Manhood Mantra

If there was a mantra of manhood in the conservative Church, it would be “That’s just the way things are.”  The Southern Baptist Convention’s recent vote limiting the title and office of any pastor to men only exemplifies that this is just the way things are. 

The Bible has instruction about women not teaching men that provide plenty of ammunition for men to write articles about how Only Men May be Pastors.

“This post will examine 1 Timothy 2:12-14, one of the key biblical texts on male-only pastoral leadership, and it will respond to some of the most popular Evangelical Feminist efforts to undermine the teaching of these verses.”

Evangelical Feminists Undermine.  
Hmmm. 
Well, if that’s your starting assumption regarding all women,
of course your mantra will be, “That’s just the way things are.”

The author (speaking for many of his ilk) writes, “Paul says that women are forbidden to teach or exercise authority over men in the church. It’s important to understand that Paul does not prohibit women from teaching in all contexts (Titus 2:3; Acts 18:25-26), only from teaching the Bible to men in the church.”

Never mind that Priscilla from the Acts 18 passage he cites had a church that met in her home according to the Apostle Paul in Romans 16.  She (yeah, it’s plural) could teach at her home, maybe on the front lawn or curbside delivery, but not in her house?  Do these men understand how ludicrous this sounds?  The Church is not a building.  It’s a body of people, a temple—a spiritual house—made of living stones, the Body of Christ. What is the distinction between the church that met at her house and Apollos being at her house? Her house was where she and her husband (both Christians) taught him “the Way of God” more adequately though the Bible even says Apollos was already quite learned in the Scriptures.

Let’s cut to the chase on this:
Tradition (that’s just the way things are) has its place. 
I know of no men who will object to male leadership. 
I know of no women who refuse to learn from a qualified man
who is a capable, gifted leader and teacher. 

Tradition is easy, familiar, and often effective.  But every tradition has its place, and Jesus Himself had traditions He observed and ones He corrected.

The Church exists where Christian women teach world history to two or more believers (men and women) because Jesus is in their midst.  It exists where Christian women teach English, math, Greek, science, and any number of other academic disciplines when the Church is viewed as 2 or more gathered “in Christ’s Name” which every single Christian carries wherever he or she goes.  It is the Church in the world–in it, but not of it.

“My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.” (John 17:15-18)

.

Only in the organized, institutional, vocational Church
is the person teaching the Bible called a pastor.
The Church is SPIRITUAL, however, and much bigger than that.
Even something as simple as this blog, am I not “teaching the Bible?”

Questions for further thought:

Why is it OK for women to teach vacation Bible school and Bible stories in children’s ministries to those carrying XY chromosomes in the Church?  What makes a man different from a woman? Is it not the biological genetic code that one has from his creation and her womb?

Back in the early days of Sunday School, biological men taught Children’s Ministry (e.g., Edward Kimball for D.L. Moody).  Why did that stop? 

What was the Biblical justification for ignoring XY chromosomal makeup of half the classroom and letting women teach tomorrow’s men?

No offense intended, but at what point might it start to look like this is really about pastoral job security for insecure men who lack true leadership and genuine teaching gifts?  Look, we’ve all sat through sawdust sermons by uninspiring dime-a-dozen biological males with education.  Paper qualifications to the moon and back, but zero gift of the Holy Spirit. None of that Authority that is among the facets of the Prism of Manhood that the Evangelical Church needs.

Does that spread the Gospel as well as an engaging, authoritative, Bible-centered message by someone untraditional? 

Jesus was not educated in the way the Pharisees were.  Yet, when it came to teaching/preaching, “[The people] were amazed at His teaching, because His words had authority.” (Luke 4:32) 

What is a better light to the culture, the way things are with a biological male with education and little giftedness/Holy Spirit authority … or a person (male or female) with both education and giftedness by the Holy Spirit’s calling? And allowing men and women the freedom to gravitate toward the biblical teaching that inspires them–IMPORTANTLY–toward holiness in Christ?

What if the mantra became “As the Father delegated to the Son and Holy Spirit, men can delegate authority to women for the ministry tasks to which God calls them?”  Just as Jesus did not grasp but received authority from the Father, what if women did not grasp but could receive authority, even to teach or lead under a senior pastor’s authority?

Or is it just easier to avoid policing doctrine and keep women out as if only women have bad theology?

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http://seminarygal.com/a-prism-of-manhood/
http://seminarygal.com/andrew-tate-dangerous-masquerade/
http://seminarygal.com/andrew-tate-positive-instruction-silent-conquest/
http://seminarygal.com/tim-ballard-sound-of-freedom/
http://seminarygal.com/misguided-manhood-and-the-church/
http://seminarygal.com/reviving-muscular-christianity/
http://seminarygal.com/biblical-chads/
http://seminarygal.com/riptide-and-a-line-in-the-sand/
http://seminarygal.com/plentiful-harvest-path-of-peace/
http://seminarygal.com/dividing-walls/
http://seminarygal.com/patient-practical-patriarchy/
http://seminarygal.com/a-tim-ballard-update/