Campbellsville University and Christians for Biblical Equality

Last updated on: November 5, 2015 at 7:21 am By Scot McKnight

Dr. Mimi Haddad is president of Christians for Biblical Equality. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado and Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. She holds a PhD in historical theology from the University of Durham, England. She and her husband, Dale, live in the Twin Cities. Follow her on Twitter @Mimi_CBE.

From Arise, by Mimi Haddad:

Last spring, I received an email from Southern Baptist affiliate Campbellsville University (Campbellsville, KY) informing me of their intention to join CBE as an organization member. I learned that a private donor had funded a five-year annual lectureship, the first of which would be led by me. I was also invited to lead a convocation chapel, give two classroom lectures, and address the annual Kentucky Heartland Institute on Public Policy (KHIPP).

What could inspire such profound commitment to biblical gender equality at Campbellsville University (CU)?

Several years back, two CU faculty members volunteered in CBE’s office for a few weeks over the summer. A planned mission trip had been cancelled and they had time on their hands. They wanted to spend it serving an organization with a mission they were passionate about.

Drs. Susan and Dwayne Howell joined CBE staff in a brief but enormously fruitful partnership. The Howells jumped in, eager to write, speak, and edit our publications. Avid advocates of biblical gender equality, the Howells’ commitment to and capacity for this work proved deeply inspiring. CBE continues to rely on their scholarly expertise as writers, speakers, chapter leaders, and as members of CBE’s scholarly peer review team.

And, I’m overjoyed to observe our collaboration grow.

When I was invited to speak at Campbellsville University this fall, Drs. Dwayne and Susan Howell asked me to address their Bible and gender classes as well.

Their “Old Testament Prophets” class was a cozy gathering of biblically-alert students. Together, we considered “A Holistic Hermeneutic to Woman as Ezer–Strong Rescue” noting that from Genesis to Revelation, women leaders served with enormous authority despite the patriarchy of Bible culture. We considered identity markers for woman in Genesis, particularly that of ezer–strong rescue. Following this theme through the remainder of Scripture, we concluded that women were not only prophets and leaders in business and the military, but that Deborah was a prophet, judge, and the “mother of Israel.”

Focusing on the New Testament, we observed women’s strong spiritual rescue as preachers, evangelists, prophets, teachers, deacons, apostles, and martyrs. I was inspired and heartened by CU students’ commitment to a deep understanding of Scripture. A woman in the class took me aside after our discussion to thank me for my work. She said that my lecture, the first she had heard as a Bible major, was a “wink” from God. She was inspired to see a woman lifting high Scripture’s support for women like her, passionate about ministry and the gospel.

I left the room thinking that Lottie Moon, perhaps the most gifted, tenacious, and courageous evangelist to call herself a Baptist, would have been proud of her spiritual sister preparing for a career in which she could be “bold for the Lord.”

I delivered my next lecture to a gender studies class. I was astonished at the number of students, male and female, that were interested in biblical gender equality. Together, we considered the crucial issue: “Equal in Being but Unequal in Service?”. Throughout history, the church has offered three positions on gender and leadership:

Unequal in being, therefore unequal in authority (a patriarchal perspective)
Equal in being, therefore equal in authority (an egalitarian perspective)
Equal in being, but therefore unequal in authority (a complementarian perspective)

We explored how, despite the predominant sway of patriarchy throughout church history, women have served the world fearlessly with their spiritual, moral, and intellectual gifts. Women have risen above the marginalization and oppression dealt to them, proving they are indeed created in God’s image for shared authority and leadership beside men (Gen. 1:26-29). A consistent and fair historical overview of women’s leadership challenges the theological devaluation of women.

I was again impressed by the knowledge of these students. They fiercely acknowledged the lapse in logic and the distortion of Scripture in arguing that women are equal in being without equal authority. They agreed that to be equal agents of Christ is to share agency and authority.

Just as the Holy Spirit fell on the diverse crowd of witnesses gathered at Pentecost, so too did a wind of faith inspire these young scholars to be the face, hands, and feet of Christ.

That evening, I had the distinguished honor of addressing faculty, students, and guests at KHIPP. The room was packed for my lecture on the “Invisible Power of Culture to Oppress: What Every Christian Needs to Know about Gender and Justice” (available at https://vimeo.com/140681890).

Together, we considered how, historically, the superiority of males has been viewed as an innate and fixed condition–and nearly every religious or philosophical tradition has incorporated this position as part of their teachings and practices.

Though this view gained ground after Constantine, it was the early evangelicals who provided the first systematic challenge not only to slavery, but also to patriarchy. Their biblical scholarship dismantled a worldview, adopted by Christians, that presumed superiority based on gender and skin color (ethnicity). Because of the “egalitarian” scholarship of early evangelicals, many Christians today have thoroughly embraced the biblical logic that all believers, regardless of gender or skin color are equally valued by God and called to leadership based on their gifts and Christian character.

Even so, too many Christians retain a hierarchical worldview, insisting on equal value but unequal authority.

The legacy of the early evangelicals was the sweeping theological and social reform that fueled abolition and the fight for suffrage—and its intellectual, spiritual, and social benefits for women and slaves. Significantly, women missionaries vastly outnumbered men in the global mission field in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. These female evangelists were on the front lines of social justice, especially in their challenge to the horrific human trafficking and slavery of women and girls.

At the time, Christian leaders believed that social justice was essential to evangelism. On this point, we observe a difference of perspective among some evangelicals today.Thankfully, my audience at Campbellsville was filled with individuals who hold the same priorities as these early evangelicals. By the end of the lecture, some students were ready to launch a CBE campus chapter for the purpose of dismantling patriarchy as a biblical ideal and practice.

Over dinner, we discussed the challenges marginalized individuals face because of gender or ethnicity–particularly within evangelical institutions. Together, we explored practical ways that the church and Christians institutions could become a place of welcome and support for women.

I completed my visit with a convocation chapel address to the students, faculty, and administrators at Campbellsville University on “The Dignity and Power of Diversity: Union with Christ our Truest Identity.”

We celebrated the miracle of the early church–its unity of purpose and proclamation despite the enormous cultural, economic, ethnic, and gender diversity. My address focused on this question: how can we consider the outcome of their work and imitate their lives?

As I finished outlining my biblical approach to the shared leadership of males and females, I concluded:

“Be careful never to limit the scope of another believer. You can never know what a follower of Jesus is capable of, because God’s Spirit is working in them, doing more than we think or imagine possible–Ephesians 3:20. And, that is the power of the gospel!”

