that Church Leaders can Renew Their Pastor.

By Tommy Phillips

Tommy is a pastor in Tampa FL, well known musician and band leader,

and leader of one creative church.

Pastors spend allot of time reading, and reading widely from many Christian traditions and as well as trying to keep up with the academia. This is necessary because there are theological shifts that take place in Christendom, and these shifts usually start off in academia and make their way down to the pastors of small churches via books, blogs, and the occasional conversation with professors and armchair theologians that attend their churches.

Over time it is easy to become a bit of a theological hoarder as all of these thoughts and ideas can begin to pile up on the metaphorical floors of the theological house of the Pastor, and men and women in Pastoral ministry begin start to lose their bearings, their theological center, if you will .

This was me. After serving in the same church for 16 years, 13 of them as Senior Pastor, I hadn’t spent time in a formal classroom setting in 20 years. My theological house had become overwhelmingly cluttered and confusing. In that amount of time I had seen the rise and fall of both the Emergent, and the New Reformed church. I had also watched the Purpose Driven church, and the Church Growth movement launch, grow, and shrink, and with every movement, dozens more reactionary shifts happened in the church of the postmodern age. I had seen deconstruction, pluralization, I had watched my friends and my own pastor walk away from the faith, and I had doubts, disappointments, and questions. I had so many questions.

This is where seminary came in for me. I needed refresh. I needed to learn from someone other than some author that I had never met and whom I could not volley in questions with. I needed theologians to walk with me for a little while and help me make sense of what I had seen. And most of all, I needed to sit under some scholars who had a very long history of serving the church, and who still believed that, despite its failures and divisions, the church is good, necessary, and capable of changing the world.

These are the things brought me back into academics in general, and Northern Seminary in particular. So, rather briefly, here is what I have gained there:

The very first week of intensives was like breathing fresh mountain air for the first time in years. Pretty quickly I was able to see how all of these bits and pieces of scholarship, theory, theology and philosophy that I had gathered over two decades of reading and preaching fit together. I began to make connections between specific theological movements and the thoughts that they brought to the church’s table. I began to truly understand why different cultures and contexts read the text differently and I began to appreciate the diversity in the universal church and the roles that they play in the extended body of Christ.

I could see the veins that ran through the universal church, and through my own diverse community. I began to understand why one person would read a passage and see one thing, and the person next to them would come to a completely different conclusion, and suddenly I knew how to speak to both of them. My trepidations to delve into Black-Liberation, Womanist, and Grassroots Asian theology began to fall away as I started to understand not just what they were doing with the text, but why. Everything that I had read and interacted with now suddenly had a home and place in my work, and I became a better pastor to more people because of it.

Affirmation is not just underrated, it is necessary. Pastors deal with allot of pushback based upon the things that they teach from the pulpit. The very nature of the job demands that Pastors regularly challenge the long-standing traditions of the people in their communities. When they do this work, they may receive criticism ranging from a simple “I disagree,” all the way to “you’re a heretic and I’m leaving.” No matter how many books you have read or how much you understand a topic, after enough criticism and enough painful departures, a man or a woman of God can begin to doubt the very message that God has placed them there to proclaim. With a lack of affirmation, the ability to push the church forward begins to be lost and the pastor may begin to believe that they are in the wrong field; that maybe someone else should take it from here.

The affirmation that I received in my first couple of years quickly erased years of doubt that I had built up, both about myself and about my faith. I started to remember the importance of experimental thought and wrestling, especially in the church. And after sitting under professors from a wide variety of church traditions and viewpoints, I came to see that I was actually pretty normal, that I wasn’t the only one reading the scriptures this way, and that I should indeed keep pushing my people.

Within a couple of months of guided, focused study, I had regained the confidence that had been worn down over many years of teaching and preaching. I could speak with more authority and I was unbothered and unthreatened by the challenges of others, and actually, I became much more patient, graceful, and long-suffering with them.

You see, a Pastor who doubts their own abilities and whose confidence is waning can easily become defensive when they are challenged. Their fight or flight defense is activated and their anxiety begins to spike. Email exchanges can become terse, confrontations start to be evaded. But It doesn’t take much more for a pastor to regain their confidence in their ability to rightly interpret the scriptures than a professor’s affirmation or correction. When an experienced academic elder gives you good marks and simple nod of approval, years of anxiety and doubt can be washed away.

I am more approachable, less afraid of heavy conversation, and I have become perfectly fine with openly discussing even the most touchy and controversial subjects that the church at large is struggling, or even afraid, to address. My wife, my friends, and my community elders have commented on the change in how I carry myself these days, compared to before, and I point straight towards updating my education as the source of my renewed strength.

A solid education under high end scholars results in a leader who flourishes when others are scared, and who can remain a calm non-anxious presence in the midst of even the most chaotic church. I am now a firm believer that every church should do everything in their power to help their pastors continue their education throughout the entirety of their career. The return on investment cannot be overstated. In a modern church that is constantly seeing burnt-out and shipwrecked pastors and churches, this is one crucial way to help ensure the health of your community.

The Trouble with God is He Won’t Stay Where We Put Him

Last updated on: May 31, 2019 at 10:41 am By Scot McKnight

Mike Glenn

The Old Testament prophets taunted the nations around Israel for having gods made of wood and stone. “If they fall over,” the prophets said, “you have to go help them stand up. What kind of god is that?”

“If your god wants to go anywhere, you have to put in the back of your wagon and haul him around. What kind of god can’t walk around?”

One of the most astonishing revelations about God in Scripture is we have a God who moves. His Spirit broods over creation. He walks in the garden with Adam. God drops in and has dinner with Abraham. He confronts Moses on the mountain and leads Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land in a cloud by day and pillar of fire by night.

In the Psalms, God can be far off or He can draw near. God, it seems, was always out walking around.

We shouldn’t be surprised to discover His Son, Jesus, was the same way. Jesus wasn’t much for staying in the same place too long. In one of the earliest stories, Peter finds Jesus and tells Him the crowd is waiting for Him. Jesus tells Peter they need to go to the other villages and preach there. If you look at the maps in the back of your Bible, you’ll find one tracing the travels of Jesus during His ministry. You’ll find several squiggly lines between Jerusalem and the Sea of Galilee. He might not have gone too far from home, but Jesus was always on the move.

Nothing has changed. The Spirit is just as restless. Look at those maps in the back of the Bible, follow the missionary journeys of Paul and you’ll see multi-colored, squiggly lines all over the Roman Empire. The Spirit didn’t stop there. From Rome to Europe and from Europe to the Americas and from the Americas to the Far East and back to the Middle East again – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We serve a restless Trinity.

This is a frustrating characteristic of Jesus if you’re one of His followers. Jesus won’t stay where we put Him. He won’t stay in the same place. Whenever we have a significant experience with Jesus, the place where that experience occurred becomes sacred. Sometimes it’s a room in our house. Sometimes, it’s a pew in a church or the place we sat in the woods after a long hike – wherever it is, we hold onto that place because that’s the place where Jesus was as real has He’s ever been to us. We’ll never forget that place.

But we’re human and that closeness to Jesus is hard to hold onto. Life happens. Our spiritual fire goes out and we long to recapture that moment. So, we go back to our sacred space fully expecting Jesus to be waiting on us. He’s not. He’s moved on.

Or, we put Jesus in one area of our life and tell Jesus He can stay in this one section, but He can’t walk into any of the other parts of our lives. Good luck with that. Jesus will soon be walking all over your life. No matter what you do, Jesus won’t stay where you put Him.

We quickly learn if we’re looking for Jesus to always look ahead. He never stays in our past. He’s always waiting for us in the future.

This is the double-edged message of Easter. Good News! Jesus is alive! Bad News! We don’t know where He is! There is something deeply disturbing about a Savior who won’t stay where you put Him. We want to know where Jesus is all the time. If Jesus carried a cell phone, we’d want His number. OK, so maybe we don’t talk to Jesus every day, but that’s not the point. We want to know we can talk to Jesus when we want to.

But Jesus has His own agenda. He has His own plan… and like His Father, He’s always on the move.

Where is He going?

You don’t know?

