Feminism (Part 1)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Avendrop.

Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the Scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

Feminism has made inroads all over the world, including the church. Sarah McGarth wrote a letter to the

Bergen County Record regarding school crossing signs. It was later reported in the

National Review. The letter said, I'd like to call your attention to the subliminally sexist message of one of our most common roadside signs, the school crossing sign that appears in almost every neighborhood in the country.

This sign features a picture of two children, a boy and a girl, crossing the street together. The boy is much taller than the girl, portraying the part of the older brother, while the girl's role is that of the dependent younger sister.

The boy seems to have his hand gripping the little girl's elbow as if he were guiding her.

All these details suggest that the boy is dominant and the girl is weaker. I suggest that half of our school crossing signs be changed to show a taller girl and a smaller boy.

A small change like this could give American children a much better sense of the full range of the possible relationships between males and females.

The gender police are also at your National Natural History Museum. The Smithsonian, a label next to the

American heart of beast exhibit, warns because the males are sleeping and the females are standing.

Female animals here are being portrayed in a way that makes them appear deviant or substandard to male animals.

When I was a kid growing up, I had a friend and his dad sold cigarettes. So we would usually steal the free little samples of the four pack and I sold a lot of cigarettes in my life, but I never sold a pack of Virginia Slims because I had not come a long way, baby.

Anybody who laughs is over 45. Some are saying that the words man and woman are fictional caricatures, demeaning females.

Male and females are different, some say, because they're just cultural constructs.

Helen Reddy, in 1972, as she accepted the Grammy Award for I Am Strong, I Am Invincible, I Am Invincible, I Am Woman, said,

I'd like to thank God because she made everything possible. I understand the world and I understand what they do, but what about the church?

What about the evangelical church? What about the liberal church? Wall Street Journal said of the

First Congregational Church in Long Beach, California, quoted Pastor Mary Ellen Kilsby, may the

God who mothers us all bear us on the breath of dawn and make us to shine like the sun and hold us in the palm of her hand.

Feminists don't want father, son, and spirit to be determining how we talk about the

Godhead. They'd rather have creator, redeemer, sustainer, or creator, redeemer, comforter.

One lady said, I don't want to call God he anymore. I want to call

God the he -she. I thought she probably just should have said the she, but the he -she kind of sounds like, kind of a little funky to me, the he -she, the eternal he -she.

Modified reading of the Lord's Prayer says, our mother who is everywhere, holy be your names.

May your new age come, may your will be done in this and in every time and place. Meet our needs each day and forgive us our failure to love as we forgive the same failure in others.

Save us in hard times and lead us into the ways of your love, for yours is the wholeness and the power and the loving forever.

Amen. I don't know how you respond, but they respond that if God is a male, then male is

God. And it's a fallacy. I call God what he calls himself.

And when God calls himself, or if he were to call himself father, mother, then I would call him father, mother.

Here's the problem. Feminism says that if you have different roles, someone must be inferior.

That's the whole catch. That if I have a different role and I'm the one on the bottom of the functional rank, then

I'm inferior. And so the Bible teaches that subordination is good.

The Bible teaches subordination is actually godly. The Bible teaches that if you have two people and they both are the same before God as image bearers, but one is in charge of the other, they're still equal in the sight of God.

And I can prove this in a lot of ways. One, if you're a parent, do you think you're better than your children?

Do you think you have inherently more worth as an image bearer made in the likeness and image of God versus your children?

And the answer should be, no, I'm functionally over them. They are subordinated under my authority, but we're equal.

We're both created in the image and likeness of God. If you're an employer, I hope you don't say, those people working underneath me, since they are subordinate to me, therefore they're lesser.

Friends, the Bible teaches clearly that function, although different, does not imply inferiority.

And if you take your Bibles and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, we're going to see that very thing this morning.

1 Corinthians chapter 11, men and women's roles are not perfectly symmetrical.

There are different roles at home and at the church and in the workforce and at school, and because they're different, no one is better.

Galatians chapter 3 verse 28 says it clearly, in Christ Jesus, there's no male or female. You may be under my authority since I'm your pastor and elder, but I'm not better than anyone here.

The church is taking her cue from the world, and 1 Corinthians 11 is a good corrective. We're just going through the

Bible verse by verse, and now we come to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, and it will help us solve the problem of feminism.

Now, we could have horror stories of how bad men have treated women. That's not my point to talk about that today.

