Speaking in Tongues: Deal or No-Deal?

Ok, so as you probably know by now, this Sunday we're going toe-to-toe with the gift of speaking in tongues.

We'll take a hard look at what the Bible does and doesn't have to say about it, we'll analyze various people's experiential knowledge with it, and -- as we always hope each week with our "Challenging Theology" series -- you'll know a little better what the Bible says about it, what you personally believe, and why.

Please listen to my Stephen/Sonia interview before Sunday if you can!

As promised, I've recorded an interview with my bro-in-law, Stephen Johnson, and his lovely wife Sonia.

Stephen and Sonia met in seminary together in Boston, and she persuaded him to stay (Oh yeah, they got married and stuff). So Stephen and Sonia go to a Boston-area church where speaking in tongues is as commonplace as any other "normal" prayer.

As you can imagine, Stephen's ideas on the concept of tongues have been stretched a good deal through this. He and Sonia come from very different places, and while it seems that both of their theologies have morphed a bit closer together, they still don't see completely eye to eye.

We had a fascinating, engaging conversation. I found it enlightening and eye-opening.

So to give it a listen just turn up your speakers and press the triangle-shaped "play" button below...

Press play to listen to Stephen and Sonia...

Speak to you guys soon!

...jp

Ps...This Sunday is Elian Levatino's burfday! Happy one, dude! How old are ya?

Class Notes from "Challenging Theology: Women in the Church"

Kara was kind enough to type out a great summary of what we covered in connecting point 2 Sundays ago (1/7).

So everyone please thank my wife, and here you go...

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What's God's Place for Women in the Church?

1 Corinthians 14:33-37 (NIV)

33For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints, 34women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. 35If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

Of course if you just read this verse at face value it seems pretty condemning of women having any leadership in the church. If women are literally to remain silent then they certainly can’t teach or preach. Some in class suggested that not speaking literally meant that they were being told to keep their mouth shut when in a public worship service, others thought it might mean that they weren’t to speak out in criticism in a public worship service, or speak in the sense of teach/preach.

Possible problems with this verse’s interpretation:

• It seems to directly contradict an earlier verse in 1 Cor.11:5 which talks about how a woman should go about praying and prophesying during a public worship service.
• “they must be in submission as the Law says” is problematic b/c there is nothing in the Law of Moses about women not speaking in the church and so there is no clarity as to what that is referring to. Some suggest Paul is referring to the local laws of the day but he has never before or after referenced any Law but that which is found in the OT and he always refers to a specific reference that we can look at, so this doesn’t seem like Paul
• Some scholars have suggested that these verses were not written by Paul at all and were added in later translations of the Bible based on the fact that theses verses appear in different places in different later transcripts. And it makes no sense why they would be taken out of order and reinserted somewhere else if they were in the original transcripts. (See separate notes on this)
• Some scholars suggest Paul was addressing a problem with women literally talking loudly amongst themselves and not allowing everyone to hear the person who was presenting the message and therefore would not apply to women teaching or preaching

1 Timothy 2:11-15 (NIV)

11A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

Again this verse taken at face value seems to say that women should not teach or have authority over men because of the fact that Eve was formed after Adam and she was the one deceived. Then somehow she will be saved through childbearing.

I found it interesting that most everyone in the class immediately assumed that this verse applied only to spiritual teaching and spiritual authority even though it doesn’t make that specification in the verses. Therefore we don’t argue against women professors in public or private schools or women being in authority over men at their jobs.

When we looked at other verses like Deborah, there was the argument that she only held judicial authority and not spiritual authority and that she did not teach.

Possible problems in interpreting this verse:

• The argument for why a woman shouldn’t teach and have authority is a spiritual one that would apply to all time: present, past, and future and yet we do have contradicting examples of Deborah, Huldah, Priscilla, etc that I will go into more detail on later
• The argument about Eve being deceived and therefore unfit to teach/have authority seems strange and out of character for the rest of Scripture. Adam was punished equally with Eve and he was there with her when she decided to eat the fruit and gave him some. He didn’t exercise authority over her or speak out against the deception. So he was either deceived as well or willfully and knowingly directly sinned against God and the command that he received directly from God. How does that make him better? It seems we may be lacking some understanding here b/c it doesn’t seem to make sense at face value and the part about women being saved through childbearing is even more confusing and problematic in terms of meaning/interpretation.
• The Greek verb in "I do not permit" is a present tense verb. It can be perfect present tense, which would suggest that at that time in that situation Paul is not permitting women to teach or have authority (which would be justified by the women in that time not being equally trained in teaching/interpreting scripture and possibly they are the ones spreading heresy that Paul is helping Timothy to combat) or it is nomic present which would mean I never permit now or ever.

