Tag: biblical equality

THE BEAUTY OF MALE AND FEMALE, PART 2

On By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Colossians, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
Photo by Anastasiya Lobanovskaya on Pexels.com

These instructions to men and women teach us to die to our own self-centeredness, and live for others. They also they point us to the incredible love and sacrifice of Jesus.

COLOSSIANS To listen to the sermon, click the play button: To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Colossians Part 33

Colossians #33  Col 3:18-19 PART B

Last time we looked at Colossians, we considered the fact that God created our genders deliberately, and with a purpose. The Bible teaches us how to work with that fact in loving each other and following Jesus. The latest science decisively confirms that human beings are gendered to the core. However, because we are all made in the image of God, gender is something even deeper than biology. Women and men are made to relate to one another in a way that shows the world something of the glory of God. This happens in all sorts of contexts, not just marriage.

By the way, I want to be sure we acknowledge and recognize that some people have difficulties in coming to terms with their biological gender. As Christians, we must have compassion and grace for people who have these difficulties. Our churches should be safe places for such folks, places where there will be no insults or cruel words. The facts of science and biology do not change the very real emotional struggles that some people have.

At the same time, as Christians, we should not compromise what the bible says. In the case of gender, science is also crystal clear. Our call is to speak the truth, but to do so in love. Simply agreeing with whatever anyone thinks is not loving– often that is actually cowardice. We are afraid of getting flak, or of being seen as hateful, or we want to be “on the right side of history.” But it is when we disagree with someone that true love can be shown. Jesus pointed out that naturally, anyone loves his friends. But real Christian love can occur when we care for people and respect them as human beings even when they disagree with us, even when they make choices that we think are wrong. Real love, deep love, always wants the best for others, even when those others may not recognize or agree with what “the best” means. So it is my ongoing hope and prayer that anyone at all would feel welcomed by our house churches, and also that in our house churches anyone at all would come face to face with the truth of the gospel, which is that we need to repent, turn away from all sin and self-centeredness, and surrender all to Jesus, receiving his grace and forgiveness.

The Bible claims to be God’s special revelation to humankind. It comes through human authors, but it originates with God. In short, it is God’s Word to us. One of the things the bible tells us is that all human beings have sinned, and our thoughts, attitudes and desires are often corrupted by sin. If this is true, it means that the bible will contradict and challenge some of our thoughts, attitudes and desires. Since every human culture was developed by sinful human beings, the Bible will challenge every culture at some point or another.

One of the most difficult things in understanding the Bible is learning to recognize our own cultural biases, and being willing to consider things that challenge our “normal” way of looking at the world.

The culture of Papua New Guinea when I was growing up was one that highly valued both debts and vengeance. The economy of that culture was based upon people owing each other favors, and sometimes people owing each other revenge. For that culture, accepting what the Bible says about forgiveness – especially forgiving and loving enemies – was challenging and difficult.

Texts like ours today in Colossians about men and women present a challenge to 21st Century Western culture. Our culture does not see gender the way the Bible teaches us to see it. In addition, our society encourages us to be highly sensitive about the possibility that someone or something is oppressing women (or, in fact, oppressing any one of several different categories of people). I’m not saying that is always a bad thing to be sensitive to this, but we should be aware of our own biases  when we read a text like this one. In case you think I am wrong, and you believe that our culture is more likely to oppress women than to be worried about oppressing them, let me give an example.

There has been a great deal of awareness raised about the fact that more men than women are involved in Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics (STEM). More men than women get degrees in STEM fields, and work in those types of careers.

A few years ago the Microsoft Windows lock screen was used to raise awareness about the fact that the STEM fields are dominated by men. These days, scholarships, internships and opportunities abound for women interested in STEM education and careers. In addition to all that, there are vast numbers of organizations and foundations which exist to help women especially get both bachelor’s and graduate degrees in all fields. There is constant awareness-raising for women’s education.

However, the truth is, women have far outpaced men in education for more than forty years. Since 1980, far more women than men have gone to college and received degrees at all levels. Women dominate many different academic fields. On average, female college professors make more money than their male counterparts with the same qualifications and experience.

The average male high school senior reads at the same level as the average female eighth-grader. Grade school boys are disciplined and reprimanded more than twice as often as girls. Boys and men have fallen far behind in every academic area except STEM.

