Excellent! These are things I've been saying for years. The church has slowly but surely been leaving the pattern and teachings of the apostles, which Christ prayed we would follow in John 17:20-21. Only in following that pattern can the Lord's church have unity and faith. Thank you, Sir!
I’ve been in church music for over 40 years and watch the seeker-sensitive, purpose driven, CCM set fire to the American church. I remember in the early 1990’s trying to sound the alarm at churches where I served about what was happening as the church threw opened their doors and said “what do YOU want church to be?” (Rick Warren did this exact things in starting Saddleback.). We let the world dictate to churches what they should be and look 30+ years later what has happened. I’ve watched the hub of life (God) be broken so every spoke of the wheel gets fractured until the wheel almost becomes useless.
We have become “entertain me!” churches. I remember one interview I had in the late 1990’s that wanted videos of my past children’s choir program so they could judge the type of programs I did. Needless to say, I didn’t have any. It used to be what you faith was and your belief about God, the Bible and Jesus were paramount. That changed. Even after all these years, I still hear people say “well, if the music changed people will come.” No. Yes, you can have large churches, but look at the attendance statistics. Look at the Bible illiteracy rate we have now. Look at how many people worship at the altar of sports now. And don’t get me even started on churches closing there doors for (some) over a year while Satan danced with glee. It was almost like we did the story of Job again. “God, those people don’t really worship you. They don’t really want to grow in this faith you say they need to have or the acceptance of this Son you say you have. Let me show you.” Look what happened……..
Can the ship be turned around? Only by a God given miracle. I personally believe that God has said “okay, you want to run MY church your way?” Have at it. As the Bible says, there is a remnant. It gets smaller by the day. I tell people to stay away from the denominational churches. Look for a church that preaches, teaches and lives by the Bible. That is going to draw a big X on most churches. It is sad. My church music ministry has watch that hub of the wheel get a tiny crack and become more fractured year by year. We have lost 2 (or 3) generations to our lack of being faithful to the Word. (Where do you think Millennials and Snowflakes came from?”). My heart hurts for our youth who we have failed.
God is faithful and Sovereign and He will triumph in the end by the return of His Son, Jesus Christ, to establish His Kingdom. Getting to that day will grow darker and darker as the wheat is separated from the chaff.
I fully agree on what church has become, that it's more of a business for consumers than a family for Christians (check out my book 'Church Reset' if you're interested).
But I don't think it will take a miracle. Just repentance and faithfulness. I think there's a clear path to restoration, it's just going to take steadfastness because the resistance will be heavy.
We need to get a lot of things redefined. It’s seriously becoming so so toxic.
Simply defining submission as it ought to be, loyalty, which men are also supposed to do, we would solve a lot of problems.
Simply bringing to light everything said to women is also said to men would solve a lot of problems.
Simply remembering Yah’s covenant is with all people and men aren’t the favored ones, but men and women recieve the promise would solve a lot of problems.
I don’t get it.
But, I’m glad a man is speaking up, cuz lord knows the men in these mindsets aren’t going to hear a word from the women with megaphones.
This still actually gives a really good example of what I am saying about men and women being told the same things:
First, look at 3:1, it begins with “in the same way”. As what? Back up to 2:25 and it says “for you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your soul” so now, in the same way, wives be subject to your OWN husbands. Returning to that which you belong instead of galavanting.
Then it goes on saying that should the husband stray, they might correct themselves seeing the blameless behavior of their wives. So here, we even see, the wife has a role of example and leadership in regards to her husband.
Then, the wife is told to be adorned with incorruptibility and a peaceful spirit before God in verses 3-4.
Then it says Sarah obeyed the voice of Abraham.
Did you know Abraham also obeyed the voice of his wife? God even told him to in regards to sending Hagar away.
So we have all these verses focusing on the wife, and then…
V. 7 “in the same way” in the way I addressed the women above… now I’m addressing husbands to do the same: “husbands, live understandingly together, giving respect to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the favor of life, so that your prayers are not hindered.
