Author Archives: MzEllen

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In an effort to be circumspect and "proper", I'll just say that I'm having a big glass of wine, 6 motrin, and I'm going to bed.  The physical condition that is bringing about my surgery next month is causing me discomfort, inconvenience and pain.  If you are a "male-type-person", you may not want to look any further.

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My father-in-law was a hero.  A true hero.

He was a war hero.

I have hanging on my wall a shadowbox with his army induction photo, his bronze star, his purple heart, his D-day medal from the country of France and a medal signifying his belonging to the "big red one".  I have the flag that draped his coffin.
I've read the story about why he was awarded the bronze star and purple heart.  He was a tank commander during WWII.  I don't know why the guy was out of his tank, but one of Dad's men was injured and trapped between the tank/line and a German machine gun nest.

Dad rushed the nest, rescued his man and carried him back to the tank and to safety; he was injured in the process.

But he was a TRUE hero.

I never saw the photo, I didn't even know about the bronze star.  I knew about the purple heart because his injury disabled him later in life.  I knew about the medal from France because there was a controversy.  I knew about the Big Red One because he had dinner with the remainder of his unit at least once a year.  I never knew about the letter until his death.

He wanted it that way because he knew what was important.

He came home from the war, went to work for "Continental Can Company" and worked his way through Moody Bible Institute.  He married my mother-in-law and became a "home missionary", going to schools, going to the poor, going to the "back country" in Tennessee, preaching the Gospel.

That was what was important to him.  All three of his children were born in the mission field of Tennessee.

In the process, he preached on the radio, he ministered in small churches, he worked at a summer camp for poor kids.

After that, he moved to Brookfield, IL, where he pastored the church where most of his family and in-laws belonged.  From there, he moved to Greenville, MI and after that he pastored the church that I grew up in, where I met his son, my husband.

Did things go wrong in his family?  Yes, but his children made their own choices as adults that I'm not sure he had any part in.  I do believe that he did the best he could with what he was given, in the era that he lived in.

Why did he not talk about his war days?

Because he didn't want to take away anything from preaching the Gospel.  His war history was less important to him than his vocation of preaching.

I believe he was a hero of the best kind.

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Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Cor 3:17  ESV)

In providence, the sermon I heard yesterday was on Spiritual leadership, taking from Acts 6.

The problem was an administrative problem but it was a problem.  When widows were being fed, one demographic was fed, while another was not...how to solve it.

Which is more important?

spiritual LEADERSHIP.....or.....SPIRITUAL leadership?

We can tend to see our spirituality as one aspect of our person, along with psychological, emotional, physical, mental, sexual, social, etc.

OR

We can see our spirituality as encompassing all that we do.  Anything that we do that is of the Spirit IS spiritual.

The apostles understood their job to be one of discernment and proclamation of the Gospel message.  Also understanding that in their apostolic leadership role, they could not do everything; things (such as the group of widows) were slipping through the cracks.

Rather than wait on tables, the apostles decided to choose a group of men to do take care of the administrative and day-to-day details.

But wait! Wait on tables?  Couldn't they have hired that done?

No....no.  The men who were chosen were not any men, even the men chosen for this task were "of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom."

It is a false dichotomy to set up

  • the spiritual
  • against the physical.

and

  • the leadership
  • against the servant

In reality, it is

  • the spiritual act of leadership in discerning and proclaiming the Word and
  • the spiritual act of leadership in administration and serving

Everything can be spiritual.

  • The Apostles were doing a spiritual job
  • the Seven were doing a spiritual job.

Were all of these men equal in salvation? Yes.

Were all of these men equal in personhood?  Yes.

Were all of these men doing vital jobs?  Yes.

Were the Seven under the authority of the Apostles?  Yes.

Were they doing the same job?  No.

Were they supposed to be doing the same job?  No.

Were they all working in the Spirit?  Yes.

Does this make the seven "less" than the apostles?  Less equal?  In importance?  No...feeding the poor and caring for those less fortunate is a command.  In salvation?  No, there is no Scriptural evidence that the Apostles were more "saved" than the Seven.  In personhood?  No, they were all human.  In authority?  Yes.  The Apostles were given authority over the church, while the Seven were given authority over administration under the Apostles.