In these two short but full days at Campbellsville, I met many Christians determined to remove cultural biases in reading Scripture and serving God. Hundreds of resources were distributed and many ideas were exchanged.

I would later learn of heart-wrenching falsehoods spread about Campbellsville and their biblical integrity in their community. Even in the midst of this, Campbellsville remains boldly committed to the mission of biblical gender equality.

Unlike many of their Baptist colleagues, they see a message in Scripture that extends equal dignity to men and women, including equal authority. They see provision in the gospel for women to serve Jesus in any capacity in the world, church, and home. And in truth, their willingness to come to a different theological position than is widely accepted in the Baptist community is, well, very Baptist indeed. After all, Baptists have a long tradition of resisting church hierarchy.

Their divergence from other Baptists on women’s vocation and calling does not mean they reject the teachings of the Bible. No, the truth is far from it. They are a rigorous community of scholars and students. When Campbellsville arrived at a different interpretation of Scripture regarding gender, they joined the ranks of a long line of earnest believers who, since the early church, have come to the same conclusion.

I had to smile as I left Campbellsville to fly the short distance home, recalling gratefully how welcome I felt in this community of Christ-followers. Perhaps we should hold our next conference at Campbellsville!

When She Preaches (Tara Beth Leach)

Last updated on: October 27, 2015 at 3:33 pm By Scot McKnight

By Tara Beth Leach, posted originally at Missio Alliance.

Growing up, I sat at the feet of countless remarkable male preachers. Besides Beth Moore, I don’t recall ever hearing a woman preach until my sophomore or junior year of college. I witnessed countless men stand behind pulpits, open their Bibles, and preach the Word of God in awe-inspiring ways. I am thankful for these men, because at the feet of them, my faith was formed and challenged. But I often wonder what it would have been like for me to listen to a woman preacher before I myself preached for the first time. I imagine I would have been deeply encouraged and wildly inspired.

When women don’t preach, the church suffers. It is as Carolyn Custis James says in her book, Half the Church,

When half the church holds back – whether by choice or because we have no choice – everybody loses and our mission suffers setbacks. Tragically, we are squandering the opportunity to display to an embattled world a gospel that causes both men and women to flourish and unites us in a Blessed Alliance that only the presence of Jesus can explain.[1]

Because, when a woman preaches, something profound begins to happen in the pews, the ground begins to shift, barriers are torn down, and the once silenced mouths are opened1.[2]

When She Preaches, Women In The Congregation Begin To Imagine Gifts Outside Of The Traditional/Patriarchal Roles

When she preaches, the women in the pews can begin to undo the narrative that tells them they are inferior to men. Many women sitting in the pews on Sunday morning aren’t sure what to do with scriptures that tell them to “keep quiet in the church” and are even told that scriptures like this should be applied to all women in every context. However, when she preaches, other women in the pews are pushed to think critically about those tough passages; they are pushed to consider their own gifts; they are forced to ponder a false narrative that they have embraced for far too long – that they are somehow less capable or less gifted in the Kingdom of God. When she preaches, women see a super-natural talent embodied in another woman, empowered by the Spirit, and propelled to edify all of the people of God.2 And it is then that women in the congregation begin to ask: can I preach, too? Maybe they will unearth the talents that have been buried for far too long; maybe they will spread their wings and fly; maybe they, too, will use their gifts in new and inspiring ways.

When She Preaches, We Get A Glimpse Of The Women As Told In The Story Of God

When she preaches, we get a glimpse of leaders in the early church such as Phoebe, a financial sponsor for Paul’s missions and a deacon; Priscilla, the gifted preacher; Mary, the first to proclaim the risen Lord to the world; Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Junia, the bright and respected Apostle. And then there are women such as Deborah, the fearless leader; Huldah, the prophetess who helped reignite Israel’s faith; Miriam, the gifted musician for the people of God, and Esther, the brave queen who seized the moment and boldly approached the King.[3] When she preaches, she is not alone, just as Scot McKnight writes on the Apostle Junia,

Junia, my friends, is not alone. Many women today are active in ministry and are continuing with confidence and power the storied history of women in the Bible and the silenced history of women in the church. They are not silenced as they once were, and so we look around and sing to the women among us who are embodying the gifts God has given to them.[4]

These women were called by God, gifted by the empowering presence of the Spirit, and used to encourage the people of God in big and bold ways. So when she preaches, she carries the legacy that these women started in the very beginning of God’s story. She stands among the priesthood of all believers and the Christological proclamation in Galatians 3:28.

When She Preaches, We Get A Glimpse Into The Eschatological Kingdom Of God

On the day of Pentecost, when the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit fell upon all of God’s people, Peter – filled with this Spirit – boldly stood before the masses and declared:

In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18)

The Holy Spirit inspires men and women alike with no distinction in God’s new end-time Kingdom. When she preaches, the people of God are living into the eschatological vision proclaimed by the Apostle Peter. Empowered by the Spirit, women are living the life of the future here and now just by using their gifts to edify the church1 (1 Cor. 12:4-11; Rom. 12:4-8; Eph. 4:11-13).

When She Preaches, The Women In The Congregation Begin To See That They, Too, Are Invited To The Table

Just yesterday I received a handwritten letter in the mail from a young twenty-something who is wildly in love with Jesus and is wildly in love with her local church, but is also wildly confused. She writes in her letter,

I’m really wrestling with God’s view of women, and what role my life is. It’s really hard for me as a new believer to be able to intellectually and Biblically understand why women are treated they are in American churches. It’s hard to piece apart what is Biblical and what is sinful patriarchy warping scripture to keep women in their place…. Are we just a subplot in a men’s game? Did God really create me for a greater purpose that isn’t just what man I belong to?

Sadly, this young woman is not alone in her discouragement or confusion. She doesn’t see a narrative or a church that invites her to the table. She is one of the brightest young people I have ever met; she graduated from an Ivy League school at only 20 years old. She is spunky; she is talented; she is gifted. When I watch her, it’s hard for me not to imagine all the ways her gifts could be used to edify the church. I could see her as a teacher or as a writer or as a theologian or as a seminary professor or as a pastor or as a preacher. But sadly, she doesn’t see a seat at the table for her.[5] Do you see, my friends? When a woman preaches, young women – much like the one who wrote this letter – begin to imagine what it would be like to sit at the table, and their imagining turns into an empowering and then to an edifying.