He told us. He was always telling us. Jesus is on a mission. He was sent by the Father to seek and save the lost, to liberate the captives, to free the hostages, and rescue the dying. That’s what Jesus told Mary and Joseph when they asked why He was still in the Temple. That’s what He told Peter when Peter wanted to control His preaching agenda. Jesus had to be about His Father’s work and that meant He’d always be on the move.

What do you do with a Jesus who’s on the move? A Savior whose dogged pursuit of those He seeks won’t let Him give up? Whose love won’t let him rest?

On Easter morning, the angel told the women to be sure and tell Peter Jesus was looking for him. Can you imagine Peter’s face when he heard that news? The women would have been telling the disciples about finding the tomb empty and then, they would look at Peter and say, “The angel said Jesus was looking for you.”

After Peter’s denial, after his absolute failure of Jesus, Peter gets the word Jesus is looking for him. Peter’s heart must have jumped into his throat. Jesus was coming for Him.

Like the rest of us, Peter didn’t understand Jesus was waiting in Galilee to save his disciple. Yes, Jesus was after Peter, but it was to redeem him, to restore him, not to condemn him. Peter would spend the rest of his life trying to fully understand what it meant to have Jesus looking for him.

But we know. The Shepherd is looking for His sheep. He’s looking for us. This is the good news of Easter – Jesus loves us so much He refuses to stay where we put Him. Happy Easter! Jesus is on the move, and He’s looking for you.

Weekly Meanderings, 13 April 2019

Last updated on: April 13, 2019 at 6:32 am By Scot McKnight

A good week — some translating and I spoke at Spring Arbor U in Michigan. Plus, as noted below, Katie Bouman’s imaging of the black hole is now public.

It is a sad reality that many women’s stories end up in a black hole in various church groups. We have #MeToo, #ChurchToo, and now #MissionsToo. Dalaina May deserves our attention, folks.

The #MeToo movement has successfully pulled back the curtain on hidden misogyny and rampant abuse of women in US culture. #ChurchToo has highlighted the sexism that’s just as alive in American pews and pulpits. Women from churches around the country have shared their stories of being abused, silenced, and sidelined. As I read these accounts, I sympathized deeply. I have my own #MeToo stories and #ChurchToo stories. Yet, I also have #MissionsToo stories and they have yet to be given space in these movements.

The child of conservative missionaries, one of my first memories when we moved overseas was listening to the teary words of my mother’s friend, a woman recently arrived from the United States. “He’s my husband, and he believes that we should be overseas. My role is to be his helpmate and to submit to his leadership, so I am here to help him fulfill the calling that God gave him even though I never wanted to come.”

I was only eleven years old and trained by my community to believe that these words were gospel truth. Still, silent panic welled in me as I realized the implications of her words: a woman could be forced into moving overseas simply because her husband said so.

As I got older, I realized that this, while tragic and unjust, was mild in comparison to many other stories currently emerging from the mission field. Accounts of domestic violence, covered up child sexual abuse, and the alienation of women in missions leadership are not unusual. At its worst, the mission field has been a prison for women and children, conveniently far away from the eyes of caring family and friends, and away from the protective laws and resources available to victims of abuse in their home countries.

When I began my own missionary career as a young mother, I connected online with an American woman in her early twenties who grew up in Asia. Her family ascribed to the “daughters at home” movement, a hyper-patriarchal subculture in which women are under the authority of their fathers until they marry and come under the authority of their husbands. Women in this movement are seen primarily as daughters/wives/mothers, and their role is to care for the home and support the men in their lives.

For this young woman, it meant that she wasn’t allowed to return to the United States or enroll in college. She was required to stay in her parents’ home and serve them as they continued their ministry until she married the man of her father’s choosing.

Over the course of our relationship, she attempted multiple times to get a job locally and move out of her parents’ home. Each time, she was threatened with expulsion from the family, shamed for her “sinful rebellion,” and spiritually abused by her parents and older brothers. Eventually, she canceled her plans to move out and tried to appease her family by returning to dutiful submission. She is one of the faces of #MissionsToo—a woman isolated from resources and suffering under the hammer of misogyny.

For other women, #MissionsToo looks like a wall of unacknowledged contributions, silenced voices, and stifled ministries. And it’s nothing new.

Thank you Kyle Korver:

What I’m realizing is, no matter how passionately I commit to being an ally, and no matter how unwavering my support is for NBA and WNBA players of color….. I’m still in this conversation from the privileged perspective of opting in to it. Which of course means that on the flip side, I could just as easily opt out of it. Every day, I’m given that choice — I’m granted that privilege — based on the color of my skin.

In other words, I can say every right thing in the world: I can voice my solidarity with Russ after what happened in Utah. I can evolve my position on what happened to Thabo in New York. I can be that weird dude in Get Out bragging about how he’d have voted for Obama a third term. I can condemn every racist heckler I’ve ever known.

But I can also fade into the crowd, and my face can blend in with the faces of those hecklers, any time I want.

I realize that now. And maybe in years past, just realizing something would’ve felt like progress. But it’s NOT years past — it’s today. And I know I have to do better. So I’m trying to push myself further.

I’m trying to ask myself what I should actually do.

How can I — as a white man, part of this systemic problem — become part of the solution when it comes to racism in my workplace? In my community? In this country?

These are the questions that I’ve been asking myself lately.

And I don’t think I have all the answers yet — but here are the ones that are starting to ring the most true:

I have to continue to educate myself on the history of racism in America.

I have to listen. I’ll say it again, because it’s that important. I have to listen.

I have to support leaders who see racial justice as fundamental — as something that’s at the heart of nearly every major issue in our country today. And I have to support policies that do the same.

I have to do my best to recognize when to get out of the way — in order to amplify the voices of marginalized groups that so often get lost.

But maybe more than anything?

I know that, as a white man, I have to hold my fellow white men accountable.

We all have to hold each other accountable.

And we all have to be accountable — period. Not just for our own actions, but also for the ways that our inaction can create a “safe” space for toxic behavior.

Mercy me:

BY MELISSA LOCKER

Tax season is upon us–and by us, I mean everyone who is not Amazon, Netflix, Chevron, or pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly and Co., because they are among the 60 or so corporations that paid zero dollars in federal income taxes on the billions of dollars in profits they earned in 2018.

That’s according to a new analysis, released today by the Washington-based think tank Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and first reported by The Center for Public Integrity. After analyzing the 2018 financial filings of the country’s largest 560 publicly held companies, they found that companies like Amazon and Netflix were “able to zero out their federal income taxes on $79 billion in U.S. pretax income,” thanks to the tax overhaul bill pushed through Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump.

“Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes, as the new 21% corporate tax rate requires, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion, blowing a $20.7 billion hole in the federal budget last year,” ITEP reported.

As former Senator Bob Dole (R-KS) once said, “The purpose of a tax cut is to leave more money where it belongs: in the hands of the working men and working women who earned it in the first place.” While the corporate tax laws probably needed some overhauling (Obama fought to make them more globally competitive), when hardworking Americans have to pay taxes, in some cases more than in previous years, and billion-dollar, profit-making corporations have to pay nothing, it’s hard to see who this new tax bill is benefitting.

Of course, as Albert Einstein said, “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”

Good for Katie Bouman:

The development of the algorithm that made it possible to create the first image ever of a black hole was led by computer scientist Katie Bouman while she was still a graduate student at MIT. Bouman shared a photo on Facebook of herself reacting as the historical picture was processing.

The algorithm, which Bouman named CHIRP (Continuous High-resolution Image Reconstruction using Patch priors) was needed to combine data from the eight radio telescopes around the world working under Event Horizon Telescope, the international collaboration that captured the black hole image, and turn it into a cohesive image.

Bouman is currently a postdoctoral fellow with Event Horizon Telescope and will start as an assistant professor in Caltech’s computing and mathematical sciences department, according to her website.

The development of CHIRP was announced in 2016 by MITand involved a team of researchers from three places: MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the MIT Haystack Observatory. As the MIT described it three years ago, the project sought “to turn the entire planet into a large radio telescope dish.”