8 to sum up, let ALL OF YOU be like minded and sympathetic, living as brothers, tenderhearted and humble minded”
going back up to verse seven, notice he tells the man to respect his wife. This word respect in Hebrew is defined as “honor which belongs to one, reverence, respect” this is not inferiority, but great respect and reverence. It also says to live understandingly with her. Not indifferent to, or overruling. But in agreement.
It also mentions that they are heirs TOGETHER, which seems to get overlooked often in patriarchal models.
And then Peter states he is telling EVERYONE, men included, to have the tenderness and peacefulness and humbleness which he addressed the women should have.
There is no inferiority or status. There is loyalty, love, honor, and peace between, and for, both the husband and wife.
This is taking Ephesians 5:22 and putting it into context of the verses previous having to do with fornication, the verses following having to do with a husbands active service and love of the wife, as well as an emphasis on the fact it says “to your own” as opposed to another. 1 Corinthians 7:2 (and other verses) saying a man should have one wife and a wife should have one husband. It is speaking to a loyalty and allegiance to one person instead of dispersing that amongst others.
I certainly agree that's part of a good, loving relationship, but it is separate from the idea of submission - particularly when you bring 1 Peter 3 into the equation.
This author has become a favorite. She’s has degrees in Greek and she really breaks down these passages.
I found an article here which may bring further insight into this passage which is actually seeming to be very on par with what I have been saying, along with a lot more contextual insight I was not previously prone to, nor are most from what I have observed 🌻
I don’t necessarily disagree with this diagnosis, but there seems to me to be some problems with it. I am always skeptical about this business of “restoring traditional gender roles,” because it usually assumes that “gender roles” are something like performative choices people make about the way they live their lives—something like a lifestyle that one can opt in-or-out of. I think gender roles are much more fundamental than this. If I’ve got my facts right, the reality is that authority for premodern men wasn’t merely something that they could either take up or lay down at will; rather, men, broadly speaking had REAL authority over their homes, by which I mean political authority. A Roman father could legally kill his children (not so sure about his wife), such that in the home he acted as the executive agent of the law; Roman women were legal minors; in both Roman and Jewish contexts, only men participated in political life properly speaking. None of these things are true today, nor are they likely to become true in the near future (and perhaps this is a good thing, though I haven’t thought all this through sufficiently). My main point is that, in Western countries today, men and women are much more equal than they have ever been; moreover, not only is this equality socially and materially real, it is backed up and enforced by law.
This means that any efforts by Christians to reestablish “traditional gender roles” will be based on nothing but people’s will to perform what is essentially a LARP in today’s world, and it seems to me that moral convictions that are not undergirded by real phenomena are inherently unstable; one is always pulling against the weight of the tangible realities of the world. I don’t mean to say here that men and women don’t have different natures that incline them to different roles, because they certainly do, but there are many other complicating factors at play.
(For an irreverent but insightful critique of this issue, please see Caribbean Rhythms, Episode 207. I also commend to any reader Democracy in America, Volume I, Book I, Chapter XVII; Volume II, Book I, Chapter V; and Volume II, Book III, Chapters VIII-XIII, for more general and what I consider to be essential commentary on religion, gender, and equality in America.)
Furthermore, I have doubts about this business of “fixing the world.” I am not sure that as Christians we ought to expect to be able to do that, nor am I convinced that this is our task. It seems to me that, for the Christian, the world will inevitably continue on its course of corruption, and that our task is always and ultimately directed toward individual souls. I am very uncertain about the political art’s relation to Christianity… I don’t feel I can say much more coherently about this matter, however, but it seems necessary to address.