Luke 2:36-38 (NIV)

36There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

Anna was someone who prophesied in the temple that she never left and is held up as a very godly woman. She spoke to them (Mary, Joseph, Jesus) and to all that were looking forward to the future redemption of Jerusalem. Some suggested only women heard her b/c she would have been in the women’s section but I find it interesting that it says she spoke to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. Would that be women only? Also Joseph was there and if he was there other men could have been walking through there as well.

2 Kings 22:12-16 (NIV)

12 He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Acbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary and Asaiah the king's attendant: 13 "Go and inquire of the LORD for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the LORD's anger that burns against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us." 14 Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to speak to the prophetess Huldah, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the Second District. 15 She said to them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, 16 'This is what the LORD says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people, according to everything written in the book the king of Judah has read…

Here we see Josiah the eight year old king asking the priests and other high ranking men who advise him to find out from God how to understand the Book of the Law (see a few verses earlier) they have found that suggests they have been in disobedience to God.

The priest and other advisors go to a woman, Huldah, a prophetess to discern God’s will for the king and the people. The previous king, Manasseh undid all the right things his father Hezekiah did and returned the people to idol worship.

They were so far from doing God’s will that it seems Josiah his son had no knowledge of the Book of the Law or what was right. Even the priest Hilkiah didn’t seem able to advise him suggesting that the priests as well had fallen away from God’s teaching.

Acts 18:18

18Paul stayed on in Corinth for some time. Then he left the brothers and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila.

Acts 24-26

24Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. 25He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. 26He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.

Ro 16:3

3Greet Priscilla[a] and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus.

Here we see something unprecedented in Scripture and that is Priscilla mentioned before her husband several times when Paul references them. It seems clear that Priscilla had some role of importance in the early church to be mentioned like that and she also taught Apollos with her husband and explained God more adequately to him. They also had a church that met in their home (1 Cor. 16:19) and Paul calls her a fellow worker.

Certainly you don’t have a sense of Priscilla not being trusted or having to keep her mouth shut in silent submission to her husband.

Some argue that Priscilla only taught a man in private with her husband there but that still seems to me to contradict our 1 Timothy passage which doesn’t allow for any woman to teach or hold authority over a man period if we take the face value interpretation of that verse.

If you look at Phoebe, Ro 16:1-3, Paul calls her a servant of the church. The Greek word used there can also be interpreted "deaconess" and says that she has ministered to many people including Paul himself.

Last but not least let us look at Deborah. Judges 4 & 5 give us her story. She was a prophetess who led Israel at one point, deciding their disputes, communicating God’s will to them, commanding them to go to war.

If you study judges and prophets and their roles with the people of Israel you see a pattern. Israel sins against God, turning from the laws and instructions he has given them for godly living, and they become involved in idol worship and all kinds of abhorrent practices of the peoples surrounding them. God’s response is to use the peoples around them to discipline them by making it unsafe for them to live in the villages, placing heavy taxes on them, causing them to lose battles and to come under the domination of a neighboring king and his army.

After cruel oppression for many years, 20 years before Deborah comes on the scene, they cry out to God for help. Then God places them under a leader who leads them in spiritual revival and they turn back to worship of God and living under His statutes.

Once again they experience freedom from oppression and peace while they remain in obedience. As soon as they loose this leader or fall under the leadership of someone ungodly, they fall back into oppression and hard times until they cry out for help again. Once again God raises up another leader and they have spiritual revival and peace for some amount of time.

