Male and Female He Created Them
Statement of Faith • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Welcome - continuing in our series - last week I said I was covering half of one statement and that today I would be covering the second half
So that you know what we are talking about today, and because I’m a “just rip the band-aid off” kind of guy, here is the full statement:
We believe that our corporate worship must be regulated by the Scriptures alone and that we are not free to impose extra elements into our worship before God. We believe that the Scriptures teach that only biblically qualified men are to hold the office of Elder or to preach during the weekly worship service.
Just as this first half of this statement follows from the rest of all we’ve talked about, the second half of the statement is necessary because of the first half.
Now, I know that this may be a sensitive topic for some, so I would like to remind you all that our goal in preaching through this statement of faith isn’t to get you to agree with us at every point. It is to present the Biblical case for why the elders believe what we believe, why we lead the church the way we do, and why we preach what we preach.
So all I ask is that you hear what we are saying in this series.
Last week, we spoke about all of us having a role in worship. And about being open to hear the preached Word.
The week before, we spoke about the fact that Christ is Lord over the church and we are here for Him, not for ourselves.
So let’s explore what His Word says about this together, and if you disagree on Biblical grounds, that’s okay. If you want to talk to me and make a Biblical case the other way, I am more than happy to hear you out.
But let’s be sure not to let the world influence our church or our worship, like we talked about last week. We live in an age and a culture of equity, fairness, and equal outcomes for all.
It’s an age when it’s unfair if everyone doesn’t have the same opportunities and have the same things, so much so that some in the world believe men can have babies. That’s only fair.
It’s a culture where if you say there is any differences between any two people you’re a bigot, or a misogynist, or at the least, a hater.
By what standard should we judge if that’s true? Our feelings? Our preferences? What we want to be true? The standards of the world?
Or the Word of God?
Our culture has moved away from the objective towards the subjective. Forget truth, what I feel is right, what I want I deserve, yet somehow what I believe can’t be disagreed with.
That’s how the world thinks. Should we do the same?
Or should we be under the authority of the Word of God when it comes to what we believe and how we do church?
So, what does the Word of God say?
It says that God has created men and women equally, but differently. In particular, this means that though both men and women are equally made in the image of God, have equal value in the Kingdom and in the world, and that gender plays no role in salvation, God has purposed that men and women have different functions and different responsibilities, including:
roles in the home
regarding the physical, as evidenced by the undeniable physical differences between us, especially in fulfilling the creation mandate of “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth”
and there are God-designed differences between the roles of men and women in the church and in our corporate worship
This is why:
We believe that the Scriptures teach that only biblically qualified men are to hold the office of Elder or to preach during the weekly worship service.
However, as this topic is a sensitive one and can be very divisive, I want to say a few things before we dive into what the Bible says.
First, I must stress the importance of this debate for the health and success of the church.
The church – any church, every church – belongs to Jesus Christ. We saw that a few weeks ago. Nobody came to me and told me they disagreed with that.
This means the church must be led according to God’s will just as worship, ministry, and preaching all has to be done according to His will.
Because, as we saw last week - to establish rules He has not will negatively affect both the health and success of the church. And to ignore rules He has established will do the same.
And yet, since there are much smarter and more sanctified people than me who disagree, the discussion must be had with charity and grace, and with humble hearts and a teachable spirit. On all our parts.
Second, I would like to explain how I finally came to my conviction on this matter. I reached my conclusion while desperately wanting to reach its opposite.
Having come from a “hyper-fundamentalist” Christian tradition, I was taught that gender roles are way more distinct than the Bible teaches.
Not only were wives to be submissive to their husbands, but, in practice, all women to all men. Not only were women excluded from the office of Elder in the church, but they were excluded from running any ministry, from praying in public, and for many in that tradition, even from wearing pants in church!
It was as bad as you can imagine. I was taught that Deborah was made a judge of Israel as a punishment to all the men of Israel for not stepping up to heed God’s call of leadership.
The same rationale was used for allowing women (contrary to the “rules”) to run ministries only when capable men were not available. It was supposed to shame men into stepping up and volunteering.
Not only did I come to the conclusion that most of this wasn’t Biblical, this was completely contrary to my experience. The smartest, most capable, most loving people I know are women. Have you met my wife?
I did not understand, nor did I agree with the conclusions of this tradition.
So after leaving that church I set out to disprove much of what I was taught, and gender roles within the church was quite literally at the top of my list.
I sought out counsel from local pastors, both men and women, with a strong desire to conclude that women should be allowed to serve as Elders.
Throughout these conversations, I saw a pattern.