One final question I have about authority in Imperial Roman times: just as women were considered legal minors, so were slaves (again, if I’ve got my facts right), subject to the legal authority of their master; indeed a slave was thought of as a member of the family, and this family was in turn headed by a patriarch. Considering that the vast majority of people living in Roman society were slaves, I wonder who in Roman times would be considered a “man,” properly speaking? I don’t think a married slave could exercise legal authority over his family; indeed, the very notion of a Roman slave having a “family of his own” is not something that I’m sure existed. Meanwhile, in our modern Western countries, the notion of “family” has been boiled down to the barest bones when everyday life is considered, our old familiar “nuclear family” comprised only of parents and children, where every father is a in some circles called a “patriarch” (erroneously in my view). I feel very shaky about this matter as well, but I also feel it must be very relevant to the concerns you wish to address.
I wouldn't call it a LARP, just a conscious decision to live counter-culturally. Plenty of Christians already do. It requires a lot of buy-in from women to not abuse the slanted system that puts the household at the mercy of their whims, but it can be done - and often is.
As for fixing the world... we have 2,000 years of evidence that Christianity makes the world a better place. All the glories of the West are built on Christianity's influence. It hasn't been perfect, and it never will be, but the difference is stark.
As for the slavery point - I can't say I know enough about Roman slave numbers, slave culture, or laws to comment on that. I know within Christian communities concessions were made around such things based on Mosaic principles.
Thanks for taking the time to reply! I’ll try to respond to your points concisely.
-If the decision to live counter-culturally ultimately rests on whether or not women choose to buy in, then: which sex has the real authority in each home? I don’t mean to say that the Bible does not teach that men should lead their households—it clearly does teach this. Rather, I am asking about the facts as we encounter them in our lived experience. I feel we find ourselves saying things like this: “Women must voluntarily choose not to exercise the authority they find in their hands in order to allow men to take up their Biblical role of leadership.” In my mind women are still the real authorities in this situation; in the words of Leo Strauss, “sovereign is he who decides the state of exception”—or in this case, she who decides!
-RE: Christianity making the world better. I remain uncertain about this… undoubtedly many things have improved over the years (provided we have a clear sense of what “improvement” means), and Christianity—meant in the broadest possible sense, and pointedly NOT including the efforts of the Church of Christ as a body but rather the “Christian tradition” of thinkers who engage with scripture—is one cause of this improvement; but it is still only one cause, and frankly I am more inclined to give more credit for these improvements to the individual men doing the thinking and writing! And yet, it seems to me from a certain perspective this is all irrelevant, because regardless of the state of the world, the mission of the church is to save individual souls. If the world improves (by which I suppose I mean “becomes more pleasant to live in”) as a side effect of this, then I am happy, but I don’t think that it changes the mission of the church.
-I can give a more specific citation for the slavery example upon reviewing Democracy in America more thoroughly; in Volume II, Book 3, chapter 8, Tocqueville explicitly claims that in America, “families” in the Roman sense of the word no longer exist. The relevant question, though, is—what does Paul mean when he speaks of families?
Sorry for another essay, but these questions are both interesting and important!
Well, until no-fault divorce is abolished (which it hopefully will be someday), modern marriage is a sham, so the wife's veto is an unfortunate reality right now. Within the church we can shore it up better with church discipline for divorce and infidelity, but we need a lot more dedication to that cause than we've had.
I disagree that the church's sole mission is to save individuals. The Great Commission says to "Disciple the nations." Nations feature again in Revelation. Kings are one of the primary targets of the Gospel for a reason (Matt 10:17), and Acts shows that progression. And, Christianity has certainly changed nations. Consider how much barbarism has been eradicated where Christianity has flourished.
Well, we can use Paul's qualifications for elders to show what he had in mind - husbands of one wife, with faithful children. That's his ideal, and he obviously believed it to be achievable.
Is it any wonder we entered an age WHERE Women shout “Amen!” when their “Pastor” quips: “Oh there’s Peter again. That Petey - the Man with his foot in his mouth.
By God’s grace, The Whirlwind which supersedes time, and EVERY. Other. Thing. whisked me away to heaven one night.