That's true, but the Bible never says anything like that. And my question really this morning is, does your view of gender color your view of the

Trinity, or does your view of the Trinity color your view of gender? Are you taking your cue from gender, or are you taking your cue from the

Godhead? And this morning, we'll see that it's all about the triune God. It's going to be abstract thinking this morning.

For those of you that want a lot of practical application, you need to be at the class on Thursday nights, because we'll have all kinds of practical application.

Who's here on Thursday night? Was it practical? I hope it was. This morning, it's not.

Today, at the apex, it's not practical. But as you understand the truth, then it becomes practical.

Does our view of gender color the view of the Trinity, or vice versa? Now, Unitarians say the

Father created the Son. That's the wrong view of the Trinity. The Father created the

Son. There was a time when the Son wasn't existing. The Son, S -O -N. Tritheism says there are three separate gods.

We're not monotheistic. We're tritheistic. That's what they say. There's another faulty view of God that it's really kind of dumb, but I like to say the word just like I like to say sacerdotal and propitiation.

It's just fun to say. When do you ever get to say these words? I guarantee you on the subway, you never get to say this word.

Swedenborgianism. God bless you. Swedenborgianism, if you want to make it correct with the

W pronounced as a V. I have a body, soul, and spirit. So God has a body, soul, and spirit, except you call that body, soul, and spirit,

Father, Son, and Spirit. That's wrong. Sabellianism, or modalism, or T .D.

Jakesism, we could call it today, is that there was one God, the Father, in eternity past.

Then on Earth, he became the Son, and then now he's the Spirit. Not one God, three persons, but one

God manifesting himself three different ways. That would be an error as well. Evangelical feminism has this problem with the

Trinity. They think that although they would agree that there's equal membership in the triune

Godhead, the Father is not greater than the Son, and the Son's not greater than the Spirit, and the Spirit's not greater than the

Father. They agree with essential equality, but they don't want the

Son to ever be subordinate to the Father, not in eternity past, not in the incarnation, and not in eternity future.

So that's the stuff we're going to be thinking about today because if you understand the Trinity, you'll get how men and women relate.

You'll realize that it's not me, Tarzan, you, Jane. You'll figure out that in the church, because this is 1

Corinthians 11 now, in the church, Paul is going to say there are differences. There are different roles.

The husband at home isn't better than the wife. The wife isn't better than the husband. The parents aren't better than the children, but there are different roles.

And function in the military doesn't mean inequality, nor does it mean that in the church, nor does it mean that at home.

And the way the feminists want to think in evangelicalism is if there's a difference, there has to be inferiority.

If somebody's under someone's authority, they must be worse off. Dr. Bartlett said,

Listen, if we entertain wrong views of the nature of God, our entire theology is imperiled, including gender roles.

Who's on first? Who's better? Who's worse? Those answers can be given as we study the

Trinity. I wonder if I did a conference and said, we're going to have a conference on the Trinity, how many would show up?

Edward says, God, Jonathan Edwards, God appeared glorious to me on account of the Trinity. God would be so great.

One God, three persons. He said, that's glorious. It has made me have exalting thoughts of God, that he subsists in three persons, the

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When you understand the Trinity, it will enrich. It won't diminish your view.

Now let's think 1 Corinthians. Paul has been talking to the church of Corinth, and it's a carnal church.

Some things they do well, not very many things. And Paul has been telling us in chapter 8, 9, and 10 that we're free in Christ, we can't be more forgiven, less forgiven, and we should think about our liberty as we interact with other people.

Now in chapter 11, 12, 13, 14, he comes to a different subject, and it's an important subject of worship.

Your worship matters. Precision in worship because we serve a precise God. It's just not, well, however

I feel, I'll worship. And they did this whole paradigm, the Corinthians did. We just do what we want, and Paul says that's not what you do at all.

He addresses worship in 11, 12, 14, and then in the middle of all that, love in the middle of worship.

Ask Nadab and Abihu how important worship is, precise worship. In chapter 11, he really talks about two things in corporate worship.

Men and women's roles, and then the Lord's Supper. So today, 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verses 2 through 16, we're going to talk about how men and women are different in a worship service, and how does it play itself out.

For those of you that want to know should you wear a veil or a head covering or a hat or something like that if you're a wife, we're not going to get to that today.

We're going to look at some other things that will set the stage. Look at verse 31 of chapter 10.

He said earlier in the context to tie these two together, so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Eating or drinking in the context of Christian liberty, bring glory to God. Now we move into chapter 11, how you worship it should bring glory to God.