I found that those with an Egalitarian position - that the only differences between women and men are physical and that there are no distinctions within the church or the home - they seemed to resort to the same arguments, and two common themes inevitably emerged:
First:
There are two New Testament passages that are the primary focus of the Egalitarian argument. The standard method of argumentation is to work very hard to prove why the text does not mean what it appears to plainly state.
Like in 1 Timothy 2, where Paul writes:
Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.
And we will discuss this passage today.
The other is from 1 Corinthians:
For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.
I spoke at length about this passage in our 1 Corinthians series, so I will spare you all from hearing it again. But just note - as we discussed last week - this is part of Paul’s correction to the Corinthian church of all they were doing wrong, which he concludes with:
But all things should be done decently and in order.
And as we saw, this means there is a right way and wrong way to worship God. What the Corinthians were allowing to go on is clearly presented as a wrong way, and that’s why Paul offers correction.
That’s number one. Number 2:
The evidence most often provided for one’s Egalitarian belief is experience or preference, rather than any positive assertion from Scripture in support of the view.
This is why I ultimately had to take my experience and my preference out of the equation and seek an answer from God’s Word alone.
Because the most common tactic to prove the Egalitarian position consisted of explaining what the Bible does not say, and then providing only extra-Biblical support for the view, usually the experiences of the person.
This is wholly insufficient. As we saw, God’s will for God’s church must be found in God’s Word.
So let’s start at the beginning - literally. The beginning of God’s Word and the beginning of all time. God’s design for gender roles within the church is rooted in creation.
Understanding Adam’s role as God originally created him is so important for understanding gender roles in the church, because Adam and Eve do not represent just the first family, but the first assembly of God’s worshipers.
And Adam was given the responsibility to lead both his family and God’s worshipers. He was tasked with bringing the Word to the people of God.
It is no small detail that Adam was created first, and as we saw, the Apostle Paul even refers to this as support for his mandate that women may not have certain authority in the church. Because Adam was created to be God’s first prophet, priest, and king.
And he was called to his vocation even before woman was created.
He was given responsibility to guard over and work and keep the Garden. He was also given the responsibility of naming Eve upon her creation and again after the Fall, which indicates a designation of authority over her both before and after the Fall.
Most importantly, he alone was given the Word and command of God before woman was created.
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
This is the only record of God giving this commandment prior to the Fall, and God later refers to this commandment as given to Adam alone. The implication is that the command of God was given not only to, but through Adam.
This is why we see in Genesis 3 that, after the fall, but before the pronouncement of the curse, The Bible says God “called to the man and said to him”.
And God asks, “Where are you?” and “Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”, the “you” is each time in the singular.
God is addressing Adam as the person solely responsible for the violation of His commandments.
When God curses Adam for his disobedience, He condemns him for listening to the voice of his wife rather than the command that God gave him. Involved in the fall was not just outright disobedience to God in relation to the command, but a willful inversion of authority.
Adam was given God’s Word to teach his wife. He was given the responsibility of protecting her as both her husband and her pastor. So, God held Adam responsible for the Fall.
He held him responsible for the soul of Eve, just like the writer of Hebrews tells us that elders will have to give an account for the souls of the sheep they shepherd.
So it is Adam who bears the blame and is the direct recipient of God’s death sentence.
This is why the Bible throughout talks about Adam’s fall. And Adam’s sin. About his disobedience causing sin and death to enter into the world.
Because Adam was given responsibility as not just a husband, but as a bearer of God’s authority and God’s Word for the people of God.
This is the reason that in the church, qualified men are given the responsibility of leadership. Not as a result of the fall, but as a redemption in the new creation of what Adam was called to do but failed to do in the original creation.
That means, this is a responsibility, not a right. It is not a privilege, it is a God-given duty based on how He designed men and women differently.
And we see in the New Testament that this is how the church Christ is building, is to function.
I mean, Jesus of Nazareth was a champion of women’s rights in His day. He ignored the social climate of His day and treated women as people of value, equally created in the image of God, worth spending time with - worth spending time on.
He traveled with women, spoke to women as social equals, ministered to their needs, and allowed them to minister to His.
Because in the new creation, value is not based on gender any more than it is on nationality. In Christ, there is neither male nor female when it comes to salvation by faith.
Yet, when it came to preaching the news of the kingdom or acting in an official capacity as a representative of the Good Shepherd, even Jesus limited these roles to men.
Jesus chose twelve Apostles to be separated from the rest of His disciples as His official representatives. An apostle was someone with the authority of the One sending Him.
And these Apostles were all men.
It is important to note that Jesus traveled with more than just the Twelve. And included in His companions were women who ministered among the disciples.
There is no injunction against women serving in the name of Christ.
