Women and Authority

God has raised up some women to lead His churches, and moreover to take authority roles over men. Let that thought sink in a minute.

In any writing, including this blog, the audience is always considered and the writing is suited to communicate the writers view to the particular audience. Scripture is no different, God inspired His word for His people, for all times. The reader of scripture today is as much God's intended audience as were the first readers of Paul's Epistles. Today's reader can read the scripture as if it were directly written to him or her. With that said it is clear that women are not intended to be the leaders of Christian churches. Still God is raising up women ministers, lay leaders, committee chairs and so on, and they are bearing fruit for the Gospel in their various circles of influence. Why is this?

It is a simple answer. Men have failed to answer the call of God to be the leaders He created them to be. Men have become so wrapped up in work, sports, and various recreational activity that God has put them under the authority of women. Attending worship on Father's Day was very disheartening. Church attendance was incredibly low, yet on mothers day there is not an empty place in the pews. Why? Mothers are bringing their children to worship, while fathers stay home. The reason women are taking the authoritative roles that they have taken is a result of the slothfulness of man, not the disobedience of women. Women should not be blamed for assuming high positions when there male counterparts are too busy golfing to be concerned with spiritual things. Next time you view a church that is being overrun by women in authority positions keep in mind, the Lord may be laying it on their hearts to do the leadership work that lazy men have neglected. Moreover many women who have labored for the gospel in leadership roles should be recognized for what they have done. God has raised up women in this way before, we see it occaisionally in scripture.

Unfortunately many feminists have entered leadership roles to labor for feminism as opposed to the gospel. They have used the church as place to advance their agenda and not the gospel. Even in this case it is still the fault of lazy men that this occurs. There is a 'God fearing male' leadership vacuum in the church and so it is relatively easy for anyone to assume leadership with whatever agenda they please. Why do gays get leadership roles? Because of the lack of God fearing male leaders.

We should praise God for the women who have been raised up in the stead of slothful men to defend the gospel, and moreover we males need to answer our call to be leaders and to lead with zeal and fervor so that faithful women do not have to labor performing the tasks of leadership that were intended for us.

Well, that was a rant. It was in response to an awesome gospel presentation at our church by a female pastor this past Sunday. She was in the pulpit because our departing minister was too busy to preach.