So, where are the organizations and foundations trying to create more opportunities for men in the arts and humanities? Where are the endowments for specifically male writers, or the scholarships for men to make up the gap in literature, or sociology or history? Where are the windows lockscreens agonizing over the fact that men don’t even go to college as often as women, let alone graduate with a degree?

I will say it again: our culture is primed to expect women to be oppressed. Am I saying that women are never oppressed? Of course not! But I am saying that when it comes to gender and sexuality, our culture has a chip on its collective shoulder. We are waiting to get angry about gender injustice, even in cases where the facts say there is no issue there. So, take a deep breath. Recognize that we may not be totally objective about gender issues. Try to be conscious of our cultural biases while we deal with these verses.

In order to avoid knocking the chip off our shoulder, I will deal first with what these verses are telling men to do and be. Again, however, I want to make sure that we recognize the cultural biases that make it necessary to take these verses out of order. For you women, as you read, look past these instructions to men, and recognize and remember the great love that Jesus has for you.

With that long introduction, let’s look at this verse, and then one that says the same thing, but with more detail. For our verse today, I provide my own translation:

You husbands, love your wives sacrificially, and do not cause them to be grieved, or make their lives bitter.

And then, the expanded instructions come from Ephesians 5:22-33:

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (ESV, Ephesians 5:22-33)

The New Testament uses three different Greek words for love. There is eros (air-rohs), which is romantic/sexual love; phileo (fil-lay-oh), which is brotherly/friendship love; and agape (uh-gah-pay), which is self-sacrificing love. Husbands are told to agape their wives. Agape is the way God loves us. Jesus provided the ultimate example of agape when he suffered on the cross, died, and suffered hell on our behalf. He did not need to do any of it for himself. It cost him everything to love us this way. This, my dear brothers, is how we husbands must love our wives. We love, even when it costs us dearly, when it costs us our own comfort, our own desires, yes, even if it costs our own well-being.

We men are to sacrifice for our wives. We are to cherish them and nourish them physically, spiritually and emotionally. Jesus is not passive in the way he loves the church. He pursues us. He gently, but purposefully moves into our lives, giving us opportunities to trust him. So we too should relationally pursue our wives, purposefully seeking to deepen and strengthen our connection. As Jesus led through self-sacrifice and service, so we too are called to lead – not by commanding or controlling, but by serving like Jesus did.

Men are often consistent in pursuing their wives sexually, because that is something that we want. But we must also pursue a deep relational and emotional connection with our wives, to seek to meet their needs as diligently and consistently as we seek to meet our own.

Just in case we miss the point, let’s use some concrete examples. You are both tired from a hard day. You sit down together, with no energy, but someone needs to do something about supper. As a husband, loving your wife like Jesus loves the church, what is your response to this situation? I think most often it should be that you, called to love sacrificially, take responsibility for dinner. Now, that doesn’t rule out ordering pizza, but it should mean that you serve your wife by taking care of the thing that nobody wants to deal with.

Or suppose your wife feels the need to talk about something, even perhaps, just how her day went. You are tired, or there is something else you want to do, or maybe even the game is on. Sometimes sacrificial love means giving her time and attention when you really don’t feel like it. By the way it wouldn’t be wrong to ask her if you could have the conversation after the game you want to watch is over, but be sure she’s OK with that, and be sure to follow through.

Sacrificial love for your wife may mean that you get up and deal with your daughter’s nightmare, or the cat’s throw-up. It may mean that you take responsibility for caring for the house, or doing the finances. In our case, Kari wants to be part of handling the bills, but we discuss our finances and make decisions together, and it is understood that if she doesn’t want to work (and is willing to take a hit in our standard of living) she doesn’t have to.

Above all, sacrificial love means you men accept responsibility for your life together as husband and wife. Leaning on Jesus and all of his power, you do your best to make sure that your wife feels loved, safe, and secure, to the extent that you can. I can’t make Kari feel at peace with everything, but I can make sure that her lack of peace isn’t because of me. I can’t make her feel secure, but I can ensure that she isn’t insecure because of me.