Yet the responsibility of preaching and of official authority rested with the Apostles, upon whom Christ is building His church, as we saw two weeks ago.
It was to, and therefore through, the eleven surviving Apostles that the Great Commission was given, as we saw last week.
It was the Apostles that received Jesus’ mandate for growing the church and who witnessed His ascension, assuming the mantle of our Great Apostle from heaven, and taking on the responsibility of preaching the word and officially leading the church.
And there’s more. As Jesus continued to build His church in the book of Acts, we find the first official order of business in the church is to appoint a twelfth to the office of Apostle, and the qualifications given include that it is a man.
The earliest description of the church - which we looked at last week - includes the preaching of the Apostles, and the acknowledgment by all, of their official authority to lead the church.
The Bible says that special acts of the Holy Spirit, or signs and wonders, were being performed to validate the preaching of the word. All of these acts were done by the Apostles.
But this isn’t just limited to the Apostles.
All of the recorded sermons in the book of Acts were preached by men. Every act of preaching referred to in the book of Acts is performed by men.
When representatives of the church are chosen and sent to preach to the Gentiles, men are chosen.
When representatives of the church are chosen to deliver the official decision following the Antioch Council, men are chosen.
The Elders appointed by Paul in Ephesus were men.
In short, when the church was being built, the responsibility of preaching was left to men, and all official representatives with the authority of the church behind them were men.
This brings us to the writings of Paul. For our purposes we will focus on the 1 Timothy passage I already talked about:
Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.
As always, context is key to understanding what Paul is saying here. Paul is writing a letter to a young pastor in Ephesus named Timothy. A primary goal of the letter is to educate the young pastor on how a church should be run and by whom.
So Paul’s letter counseled the young man on matters of church leadership—from proper worship, to qualifications for elders and all ministers, to advice on confronting false teaching and how to treat various individuals within a congregation.
After a personal greeting to Timothy, Paul reminds him that he must pastor his congregation out of love, and be prepared to counter false teaching and poor theology.
After a reminder of Who Christ is, Paul completes his introduction by saying “This charge I entrust to you”, indicating that Paul is now getting to the particulars of how Timothy is to carry out his ministry.
He charges him as an elder to do these things.
And Paul begins by calling for constant prayer because of God’s desire for the lost to come to faith (2:1-7). Paul then talks about men praying (2:8), how women should conduct themselves (2:9-10), and then, what women are not permitted to do and why (2:11-15).
Immediately following this, Paul details the qualifications for an elder.
The order of topics Paul addresses here is important. He is detailing the particulars of the broad “charge” he is laying out for Timothy.
Paul’s addressing of gender roles, that, negatively, women are forbidden to preach or hold the office of Elder, should be seen as a preface to laying out, positively, the qualifications for Elders.
And we’ll get to that in a minute.
So, verses 11 and 12, in context, clearly detail the two exclusions that are at the heart of the debate. Paul says that women are neither to preach nor hold the office of Elder.
In verse 11, the translation “let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness” is a very straightforward rendering of the Greek. Keeping Paul’s natural flow of thought and the context in mind, the obvious meaning is clear.
In verse 12, Paul disallows a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. The verb used here for “teach” appears 97 times in the New Testament and without exception it means to give instruction.
Taking into account the witness of the entire Bible, this clearly cannot be a blanket prohibition of teaching of any kind. Older women are to train younger women (Titus 2:4). Priscilla taught Apollos (Acts 18:24-28). So Paul here must be referring to a specific kind of teaching, or teaching in a specific context.
Considering verse 11 in context, and what we have stated about the authority inherent in preaching, the most reasonable and consistent understanding of Paul’s prohibition is that this refers to public teaching. Teaching in the worship gathering of the church.
The verb for “exercise authority” here presents a challenge, because it is used nowhere else in the New Testament.
While the word can be used idiomatically to mean “commit murder,” the majority of usage in the first century was to indicate control, or dominance, or ruling over someone. It refers to someone in a position to give orders to another person.
It carries a connotation at times of even usurping authority. In context, that Paul is referring to women exercising authority over a man in the church is obvious.
What we have concluded about authority and submission regarding preaching would apply here to the official authority of the church or the office of Elder. That women are excluded from the office, would result in usurping authority should a woman hold the office.
And to reinforce what he is saying, Paul refers back to creation.
That Adam was formed first and then Eve, to Paul, is sufficient to establish his authority over her. While this includes his authority as head of the first family, what Paul is writing about here is the church, which means the authority he is referring to is that of Adam as the first leader of God’s people.
And what Paul says in verse 14 is especially important for understanding this passage and the Bible’s overall teaching on authority in the home and the church.