I didn’t have time to exhale and was standing on a hill and allowed to walk into my forever home.
And oh, the Comforter it is Whiter than any fuller on earth could ever so Whiten. So “White” was it the I retracted my hand. I guess slowly.
People talk so much smack about Pete. Those which just might have dunged in their drawers had Moses and Elijah showed up this side of God’s veil - to talk to Jesus. The living Son. Of the living God.
Then their beloved “Pastor” goes on to tell his constituents that “Surely, Isaac must have agreed with Abraham in the way.”
At least animal dung has no less than 1 use. Translation, such is useful for fertilizing a farmer’s fields.
The larger threat is the flesh and the unchecked power in the pulpit. When a spiritual leader has no accountability to an outside board of peers who are not on pay role, then it's super easy to slip on a crown of power and slide into corruption. Mars Hill ... Hillsong ... Tons of recent examples where pastoral corruption sinks huge ships when power is left without checks.
While women are not less vulnerable to corruption and power, you don't see that many women having sexual impurity or embezzlement, as much as the men.
The power of God is not defined by having or not having grizzle between the legs.
Period.
God's power and favor will flow where there is obedience and submission to Him. That's more likely to happen when leaders are held accountable, not when women are cast down as less than and driven from ministry as a scapegoat.
Still, corruption is a larger threat. Most people would rather follow a good woman, than a corrupt man in the pulpit.
You can always push pro-men agendas anywhere. But, what we should be talking about is what has destroyed the largest churches, corrupt men, and how to stop them.
Excellent! These are things I've been saying for years. The church has slowly but surely been leaving the pattern and teachings of the apostles, which Christ prayed we would follow in John 17:20-21. Only in following that pattern can the Lord's church have unity and faith. Thank you, Sir!
Thanks for your support! Don't forget to grab the eBooks if you'd like - https://jackwilkie.co/p/premium-perks
I am convinced that most of the problems we are facing in society today have their root in feminism.
Thanks Jack. Period.
I’ve been in church music for over 40 years and watch the seeker-sensitive, purpose driven, CCM set fire to the American church. I remember in the early 1990’s trying to sound the alarm at churches where I served about what was happening as the church threw opened their doors and said “what do YOU want church to be?” (Rick Warren did this exact things in starting Saddleback.). We let the world dictate to churches what they should be and look 30+ years later what has happened. I’ve watched the hub of life (God) be broken so every spoke of the wheel gets fractured until the wheel almost becomes useless.
We have become “entertain me!” churches. I remember one interview I had in the late 1990’s that wanted videos of my past children’s choir program so they could judge the type of programs I did. Needless to say, I didn’t have any. It used to be what you faith was and your belief about God, the Bible and Jesus were paramount. That changed. Even after all these years, I still hear people say “well, if the music changed people will come.” No. Yes, you can have large churches, but look at the attendance statistics. Look at the Bible illiteracy rate we have now. Look at how many people worship at the altar of sports now. And don’t get me even started on churches closing there doors for (some) over a year while Satan danced with glee. It was almost like we did the story of Job again. “God, those people don’t really worship you. They don’t really want to grow in this faith you say they need to have or the acceptance of this Son you say you have. Let me show you.” Look what happened……..
Can the ship be turned around? Only by a God given miracle. I personally believe that God has said “okay, you want to run MY church your way?” Have at it. As the Bible says, there is a remnant. It gets smaller by the day. I tell people to stay away from the denominational churches. Look for a church that preaches, teaches and lives by the Bible. That is going to draw a big X on most churches. It is sad. My church music ministry has watch that hub of the wheel get a tiny crack and become more fractured year by year. We have lost 2 (or 3) generations to our lack of being faithful to the Word. (Where do you think Millennials and Snowflakes came from?”). My heart hurts for our youth who we have failed.