Altar Calls? Continued

Continued from previous entry.. Many hard-line fundamentalists will take a firm stance against modern and post-modern church growth strategies, i.e. ‘The Purpose Driven Church’, or strategies used by Crystal Cathedral, Joel Osteen, and Willow Creek. I think that Christians are right in the rejection of these strategies because of their focus. That focus is on psychology, creating a feeling. These strategies utilize the scriptures as man’s tool for converting souls. This is crazy when you think about it. The scripture is God’s revelation to man, it is not a tool, it is truth. The scriptures are not something we use for a purpose; they are something we present as a truth. (Churches that focus heavily on social reform and lightly on evangelism typically view scripture as a tool to bring about reform, on the other hand churches that are focused heavily on evangelism often view the scripture as the believers tool to win souls.) Once again the scripture is not to be used as a tool by man period. It is the POWER OF GOD unto salvation, it is God’s tool, He is the one, the only one who has the authority to use it. We will submit to it, we will present it, we will preach it, and teach it, and sing it, but it is only God who will empower it, and use it for His purpose. Often times the fundamentalist, altar-calling church is so quick to criticize the post-modern church or mega church that it doesn’t even take notice that what they are criticizing they are also practicing. The mega church generates emotion to get the guard of the sinner down and then slips in the gospel. The altar call is no different, the preacher will pick and choose the verses to use as a psychological tool to break down the sinner and when the sinner is in an emotionally defeated state the preacher presents the gospel, opens the altar for all to come forward. In both situations tools are used by man to generate response, and by pragmatic reasoning both methods are excellent because they net large results. However, the results are rarely permanent and life changing. The net result is often a non Christian who feels unjustifiably right with God because they came to the altar at one point during an emotional experience. Why must we use the scriptures as a tool to generate a response at the altar? Are we to use the scriptures as a tool so that we may condemn the world of sin? Or, are we simply to present the scriptures as the truth that they are, and let the Lord cause the Word to collide with the law written on the hearts of mankind so that he can bring his glorious redemption. The altar call is unnecessary, that is unless you need to see results to trust that the preaching was ‘good’. The Lord will work a mighty work in a man or woman when the word is preached and truth gets a hold of their conscience and heart. Whether the Lord blesses the preaching to the sinner’s heart at the church, or at the sinners home, or in the sinners car or anywhere else is up to the Lord, yet in our quest for seeing the response we have created the altar call. The altar call focuses more on the decision than on the work of God unto salvation. When we see an altar call take place we get nervous at first that nobody is going up, and then we start to get excited when people start walking forward, and then when that prayer is prayed we are overcome with joy, what a mighty work of God we think. Yet we all know too well that many of these professions at the altar prove to be false and therefore we have rejoiced not at the work of God, but at the decision of a man to come forward in an emotionally altered state. I remember all to well when a friend of mine came at an altar call and I remember the tears shed and the joy felt and yet to this day 7 years later this friend has not shown an ounce of regeneration. It felt real at the time, but only because it was a carefully crafted moment in time used to generate an emotional response out of an unsuspecting unbeliever. So what should we do? Should we refrain from emotional preaching? Absolutely not, the word is filled with emotion and to preach unemotionally would be to leave out some of the full counsel. What we cannot do is try to manufacture emotion by carefully crafting our messages to elicit a response. We need to trust that God will use the plain preaching of His word to redeem His chosen people. Often times we feel a person must know their exact moment of conversion and thus the altar call provides a means of ‘knowing’ that exact time. This is not necessary, it never has been. Personally I can remember a time when I was not saved, and I can remember time past after being saved, yet the in-between time when God did a powerful work and turned my heart is all a blur that kind of runs together, and frankly I am ok with that. I personally do not need an exact moment in time to verify in my heart that God performed a mighty work in me to turn me away from sin and death and toward Him. Finally the altar call often serves as a distraction from the preaching of God’s word itself. How many times have you left a meeting and the altar call experience is what you remember the most. The preaching may have been excellent and God honoring, yet that all too often fades into the background after experiencing the emotionally filled altar call. The Lord will use good preaching to bring many sinners to the cross right in their pew, the trip to the altar is merely added pageantry. I would contend that those who did respond to the altar and were saved the Lord had begun changing them during the preaching and would have done the work just fine without the altar, and those who go to the altar without being saved are the ones who looked to the emotional altar call for their salvation. Well that is enough of a rant for this topic.

Altar Calls?

The altar call was born out of pragmatism.

Pragmatism: A movement consisting of varying but associated theories, originally developed by Charles S. Peirce and William James and distinguished by the doctrine that the meaning of an idea or a proposition lies in its observable practical consequences. (from dictionary.com)

In other words the cause is defined by the effect. Pragmatic thinking basically says the meaning of a cause can be defined by its effect. Now for the altar call. Pragmatic reasoning would say the fact that during an altar call people move forward and make a decision to follow Christ, means that the altar call itself is a means of converting people to Christ. The altar call is defined by the decisions made at the altar.

So what is wrong with all of this? We would say that people making decisions for Christ is a good thing right?

You certainly do not hear of altar calls, or anything remotely similar in scripture. Yet the altar call has become the hallmark of many evangelical churches. Many churches will view a high number of people at an altar call as evidence of sucessful preaching and a low number as evidence of poor preaching. (Notice the pragmatic reasoning.) The pressure of getting a large number of people to the altar as driven preachers to change their message. Preachers will preach in a way that manipulates the congregation using psycology and brings them to a point where they are emotionally wrapped into their message and their guard is down at that point they bring in the gospel and the gospel makes sense and the people stream down the aisles to the altar to make a decision. The issue is that for many if not most of these people the altar call was an emotional experience that was not spirtual rebirth. What complicates this even more is when the preacher assures them of their eternal security based on the prayer they made at the altar. This whole altar call salvation is based on an unbeliever making a decision, and praying a prayer and is often done in an emotionally altered state. It is the works of a man, coming forward and praying the prayer that brings them supposed salvation.

True salvation comes from being born again from above.
(I have to stop right now, this post will be continued check back in for the conclusion shortly.)

The Last Two Beattitudes

There is a tendancy for the fundamentalist and liberal both to put a lot of emphasis on the last two beatitudes, maybe more than they should. I have found myself in this category a couple of times as well.

'Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake, rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets then went before.'

It is common for people to take these verses to justify themselves anytime someone disagrees with them. Lets take a doctrine like the foreknowledge of God, I avidly disagree with the stance of our staff, and the entire denomination as it pertains to election and God's foreknowledge. Yet when a pastor tells me in an e-mail dialog that I am wrong, is that persecution? Absolutely not, if anything it is rebuke or reproof, though not a wise reproof in my estimation, but nonetheless it is by no means persecution. The same can be said going the other way, if I tell someone that they are wrong when it comes to a doctrine like the total depravity of man, I am in no way persecuting them, I am simply offering reproof. Liberals in churches have become so sensative to disagreement that they always view it as division, disention, and persecution. They will water anything down to the point where everyone is happy. On the other hand many fundi's are out looking to get 'persecuted'. They will stir the kettle just to watch it boil without any desire to actually cook the meal. When it does boil over and they get burnt they say blessed are we because we have been persecuted.

Here is how it goes, the so called persecuted one takes a stand, someone disagrees, the disagreement is viewed as persecution. The so call called persecuted one then views this as a blessing because of the last two beatitudes. The 'persecuted' person can never be wrong, if someone disagrees with them they view it as a persecution blesssing, and if someone agrees they rejoice at the shared knowledge. I am not calling this a conservative or a liberal Christian issue, it is more of a fallen man issue that plagues all of Christendom. It is sad that we have turned real blessed persecution into a lame justification for the various stances we take.

What is the real blessed persecution? I think the key lies in the rest of the beatitudes. When the poor in spirit, mourning, meek, thirsting for righteousness, mericful, pure in heart, peacemaker is persecuted he may count it all joy and know that he or she is truely blessed. If we are abiding in Christ, and we are living the sweet blessed life charatarized by the beatitudes then there is no rational reason that we would ever be persecuted. Yet in living that life we certainly will be persecuted for righteousness sake, then and only then should we rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is the reward in heaven. Our battle is spiritual, and when we are pure in heart, humble, and gentle the spiritual forces of darkness will always lash out. On the other hand if we are presenting gospel truth in a spirit of bitterness, and seeking to simply watch the pot boil then our so called persecution is not blessed at all but well deserved, and we should be ashamed. Conversely if we are diluting gospel truth for the sake of unity and people rise against us that is not blessed persecution, but well deserved rebuke. If we would live out the first 7 beatitudes then we would truely understand last beatitudes' teaching concerning persecution.

That is all feel free to comment (click on the title then go to the bottom of the page, click add comment)

Why is there suffering?

A popular argument against Christianity is the existance of suffering. The notion is this, if God is all powerful, and God is love, then the existence of suffering disproves God. The argument is flawed severely in its logic, and yet as Christians we seem to really struggle with a defense to this claim against God. I have heard Christians say that suffering exists because stuff exists. That one is a little beyond me, I guess what is meant by that is something like this: If a tree falls on a person and they break their leg and suffer, it is because the tree exists. Another example sounds kinda like this: The reason the tsunamis caused suffering was because the ocean exists, and earthquakes happen. I guess the theory would be, God created stuff, and stuff created suffering. I think I understand why people hold to this theory, and I don't think it is the scripture. I think it is a need to maintain a God that is their definition of love. God is love, there can be no mistake made there. Yet if we apply the human standard of love the to The Almighty God then we are attempting to limit the infinite. I held to this position for years also, somehow believing that God is in the business of relieving suffering, and would never consider ordaining suffering, yet looking back I realize that there are some major flaws in that line of thinking. Lets take a look-- How can we reconcile an all powerful and all loving God and a suffering world. The only reconciliation is that God has ordained suffering out of His infinite love, or else he is either not all powerful, or not all loving. You may say 'Jay you are calling God the author of suffering' I would respond with 'yes, that is what I am saying.' Then you may say well that is not the God I worship, or that is not a God of love, or I would never worship that God. Let me ask this question: What was the greastest act of love of all time. Answer, when God sent His son to suffer for His people. Do you realize that if there were no suffering, God would have been incapable of showing perfect love. However God, being love had to institute suffering so as to be able to make His love manifest. Even before time began God knew full well that suffering would exist, it was His plan. The culmination of suffering which we all experience was the ultimate sacrafice which Christ made. We are called to pick up our cross and suffer with Christ, it is by suffering that we partake in the love of Christ, and can relate to the love He bestowed. With no suffering there would be no sacrafice, there would be no grace. Praise God for suffering! The apostles understood this, Christ understood this, the early church understood this, the Church at the reformation understood this, yet sadly more often than not, we do not understand it. Praise God for the thorns, for they created the crown that proved His love, praise God for the twisted mind that dreamed up the torture that is crucifixion. Praise God when suffering, and thank God for suffering. Why is there suffering? Because God loves His people enough to show them that He was willing to submit to suffering on their behalf. If there was no suffering, and then God came down and suffered it would have made no sense, and nobody would relate to what God was doing. Yet because we understand what it is like to suffer, it is absolutley staggering to think that God would submit to suffering by His own will, on our behalf. So what about the tsunami's, or my tree example. Was not the tsunami a means of grace for many in that area? Did that not create an instant dispensation of love from God in the form of brethren from all over the world pouring in to a suffering people. If our leg is crushed by a tree can we not see even more that a God that would submit Himself to this world of pain is certainly a God of love. Suffering is a dispensation of love from God, and should not be viewed as simple circumstance. Our God is the author of love, and suffering is one of His main literary tools. If you want to comment on this or any post, click the title at the top then go to the bottom and click add comment.