He points out that Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
This is sometimes taken to mean that Paul is forbidding women from the role of preaching and the office of Elder because Eve is to blame for the Fall. She got fooled first.
However, the entire testimony of the Scriptures clearly lays responsibility for the Fall on Adam.
As we’ve seen - he was the corporate head of all mankind, because God tasked him with that responsibility.
And Adam failed.
He failed to protect his wife, and God’s people, from the wiles of the enemy.
He failed to lead the people of God in the commands of God.
And because he failed, Eve was deceived and sinned.
What Paul is saying here is that Eve’s sin was the result of deception, but Adam’s sin was not. In other words, Adam’s sin was a more “high-handed” sin because he willingly laid aside the command God gave to him.
This is important. Because that means that women are not excluded from the highest responsibilities in the church because of any fault or deficiency on their part, but on man’s part.
Because in His church, God gives the responsibility of redeeming Adam’s failure to uphold the responsibility given to him at the creation, to men.
And it is no coincidence that Paul concludes this passage by pointing to the creation responsibility of women: childbearing.
And this is not a “women belong in the home barefoot and pregnant” thing.
It just serves to show that there are differences in the design of men and women rooted in creation. Paul is pointing to these differences as the basis for his prohibitions in verses 11 and 12.
Because, of course, what was the command given to both the man and the woman?
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”
And I don’t think anyone here would say that men and women have the same role in this. There are differences in how men and women are created that make this work, and it only works one way.
⬇️But are the differences between men and women only physical?
No. Because we are not just physical beings. Gender goes beyond the physical differences. Because we are also spiritual beings.
And God designed us for different spiritual purposes, just as He designed us for different physical purposes.
Let’s go back for a minute.
I said we’d address the qualifications for elders. Because let’s not ignore what men are allowed to be elders:
We believe that the Scriptures teach that only biblically qualified men are to hold the office of Elder
Do you realize that when one of the other members of the teaching team preaches, me and the rest of the team sit under their authority? That every man and every woman are equally under the authority of the preached word?
Do you realize that I am subject to the other elders of this church just like everyone else.
Every member - man or woman - of this church agrees to be under the authority of the elders. Even the other elders.
Because it isn’t a man vs. woman thing. It is a qualified vs. not qualified thing.
So, right after Paul talks about the exclusion of women, he talks about the exclusion of most men. He details the qualifications for eldership:
The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.
Note a few things here.
First, there needs to be an inner call on an elder. He must have the God-given aspiration, or strong desire, to be an elder. That is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Relatively speaking, there are few that have that call.
Second, if he has that call, he has to display certain fruit outwardly, because Timothy or any other elder needs to give the outward call for him to be an elder. Other elders have to see the fruit of the inner call on a man.
He has to be a good husband and father.
He has to have a heart for people.
He cannot have certain sinful desires. He isn’t called to be sinless, but his life has to display a certain spiritual maturity and self-control over sin.
He has to be humble.
He even has to have a good reputation outside the church.
All this to say, Paul excludes women from the role, and then goes on to exclude most men from the role.
Eldership isn’t just a man/woman thing. It is a spiritual thing. It is a giftedness thing. It is a calling thing.
It is a responsibility assigned only to certain people.
And it is just one of many gifts Christ gives to build His church.
But as I also said, Paul does talk about redeeming the creation-based responsibility of men in the family, too. He talks here about women learning with all submissiveness.
When we combine that with what we see in 1 Corinthians 14 where women are to be under the teaching of their husbands at home, we see a picture of the responsibility of men in the church and in the home.
And this isn’t about the wife more than the husband. I think it’s about the husband more than the wife.
Because we are given the responsibility of leading our wives and our homes.
And this isn’t about making unilateral decisions. It’s not about being in charge. It isn’t first about providing for and protecting our families physically.
It is about leading them in following Christ! Just like an elder in the church has that responsibility to the church, so a man has that responsibility to his family.
Even as an elder, that is my first responsibility - to my family.
In Ephesians 5 where Paul talks about marriage and how it shows forth the relationship between Christ and the church, Paul says women should submit to their husbands. Don’t misunderstand that.
This does not make a marriage a dictatorship. Don’t take that one passage out of the context of the rest of the letter.
Because Paul goes on to say that husbands are to love their wives even as Christ loved the church by laying down His life for it. And Paul says he did it to make His church holy, mature in faith, and skilled in the Word.
In other words, though we can easily take that passage out of context, what Paul is saying is: “Husbands, lead your wives in following Christ. And wives, follow your husband as he follows Christ.”
That’s what it means to lead our families.
Men, we need to take our responsibility seriously.