Dearest brothers and sisters in Christ, when women preach, something profound begins to happen in the pews, the ground begins to shift, barriers are torn down, and the once silenced mouths are opened. Other women are given the confidence that they are not only able but also called to use their gifts within the Body of Christ. Who will you welcome to your pulpit today?[6]

What would you add? Join the conversation on the comment section, and let’s also start a conversation on Twitter! Tweet #WhenShePreaches and add the positive things that happens when a woman preaches. For example: “#WhenShePreaches I am inspired!”

[1] Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015), 19.

[2] See a powerful post on Sarah Bessey’s blog, “Why Not Have a Woman Preach” right here.

[3] See a helpful post on women in the early church by Ed Cyzewski on Rachel Held Evans blog right here.

[4] Scot McKnight, Junia Is Not Alone (Englewood, CO: Patheos Press, 2011), eBook location 228.

[5] Also read a beautiful and honest post by Kayla Blair on the Junia Project Blog, “Made in the Image of a God Doesn’t Look Like Me” right here.

Also: Scot McKnight has an interesting series on John Stackhouse’s new book, Partners in Christ: A Conservative Case for Egalitarianism. You can read it right here. I read his last book, Finally Feminist and loved it. I am eager to read his new book.

[6] Interested in learning more on women in ministry? I recommend the following excellent reads: Scot McKnight, Junia Is Not Alone (Englewood, CO: Patheos Press, 2011); John G. Stackhouse and Jr, Finally Feminist: a Pragmatic Christian Understanding of Gender (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005); William J. Webb, Slaves, Women and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001); Scot McKnight, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010).; Dr. Jackie Roese, Lime Green (Dallas, TX: HIS Publishing Group, 2015). I also recommend Jory Micah’s Blog, Breaking the Glass Steeple.

Faculty Opening at Northern Seminary

Last updated on: October 28, 2015 at 5:28 pm By Scot McKnight

Position Title: Part-Time Affiliate Professor of Homiletics; 1-year appointment

Status: Contract
Department: Dean’s Office
Reports To: Vice President of Academic Affairs, Faculty Professional Development Committee

Position Summary: The Affiliate Professor of Homiletics will be a pastor/scholar responsible for teaching the two required preaching courses within the Master of Divinity curriculum during the 2016-2017 academic year. The professor provides specific oversight and responsibility for implementing these courses as defined by the A New Kind of Preacher grant program at the seminary which is funded by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. The purpose of the Lilly program is to strengthen the quality of preaching in North America.

The preaching courses will yield missional preachers who are able to respond in relevant and biblical ways to a new generation of cultural changes.

Knowledge and Skills: Demonstrated preaching excellence; skilled teacher, with the capacity to lead within a highly diverse context; demonstrated understanding of issues and trends in theological higher education, particularly in the area of preaching; plus leadership and regular preaching ministry within the life of a local congregation.

Working Conditions: The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Duties are performed indoors in an office and classroom environment. Duties also require travel to other locations. The employee will spend long hours sitting, using computer programs, and entering data via keyboard or equivalent means. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision and the ability to adjust focus. The ability to hear and see are critical for effective communication in this role. Depending on the class schedule, this role may often require evening work, as well as the occasional weekend.

Duties and Responsibilities: Assist with other projects as needed.

Education and Work Experience: PhD in religion or theology preferred; other terminal degree may be considered; experience teaching in an academic setting preferred.

Christian Faith: Northern Seminary seeks candidates that are dedicated followers of Christ and have a sincere desire to be an integral part of the mission of the Seminary.

Equal Opportunity Employer: Northern Seminary is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from diverse candidates.

Application Procedures: Send cover letter*, CV, preaching video or link to Jennifer Ould, Assistant to the President, Northern Seminary, 660 E. Butterfield Rd., Lombard, IL 60148.

Application deadline is January 5, 2016.

*Please read the seminary Community Standard and Statement of Faith documents. These documents reflect the unique and special ethos of the Northern Seminary community. Within the cover letter, address how you are and are not in full agreement with the content of each document. For example, regarding the Statement of Faith, affirmation of the statement may include differences relating to the faithful perspective of other Christian orthodox traditions on the topics of church governance, baptism and communion. In regard to these three specific issues, differences are allowable. Also, please state your public position and practice regarding the role of women in ministry, including the ordination of women to senior pastor roles within congregational settings.

Are Evangelicals Fundamentalists? (by David G. Moore)

Last updated on: October 21, 2015 at 9:19 pm By Scot McKnight

By David George Moore. Dave blogs at www.twocities.org

I became a Christian at Arizona State University through the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru). A few months later, I was browsing the shelves in a Christian bookstore. I stumbled upon a booklet which immediately caught my attention: Campus Crusade Examined in Light of Scripture. The author, Charles Woodbridge, articulated brief, but sharp disagreements with Campus Crusade, especially that they embraced working with Christians from all denominations. This author was no anti-intellectual rube. Charles Woodbridge was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Princeton University, did graduate work at the Sorbonne, and held a PhD from Duke.

Through professors at both Dallas Theological Seminary (82-84) and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (90-92) I heard the story of modern-day Evangelicalism. It was described as a movement of sorts which sought to break away from the anti-intellectualism and lack of cultural engagement characteristic of many Fundamentalists. With exceptions like Charles Woodbridge and more famously with J. Gresham Machen, Fundamentalism had an ethos of anti-intellectualism along with suspicion over the merits of cultural engagement.

Carl Henry, Edward Carnell, Harold Ockenga, and Kenneth Kantzer were concerned over the penchant of Fundamentalists to isolate themselves from engagement with American culture. These new, Evangelical leaders secured PhDs at secular universities like Harvard and Boston University. They sought to demonstrate that Christians could be robust intellectually, culturally engaged, all while remaining thoroughly orthodox. Nothing was compromised when it came to the core, Christian doctrines. Carl Henry and the rest very much held to the “big five.” Doug Sweeney describes what was included in these five.

The most popular list was “The Five Point Deliverance” of the Northern Presbyterians. The 1910 Presbyterian General Assembly ruled that all who wanted to be ordained within their ranks had to affirm the Westminster Confession and subscribe to five fundamental doctrines: 1) the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, 2) the virgin birth of Christ, 3) the substitutionary atonement of Christ, 4) the bodily resurrection of Christ, and 5) the historicity of the biblical miracles.

