Classic Summer 2020: Women in Ministry

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

Women’s Roles in Ministry and the Problem of Feminism

My name is Mike Abendroth and I'm your host. Today we want to talk about another biblical topic, a topic that is biblical, a topic that is provocative, and a topic that I think would get most pastors fired from their church if they talk this way.

I don't know why that is. Maybe that's because in lots of churches, the lunatics have taken over the asylum. And that is to say that the congregation runs and rules the church. When I see a family and I see the kids in charge, five-year-olds, eight-year-olds, 15-year-olds, I say something like, that family's upside down.

So too in local churches, where the congregation rules and reigns. That is a problem, but that is not the topic today. What I want to talk about today is women's roles in ministry in the local church.

We live in a day and age where there's an all-out assault by the enemy and by the enemy's hordes, whether it's government, church, family, God's protective units, the church, the government, the family, are all being assaulted by feminism.

Now, I don't want to say that I'm pro-man, being some kind of ungodly dominator and women are to be the cave women kind of thing. I don't mean that at all. But what I am after, what I am concerned about is the proliferation of feminism, a sinful feminism, into the local church.

I did find Elizabeth Elliott's quote fascinating. For years, I have noted with growing disquiet the pollution of many Christians' minds by the doctrine of feminism. I believe it is a far more dangerous pollution than most have realized.

And I, with what seemed to me pitifully few others, have tried to sound the alarm in every way I could. Fascinating that even Elizabeth Elliott would find that a problem. We have to say to ourselves, when it comes to dealing with this issue, what do we do?

Well, if we want to say we believe in another religion, then follow that other religion. But if we say we're Christians, we are people who follow Christ, Christ has pointed us to the Old Testament and knew through his apostles, we have only one authority.

Don't give me this, I know what the Bible says, but, because that's just lame. That doesn't work. Don't tell me, well, man wrote the Bible, because you don't understand inspiration and inerrancy and the sufficiency of scriptures.

We believe that the scriptures are authoritative. And so whether society says something, history says, well, you know, kind of rewriting things, if you say, well, my opinion, other cultures, you know, this is the 21st century, what does the polling data say, the Pew polls?

What about the government? What about the laws? What about what my parents believed? What about what the church taught me last? What about other pastors? What about smarter pastors? What about smarter women?

What about my feelings? What about my emotions? What about my good experiences? What about my bad experiences? I had a bad father, I had a dominating mother, Thatcher's better than Clinton, you know, whatever you say, I have a question.

Will you submit to the biblical data? Will you say I am under the corpus of scripture or will you not? Are you content to be under it? Or do you spend all your time trying to figure out wiggle room, weasel room, trying to get out of that?

And so you may say that I'm an obscurantist, you may say that I'm a bigot, you may say that I hate women, you may say that I'm a dinosaur, I'm a troglodyte, you may say all kinds of things, but I am a man under the authority of the word of God.

And if you knew me in person, you would know that most of those words don't apply. Maybe a couple obscurantists, maybe that does, but I'm certainly no woman hater. We need to say to ourselves what the Bible teaches, I will be under, and if I believe something differently, I will repent, I will change my mind.

My mind will be realigned to the scriptures. I can't believe women's rules based on what Cosmo tells me, based on what the wife of the president tells me, based on what's popular around the copy machine at work, what they tell me.

We need to say to ourselves, what the Bible says is completely different than what the world is feeding down our throats, like some kind of small goose for pate manufacturing. Listen to what radical feminist Sheila Cronin said, since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women's movement must concentrate on attacking this institution.

Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage. There's a serious problem. University of Illinois feminist author Vivian Gornick, being a housewife is an illegitimate profession. The choice to serve and be protected and plan toward being a family maker is a choice that shouldn't be.

The heart of radical feminism is to change that. You say, well, yeah, but I'm not that much of a feminist. I just want to know where, what I would just want you to know what the big shot people are thinking, what the ground level people are thinking when it comes to feminism.

You can go back to 1971, November, the declaration of feminism, quote, the end of institution of marriage is necessary for the liberation of women. Therefore, it is important for us to encourage women to leave their husbands and not live individually with men.