Since astronomical signals reach the radio telescopes at slightly different rates, the researchers had to figure out how to account for that so calculations would be accurate and visual information could be extracted.

The Conversation:

Today’s students see themselves as digital natives, the first generation to grow up surrounded by technology like smartphones, tablets and e-readers.

Teachers, parents and policymakers certainly acknowledge the growing influence of technology and have responded in kind. We’ve seen more investment in classroom technologies, with students now equipped with school-issued iPads and access to e-textbooks. In 2009, California passed a law requiring that all college textbooks be available in electronic form by 2020; in 2011, Florida lawmakers passed legislation requiring public schools to convert their textbooks to digital versions.

Given this trend, teachers, students, parents and policymakers might assume that students’ familiarity and preference for technology translates into better learning outcomes. But we’ve found that’s not necessarily true.

As researchers in learning and text comprehension, our recent work has focused on the differences between reading print and digital media. While new forms of classroom technology like digital textbooks are more accessible and portable, it would be wrong to assume that students will automatically be better served by digital reading simply because they prefer it.

Speed – at a cost

Our work has revealed a significant discrepancy. Students said they preferred and performed better when reading on screens. But their actual performance tended to suffer.

For example, from our review of research done since 1992, we found that students were able to better comprehend information in print for texts that were more than a page in length. This appears to be related to the disruptive effect that scrolling has on comprehension. We were also surprised to learn that few researchers tested different levels of comprehension or documented reading time in their studies of printed and digital texts.

Nancy Beach’s Wise Words

Last updated on: March 5, 2019 at 1:45 pm By Scot McKnight

From Nancy Beach:

I have been asked by friends, family, and a few reporters how I feel and what I think about the recently released report by the IAG (Independent Advisory Group) concerning the allegations related to Bill Hybels (BH). Here’s my bottom line: I believe the report got the big ideas right:

The allegations of sexually inappropriate words and actions by BH were credible.

Over multiple decades, the WCCC boards were unable to provide sufficient oversight of BH.

BH verbally and emotionally intimidated both female and male employees.

The organizational culture of WCCC and the WCA was positively and negatively affected by the power, influence and management style of the founder and leader.

That being said, after reading the report I experienced a wide range of emotions – numbness, great sadness, some anger, and an overall feeling of, “Is that all there is?” Last year at this time I was in Florida, waiting for the Chicago Tribune article to come out. One year later, I find myself reflecting often on the extreme challenges, deep pain, and totally unexpected events of this past year. I know I am not alone in this story, and only represent one dimension and perspective on what has taken place. For me it has not been a story of one year, but of 5 years now since I first learned of allegations of a 14 year affair with BH, confessed to Leanne Mellado. I joined a process that spanned the next several years, seeking to bring that truth to light with the elders of Willow Creek and the Board of the WCA. Of course my story goes back decades, to a time when I first met Bill as a teenager and the entire trajectory of my life changed.

Many strategic planners and leadership coaches, including me, use a structure to assess their current reality. Four categories are looked at to bring clarity – what is Right, what is Wrong, what is Confused, and what is Missing. I have chosen to react to the IAG report using this outline. Again, this is my personal perspective…

RIGHT

I want to begin with gratitude and respect for the 4 members of the IAG. These individuals served without any pay, sacrificing countless hours to listen and learn. All four of them have high integrity and brought decades of experience and accumulated wisdom to this process. They listened respectfully and with grace. Their only motivation was to serve the Kingdom, and they were truly independent of both the church and the WCA.

As I mentioned above, their bottom line conclusions were right, in my view.

I affirm the IAG calling out the leaders of the WCA who chose to “second their responsibility,” (to the church), stating that “they should have taken greater responsibility to understand the nature and context of the allegations.”

WRONG

I think the biggest “Wrong” for me is not the report itself, but the original plan for what the IAG were charged to do. As they stated, this was not an “investigation.” And it was not set up to be one. But this leaves everyone with a lack of closure. This entire situation never had an outside, objective, skilled investigation process. So the report could only look at patterns and recurring themes. I realize that a true investigation will never take place and must accept that reality.

CONFUSED

The report stated that “no related email content was recoverable.” I believe there was a big part of the story here that the IAG chose not to tell, concerning how BH made sure, years ago when the reports of the 14 year affair first surfaced, to destroy those e-mails. I am confused why this has not been revealed to the congregation and the WCA in an effort to bring full transparency.

The report makes a recommendation that BH “review any possible financial resources (apart from personal retirement benefits or income) provided to him through WCCC and/or the WCA for support of his ministry after his retirement from WC and return such resources.” I agree with this idea, but think it requires further information and development. I think the donors of the church and the WCA should know what kind of funding BH received and the new elders should discern whether that should be returned.

It is confusing and inaccurate to say that BH was merely a “contract employee” for the WCA. He was the head of the Board, the founder, and the primary voice of the entire organization.

MISSING

Outrage: The report sounds dispassionate and somewhat clinical. I realize they need to be professional and objective. But if I’m honest, I long for a sense of outrage. What happened grieves the heart of God. So many lives were broken and affected by the sins of BH and the lack of strong oversight by those called to lead the church and the WCA. Jobs were lost. The consequences are immeasurable. The reputation of the church and the ministry of the WCA were seriously damaged. Followers of Christ around the world were heartbroken to learn that a leader who brought so much vision and leadership lessons had let them down. This is not simply a benign series of misjudgments. This was a tragedy of epic proportions.

Lament: Tracing all the way back to last March, I’m wondering where the lament of God’s people has been. Willow Crystal Lake, one of the satellite sites, did hold an evening of lament and confession. But I’m not aware that a similar experience took place at the Barrington campus, or as a part of last year’s Summit. I believe we all need more grieving before moving on. I keep hearing about “the new season” and how the church and WCA were never about one person. That is true. But what is also true is that the founder of a world changing movement, the primary voice and visionary leader followed by scores of people, has committed serious sins and then lied to cover up those sins. I agree with Scot McKnight who called us to lament.

Greater Transparency: What is missing in the report are details. Why do details matter? Because there are still people wondering if this could possibly be an over-reaction, if the women are fully telling the truth, if Bill’s abuse of power was really just “strong leadership.” I am aware of specific evidence and many episodes and stories that were told to the IAG. None of that comes out in the report. But it’s not too late if Willow Creek Community Church and the WCA choose to get all the important information out there. Why not clear the air? What are we afraid of? Details matter.

Specific Apologies: In an effort to move on, I believe what is missing are still some specific, long overdue apologies. These should be made publicly. Several people had their good names and reputations dragged through the mud. The Mellados and Ortbergs were called “colluders” who had a “vendetta” against BH and the church. That is false information. The words spoken by Betty Schmidt, Vonda Dyer, myself and others were challenged and called lies by some. This should be made right. I also believe the elders who resigned should cycle back and apologize more completely for their serious missteps. In addition, the Board of the WCA and its leaders should apologize for not fulfilling their responsibility to take greater care with the information they received, and for allowing misinformation about the victims to be distributed globally. The WCA should also clear up any impression that their former President, Jim Mellado, had any motives to bring down Bill Hybels, the church or the WCA.

Reparations: The IAG recommended that the church consider granting financial assistance for counseling or other resources for those who were directly harmed by their interactions with BH. I agree, but think what is missing would be the scope of this assistance. Specifically, I believe the church should consider making major compensation to Pat Baranowski and Vonda Dyer, who both lost income or incurred financial repercussions because of the behavior of BH. Even though the current church leaders had nothing to do with the sin that affected the victims, I call them to do the right thing for these victims or any others deemed worthy of financial help.

Repentance From Bill Hybels: Finally, perhaps the biggest thing missing are any words from Bill himself. Words of genuine, full, complete repentance. His silence further hurts all the victims. I pray regularly that God will do a work in his heart and spirit, that he will pursue truth, counseling, confession and forgiveness.

What To Say?