Are You Truely Free?

The question I pose in this post seems so simple, yet as Christians we tend to miss it. Christ freed us from slavery to sin an death. He told us that His burden was easy, His yoke was light, yet we still tend to live in bondage. We tend to think we must love more, work harder, volunteer more, and do more because we are in Christ. We have given up the old life, for a life that has even more toil, and less joy. This shouldn't be.

Can we not see that love not an action, it is a reflection, or maybe a distribution, but we are not its source, and no matter how hard we work we will never generate an ounce of love. Or works, are we called to works, burdening ourselves with saving the lost by some effort of our own? We are called to make disciples by preaching the simple gospel, not by working out some elaborate plan that is dependent on us for its execution. We too often voulenteer for things, or allow ourselves to be voulenteered for things, without ever seeking God's will and peace about what we are voulenteering for. We create jobs for ourselves which, had we first prayed, we may have realized we weren't even the person called to do the job. You and I are to be slaves to Christ, and He is such a wonderful master that even the hardest tasks He gives are accompanied by the peace that passes all understanding. We should never be all tied up in knots about what we should, or shouldn't do, we should be at peace, and completely and utterly free, under the complete control of Christ. The only freedom that exists is complete slavery to Christ.

The Second Deformation

At our church we are about to start ‘The Forty Days of Purpose’ and the congregation is certainly buzzing about it. Of course the buzz is entirely positive and I have not encountered one person with any reservations about it. Even my fundamental brethren seem to be embracing this upcoming forty days of purpose. I suppose I stand alone in opposition to it. The program is based on Rick Warren’s book ‘The Purpose Driven Life’, and it is spreading like wildfire through all of Christendom. I have heard it said that we are in the midst of a second reformation; the church is now engaging the culture, and providing a seeker sensitive experience. It is clearly working, purpose driven churches are experiencing massive surges in membership, people by the millions are making ‘decisions’ and becoming ‘Christians’, yet I stand firmly against this tidal wave and trust that when tested by fire the true nature of purpose driven Christianity will be seen clearly.

I would like to focus today on this notion that we are in the midst of a ‘second reformation’. Certainly anyone who has read Foxe’s Book of The Martyrs know that the first reformation was wrought with martyr blood, sweat, and tears. Brave men and women committed to righteousness stood firm against the established Roman Church and clung dearly to every last word of scripture, and the Roman Catholics slaughtered them for it. What we have today is certainly no reformation, it is more of a relaxation, or as my title states, the second deformation. I will for the rest of this post refer the purpose driven movement as the second deformation. What was the first deformation? The first deformation occurred when the Christian church accepted becoming part of Rome. When Constantine was ‘converted’ and Christians were no longer persecuted but instead were now part of a national religion. Of course Christianity had to be toned way down in order to please everyone. The Christian faith became subject to Rome and adapted itself for life under Roman control. Other gods became acceptable, worldly means of worship, works based salvation, and moral relativism and so on started creeping into the Church until eventually the Church was so steeped in traditions, lore, and false teaching that it did not even recognize the truth. Then came the reformers, over 1000 years after Constantine to clean up the mess that had been made.