We need to stand up and lead our families in following Christ. We have to lead them in faith. We have to lead them in obedience to Christ.
We have to lead by example by being in church, by serving, and by loving others as Christ has loved us.
Are we doing that?
It’s what we’re designed to do.
Because, listen, I talk a lot about being involved in church, and using your gifting, and serving. But the fact of the matter is, if you are a husband, you have a ministry. Your ministry is first and foremost to your family.
And Paul doesn’t leave women out of this. As I said, there is no injunction against women doing most things in the church.
When Paul excludes women from certain responsibilities in the church and the home, he doesn’t exclude them from all responsibility.
In fact, as he talks about what a woman shouldn’t do in the church, he talks about what she should do in the home if she’s a mom.
Let’s go back there for a minute:
I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.
Based on the creation - how we were created - a man has a role in the church and in his home.
And based on the creation, a woman has a role. Particularly in the home.
Paul says she will be saved through childbearing. What does that mean?
Well, Paul isn’t talking about coming to faith in Christ and being born again and being saved initially. He is talking about our ongoing salvation in this life - about growing in faith and holiness.
And Paul says that it is through childbearing that a woman is most sanctified.
In other words, ladies, if you have children, your ministry - your God ordained ministry - is being a mother.
⬇️I have heard so many women talk about how they wish they had time to serve or do more in the church, but they can’t because they are so busy raising a family.
Well that is your ministry. If you have children, that is the calling God has put on your life.
You should be focused on that. God wants you to be.
And again, this is not a “women belong in the home” thing, here.
And this doesn’t apply to everyone. Some are given the gift of singleness, as we saw in our 1 Corinthians series.
And that’s good, because this does not exclude women from everything else. From having a job, from political office, or from serving in any other ministry in the church aside from preaching and eldership.
All it means is that you have a God-given, primary ministry if you are a mother.
And it is a ministry men are not designed to carry out.
I often tell my wife, God knew what he was doing when he assigned childbearing to women. I have seen it, and I couldn’t hack it.
I mean, if men had to go through pregnancy, Genesis 4 would be one verse long: “And Eve knew her husband Adam and he conceived and bore Cain, saying, “‘Nope. Not doing that again.’ The end.”
God didn’t make men to be able to do what women can do. He made us equal, but He made us differently.
Because whether your ministry is leading your wife in following Christ, or it’s raising your children according to God’s Word, that is all part of building the church. That is all part of growing the kingdom in number and faith.
And it takes all kinds of gifting to do that.
Because the creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it was a physical command to bear offspring made in the image of God.
But it wasn’t just physical. It was spiritual. Children were to conform to the image of God because parents were to lead them in that.
And as humankind spread all over the earth, it would be full of people striving to conform to that image.
This is exactly what we do when we follow the Great Commission. We - the church - Christians - the Christian family - God uses all of this as we go and make disciples - even of our families - and cover the earth with people who strive to conform to the image of God.
The creation mandate and the Great Commission are one and the same.
And we all have our role to carry it out.
That women have been and are marginalized by certain (perhaps many) men is undeniable. That this has happened even within the church, often with men citing Biblical warrant for such behavior, is also undeniable.
Sin has affected gender relationships, it has damaged and confused them, and in our day, it’s even redefining what gender is.
Yet God will redeem gender, and gender roles, to be what He originally designed them to be. That is what He’s doing.
This is what we ought to seek to reflect within the church, as we are made to reflect the new creation to a lost world.
So… Just as there are physical differences between men and women because God has willed it so and thus designed us so, there are differences in the responsibilities assigned to men and women in the church.
This is not because men are smarter, it’s not because we are more spiritual, but because we have been given the responsibility by God to preach the Word and lead the church. This was God’s original design.
While there is no Biblical injunction against women ministering within the church, praying, or as we saw in 1 Corinthians, prophesying or speaking in tongues, God has found it good that the ministry of the Word and the office of Elder should be reserved for men so gifted by His Spirit.
So:
We believe that our corporate worship must be regulated by the Scriptures alone and that we are not free to impose extra elements into our worship before God. We believe that the Scriptures teach that only biblically qualified men are to hold the office of Elder or to preach during the weekly worship service.
Understanding the relevant and hotly debated passages in light of the full disclosure of Scripture leads to one consistent viewpoint: that in God’s design, men and women are equal, but are assigned different functions and responsibilities in the home and in the church.
And like I said, this may seem unfair to some, and I get that, but I find the very fact that we get to be part of the plan of redemption, part of Christ’s church, and part of God’s people at the cost of Christ’s life unfair.
But I believe it because God’s Word clearly says it.
Let’s believe Him.
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