Note well that there is nothing about the age of the earth or the role of women.

In the early 1990s, I read George Marsden’s Reforming Fundamentalism (published in 1987). Even though John Woodbridge had written a book-length critique of those who do not hold to inerrancy, Marsden recorded the dismay of Woodbridge’s father over unwise compromises he believed his son was making. I vividly remember reading Marsden’s book because John Woodbridge taught me church history. Professor Woodbridge’s scholarship and many kindnesses were a wonderful blessing during my time at Trinity. Both father and son were rock solid on the core doctrines of the Christian faith. However, their conceptions of faithful, Christian practice in the modern world were at loggerheads.

The explanation I heard on numerous occasions is that the Evangelicals, in an admirable desire to engage the world, left the backwaters of the Fundamentalists for good. It was a clean break. I’m no longer so sure of that narrative. At the very least, it seems to me now that the relationship between Fundamentalists and Evangelicals may be a bit more complicated than many of us have assumed.

It seems there remain at least some Fundamentalist tendencies within some/much of Evangelicalism. I see it regularly in the lack of interest in the church’s history with the attendant skepticism that there is nothing of value to learn from the Roman Catholic or the Orthodox traditions. It can also be found in the confidence, even hubris, over how one articulates secondary doctrinal issues like the age of the earth. On a flight years ago I got into a wonderful conversation with a university professor. He told me to my horror that “he could never be a Christian because he could not believe in early earth creationism.” I told him this had nothing to do with the gospel. He vigorously disagreed. His witnessing friends had folded a certain view of creationism into the gospel. My attempts to correct this faulty assumption were futile.

I wonder whether the pugnacious and polemical spirit which characterized modern-day Fundamentalism still finds safe haven among too many of us Evangelicals.

Consider the case of respected Old Testament scholar, Bruce Waltke. He embodies the original ideal of twentieth-century Evangelicals with his dual doctorates from Dallas Theological Seminary followed by a PhD from Harvard. His scholarship is widely respected all while consistently holding to the essentials of the Christian faith. In March of 2009, Professor Waltke, even for all his standing within the Evangelical world, drew the ire of many for what he said in an interview with BioLogos. Waltke stated:

…if the data is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution, to deny that reality will make us [evangelicals] a cult…some odd group that is not really interacting with the world. And rightly so, because we are not using our gifts and trusting God’s providence that brought us to this point of our awareness.

Suffice it to say, this raised quite a brouhaha. To quell the controversy Waltke clarified that he believed in the historical Adam and Eve, but the criticisms persisted.

I remember being both dismayed and a bit perplexed by what happened. Here you have an Evangelical scholar with a long history of impeccable scholarship, a man whose books line the shelves of many Evangelicals, put through the ringer for speaking out on a less than primary doctrine. I’m not sure I agree with Waltke myself, but my mind was on hyper drive trying to process the way this venerable scholar, and most importantly, gracious servant of Christ, was being treated.

Confessional churches are certainly free to subscribe to whatever non-essential doctrines they want, whether that is a certain understanding of baptism or the role of women. My concern is that the manner in which we articulate these non-essential teachings not mimic what most of us find troubling about Fundamentalism.

So I leave you with this question: Did we as Evangelicals make a clean break with the Fundamentalist impulse which divides uncharitably over non-essentials?

[I am grateful to Randall Balmer for his encouragement on this piece and confirming that it is indeed a “pertinent” issue. Randy asked me whether dualism might additionally be an issue worth addressing. Suffice it to say, I am noodling on his suggestion.]

Whose Side Are You On?

Last updated on: October 18, 2015 at 9:19 pm By Scot McKnight

We seemingly have to take sides and then label the other side and think we’re in a war. John Stackhouse — the issue is women in ministry, women in general, women in the church, and the power position of men deciding so much about women — in the expansion and revision of a former book, asks in the first chapter of Partners in Christ: A Conservative Case for Egalitarianism this question: Whose side are you on?

The issue is the decision to take sides. Here are his important words:

I have not found it useful to presume that my counterparts in any conversation were either wicked or witless. Alas, of course, some have proved to be one or the other, or both. But in this particular discussion, I have found things to be quite the other way: vast amounts of time have been spent in careful analysis of a wide range of texts; impressive arguments have been mounted that range across the whole Bible; two thousand years of church history and theological tradition have been surveyed; and social, political, psychological, and sexual implications have been considered—and on both sides of the issue. It seems evident to me that the way to best find our way through the gender debate is not to presume that we will eventually discover that one set of discussants or the other are immoral morons. Instead, I much prefer to think that we can find a way to do honor to both groups of our fellow Christians. Shall we try? (11).

Here is his definition of “feminist” and “egalitarian”:

… someone who champions the dignity, rights, responsibilities, and glories of women as equal in importance to those of men, and who therefore refuses discrimination against women. Thus, in this book feminist and egalitarian are synonyms (14).

So how do we proceed? (Badly, often, he remarks.) With method (is the right answer). What are the bad approaches?

1. Biblicism: The Bible says so. Some like “our only creed is the Bible” but don’t acknowledge the role of interpretation in their affirmations about the Bible. Others seem to like the offensiveness of their interpretations (they love its absurdity). So he proposes Bible, experience, tradition, scholarship, art — but the Bible alone is infallible. Here is his important point:

But if what we think the Bible says (that is, our interpretation) seems contrary to one or more of the other intellectual resources God has given us, should we not pause to consider whether we have made a mistake somewhere—perhaps in our interpretation of secular reason or spiritual experience, yes, but also perhaps in our interpretation of the Bible? (20)

Stackhouse then proposes a diagnostic test:

… perhaps we can consider these sentence stems” to see whether they illuminate one or another interpretation of gender as good or bad:

“It is better for church government to have only men and no women because …”

“It is better to listen only to male preachers and never to female preachers because…”

“It is better for all church meetings for men always to lead in prayer, the liturgy, music, and so on, and no women ever to lead in any of those zones, because …”

“It is important always to make sure a woman who does participate in public worship to have a man ‘over her’ in some authoritative role because…”

Can these stems be completed patriarchally in any way that makes sense besides “because the Bible [as we interpret it] says so”? (21-22).

Complementarians need to show why these situations are better or are good.