One aspect for men of loving sacrificially is that this also encourages men to be actively involved. If we are supposed to love like Jesus, it means we ought to be pursuing our wives, and actively leading our families closer to Jesus. Obviously, we won’t do those things perfectly, but we are to try. Coming home, watching TV and offering up one-syllable responses to your wife’s conversation are not usually consistent with loving your wife sacrificially.

Too many men prefer not to take a stand, or take ownership. Sometimes, we’re afraid of messing up, and we think our wives probably know better than us anyway, so let them do it. But that is not legitimate sacrificial love. Sometimes we don’t really know what to do, and we forget to ask Jesus. Sometimes, we’re just plain lazy, and it’s easier to be passive than to try, and then fail anyway. It feels safe if we don’t have to lead. But we men don’t have that luxury. We are supposed to love our wives to such an extent that they are the ones who feel safe, because they know that we will care for them as much as we care for ourselves, we will love them, even if it means hardship for ourselves.

By the way, women, you don’t get to take these words and taunt your husband with them. These words are not here for you to say: “Hah! You are supposed to love me sacrificially, so here’s my honey-do list, and be sure not to wake me up from my nap when you’re done.” These words are spoken from the Lord to the men, and I think it is meant for men to struggle through what it means to apply them. Your turn will come next.

The biggest threat to any marriage (actually to any relationship at all) is the fact that all of us are deeply self-centered. We are focused on ourselves, on our own needs, what we want, and what it takes to get our wants and needs satisfied. The verses here are meant to destroy our self-centeredness. Men, you don’t get to be passive and coast through life doing as little as necessary. You don’t get to demand whatever you want from your wife. Neither do you get to check out, and ignore your responsibilities. Instead, you die to yourself by loving her sacrificially. You allow the Holy Spirit to put to death your self-centeredness by learning to love your wife selflessly. When you do that, you are doing your part to show the world the glory of God.

The model for men is Jesus Christ. Now of course, husbands, you will never be able to love your wives as well as Jesus loves all of us. However, Jesus invites you to lean on him, and allow Him to work through you and in you, so that you don’t love your wives from your own strength, but from all the resources that Jesus has. Ask him to help you, and lean on him as you love your wives.

For both men and women, our attention is supposed to be directed away from ourselves, and to Jesus. Like a perfect husband, he makes us, his people, secure. We know we are loved, and safe. He has provided all that is needed for forgiveness and a life of eternal joy in Him. He is patient with us, and He loves us, not because of what we do for him, but rather because he has decided to do so, and nothing will sway him from that commitment. He didn’t wait for us to come to come to him – he died for us while we were still enemies of God. Let’s remember God’s grace to us through Jesus, and thank him for it.

The Dance. 1 Corinthians 11:3-16

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Corinthians, apostle paul, Bible Teaching, Christianity, Faith, Sermon, Uncategorized1 Comment

Download 1 Corinthians Part 16

There are seven passage in the New Testament which teach clearly and openly about the roles of men and women in the church and in the family. This is one of them. There is a great deal to explore in this passage. Too much for a single, ½ hour sermon. So I will break this up over two weeks. Please understand, if you only read this message, you are missing out on half of the message, and your understanding of what I am saying will be incomplete. Please do not quote me or assume you know what I am saying until you have heard or read both messages.

There are typically two responses to passages like this one. The first is to simply accept it without any real study. This usually results in rules that say women should wear hats or head-coverings, and women should “keep in their place” (meaning they have very little real input in church or family). I call this approach Traditionalism. I don’t think it does justice to what the bible really says.

The second reaction is to recognize how different this teaching is from our culture today, and find some way to interpret it that ends up either being meaningless, or even meaning the opposite of what it actually says. I call this approach Evangelical Feminism, and I think this also ends up failing to really appreciate what the Bible says. In fact, I think Evangelical Feminism lays the foundation that ends up in plain old heresy.

I am not saying that my parents taught me this, but I grew up basically thinking along Evangelical Feminist lines. In my teen years I heard some ways to dismiss the teaching of this passage and others like it. Basically, I accepted the argument that this passage is specifically and only for the culture of Corinth in the 1st Century, and it really doesn’t apply to us anymore. I categorically rejected any notion that there were some roles that should be held only by men or some that should be held only by women.

