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TWISTED SCRIPTURE - June 15, 2014 “Women in the Church” Greg Boyd and Nikole Mitchell Woodland Hills Church, St

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TWISTED SCRIPTURE - June 15, 2014 “Women in the Church” Greg Boyd and Nikole Mitchell Woodland Hills Church, St TWISTED SCRIPTURE - June 15, 2014 “Women In The Church” Greg Boyd and Nikole Mitchell Woodland hills Church, St. Paul MN This is the manuscript of a talk given by Pastor Greg Boyd and Nikole Mitchell at Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, MN in a series entitled: Twisted Scripture. I am sharing it because of the simple, clear manner in which they address the I Timothy 2:12 passage which has been controversial among Christians for many decades. It is my prayer that it be read with a prayerful and teachable heart with a Bible open as you listen and trust God to show you even greater revelation from His transforming Word. Studying With You, Pastor Les 1 TIMOTHY 2:12 “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.” GREG: Good morning Woodland Hills, and good morning, or afternoon or evening pod- rishioners. Happy father’s day. I was getting there, I was getting there. Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers and grandfathers. Way to go, way to go. Wonderful. Went to the Lego Movie, I took my five year old granddaughter to see it over to the theater here, a couple of weeks ago. And, I hate this, when you go to kids shows and you end up crying, it's just –I'm getting all choked up and she's like wondering –you know? What's that about? This is a funny movie. But, it really has an incredible Kingdom message. There's a secret weapon involved, I'm not going to tell you what it is, go out and see it. Secret weapon, but it turns out to be a very Kingdom secret weapon that defeats all evil. Come and see it. All right, I'm Greg Boyd teaching pastor here at Woodland Hills Church. And, it's just good to be part of the worship and just the atmosphere and the spirit of God here this morning. We're in the series on Twisted Scripture, scripture that we think has gotten twisted, as it's gotten used out there, in the general populous, or in the church or whatever, or misapplied in different ways, taken out of context, And so we were looking at Romans nine, two weeks ago, and the last week we looked at Job. This morning, we're going to look at a passage that continues to be very controversial and to divide the church in significant ways. It's a passage that, we get thrown back at us almost every time we have a woman preacher, here, on Sunday morning. So, guess what the passage is. First Timothy, chapter 2, verse 12. Apostle Paul says: 1 “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.” God said it, I believe it and that settles it for me. Have a good day, women, stay quiet. (Audience laughs*) Alright, alright, we're going to delve into this thing, do some digging here, it's going to be –first service, it was, it was just liberating to a lot of people, and I'm going to pray a double portion of that. Will you pray with me here? Father, You've called us to worship you, not just with all of our strength, and all of our soul and spirit, but also with all of our mind. And we take that very seriously, to use our mind as an act of worship, as we explore your word and dig deeper, sometimes things are not on the surface clear, and sometimes things on the surface aren't ---don’t mean what they're intended to mean. So Father, give us wisdom here, as we explore Your word. I thank you for a context where we can be honest about stuff and ask questions and think outside the box, but we want it all to be guided by the spirit, so, Lord, would You just infuse every word that comes from this pulpit here this morning with your authority. And, most importantly God, I pray it be used, to set captives free, to free us from strongholds. To free people, men and women, to walk in their giftedness and their calling, and do all that you've called them to do in the Kingdom, in Jesus' name. And all of God's people Said: Amen. Amen, Amen. So this passage is, has traditionally been taken and in conservative churches, is still taken to mean that women are not supposed to be in any kind of leadership over a man. They're not ever to be in a position where they're teaching a man or preaching towards a man. And in many churches, it's taken to mean that they can't serve on the board. In some places, it means they can't vote, in a church, any church matters. I spoke to a lady, in the first service, who was at a church where, if they were ever talking about theology, they're not allowed to express their theological opinions if there's a man present. Girls could talk about it on their own, but they're not – cause that might be convincing to a guy and God forbid that should ever happen. Yeah, so it's –you can be –in fact there's multitudes who are gifted at teaching and leading and preaching and maybe having a sense of calling, to teach, and to preach. And, you know, their gifts are squandered, they live in a certain amount of frustration, and the church suffers because of it. Half the population – more than that –is taken out of the running, from the word go. So the question is, what do we do? We hold the Bible to be God's word, and here we have this verse that seems to prohibit this. Now here's the core question: Whenever you read in the Bible, you need to remember that, there is a timeless teaching there, but it's always acculturated, it's always wrapped in cultural packaging. When God speaks to the world and comes into the world as Jesus Christ, He's a missionary, and, as all missionaries know, you have to – you just can't overturn cultures with a snap of your finger. You have to work with them, 2 and bring your message into the culture, and accept and acquiesce parts of the culture maybe that you don't even agree with. And so, we need to make that distinction throughout the Bible. And so, the question about 1Timothy 2, is: is it part of the timeless teaching of the Bible, or is it part of the cultural packaging. Is it more like, the teachings that God created the heavens and the earth, and that Jesus Christ is Lord and that He came and died for our salvation and He rose again on the third day, which is timeless, we're always supposed to believe that. Or is it more like, for example, the teaching about slavery in the Bible? Even in the New Testament, you have two times, Paul and Peter say: 'Slaves, obey your masters.' Now everyone understands that, finally, at least today, that that's part of the culture then. It's not meant to be applied for all times. They bring as much Kingdom to that as they can, telling the masters to regard their servants as brothers and sisters in Christ, which, if you do that, you'll completely get rid of the institution of slavery. But they also acquiesced the culture, because we know that they can't overturn it right away. So, is the teaching about women in ministry, the prohibition of women in ministry, more like the teaching that Jesus Christ is Lord, timeless, or is it more like the teaching about slavery, which is a first century *bondage that we, thankfully, have outgrown? Now, when you're distinguishing between the timeless teaching and the cultural packaging, there's several questions to ask, to make that distinction. And it's not always unambiguous, all right? Sometimes, it's kind of iffy. But, the first thing to ask is this: 'Were there things going on in the culture of that time that makes sense of this teaching?' Things that we can understand, why, at that time, something would be allowed or prohibited, but wouldn't be applied today, because those things are no longer in place, so, for example, when you understand that, a kind of slavery, it wasn't the kind of slavery that we have here in America, for 400 years, but there was a kind of slavery, that went on in the Greco --‐Roman world, it was more like an indentured servant, where you could usually work your way into freedom, but there were servants, and there were masters. And, there'd have been a practice, part of the culture, for hundreds and hundreds of years, and you can't over turn culture just by snapping your finger. And so, given those cultural constraints, we can understand why, Paul and Peter would say to newly converted slaves or servants, continue to obey your master, and do it in a God honoring way. There are no other options there, but then they also turned to the master and say: 'If they're converted, you – treat your servant as a brother or sister in Christ.' They also have teachings in The New Testament that if applied consistently, would overturn slavery. Which tell us that, God's ideal was never slavery, in fact, sneer is it taught as something that should be done, it's simply acquiesced as part of our culture.
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