Last updated on: February 23, 2019 at 12:54 pm By Scot McKnight

From CBE

By Chesna Hinkley

On February 18, 2019

Short Answers to Tough Questions

Studies on Specific Passages

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series on difficult Bible passages entitled “What to Say When…”

1 Timothy 2 is a tricky passage to interpret well. Verses 11-15 alone contain four biblical “buzz phrases” often employed by those who oppose women’s equality in the church. Paul writes:[1]

1. Women should learn in silence (2:11).
2. I do not permit a woman to teach or dominate a man (2:12).
3. The woman was decieved and became a sinner (2:14).
4. Women will be saved through childbearing (2:15).

These troubling verses form, for many, the foundation of the case for women’s submission to men and against the legitimacy of women’s preaching and teaching in church and/or to men. Though it would appear those opposed to women’s equality in the church have the upper hand in interpreting “problem passages” like 1 Timothy, egalitarians are actually better equipped to explain why Paul, normally a strong supporter of his female ministry colleagues, would seemingly prohibit those same coworkers from carrying out gospel work. So the next time someone cites 1 Timothy to obstruct women’s gifts and leadership, here’s what you can say:

The Purpose of 1 Timothy

The major crisis in 1 Timothy is false teaching. This takes up most of the content of the letter, and 1:3 says that Paul left Timothy in Ephesus to “command certain people” not to teach falsely or continue in “myths and endless genealogies.” Some people have “turned to meaningless talk.” They want to be teachers, “but they do not know what they are talking about” (1:7).

So, what is false teaching? We know not all the apostles had exactly the same ideas. We also know that Paul didn’t want people fighting about less central ideas, because his primary concern was that the “one faith” be preached (1 Cor. 1:12-13). That means that the “false teachings” referenced here were outside the bounds of Christianity.

The Artemis Cult and Other False Teachings

Artemis of the Ephesians (see Acts 19) was the goddess who kept women safe in childbirth (2:15). If she wasn’t appeased, many Ephesians believed mother or baby would die. In Ephesus, Artemis worship was everywhere. There was an extraordinary temple to her there. Her cult was so deep in the Ephesian worldview that it would have been terrifying for women to give birth without offering sacrifices. The easiest way to soothe this fear would’ve been for women to continue worshipping Artemis on the side. They might’ve also brought elements of Artemis worship into Jesus worship.[2]

Further, some of the church fathers believed that an early form of Gnosticism was being taught at Ephesus. Later on, Gnosticism was a widespread heresy that preached “endless genealogies” of demigods and demons (1:4). It also taught that salvation came through “secret knowledge” (gnosis).

The Gnostics liked Eve because, as they saw it, she wanted to gain wisdom by eating the forbidden fruit. Sometimes, she took on a mysterious power as the spiritual Feminine. In some Gnostic creation myths, Eve was created first. According to church father Irenaeus, Gnostics taught that Eve brought “what is falsely called knowledge” (1 Tim 6:20-21) into the world.[3]

This context is crucial to interpreting this passage as modern believers. Knowing that Ephesian Christians were receiving false teaching, perhaps especially from women who would benefit from Eve’s high status, helps to explain why Paul is so concerned about how women were leading and teaching in church. Now, let’s look at Paul’s message to women within this context:

Women Should “Dress Modestly” (2:9)

This command isn’t specifically related to false teachings in Ephesus, but it underscores how Paul is, again, chiefly concerned with behavior that divides or disrupts. Women, like men, should not be showing off their wealth. Elaborate hairstyles meant you had servants to do your hair, and hours of free time every morning for them to do it.

A Woman Should Learn (2:11)

First of all, a woman learning anything in this culture is noteworthy. Women were generally thought to be intellectually weak and not capable of real learning or virtue. Paul’s desire that women learn is unusual, but consistent with Jesus’ example. This statement also indicates that the women needed teaching. Uneducated people (as these women certainly would have been) would need some education before they were able to expound the Scripture.

Chapter 5 speaks of women going around “talking nonsense,” some of whom had “turned away to follow Satan.” It’s likely, then, that they were spreading false teaching. Since the Artemis cult was so pervasive here, syncretism—blending beliefs from multiple religions—would probably occur most among the people who stood to lose the most by abandoning Artemis worship. It makes sense that women would be frightened enough of dying from childbirth unprotected by the goddess that they would teach syncretic ideas.

Silence and Full Submission (2:11)

Hesuchia—translated “silence”—doesn’t mean saying nothing (that word is sigato). It is better rendered “calmness” or “stillness.” Naturally, a person who is learning ought to be teachable—calm and submissive. This detail isn’t specific to women, it’s an expectation we might have for all learners.

I Do Not Permit a Woman to Teach or Dominate a Man (2:12)

The word authentein, which appears only here in the New Testament, is usually translated “exercise authority.” However, in later Greek writing, authentein is a harsh word that expresses dominance. It’s sometimes used for taking advantage of someone in a business deal, or for violence or murder. This, obviously, isn’t the type of “authority” that Jesus wants leaders to have (Mat. 20:25-28). When Paul speaks of legitimate authority in the church, he uses the term exousia.

The women at Ephesus might have been dominating men through their teaching. But again, it’s more likely that they were not allowed to teach because they were bringing Artemis worship into the church. Remember, Paul left Timothy in Ephesus to “command certain people not to teach false doctrines” (1 Tim. 1:3).

The situation in Ephesus is no reason for faithful women not to teach elsewhere. In fact, Paul tells Titus that the elder women in Crete should be “teachers of good.” In 1 Timothy, Paul was correcting a specific instance of false doctrine and ensuring that those responsible didn’t continue to teach. False teaching that spiritually privileged women might easily turn into domineering leadership—as we see with false teaching that spiritually privileges men.

The Woman Was Deceived and Became a Sinner (2:14)

As mentioned, Gnostic ideas about Eve (see “The Artemis Cult and Other False Teachings” above) were probably among the false doctrines women were promoting. Paul corrects this, reminding them that, in fact, Eve sinned in rebelling against God. Furthermore, in contradiction to the Gnostics, Adam was created first.

Saved through Childbearing (2:15)

This is better translated “childbirth,” so some have thought it refers to Mary birthing Jesus. That would be rather unusual, however, both in Pauline thought and in the New Testament at large.

But “saved” doesn’t have to mean salvation, as modern-day Christians might understand it. Salvation is a concept that was attached to a word that already had a meaning. We already know Christianity asked Ephesian women to stop sacrificing to their protector—Artemis—during childbirth. It makes sense that they would find a new protector in the true God, who would keep them safe.

To Sum Up, What Should You Say?

1. False teaching was a major problem in Ephesus. Most of it probably came from the Artemis cult and early forms of Gnosticism.
2. The Ephesian women needed to learn because they were “talking nonsense.” They probably brought false teaching into the church hoping Artemis would keep them safe in childbirth.
3. Everyone should learn the truth calmly and submissively.
4. Women shouldn’t dominate men, nor should men dominate women. Just because women in Ephesus were teaching falsely and needed to learn doesn’t mean women can’t be good teachers elsewhere.
5. Contrary to Gnostic ideas, Eve didn’t do something good by seeking “knowledge.” Rather, she was deceived and sinned.
6. God will keep Christian women safe in childbirth. They don’t need Artemis worship.

Notes

[1] There is disagreement among scholars as to whether Paul or one of Paul’s students authored 1 Timothy. This article does not intend to assume Paul’s authorship but for ease of reading refers to the writer as Paul.
[2] See Linda Belleville, “Exegetical Fallacies in Interpreting 1 Timothy 2:11-15,” Priscilla Papers 17, no. 3 (2003): 7, accessed July 31, 2018. https://www.cbeinternational.org/sites/default/files/pp173_2efii1t2.pdf. See also Jeffrey D. Miller, “What does Paul mean when he writes that women will be saved through childbearing (1 Tim 2:15)?” Mutuality 19, no. 3 (2012): 16, accessed July 31, 2018. https://www.cbeinternational.org/sites/default/files/answers_miller.pdf. See also Cynthia Westfall, Paul and Gender: Reclaiming the Apostle’s Vision for Men and Women in Christ (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 309-10.
[3] For a concise, well-documented discussion of Gnosticism in Ephesus, see Marg Mowczko, “1 Timothy 2:12 in Context: The Heresy in the Ephesian Church,” accessed July 31, 2018. https://margmowczko.com/1-timothy-212-in-context-3/.

