Equipping Eve Episode 12: What God says about His Word

The Church Must Equip Women With Biblical Truth

Is the Church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus? Well, it's true, there's no shortage of candy-coated Bible studies, potluck fellowships available to ladies.

But beyond Sunday morning, are Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same deceptions that even enticed Eve in the garden? In an attempt to address the need for trustworthy, biblical resources for women, No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce Equipping Eve, a ladies-only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth in an age that's ripe with deception.

My name is Mike Abendroth and I'm pleased to introduce your host Erin Benzinger, a friend of No Compromise Radio and a woman who wants to see other women equipped with a love for and a knowledge of the truth of God's Word.

Well, hello ladies and welcome to Equipping Eve. This is the show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth from God's Word so that we can stand strong and firm on that Word in an age of lies and deception.

Satan's Deception and the Twisting of God's Word

You know, Satan is out there, he is trying to take our eyes off of Christ, but if we keep our noses in the Bible where Christ is revealed, then we'll be able to recognize those lies and call them what they are, lies, and confront them with the truth, the truth of God's Word.

And it is God's Word, isn't it ladies? I mean, it is the very revealed, infallible Word of God. The Word of God is authoritative, it is final, and it is all we need to help us live lies of godliness and help us to pursue righteousness as we follow after the Christ, the Savior, who gave His life for us.

What an amazing privilege we have as daughters of the risen King. So, ladies, I thought we would kind of take a potpourri approach today, there's a few things I would like to touch on. In light of what we just said about God's Word, I can't help but look over at this little calendar devotional thing that I have on my desk, I've alluded to this before, some of us on Twitter and social media kind of joke about this being the Just Be Awesome book.

It's actually what it's called, it's close, it's called You're Already Amazing, and it's written by Holly Gerth, and it's a publication of Dayspring, I believe, and what's funny is I was flipping through this one day and I saw a quote by the Dayspring founder and I thought, well, I guess that is how you get your little devotional calendar published.

If you stick a quote in there by the Dayspring founder, then Dayspring will probably want to publish it. So there you go, that was pretty smart on Holly Gerth's part, that was conscious. So I looked over at this and I thought, well, this is something I have to share with you ladies.

The March 15th entry here says, did God really say you have what it takes? Did God really say you're loved? Did God really say who you are is okay? Like Eve, I often respond, reconsider, become convinced.

What if Eve had said, yep, God sure did say that, and I'm not listening to another word, hit the road, buster. What if we said that? This devotional is presumably telling us what God says in his word, and had Eve taken what God allegedly said here and thrown that back in the serpent's face, maybe we wouldn't be where we are today.

Well, first and foremost, overall, we are where we are today. Eve sinned in the garden because our God is sovereign, and we are thankful even for that because it gives us opportunity to know the Lord Jesus Christ who is our Savior.

We are sinners and we need a Savior. And how glorious it is to be saved by him and to be chosen to worship him, not just here in this life, but for all of eternity. And so in spite of the fact that we hate our sin, we know that God's purposes were holy and pure and perfect.

But she says here, did God really say you have what it takes? I don't even know what it means. Have what it takes to do what? We have what it takes to sin in our fallen nature. So, you know, God has said that to us in his word.

Did God really say who you are is okay? I don't know where that is in the scripture either. And the problem is, Miss Holly Gerth in her devotional calendar, You're Already Amazing, doesn't give me any scripture verses to accompany this.

And she says that if Eve had said to the serpent, yep, God sure did say that, and I'm not listening to another word, hit the road, buster, well, then it would all be okay. But would that have even answered the serpent's question?

The serpent did ask, did God really say? But did he ask, did God really say you have what it takes? Did God really say you're loved? Did God really say who you are is okay? What the serpent said was, indeed, I'm in Genesis 3 verse 1, indeed, has God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?

You see, Satan took a command of the Lord that he had given to man, and he twisted it. Did God really say that? Well, the only reason God said that is because he doesn't want you to be like him. He doesn't want you, verse 5, God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

Satan caused the woman to question God's commands, God's perfect and pure commands. He twisted the word, and he twisted the character of God. And so Holly Girth is turning the scriptures into a narcissistic, feel-good, inspirational moment, and it's wrong.

