Our devotional ended last week with the challenge to begin discerning and learning our part in the five-fold ministry (APEST). Do you know your function/calling in the Body of Christ? I’d love to coordinate with YOU on this (just reach out). In this regard, Alan Hirsch says, “One of the most potent things any community can do is to re-legitimatize the Ephesians 4 ministries and help develop people in their various ministries, in other word, grow them from undeveloped ministers into mature, Christ-like leaders”.
I do hope that the 7 “love languages” that Mark Batterson explained in Whisper were beneficial to you and that you take time to seek them in your life – Scripture, desires, dreams, doors, promptings, people, and pain.
Today, our focus is on appreciation of women in ministry and incarnational discipleship. Just yesterday we celebrated International Women’s Day. A day to celebrate the individual and corporate achievements of women in our world. And growing in the manners, ways, and methods we incarnate the Gospel is always essential, amen?
HEMIPLEGIC CONDITION
In Untamed, Alan Hirsch does on to say that we suffer from a “hemiplegic” condition, which is when one half of a person’s body is paralyzed. He then goes on to write, “…the church in America will never reach its fullest potential unless it takes seriously the women’s issue”. The women’s issue is the topic of women preaching and serving in leadership roles. I love how missiologist Mike Breen frames this conversation as he remarks, “However one might understand the controversial texts in Paul’s writings regarding the place of women in ministry, the greater sin by far is to relegate women to the role of being secondary agents In the Kingdom”.
A text he is referring to would be 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.
Chad Mansbridge, a brother from Australia, who is soon to be publishing a book, writes, “Is Paul here issuing Heaven’s inspired instruction regarding female voices in the church, or is it possible he is quoting another source – perhaps a false teaching that was circulating among the Corinthians at the time – and then refuting the claim with his “I hear you, but” retort? “(The) women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church”. What! Did the word of God originate with you, or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord. If any one does not recognize this, he is not recognized (1 Cor. 14:34-38, RSV with quotation marks and italics added). Is it possible that, due to a lack of punctuation, Bible readers for centuries have wrongly attributed the “women should keep silent” command to Paul, when instead he was correcting an anti-female heresy propagated by a so-called “prophet” in the Corinthian church? Does this not make more sense in light of the fact that just three chapters earlier he had detailed specific instructions regarding female voices praying and prophesying in church meetings (1 Cor. 11:5, 13), and that nowhere in the Law were women ever forbidden to speak, as it is here claimed?”.
I thought that was an interesting challenge to the usual, presupposed interpretation that women simply can’t preach. Couple that with “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female. . . .” (Gal 3:28), as well as reality that in Scripture and in church history, most of the leaders of the house churches and communities were women.
To challenge our thoughts on this topic, and demonstrate our willingness to listen to all sides of the discussion, this coming Friday night, we will be watching By What Standard?, at The Blue Point Bible Church (7PM), a film put out by the Southern Baptist Convention to make the charge that women should not be in Christian leadership. You can watch the video by visiting, https://founders.org/cinedoc/
INCARNATIONAL EVANGELISM & DISCIPLESHIP
Alan Hirsch not only highlights our need to see and support more women in ministry, he also goes on to critique contemporary evangelism and discipleship methods as well. Take a moment to read the “Great Commission” in Matthew 28:18-20.
Alan makes the point that the “Great Commission” is “…about bringing people closer to Jesus and teaching them His ways. It is about loving people and exposing them to the grace and wonder of God’s heart, helping them see and experience the values of the Kingdom and calling forth those values that may lie dormant in their own hearts and lives. It’s about letting the beauty of Jesus and His Kingdom come through”. Ultimately, “The closer people get to Jesus, the more likely they are to be formed into disciples”.
So what Alan Hirsch asks us to do is, “…put aside your prevailing understandings of evangelism and simply (re)adopt the Great Commission as your guide…The person’s salvation is God’s business; our part in it is to be a “little Jesus” that devotes significant time and commitment to making disciples of whoever wants to go on the journey with us”.
We must “…see ourselves as priests (1 Peter 2:9). Consistent with what priests ought to do, our role is to mediate the true knowledge of God and maintain the God relationship. Practically, it means that our function is to introduce others to a right understanding of God”. Our identity is “The church (both local and universal), which is meant to be a motley collection of imperfect people included in the family of God by means of God’s sheer grace (1 Cor. 1:26 – 31; 6:9-11; Eph. 2)”.
We surely have ample opportunity to grow as and into the reality of the church that Jesus created. Last week I had mentioned that God really spoke to me in matters of the Beatitudes listed for us in Matthew chapter 5. How can I further identify as “poor in Spirit”? Where am I being compelled to mourn with those who mourn, demonstrate meekness, hunger and thirst for righteousness? Am I being merciful, pure in heart, and aiming for peace in all my endeavors?
I leave you with this thought from theologian Richard Neuhaus, “Our restless discontent should not necessarily be over the distance between ourselves and the first century Church but over the distance between ourselves and the Kingdom of God to which the Church then and now is the witness”
Looking to Him & His Finished Work,
Pastor Michael Miano