Changing Windows

Last updated on: February 22, 2019 at 6:57 am By Scot McKnight

By Mike Glenn

We used to think our memories worked like computers. Information would come to us through our reading or someone telling a story and we would condense those facts into our own private code and store this data into our mental filing cabinet. When we needed those facts, we’d go to that filing case and pull out the facts we needed.

What we’ve found out is the brain doesn’t work like that. The brain uses images a lot more than raw data. We remember things because we remember the way they looked. Ask any guy about his wedding day. Ask him to tell you what he remembers most and almost universally, he will remember the moment when he saw his new bride, framed by the sanctuary doors, holding her father’s arm as she prepared to walk down the aisle to join him.

That’s almost one of the last things that happened, but that’s what is remembered first. No one remembers, “The alarm clock went off…”

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. It seems we take several of these pictures – pictures of family, of ourselves, our friends, and the world as a whole – and we hang them along the hallways of our minds. These pictures work as stained-glass windows and we look through them to view the world. For instance, we all have a picture of “father”, whether good or bad, and anytime we’re thinking about “father” or trying to be a father, we look through this window into the world around us.

It’s not just rose-colored glasses that tint our vision. Our impressions, knowledge and understandings of ourselves and the world we live in are tinted by the stained-glass windows we’ve hung in our minds.

As most of us know, if we’re to accomplish any real change in our lives or communities, we have to find a way to change the windows through which we’re looking. Want to change yourself? You have to change your self-image. Want to change racism? You have to change the window through which you see others.

Have you ever noticed how many times Jesus told stories that, in effect, changed the windows of his hearers?

“Who is my neighbor?”

“A man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho…” and Jesus changes the window. We can never again think about our neighbors without seeing them through the story of the Good Samaritan.

“A father had two sons…” and Jesus forever changes the way we think about love of the Father and what forgiveness looks like. From now on, we’ll only see it through the window of the story of the prodigal son.

The gospel changes the way we see everyone and everything. As we follow closer and closer to Christ, our “vision” is healed. Like the blind man whose eyes were healed by Jesus, our sight starts out blurry, but it gradually gets clearer. That’s because windows are a lot of work. They get dirty and need to be cleaned. They crack and need to be repaired.

In all of my years of ministry, I’ve discovered more times than not, a person’s life isn’t changed when they hear new information, but when they can see new ways through new windows. The best preachers change the windows their people see through. Good counselors help people change the windows in their minds and souls so they see themselves and their worlds in different ways. A good friend is always helping you, if not making you, change your mind by changing windows.

I love apologetics and I’m grateful for the men and women who dedicate their lives to the discipline of being able to defend the faith against the challenges of our culture. I just haven’t found it that effective in the every day conversations with those who are seeking to believe. Whenever you solve one dilemma, you seem to open three more.

It’s not that way with stories. Stories don’t bring you answers as much as they invite you to ponder the possibilities. What if the older brother had been more forgiving of his prodigal younger brother? What if the younger brother had never left home? What if the shepherd said 99 sheep is fine and never went to look for the lost one?

You can spend your entire life wondering about the subtle shifts of asking another “what if” question. With each question, you see the world in a little different way.

So, for your next conversation with a troubled friend, take a new window. In your next sermon, put plenty of new ways to see in the mix. Changing windows changes mind, and changed minds change our souls.

Weekly Meanderings, 16 February 2019

Last updated on: February 15, 2019 at 1:11 pm By Scot McKnight

Great news about Transformation Church, Derwin Gray’s church, a Northern Seminary graduate:

South Carolina megachurch Pastor Derwin Gray announced Sunday that his multicultural congregation donated $50,000 to a local pro-life pregnancy center.

Gray, the 47-year-old founder and leader of Transformation Church in Indian Land, South Carolina, and a former NFL player, recalled how his own mother was encouraged to get an abortion when she was pregnant with him at 16.

He took time during service Sunday to announce the large donation the church made to the Women’s Enrichment Center in Lancaster.

“[Women’s Enrichment Center has] the privilege of serving thousands of young women and their families facing unplanned pregnancies,” Gray told the 3,500-member congregation.

“For those of you who don’t know, my mom was pregnant with me at 16 years old in 1971 at Thomas Jefferson High School. She was bussed to a school then in the suburbs. And the school nurse said, ‘You should go to California to abort your child.’”

Gray said he and his mother have had a “complicated relationship” through the years. However, the one thing they can both agree on, he said, is that giving birth to him was the “right decision to make.”

Courage embodied:

(Reuters) – Azam Jangravi’s heart was pounding when she climbed atop an electricity transformer box on Tehran’s busy Revolution Street a year ago. She raised her headscarf in the air and waved it above her head.

A crowd formed. People shouted at her to come down. She knew all along she was going to be arrested. But she did it anyway, she says, to change the country for her eight-year-old daughter.

“I was telling myself: ‘Viana should not grow up in the same conditions in this country that you grew up in’,” Jangavi recalled this week in an interview in an apartment in an undisclosed location outside Iran, where she now awaits news on an application for asylum.

“I kept telling myself: ‘You can do this, you can do this’,” she said. “I was feeling a very special kind of power. It was as if I was not the secondary gender anymore.”

After her protest she was arrested, fired from her job at a research institute and sentenced to three years in prison for promoting indecency and wilfully breaking Islamic law.

The court threatened to take her daughter away, but she managed to escape Iran – with Viana – before her jail term began: “I found a human smuggler with a lot of difficulty. It all happened very quickly, I left my life, my house, my car behind,” she said.

As she spoke, Viana sketched pictures. They showed her mother waving the white hijab in the air.

Since Iran’s Islamic Revolution 40 years ago this week, women have been ordered to cover their hair for the sake of modesty. Violators are publicly admonished, fined or arrested.

Kindness embodied:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Three boys at an Olathe middle school did something very special for every girl at their school. They made sure every one of them had a flower for Valentine’s Day.

“I thought it was a great opportunity to give back because being able to make every girl in school at Summit Trail happy on Valentine’s Day means a whole lot to everybody,” said seventh grader Kyan Rice. ”

Rice, teamed with eighth grader Tristan Valentine and sixth grader Lincoln Holmes.

“When I was handing out the flowers, it felt really good to give them a flower and then see the reactions on their face,” said Valentine.

In a Facebook message to 41 Action News, one mother said, “In a time where kids are mean and don’t take time to show a caring heart or hand, these three boys arranged to have a flower for every young lady in the school. What a sweet gesture to make sure every girl felt important.”

The principal of Summit Trail Middle School says she could immediately see the impact of the boys’ actions.

“I had a young lady come up to me and said, ‘I didn’t used to like to go to school on Valentine’s Day. I loved it today.’ And so that was special and it was all because of these three young men,” said Sarah Guerrero.

Resistance embodied:

By CAL NEWPORT

Donald Knuth is one of the world’s most famous living computer scientists. He’s known for his pioneering efforts to bring rigorous mathematical analysis to the design of computer algorithms. An emeritus professor at Stanford University, he’s currently writing the fourth volume of his classic book series, The Art of Computer Programming, which he’s been working on since the early 1960s.

Given Knuth’s renown, many people seek him out. If you’re one of those people, however, you’ll end up disappointed. On arriving at Knuth’s homemade Stanford homepage

, you’ll notice that no email address is provided. If you dig deeper, you’ll eventually find a page named email.html which opens with the following statement:

“I have been a happy man ever since January 1, 1990, when I no longer had an email address. I’d used email since about 1975, and it seems to me that 15 years of email is plenty for one lifetime.”

Knuth does provide his mailing address at Stanford, and he asks that people send an old-fashioned letter if they need to contact him. His administrative assistant gathers these letters and presents them to Knuth in batches, getting urgent correspondence to him quickly, and putting everything else into a “buffer” that he reviews, on average, “one day every three months.”

Knuth’s approach to email prioritizes the long-term value of uninterrupted concentration over the short-term convenience of accessibility. Objectively speaking, this tradeoff makes sense, but it’s so foreign to most tenured and tenure-track professors that it can seem ludicrous — more parody than pragmatism. This is because in the modern academic environment professors act more like middle managers than monastics. A major factor driving this reality is the digital communication Knuth so carefully avoids. Faculty life now means contending with an unending stream of electronic missives, many of which come with an expectation of rapid reply.