2. Cultural conformity: society says so, and therefore we should (or should not). Sometimes society speaks forcefully for what is right; sometimes it is forceful and dead wrong. We cannot assume society has the long end of the stick on anything. We need to discern — carefully and thoughtfully and in community.

3. Intuition: The Spirit says so. Here’s a good one we have perhaps all heard before:

… many women seeking greater freedom in Christian service have relied on their inner sense of God’s leading. These women were not always radicals in the heat of evangelical revivals, or in the institutions of medieval monasticism, or in the netherworld of the cults (what we more politely refer to nowadays as “new religious movements”). These women show up as respectable nuns, missionaries, Bible teachers, evangelists, and authors throughout church history. And when they have been called on to account for their ministry, as they rarely have been, many of them have responded, “The Lord led me to it” (24).

On this issue of gender, intuition is just not enough. There are too many factors and too many resources that must also be involved — like Scripture and tradition and reason.

Tune in for a second post on how John changed his mind.

Which Character are You?

Last updated on: October 15, 2015 at 12:36 am By Scot McKnight

We Protestants teach everyone this: You must read the Bible for yourself. Of course, we don’t want those “you”s to get too clever and start saying things that aren’t there, but there is a lot in this teaching we hold so dear. And that is why everyone who reads and teaches the Bible needs to read Mark Allan Powell’s What Do They Hear? I think this book is solid gold.

Why? Because Mark seriously asks what it is like for preachers to address an audience and know (1) that what they “hear” is not always what the preacher “said” and (2) that what Christians “read” is shaped by their “social location.” This book is HermeneuticsLite in the best and every sense of the word. Wait until you see what Mark has discovered because it reveals plenty about you and me.

Before we get too far, let me ask you this: When you have read the Parable of the Prodigal Son did you hear the part about the famine? Does it matter to how you read the Parable? Is the younger son “wicked” or “foolish”? Was he personally saved or was he drawn back to his family? How do you hear the gospel? It is not that one must make a choice between these options — it is only that we do.

What can each of us do to expand our “seeings” and our “hearings” and our “readings” of the Bible? No one should deny us the right to hear what we hear; no one should claim that hearing to be the only hearing until one has listened to all the hearings. (I’m not going pluralist here, either; I’m not suggesting “your reading is as good as my reading because mine is mine and yours is yours.”) I’m suggesting that we need to realize we have readings, that our readings are shaped by our social location, and that is desirable to hear the readings of other social locations. And, what can we do to get more readings? To hear how others are hearing?

He tells the story of his mom saying she liked one of Marks’ songs when he was in high school, listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival. Mark is an expert on music (and I’ve heard of this group but not listened to them that I know of). She heard “There’s a bathroom on the right!” when they were singing “There’s a bad moon on the rise.” The focus of the 1st chp is on this very thing: People hear things we don’t intend because they absorb what we say into their social location. And, he admits, “We want to be taken out of context — but only when that is a good thing.”

Chp 2 is delightful. Mark examines how some of his American students, how some of his Russian students, and how some of his Tanzanian students all hear the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Here’s a result:

Americans 100% of them heard the part about the son squandering his money.
Americans 6% observed that there was a famine.
Russians 34% mentioned the squandering while 84% heard the part about the famine.

Eastern commentaries on the parable focus on the son’s being enamored with luxury and splendor, that the boy wasted his money living luxuriously, that he pursued a life of entertainment and amusement, and that he was trouble-free. Western commentaries say he wasted his money on sexual misconduct, he went the whole route in sinful indulgence, he wasted his money on wine,women and song, and he went abroad to live a sinful life. Westerners see the point in reform; Russians see it in recovery. Americans see moral waste; Russians see opulence.
His Tanzanian students saw a major issue in the lack of help that the foreigners gave (the help they did not give) to the “immigrant” and they saw the father’s house as the kingdom where the young man was taken care of. The parable contrasts the far country and the father’s house; it contrasts a kingdom with a non-kingdom society.

Mark Powell’s book assumes a significant distinction between clergy and laity and, if you are in a reasonably traditional church, the assumption is a good one. Most importantly, Mark asks this question: How do clergy read a text when compared to how laity read the same text? The answer boggles.

Here’s the text. You read it. Then we’ll have a conversation.

1 The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and 2 saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were “unclean,” thais, unwashed. 3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.*) 5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with ‘unclean’ hands?” 6 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.7 They worship me in vain;their teachings are but rules taught by men.’ 8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”

Question: When you read this text, with which character did you empathize? With Jesus? With the disciples? With the Pharisees? With “other”?

Here’s the result of Mark’s own study; get ready to be shocked. 50 clergy; 50 laity.

Empathy Choice (first number: Clergy; second number: Laity). Thus, 40 clergy identified with Jesus; 0 laity did.

1. Jesus 40 0
2. Disciples 0 24
3. Pharisees 4 18
4. Other 6 8

Which is a nice way of saying that by and large, from this sample (and all nuances aside), clergy empathize with Jesus and laity do not; clergy do not empathize with disciples but laity do; clergy do not empathize with Pharisees but laity do.

Mark makes suggestions for pastors when preaching:

1. Cast the Scriptures: “cast” means as in a play. Preachers can play the roles of each character in their own reading of the Scriptures and notice the differences.
2. In preaching you might choose to identify with one character or another.
3. Allow for multiple responses to the text.

What is your response to this? I’ll be honest: I’m disappointed preachers don’t identify with being a disciple more; I’m concerned laity don’t empathize with the character of Jesus. What I’m shocked by is the absolute difference.

Mark Allan Powell’s book, What Do They Hear?, opens up for pastors and laity the differences between how they read the Bible and what they hear when they read it — especially when they are not together. Chp 4 concerns “meaning” and “effect.” This chp presents a very important difference in reading the Bible between clergy and laity.

First, many see “meaning” as “message” and focus on the theological, propositional content. Others see “meaning” as “effect” — what the text does to the person or how it “affects” them.

He had readers look at Luke 3:3-17, Luke’s description of John Baptist’s ministry and message. He asked clergy and laity to answer this question: “what does this story mean?” Here are some conclusions:

1. Clergy consider authorial intent (they say “Luke’s intention”), historical situations, the synthetic message, and find relevance in contextual analogies.
2. Laity consider reader response (affect/effect), contemporary and personal significance, meaning is impact, and relevance is found in unmediated application.