So, rather than seeing a group of leaders (spiritual) and a group of servants (physical) what we have are two groups of men, both doing spiritual jobs, both serving God in vital ways, both equal in personhood and salvation, but not equal in authority.

The pastor compared the Apostles and the Seven to the church today:

He likened the Apostles to the elders and pastors.  They are the ones who are responsible for discerning the will of God for the congregation.  They are the ones responsible for church discipline.  Even within that group, there is leadership structure.  The elders are responsible for the discerning of the long-term and overall direction, while the pastors are the ones who are more responsible for leading day-to-day activities.

He compared the Seven to the board of deacons, the ministry facilitation and operations staff.  They are the ones who carry out the direction of the elders, under the leadership of pastors.

Are any of the jobs less "spiritual"?  No.  Are the elders and pastors more important than the deacons and staff?  No, they all fill vital shoes.

Is the child with Down Syndrome who passed out bulletins any less spiritual than the pastor?  I think the pastor would say no?  Is the child less valuable, less equal in the eyes of God?  I think the pastor would say no.

Is the spiritual act of servant-hood less equal than the spiritual act of  pastoring?

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I find that (for me) if I try to use a combox for longer comments, I get off track, distracted and I miss things. For me, it is easier to just make a new post.

So, these questions are from a comment in a previous post, "Mutual Submission"

1. I am assuming then that you are getting the idea of the husband being the “rightful authority” from Ephesians 5 and 1 Cor. via the word, “head?”

Not necessarily. The vast majority of times that "head" / kephale is used in the New Testament it means literal head. The rest of the times we have to, we must look to context.

Matthew 21:42 uses kephale:

"'The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes'?

Is a cornerstone a symbol of unity, or foundation or leadership? Or all three?

Since this verse is referencing Psalms 118: 22,23, what is the word used for cornerstone and how is that word used in other places? It is used for source of a river, a literal head of a body and to indicate a ruler/chief.

Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.(ex 18:25)

I'm only looking for a indications of how a word was used; In English a single word can have different meanings, so it is with this kephale.

1 Cor. 11 and Eph. 5 both use head to reference the husband as head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. Is this a metaphor for unity or for leadership (or both)?

Kephale is used twice in Ephesians prior to chapter 5.

(Eph 1: 21-23 ...far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Is this a metaphor for unity or leadership?

Colossians 2:9,10 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

Is kephale in this passage a metaphor for unity or leadership?

In context, the Eph 5 passage reads:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

It starts out, wives, submit to your husbands.  Why?  Because he is your head.

How should they submit?  As the church submits to Christ.

  • wives submit to your husband
  • because
  • the husband is the head of the wife
  • as Christ is the head of the church
  • now (so)
  • as the church submits to Christ
  • so wives submit should submit to their husbands.

Is this a metaphor for unity, for leadership or both?

(NOTE:  I believe that wives should not follow their husbands into sin or stand by them and allow them to sin.   We belong to a perfect God who would not expect us to follow Him into sin)

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2. You mentioned structure vs a sinner w/in the structure. Do you think the head/body analogy was given to emphasize rightful *structure*, to show us who is the leader in the relationship?

When you look at the bullet points above we see the what (submit) the because (the husband is the head) the therefore (as the church submits to Christ) then what (wives should submit to their husbands.

  • What is structure?  husbands are the head of their wives as Christ is the head of the church.
  • what happens as a result of the structure>  wives submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ.

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3. Do the other (2) examples of Head/Body in Ephesians support this view of the analogy?

Head as leader?  The one is chapter one does.

(Eph 1: 21-23 ...far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

The chapter four use is a metaphor for unity in the body, but not a metaphor for marriage.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

This does also not rule out the metaphor being about leadership AND unity (given the metaphor of "head" in chapter 1)

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4. Do the other (2) examples given in 1 Corinthians 11 support this view, too?

Since that chapter is about the differences in how men and women should pray and prophesy in worship, it's hard not to read in gender roles and differences.