So what are the roles of a prophet? We see prophets used as God’s mouthpiece, so to speak, and communicating truth to the people. We see them confronting sin in people’s lives and showing great discernment from God to see their impure motives and hidden sins as in the instance of Samuel and David. They are often sought out for wisdom in knowing how to proceed by priests, kings, etc.

So did Deborah the prophetess somehow stay outside of any spiritual guidance/teaching/leadership as judge of Israel?

I think it is pretty hard to make that argument considering that it was with her in charge the Israelites experienced spiritual revival and obedience and then 40 years of peace under her rule. You have to water down the role of Deborah as a prophetess to less than that of other prophets like Isaiah, Samuel, Jeremiah, etc and say that she only took on a limited prophet role less than that of others.

Some comments in class were that Deborah wasn’t using her own discernment or understanding when she spoke the truth to others and therefore God was teaching, not her. I would argue that I would expect that to be the case in every situation when someone is given the spiritual gift of teaching, pastoring, prophecy, etc. in the church. If we argue that Deborah was the only one not using her brain and that she was a thoughtless mouthpiece with no discernment of her own I think we are making assumptions outside of the text to make her fit in the box we see with the two passages in the New Testament.

CONCLUSION:

My conclusion was that I am still not clear on the roles of women in the church but I am not willing to base an entire theology on the two NT verses that seem extremely difficult to understand the original intent of the author and what he was trying to communicate.

There are too many inconsistencies for me to take those verses at face value and too many examples of women who are leaders in some capacity and shown in a positive light in Scripture.

I think one could argue that elders have to be men but I don’t see clear arguments against women as teachers outside of our two problematic verses. I myself obviously teach in some capacity to men but feel that I am also under the authority of my father as the minister of adult connecting points and I am consistently aware when I teach that I am not teaching anything he would disagree with. So that is how I do what I do in good conscience.

Women in the Church (and dealing with God's "injustices")

Riddle me this, Batman:

• What's the appropriate role of a woman in the church?
• Is there any place for a woman to teach or preach?
• Can a woman rightfullly be a spiritual leader?
• Should she be allowed to contribute to congregational worship at all?

Tough questions. And this Sunday, we're going to tackle them together, and more.

As far as we are planning, this should be a 1-week topic in our series on "Challenging Theology: Dealing with God's Tough Issues". I really hope you can make it.

Also, for anyone who knows them from a few years ago, our dear friends Lance and Traci Denton will likely be visiting us in the AM. So if you know them (or want to meet them) you'll have a chance to connect with them tomorrow.

Does God ever cause the bad stuff? I say yes...

Will God specifically cause things that harm us, when He's NOT necessarly punishing us for something?

Does God send trouble/hardship in our lives, or simply passively allow it at times?

These are some of the things we wrestled with together last week - and it was an engaging conversation!

I got this email from Elian a couple of days ago:

From: Elian Levatino [mailto:elian@levatinoins.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 1:39 PM
To: jp(at)flippinghomes.com
Subject: 4 Step Argument

You remember what you put up on the board Sunday? I hope so, cause I don’t. I wrote it down and I think it’s gone now. Can you e-mail it to me?

Thanks, Elian

No, Elian. I will not email it to you. I'll blog it, then send you an email to go to the blog. ;-)

And I added a principal, so there are 5 now. Here ya go...

Here are the key principals I (jp) use when reconciling how a good God can be directly responsible for the horrible, horrible stuff that happens in life.

Principal 1: God is all-powerful

There is nothing in the universe or elsewhere that God does not have absolute dominion over. Whether you believe that God directly controls everything or causes some things and merely allows others, no Christian can deny God's absolute dominion and ability to exert control over His creation whenever and wherever he chooses.

Anything less would dethrone God and make him to some level impotent, which is not compatible with His character.

Principal 2: God is always, absolutely 100% good

God can't sin; it's completely contradictory to His perfect character.

This should be pretty comforting when paired with principal #1. So we've got a God who's never out of control, and who's always good.

Principal 3: God's chief purpose is to glorify Himself.

Contrary to our often humanistic (very American) approach to God, the most important thing to God is not making us happy, but revealing His own glory. It's the reason He created the universe and everything/everyone in it in the first place. God's creation and His entire existence is oriented around the spreading of His glory!