All of history must be rewritten in terms of oppression of women. We must go back to the ancient female religions like witchcraft. And so these quotes I find just fascinating. I think I got most of these from the MacArthur information that he has gleaned and Laurie Gaylor in a book, in an article called feminist salvation.

Let's forget about the mythical Jesus and look for encouragement, solace, and inspiration from real women. Two thousand years of patriarchal rule under the shadow of the cross ought to be enough to turn women toward the feminist salvation of the world.

I mean, could it get any worse? Yes, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood writing an article called women in the new race. The most merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it.

Sheila Cronin, again writing for Now Times, January 88, the simple fact is every woman must be willing to be recognized as a lesbian to be fully feminine. What is a godly response to that? What is the first thing a godly lady must do?

You must say to yourself, I have to forget the culture, forget my friend's opinions, forget what Oprah says, and how should I live before the God who made me? Living in the fear of the Lord. That's the beginning of wisdom.

That is the beginning of wisdom. Did you know that men and women are equal in God's eyes? Did you know they're created equal? We don't believe what the culture would say around the time of the Bible. Josephus, the Jewish historian in the first century said, in all things, women are inferior to the man.

That would not be biblical. That would not be right. Greek historians said women's highest praise consisted in not being mentioned at all. We do not believe that. The Bible doesn't teach anything close to that.

Rabbi Judah, who is also a first century man in the area of Israel, said a man must pronounce three blessings each day. Blessed be the Lord who did not make me a heathen. Blessed be he who did not make me a woman.

And blessed be he who did not make me an uneducated person. That's sinful thinking. Man and woman in Christ, as image bearers, are equal. They're both image bearers. One ancient writing said, not in the Bible, a better is the iniquity of a man than the woman doing a good turn.

Another wisdom saying that is not very wise, and certainly not in the Bible, from garments cometh a moth, and from a woman the iniquities of a man. Jewish rabbis in the first century didn't even want to speak to women.

They have to be very careful on what they would say. Women had low status during the Bible days, but the Bible doesn't give them a low status in the Bible days. Listen to Christ's apostle Paul, for you, Galatians three, are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

For all of you who are baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. He's saying that all of you who are in Christ, immersed into the body of Christ, placed into Christ, into this mythical union with Christ.

There's no water here. It's not water baptism. Have clothed yourself with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free man. There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

That verse has been called the Magna Carta of humanity. And so, when it comes to image bearers, men and women, men and women equal. When it comes to created, as equal. When it comes to salvation, equal.

Now what it doesn't say is, men and women are exactly equal in function and role. So for instance, if you have a sergeant and a private, they are both image bearers, but they have different roles. Husband and wife, they're equal before God in Christ Jesus, both sinfully acting, yet God forgiving them in Christ Jesus.

They are equal before God. There's no one better. There's no one worse. There's nobody inferior, but they have different roles. No one's better than the other. I'm not better than my wife. My wife's not better than me.

The elders of the church aren't better than the nursery workers, but there are different roles. And so, in spite of what the tradition was in the Bible times, the New Testament was a liberating thing for women.

But you can go back farther as well. You can go back into the Old Testament. And all kinds of people want to go back to the Old Testament to somehow make, you know, this patriarchal dominance, you know, this caveman kind of mentality that was in this Old Testament.

But you don't see that. Did you know in the Old Testament that men and women had the same protection? That is to say that if someone killed a man and killed a woman, the value of the man as life and the value of the woman's life was equal.

It was equal, whether this ox gores a son or daughter, it shall be done to him according to the same rule. If the ox gores a male or female slave, Exodus chapter 21, Exodus 21 earlier, if an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned.

And so, you have to be very, very careful when you say the Old Testament, caveman, troglodyte, Did you know that men and women took similar vows? Women could take a Nazarite vow and so could the men. And that is in Numbers chapter 6, speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, whether a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazarite, to dedicate himself to the Lord, he shall abstain from wine and strong drink.

He shall drink no vinegar, whether made from wine or strong drink, neither shall he drink any grape juice nor eat fresh or dried grapes. Did you know men and women in the Old Testament both had the same access to God?