I found this interesting, and I find it interesting because (1) I teach students and laity how to read the Bible and (2) I’ve struggled with the transition of trying to get students and laity to learn how to “objectify” the text so they are speaking about “Luke’s intention.” Now the question arises — sure, that is a struggle. Is that the necessary struggle in order to acquire the skill of learning to read the Bible? Are we sufficiently aware of how “untrained readers of the Bible” read the Bible? Do we too easily skip over the reader response stuff to get to the history, to the analogous, to the original intent?

Clearly, a Woman Leader in Paul’s Churches (by Dalaina May)

Last updated on: August 1, 2017 at 3:23 pm By Scot McKnight

Dalaina May lives with her husband, Dan, and four young sons in Southeast Asia where they are involved in local anti-trafficking efforts. When she isn’t working, stepping on Legos, or breaking up light saber fights (in other words, after bedtime), she is usually geeking out on theology or advocating for Christian involvement in social justice issues. Her first novel, Yielded Captive was recently published.

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From Arise

Using these biblical texts and the insights of ancient church historians, we can learn about the early history of the Christian community in that city. A close study of early church history reveals both the challenges faced by the Ephesian church at the time and a living example of church leadership devoid of manmade hierarchies.

The leaders that Paul initially appointed in the house church network were some of his most-often mentioned co-workers, Priscilla and Aquila. Acts 18 identifies them as Jewish exiles from Italy after the edict from Emperor Claudius forced them to leave their home. Priscilla and Aquila relocated to Corinth, where they met the apostle Paul on his first journey there. Paul, joined by Timothy and Silas, lived and worked with them for a year and a half–while he preached to both the Jews and Gentiles in that city.

When Paul left Corinth for Ephesus three years later, almost the entire group joined him on his voyage, but Aquila and Priscilla remained in Ephesus. During this time, they became leaders of a house church (1 Corinthians 16:19, Acts 20:17, Acts 20:31). It was in Ephesus that they took Apollos, a Jewish teacher and disciple of John the Baptist, into their home and taught him “the way of God more adequately” (Acts 18:26).

Eventually, Priscilla and Aquila made their way back to Italy where they again became church leaders (Romans 16:3). However, it appears that they may have traveled back and forth to Ephesus at least one other time, because Paul later sends his greetings to the couple in Ephesus through Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:19. We don’t have any other conclusive information about their lives and ministry after this point other than that they had the ongoing gratitude and respect of Paul and other “churches of the Gentiles.” They were honored as leaders who risked themselves on his behalf (Romans 16:3), and they may have been included in the group of “elders” who received Paul’s final commission before his execution (Acts 20:17).[1]

There are those who would like to place Priscilla in her husband’s shadow as though she was not a leader in her own right, but merely served under her husband’s authority. However, there are a number of reasons why this is inaccurate.

First, the placement of Priscilla’s name in front of Aquila’s in four of the six times they are mentioned (every time their ministry is specifically highlighted) in the New Testament is very important. It is widely hypothesized that this writing convention was used by Paul because Priscilla had the more prominent ministry of the two.[2]

Second, Priscilla’s involvement in the teaching of Apollos is extremely significant. The word used in Scripture is ektithēmi which has a plural tense in Greek, indicating clearly that it was both Aquila and Priscilla who taught him. The word, translated best as “explain” in English, was used exclusively by Luke in the Bible. Aside from Priscilla and Aquila’s interaction with Apollos, Luke used this verb two other times in Acts. In Acts 11:4, Peter “explained” that God had chosen to include the Gentiles in salvation. The second instance of ektithēmi is found when Paul preached to the Jews in Rome “testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus” (Acts 28:23). The teaching that Priscilla did should be seen as authoritative, and the use of this word implies that she was not merely in the background assisting her husband with his ministry.[3]

The next church leader on the Ephesus timeline is Timothy. Timothy was the recipient of two of Paul’s letters. He is also the same Timothy mentioned in multiple books of the New Testament (Acts, 1 & 2 Timothy, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Philemon, and Hebrews). The son of a Greek father, Timothy was a young man when he first became Paul’s travel companion and beloved protégé (Acts 16:1-3, Acts 20:4-5, Philippians 2:19-23).

Around the year 64 AD, Paul left Timothy in Ephesus to continue the work of confronting the false prophecies so prevalent in that city (because of the cult of the goddess Artemis or Diana).[4] Timothy continued to travel extensively on Paul’s behalf and endured persecutions, including a time in prison (2 Timothy 4:13, Hebrews 13:23). Scripture never tells us what the rest of Timothy’s story was, but church history suggests that he was martyred thirty years later in Ephesus for opposing a local ceremony honoring Artemis.[5]

Timothy was succeeded by another unlikely leader, a man called Onesimus. According to many ancient church historians, this Onesimus is the same slave of whom the book Philemon is written.[6] He was presumably freed because of Paul’s plea to his master (Philemon 1:14-16) and later became a traveling co-worker of Paul and Timothy (Colossians 4:7-9) before eventually becoming bishop of Ephesus. He too was eventually martyred.

This collection of leaders–Aquila, Priscilla, Timothy, and Onesimus, was tasked with building the church that was birthed from Paul’s evangelistic efforts in the city of Ephesus.

A Jewish man, a woman, a Gentile, and a former slave paint a picture of what leadership and community in the body of Christ is supposed to look like. We cannot know if Paul deliberately organized this leadership team to illustrate his earlier stated convictions against hierarchies in the church, and we also do not know how these contemporaries shared leadership responsibilities in that church network. However, we do know that they were all commended in Scripture as co-laborers of Paul and are all remembered by ancient church historians as men and women with influence, leadership, and a permanent legacy in Ephesus and in the global church.

Notes

[1] Priscilla is one of the candidates for authorship of the biblical book of Hebrews. This suggestion was originally made by Adolf von Harnack in 1900. For more information, the following article is a wonderful introduction to that opinion: Hoppin, Ruth. “Advocates for Priscilla,” in E-Quality, no. Winter 2006 (2006). Accessed September 12, 2015.
[2] Osiek, Carolyn. “The Women in Paul’s Life,” in Biblical Theology Bulletin: Journal of Bible and Culture 42, (2012): 90-95.
[3] http://newlife.id.au/equality-and-gender-issues/did-priscilla-teach-apollos/.
[4] Butler, Rev. Alban. Lives of the Saints. Eds. Herbert J. Thurston and Donald Atwater. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classic, 1856).
[5] “Apostle Timothy of the Seventy.” Orthodox Church of America. Accessed September 12, 2015.http://oca.org/saints/lives/2015/01/22/100262-apostle-timothy-of-the-seventy.
[6] Butler, Rev. Alban. Lives of the Saints. Eds. Herbert J. Thurston and Donald Atwater. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classic, 1856).