Furthermore the fact that God's chief compulsion is to exalt His own name is not sinfully selfish, as it would be if one of us had the same motive. In fact, God's compulsion to exalt his own name is actually the ultimate act of love on our behalf, and is absolutely in our best interests.

As Piper so aptly put it,

"Is not the essence of righteousness to place supreme value on what is supremely valuable? Thus the righteousness of God is the infinite zeal and joy and pleasure that He has in what is supremely valuable, namely, His own perfection and worth. And if He were ever to act contrary to this eternal passion for His own perfections He would be unrighteous, He would be an idolater."

If you find this concept challenging, you can read a more in-depth exploration of this idea, presented in a very compelling way, right here. (Also, see the Bible ;-)

Principal 4: God works out ALL THINGS for our ultimate good

"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to [His] purpose." Rm 8:28

This only applies to believers, not the good of everyone in the whole wide world.

Many would be temped to believe that "our good" must be apparent to us, but God promises no such thing. His commitment is that all things will work for our good, not that we will have crystal clarity. At times He will grant us understanding. And other times, He desires to strengthen our faith in His promise by not connecting the dots so readily for us, causing us to fall back on trusting in His goodness and power.

Many also seem to feel that "our good" must equate to making us happy or satisfied in the "here and now" somehow. Again I would submit this to be a faulty (albiet common) assumption.

Remember, His highest glory is our greatest reward! And there you don't have to look very hard to find many, many cases in the Bible and the world around us in which circumstances which glorified God the most brought some (possibly extensive) level of pain or anguish upon his Children at the time.

Principal 5: We can't "get" it all

When Alyssa was an infant she had no ability to fathom why we (her parents) would choose wilfully to put her in the cold hands of a complete stranger, and ask him to cause her pain by poking a long, sharp needle through her tender flesh.

But as her parents, we see a bigger picture. While all she understands is the pain of the moment, we are wise enough to know how important her shots can be to her health and how it's really and truly in her best interest, though inconceivable to her now.

God's ways are so much greater than ours, that (as Billy reminded us last week) it's probably more apt to comparing the mind of an amoeba to Einstein -- times billions!

To "bottom line" this one, you MUST ABSOLUTELY give up your perceived "right" to understand everything about God and His ways. His ways are NOT our ways, and there will always be levels of divine understanding that make perfect, holy sense, but that our finite minds simply cannot comprehend.

This should not be perceived as a "cold, hard fact", but as a great comfort, similar to how Alyssa (at times) finds comfort in knowing that I "get" the things she doesn't, and even when she doesn't understand what's going on or why, her loving parents are in control and she can trust us.

The Bottom Line...

There will always be things in life that happen and seem cruel and injust to us. My own daughter could be raped and murdered before my very eyes. I can't imagine much worse, but things like that happen.

And when (not if) things like this happen, it's key that we don't allow ourselves to fall victim to:

• doubting God's power and control over it
• doutbing God's motive and/or goodness

This may be your temptation, and naturally so. But as you wrestle with this, the very foundation upon which we (as Christians) can rest is our relationship with God coupled with our knowledge of His perfect character and complete dominion.

Having a very personal relationship with a living God can allow us to say,

"God, even though I have no idea how to reconcile this horrible thing with your control and goodness, I know that I cannot deny your character, so I give you responsibility. I know that you're just as loving and good and sovereign as you've always been, and that somehow even this is within your loving care. Lord, I know, becuase of my relationship with you, that I can trust you, even though this is so far above my ability to understand."

Our minds simply can't conceive of why God would cause/allow some things, and how these things can be reconciled with God's character. And frankly to assume that we can (or have the right to) is pompous and arrogant.

But we know Him personally, don't we? And we know that' He's GOOD, and SOVEREIGN and TRUSTWORTHY, in the same way -- no, in a FAR GREATER way than my own daughter knows and trusts me.

And I would submit to you that this is how we, as Christ followers, find our ultimate rest and peace with these issues.

...jp

Video of Liam O'Leary

Hey, Kara and I took Sean and Janell a meal the other day and I happen to snap this quickie video of little Liam!

Only a few days old, and already he's been YouTube-ified! :-)

...jp