Before we really dig too hard on the Christians at Constantine’s time lets take a good look at what we might have done in their shoes. Would we have contributed to ‘the first deformation’? When Christianity became common place I am certain the attendance skyrocketed. I am sure that conversions were happening right and left, and I am willing to bet that most Church leaders were ecstatic claiming that it was a powerful working of the Holy Ghost. Certainly it would have been an exciting time with discussions about Christ becoming common place, people from other religions becoming ‘Christian’ the intellectuals and idiots both embracing the ‘new’ Christianity, which in turn embraced them. It isn’t much different from what is going on now. Yet we look at the course of history as the Roman church matured it slaughtered people by the millions, enslaved its member spiritually, physically, and financially. Even today millions of people are trusting in the Roman system to save them yet remained unaware of the true Christ and untouched by His Holy Spirit. It all started with exciting times, and big numbers, which came as a result of uniting Christianity with the world.

Here we are today, in the midst of the exact same situation. We have taken the world and its gods and its idols and have carried them into our sanctuaries and set them up. Then we watch the worshippers of those gods and idols come into the sanctuary and worship the false gods and idols as they always have. We then proclaim “look at this wonderful thing God is doing!” “People are coming in by the thousands, we have found a formula that the world loves and we are seeing a great harvest.” Yet all that really is happening is that the world can find what it loves in the church. They can have their lust filled without their consciences being singed. We have gotten to a point where we design our worship around the ‘unchurched’ as opposed to God’s word. We have pagans driving our agenda, designing our worship, and shaping our God. We find as many bible translations as possible to fit a message that the unbeliever would like to hear. We preach messages that encourage and comfort sinners, yet rarely confront sinners. We have coffee, guitars, bagels, powerpoint… and so on (none of which are bad in and of themselves) and we use all of these things to appeal to the wicked. The Roman Church in the time of Constantine did whatever it took to convert everyone, it adapted other beliefs and overtime became so corrupt that it was beyond repair. That was the first deformation, what we see now is the second deformation. It hasn’t changed, mingle a lot of truth with a few deceptions and over the course of time it becomes a lot of deception with a little truth (i.e. Romanism).

Anyway back to PDL. I will be participating in our Churches Forty Days of Purpose so that I can get first hand experience of what it is about. Hopefully I will post on this blog my thoughts and reactions to the teachings of the book and the reactions of the class. That is all for tonight.

Eternal Security Part 3

It has been awhile, and with how things are going it will probably be awhile until the next post, but nonetheless I have a free moment and feel inclined to post. Eternal security and total depravity placed side by side paint an awesome picture of what God's grace really is. I know that many people disagree with both of these doctrines, I am not sure I understand why. To denounce these doctrines is to say some pretty strange things. For instance to denounce total depravity is to say that there is righteousness outside of Christ, it could then be said that though it would be hard it still would be possible the live righteously. This would negate the necessity of Christ's sacrafice. Moreover to denounce eternal security is to say that the work of Christ on the cross for your redemption is still dependent on your own merits and therefore incomplete. Lets look at total depravity juxtapose with eternal security and see the true blessing and meaning of God's grace. Do you realize that when God saved you that you went from being incapable of pleasing God and entering his presence, to being permanatly placed in his presence, incapable of angering him. That is awesome, and the fact that you did absolutely nothing to earn it. This grace was freely given to you by Him for His purposes. You say, 'whoa Jay' you are off of your rocker on this one, of course you can still anger God. My answer is this, if God sees your actions and your sin through the attoning blood then you have no hope. Surely you have committed a myriad of sin after your conversion and if God sees that sin certainly he will, he must cast you out of his presence forever. He cannot see your sin, certainly The Son may see it, yet he intercedes and the Father sees only the merits of Christ on our behalf. Yet if we are capable of angering God, then we must continually be recovering ourselves with the blood of Christ, and he must be continually sacraficed. Yet we know he was ressurected and intercedes on our behalf in heaven. Think of that grace, think of what it really meant when you were born again. You went from uncapable of pleasing God, to forever fellowshipping with God. Praise God for His free grace. That is all for now, I really would like to post sometime soon on the topic of total depravity, hopefully I will make the time.