Time to report:

(CNN)It has been 22 days since someone won the $1.5 billion Mega Million jackpot, and lottery officials are still wondering who the winner is.

The winning numbers — 5, 28, 62, 65 and 70, with a Mega Ball of 5 — were announced October 23, but the winner remains a mystery.

The winning ticket was sold at a KC Mart convenience store in Simpsonville, South Carolina. It was the largest US jackpot won by a single ticket and the nation’s second-largest jackpot ever.

“They still have over 100 days to come forward,” Holli Armstrong, a South Carolina Education Lottery spokeswoman, told CNN on Wednesday.

That’s because the winner has 180 days from the draw date to claim the prize, she said. In doing so, the new billionaire could remain anonymous.

Yes, Wade Burleson is right:

In 2014, I wrote a lengthy article about the extreme authoritarianism of James MacDonald, an unchecked power that is based on MacDonald’s unbiblical theology that he has been invested by God with “spiritual authority” over people.

Toward the end of the article, I posted a PDF paper on what the Scripture teaches about Christian authority. Anyone who assumes “spiritual authority” over people, the kind of authority that James MacDonald believes in, is actually assuming a Fraudulent Authority acting completely contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ and the New Testament.

I have long pointed out that the problem in the Southern Baptist Convention is a prevalent view that pastors possess some kind of mystical “spiritual authority” over people.

I wrote in 2014 that MacDonald’s belief in his “spiritual authority” over others led to serious damage in ministry and relationships in his church, the Harvest Bible Church.

One year after I wrote that article, James MacDonald petitioned Harvest Bible Church for membership into the Southern Baptist Convention (Read about it here).

Since 2012, James MacDonald has been invited by leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention to speak at least 4 times at the Southern Baptist Convention’s Pastor’s Conference.

Ugh.

Rod Dreher’s next book? On “cultural socialism,” which means “social justice.”

Yep. I’ve had lots of pushback from left-liberal readers on my definition of “socialism” in recent posts — this, because the next book I’m proposing to write will focus on the lessons we in America today ought to learn about socialism, according to people who lived under it in Eastern Europe. There has been collective (naturally) wailing that I am wrongly conflating economic policies with cultural policies.

As I’ve said, I agree that it is possible, in theory, to have more economically “socialist” policies (e.g., a stronger welfare state) without accepting the woke agenda. But in reality, this is not on the table with the Democratic Party. They are all on board with what they call “social justice,” which is really just cultural socialism: the idea that any inequities in the distribution of position within society is the result of iniquitous discrimination, and must be remedied by reducing individuals to demographic characteristics, and allowing authorities (the State, universities, corporations, etc.) choose winners and losers based not on individual accomplishments, but on one’s membership in a demographic group favored by the planners.

“Social justice” is not justice at all. It’s the cultural politics of redistribution and leveling. We ought to start calling it what it is: cultural socialism.

The “gynoandromorph” Cardinal:

JEFFREY AND SHIRLEY Caldwell have been attracting birds for 25 years with carefully tended backyard feeders. But the lifelong Erie, Pennsylvania, residents have never seen a creature so wondrous as the half-vermillion, half-taupe cardinal—its colors split right down the middle—that first showed up a few weeks ago in the dawn redwood tree 10 yards from their home.

In fact, they weren’t sure they saw it correctly until it came in closer. “Never did we ever think we would see something like this in all the years we’ve been feeding,” Shirley Caldwell says.

The anomaly is known as a bilateral gynandromorph. In plain language: Half its body is male and the other half is female. “This remarkable bird is a genuine male/female chimera,” says Daniel Hooper, a postdoctoral fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, in an email.

Gynandromorphs, known as “half-siders” among ornithologists, are uncommon but not unheard of. They likely occur across all species of birds, Hooper says, but we’re only likely to notice them in species where the adult males and females look distinct from each other, a trait known as sexual dimorphism. “Cardinals are one of the most well-known sexually dimorphic birds in North America—their bright red plumage in males is iconic—so people easily notice when they look different,” Hooper says.

Good for Bob Costas:

IN DECEMBER 2015, the movie “Concussion” was set for a Christmas Day release in nearly 3,000 theaters across America. The film told the story of the NFL’s attempts to discredit research tying brain damage to football, and Bob Costas wanted to address it on national television.

Over the previous decade, Costas had become the face of football on NBC, hosting one of TV’s most-watched programs, “Sunday Night Football.” As part of every broadcast, Costas would take two minutes at halftime to speak directly to the program’s 18 million viewers about the NFL issues of the day. Mostly, his commentaries were celebrations of the sport — Brady vs. Manning, a tribute to Lambeau Field — but, occasionally, he addressed subjects like gun control or the controversial name of the Washington, D.C., football team.

With his 28 Emmys and eight National Sportscaster of the Year awards, Costas had become the most-respected broadcaster of his generation — a kind of Walter Cronkite for sports. He believed it was his responsibility to address uncomfortable truths, or “elephants in the room,” as he often called them.

The release of “Concussion” seemed a natural topic given the nationwide awakening about head trauma in contact sports, especially the NFL. Costas believed it was important to have viewers confront football’s existential crisis and consider their own moral dilemma as fans complicit to the sport’s carnage.

Yet he recognized such a speech posed a challenge for his bosses and NBC. The network was paying the NFL billions to air games on Sunday nights. Even more, Costas knew NBC executives were hoping to expand the network’s NFL package to Thursdays.

Costas sent the essay to his bosses for approval, something he typically did not do — and waited.

What would ensue that week — and in the years that followed — reveals for the first time how a broadcasting icon went from fronting America’s most popular sport to being excised from last year’s Super Bowl and, ultimately, ending his nearly 40-year career with NBC.

When We Disagree (RJS)

Last updated on: February 14, 2019 at 11:38 am By RJS

I’ve been traveling – with little time to write. This is a repost – but it joins with the series looking at leadership within the church. John Walton has an interesting analysis of the question of women in ministry included in the Contemporary Significance section of his commentary on Genesis 2 (The NIV Application Commentary Genesis). This is worth some serious thought and discussion.

Commitments. He suggests several steps and commitments we should take. First, the commitments quoted from pp. 189-191.

Methodological Commitments.

We must allow the text to pursue its own agenda, not force it to pursue ours.
We must be committed to the intention of the author rather than getting whatever mileage we can out of the words he used.
We must resist over interpreting the text in order to derive the angle we are seeking.
We must be willing to have our minds changed by the text – that is at least part of the definition of submitting ourselves to the authority of the text.
We must be willing to accept the inevitable disappointment if the text does not address or solve the questions we would like answers to.

These are all important guidelines to keep in mind. We shouldn’t hijack the text, commandeering it for our own purposes. I would temper this, though, with the realization that the New Testament authors did feel free to reinterpret texts based on what they knew of the gospel of Jesus Christ. While it is essential to understand the intention of the author, the gospel can change our understanding.

Personal Commitments.

We must be willing to preserve a godly perspective on the issue and accord Christian respect to those we disagree with, refusing to belittle, degrade, accuse, or insult them. Ad hominem arguments and other varieties of “negative campaigning” should be set aside.
We must not allow our differences of opinion to overshadow and disrupt the effectiveness of ministry and our Christian witness.
We must decry the arrogance that accompanies a feeling of self-righteousness and portrays others as somehow less godly because of the position they hold.

This is an outstanding list of commitments — the kind of commitments that we attempt to maintain on this blog when discussing a wide variety of issues, from the age of the earth and evolution to women in ministry, male headship, to hell, Calvinism, and more. But the next list is even more important.

Values Commitments.

We must determine that individual “rights” and the pursuit of them will not take precedence over more important values, as they have in our society at large.
We must resist any desire to hoard or attain power, though our society and our fallenness drive us to pursue it above all else.
We must constantly strive to divest ourselves of self, though we live in a “What about me?” world.
We must accept that ministry is not to be considered a route to self-fulfillment; it is service to God and his people.