And this is why we need to know the word, ladies, because you know, if you're flipping through your little awesome, amazing calendar, and you think, yeah, I'm gonna say to Satan today that God said who I am is okay, so he needs to hit the road.

Why Women Must Reject Narcissistic Bible Study

Who you are, who you are, ladies, is not okay, because you're a sinner. You're fallen, and you're a sinner. It is only in Christ that you are acceptable to God. It is only in Christ that I am acceptable to God.

And so it is so vital that we take our eyes off of ourselves and put them on Christ. And devotionals like this put our eyes on ourselves. That's why it's called You're Already Amazing. Christ is amazing.

I'm not. I don't want to be amazing. I want to elevate Christ. By His mercy and goodness and grace, I have been saved, and why would I ever want to point people to myself? Why would I ever want to sit and dwell on my awesomeness when it is non-existent?

Ladies, do not get caught up in these narcissistic, self-loving, conceited approaches to Bible study and to Scripture. And they are everywhere, and they are especially directed at us women. Because we love to feel good, and we love to feel good about ourselves, but we need to point to Christ, and we need to be studying the Scripture so that we can learn more about Christ so that we can point others to Christ.

Because if we sit and talk about how awesome we are, nobody's going to get saved. And Christ and God the Father and the Holy Spirit will not be glorified. Did God really say? What has God said? What has God said about His own Word?

The Word that Holly Gerth is twisting here, the Word that so many women Bible teachers twist—and men, I'm not leaving the men out. There certainly are an abundance of false teachers, men and women, out there, but ladies, we know that the women are gaining ground, and they're gaining popularity and influence even among the male population.

And that is why it is so important for us to point people back to Scripture when we see things like this happening. So, did God really say? What has God said about His own Word? That's what I want to take just a few minutes today to look at.

And we are going to be flipping through the Bible, ladies, back and forth. And that's a good thing to get into our Bibles and to see what the Word of God says about anything, but especially what God says in His Word about His Word.

So, let's get started. Open your Bibles, ladies, and just a reminder that I am using the New American Standard. The ESV is also an excellent translation that I recommend and I enjoy. I personally use the NASB.

I've used the ESV in the past, but I switched back, actually, to the NAS a couple of years ago. So go ahead and open up your copy of the Scriptures, and hopefully it is something like the ESV or the NAS and not the Message.

If you have the Message Bible, ladies, burn it. Just get rid of it. Throw it in the trash. Don't give it away. Don't sell it. Don't let it perpetuate its lies and heresies. The Message is not a real Bible.

And we can revisit that another day, but for today, I'm going to have to ask you to take my word for it. All right, ladies, open your Bibles. Exodus 24 -3, how does God describe His Word? Exodus 24 -3, Then Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances.

And all the people answered with one voice and said, All the words which the Lord has spoken we will do. The Lord has spoken His Word. Deuteronomy 26 -17, You have today declared the Lord to be your God, that you would walk in His ways, and keep His statutes, His commandments, and His ordinances, and listen to His voice.

This comes back to what we hear so often about how people are hearing personal revelations from God, personal words from the Lord. No, God's voice, God's spoken Word is found in His written Word, the Bible.

If you want to hear it, hear God speak out loud or read the Bible out loud, but God is not giving additional revelation today, the canon is closed and His voice is heard in the Word that He has graciously given to us, and it's right here in Deuteronomy 26.

You see also in that verse that His Word is called His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances. The Word of God is filled with directives and imperatives for the one who has been redeemed by Christ, because without the power of the Holy Spirit, we cannot keep His statutes and His ordinances, but if we have been saved, we desire to live lives of holiness and righteousness in pursuit of the kingdom of God and in pursuit of the life that is worthy of the gospel which has saved us.

And so by the power of the Holy Spirit, we strive for that righteousness, that Christlikeness, knowing that we will never attain that here, this side of heaven, but knowing that one day we will be glorified when we are in the presence of our Lord forever.