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5. Did the people in the Jewish and Roman/Greek culture think of a human’s head as the part of the person that was the authority?

If in both the Old and New Testaments have examples where the same word is used for the literal head and leadership, it would be reasonable to read the possibility that those cultures at least accepted the metaphor.

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6. Was Paul supporting the *authority structure* of slavery when he gave instructions to masters and slaves in Ephesians and Colossians?

The difference is that Christ and the church were never used as a parallel for masters and slaves.  Slavery is not a "mystery", marriage is.
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7. If not, why didn’t Paul just flat out give orders to abolish the structure of slavery? Wasn’t he catering to culture by not just saying outright that it was a less-than-best system?

Daniel B. Wallace writes:

One of the implications of this has to do with the NT authors' strategy on slavery: Should Paul tell the slaves to rebel? Could he write an emancipation proclamation? When we think through this issue, it is plain that the NT writers simply could not outright condemn slavery (the disastrous results of Spartacus' rebellion [in spite of the Hollywood portrayal] would have been etched in their minds). Further, to whom would such a directive be pointed? To the pagan masters? They do not place themselves under God's law and are not a part of his kingdom program. Paul's exhortations to them would be meaningless. To the slaves? They are powerless to bring about their own freedom apart from overt actions (e.g., rebellion, running away). Further, such actions hardly comported with the gospel: change is to take place from the inside out, not from imposition on social structures. (The one exception to this had to do with ultimate allegiance and worship: civil disobedience was always encouraged when it came to having to choose between Christ and Caesar.)

Paul's letters are written to Christians, not unbelievers - he addresses Christians in marriages, Christians in slavery, Christians as master - and gives instructions to all of them.

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The quote: from Husbands Who Love Like Christ and the Wives Who Submit to Them:

Therefore, headship is not a right to command and control. It's a responsibility to love like Christ: to lay down your life for your wife in servant leadership. And submission is not slavish or coerced or cowering. That's not the way Christ wants the church to respond to his leadership: he wants it to be free and willing and glad and refining and strengthening.

In other words what this passage of Scripture does is two things: it guards against the abuses of headship by telling husbands to love like Jesus; and it guards against the debasing of submission by telling wives to respond the way the church does to Christ.

(...)

There is no contradiction between mutual submission and a relationship of leadership and response. Mutual submission doesn't mean that both partners must submit in exactly the same ways. Christ submitted himself to the church in one way, by a kind of servant-leadership that cost him his life. And the church submits herself to Christ in another way by honoring his leadership and following him in on the Calvary road.

So it is not true that mutual submission rules out the family pattern of Christ-like leadership and church-like submission. Mutual submission doesn't obliterate those roles, it transforms them.

What this means to me:

If we see headship and leadership within the framework of responsibility, not right, it becomes a loving response to a loving God. Godly submission of a godly wife becomes a loving response to a loving husband.

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The quote: from "Do you believe in 'mutual submission' the way Paul teaches in Ephesians 5:21, 'Submit to one another'?"

Are Christ and the church mutually submitted? They aren't if submission means Christ yields to the authority of the church. But they are if submission means that Christ submitted Himself to suffering and death for the good of the church. That, however, is not how the church submits to Christ. The church submits to Christ by affirming His authority and following His lead. So mutual submission does not mean submitting to each other in the same ways. Therefore, mutual submission does not compromise Christ's headship over the church and it should not compromise the headship of a godly husband.

What this means to me:

The key is love. The key is different. There is no conflict between love / leadership / submission. As sinful mankind, we can inject a conflict where one does not belong, but a man or a woman sinning in an authority structure does not make the structure wrong, it makes the sin wrong.