God is faithful and Sovereign and He will triumph in the end by the return of His Son, Jesus Christ, to establish His Kingdom. Getting to that day will grow darker and darker as the wheat is separated from the chaff.
I fully agree on what church has become, that it's more of a business for consumers than a family for Christians (check out my book 'Church Reset' if you're interested).
But I don't think it will take a miracle. Just repentance and faithfulness. I think there's a clear path to restoration, it's just going to take steadfastness because the resistance will be heavy.
We need to get a lot of things redefined. It’s seriously becoming so so toxic.
Simply defining submission as it ought to be, loyalty, which men are also supposed to do, we would solve a lot of problems.
Simply bringing to light everything said to women is also said to men would solve a lot of problems.
Simply remembering Yah’s covenant is with all people and men aren’t the favored ones, but men and women recieve the promise would solve a lot of problems.
I don’t get it.
But, I’m glad a man is speaking up, cuz lord knows the men in these mindsets aren’t going to hear a word from the women with megaphones.
Where does the loyalty definition come from?
Also this article brings clarity on “submission” not being “under the control of”, rather self imposed sensible behavior.
https://margmowczko.com/submission-saviour-ephesians-5/
This still actually gives a really good example of what I am saying about men and women being told the same things:
First, look at 3:1, it begins with “in the same way”. As what? Back up to 2:25 and it says “for you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your soul” so now, in the same way, wives be subject to your OWN husbands. Returning to that which you belong instead of galavanting.
Then it goes on saying that should the husband stray, they might correct themselves seeing the blameless behavior of their wives. So here, we even see, the wife has a role of example and leadership in regards to her husband.
Then, the wife is told to be adorned with incorruptibility and a peaceful spirit before God in verses 3-4.
Then it says Sarah obeyed the voice of Abraham.
Did you know Abraham also obeyed the voice of his wife? God even told him to in regards to sending Hagar away.
So we have all these verses focusing on the wife, and then…
V. 7 “in the same way” in the way I addressed the women above… now I’m addressing husbands to do the same: “husbands, live understandingly together, giving respect to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the favor of life, so that your prayers are not hindered.
8 to sum up, let ALL OF YOU be like minded and sympathetic, living as brothers, tenderhearted and humble minded”
going back up to verse seven, notice he tells the man to respect his wife. This word respect in Hebrew is defined as “honor which belongs to one, reverence, respect” this is not inferiority, but great respect and reverence. It also says to live understandingly with her. Not indifferent to, or overruling. But in agreement.
It also mentions that they are heirs TOGETHER, which seems to get overlooked often in patriarchal models.
And then Peter states he is telling EVERYONE, men included, to have the tenderness and peacefulness and humbleness which he addressed the women should have.
There is no inferiority or status. There is loyalty, love, honor, and peace between, and for, both the husband and wife.
This is taking Ephesians 5:22 and putting it into context of the verses previous having to do with fornication, the verses following having to do with a husbands active service and love of the wife, as well as an emphasis on the fact it says “to your own” as opposed to another. 1 Corinthians 7:2 (and other verses) saying a man should have one wife and a wife should have one husband. It is speaking to a loyalty and allegiance to one person instead of dispersing that amongst others.
I certainly agree that's part of a good, loving relationship, but it is separate from the idea of submission - particularly when you bring 1 Peter 3 into the equation.
This author has become a favorite. She’s has degrees in Greek and she really breaks down these passages.