Tablets and Tables (by Sean Palmer)

Last updated on: September 29, 2015 at 7:27 am By Scot McKnight

Tablets & Tables: Why You Need To Rethink Who You Follow (Sean Palmer)

Your pastor is not as edgy and provocative as your favorite blogger or writer, and that’s a good thing.

I’m the first guy to advocate Christian preachers and teachers have thoughtful, bold, and worthwhile words to say. I bristle when I hear speakers hunt and peck around important, yet touchy, topics for the sake of their own advancement, brand, pedigree, or future opportunities. I believe it a form of cowardice. It’s not worthy of the gospel.

There is great benefit to Christian leaders and teachers being slow to speak.

Here’s what I mean…

Frequently, writers, speakers, and bloggers inject some new, provocative, stimulating, or unorthodox thought in the Christian blogosphers. Their notion quickly catches fire and goes viral. Ideas about sexuality, the church, other Christian leaders, or just about anything else gets tossed into the online controversy machine and the Christian subculture goes berserk.

It’s Tweeted, retweeted, shared, argued, and rebutted. Sometimes the ideas are interesting, even thought provoking and challenging. We need this kind of discussion. Vital matters should be discussed and debated, but there’s something that all Christian leaders need to keep in mind as we lounge behind our laptops: Someone might believe us.

Someone Might Believe Us

Suppose someone pens a blog post about the uselessness of church life and how he or she doesn’t go to church (unless they’re teaching). Imagine if someone writes how discussions about extra- or pre-marital sex were ham-handed and guilt-ridden when they were teenagers and how they were made to feel more badly than they should. Perhaps in the wake of “purity-culture” they discovered sex felt good after all. Maybe another Christian leader gives a talk to anonymous faces at a conference positing that Christians lean too heavily on the Bible. And suppose hearers, readers, followers, and fans read and hear all this and…believe it!

Your pastor can’t be cavalier! Local church pastors know the ideas and ideals we promote find life in the lives of actual people – living, breathing, people who posses the capacities for both joy and pain. Church member’s lives, to some degree, are based on the choices they make based on the teaching and leading they receive.

The best teachers and leaders can’t grab the indulgence of visiting their personal struggles, questions, and irritations on the church. While experiences must be a part of our ministry and never ignored or papered-over, the mushroom cloud of our teaching produces fallout which touches real flesh and bone.

Who Are You Listening To?

Let’s be clear: I’m not concerned (necessarily) with the content of what various thinkers, bloggers, and writers say, but I do want to force all public Christian leaders to ask a deadly serious question: What if people act on what I say?

What if young women and men chose sexual behavior based on a blog post or sermon? What if people determine their life in and around church should mirror our activities around church because we wrote a post about how we dislike church? What if a mass of men and women, determine they don’t like liberal/conservative/ Calvinists/Anabaptists/ etc…Christians because I eviscerated the weaknesses of their theology in a podcast interview?

In the age of social media, an age wherein so many of us affect the lives of people we don’t know, it is imperative our words carry the weight of people’s lives. We don’t and won’t agree about what we teach, but surely we can agree that our words should be aimed at making the world a better place and not just getting something off our chests.

What if we got away from our egos, career goals, publisher’s demands, selling our next online e-course, and trying to book our next speaking gig long enough to remember that we’re not working for web hits, traffic, retweets, and Facebook shares, but to affect lives? What if we remembered that James, the brother of Jesus, warned teachers to be careful because we will not be judged solely on actions, but also by what we taught others to do?

Committed

For my part, there’s a simple one-question measurement determining which Christian voices I attend to: Is this person committed to a local church?

If a writer, blogger, speaker, musician, etc…doesn’t have to look into the eyes of folks with whom they disagree and learn to love them; if they’ve insulated themselves from flesh and blood pushback and not learned to sing with one voice with the Other; if they are not forced to see the outbreak of their ideas in the faces of families sitting on their pew; if they’ve come to call their collection of friends a” spiritual community,” rather than engaging the natural differences which exist in public and open churches, then I’m not interested in their opinions about anything else.

They can blog and speak and sell and platform build all they want about Jesus, but they have no clue about communion.

At the center of my faith is a table not a tablet.

—–

Sean Palmer is the Lead Minister of The Vine Church in Temple, TX. He is a contributing writer to The Voice Bible, author of “Scandalous: Lessons in Redemption From Unlikely Women,” and sought-after speaker and teacher. He writes at www.thepalmerperspective.com and you can follow him on Twitter at @seanpalmer

Follow/Don’t Follow the Leader (by Michelle Van Loon)

Last updated on: September 23, 2015 at 5:55 pm By Scot McKnight

By Michelle Van Loon:

In the last week alone, a fairly well-known Bible teacher in the Messianic community, Ligonier Ministries head RC Sproul, Jr., and the President of Southern Baptist-affiliated North Greenville University each stepped down from their leadership positions after violating their marriage vows. In the case of at least two of them, they were forced to confess after they were caught via Ashley Madison or irrefutable video evidence. Let’s face it – when you confess only after you’ve been caught, your confession has the ring of “I’m sorry I got caught” (channeling second-term Bill Clinton), more than it does “I have sinned against God and humanity”.

With a hat tip to R.E.M. for the phrase, more than ever we in the body of Christ need to “Follow Me, don’t follow me, me, or me” without thinking. Bad news about “Christian famous” figures travels fast these days. For every well-known figure who’s managed to disqualify themselves from ministry because of bigger-than-marriage sexual appetites and divided hearts, there are dozens more who are either addicted to porn or having an affair with the Children’s ministry director or whoever. When I tabulate my own experience at the 11 churches at which we’ve been a part for at least one year during our 36-year marriage, the majority of them were damaged at some point by revelation of a leader’s sexual sin. And those are just the ones I know about! It’s probably safe to say there’s other nasty, disappointing stuff I haven’t been privy to.

At this point, it doesn’t matter. The damage has been done. And some wisdom has been won as a result.