The Word of God in the Law, Psalms, Prophets, and Epistles

Psalm 119 is an entire psalm devoted to describing the Word of God and extolling the glories of the Word of God. So trying to pick a few verses out of Psalm 119 is, well, it's easy on one hand because the verses about His Word in there are so prevalent, but on the other hand, it's difficult to pick just a few.

Verse two says, How blessed are those who observe His testimonies, who seek Him with all their heart. Verse nine to 11, How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your Word. With all my heart I have sought You, do not let me wander from Your commandments.

Your Word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You. And again, when we meditate on the Word, we are focused on Christ and we are focused on God and on His ways, and that helps keep us from sin.

Do we ever stop sinning in this life? No. But if we are immersed in the Word of God, we are acutely aware of our sin and we will actively seek to turn from it, to turn from temptation, because we are so immersed and familiar with the Word and what it says about the ways of the Lord.

Psalm 119, verse 15 and 16, I will meditate on your precepts and regard your ways. I shall delight in your statutes. I shall not forget your word. Isaiah 34, 16, Seek from the book of the Lord and read.

Jeremiah 1, 9, The Lord stretched out his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. Romans 3, 1 and 2,. What advantage has the Jew, or what is the benefit of circumcision?

Great in every respect. First of all, they were entrusted with the oracles of God. Ephesians 6, 17, a verse you no doubt are familiar with,. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

You know, we see even a Trinitarian aspect here, take the helmet of salvation, the Word of God, which is the Word of God, is the sword of the Spirit. First Thessalonians 2, 13 says,. For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the Word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the Word of men, but for what it really is, the Word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.

Colossians 3, 16,. Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

It's the sword of the Spirit. It's the Word of Christ. It's the Word of God. The scriptures, the 66 books of our English Bible, infallible, authoritative, unchanging, ladies. It is the Word of truth. Second Timothy 2, 15 tells us,.

And what is the work of this Word? We saw in Ephesians 6 that it's the sword of the Spirit. We know that Hebrews 4, 12 tells us that the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.

Why? Because it pierces as far as the division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow and is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. The Word is a sanctifying Word because, like we just said, when you are in the Word, you are drawing near to God.

You are learning His ways, His precepts, His ordinances, and He is using it to grow and sanctify you. What did Jesus pray in John 17, 17? Sanctify them in the truth. Thy Word is truth. The Word is living and it is active.

It is living and enduring, says 1 Peter 1, 23. And so, when we look at verses like these, and this was such a whirlwind flip through the scriptures, and we haven't even begun to exhaust what God says in His Word about His Word, but we see how precious and how pure and how holy that Word is.

And then to think that someone would flippantly write some devotional completely making things up that aren't even in the scripture, but making it sound like they are in the scripture. We see the grave error of that and the danger in that.

Testing Ministries, Women Teachers, and False Claims About the Church

So ladies, that is why we always say to test everything against the Word of God. All of these women's ministries out there, and I could list off, I could probably tick off five of them off of my fingers right now, that regularly twist the scriptures, but that I see women posting links to on Facebook and on Twitter, on blogs, you know, we see institutions promoting these false teachers, these female teachers.

And so when these large organizations or universities or these ministries extol these teachers who are known for their twisting of the scriptures, we need to know what God's Word actually says so that when we hear these people speak, we can test it to the Word of God.

We can be good Bereans. And again, ladies, we are a target. We just are. That's why so many of the influential speakers and leaders that we see being upheld today are women. And we look at it and the feminist inside of us loves it.

And we say, yeah, women, you know, we're finally getting the recognition we deserve. You know, we've been the second class citizen. And now look at everything that the women are doing. Ladies, we have so much that we can contribute to the kingdom.

We are not second class citizens in the eyes of our Lord, and we've talked about that here. God makes that very, very clear in His Word. But we have a role. And when we step outside of that role, we will bring shame and blasphemy upon God and His Word.

And we will find ourselves going astray. And if we are in a position of leadership, we will lead others astray. I saw an example of that this week in an article from, I think it's from Christian Today.

My printer didn't print off the source, but I think it's from Christian Today. And the title of the article is Libby Lane Easter Interview. And Libby Lane is the first woman, first female bishop of the Church of England, in case you didn't know, Libby Lane.