I was in college before I heard anyone seriously argue that these passages actually mean something in today’s world. I didn’t like the person who made the argument, and I dismissed it out of hand. A few years later, some people that I truly respected told me that they believed there was something to this, and the six other passages which teach about gender-roles. I began to be a bit more open, but I still maintained Evangelical Feminism.

Finally in seminary I looked into it for myself, and I was humbled to find out that I had been careless in my approach to the Bible about this subject.

The fact is, I think most Christians end up at either extreme. Traditionalists use passages like this to repress and even oppress women. Evangelical Feminists do theological gymnastics to make the same passages meaningless, and end up re-writing the Bible to say whatever suits them. But there is a middle road, the way of Truth.

It is true, part of this passage is just cultural application. But part of it is the teaching of important eternal truths. And we should bear in mind that this is just one of seven passages, all of which teach the same eternal truths about men and women.

The cultural aspects have to do with hairstyle. Paul says:

If it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head.

The question is, what if it is not a disgrace for a woman to have short hair? The fact is, Paul seems to be basing his application instructions upon the hairstyles of his time. Again he writes:

14 Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, 15 but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory?

The question arises again – is long hair a disgrace to men? That appears to be a fairly superficial thing that changes with the times.

However, we make a grave mistake if we say that this entire passage is merely a discussion of how Christians should wear their hair in 1st Century Corinth. In fact, if we dismiss the whole passage as cultural, we have greatly weakened the biblical case for two vital ministry roles that are open to women.

Paul’s teaching here is quite clear: women can and should pray in public, and women can and should prophesy in public. This is the only New Testament passage that explicitly endorses women in these ministries. So if we say the whole thing is cultural, then the idea of women prophesying and praying is also only a cultural accommodation to the 1st Century.

The fact is, we have two things going on this passage:

  • First, there is the teaching of a universal truth about men and women

  • Second, there is an application of that truth to 1st Century Corinth.

The specific application (in this case, hairstyles during worship) may or may not be relevant today, but we still need to seek to apply the universal truth to our situation.

The universal truths expressed here are basically this:

  • The male gender is the spiritual head of the female gender, just as Christ is the spiritual head of the church and the Father is the spiritual head of Christ (v. 3).

    • This is a result of how we are created (Genesis 1:27). It is demonstrated in Genesis 2, by the fact that Eve was created to be a helper-companion to Adam, to fulfill him and to join with him in caring for the world (v. 8-10).

  • Even so, men and women are not independent of each other – they need to work as a team (v. 11).

  • In worship and in the conduct women’s ministries, these truths should be reflected in some appropriate way (v. 10).

This is exactly the same basic message that we find in the other six New Testament teaching passages which deal explicitly with gender roles. For example, Ephesians 5:22-23:

Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body.

This idea of “headship” is troubling to us in the Western World in the 21st century. But it is an often repeated idea in the Bible. Here, Paul connects the idea both to the nature of God (v.3) and also to how we were created(v.8). If we look at these two things, we might gain a better understanding of what exactly this relationship means.

The bible describes God as a Trinity: The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He is one God. There are not three Gods, but only one. The bible also teaches that he exists as three persons at the same time. So the Father is God, but he is not the Son or the Spirit. The Son, Jesus Christ, is God, but he is not the Father or the Spirit. The Spirit is God, but he is not the Son or the Father.

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are equal to each other. We worship all three persons as one God. We pray to all three. There is not one that is “better” than another one – they have the same God-nature.

Even so, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have different roles. It was Jesus Christ, the Son who took on human flesh and walked physically in this world. It was he who died for us, not the Father or the Spirit. It is the Spirit who lives in our hearts and imparts the power and life of God to us, not the Father or the Son. It was the Father, who sent the Son, not the Son who sent himself. It was the Father who said “this is my Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

The fact that the Son has the role of the Son does not make him less important than the Father. The Spirit’s role does not make him more important than the Son. They are equal, but different.

So when Paul says, “and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God,” it does not mean inequality. What it means is that men and women have different roles. Like the Trinity, Men and women are equal. Like the Trinity, men and women are different. Men and women were made for different roles.

Paul makes reference to Genesis in 1 Cor 11:8. There are two passages from the first part of Genesis that I want to briefly consider. The first is Genesis 1:27

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (emphasis mine).