I found an article here which may bring further insight into this passage which is actually seeming to be very on par with what I have been saying, along with a lot more contextual insight I was not previously prone to, nor are most from what I have observed 🌻
https://margmowczko.com/1-peter-3_1-6/
I don’t necessarily disagree with this diagnosis, but there seems to me to be some problems with it. I am always skeptical about this business of “restoring traditional gender roles,” because it usually assumes that “gender roles” are something like performative choices people make about the way they live their lives—something like a lifestyle that one can opt in-or-out of. I think gender roles are much more fundamental than this. If I’ve got my facts right, the reality is that authority for premodern men wasn’t merely something that they could either take up or lay down at will; rather, men, broadly speaking had REAL authority over their homes, by which I mean political authority. A Roman father could legally kill his children (not so sure about his wife), such that in the home he acted as the executive agent of the law; Roman women were legal minors; in both Roman and Jewish contexts, only men participated in political life properly speaking. None of these things are true today, nor are they likely to become true in the near future (and perhaps this is a good thing, though I haven’t thought all this through sufficiently). My main point is that, in Western countries today, men and women are much more equal than they have ever been; moreover, not only is this equality socially and materially real, it is backed up and enforced by law.
This means that any efforts by Christians to reestablish “traditional gender roles” will be based on nothing but people’s will to perform what is essentially a LARP in today’s world, and it seems to me that moral convictions that are not undergirded by real phenomena are inherently unstable; one is always pulling against the weight of the tangible realities of the world. I don’t mean to say here that men and women don’t have different natures that incline them to different roles, because they certainly do, but there are many other complicating factors at play.
(For an irreverent but insightful critique of this issue, please see Caribbean Rhythms, Episode 207. I also commend to any reader Democracy in America, Volume I, Book I, Chapter XVII; Volume II, Book I, Chapter V; and Volume II, Book III, Chapters VIII-XIII, for more general and what I consider to be essential commentary on religion, gender, and equality in America.)
Furthermore, I have doubts about this business of “fixing the world.” I am not sure that as Christians we ought to expect to be able to do that, nor am I convinced that this is our task. It seems to me that, for the Christian, the world will inevitably continue on its course of corruption, and that our task is always and ultimately directed toward individual souls. I am very uncertain about the political art’s relation to Christianity… I don’t feel I can say much more coherently about this matter, however, but it seems necessary to address.
One final question I have about authority in Imperial Roman times: just as women were considered legal minors, so were slaves (again, if I’ve got my facts right), subject to the legal authority of their master; indeed a slave was thought of as a member of the family, and this family was in turn headed by a patriarch. Considering that the vast majority of people living in Roman society were slaves, I wonder who in Roman times would be considered a “man,” properly speaking? I don’t think a married slave could exercise legal authority over his family; indeed, the very notion of a Roman slave having a “family of his own” is not something that I’m sure existed. Meanwhile, in our modern Western countries, the notion of “family” has been boiled down to the barest bones when everyday life is considered, our old familiar “nuclear family” comprised only of parents and children, where every father is a in some circles called a “patriarch” (erroneously in my view). I feel very shaky about this matter as well, but I also feel it must be very relevant to the concerns you wish to address.
Good luck with your endeavor here.
I wouldn't call it a LARP, just a conscious decision to live counter-culturally. Plenty of Christians already do. It requires a lot of buy-in from women to not abuse the slanted system that puts the household at the mercy of their whims, but it can be done - and often is.
As for fixing the world... we have 2,000 years of evidence that Christianity makes the world a better place. All the glories of the West are built on Christianity's influence. It hasn't been perfect, and it never will be, but the difference is stark.
As for the slavery point - I can't say I know enough about Roman slave numbers, slave culture, or laws to comment on that. I know within Christian communities concessions were made around such things based on Mosaic principles.
Thanks for taking the time to reply! I’ll try to respond to your points concisely.
-If the decision to live counter-culturally ultimately rests on whether or not women choose to buy in, then: which sex has the real authority in each home? I don’t mean to say that the Bible does not teach that men should lead their households—it clearly does teach this. Rather, I am asking about the facts as we encounter them in our lived experience. I feel we find ourselves saying things like this: “Women must voluntarily choose not to exercise the authority they find in their hands in order to allow men to take up their Biblical role of leadership.” In my mind women are still the real authorities in this situation; in the words of Leo Strauss, “sovereign is he who decides the state of exception”—or in this case, she who decides!