John completely won me over with this list. Whatever conclusions we come to concerning women in ministry, if these values are not at heart we are wrong. Period. Christian leadership, teaching, and “authority” is only for the benefit of others as we follow the call of Jesus. It is grounded in self-sacrifice and love. There is nothing in this about rights or power. No alpha males or flaming feminists here. This is the heart of the matter.

John suggests that if we agree with these commitments “the debate will become largely academic” and “fade into oblivion.” I’ll dig into this more below, but it is worth pointing out that the same applies to marriage. If a marriage honors the counterpartnership of Genesis 2 and the teachings of leadership, mutual submission, respect, and love in the New Testament, the question of male headship in marriage is relegated to dusty academic journals with little to no impact on everyday life.

What Difference Does it Make? John continues his discussion digging into the consequences of the controversy over women in leadership by posing two questions.

First, what is the cost if women are restricted when they should not be? He suggests that some ministries will be done less effectively or lost, because the best gifted people won’t be able carry them out. But in the long run God will still prevail, and the gifts lost in one area will be redirected into others. He also suggests that individual women may feel unfulfilled and disrespected. This last is not insignificant, but isn’t really the heart of the matter. John doesn’t add this – but I think the other consequence of this situation is that it would give a undeserved boost to male ego and thus foster an unhealthy environment.

Second, what is the cost if women are not restricted when they should be? John suggests that these are far less dire than some assume. A God who can speak through ~~an ass~~ a donkey, who can and has worked through male pastors living lives of adultery, and often works through faulty preaching grounded in sloppy interpretation, can certainly speak through women in the church whether this is his ideal or not. No human voice is perfect, yet it is still God’s church and he will prevail.

Some will suggest that when women exercise leadership or teach and preach that men have lost their control, are being forced out of a “feminine church.” But this “is an ego/power issue and does not belong in the discussion.” This cannot be an issue of power and control from either side. Women can be equally guilty of a thirst for power baptized in God words. “As Christian men or women, the only power is Christ’s power … those who yearn for it most are the least worthy of having it.” Christ is head of the church – not men or women, whether lay people, pastors or elders/deacons/whatever.

John doesn’t see Genesis 2 speaking to this issue at all and we err when we bring Genesis 2-3 into the discussion. Genesis 2 offers insight into human roles in partnership but doesn’t get us to the specifics beyond this. “Genesis 2 proclaims God’s gracious provision for the blessing to be procured. In addition the text addresses the interdependence that exists between man and woman.” (p. 192) On this we can all agree.

So what now? I would like to conclude this post with some thoughts. My position is similar to John’s, perhaps why I found his analysis so refreshing. Although what follows is my take alone, he may or may not agree.

Personally, in our 21st century western culture I think shared leadership between men and women, including in preaching and teaching, should be our preference. The answer could be different in other times and places. However, anyone who is convinced that the biblical ideal is male-only leadership should prefer such a church for regular fellowship. It certainly isn’t intrinsically wrong to seek out, belong to, or lead such a church.

But there are ways in which an insistence on male-only leadership can be destructive. This is true in any time or place.

For example, if it leads a man to feel or argue that it is demeaning, or worse yet, sinful, to sit in the audience of a female teacher on occasion; that it undermines his manhood to so place himself “under the authority” of a woman. (I have heard and read these arguments.) Such arguments are governed more by the ego and power culture of the world than by the gospel of Jesus Christ. If a man feels that he and his group cannot cooperate or fellowship with a Christian group that accepts women as speakers/teachers because he would sin in participation … well that is just dead wrong. Frankly, I don’t think this is grounded in a fear of the Lord, but in human ego and stubbornness. It seems to me that we should consider any people who believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth; in Jesus Christ who crucified, dead, and buried then rose again; in the Holy Spirit, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting as brothers and sisters, fundamentally with us rather than against us. No matter what they believe on other less important issues.

God can speak through any vessel as John notes in his commentary. In fact every human speaker/teacher fails in some fashion of their lives. Pride, ambition, ego, sexual sin, anger, greed, and so on, some combination of these stains us all. Every pastor at every church, every speaker at every conference, every writer of every commentary, is a fallen, fallible human being. Whether male or female. There is no place for hero worship in the Christian church. We don’t follow Paul, Apollos, or Cephas … or insert more recent names here. Christ isn’t divided. We would do well to remember this as we listen and learn, always testing the teaching by the Spirit and Scripture.

And this leads to a second point. Our only ultimate authority is God and his Son, Jesus, the Messiah. We are never permanently or absolutely under the authority of another human. Because of this there is no question of being under inappropriate authority. All humans are fallible and we are all individually answerable to God. It can never demean us to listen to another Christian, whether rich or poor, slave or free, male or female, educated or uneducated, urban or rural, of my race and ethnicity or another. And the list could go on.

Of course, there are a multitude of ways in which an insistence on shared leadership between male and female can go wrong as well. If a woman feels it is her right to power, position, and audience, if it is cast as a feminist battle of the sexes. The ego and power culture of the world is a trap for all humans … male and female.

One of the handicaps of the Christian (if you want to think of it as a handicap) is that we are called to effect change in both our church and our world by living in a kingdom fashion of service and love, not by using the tools of power and manipulation common in the world. We serve a Lord whose call is to take up our cross daily and follow him, to love and serve others. We are all called to ministry, and to take advantage of the opportunities that come, to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ using the gifts that God has given to build up his church.

The way we deal with this issue will make a big difference in the witness of the church to our culture.

What do you think of John’s analysis?

How should we approach this issue? What kind of a stand are we called to take?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Weekly Meanderings, 9 February 2019

Last updated on: February 7, 2019 at 5:48 pm By Scot McKnight

My dear wife, Kris, loved this book — post clip from Andy LePeau:

Yes, in Factfulness, Hans Rosling regularly emphasizes that a lot of bad things are happening that we still need to work on. His main question, though, is Why don’t we know about all this good news? He offers a number of reasons.

One is that those in the media like to emphasize the dramatic and potentially fearful which captures attention (and advertising dollars). We know China is a huge economic threat because the media always talks about it. What they rarely mention is that extreme poverty was reduced in China from 42% of the population in 1997 to 0.7% in 2017. In the same period India reduced its share from 42% to 12%.

Activists also like to focus on the negative and play to fear as well to raise money and support. So that’s often what sticks.

With fascinating stories and a dose of humor, Rosling explains other reasons we have such a deficient view of the world. He memorably labels these The Gap Instinct, The Straight Line Instinct, The Generalization Instinct, The Blame Instinct and more. In doing so he offers helpful tips for combating these tendencies. So, when you hear almost anything dramatic or outrageous, take a breath and take it with a grain of salt.

Rosling thinks this good news should encourage us to keep working at correcting other problems because we can now see from our experience of the recent past that major successes are possible. He not only shows what’s going well he also offers guidelines for how to make sure what we are doing to correct remaining problems are the most beneficial.

Yes, this book just might turn your view of the world upsidedown.

And Kris and I often strive for 10,000 steps a day, but Zoe Weiner’s article tosses some shade over that number:

There is an undeniable sense of accomplishment when your FitBit or iPhone step tracker hits 10,000. Because: You did it! You’ve reached your activity goal, and can file the day away as a successfully active one. Except there’s one problem: That whole “10,000 steps” answer to the question of how many steps to take in a day is actually kind of a scam.

Yup—you read that right. The number was developed in the 1960s by a Japanese walking club while they were producing a step-counting device with a name that roughly translated to “10,000 steps meter.” They marketed the tool using the slogan: “Let’s walk 10,000 steps a day,” and clearly—if our collective FitBit obsession is any indiction—that number stuck.

“It became popularized amongst pedometer companies and now is popularized obviously among media but there’s no actual scientific basis for 10,000 steps,” says Elroy Aguiar, PhD, senior postdoctoral research associate at the Physical Activity and Health Laboratory Department of Kinesiology at the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at University of Massachusetts Amherst. “This 10,000 steps number came from out of nowhere. I guess they roughly knew how much on average people usually do really—which is around 6,000 steps a day—and they just set an arbitrary target of 10,000, something they knew that would improve activity because it was higher than what people were currently doing.”