We were made in the image of God. We have just seen that God exists equally and the same in nature, but different in personality and role. It seems clear that Paul is referencing this exact idea. The fact that “God is the head of Christ” has nothing to do with equality – it is about role. In the same way “man is the head of woman” is not about equality. It is about role.

In addition, we see that the different roles of the Trinity give the Father, Son and Spirit opportunities to give each other honor and glory. The Son gives honor and glory to the uniqueness of the Father. The Father lifts up the Son above all things. The Spirit gives glory to both. This giving of honor and glory to the each other does not erase the distinctions between the three Persons. Even though the Father glorifies the Son, and they are equal, they are still different, and live out of their different roles. In fact, they could not honor each other in this way unless they really did have different roles. Their different roles provide an opportunity for them to honor, bless and love one another. The Father does not relinquish his Fatherhood, or change the Son into the Father. He gives him glory as the Son. The Son does not glorify the Father for coming to earth, but for being the Father. All three Persons, acting out their different roles, complete the Trinity, and they work together as a team for a common purpose.

In the same way, because men and women are different, and have different roles, we have the opportunity to honor and love one another in special ways. When we erase those differences and those roles, we also erase the opportunity for men to honor women as women and for women to honor men as men. There is unique glory and honor in being female. There is unique glory and honor in being male. But if we say that men and women must be not only equal, but also the same, we are eliminating those honors.

Paul also references Genesis chapter 2, which describes Adam being created first, and getting lonely, and being unfulfilled, even in sinless paradise. Eve is then created, to fulfill Adam, and to assist him in the mission of humanity, which at that time was to manage God’s creation. The Bible uses the term “helper-companion” to describe Eve’s role.

If Eve had nothing unique to bring, why was Adam lonely? If Eve had nothing unique to bring, then why did God make her? It wasn’t just about reproduction. God certainly could have designed that differently. So woman was created to fulfill a unique role, one that man could not fulfill, the role of helper-companion. In the same way, woman was not created to fulfill man’s role. That would imply that either man or woman is redundant. But woman is not a redundancy, nor is man.

We have a situation today where there is great confusion about this. In many places, Eve, instead of seeking her unique created purpose, is trying to do Adam’s job. Meanwhile, Adam, for the most part, is happy to let Eve do it, because he is too cowardly to risk a fight, and he is prone to be passive anyway. I believe that is the reason that New Testament teaches explicitly about this subject no less than seven times.

The other thing we have done is to separate the genders. We act as if we have a whole bunch of independent missions in life which are not necessarily connected. A man has his ministry, and a woman has her ministry. But Paul disagrees. He writes:

11 In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.

The teaching of 1 Corinthians 11:3-16 is a correction to the independence we try to have from each other. Here is a summary of what we have learned so far:

  • Men and women are created in the image of God to be equal

  • Men and women are created in the image of God to be different and have different roles. The spiritual role of men is “head” and the spiritual role of woman is “helper companion.” (*We have not yet considered how to apply this).

  • Men and women are created to function as a team.

A few months ago, as I was praying about this whole topic, I felt like the Holy Spirit gave a me word. The word was “dance.” After that, I watched “Dancing with the Stars” a few times, to try and understand what He might be getting at. I think “Dance” describes very well the Lord’s plan for relationships and roles between men and women.

  • First, a couple’s dance is usually more appealing and attractive than just one person dancing by himself or herself. This goes along with Paul’s insistence that men and women are not independent from each other. Both are necessary in this spiritual dance.

  • Second, them and women have different steps in a dance. If the woman did the same steps as the man (or vice versa) the dance would not be beautiful. It would chaotic. In the same way, this reflects that fact that men and women have different roles. The steps each one takes, complements the actions of the other.

  • The man leads the dance. And yet, one of his primary goals in leading is to show off the beauty and grace his partner, the woman. His leadership does not make him better, or even necessarily draw attention to himself. We found this same principle at work in the Trinity. The Father does not glorify himself, but glorifies the Son. The Son glorifies the Father. So in the gender-dance, leadership is a role, but it does not mean that the leader is better or more valuable.

Please check back next week for the second part of our study of this passage.