Did you know they could both pray to God? There wasn't one who was better or one who was worse. Hannah cried out to God and God answered her prayer. Did you know there's a whole proverb in the Bible, Proverbs 31, that talks about virtuous aspects of a woman and how men are to praise that virtuous woman, how society should rise up and say good things about her, how her children should rise up and bless her, her husband also praising her saying, many daughters have done nobly, but you excel them all.

So whether it's Old Testament or New Testament times, you're not going to see the Bible somehow treading on a woman and who she is as an image bearer. In the Roman and Greek culture though, they taught that women were basically a possession.

The Talmud even said it's better to burn the Torah than to teach the Torah to a woman. That's a lot different than Jesus in John 4 teaching the woman at the well, the sinful woman, the outcast woman, the prostitute woman, the adulterous woman.

The Bible, the word of God, God's revelation. Men back in those days wouldn't even touch some kind of woman. Jesus allowed himself to be touched and he healed. I think of Luke 13, a woman who for 18 years had a sickness caused by a spirit.

She was bent double, could not straighten up. Jesus called her over and said to her, woman, you are freed from your sickness. He laid his hands upon her and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying God.

Did you know in the New Testament times, men and women were both given spiritual gifts? The spiritual gifts to edify the church were sovereignly given by the Spirit of God to both men and to women. Did you know in a day and age that when the Bible was written, where the culture was negative towards women and their rights, the Bible didn't do that at all.

I think of Paul in Romans 16, great service rendered by men and women and he names them. I commend to you our sister Phoebe who is a servant of the church. Verse 3, greet Priscilla. Verse 6, greet Mary.

And the list goes on. Verse 12, Triphina and Triphosa, workers in the Lord, greet Persis, the beloved who has worked hard in the Lord. Great service to God and his people by men and by women. Verse 15 of Romans 16, greet Julia and Nereus, his sister.

I think about the role of men and women in the Scriptures and I say God has treated men and women as both image bearers. The culture, the times, the Romans, some of the inaccurate Jewish mystical books, they might not have done it, but the Old Testament and the New Testament shows that women are image bearers.

I think about Lois and Eunice, grandmother and mother to Timothy, teaching them, teaching him the Scriptures. John Angel James said the greatest influence on earth, whether for good or for evil, is possessed by woman.

Let us study the history of the bygone ages, the state of barbarism and civilization, of the East and the West, of paganism and Christianity, of antiquity and of Middle Ages, of medieval and modern times, and we shall find that there is nothing which more decidedly separates them than the condition of woman.

I believe John Angel James in the 1800s was right. Did you know in the Bible that men and women would both evangelize? It wasn't, well, you can't talk, you can't preach the gospel, you can't do anything else.

No. Acts chapter 18, certain Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man came to Ephesus and he was mighty in the Scriptures. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord, being fervent in spirit, he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John.

He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, Priscilla the woman, Aquila his husband, her husband, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.

And so we see evangelistic opportunities that the Bible describes women doing. So we have to say this, we have to say society has turned everything upside down. Even the culture of the time, the Greco culture, the Roman culture, the culture that was prevalent in the Middle East in those times, would somehow say that women were less than men.

But the Old Testament and the New Testament, Jesus' apostles, Moses, Elijah, would affirm that men and women are equal in Christ Jesus. You are equal in Christ Jesus to any man, whether it's John MacArthur or John Piper.

Complementarianism, Equality, and Different God-Ordained Roles

But there are different functions, and that's what I want to talk about now. Although we are equal in Christ, men and women have different God-ordained rules. Now this is going to cause apoplexy for some.

You know the kind of frustration you get when you are standing in line at the supermarket and there's 12 items or less and somebody pulls up there with a whole cart full of like 9 ,000 items. I don't really like it when I get the feeling of angst when that happens, but I get that.

And so most people now, making the transition from equal in Christ to different roles, freak out. I don't know why they do that. It happens at work. You have a boss. He's no better than you are, but he has more authority.