So the title is Libby Lane Easter Interview, quote, I try to inhabit the story physically, which can be transcendent. So I saw that title, and of course I had to read it, because I don't really know what that means.

I try to inhabit the story, the Easter story, physically, which can be transcendent. Now when I look up the word inhabit in my dictionary, I see that it means to live in or occupy. So Libby Lane is trying to live in or occupy the Easter story physically.

Now that seems hard to do if you're a person, you know, a regular finite created human being. The Lord Jesus Christ was God himself, God incarnate. And, you know, we can't really recreate that. We can't really inhabit that.

We can't really do what Christ did on the cross. We can't resurrect ourselves, nor would we want to. We would not need a Savior if we could do those things. There is a reason that Christ and Christ alone is the only one who died for the sins of all who would believe, and is the only one who was resurrected demonstrating that his sacrifice was acceptable to the Lord.

So this article, it's written by Ruth Gledhill, and it says, the Right Reverend Libby Lane is eloquent about, quote, inhabiting the Christian story at Easter, as she is about affirming that Mary Magdalene, the first to witness the empty tomb, is up there as a woman with the, quote, official apostles of Jesus.

So you see, when you don't know the Word of God, or when you despise the Word of God, you end up lying about the Word of God. Later in the article quoting the Reverend Libby Lane about this whole Mary Magdalene being an apostle thing, it says, go and tell.

She was being an apostle of the good news of Easter. She was the first apostle of the good news of Easter. She hasn't been given the label and isn't included in the list, but in terms of her actual relationship with Jesus and the ministry she exercised, she was an apostle.

So there you go, you learn something new every day. So this article says, it talks about how Libby Lane is going to be preaching the early morning Easter service at the Chester Cathedral, and she says, quote, there's always been a very strong sense for me of kind of living, inhabiting the Easter story, and that being part of my leading others in worship and engagement with the good news of the Easter story.

So there's always been a sense of living or inhabiting the Easter story, and that being part of my leading others in worship and engagement with the good news of the Easter story. So being able to do that alongside and with and through the cathedral community this year is a real blessing for me, and I hope it will be a blessing for them as well.

There is something really very special about early morning services on Easter Sunday, something about that sense of wonder and new starts and excitement that the story of Easter Sunday communicates tied up with the gospel narratives of the women going early in the morning and finding the empty tomb.

That actually being part of early morning service just helps to bring that alive. The article continues, for her, for Libby Lane, the Easter story is about incarnation. That's true. It's about the incarnation of Christ, which we recognize and celebrate at Christmas.

Christ came into this world as a man, humbled himself, left the glories of heaven, came to earth, lived the perfect life that we cannot live, died the death that we deserve, which is why we cannot inhabit or incarnate the Easter story, and was raised again three days later because his sacrifice was acceptable to God the Father.

And because he lives, we do not have to face death. We are saved from sin, if we have been saved by him, washed in the blood of the Lamb, and we have been saved from the wrath of God that we deserve that Christ bore himself on the cross.

The article goes on and says that Libby Lane's dance training as a young girl has given added physical depth to her sense of spiritual life in the liturgies. I don't, I don't know what that means. She goes on and says, quote, dance did very particularly inform my theology of incarnation, of being embodied, and of God being present in the physical and the goodness of God in things that are tangible and enfleshed and embodied.

It makes her soul sing. So I, I don't really know what to do with this article. Libby Lane is inhabiting the incarnational Easter story through dance in her heart. I, I, I don't, I don't know. But the article goes on, and then it gets to that feminist point, which you know it was destined to reach.

The article asks, why has it taken so long to reach this point? And, and what it's getting at is, why has it taken so long to reach this point where a woman is doing the Easter service at this cathedral?

A woman is the first female bishop in the Church of England. And Libby Lane says, quote, because we carry, we, because we carry, we work to take everybody together, and we are very conscious of our inheritance as well as our future.

The multi-layers of the way the Church does things can be seen to have its disadvantages in that it can feel to take a long time for those who would like things to happen more quickly. But it means that we are required to stand back from ourselves and from our current circumstances and to engage with things, some of which are great import, not just for the present moment, but in the light of history, in the light of eternity.