Is your mind blown? Yeah, same. According to a 2004 study, this checks out. “It’s a nice round number and it’s something everybody just keeps using—they’re not necessarily really evaluating the precise point at which health benefits might start to occur in terms of steps,” says Dr. Aguiar. But I am so, let’s examine the phenomenon and how many steps you should actually get.

So at what point do health benefits of taking steps occur?

According to the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, adults should do 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous exercise per week in order to get “substantial health benefits” from these activities. “If you translate those numbers into steps, what numbers do you actually get? It’s somewhere between 7,000 and 8,000 steps per day,” explains Dr. Aguiar.

Frank Robinson sure had some quick hands with that bat:

Frank Robinson, the first African-American manager in Major League Baseball and the only player to win MVP in both leagues, has died at age 83, MLB said Thursday.

An outfielder and first baseman, Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982 in his first year of eligibility.

A fearsome hitter, Robinson ranks 10th on the career home run list with 586. He won the Triple Crown with the Orioles in 1966 and became the first black manager in MLB history in 1975 with the Cleveland Indians.

Beth Allison Barr is starting a wonderful new series:

In July 1934, the deacons met at First Baptist Church Elm Mott, a Southern Baptist church near Waco, Texas. They voted unanimously to invite Mrs. Lewis Ball of Houston to come as their revival preacher. As the church minutes record (and as I have written about before): the deacons recommended that “the church ask Mrs. Lewis Ball of Houston to assist us one week during our coming revival, she being a great inspiration and an outstanding Soul winner.” Mrs. Lewis Ball not only had charge of the morning services and delivered evening messages for the young peoples’ prayer meeting at the 1934 summer revival, but she preached to the largest crowd yet recorded at FBC Elm Mott: an audience of 139. At least 6 people professed faith in Jesus after her sermon, “Is it Well With Your Soul?” 16 baptisms resulted from the revival overall. Mrs. Lewis Ball proved such a popular preacher that she was asked to return in 1935 and again in 1938.

In 1934, no one at this ordinary Southern Baptist church had a problem with a preaching woman. The deacons’ recommendation had nothing to do with gender and everything to do with preaching ability. Mrs. Ball was a “great inspiration and an outstanding Soul winner,” so they invited her. The attitude expressed by FBC Elm Mott represented the larger trajectory of the SBC. In 1963, the SBC ordained Addie Davis and, in 1974, the SBC sponsoreda conference affirming women’s role in ministry which resulted in an edited collection published by Broadman Press: Christian Freedom for Women and Other Human Beings. Charles DeWeese even noted how the SBC once took very opposite positions on scripture regarding women’s roles than they do today. For example, the 1969 The Broadman Bible Commentary supported Phoebe in Romans 16 as a deaconess while the 1999 LifeWay Holman Bible translates her as a servant.

The Southern Baptist Convention, in other words, once supported women in ministry. Yes, this is the same convention of Paige Patterson. It is the same convention that sponsored the conservative resurgence in 1979 which has resulted in shoving women not only from ministry but also considerably reducing their roles and authority within the Baptist Tradition. Just watch Steve Lipscomb’s PBS documentary The Battle for the Minds when you have time. It is the same convention which famously declaredin 2000 that women should submit graciously to the servant leadership of their husbands.

So what happened?

I have been promising (threatening?) since last November to start a new series on the problem of patriarchy for Christians. This is my introduction to the series. The story of the SBC is not a new story in Christian history. As my mom says, it is just same song different verse.

Advantage Seals!

The government shutdown may be over (for now), but the work to restore some of America’s sacred outdoor spaces has just begun. For places such as Joshua Tree, facing that process is daunting due to litter and other damage caused by humans, but one beach in California is experiencing a different kind of side effect.

During the shutdown, government workers were put on furlough and were no longer required to attend to Drake Beach, a stretch of sand in Northern California that is part of the National Park System’s Point Reyes National Seashore. Because it was left abandoned, nobody was there to monitor the local wildlife, which includes a few gigantic elephant seals. So, the seals decided to reclaim their land and snuggle up on the shore. And now, nobody can get them to leave.

“I’ve not seen anything like this here with these numbers,” John Dell’Osso of the National Park Service told KPIX, a local CNN affiliate. “An occasional rogue elephant seal yes, but nothing like this.”

According to Dell’Osso, the seals not only came ashore during the shutdown, but they actually had enough time to birth a few babies. And those babies will need to stay put for quite some time.

“Now we have some 35 to 40 pups that have been born on the beach and will be nursing from their mothers for the next couple of months,” he said. “I just want to caution the public to be patient with us, as we’re trying to work our way through this.”

Had the shutdown not occurred, Dell’Osso explained to Motherboard that his team would have likely attempted to move the seals away from the parking area.

“This would be done by a standard practice of using tarps and waving them at the seals to the point where they turn around and go further down the beach,” Dell’Osso said.

Jesus According to the Evangelists

Last updated on: February 3, 2019 at 1:52 pm By Scot McKnight

I’m taking a few stops at James D.G. Dunn, Jesus According to the New Testament.

We call the authors of the first four Gospels the “evangelists” because they are recording the evangel, the gospel itself. That gospel is the story of Jesus.

But in telling that story each of the Evangelists presents a distinct, if complementary, view of Jesus.

Dunn proceeds through each of the synoptic Evangelists — Mark, Matthew, Luke — drawing out the themes of each.

Long ago a scholar produced a NT theology that summoned the various authors of the NT to a conference table to present his ideas about a selected topic (say, salvation). That author permitted each author to present his view in his own way, and that same author avoided forcing the various views into a single synthesis, which I thought at the time and even more now, could help us summon more voices to the table to create genuine diversity in our unity. So, here is Dunn’s summary of the synoptic Evangelists’ view of Jesus:

Third, the summary term “gospel” was claimed for the Christian movement for its central message by Paul, and given its technical Christian sense by Mark. If “gospel” as a Christian term is defined by Mark, as the story of Jesus’s ministry, climaxing in his death and resurrection, then later uses of the term, as in the Gospel of Thomas, are better described as a misuse of the term.

Fourth, particularly by framing his telling of the story of Jesus’s ministry as the unveiling of “the messianic secret” of Jesus, Mark added a spice to what might otherwise have been a more pedestrian account. And his ending of the story, leaving the hearer in some suspense, presumably helped bring a listening audience to their own experience of the risen Jesus.

Fifth, Matthew’s retelling of the Gospel of Mark shows how adaptable was the Jesus tradition—how different emphases could be brought out from the same tradition. In Matthew’s case the emphases seem to have been to make his Gospel more appealing to Jewish audiences—the five blocks of Jesus’s teaching mirroring the five books of Moses, the Wisdom Christology, the emphasis on Jesus as the fulfillment of Jewish expectation, the focus on Jesus’s mission to Israel, and the reaffirmation of the law. It is this sense of Jesus’s continuity with what had gone before in God’s leading of Israel that most marks the Gospel of Matthew and makes it distinctive among the documents of the New Testament.

Sixth, if Matthew links the ministry of Jesus most firmly to God’s dealings with Israel in the past, Luke points, with equal firmness, to the potential of Jesus’s mission for the gentile world. This is most obvious in his emphasis on the role of the Spirit, to be continued in his second volume, as also Jesus’s own openness to gentiles. Distinctive of Luke, but also of powerful significance for Luke’s wider concerns evidenced in Acts, are his emphasis on Jesus’s ministry among sinners, his note that Jesus gave priority to prayer during his own ministry, Jesus’s concern for the poor, and the importance of the role of women in Jesus’s ministry.

Jesus according to Mark, Matthew, and Luke comes across as certainly the same Jesus, but the same Jesus powerfully impacting different people and different situations. What if only one Gospel had been treasured by the earliest churches—giving the impression that there was only one acceptable way of telling the story of Jesus’s ministry, that there was only one way in which his teaching could be retained and passed on correctly? Thankfully, Jesus’s ministry was told diversely from the first, not least in order that the diversity of its appeal should be maintained.