11 June 2023
Your understanding and your human experience is surely useful to the Lord, but it is not the same as His voice.
I'm going to cite an example: Rick Warren soon is going to stand before the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and appeal for them to swallow the idea of ordaining women to preach and pastor. Granted, I have no dog in this fight; Baptists are a very American religious institution, not a biblical one. But part of why I don't care at all for the religious mainstream is that they are having this conversation in the first place. It won't matter to me if Baptists reject or accept Warren's appeal.
The Scripture is very clear, as I pointed out in our recent review of Christian Law in the New Testament. Civilization has changed; society has changed dramatically. But God hasn't changed. God revealed through His Son and men like Paul what was in His heart, and what He requires of us. Fallen human nature has not changed, either. God made women for other purposes, but He most distinctly did not make them to lead men in any way, shape or form. It really doesn't matter how women feel about it, nor men.
That there are female clergy anywhere at all shows that the world has taken over too much of what passes for Christian religion. If we do not understand the nature of God's objection to female leadership, then we cannot hope to understand much of anything else He has to say. It has become a watershed issue. Do you understand that female leadership is the reason churches are so materialistic, and that they have been dipping into promoting sexual perversion? This is what happens when the nurturing for which women are so very valuable becomes the guiding light of fundamental moral choices.
A mother's nurturing nature is a tool in building something precious in this world, but it is a tool, not the mission itself.
Paul says it flatly: Women are far more easily morally deceived. It's how they are designed and built by God. They are to be led, not to lead. God knows, a spiritual woman is by far the single greatest treasure a man could touch with his hands. She fulfills the needs man have, in that men cannot do it alone. But these women who demand leadership are not spiritual, except in a pagan sense. You have to ignore the whole of the Old Testament to not notice that female leadership was invariably associated with idolatry. And idolatry is essentially the worship of demons.
Men did not simply decide that God wants things a certain way. It is the very nature of Creation itself, a reflection of God's character. So, it's not that God favors males, but that the male nature reflects God in ways that the female does not. This is why, in most languages that recognize the difference between genders (like English), the male gender is the default inclusive. In classical English usage, the masculine gender is the default; whenever you don't define a specific gender, masculine is the one you'll use. Thus "men" as a word serves double duty; it does not mean just males, but can refer to humanity at large, depending on the context.
Thus, no one should be surprised when the basis of Rick Warrens' argument with the SBC will be his human wisdom -- his corporate approach to turning the church into an entertainment business. Wherever his teachings have taken root, people of genuine faith have been pushed out. That's the whole point behind his Purpose Driven Life materials. That stuff serves to squelch the common believer's sense of divine calling, and make religion all centrally controlled. It's a very conformist study plan. That book, from which he has made a fortune, numbs the genuine faith of people who are on fire for Jesus. It twists the Scripture, albeit very subtly. He talks about connecting with God, but it's not the God of Creation or the God of the Bible. It's a god he imagines. He's a pagan, not a Christian.
It makes a huge difference when you supplement your human wisdom for the Covenant boundaries. You can call it what you like, but Covenant people are going to recognize that the SBC and related religious institutions have long ago moved outside of God's camp and are chasing dust devils in the wilderness.
Comments
DarkMirror
Warren is a cornball. I read Purpose Driven Life. It was forgettable nonsense.
The only good thing to come out of the SBC thing, whether it gets passed or not, is that more people will realize how idolatrous he really is.
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