One of the reasons I was confused when I first began to understand that many limit the types of spiritual ministry that men might receive from women due to certain passages of Scripture, was my understanding that I Corinthians 12 describes spiritual gifts as those given by God, via the Holy Spirit, to various members of Christ’s body for the good of the whole body, without specification of age, gender, education, etc. The gifts are given for “the common good,” v. 7. It does not say that some gifts are only given for some parts of the body and not others, only that not everyone receives the same gifts. But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body. (vv.18-20)

It also says, And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; or again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary; and those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no need of it. But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.

So I am wondering, how do complementarians square the “limitation” verses with this passage? Any references to articles, etc. are much appreciated.

If, as John Piper says (thanks to Scot McKnight @ Beliefnet), the church is propagaged by spiritual rebirth and not physical birth, then what does this do to the complementarian plank based on I Timothy 2:15, that women are saved through childbearing? (And therefore women should get married and bear children, if they are able?)

(Not to mention what this would mean for the infertile — those who are “barren.”)

The following is a slightly altered version of Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem.

What do you think? Does it work?

If…

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all [ ] doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves [wretches] to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings [Queens] – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a [Woman], my [daughter]!

Gov. Sanford’s Wife Breaks Tradition, Not Standing By Her Man.

From the article at FoxNews:

Unlike other political wives, “she is laying down conditions at the outset and being very specific and emphatic that he’s got to toe the line…The other wives sort of stood there like submissive somehow. She didn’t take that approach. She said, `I love him. I want him back. But it depends on him.’ She’s holding the cards.”

— Donald Aiesi, political scientist at Furman University in Greenville, SC, the governor’s alma mater.

What do you think? Is Mrs. Sanford doing the right thing?

In an excerpt from her book, Reading Your Male: An Invitation to Understand and Influence Your Man’s Sexuality, Mary Farrar explains who the feminized male is and how he got this way. In my opinion, her analysis is a perfect example of what happens when one starts from a pre-determined, arbitrary, vastly limited view and then tries to understand and explain the evidence in light of it: most of the real reasons are completely missed. Though there is recognition that something is amiss, the real problem is misunderstood and misdiagnosed. History, as well as life phenomena, are drastically and egregiously oversimplified.

Even the title of her book, “Reading Your Male,” suggests that our husbands, fathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers, bosses, coaches, co-workers, etc. are little more than male members of the human species. Yes of course they’re male, but they’re so much more than that.

There is so much misdiagnosis and inconsistency in the excerpt that I hardly know where to begin. So I won’t try…I’ll leave it to you, the reader. But before I do, I can’t resist drawing attention to Farrar’s comment on Jonathan, son of Saul: Jonathan was “every bit the man his father was not.” But…how did he become this way if his father was feminized, as she claims? Who/what was his template? And this: “What is a woman to do when a man has feminized tendencies?…there is one thing she must never do, and that is to accuse him of being feminized. If it were possible, I would underscore and put this in red.” But…what has she done but accuse men of being feminized?

the real issue here is not the authority of the Bible, but its right interpretation

says Alister McGrath in discussing Augustine’s 5th-century work, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, at ChristianityToday. He is speaking of the “science vs. religion” debates, but could just as well be referring to gender debates in the church. Many evangelicals “fear that biblical interpretation is simply being accommodated to fit contemporary scientific [substitute "feminist"] theories”…they “fear that innovators and modernizers are abandoning the long Christian tradition of faithful biblical exegesis.”

Sound familiar? McGrath suggests that Augustine’s writings on the topic of biblical interpretation (long before both scientific enlightenment and feminism) might help us today. According to McGrath, by literal meaning, Augustine meant “in the sense intended by the author.” Augustine argues that no portion of Scripture can be interpreted in isolation, but must be considered in light of every other relevant statement within the Scriptures. He was concerned that biblical interpreters not “get locked into reading the Bible according to the scientific [or cultural] assumptions of the age,” as happened in the 16th century when Copernicus discovered that the earth revolved around the sun: this challenged the Church’s view, which had been built upon an erroneous understanding of biblical authority.

Sound familiar? Augustine insisted that

In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines our position, we too fall with it.

Many might say that the “gender” passages are not so obscure. I would say that some are clearer than others! Some are obscure (I Timothy 2:11-15 comes to mind, as does I Corinthians 11). I believe this can be conceded without calling anyone’s integrity or faith into question. But then, we do not discover things socially the way we do scientifically…or do we? If what’s discovered is something that’s been there all along and we just didn’t realize it, then I’d say that we do.

Augustine also makes a point of distinguishing Creation, bound by time, from eternity, in which there is no time. In some ways this applies to gender issues as well. Not only did God bring the world into existence instantaneously, ex nihilo, but He is “still working within the world, directing its continuing development and unfolding its potential…Creation is thus not a completed past event.” The difference between the Darwinian view and God’s actual working is that Darwin sees this development as random, while God works according to His sovereign good plan and pleasure, and Creation continues to develop in the power with which He has vested it.