He has a different authority. He has a different function. He has a different role. When it comes to men and women, they're not the same. They do different things. They do different things better. No one is better, but the way they do their roles, there's a difference.

There's supposed to be a difference. Show me a man's body and a woman's body, and I'll show you all kinds of differences. With hormones, with strength, with muscles, there's supposed to be, because we are to complement one another.

We are equal in Christ, but we complement each other in ministry, at home, work, wherever that might be. We complement one another in the body of Christ. There's two main views within mainstream evangelicalism.

I'm not talking about crazy biblical feminism, but we're having two main things, two main views. Egalitarianism, and that is equal in Christ and equal in function. Gordon Conwell, for instance, would believe that.

And then there's complementarianism, equal in Christ, but different in function. Master Seminary, for instance. And so we want to make sure that we understand the difference between these two, and that we understand differences are good.

You know, when people are dating, they'll say, we're so compatible, we're so the same, we love the same things. And when they get married, they realize just how different they are. I'm glad when they have some compatible taste in music or food or something like that, but God brings couples together because, not to duplicate or reduplicate, but because they need each other's differences to be complete, to be whole, to be well-rounded, to have a shalom kind of life.

God originally made Eve to be a helper to Adam. She was not less than an image bearer, but she was a helper. I will make him a helper suitable for him. Now why is that such a horrible thing? Why is submission before the fall somehow horrible?

Eve didn't mind, Adam didn't mind, God was glorified, nobody was better, nobody tread on someone else. They were naked, they were not ashamed. She was called woman, she was taken out of the man, he was to leave and to cleave.

And what was the big deal? There was no big deal. Having a helper, being a helper is not somehow being bad. As a matter of fact, Exodus 18, the other was named Eleazar, for he said, the Lord of my father was my help.

God's called a helper, Psalm 118, the Lord is for me among those who help me. That's a good thing. When I'm around a nurse, I think to myself, those nurses are there for lots of reasons, but if I could summarize it in a positive word, I'd say, help, they help the doctor.

What's wrong with that? Submission before the fall. People say, oh yeah, but it was after the fall and submission and all that. I'm not saying that there aren't ogres at work and at home, at the church, that somehow demand and command submission.

I'm not saying that there aren't those, but that still doesn't take away God's original design. And that was, there was submission before the fall. Did you hear that? There was submission before the fall.

And so don't say, well, originally there was to be no submission and it's just sin that's caused the problem. Sin has the cause, sin has caused the problem, but there was no sinful submission before the fall.

There was no sinful rulership, autocratic rulership either. So now I come to the passage in first Peter chapter three, verse one, in the same way you wives be submissive to your own husbands. I mean, can't you hear the proverbial chalk?

There's an application on the iPhone, it's called Annoying Sounds or something, baby screaming chalk, hyenas, and you can just hear that in the minds of people. Submit to your own husbands. People hate subjection.

People hate Christian subjection. People hate this idea of being under the authority of anyone. They don't like it, although if you saw a military without submission, you'd say it was anarchy. There's an arrangement, and that's what this word means, be submissive, to be ranked under in a military sense.

There's this God-ordained arrangement of being under the authority of your husband. That's not such a big deal. Peter quote by a man named Hurley says,. That's exactly what the text says. Be submissive to your own husband so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives.

To follow his leadership, to have an inclination to do that. And so the men, of course, they're supposed to lead. Men lead or be led. That's true. But right now we're talking about submission. It was not due to sin.

It is not talking about inferiority. It is not some kind of second-class citizen issue. It is not unimportant. It is very important. Does it mean that the wife can never give advice or input? She has to have her life squelched or cramped?

No, we're going to learn next time that even submission in the Godhead doesn't take away from equality in the Godhead. Well, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. And we're talking about men's roles and women's roles in the church, in society, etc.

And so far what we've learned today is the world says men and women are exactly equal in creation and in function. And what I say is we're exactly equal before Christ, but we have different roles. We have different functions.

We have different things that we are told to do. And so why is there not some mirror thing in the Bible? Men and women both do this. No husbands do this. Wives do that.

Anyway, info at No Compromise Radio. My name is Mike Abendroth. God bless you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth 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 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .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.