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The quote: from "Building a Christ Centered Marriage: How Husbands and Wives Can Complement One Another in Marriage"

The traditional camp, on the other hand, advocates equality before God, but is committed to complementarianism, rather than egalitarianism. This is the belief that, while men and women are equal before God, they serve him in complementary roles which are not always identical and in some cases ought not to be. These complementarians recognize that there is "neither male nor female" in terms of our relationship to God (Gal. 3:28). But they also recognize the other biblical texts which counsel that men and women possess distinct abilities and callings (such as 1 Pet. 3:1-7; Col. 3:18; 1 Tim. 2:9-3:7). In the home there ought to be male headship (though not domination) and womanly submission (though not fearful servility). Complementarians insist that to be truly evangelical we must confess that there is no contradiction over this matter in Scripture, and to be truly biblical we must affirm both the spiritual equality of men and women and also the distinctions and differences in roles that are taught in the Bible.

What this means to me: Men and women should fit together like a jigsaw puzzle - heart to heart, mind to mind, soul to soul. Not like identical and interchangeable gear cogs.

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The quote: from Armorbearer:

i agree, women are not afforded the courtesy of dignity in many cases, but the problem is not patriarchy. the problem is men acting like buffoons. the remedy then is not feminism and matriarchy or swapping one bully for another, the remedy is mutual submission. rightful authority.

What this means to me: Some parents abuse their children; that does not mean we should remove parental authority. Some pastors are abusive; that does not mean that we should abolish pastoral authority. There are some bad bosses; that does not mean that the position of "boss" is bad. A president may lie under oath, or knowingly accept bad intelligence; that doesn't mean that the office of presidency is evil.
Abuse is sin, it does not follow that the structure is sinful, but the person within that structure.

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Once in a while I'm invited to participate in on-line consumer surveys and today I watched a few commercials.  One of them was a Subway commercial that featured a husband and wife, along with their son.  Passing the Subway store, the dad asks mom if he can get a sandwich.  She (Mommy) tells him that they don't have time, they have to get to practice.  Dad promptly throws a typical little kid tantrum, complete with body language, flailing arms, slumped shoulders.  "Come on...pleeeeaaassseeee...?

No, mom say, grow up.  And the child faces down his father, shakes his finger at him and declares, "Yeah Dad...GROW UP!"

Can you imagine the uproar at an advertisement that portrayed a woman acting like a child, with her own child telling her to "Grow up?"  Yikes...and yet men are a politically correct target.

Is this an aberration?  Are men often betrayed as being immature, stupid or incompetent  with family matters?

  • Home Improvement
  • Every Loves Raymond (I watched these shows once in a while and found them anti-men as grown ups each time)

What about advertising?

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2004, In that (Verizon) ad a bumbling father tries to help his little daughter with her homework and is treated with contempt by both the girl and her mother, who orders the father to "leave her alone" and "go wash the dog." Our campaign made 300 newspapers, and the Verizon ad stopped running a few weeks later.

See the ad here (on the right).

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Here is an ad of an idiot male parking

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A Fidelity ad featuring a young girl with an "I can't believe my father is this stupid" look and a male gloating over winning a ping-pong game.

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And of course...

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Both complementarianism and egalitarianism have their extremes. After being told that wanting to address the extremes of both sides was a "red herring", I became curious: what are the denominations that first ordained women and what are they doing now?

The list is from Religious Tolerance. I don't like their "theology", but the list is what I was looking for. They're looking to give denominations a pat on the back for breaking the sex barrier, so I'm guessing that it's pretty accurate.

1. The Society of Friends (Quakers) began ordaining women in the early 1800's. Each local congregation is independent, so there is no set policy or unity on the topic...thus, while every congregation does not accept gay/lesbian/transgender as acceptable, the denomination is certainly struggling with the topic.

In Australia:

With this background, Quakers supported the establishment of Queensland’s first openly homosexual organisation, C.A.M.P. Inc., in 1971. In 1975, Quakers officially stated: The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia calls for a change in the laws ... to eliminate discrimination against homosexuals. This statement is made in the light of the Society’s desire to remove discrimination and persecution in the community. The Society also calls on all people to seek more knowledge and understanding of the diversity of human relationships and to affirm the worth of love in all of them. Yearly Meeting 1975, Minute 23

In North America, "Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns":

We seek to know that of God within ourselves and others. We seek to express God's truth in the Quaker and in the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transsexual/transgender communities, as it is made known to us.