Honor and shame paradigm is true in liberty, and it's true in worship. And so Paul wants us to give the maximum glory and praise to God as we worship.

There is propriety in worship, and there is subordination in worship. Let's think about this culturally for a second.

Pagan place Corinth. I find this fascinating. I've been to Corinth, and I've seen the hill where the thousand prostitutes come down and engage in quote -unquote worship with people who are going to pagan temples.

It's a horrible place. Now, these ladies who lived in Corinth, who were married, wore some kind of shawl, and they put it up over their head.

Or they had a little veil, some kind of head covering, because that was to show, just like in Muslim countries today, that the wife is subordinate to the husband.

Not lesser, not inferior, but subordinate. Her head, her authority is the husband.

And so the Jews did that back in those days. The Gentiles did that in those days. And then the pagans, who had their head covered in society, would go to the house of Diana worship, to the house of any other kind of pagan god in worship, and they'd say, no husband's over me when

I worship. Only goddess is over me, and I'll throw off any kind of head covering. I'll take my shawl and not put it on.

Now you've got the people at Corinth, the ladies at Corinth, saying, well, we're Christians now. In public,

Jew and Gentile, we have our heads covered if we're married. But now we go to the house of worship. What do we do?

There's only God over us, not husbands. And they were taking off their shawl or their head coverings too.

And by the way, it was super hard too, because sometimes I say to the kids, I have to go to church today. And what do I mean?

I'm going to all your houses today. That would be a good mileage expense report. No, what does it mean?

It means I'm going to this building. We know we are the church, and this is the building. How about back in this day?

No church buildings. You'd go to somebody's house. So now you can imagine how complicated it could be.

Okay, in public, I'm married. I have the shawl up over my head. And then when

I go to pagan worship, I take it off. When I go to worship now as a

Christian, I don't think I'm supposed to take it off. But I'm not going to the church to put it on. I'm at my own house.

I wake up at church because my house is the big house. I invite people over. Do I have to put on my shawl and my head covering at my own house?

So see how complicated this can all be. And so what does Paul do? Paul is going to say in 1

Corinthians 11 verses 2 through 16 that the sexual differences between men and women are part of God's purposes and differences in function do not mean inequality.

If you say, Mike, you think you're in charge and therefore somehow you're better than me, you've made the wrong feministic jump of logic.

And I will prove today from the Trinity that the Father is God, the Son is God, the

Spirit is God, yet the Father's not greater than the Son, the Son's not greater than the Spirit, and the Spirit's not greater than the

Father. There can be functional subordination in the Trinity without one being better than the other.

Behavior of men and women in a local church service matters. Let's look at verse 2.

Paul gives a rare word of commendation. He's thanked God for them in chapter 1, and now he does something he hardly ever does.

He commends them. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you.

Good job, Corinth. You remember me. He was there for 18 months, and he's remembered.

People thought fondly of Paul, the Corinth folks. Even though they did a lot of dopey things, they thought fondly of Paul, and Paul said,

I praise you for that. Not just that you remember me, but what does the text say? And maintain the traditions or guard the traditions just as I have delivered them to you.

You keep on remembering me, which is good, and then when I receive from Jesus, Galatians 1,

Christian doctrine, I delivered it to you, I passed it on to you, and you accepted it.

You guarded it. You didn't do a lot of the stuff, but you held it to be true, true or false.

When you see the word tradition in the Bible, it's most often a negative thing. You hold the traditions of men versus the traditions of God.

Most people think tradition is mainly wrong. Man -made traditions that go above God's word or are equal with it are always wrong, but this isn't the bad word tradition.

This is something taught about God, a historical fact and the doctrine drawn from it, just like 2

Thessalonians. In a culture that everything was passed down by word, you've kept these traditions.

They're good traditions, and they're bad traditions. Very positive comment about traditions here.

I commend you, and then he says in verses 3 and 4,

I need to correct you, so let me give you the outline for the next several weeks. The outline is five reasons the

Corinthian women who pray or prophesy should have their head covered. Five reasons that are not cultural at all that the

Corinthian women who pray or prophesy should have their heads covered. You say, well, that kind of sounds kind of weaselly to me.

I want to know, should we? Well, we'll get there. I will tell you once we get through it, but I want you to see this first.

Whatever you do, don't do this. That's cultural. They did that. It's cultural. It's cultural, so we don't have to do it, and it's just the easy way out.

It's the wiggle room to get out of culture. Do you know what's cultural as well? How about blood atonement?