-RE: Christianity making the world better. I remain uncertain about this… undoubtedly many things have improved over the years (provided we have a clear sense of what “improvement” means), and Christianity—meant in the broadest possible sense, and pointedly NOT including the efforts of the Church of Christ as a body but rather the “Christian tradition” of thinkers who engage with scripture—is one cause of this improvement; but it is still only one cause, and frankly I am more inclined to give more credit for these improvements to the individual men doing the thinking and writing! And yet, it seems to me from a certain perspective this is all irrelevant, because regardless of the state of the world, the mission of the church is to save individual souls. If the world improves (by which I suppose I mean “becomes more pleasant to live in”) as a side effect of this, then I am happy, but I don’t think that it changes the mission of the church.
-I can give a more specific citation for the slavery example upon reviewing Democracy in America more thoroughly; in Volume II, Book 3, chapter 8, Tocqueville explicitly claims that in America, “families” in the Roman sense of the word no longer exist. The relevant question, though, is—what does Paul mean when he speaks of families?
Sorry for another essay, but these questions are both interesting and important!
Well, until no-fault divorce is abolished (which it hopefully will be someday), modern marriage is a sham, so the wife's veto is an unfortunate reality right now. Within the church we can shore it up better with church discipline for divorce and infidelity, but we need a lot more dedication to that cause than we've had.
I disagree that the church's sole mission is to save individuals. The Great Commission says to "Disciple the nations." Nations feature again in Revelation. Kings are one of the primary targets of the Gospel for a reason (Matt 10:17), and Acts shows that progression. And, Christianity has certainly changed nations. Consider how much barbarism has been eradicated where Christianity has flourished.
Well, we can use Paul's qualifications for elders to show what he had in mind - husbands of one wife, with faithful children. That's his ideal, and he obviously believed it to be achievable.
Is it any wonder we entered an age WHERE Women shout “Amen!” when their “Pastor” quips: “Oh there’s Peter again. That Petey - the Man with his foot in his mouth.
By God’s grace, The Whirlwind which supersedes time, and EVERY. Other. Thing. whisked me away to heaven one night.
I didn’t have time to exhale and was standing on a hill and allowed to walk into my forever home.
And oh, the Comforter it is Whiter than any fuller on earth could ever so Whiten. So “White” was it the I retracted my hand. I guess slowly.
People talk so much smack about Pete. Those which just might have dunged in their drawers had Moses and Elijah showed up this side of God’s veil - to talk to Jesus. The living Son. Of the living God.
Then their beloved “Pastor” goes on to tell his constituents that “Surely, Isaac must have agreed with Abraham in the way.”
At least animal dung has no less than 1 use. Translation, such is useful for fertilizing a farmer’s fields.
Can you tell I was bored but now I am “free?”
The larger threat is the flesh and the unchecked power in the pulpit. When a spiritual leader has no accountability to an outside board of peers who are not on pay role, then it's super easy to slip on a crown of power and slide into corruption. Mars Hill ... Hillsong ... Tons of recent examples where pastoral corruption sinks huge ships when power is left without checks.
While women are not less vulnerable to corruption and power, you don't see that many women having sexual impurity or embezzlement, as much as the men.
The power of God is not defined by having or not having grizzle between the legs.
Period.
God's power and favor will flow where there is obedience and submission to Him. That's more likely to happen when leaders are held accountable, not when women are cast down as less than and driven from ministry as a scapegoat.
Can male leadership be corrupted? Absolutely.
Does that mean we should throw out the Biblical commands entirely? Absolutely not.
Still, corruption is a larger threat. Most people would rather follow a good woman, than a corrupt man in the pulpit.
You can always push pro-men agendas anywhere. But, what we should be talking about is what has destroyed the largest churches, corrupt men, and how to stop them.
That’s louder and far more obvious, which (I would argue) makes it more rare. The flank nobody guards against is the one that gets attacked.