According to McGrath,

Augustine is neither liberal nor accommodationist, but deeply biblical, both in substance and intention. While his approach hardly represents the last word, it needs to be on the table…We need patient, generous, and gracious reflection on these big issues.

I agree.

*****

(In case anyone’s wondering why I’m posting so much lately, it’s because my own group blog is shut down for awhile, and I need an outlet! Thanks for indulging me.)

I encourage you to read this great post by my friend Sarah Flashing @ CT’s Gifted For Leadership blog. I think Sarah’s really onto something and she’s tapped into a life issue I’ve considered as well.

Sarah talks about the apparent acceptance of a “dualism that God never intended” between gifts and roles, based in part on confusing self-denial with selflessness. The selflessness of submission is not the same as the self-denial which often is equated with submission, selflessness being a “giving to,” rather than a “giving up.” There is no reason that a woman should have to choose between her gifts and her roles as wife or mother, though she may not be able to exercise all of her gifts at any one time. But she needn’t suppress them; she can simply give herself to whatever needs her most at the time.

Sarah and I have discussed the implications of this for the way Christians handle abuse. Submitting to abuse is self-denial, not selflessness. Victims often cope via a “false asceticism,” imagining that, in “giving up” the pleasure of being treated well, they are gaining spiritually, and serving the abuser spiritually as well. But it is not selfish to want your husband (or wife, or whoever) to love you and treat you well. And it is not an act of selflessness to abandon responsibility to help him toward godliness by simply “spiritualizing” your wants. Turning your desires “over to God” in a self-denying way doesn’t truly turn them over (or make them go away), but rather seeks to make God a substitute for the unloving person, which He is not and cannot ever be.

Selflessness dictates that, in the face of poor treatment (un-love), one gives one’s desire to be loved, not up, but to God. And, for love of God, gives oneself to the hard and likely unpleasant work of taking godly action against the abuse.

Yesterday in his Breakpoint commentary, Chuck Colson recommended a novel, Daisy Chain, by Mary E. DeMuth, as an aid to help readers learn about both the horrors of abuse and the hope that God can heal it.

It may not be your typical light summer reading, but it might help change your whole perspective on Christians’ responsibility to the silent sufferers among us.

I believe we Christians do neither ourselves nor the cause of Christ any favors when we try to sweep bad behavior under the rug.

Every time we do this, the truth tends to come out anyway, and we always look worse for having tried to hide it. And, worst of all, in the process, we often fail to protect the “least of these”–the innocent victims who need our help.

Ignoring the problem of abuse in Christian homes is failing to show God’s love to both abusers and victims.

ADDED: Oh, there’s more to the story! And it’s wonderful! Thank you, Mary, for visiting, commenting, and providing the link to your blog!

Another article to consider, from Family Life.com:

Do You Have a One-Way Marriage?

There’s also a shorter version.

I will say that my reaction to this article is mixed. The attitudes recommended are great, yet I also found much to be concerned about approach-wise. I’m very interested to hear what others might think.

is the subtitle to the front-page article of Insight For Living’s monthly newsletter, Insights, written by Chuck Swindoll. His emphasis is not on defining what a woman should be and do, but on her value. He calls for balance:

Today, women and men are often confused about the biblical perspective on the value of women. In the scuffle, balance seems to have lost its calm-and-collected voice.

Swindoll refutes the notion that the Bible puts women down, citing the five women included in Jesus’ geneology (Matthew 1:1-16) and Jesus’ treatment of the woman at the well (John 4:7-45) and the woman caught in adultery (John 8:3-11). He mentions Mary and Martha and the women who stuck by Jesus during his crucifixion (Luke 23:27-31; John 19:23-26) and reminds us that the resurrected Christ did not first appear to Pilate, or Herod, or any men at all, but to women. Of the women in Jesus’ life, Chuck says,

They occupied places of strategic importance.

He acknowledges that “Scripture teaches order and cooperation in the home” (referencing Ephesians 5:22), and a “mutual relationship of a wife’s submission and a godly husband’s self-sacrificial love.” But he concludes with a statement about our unity and true freedom in Christ (Galatians 3:15-29):

…God never intended for women to feel inferior or to live fearfully beneath some heavy cloud of unfair domination. In no way are women viewed as individuals lacking worth and dignity. But too many Christians — men and women alike — have abandoned the balance portrayed in Scripture for an unbiblical and unhealthy extreme.

Let’s get over our political, social, and personal agendas and allow Christ to serve as our model and motivation.

Note that he does not set off a wife’s submission against a husband’s headship, but pairs it with a husband’s self-sacrificial love.

Included at the top of the article is a photo of three women — typical-looking women — not classically beautiful, but attractive each in her individual way, just like most of us. Unlike most of the photos of women you see in typical Christian materials, unfortunately. Thank you, Chuck Swindoll and Insight for Living.

(crossposted @ Intellectuelle)