Blood atonement was cultural. It was not our culture. Does America say blood atonement? Oh, yeah.

Wages of sin is death. If somebody sins, they've got to die. Cut the neck of something else, an animal.

When we see blood atonement, we're like, this is weird. So Paul doesn't use any cultural arguments.

He uses arguments that transcend culture to make sure the

Corinthians know that gender still matters in a worship service when you worship Jesus Christ.

Five reasons why the Corinthian women who pray and prophesy should have their head covered.

And here's the good news, congregation. We will look at, should we wear head coverings or not in our church?

Not next week, because Steve Nichols will be here. Not the week after that, because it'll be Resurrection Sunday. Not the week after that, because I'll be in Kansas doing a

No Compromise conference, but the week after that. So you've got plenty of time to study. Plenty of time either to buy a doily or to put your doily away, depending on your view.

But here's what happens. We come to this passage, and we automatically default to, does my wife have to wear a head covering or not?

And I want to go, slow down. Slow down. There are reasons for things, and if you understand the reasons, then it'll all be much clearer to you versus just tell me what to do.

No, I want to tell you why you should do what you do or don't do. That's the key. The first reason,

Paul says, that at least the church of Corinth, we know more people should do this as well.

Look at verse 16 of chapter 11. If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no other, should be the translation, practice, nor do the churches of God.

The other churches in the area around Corinth and Athens and Mediterranean, they do the same thing.

So it's just not Corinth. It's churches back then, but at least for them, maybe us too, but at least for them, five reasons that women who pray and prophesy should have their head covering.

The first one is the divine order because of the Trinity found in verses 3 to 6. And that's where we're going to camp today.

Verses 3 to 6. Let's read just verse 3 for now. And Paul is going to try to show us that there's a well -ordered chain of command.

Men aren't better, women aren't better, but we have different functions. But I want you to understand,

Paul says. By the way, that's a nice way to say it. What has Paul said over and over in 1 Corinthians? Do you not know?

Do you not know? Do you not know? It's like Jesus in Matthew 21. Answer me the question. Do you not know?

You should know this. But Paul says, I just, I want you to know. I want you to know this.

I don't want you to be ignorant, brethren. Who has a translation that says ignorant brethren? I don't want you to be ignorant, brethren.

Nobody has it. Nobody here has the King James Version? Oh, one does. Does yours say ignorant, brethren,

Bob? No. Okay. Same thing that he says here.

I want you to understand. I want you to get it. This is positive. This is kind of Paul.

I want you to realize this. And then he uses one word three times, which is the key to unlock the meaning.

Head. That the head of every man is Christ? We'd all go, hoorah.

Yes, that's true. Jesus is our captain. He's our head. He's one who has authority over us.

The head of the wife is her husband. And you can imagine people in our society today, and even the

Corinthian ladies, just kind of gulping at that. And then, to ease the pain, to make us think that difference doesn't mean inferiority, that subordination does not mean inequality,

Paul says, and the head of Christ is God. Now, if I were going to argue this, I'd say, let's start from God and work our way to man.

The head of Christ is God. The head of man is Christ.

The head of a wife is her husband. That's not how Paul argues it, because he's trying to help them understand.

Now, the word head means authority. I want you to understand that the authority of every man is

Christ. That seems right. The head of every wife is her husband. He's trying to help the

Corinthians understand gender differences. And the head of Christ is God. Now, feminists didn't like the word head meaning authority.

Used over 2 ,000 times in classical Greek, and in Greek during this time period, called

Koine Greek. So they've substituted a new meaning, and that new meaning is source. So, let's read that with the word source.

And this is the feministic approach. Head means source of life. It doesn't mean authority, because they can't understand you can be different, yet equal.

But I want you to understand that the source of every man is Christ. Well, that would be true. That the source of a wife is her husband.

Maybe you go back to Adam to figure that one out. And the source of Christ is God. That doesn't work, because now

I'm a Jehovah's Witness. Now, there's a time that Jesus didn't exist. He's not the eternal son.

And now, I'm all mixed up. A simple reading of the text, a contextual reading of the text, a cultural reading of the text, a

Greek reading of the text is authority. It's simple. That's what the Bible says. The head of a wife is her husband. He's not better, a different function, but the feministic agenda is desperate to make that word something besides authority.

Or the other default of the feminists is, what? Man wrote that book. That's the classic way to get out of anything.

Well, a man wrote that book. But the text says authority. Christ has authority over man, man has authority over woman, and God has authority over Christ.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m.

We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org

or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff, or management.