And it's not that I haven't felt that I don't understand people's enormous frustration at the length of time it seems to have taken. But in the light of the history of the Church, in the even longer history of the gospel, the 20-odd years between the vote for the ordination of women to the priesthood and the vote for the ordination of women to the episcopate is but a blinking of an eye.

That's what I keep trying to remind myself. Now it goes on, talks about how she celebrates Lent. She and her family gave up eating meat for Lent because that was what her 18-year-old son chose to do.

And then she says, in the midst of giving up those things, we do work quite hard to simultaneously take up the complementary thing to the thing we've given up. So I don't know, you don't eat meat. What is, what's the complementary thing?

Well, here, I'll tell you. She says, in the process of giving up meat, we are working to be more informed about issues around, we are working to be more, I'm sorry, I'm laughing. We are working to be more informed about issues around food justice.

What is food justice? I mean, what is, is food persecuted? I didn't know this. Foods persecuted, okay. Okay, we are working to be more informed about issues around food justice and the production and distribution of food locally and globally.

Also, we are working hard to ensure that the food we are using is produced locally and ecologically. And to be more alert to the impact that our usual choices have nationally and globally. And so, again, a twisted gospel.

This is someone who has a warped view of scripture, a warped view of the role of women within the body of Christ, and a warped gospel. You can see that in this issue of, you know, giving things up for lent and then working to be informed about issues around food justice.

I don't, I don't even know what food justice is. But, you know, you learn new words every day. So people like this make up words all the time. So, you know, make up your own definition. Ladies, we don't inhabit the Easter story.

We cannot be, quote, incarnational. I don't understand that term. I don't know why that's thrown around so much. People think it sounds good. It sounds spiritual. It goes along with being missional. I don't know what missional is.

No one's ever really given a real definition of it. The problem is, we have gotten away from scripture. And so we start making up words that sound good, that make us feel good and warm, give us the warm fuzzies in our tummy, and they justify our twisted and warped gospel.

If I'm inhabiting the Easter story and I'm doing good things and practicing the social gospel of feeding people and not feeding my own family, not feeding the meat anyway, you know, then I'm being sacrificial and I must be saved.

And this is what it's all about. That's not the gospel. You cannot inhabit the Easter story, whether you want to put yourself in the role of Mary Magdalene or Peter or John or Jesus, which is what this whole idea of being incarnational comes down to.

You can't do that. You can't do that because you are not Christ. You are not God incarnate. You cannot inhabit the Easter story, but you can read the Easter story as God reveals it in his word, and you can tell others.

You, quote unquote, inhabiting the Easter story isn't what we're to do. We are called to proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are called to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins to the world, to those we meet, to those God puts in our path so that they can repent and turn to Christ and trust in him alone for their salvation.

One of the last things that Jesus said, Luke 24, 46, Christ said, Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

We don't need to inhabit the Easter story. We don't need to turn the word of God into something that's all about us. We don't need to become twisted and narcissistic and self-loving. We need to turn our eyes upon Christ.

We don't inhabit the Easter story. We proclaim it. We proclaim the gospel. We don't ask, Did God really say who you are is okay? No, we ask, What did God say? And we answer that question by opening his word and reading it and studying it and praying that the Lord would give us continued understanding and insight and wisdom.

After all, what does Paul say in Colossians 3, 16? He says, Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Whatever you do, ladies, Colossians 3, 17, whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. Ladies, I encourage you to do that this day.

I encourage you to get into his word, to read more about what God says about his word, test everything against scripture, and in doing that, you will serve Christ well. That's all I have for today, ladies.

Thanks so much for listening. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter. You can visit the website equippingeve .org or .com. They'll both get you there. You can contact me there. Thank you so much for listening.

And until the next time, ladies, get in your Bibles, get on your knees, and get equipped. Thanks for listening.

You've been listening to Equipping Eve, a no-compromise radio production. If you'd like to get a hold of Erin, you can reach her at equippingeve at gmail .com, or you can check out one of our two websites, do notbesurprised .com or equippingeve .org.

Thanks for listening.