It is our hope to offer an oasis to those who have been spurned by the world at large. We are learning that radical inclusion and radical love bring further light to Quaker testimony and life. Our experience with oppression in our own lives leads us to seek ways to bring our witness to bear in the struggles of other oppressed peoples.

In the United Kingdom (via Wiki):

Quakers in the United Kingdom are similarly accepting; one of the first statements in Quakerism regarding homosexuality was the controversial 1963 book Towards a Quaker View of Sex, published by a group of British Quakers, which affirmed that gender or sexual orientation were unimportant in a judgment of an intimate relationship and that the true criterion was the presence of "selfless love." A statement similar to this was later adopted by Britain Yearly Meeting.

There are congregations that don't embrace this extreme end, but my point is that the first denomination to ordain women was one of the first to deal with the gay/lesbian/transgender issue - and they are far from united on it.

2. 1863: Olympia Brown was ordained by the Universalist denomination... In 1961, the Universalists and Unitarians joined to form the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). The UUA became the first large denomination to have a majority of female ministers. In 1999-APR, female ministers outnumbered their male counterpart 431 to 422.

Who is the UUA?

 

Calls upon the UUA and its member churches, fellowships, and organizations immediately to end all discrimination against homosexuals in employment practices, expending special effort to assist homosexuals to find employment in our midst consistent with their abilities and desires...

and

Universalists are Christians who believe in universal salvation. They don't believe that a loving God could punish anyone to hell for eternity. Instead, they believe that everyone will be reconciled with God eventually.

Originally, all Unitarians were Christians who didn't believe in the Holy Trinity of God (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost). Instead, they believe in the unity, or single aspect, of God.

and

Another issue which remains at the forefront of the Unitarian Universalist community is marriage equality (i.e. same-sex marriage). Unitarian Universalism fully supports the right of all committed couples to marry. Unitarian Universalist congregations, individuals, and the UUA staff continue to work to have these marriages legally sanctioned in every state.

So...on this list, the second denomination to ordain women has fully embraced the inclusion of the gay/lesbian/transgender population into all aspects of the community.

3. 1865: Salvation Army is founded and has always ordained both men and women.

This is the first organization that has ordained women who does not struggle with the homosexual issue. They offer relief assistance to all, regardless of orientation and/or lifestyle (which is a good thing), but declare the homosexual act and lifestyle to be sin.

4. 1880: Anna Howard Shaw was the first woman ordained in the Methodist Protestant Church, which later merged with other denominations to form the United Methodist Church.

The Methodist Protestant Church is no more; what is the United Methodist Church up to?

The UMC's official position (2004) was that all people are accepted into communion, but that same-sex marriages would not be performed and practicing homosexuals would not ordained.

Also in 2004

SAN FRANCISCO (UMNS) - A complaint has been filed against a United Methodist clergywoman for performing a series of gay wedding ceremonies after City Hall issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples./p>

The Rev. Karen Oliveto conducted seven ceremonies at San Francisco City Hall and an eighth in the sanctuary at Bethany United Methodist Church during the Feb. 15 worship service. Oliveto, Bethany's pastor, said she was acting on requests by the eight gay or lesbian couples after City Hall announced it would issue the marriage licenses. The pastor, who knew all the couples, said she took the requests as "an opportunity to extend pastoral care" to her parishioners.

More recently:

An associate pastor says she disclosed her homosexuality during a recent Sunday morning worship service "to share with the congregation part of my faith journey and how I've experienced God's grace."

The Rev. Kathleen Weber shared her story during the Sept. 30 service at Blaine Memorial United Methodist Church, where she has been on staff the past four years. She is a commissioned candidate for ministry in The United Methodist Church and is on track to be ordained next year.

The fourth denomination to ordain women is far from settled on the homosexual issue - and given that a lesbian is on track to be ordained, it would appear that they are going in the more liberal direction.

This post is already long... 75% of the first four denominations to ordain women are either now dealing with the homosexual issue (or have settled it in favor of ordaining homosexuals into ministry office. 

Is this proof positive?  Not clinical proof, but history does appear to tell us that when an organization starts moving toward liberalism, the trend is to become more liberal, not to swing back.