{"id":22527,"date":"2019-04-04T17:23:25","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T00:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=22527"},"modified":"2019-04-04T17:23:25","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T00:23:25","slug":"are-we-asking-the-right-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/are-we-asking-the-right-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Are we asking the right questions?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Cherry-picking is what we used to do.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

At one time Two Views on Women in Ministry<\/em> would have kindled my interest and passion. I was the first man to enroll in the first Women in Leadership course at my seminary when such topics were controversial in 1989, and when my evangelical institution was pioneering new ways of considering traditional texts which relegated women to the margins of leadership in the church. I subscribed to Priscilla Papers<\/em>, and joined Christians for Biblical Equality as it emerged as a young organization in those days. I heard Dr. Roberta Hestenes and other incredible women preach \u2013 that in and of itself should have settled any doubts. The issue even brought my wife and I together in mutual submission and grace \u2013 we were in team ministry together.<\/p>\n

As I grazed through this week\u2019s reading, familiar arguments and Biblical citations were presented, with interpretations on both sides of the aisle from four respected scholars. I highly respect the editors of this volume and ones like it that offer friendly yet critical point and counterpoint, giving all sides an equal platform. It\u2019s modelling a better way to discern than the typical one-sided screeds found in social media threads. And yet, at the same time, I found myself frustrated with all the expert back-and-forth. What was going on in me?<\/p>\n

Craig Keener alludes to the problem while introducing his defense of an egalitarian theology: \u201cMost Christians do not realize how much our backgrounds and traditions affect the ways we read the Bible.\u201d[1]<\/a> Our own lenses will influence how we read sacred texts. And in this volume, we have four scholars who present their arguments based on decades of research and humble investigation. I know within our cohort we will have a diversity of views on this topic as well. There will be sufficient fuel for both sides to maintain their positions, and I doubt anyone will change their minds.<\/p>\n

I found myself provocatively asking: Are we even asking the right questions here? For, as we\u2019ve been learning in this cohort, the weakness of modernist hermeneutics is that they correspond to a culture and context in which we no longer live. Our Western culture has moved beyond stark and easy answers influenced by failed Enlightenment approaches to scripture.<\/p>\n

Brad Jerzak, a new friend with whom I spent a memorable evening two weeks ago, raises our eyes to lock our gaze with Christ Himself. He states, \u201cThe solution to cherry-picking is the anchor of the Cross.\u00a0Returning to the question of unavoidable personal bias, we overcome them by adopting a Christ-centered template for interpretation. We note our own temperament and wishes, but then turn to the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. He becomes the measure of our hermeneutic through his life, teachings and most especially his death and resurrection. The apex of the Gospels seems to come at the cross, which becomes the corrective and clarifying lens for our skewed vision, not only for the whole of Scripture but even when reading Christ\u2019s own teachings.\u201d[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

If we return to the bruised but living Christ \u2013 not our own individual interpretations of Biblical texts \u2013 will we not find direction? If I may be so bold: does it really matter what the response is on this question? If we fail to meet with Jesus, and neglect \u201cloving God and loving neighbour\u201d \u2013 his revision to the ancient Jewish code \u2013 does it really matter where we land on either side of this question? I can have an accurate interpretation, but if I fail to love as He does, is it not as dung? And if I have an inaccurate interpretation, if I love with His companionship in the journey, isn\u2019t that more important and viewed graciously by God?<\/p>\n

As I write I\u2019m sitting in the lounge at El Dorado airport in Bogot\u00e1, returning home after an unexpected yet fruitful trip to la patria<\/em>, my adopted homeland. My former ministry colleagues needed a pastoral care visit, and thankfully, I was able to carve out time and spend a few days to encourage them face-to-face. After 25 years of faithful ministry, they were unceremoniously ejected from their pastoral leadership in an aggressive power grab from a clique in the church they had built from scratch. You can imagine the hurt, betrayal, desperation, and crisis they and their young adult children are living.<\/p>\n

The reason I mention this is that the junta had its reasons for the ejection; some of them might have even been biblical. But the way they proceeded was so full of anger, self-righteousness, and arrogance, that even if they were being biblical to the letter, they were not living out the spirit of the Word. Paul cautions us that even if we sing with tongues of angels yet have not love, we are but clanging cymbals.<\/p>\n

We can apply the same principle to the debate about women in leadership. Where is the love of Christ infused into these decisions that exclude half the body from serving Him fully? In another article, Jerzak recalls the ancient church father Origen: \u201cOrigen put it this way: if you don\u2019t see [that the Bible is the epic story of God\u2019s love], then the\u00a0whole\u00a0book is Old Testament, and if you do, the\u00a0whole\u00a0book is New Testament. And so rather than tossing out the Old Testament because it often doesn\u2019t look very Christlike, he said that we must think of the whole Bible as a Christian book, or not at all.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

___________________________<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Craig S. Keener, \u201cWomen in Ministry: Another Egalitarian Perspective\u201d, in Two Views on Women in Ministry<\/em>, ed. James R. Beck (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 2005), 205.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Brad Jerzak, Brad Jerzak\u2019s Blog, \u201cQ: How do we avoid cherry-picking the Bible for a God of love of our own wishes\u201d, accessed 4 April 2019, https:\/\/bradjersak.com\/q-how-do-we-avoid-cherry-picking-the-bible-for-a-god-of-love-of-our-own-wishes-brad-jersak\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Brad Jerzak, Christianity Without the Religion website, \u201cUnder Reconstruction: Crazy Characters, Unreliable Narrators, and the Divine Architect\u201d, accessed 4 April 2019, https:\/\/www.ptm.org\/under-reconstruction-crazy-characters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At one time Two Views on Women in Ministry would have kindled my interest and passion. I was the first man to enroll in the first Women in Leadership course at my seminary when such topics were controversial in 1989, and when my evangelical institution was pioneering new ways of considering traditional texts which relegated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[434],"class_list":["post-22527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-beck","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22527"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22531,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22527\/revisions\/22531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}