Perhaps because I’ve always struggled a bit – and sometimes way more than a bit – with the notion of positional authority, I’ve kept all spiritual leaders at arms’ lengthafter I experienced the trauma of spiritual abuse. Just because someone has the title of Pastor or Leader or Big Kahuna doesn’t confer on him or her instant authority to lead me. My real leaders are those in mutual relationship with me.* Most of those at the top of a church or Christian subcultural org chart have as much relationship with me as a third cousin, twice removed. They are family, true enough. But just because we’re related doesn’t give them the right to direct my life, any more than it automatically confers on me the right to ask them if they have an Ashley Madison account or two.

God in his kindness has preserved my faith in him, and given me wisdom for my journey through a religious landscape where God is at work exposing wolves pretending to be shepherds. Most believers in this country are coming to terms with the fact that “Christendom” is no longer the default setting in this culture – and that we may be facing increasing pressure from Islamist fundamentalists from without, as well. There is no room for “I am of Paul, I am of Apollos” tribe-making and unblinking allegiance to a particular leader. The leader fails are happening in lots of different streams and corners of the church. It isn’t pretty right now, but it is beautiful. This exposure and purifying trend is a gracious work of the Holy Spirit. It is his love for leaders and followers alike that is bringing this sin to light.

I’m not a fan of D-I-Y spirituality. Far from it. I am willing to learn from Big Kahunas and Pastors – living and dead, in churches and via books, articles and podcasts. But the learning comes through the filter of wisdom and discernment. I don’t just “feed and feast” on what I’m served as thought I’m at some sort of never-ending Christian buffet. Some of what they’re serving is junk food. Some of it is rat poison. And some of it is decent food being cooked by chefs with filthy, unwashed hands. At the same time, I am more aware than ever that in my vocation as writer and sometimes speaker God is holding me to a higher standard. With every exposure of a duplicitous leader, I take more seriously than ever this truth:

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. – Hebrews 4:13

Church, don’t hitch your soul without question to following your pastor, a communicator with a microphone, or anyone who speaks with lots of imperatives and zero transparency/accountability. Don’t let their moral failure become your own spiritual derailment. Follow Jesus.

What are your thoughts about the seemingly-weekly news about the moral failures of spiritual leaders? How have you been affected?

* My true pastors and leaders include my husband, members of my family in relationship with me, and believing friends who are walking alongside of me and I am walking alongside them in mutuality. Within the context of these relationships, I am safe to express my struggles, questions, and insights, and I have earned the right to speak when asked into the lives of these people, as well.

Go with your Gift (by Kelly Delp)

Last updated on: September 18, 2015 at 10:41 am By Scot McKnight

By Kelly Delp, reposted from her blog to this blog with her permission.

I gotta be honest. I used to not get this rambling about women in ministry. I really didn’t understand what the big deal was. Move along. Do what you’re called to do. Stop rallying.

And then I had a realization.

I didn’t get not feeling like you have permission to do ministry. Because I was never taught I needed it.

My parents named me Kelly. I had a small wooden plaque on my bedroom wall from as early as I can remember telling me in a 1980’s font that my name meant bold. Brave.

The first scripture my parents gave me to memorize was Psalm 56:3 – “What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.”
When I was in sixth grade and wrote in a class assignment that I wanted to be a pastor, no one corrected me. No one argued.

When I was a senior in high school, I got to preach on our last night in youth group. (The sermon was terrible – but I got to preach.)
That same guy who let me preach at 18 hands me a microphone to preach about once a month at our church in Paris. He has never prefaced me by calling attention to my being a woman. He’s never applauded himself for letting a woman speak.

A year and a half ago I stood on our district council business floor and publicly (but nicely!) disagreed with all the men on the platform, including my father. I could feel my dress shaking against my legs. “Did you see your dad’s face??” someone asked me after. “No…I couldn’t look at him,” I replied nervously. “Oh,” they said, “he was so proud of you.”

I guess I don’t understand the women in ministry debate because I was in college before I even heard of the notion of it being an issue.
I had never heard that women had an innate need to be rescued until I was told that men needed us to be damsels in distress for them to feel like men.

I honestly did not know that I was supposed to be perpetually scared in order to be feminine. I was raised to be brave. To trust Christ when I was needing a rescue.

I understand more with each year. I am not swayed in my confidence, but I understand.

When I am told as a guy ends a relationship with me that I am too much of a leader. When he removes himself from my life because I missed that whole ‘needing rescue’ thing and learned to be brave.

When I hear female pastor friends of mine tell the horror stories they have encountered.

When I am excluded from an interdenominational prayer meeting because I am a woman.

But I grew up with a mom that carried anointing oil in her purse right next to her lipstick. Who laid hands on the sick. Who participated in conversations with men about God – who encouraged her brothers in Christ with no pretense. She carefully applied her makeup each Sunday and then cried it all off – if not in worship, in prayer for someone. She named me bold.

I grew up with a dad that never told me I couldn’t be in ministry. He never even warned me that I would face opposition due to my being a woman. He always told me I was pretty and he took me on a date for my 13th birthday and then almost 20 years after that laid his strong hands on my head and ordained me into the ministry. He named me brave.

I grew up with parents and other adults who prayed I would seek the Holy Spirit. They prayed that more than they prayed I would find a spouse or that I would be happy. They prayed Presence into my life. They named me bold and taught me about the Holy Spirit, who makes it true.

Why pray for our daughters to be filled with the Spirit if we are not going to let the Spirit speak through them? It is to us to name the next generation of women bold. Brave. Women prepared to seek first the Kingdom – the now and not yet coming of the Gospel to our world. It is to us to teach them that we have been redeemed beyond the need of rescue – and that what time we are afraid, we can put our trust in Him. It is to us to listen when the Spirit speaks through them.

Let us call our daughters bold. Let us tell them they are brave. Let us teach them to associate femininity with wasting their lives for the poor and powerless rather than being powerless themselves. Let us teach them that their rescue comes from Christ. Let us treat their callings to ministry as normative – let it be as normal as them saying they want to be a teacher or a mommy when they grow up. Let us, the women in the now, preach in heels and red lipstick or flats and no makeup, preach 8 months pregnant or unmarried and childless, lead worship with our baby strapped to us, lead the church with blonde hair curling around our shoulders or cropped up close to our head. Let us open the door wide and let the little girls in the church see us praying before service, worshiping our makeup off, serving communion to our brothers and sisters. Let them see us, fully and proudly feminine, whether we are adoring our husbands and corraling children or coming home to an empty house.

Let us release our daughters into the Spirit’s wind. Let us name them Bold.